17

East Rongbuk Glacier Camp, Mount Everest—21,200 feet

May 28, 2009

1:45 p.m.

Since awaking at 11:00 a.m., finally released from a revolving, repeating dream of being trapped in the gorak cave on the Second Step, Quinn had just lain there in that small tent, completely stunned. Cocooned in someone else’s stinking yet warm sleeping bag, with no feeling in his fingers or toes, it was all he could do to drink endless cups of warm, sugary tea and watch a series of strange cartoon animals acrobatically climbing the tent’s zip.

Or had I?

Are the tiny animals just a hangover of my dream-racked, tormented sleep?

Whatever, they were gone now, leaving only the bright light illuminating the tent’s thin yellow canvas to burn his nearly snow-blind eyes, and the wind howling down off the North Col to stir his pounding headache. If he shut his stinging eyes to try and rest them, he saw instead his painful descent from the Second Step. It had taken thirty-six hours of stumbling, staggering, and resting to make it down the North Col and then to the relative safety of their camp on the East Rongbuk Glacier. The starting, the stopping, the constant drifting in and out of reality anchored only by the dreadful fact that Nelson Tate Junior, his responsibility, was dead. The creatures were preferable to that. Anything was preferable to that.

Isolated and alone, Quinn took no comfort from the realization that if the animals had gone then the rest and rehydration were returning him to normality. Some kind of normality that was going to be anyway; it might not feature the surreal daydreams of an exhausted mind, but his biggest nightmare was now going to haunt him forever: he had lost a client.

Why did Dawa save me? I should be the one still up there.

But Dawa had saved him and Quinn should be grateful. He hoped there would be a day when that would be so, but he couldn’t imagine it anytime soon.

Dawa Sherpa.

Unbelievable really. Despite struggling down from the summit with Pemba, who had never properly recovered from his own collapse, Dawa had found Quinn and brought him back to life too. Physically pulling him away from the boy’s lifeless corpse, he had got him moving down again as soon as he could, saying over and over to him, “There is nothing you can do.”

Even Dawa had started to flag as they made their tortured way down through the Yellow Band, toward the pinpoints of light slowly moving up the hill to meet them. Bearing fluids and fresh oxygen, three Sherpa, one of them Lhakpa, despite the fact he had already been to the summit with Durrand, and two strong Czech climbers, who knew full well that they were throwing away their own summit chance by making a rescue, had met them at the very last moment to lead them down via the High Camp.

There is nothing you can do.

The words continued to ring inside Quinn’s aching head as if bouncing between the immense walls of a cathedral.

But there was nothing more he could have done for the boy.

Quinn had done everything humanly possible.

But the boy is dead and I am alive.

His stomach churned just thinking about it.

And it didn’t even make sense. Nelson Tate Junior had still seemed strong after they made it around the buttress. If anything it was Quinn who had been the weaker. The boy had almost pulled him along the snow ledge ...

Didn’t he?

Am I remembering it right or am I the one not making sense?

He couldn’t be certain.

You are never really sure of what happens up there.

Quinn’s painful soul-searching was interrupted by the curved tent above him bowing inward twice under the gentle push of a hand. The arched doorway then zipped open and Lhakpa stuck his head inside to pass another thermos of tea to Quinn.

“How are you, Mr. Neil?”

“Recovering, I think.”

“Okay, Mr. Neil. Drink more bed-tea. Good for you. We also make noodle soup. Ready soon. Also good as you must go Base Camp tomorrow. Sarron insisting. He wait for you before go Lhasa to make report of climber death with Chinese. Boy’s father making big noise. Chinese officials in Lhasa involved now. Rest of team will return to Kathmandu with expedition kit.”

Quinn thanked the Sherpa and took in both the tea and the new information. With every new flask of restorative tea, accompanying snippets of news had also been delivered to unintentionally counter the effect:

“Sarron is crazy insane with rage. Even Old Dorje, who has worked as his camp cook for years, has never seen anything like it.”

“Pemba is recovering. He is saying to everyone the No Horizons oxygen was bad. Dawa telling him to be quiet.”

“No one is getting paid.”

“Nelson Tate Senior want us to retrieve boy’s body. Sarron refuse, saying too high, too late in season now, not possible anyway. He right, Mr. Neil. Not possible from Second Step.”

“Dawa say you do everything—not your fault. Sarron saying is your fault, all your fault. Dawa, Pemba, also.”

“Big mess, Mr. Neil.”

Yes, on that last point they were all agreed.

It was indeed a big mess, one that was only going to get worse when they arrived back at the No Horizons Base Camp.