Beyond the Summit (42 page)

Unlike his first sick night at Camp III, Marty used a low flow of oxygen and made it through seemingly without incident. But when daylight filled the tent, Dorje spotted a pinkish froth on the floor. Alarmed, he demanded, “What’s this?”

Shivering violently with the bag tied over his head and only his face exposed, Marty answered, “Just a little cold. I’ll be okay once I start moving. Fix me something to drink.” After hot lemon juice and soup, the American warmed up enough to pack his gear and head out wearing the oxygen mask Dorje found so awkward and annoying that he chose not to use it. If the Darjeeling Sherpas could climb to the South Col without one, so could he. Preoccupied with visions of Beth’s shining eyes when he strides triumphantly into Base Camp, Dorje failed to notice Marty's languid pace until the American reeled from side to side as if drunk and crumpled.

Infuriated that he was stuck with Marty’s irrational, reckless behavior rather than someone like Mark, Dorje yelled, “Get up or you’ll freeze.”

Drawing his arms in under himself, Marty pushed onto his elbows. His head still to the ground, his shoulders rose and fell as he gasped for breath.

“Move,” Dorje shouted, knowing that they’d freeze if they didn’t keep going.

Lifting himself onto his knees and slowly tottering to his feet, Marty nodded at him and began dragging one foot after another. They traversed the brittle Yellow Band with their short-pointed crampons scraping and sliding on the rocks and then climbed the Geneva Spur to its highest point before dropping 200 feet to the South Col. As before, it was cold, windy, and desolate—a land of black rocks and blue ice. Staggering on soft, noodle legs, Marty made it to the tent, pushed through the door, and collapsed. Dorje checked his companion’s tank. Almost empty. He found another and hooked it up. In a short while, the American was breathing easier and accepted a few pieces of cheese and biscuits while Dorje thawed a frozen fruit tin over the stove. Watching him, Dorje knew that without Marty he wouldn’t even be here, but with him he could fail. Jarvis and Paul had more sense.

Stepping out into the wind with binoculars, Dorje searched for team I above the Col. They were one day ahead, planning to sleep in the Camp V at 27,900 feet which had been left by the 1965 Indian expedition. Feeling it was too dangerous to go directly from the south Col, Hillary and Tenzing had used a high camp as had the large American expedition in 1963. In the morning, Jarvis and Paul would push from there toward the summit.

Holding the binoculars to his eyes, Dorje chuckled remembering the first time a
mikaru
had shown him these strange black cylinders that made mountains move closer. Now he was going to the greatest of them all. And tomorrow, Mark and Sean would be watching for him. Seeing no sign of Jarvis and Paul, Dorje decided they were already in their tent preparing for the morning and he should do the same. No longer needing to prove himself to make an assault team, he needed only to focus on getting to the top.

His thoughts had moved in slow motion all day and Dorje knew the lethargy of high altitude could cause fatal errors. If using oxygen would forestall that, he would put up with the fogging and hissing for a few days and nights. The wind howled and bombarded the tent wall near his head and drove the cold into his bones again. Marty was shaking like Nima’s skinny body when they were young. Soon the flapping canvas became background noise and the only sound heard was his own breathing as he dreamed of sleeping wrapped around his little brother again. Nima, two legs of the same frog, hopping and laughing. How would they survive an ocean apart? Dorje couldn’t leave without him and Beth would understand his wanting to take him to America. She liked Nima and he adored her. Picturing his brother running down to Lukla with his funny little freckles and arms waving, Dorje smiled as he drifted into sleep. Life was good and in two days he’d finally be standing on the highest point on earth.

Marty's hair stuck out at the sides and crawled down his neck as it had when they first met. Watching him eat hot cereal the next morning, Dorje wondered how the man thought Beth could ever love him or why all those legendary other women had been attracted to him. It must have been his wacko personality and crazy dancing. The two men strapped on their masks and regulated the flow, fastened the crampons with swollen, stiff fingers, and donned a double pair of gloves. The sky was clear when they exited and miraculously the wind had slowed to 30 miles per hour. From the South Col they plodded 1,000 feet up a 50-degree slope along a couloir where the Darjeeling porters had cut steps. Traveling slower than a baby can crawl, they moved only two to three body lengths at a time before stopping to rest. Experiencing waves of dizziness and exhaustion and sapped by cold, Dorje feared at times he was losing his own grasp on reality. Watching Marty's lethargy and confusion shot an even greater fear through him. Using hand signals, Dorje kept asking if he was all right. The American nodded and waved him on, but his body spoke something else. Not knowing the signs of serious illness at this altitude, Dorje wished Zopa and Namkha were here.

Reaching a short section of smooth, loose rock not compatible with slippery crampons, he was grateful the two Sherpas had set fixed ropes. Immediately above it, Dorje and Marty stepped onto a flat spot at the beginning of the southeast ridge. Marty sank in the snow with his upper body draped over bent knees and breathing hard. A frosty white layer covered the hair protruding from under his goggles and hat. He mumbled something Dorje couldn’t understand while wearing a mask. Removing it, he yelled, “What?”

With two lethargic slaps on the ground beside him, Marty shouted, “I think this is the Balcony. We’re almost there.”

With only one more day to the top, Dorje sighed in relief, feeling slightly more confident now. Another 100 feet of climbing and they discovered a partly-level camp on a small shelf chipped away with an ice axe and sheltered by a rocky cliff—elevation 27,600 feet. Only Kangchenjunga far to the east was visible higher at 28,169 feet. Altitude sickness had turned Marty back on that mountain, so why did he think he could make this one? Dorje would ask later but for now was too anxious for Jarvis and Paul to return saying they’d reached the summit. If their experience and strength failed them, what chance did an untried yak herder and ailing, mad man have? After settling Marty in the tent, melting some ice, and forcing down some tea and biscuits, Dorje stood outside peering through binoculars. With the summit four hours away, it was still too early but he didn’t want to miss one second because their victory could be the only one he’d savor. The prospect of failure turned the air stale and heavy, weighing down on him. Everest the only gift he had to offer Beth, he couldn’t return without it.

Two hours later, Team I came into view. Never shifting his gaze from them, Dorje waited for some kind of signal. When an arm went up and slashed through the air, his insides bounded with excitement and he had to grab his voice to keep it from doing somersaults. “There they are! And they made it!”

Marty emerged, cramped and shivering, looking puzzled by all the noise. Dorje handed him the binoculars and pointed. Spotting the climbers, Marty gave him an awkward, lethargic high five before returning to bed. Watching the men descend with stiff, clumsy movements, Dorje wondered if he looked like that. When they were within 40 minutes of camp, he lit the stove and heated water for soup and tea.

Jarvis and Paul removed their masks long enough to eat and drink. “The South Summit is about 1200 feet above here,” Paul said in a raspy voice barely above a whisper. When Jarvis tried to interrupt with hand signals, his partner explained the Brit had temporarily lost his voice due to deeply inhaling the cold oxygen with no moisture in it. “He wants me to warn you about the rocks about 400 feet below the South Summit. One slip of your crampons and you’re dead, so go around to the east.” Acknowledging Jarvis again, he added, “But that’s dangerous too because you’ll be in waist-deep snow and avalanches are a threat. Try to stay in the path we cut.”

“And how far from there?” Dorje asked, still reeling with excitement.

“The South Summit is about half way up. Another 300 feet or so and you’re on top. But first you have to traverse a very thin ridge with a cornice of overhanging snow and ice on the right. It forces you off the crest and onto the steep left-hand side where snow is plastered to the rocks. It’s the most exposed section and one wrong step sends you 10,000 feet down to a glacier on one side and 8,000 feet into the Cwm on the other. Jarvis was motioning with his hands again. He seemed fixated on rocks as Paul nodded and then described the famous Hillary Step—a 40-foot rocky pitch that had to be climbed before reaching a gentle slope to the summit. As soon as they had consumed enough liquids and a few pieces of cheese, the two headed down to the South Col for the night, explaining that most serious accidents occurred on the descent when climbers were tired.

Their success was exhilarating news. Not wanting to do anything that would jeopardize his chances, Dorje used oxygen and slept with his bag pressed against Marty’s so they could share each other’s warmth. When his partner mumbled something, Dorje rolled over and put his ear to his mask, but the words were muted and garbled. Perhaps Marty was only dreaming. The Darjeeling Sherpas had told Dorje of oxygen-starved
mikarus
hearing and seeing strange things. At high altitude, they themselves had experienced visions of gods standing before them and speaking. Dorje lay back down with his own visions of a goddess. Would she know the moment he first set foot on top of the world tomorrow? Dorje forged all his emotions into one single dream of returning as her hero.

Waking shortly after 3:30 in the morning, Dorje lit a small lantern and discovered Marty huddled in the corner, without oxygen, swatting wildly at the air. “Get them out of here!”

“Get what out? Dorje asked, alarmed if he had slept through some invasion.

“The bats. I don’t want to go first.”

Now Dorje understood what Mark had called hypoxia: an oxygen-starved hallucination. He quickly searched for a fresh bottle. “Go where?”

Dorje wondered if his strange companion who loved fun-ness and games was teasing him with this ridiculous talk to ease the tension before they set out. But all such thoughts vanished when Dorje moved the lantern closer and saw Marty’s vacant eyes and bluish-white skin—the way Dorje envisioned a
shrindi
would look.
Where was the damn oxygen?
Frantically throwing things about the small tent, he realized his brain wasn’t functioning either when he discovered the bottles sitting by the door, exactly where he’d left them last night. It was time to make the summit and get off this mind-numbing mountain.

He strapped a mask attached to a full cylinder over Marty's face and regulated a higher flow and then melted snow for hot lemon juice and cereal. After forcing both down the American, he ate and drank a small amount himself even though he had no appetite. No one did up here. Now what should he do with Marty? While talking to him last night, Dorje learned his companion had made it to within 500 feet of the summit of Kangchenjunga, crawling up the last 100 in a foolhardy attempt and would have slithered the rest on his belly if he had to. “But I passed out,” Marty confessed, “and a couple of well-meaning, goddamn Sherpas interfered and carried me out. Promise you won’t do that,” he added in a somber tone. “I might as well be dead.”

“I won’t,” Dorje had said but what good were promises to a dead man?

Watching Marty languish, he knew the American couldn’t make it, but Dorje had already decided to go on. How could he not after being this close and with Beth waiting for him? He’d be her hero—the first man to summit alone. The trail was cut; the ropes, fixed. Using oxygen and with a strong Sherpa pace, he could be up and back in record time. Babbling incoherently, Marty seemed oblivious to his surroundings.

“Go back to sleep,” Dorje said in his most fatherly tone. “We’re not going in the cave. I’m afraid of the bats too.” After wrapping Marty tightly in both bags, Dorje adjusted the American’s oxygen and set another bottle beside him.

Dorje had slept in his boots, wary of their freezing and being too stiff to put on before sunrise. Layered in every possible piece of clothing, he next crouched beside Marty to tell the lie of his life, but it was the only way to keep him from following and jeopardizing the climb. Not sure which world Marty was inhabiting at the moment, Dorje said simply, “It is too cold and windy to travel today. I’m sick and need to go outside for a short while. Sleep and get strong enough for tomorrow.” Mumbling something unintelligible, Marty made no attempt to get up.

Dorje crawled outside and zipped the door securely behind him. Flat, gray clouds with ragged edges sprawled across the sky blowing from the south—a sign of moisture coming up from India. He must hurry. After scattering
chaane
and praying to the goddess Miyolangsangma to protect him, Dorje put on his crampons and headlamp, adjusted the regulator to a climbing flow, and started up the Southeast Ridge. He hated the oxygen’s metallic breath but needed the edge it gave because he couldn’t afford to react lazily or with poor judgment. Any wrong decision could be fatal. With every step demanding intense physical effort and concentration, he moved with a slow, laborious pace attempting to find a rhythm. Taking four steps and stopping for a few gasps worked better than rushing up eight or nine before resting. Feeling the energy draining from his body, he focused solely on breathing. Holding onto one thought long enough to decide where to put his foot next became a monumental task. Alone in a vast world of snow and ice, the only sounds were the crunch of his boots and the deep breathing echoing inside his mask.