“Thanks,” said Adler, taking the tea. He was greatly impressed with Silvas’ strength, considering he was the shortest man on his team. Silvas effortlessly carried a load on his back that would have stopped anyone else in their tracks.
“We lost another one last night,” said Silvas.
Adler shook his head. He honestly didn’t care for the Afghans, only the provisions they carried on their backs. “Did anyone see him leave?”
“I asked, but the story is the same as the first one to disappear. The men in his tent say that he went outside in the middle of the night to relieve himself and never came back.”
“Any sign of him?”
“None. It snowed pretty heavy last night. I doubt we could find his tracks if we wanted to.”
“Did he take anything with him?
“No, not a thing. Even his pack is where he left it outside of his tent when he went to sleep,” said Silvas.
“It’s odd that he would run away and take nothing with him to keep him alive. He must have known that he’d die without at least a sleeping bag to keep him warm.”
“I know, Patrón, but who knows what is going on their minds. It would have been better if we could have hired some local Sherpas for this climb; however, that would have been unrealistic considering how they feel about foreigners around here. So I guess we’ll have to make do with what we have.”
“Hugo, tell Zaro and Roja to carry their pistols on them at all times from now on,” said Adler. “I don’t want the Afghans suddenly deciding to leave us alone up here or perhaps even turning on us.”
“Very good, I’ll pass the word right away.”
Adler grabbed Silvas’ right arm. Quietly, he said, “One last thing. I want you near Ortega during today’s climb. I’ve been watching her, and she’s not very steady on the ice. Of all the people on the team, we can’t afford to lose her expertise to a climbing accident.”
Silvas nodded his head and went to pass on Adler’s orders.
Adler looked up and studied the curvature of the black rock on the ice. He estimated that they could easily reach their next camp on the last navigable piece of rock before stopping for the night. After that, it would be a difficult climb up a steep wall of ice as they pushed their way up towards the lip of thick glacier hanging over the side of the mountain like an impenetrable wall.
With a loud yawn, Bruce stretched his hands over his head and sat up. After rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Bruce saw, in the flickering light of a candle, Shaw already dressed and rolling up his sleeping bag to put away in his sack. He turned his head and was surprised to see that Amrit was nowhere to be found. Before he could ask, Shaw said that she was taking care of business before the Tibetans got up. Bruce unzipped his sleeping bag and was unpleasantly surprised to discover how much colder the air inside the tent was than when he went to bed.
“Jesus, I can see my breath in here,” muttered Bruce as he hurried to get dressed.
“Trust me, it’s colder outside,” said Shaw as he pulled on a gray woolen balaclava over his head and crawled outside through the open tent flaps.
“Bloody hell,” said Bruce to himself as he rubbed his hands together to warm them up. “We’ve barely climbed up this wretched piece of ice and rock. I can’t wait to see what it’s like on the top.”
“What was that?” said Shaw from outside.
“Nothing,” said Bruce.
“It’s light enough outside. Hand me the stove, I want to fire it up and cook us some breakfast.”
“What’s for breakfast?”
“Kippers and rice.”
“Sounds delicious,” replied Bruce as he hurried to stow his gear.
Ten minutes later, Amrit, Shaw and Bruce stood around in the open, stomping their feet to keep them warm while they ate their meal. The Tibetans had already packed up their tents and were eating a meal of dried meat with warmed up yak’s milk before tearing down the last tent.
“Do we have to head out so early every day?” asked Bruce. “Can’t we wait for the sun to get a little higher in the sky?”
“No, that’s the worst thing we can do,” replied Amrit. “It’s far safer to walk on ice than loose snow. If we start too late in the day, that’s precisely what we will be doing and that’s how you trigger avalanches.”
Shaw said, “Look at the bright side of this: if we’re cold, Adler and his people who are higher are a lot colder than us.”
“Yeah, but we’ll soon climber higher and get colder too,” said Bruce.
“Well, there is that.”
After the Tibetans finished packing up the last of supplies and equipment, Amrit wrapped her scarf around her cold face and began to slowly lead the group out onto the ice that ran alongside a thin ledge of rock that ran like a spine up the side of the mountain.
She kept her pace slow and measured. Amrit figured that they could easily cover another five thousand feet today before they had to stop. She looked up through her tinted goggles and tried to see if she could see Adler’s team moving against the white snow above them. Unable to find them anywhere, she decided to put them out of her mind for now and get on with the job at hand: safely helping everyone up the icy and rock-encrusted face of the mountain.
After an hour’s steady climb, Bruce picked up his pace until he was walking just behind Shaw. “You know, sir, we should tell Amrit what the Lama told us,” said Bruce quietly, so she would not hear. “She deserves to know.”
“Perhaps tonight when we stop for the evening,” replied Shaw, over his shoulder.
“Captain, you and I both know that it’s better to keep the people you trust in the loop.”
“I know. You’re right, we’ll tell her.”
“Sir, I’ve been thinking and I think Amrit may be right. It had to have been a bear that killed the Afghan we found yesterday,” said Bruce, moving up beside Shaw. “Before we left MacDonald’s camp, the bloody big Tibetan who doesn’t speak and I saw some really big bear tracks by the river at the bottom of the hill.”
“Well, a bear with a taste for human flesh is not a good thing. We’ll have to post sentries from now on at night. We can’t afford for it to come sniffing around the tents while we sleep. Being mauled to death in my sleeping bag is something I would rather avoid.”
Bruce undid his jacket to let the heat out. “This place is unbelievable. We freeze in the morning and then bake under the hot sun during the day.”
“Wait until we get higher. We’ll need to put grease on our faces to stop the sun from burning our skin.”
“I’m never going to complain about the weather in Scotland ever again. The first person who says that it rains too much is going to get a punch in the nose from me.”
After a short lunch break of chocolate and some tepid tea, Amrit and Shaw took turns using his binoculars. It didn’t take them long to pick a flat spot about two thousand feet higher up the mountain for their next camp.
With a smile, Amrit heaved her pack on her back and led off. She was pleased that everyone was keeping up. Bruce was the only one she worried about. He truly was a fish out of water. Of all the men on the team, he was the only one with no climbing skills, but he had managed so far. She was beginning to feel that perhaps her fears were misplaced. At the pace they were going, it would take them less than three hours to get to their destination, leaving plenty of time to pitch their tents and cook dinner before night fell.
When they were less than one hundred paces from their camp, things suddenly turned ominous.
Shaw could see Amrit frozen in her tracks, looking down at something. Making his way up to her, he saw what she was looking at. Instantly, a wave of bile turned over in his stomach when he recognized it as the severed head of a man, perched on a rock. A pool of congealed blood had turned the snow all around it a deep crimson color. Shaw took a deep breath to calm his unsettled stomach. He could see that the man’s head had been ripped from its shoulders. The flesh from his face had been eaten away. The man’s eyes stared out from
the blood-encrusted skull. Whatever had happened to the man had been absolutely terrifying, thought Shaw.
“Whoa, dear God,” blurted out Bruce when he saw the head. “Bears don’t do that, do they?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Shaw, dropping his pack. He reached for his rifle. “Where’s the rest of him?”
“I’m not sure I want to know,” said Bruce.
Shaw turned to look over at Amrit. Although she tried to hide it, Shaw could see the look of fear in her eyes. “Amrit, stay here, while Duncan and I look around. When Choling catches up, tell him to set up a defensive perimeter.”
Amrit nodded her head.
With his shotgun held in his gloved hands, Bruce walked over to Shaw.
“Ok, you go left and I’ll go right, and we’ll meet up together at that rocky outcropping,” said Shaw, pointing to a tall group of black rocks about one hundred yards away.
With his weapon held tight in his shoulder, Shaw began to move across the rocky patch of ground. He could feel a sudden gust of wind whipping against his back as if pushing him on. As he edged forward, he glanced out the corner of his eye to see where Bruce was. His friend had just moved around a tall boulder, when he called out.
“What have you found?” said Shaw.
“It’s hard to tell, there are only bones and some tattered pieces of clothing lying around. I think it’s his lower torso,” replied Bruce.
“Jesus,” muttered Shaw. “Ok, keep looking.”
He had gone perhaps another ten yards when he found the rest of the hapless man’s remains. There were deep teeth marks on what was left of the corpse’s rib cage. Some of the bones had been snapped open, and the marrow sucked out. Suddenly, it felt like there was a tornado spinning around inside his guts. Shaw took a deep breath to calm himself and made his way over to the outcropping to wait for Bruce to join him a few moments later.
“I guess we found him,” said Shaw.
“What do you want to do?” asked Bruce, visibly shaken by what he had just seen.
“As before, we’ll bury the remains,” replied Shaw. “After we set up camp, I’ll work out a duty roster with Choling. We’ll need to have sentries on during the night from now on to protect us while we sleep.”
“I’ll get started on burying the poor bastard, while you talk to Choling,” said Bruce.
An hour later, with their tents set up and the dinner meal cooking, Amrit walked over to her pack and dug out her double-barreled shotgun. After checking that it was loaded, she snapped it closed and looked up at the sky. She bit her lip when she saw dark, menacing storm clouds rolling in from the northeast. The monsoon weather had come early. She had no doubt that a heavy snowfall was coming their way. Amrit expected at least a foot of snow to fall during the night.
Over by their tent, Shaw set his rifle down and then said to Bruce, “What’s for dinner?”
“I’ve made a stew with a couple of tins of lamb, potatoes, peas and onions,” replied Bruce as he tried a spoonful his concoction.
“Smells good.”
“Tastes good, too,” replied Bruce. “How’s Amrit holding up?”
“She seems all right, but that’s hardly a good indicator how a person is really feeling inside. As much as she may not want to, I’ll try to get her to open up over dinner. Talking about these things usually helps.”
Choling approached. “Mister Shaw, may I have a word?”
Shaw nodded his head. Together they walked over to a couple of rocks sticking out of the ice and took a seat.
“I did as you asked and worked out a sentry roster with my men,” said Choling. “As per your wishes, you and Sergeant Bruce will have the last shift just before dawn.”
“Thank you,” replied Shaw.
Choling hesitated for a couple of seconds, and then said, “Mister Shaw, I would not blame you if you held ill feelings towards me for all that I have done to you and your friends. My grandfather told me that I must obey you and that I need to keep my mouth shut and my eyes open. He feels that I could learn a lot from a man like you. I know that you think I am reckless and not fit to lead the men under my command, but you have to understand that everything I have done to date is in keeping with my vows to safeguard this valley from intruders like yourself.”
Shaw could see in the young man’s eyes that he wanted to talk. “Choling, I hope you believe me when I say that I would never ask you to break your vow to protect your people. What you need to understand is that as a leader, you need to think before you act. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing can have a greater effect than barging in somewhere, guns blazing. Leadership is more than being angry all the time. You need to look after your men, not throw their lives away needlessly in fights they can’t possibly win. Your recent actions have all ended in failure and hurt your cause, perhaps irreparably. You cannot simply replace the loyal fighters whose lives you squandered away with new and inexperienced ones and expect to win. With a worldwide war on, it won’t be too long before you’ll be unable to hide your valley from the outside world, and what you do then will ultimately define you and your people.”
Choling stood and turned to leave, but stopped in his tracks.
“Is there anything else you want to discuss?” asked Shaw, sensing that there was something more on Choling’s mind.
“Yes,” replied Choling. “I know you and Sergeant Bruce do not believe that there are demons that guard this mountain, but my men and I do. There are legends of farmers venturing high up this mountain in search of lost sheep. The precious few who returned to their villages told tales of finding large footprints in the snow. They also said that they heard the howls of a strange beast echoing down the mountain during the night.”
“Sergeant Duncan said that he and Sangdrol found bear tracks in the river bed before we started climbing,” said Shaw.
“A bear did not rip that man apart,” said Choling. “That man was torn to pieces, and his remains were scattered around here as a warning.”
“A warning?”
“Yes, to go no further or the same thing will happen to us,” said Choling bluntly.
“You know we cannot stop and turn around. We have to push on and stop Adler.”
“Yes, I know we have no alternative but to keep climbing. I just thought you ought to know what fate awaits us all,” replied Choling. Turning away, he walked back over to his men.
Shaw felt a shudder go down his back. He didn’t believe in demons, but something terrible had happened to the two dead Afghans. He was convinced that things were going to get a hell of a lot worse before too long.
Bruce shot up, wide-awake. He looked around the tent. His heart was beating wildly inside his chest. He reached for his flashlight, switched it on, looked around, and saw Amrit and Shaw inside their sleeping bags. A thin fog, from the breathing of the people fast asleep, hung inside the tent. He looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly two in the morning.
He ran hand through his thick red hair and chuckled to himself. It had all been a dream. Bruce was about to turn off his flashlight, when he heard it again. A voice from somewhere outside of the tent was calling out his name. Bruce’s head suddenly hurt like hell. It was as if someone with a drum had crawled inside his head and was beating away on the wretched instrument. He dug through his jacket, which he had balled up and used as a pillow, until he found a small tin of aspirins. Bruce took three with a sip of cold water from his canteen. He sat there listening. When he heard nothing but the tent rattling in the wind, he thought it must all be part of some dream. Bruce was about to lie down again when he heard his name. He instantly recognized the voice; it was his mother calling to him.
He hurriedly dressed. Not wanting to wake his sleeping friends, he quietly crawled out of the tent and into the dark. A bitterly cold wind drove the falling snow straight into his face, nearly blinding him. He grabbed his scarf and wrapped it around his face before picking up his snow-covered shotgun. Bruce brushed off the snow before taking a quick look around the ca
mp. He could just make out one of Choling’s men walking back and forth between the tents with a long, curved sword nestled between his arms. With a layer of snow on him, he looked to Bruce like a snowman that had miraculously come to life.
Again, he heard his mother calling his name. Bruce turned his head and peered out into the near impenetrable wall of falling snow.
“Duncan, please come quick. I’ve need you, I’ve hurt myself,” said the voice.
“Where are yah, Mother?” called out Bruce.
“I’m over here.”
“I canna see you!”
“Just walk straight ahead. You’ll find me.”
With his head down to block the blowing snow, Bruce trudged blindly into the dark.
“I can see you. Keep coming closer. You’re almost here,” said the voice.
Through the dark, Bruce could see a shape moving towards him. At first, it had no form, and then suddenly like magic his mother appeared before him. She was wearing her favorite black jumper. He could see her warmly smiling at him. As she got closer, she opened her arms and asked him to give her a hug.
“Mum,” said Bruce, ready to embrace his mother. With tears in his eyes, Bruce walked towards his mother.
Unseen from behind another darkened shape moved towards him; reaching out, it grabbed hold of him.
“Duncan, no!” said Shaw firmly as he pulled Bruce back by his shoulders.
With a loud, threatening growl from deep inside his chest, Sangdrol charged out of the dark, raised his sword above his head and stepped in front of Shaw and Bruce.
“Stop it,” pleaded Bruce. “Let me go. You’re both frightening my mother.”
Shaw shook Bruce hard. “Snap out of it, Duncan! You’re seeing and hearing things. Your mother is not here; she’s back home in Scotland.”
Bruce looked out into the night and saw his mother take a step back. A moment later, she vanished from view swallowed up in the falling snow. His heart ached terribly. She had seemed so real.
The Mountain Page 17
