One hour later they breached the col and staggered down into the far valley – both at their physical limit. For the first time in his life, Kami began to feel that he was asking his body to do something it simply could not deliver.
Shreeya was the same, he could see, or perhaps even worse. Her feet were less hardened to this type of trek and each one was now sporting half a dozen really nasty-looking blisters.
But the knowledge that the adults were in hot pursuit gave them new determination and soon they were picking their way down the final scree slope before entering the forest.
They recognised the terrain now, limping as quickly as they could through the trees and slowing to a walking pace as they saw the glade ahead.
‘Look!’ Shreeya hissed with anguish.
In the centre of the meadow they now saw a small object, some sort of dead animal.
Chapter 4
For a horrorstruck heartbeat or two, Shreeya thought it might be one of the snow leopard cubs. Then she realised the colour of the fur was too dark, too red, and she recognised it as a juvenile deer.
‘That’s his plan,’ Kami whispered, ‘He’s shot a deer and put it there as bait. He’s going to wait for the leopards to come out and feed.’
‘There he is!’ Shreeya had spotted the hunter, creeping along the treeline directly opposite their position.
They watched as the hunter moved along the shadowy hinterland, his rifle cradled in his arms. Suspense was building. They still had no effective plan and the journey could be for nothing if even one of the cats was shot and killed.
‘Oh, no!’ Shreeya spotted a blur of movement. ‘The cubs are out of the den. They must have smelled the carcass.’
The hunter had seen the cats too. He stepped back, melting into the shadows.
‘What’s he doing now?’ Kami asked. His eyesight was not nearly so sharp as Shreeya’s at the great distance.
‘Taking something out of his sack. Something … ’ Shreeya gasped. ‘Kami, he’s loading the gun!’
The hunter placed the sack carefully behind a tree and started to move into the meadow. He did this with great stealth and considerable skill, slipping like a shadow between boulders and bushes.
The children watched in absolute silence, a growing sensation of helplessness overwhelming them.
‘What can we do?’ Shreeya whispered.
‘When we see the leopards we can scream, scare them away,’ Kami suggested, his voice utterly lacking conviction.
A silence fell between them. Both knew the flaw in this plan and it was a deadly one. If they revealed themselves to the hunter by shouting or screaming to alert the leopards then he might easily shoot them on the spot.
Kami’s mind was racing through the possibilities and he got to wondering what might be in the hunter’s sack.
‘How much ammunition has he got in that bag do you think?’
‘Plenty. He was picking out handfuls. Why? What’s on your mind?’
What was on Kami’s mind was something he had witnessed a few years before, when an older boy in the village had thrown a shotgun cartridge onto a fire for a laugh and almost got himself killed as the thing exploded with savage force.
If that was what could happen with a single cartridge, Kami wondered, what would the explosion be like with a few dozen?
Surely that would be enough to scare the leopards away for good?
‘I’m going to sneak around, try and get his bag,’ he told Shreeya. ‘I can light a fire, use the cartridges, set up an explosion in the woods.’
Shreeya considered the plan, frowning as she realised how risky it was. But she could see from Kami’s face that he was set on doing it.
‘OK. It’s a chance. But, Kami … Be careful … please.’
Kami stepped back into the dark embrace of the forest and began to skirt slowly round the glade in a big semi-circle. He had to get behind the man’s position to pick up the sack – a risky move that would take him to within fifty metres of the hunter’s position.
Step by step he flanked the meadow.
The hunter had his back to him. Kami prayed to the gods he stayed that way.
Finally, he moved out of cover and stepped towards the tree where the bag was placed. It was the moment of maximum exposure. Kami was now in full view. If the hunter happened to turn around he would be seen immediately.
When he got close enough, Kami reached forward and grabbed the sack. The hunter had no idea his possessions were being stolen.
Back in the forest Kami opened up the sack and tipped the contents onto the ground. It didn’t contain much, just some dried meat, a couple of wicked-looking boning knives – and about fifty shotgun cartridges.
Fifty! Kami was exultant as he saw the haul. If he got the job right he could manufacture an awesome explosion.
Kami hurried as he paced out a good distance from the enemy. He had to choose the spot carefully; far enough away that the hunter wouldn’t hear him starting the fire, but not so far that the exploding cartridges would fail to have the desired effect.
At seventy steps he found a possible site. It was as good a place as any to do the job and Kami busied himself gathering twigs and sticks, choosing the dry ones which would create little smoke.
His back tingled with a dread anticipation as he worked. At any second he feared the hunter would surprise him; put a bullet through his spine.
He struck a match and blew on a handful of dried grass to nourish a flame. The burning grass licked at his hands, then flared up higher. He added kindling, threw on branches, and within minutes had a robust little fire roaring away.
He gathered up the cartridges, counting a total of fifty-two.
There was no doubt that so many cartridges would create one heck of a bang … but how long would they take to blow? One minute? Ten? Perhaps they would even explode instantaneously, not giving him enough time to get away.
He decided to chance it.
He put the all of the cartridges in the bag, threw the sack on to the fire and ran for it.
Back at the meadow, Shreeya could see that the moment of truth was approaching. The two leopard cubs were back in partial view; the dead deer had got their attention and they wanted to check the carrion out.
There! Shreeya’s heart jumped a few beats as she saw the unmistakeable silhouette of the mother cat. A split second of movement between two boulders.
She saw the hunter’s body stiffen with excitement. His shoulders came up a bit and he shifted the position of the gun slightly. So, he had seen the leopard too!
At that moment Shreeya saw movement next to the dead deer. A raven had circled out of the sky and landed a few metres from the body. Then a second raven flapped down and joined the first. Soon the two birds were squabbling over the body as they started to rip into it.
The snow leopards seemed irritated by the birds, Shreeya thought, but also seemed to be made bolder by their presence. Perhaps they realised the clock was ticking; they had to get a move on or their free lunch would disappear in front of their eyes.
The first of the cubs slunk out of the rocks and placed a tentative – and very large – paw on the grass. It scented the air, instincts already finely tuned even at that young age, alert for anything threatening or unusual.
The creature’s coat was gorgeous. The mother cat had done a good job, had nourished her cubs with unconditional love and Shreeya’s heart went into freefall at the thought of how close the leopard was to losing one or even both of her cubs.
That was the moment that something crucial clicked inside this young Nepali girl. There was no doubt about it; she would give her life to save these creatures, she realised, her love for them was that strong.
It was a defining moment and it gave her great courage.
Over in the forest, some distance behind the hunter’s position, she could now
see a faint tendril of smoke rising into the sky. Kami had the fire going, she realised.
But where was the explosion?
A minute dragged past. Meanwhile, Kami snuck up as close as he dared to the hunter and picked up a rock. In his mind was a last ditch possibility – to try and stun the man with a lucky throw.
Why hadn’t the cartridges blown? Had something gone wrong?
Shreeya knew the moment had come. The two cubs had been provoked by the ravens and were now strutting boldly out from cover. The hunter had a perfect line of sight and disaster was here and now.
She couldn’t wait for the explosion. Her heart thudding like a jackhammer, she took a few steps into the glade, then began to sprint as she called.
‘Hey! HEY! Over here!’
The leopards froze in shock. Then they bolted.
Shreeya saw a look of rage flash across the man’s face. He swivelled the weapon, trying to follow the fleeing leopards, desperately looking for a clear shot at the biggest of the cats. But Shreeya put herself in the direct line of fire, screaming and yelling to urge the cats on and running across his line of vision at the crucial instant.
‘Run! Run!’ She shrieked.
The gun blasted, but the shot was spoiled.
The leopard family vanished into the forest, moving like the wind. The hunter roared out in fury, turning the gun now directly on Shreeya. She resisted the overwhelming urge to run, flung her arms wide and braced herself in terror for what must surely come; the ripping impact of the bullets, her chest exploding in a rage of broken flesh.
In that same instant, an explosion split the air as the cartridges finally detonated in Kami’s fire. The simultaneous detonation of gunpowder was ear-splittingly loud and the trees around the fire shook as they were peppered with the shot. The hunter span around in absolute shock. To him it must have seemed a whole battalion of men were out there in the woods, shooting at him.
At that same instant a rock spun out of nowhere, striking him a glancing, and painful, blow on the shoulder.
And then the cavalry really did arrive; Shreeya’s father and two other men bursting into the meadow shouting the children’s names. At this the hunter ran for his sack, searching for it frantically amongst the trees where he had left it.
‘Hey! Hey, you! Stop there!’ Shreeya’s father yelled.
But the hunter had had enough. He gave up looking for his bag and slunk away into the forest, his limping frame visible for just two or three steps before he vanished.
Shreeya ran to her father and held him tight.
At the sight of his daughter, exhausted but safe, all the fury in her father melted away. He was just happy to see her alive.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked. ‘He shot right at you … ’
‘I’m alright,’ Shreeya replied.
‘And the cats?’
‘We saved them,’ Shreeya said, simply. And she moved towards Kami and embraced him hard. When she pulled away he found his shoulder was wet with her tears.
From that time onward Kami and Shreeya were rarely apart. Shreeya became so much a part of Kami’s world that he sometimes found it hard to think of her as a separate person.
In the evenings they would sometimes go together to bathe at the village well, Kami stripped to the waist, Shreeya, like the other girls of the village, bathing in a Sari to protect her modesty.
It was a tranquil place; a glade filled with that mysterious green light that only a forest canopy can create. Chattering Mynah birds would come to sip at the puddles; butterflies with kingfisher wings danced in stray beams of sunlight. If no-one else was around, Shreeya would ask Kami to wash her hair – his calloused fingers relishing the silky texture of the touch, the spiced Indian soap filling the air with a heady scent of sandalwood and patchouli oil.
When they were finished on those evenings when the sun stubbornly refused to die, they would go to a certain grassy terrace to dry off. Situated on a high ridge, this vantage point presented them with a view right across the Himalaya. In the foreground were wooded valleys and gorges; further away, hugging the horizon, the jagged profiles of Shishapangma, Ama Dablam, Nuptse and Everest.
Kami could name them all; his father had taught him to recognise them when he was a young boy and for some reason the knowledge had stuck.
Slowly the noises of the daytime would diminish, the hawks and eagles spiralling reluctantly out of the sky as thermals died away. Distant woodpeckers fell silent. Down in the village, the little engine at the rice mill puttered out a final few smokey revolutions and fell silent. Children chattered as they made their way home.
In this place Kami and Shreeya felt invincible. The world was, after all, literally, at their feet.
But always, as the day ended, they would have to go their separate ways, to homes which were apart.
With every passing year of his life, Kami had felt closer to Shreeya. She was a friend in a way that Laxmi, his ‘bride’, had never been.
The sense of injustice began to gnaw away at him. What right did others have to determine his fate? How could he build a life with a girl he hardly knew, when the one he truly loved would be living close by?
It would be a life sentence of misery.
Wild thoughts came to him in the dead of night. What if he ran away with Shreeya? He had heard stories of couples their age who had taken this desperate step. Mostly they went to India and were never heard of again. Dark tales sometimes emerged of the terrible things they had to do just to survive.
Kami felt that Shreeya would go with him if he proposed it, but in his heart he knew it would never happen. He loved his family too much, and so did she. If they ran away they would never find peace.
Then came the offer to go to Everest and Kami began to see a new possibility.
Using his earnings he might be able to break the marriage pact.
But first he would have to talk to his father.
Kami chose his moment with care, a Saturday free from work when he hoped his father would be receptive to a conversation. The formal way he phrased the request caused his father to raise an eyebrow in surprise. But he took Kami to the family room where they could talk in peace.
‘I guess you want to talk about Laxmi,’ his father began.
‘Yes, sir, I do.’
‘Well it’s very simple. You’ve got to keep to the pact and that’s the end of the story.’
‘I’ve been having other thoughts,’ Kami said hesitantly.
‘Well put them out of your head. Families have been making marriage pacts like this for centuries and there’s no need to change things.’
‘But, sir, I don’t feel happy … ’
‘You will feel happy. Once you have Laxmi living at your side. She’s a fine girl and you are lucky to have her promise. Look at me and your mother, married by a similar pact and we’ve never had a bad word between us.’
It was the argument Kami had most feared, for it was indisputably true; his mother and father were indeed happy together – living proof that a marriage pact could work.
If the circumstances were right.
But his situation was different, Kami reminded himself. The circumstances were most certainly not right. He had to tell his father the truth about Shreeya, but he knew by doing so he would be drawing the conversation in a most dangerous direction.
And how to find the words?
Kami had been raised in the traditional manner of a Nepali family. Rigid social codes dictated the way that men behaved towards women, children towards elders. Obedience to his father was absolutely at the core of who he was and he had never imagined a scenario in which he could disobey him.
But now that moment had come and Kami felt the exquisite pain of something stretching and breaking inside him as he said the next words.
‘I don’t want to make my life with Laxmi.’
These words provoked exactly the reaction Kami had feared. The look of fury in his father’s eyes was truly terrifying. For a terrible moment he thought he would lash out with his fists.
‘It’s Shreeya who has put you up to this!’ his father raged. ‘Don’t think I don’t know. The whole village knows about you two.’
‘It’s not her.’ Kami was mortified that his father was trying to twist the blame. ‘This is my decision.’
‘I should talk to her father. Get her sent away.’
Kami felt his guts churn as this new threat. How stupid of him not to think of it. It would be easy for his father to arrange. Get Shreeya’s family to send her away to some far off place, marry her swiftly to someone else.
‘You wouldn’t do that.’
‘Wouldn’t I? It’s no more than you both deserve.’ His father spat the words.
‘Is there no other way?’ Kami asked, ‘Something we can do to break the contract?’
‘Break the contract? Who has put such thoughts in your head?’
‘If we repay the dowry? Surely there is a way?’
‘You don’t know what you are talking about. Her family and our family have been trading for generations. There’s more at stake than just this marriage.’
‘But it can happen,’ Kami insisted. ‘Plenty of people have told me so. If Chandra agrees a price.’
‘Alright,’ he conceded, finally, ‘It can happen that the contract is annulled. But normally it happens because of a terrible sickness, or a death in the family, or some other tragedy.’
Kami’s father put his head in his hands. He looked so close to absolute despair that for a moment Kami was almost tempted to retract everything he had said, so deeply did he want to free his father from the pain.
But something held him back.
‘Tell me how you feel about this girl Shreeya,’ his father said at last.
Kami looked at him directly, surprised to find that at this crucial moment, he did not feel any shame or doubt.
‘I love her, sir. And I will love her for the rest of my life.’
The Everest Files Page 6
