Descent

by Roland Smith

  Putting a climbing harness on yourself is a lot easier than putting it on someone else, especially someone who is unconscious. Well, almost unconscious. Josh groaned several times as I cinched him in, but he didn’t open his eyes. After I had him rigged, I dragged him over to the window. He wasn’t heavy. Like most climbers, he was wiry with very little body fat. The hardest part for Josh would be the descent. I would lower him slowly, but unconscious as he was, he wouldn’t be able to push himself away from the rough wall with his feet. He was going to get banged up on the way down. I wished Zopa had been able to scrounge a couple of climbing helmets.

  Nothing I can do about it now, I thought, slipping my hands under his arms and easing him onto the ledge facing me. I took up the slack, braced my feet against the wall, then nudged my father into the void, slowly belaying him into the alley a few inches at a time.

  When I’d lowered him about halfway down I heard Josh shout, “What the hell!” Followed by Zopa telling him to be quiet.

  I couldn’t blame Josh for shouting. I would have come unglued too, finding myself dangling from a thread like a spider, in the fog, probably upside down, with no idea where I was or how I had gotten there. After his outburst there was a change in the rope’s tension. It got tauter. More stable. I couldn’t see him because I was sitting on the floor, bracing myself with both legs, but I felt him push himself off the wall. I gave him three feet of line. He pushed off again. His climbing instincts had kicked in. I stifled a laugh. It looked like we were going to pull this crazy rescue off.

  The rope went slack. He was down. I gave him time to unclip before I began retrieving the rope. I had a third of it back through the window when something flew out and hit me in the chest. It was a small rock. I heard a laugh, then two men talking in Chinese. Soldiers. I froze, hoping the dangling rope was hidden by the fog. Zopa must have thrown the pebble to warn me, but how had he managed that nine stories straight up, through the fog, without breaking a window or putting my eye out? The mystery monk, quite literally, had struck again.

  As I waited for him to toss an “all-clear” pebble, I thought about the skyscrapers I had climbed in New York. Until the night I had gotten busted climbing the Woolworth Building, no one knew I scaled buildings. I hadn’t told a single soul. It was my secret, my personal mystery, with one exception, or vanity . . . I tagged all my climbs by spray-painting a little blue mountain peak at the top of all the skyscrapers. I didn’t do this to show off or prove to someone that I had been there. I did it to pass the mystery on, the wonder of how the little blue mountain had gotten there. I didn’t have the mountain stencil with me, or paint, but I thought of another way to create a mystery and pass it on. I untied the rope from around the toilet and coiled it. A couple minutes later, a second pebble flew through the open window. I listened. The voices were gone. I dropped the coiled rope out the window and heard it thump into the alley below.

  One of the differences between climbing a building and a mountain is the consistency of the hand- and toeholds. On a building the seams are evenly spaced throughout the wall, which means there really isn’t a best route. All the routes are roughly the same except for the corners where the walls meet. The right-angle seams are deeper, which would allow me to hold on better, or hug the building, with my arms extended. I couldn’t see it in the fog, but I didn’t think the corner was that far away to my left. I might even get lucky and find a fire escape around the corner.

  I traversed the wall for about thirty feet, slipping a couple of times on the slick cement, narrowly catching myself before hurtling into the foggy depth. There wasn’t a fire escape, but there was a sturdy drainage pipe, painted white, lost in the fog until I touched it. I was in the alley two minutes later. Zopa and Josh were looking up at the building with their heads back.

  “I’m down.”

  Zopa looked at me. Josh looked too, but I didn’t think he could see me very well through his swollen eyes, which looked worse in the alley’s dim light. He had one hand on the wall, bracing himself.

  “You threw the rope out the window and did not use it,” Zopa said.

  I shrugged, which gave me a great deal of pleasure, and looked at Josh. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be okay. Shek roughed me up pretty good. He wasn’t happy about his demotion. When he was finished, they injected me with something. It’s all kind of a blur right now. I’ll shake it off. Thanks for pushing me out the window.”

  “No problem.”

  “We must go,” Zopa said. “It will be light soon.”

  We started walking, or in Josh’s case, hobbling, backtracking along the same route we had taken from the river.

  “Why are you smiling?” Zopa asked as we made our way through the thick brush.

  I hadn’t realized I was smiling, but I knew why I was. I was thinking about the look on Shek’s face when he discovered that Josh wasn’t there. Before I left the room, I folded the blanket and laid it neatly on the back of the sofa. When I got out onto the ledge I closed the window behind me and heard the latch click into place. It would look like Josh had never been there. The mystery.

  “Well?” Zopa asked.

  I shrugged again.

  Zopa smiled.

  Adrift

  Zopa had a boat waiting for us when we reached the Nyang. The boat is about forty feet long, garishly painted, and crowded. We’re sharing it with the owner, Captain Yama, his wife, Yangchen, their two teenage boys, a half dozen crates of squawking chickens, two Tibetan mastiffs (which is why the chickens are squawking), and the mastiffs’ litter of pups.

  The huge mastiffs are called Drog-Khyi in Tibetan, which means “nomad dog.” You find them in almost every Tibetan village, often tied up during the day and set free at night to protect the livestock from wolves and snow leopards. Oh . . . and there are two full-grown yaks aboard, only slightly larger than the mastiffs. Captain Yama and his family are hauling supplies downriver to a small mountain village called Butong, hoping to trade their load, including the puppies, for takin skins.

  I asked Zopa if the Butong was our ultimate destination too. “It is difficult to say where we will go,” he answered. “But we will know when we arrive.”

  This was the last and only thing he has said since we reached the river. As soon as we stepped aboard the boat, he put on his monk robes, folded himself into a lotus position under the plastic awning, and went into a deep meditation. He hasn’t twitched a muscle in hours, even when the puppies played tug-of-war with the hem of his robe.

  The immovable monk.

  Josh is out too, but not from meditation. His problem is being knocked out by the one-two punch of beatings and drugs. He collapsed before we reached the river. Zopa carried him the last half mile. I wanted to get him to a hospital, but Yangchen insisted that he would be fine after he rested. I’m not so sure. He’s been physically hammered the past several months and was running on empty when we got off Hkakabo Razi.

  I’ve managed to get a little bit of sleep, but not nearly enough. The only place left to get horizontal is in the bow on a pile of straw strewn between the two yaks. There’s something soothing in the sound of bovines chewing their cud, but the occasional plop of yak dung drove me to the stern, where I’m sitting now, surrounded by disturbed chickens.

  I’m guessing it’s about three in the afternoon by the position of the hot, bright sun. We’re heading east, the opposite direction of Nepal, which is where I would have chosen to go if it were up to me. Getting over the border without a passport would be hard, but the frontier is too big for the Chinese to cover it all, especially for climbers who are not inhibited by mountains. Maybe Zopa chose to flee in the opposite direction Shek expected us to go. Or maybe he had an entirely different reason for heading toward mainland China.

  putt . . . putt . . . putt . . .

  The motor spits out diesel fumes. Captain Yama stands in the stern with a long-handled tiller under his arm, scanning the river for flotsam and jetsam. I think I might have missed a couple
of turns while I was yak napping. I could have sworn that when we left Bāyī, we were chugging along with the current. Now we are moving against it. The water is fifty yards across here, with towering tree-covered hills on either side, no beaches, nowhere to land, just sheer emerald-green tangled walls.

  Stunningly beautiful.

  I’m grateful to be here. I . . .

  * * *

  Josh sat up from a dead sleep and shouted, “Where are we?”

  Bad dream? The residual drugs Shek had shot him up with? He would have looked wild-eyed if his eyes weren’t still swollen shut.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “On a river east of Bāyī.”

  “East?”

  “Yeah.” I got up from my chicken roost and squatted down next to him. “You okay?”

  “Why are we going east?”

  “Zopa.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Meditating.”

  “How long?”

  “Since we got on the boat. All day.”

  “Did I ever tell you about the time he mediated for nine days?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he did. Didn’t drink, didn’t eat, didn’t lose weight, didn’t die. Like one of those air plants you find in the jungle.”

  “Tillandsia,” I said. “Bromeliads. Epiphytes.” Our botanist friend in Myanmar was very enthusiastic about air plants, orchids in particular.

  “Yeah, those. My point is, Zopa might be out of it for days. Did you try to rouse him?”

  I shook my head. That hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “You cut your hair,” Josh said. “Well, actually, it looks like you used a lawnmower on it.”

  I guess he didn’t remember seeing me the night before. “It’s a disguise,” I said. “Long story.”

  “It’ll grow back.” Josh turned his head toward the stern and looked at Captain Yama. “What’s the setup?”

  I told him about the boat.

  “And we’re heading east?” Josh asked.

  “It might be southeast now. I can’t say exactly because of the mountains.” I took my compass out. “Yep, southeast.”

  Josh opened the water bottle next to him and took a long drink through cracked lips. “How do I look?”

  “Not good.”

  “I kind of figured that. I don’t feel good either. My head is killing me.”

  “You got beat up pretty bad,” I said. “And then there were the drugs.”

  “Did I thank you for getting me out of there?”

  “You did.”

  “Sorry. I’m still a little out of it, but I’m better than I was. Is there something chewing on my feet?”

  I looked. Two of the puppies were using his toes as pacifiers. I pointed. Josh pushed himself up to look. The puppies tottered off.

  “Whew,” he said. “I thought it was the drugs. Help me up.”

  He was able to stand on his own without holding on to anything, which was pretty good considering that we were on a boat. Yangchen brought him a mug of yak butter tea, or po cha. Josh downed it all in three swallows. Po cha is made from fermented dark tea, salt, toasted barley powder, milk curds, and yak butter. It’s the Tibetan version of Western energy drinks, but better for you. It’s almost a meal in itself. Yangchen brought Josh another mug, and one for me. We toasted.

  “To wherever we are,” Josh said.

  “To wherever we’re going,” I said.

  Aspire

  I was the first one up the following morning, discounting Zopa, who was still in his lotus, or padmāsana, posture with his eyes closed beneath the plastic awning. I still couldn’t tell if he was in a state of deep meditation or a state of deep sleep. The night before we had tied up to a couple of trees along the bank fore and aft to stop the boat from swinging in the current. The river was two hundred yards across here with no beach to speak of, just sheer brush- and rock-covered walls on either side disappearing into the sky. It was cold, and I was stiff from sleeping upright against the chicken crates. I needed to move. I studied the wall. There was a branch overhanging the center of the boat, which I could easily reach by standing on the gunwale without rocking us too badly.

  I pulled myself up and started to climb. It felt great, and with all the roots, brush, and trees protruding from the wall, it was as easy as climbing a ladder. My plan was to climb for a few minutes and then come back down, but when I stopped to catch my breath and get a drink of water, I found that I was halfway up the wall. I could no longer see the boat through the thick foliage, and I didn’t hear anyone. Meals were noisy affairs. Captain Yama liked everyone eating at the same time and anchored the boat when we ate so he could join in the festivities. If he and his family were awake, there would be the clack and clatter of pots and pans, Tibetan chatter, and laughter. They were a cheerful family. I wondered if Zopa had told them that the PLA was after us.

  Every meal I’d shared with them had been at least an hour long, which gave me plenty of time to reach the top of the wall and get back down before they were ready to weigh anchor. I continued up. It was like climbing a rock wall and a tree at the same time. The view from the top of the wall was a little disappointing, because there were other rock walls beyond it that were even taller. It was the same situation on the other side of the river. Spire after spire of towering green pinnacles for as far as I could see. Below, the river serpentined like a giant water snake. I couldn’t see more than a mile in either direction before a sharp bend blocked my view. But I did see the sun glint off something downriver. At first I couldn’t figure out what it was, but then I heard a familiar sound echoing through the narrow canyon.

  It was a low-flying helicopter threading its way along the river, painted in camouflage, with a red star near the tail. Military. PLA. It passed below me, then slowed to a stop and hovered directly above Captain Yama’s boat. I was close enough to see the men in the cockpit. Shek was in the right seat looking down at the boat with a pair of binoculars. Several men were in the seats behind him. If any of them had looked up they would have seen me. I was no more than thirty feet away with my arms wrapped around a small tree so the rotor wash didn’t peel me off the pinnacle. I hoped Josh and Zopa were hiding under the awning. But luckily, there was nowhere to land. The helicopter continued hovering for two or three minutes, then continued winding its way upriver.

  I climbed down as quick as I could, gashing my arms and legs in several places before I finally dropped to the deck. Everyone was up now, including Zopa. He was talking to Captain Yama and Yangchen, all of them laughing about something as if the helicopter had never been there. Josh was sitting on the gunwale with his pants rolled up and his feet dangling in the water.

  “Wow,” he said casually. “You got a little torn up. How far did you go?”

  “To the top,” I said. “Shek was in the cockpit.”

  “We figured. Did the chopper see you?”

  I shook my head. “They only had eyes for you.”

  “I bet. Zopa and I stayed under the awning. Someone in Bāyī, or along the river, must have told them we were aboard Yama’s boat. It was bound to happen. They are good at interrogation.” He pointed at his face with a smile. He looked better this morning.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Follow Zopa’s lead. When I woke up, he was standing in the stern, looking downriver. I wondered what he was doing until I heard the chopper in the distance. He must have known it was coming. We’re safe enough for now. There’s no place for them to land for miles. We’ll know more after those three are finished gabbing. What’s it like on top?”

  “A maze of spires. Easy climb, but we’d have to do it a hundred times before we got out of here.”

  I took my shoes off and rolled up my pants, then joined him on the gunwale. The water felt good on my scratched legs, but it did little to calm me down.

  Zopa finished his conversation with Yama and Yangchen and walked over to us. I told him Shek was on the helicopter.

  Zopa shrugged. “There’s a lan
ding space sixteen kilometers upriver big enough for a helicopter. We’ll have to get off the boat before we get there. Yama will tell them that he dropped us off downriver yesterday before we reached this tributary. No use denying that we were ever on board. The PLA won’t like it, but it’s not against the law to give a ride to three trekkers. Yama and his family will be fine.”

  “I was just on top,” I said. “There’s no place to go from there.”

  “There is a valley four kilometers upriver. No worries. I will change my clothes.”

  * * *

  Captain Yama dropped us on a beach barely big enough for the three of us to stand on without getting our feet wet. The wall behind the little beach was completely covered with vines and brush. It was so tall we couldn’t see the top of it. Zopa gave Yama and his family a Buddhist blessing. Yama’s sons pushed the boat away from shore with long poles. The motor coughed to life.

  putt . . . putt . . . putt . . .

  The boat disappeared around a bend.

  “There is a trickle of water,” Zopa said, pointing down at the sand. “A stream.”

  It was hardly a stream, but there was a tiny flow of water making its way to the river. It was impossible to tell if it was bubbling up from the ground or if it was runoff from the wall. I followed it to its source, which was about three steps away from where I was standing. I squatted down, spread the thick foliage, and peered into dark tangle. A snake popped its head out and I fell backwards into the river.

  Josh and Zopa found this wildly amusing. I’m not afraid of snakes. We had rattlesnakes in our backyard when I was little. Mom’s philosophy was leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone. But I didn’t expect to see a snake in Tibet. They are rarely found above ten thousand feet. There are a lot of ways to die at high altitude, but snakebite is not usually one of them.