Under Everest Read online

  Nima had excused herself to step outside and work through the impossibilities she had witnessed. The wind pushed clouds across the moon, casting Everest’s massive south face in darkness. Standing in shadow, Nima’s heart waged a battle with her mind.

  A Yeti! It had been right in front of her, and it had been no fantasy creature, no mythical story of her grandfather. She had grabbed onto its damp white fur, smelled its musty breath. Looked into its eyes and witnessed the intelligence behind them. It had goals and fears, its gaze had been full of them.

  Six climbers had gone missing in the past several weeks and Nima was now sure the Yeti was at the heart of the abductions. Wanda would have made seven.

  Yet Nima had seen the care with which the creature had handled Wanda, protecting her from the icy wind. There was more to this than just monster stories told to scare children as her mother once had.

  Snow crunched behind her, the sound of someone running down the darkened alleys between the tents of the makeshift village. Nima whirled, her nerves still on edge, her legs and arms tensed and ready to react.

  Her brother Pasang stood before her, chest heaving. His bright orange knit cap pulled so low his dark eyes were almost hidden, but she saw the fear there. He glanced left and right as he struggled to catch his breath. A full head taller than her, he was still two years younger and looked every bit of it to his big sister.

  “What is it, Kakuli?” she asked, hoping her pet name for Pasang might calm him. “What is wrong?”

  He looked down at her, the whites of his eyes widening in the dim light, his teeth gritted, cheeks flushed. “Jang.”

  The name, pushed out with a gasp, was enough to send fresh chills up Nima’s spine. There were still questions, but now more was clear. She now knew where her brother had been running from, with good reason.

  Oh, Pasang.

  “I told you to stay away from Jang!” She stabbed her finger into her brother’s face. His eyes stared down at her.

  Realizing how her actions made her look like Ama, she quickly dropped her hand, the heat rising to her cheeks. Her mother had taught her lessons she was still trying to forget.

  “I have everything under control,” Nima said, taking a breath. “This woman, this client, is going to give us the money. Then Jang will be paid. You didn’t need to do anything. What did you do anyway?”

  Pasang took a step back from her, his stare shifting from fear to a passion she recognized.

  “Jang isn’t just about us you know,” he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his orange down coat. He was gripping something in there, she could see it. “Even if we pay off Jang, he still owns half the village. He still owns villagers all through the valley and―”

  Nima put up her hand, looking up into Pasang’s flushed face. Those were Drew’s words as much as her brother’s.

  Pasang’s head whipped around as he looked over his shoulder into the dark alleys behind him. A laugh echoed through the night air, but it was only the revelry inside Dorjee’s.

  “Okay, Pasang. Yes. You’re right.”

  He was right. But Pasang wanted to climb the whole mountain at once. Nima felt a mixture of passion and shame. She wanted to do more than just protect her father’s farm, yet Jang’s hold seemed so vast, too much for someone as small as her. The Polish woman inside Dorjee’s would at least get her the money to pay off Awa’s debts.

  “You are right, Pasang, but right now I need to know what you did. You were running, what did you take from him?”

  Her brother pulled his hands from his pockets. A small stack of papers was clutched amidst the torn fabric of his left glove.

  “They were in the back of his tent, locked up.” The hint of a smile crossed his lips, a tiny note of pride in his voice. “The lock wasn’t hard.”

  Nima could see letters and numbers in the dim light on the crumpled pages in Pasang’s shaking hand. She squinted at them though she knew it was a foolish gesture. Neither she nor Pasang could read, though Nima didn’t need to read the papers to understand their value. If Jang kept them locked up, they were important.

  Maybe important enough to bargain with. A backup plan should the money not be enough to satisfy their tormentor.

  “Did anyone see you?” Nima asked, hoping for an answer she knew was unlikely.

  “Shamsher,” he whispered, nodding, giving the name almost as strong a mixture of fear and reverence as he had Jang’s. He looked over his shoulder again, shuffling from one foot to the next.

  Nima bit her bottom lip as she thought. Shamsher was Sherpa, the only member of Jang’s group who seemed to be from the local area. The rest of Jang’s men seemed to be Nepali, like Jang himself. Shamsher was big and scary, but Nima rarely saw him act on his own. He likely went straight to Jang rather than chase after Pasang. That bought them a little time. Maybe just enough time to set things right.

  She gripped Pasang by the shoulders and he steadied a bit. She tried to show him strength, she hoped he found safety in his trust of his older sister.

  “Okay, listen to me, Kikuli. Take the west path out of Gorak Shep and head toward our camp by the Icefall. If you see anyone following you, come back here and find me. Otherwise get to the camp and we will be there before sunrise.”

  Nima said a quick prayer to Chomolungma that their Polish client would be willing to leave immediately despite what she had been through. If they were still in Gorak Shep by morning, Jang would likely get to them.

  Pasang nodded, the worry still clear in his eyes.

  “Don’t worry about Jang,” Nima said, turning her brother around and giving him a shove. “He’s going to come here. He won’t go to the Khumbu looking for you.”

  “I don’t see why he would, but okay.” Pasang said, already running down the alley. “Stay safe, Nima. For me, and for Awa.”

  She watched as his orange jacket faded into the cold dark of the approaching evening. He ducked behind another tent and was gone.

  Nima turned back to the flapped entrance of Dorjee’s. Jang would be here soon, she had no doubt of that. She had to get back inside and push thoughts of magical Yetis and their dangers not only out of her own head, but her client’s. They had to move tonight.

  She slid the tent flap open, the light and smoke buffeting her as she worked her way through the crowd. Her heart pounded in her chest, her fists clenched.

  Seeing Drew and Wanda sitting at a table toward the back of the tent, she tried and failed to keep her fears in check. There was a magical Yeti in the Khumbu and a murderous warlord on the way.

  Nima could feel the ice breaking underneath their feet; darkness waiting to swallow them all.

  She would have to be one step faster than the cracks.

  November 1, 1951

  Dorjee’s Tent, Gorak Shep

  Nima picked at the hot thukpa in her bowl. Dorjee made the best thukpa she had tasted in the province, even better than her mother’s. Normally, she’d stare at the stew as she ate it, a bad habit Pasang loved to tease her about. Nima liked to swish the noodles around and watch the effect the movement had on the vegetables. She found it comforting, and as a child it had been something beyond Ama to focus on.

  Tonight, too much else needed her attention. Even Dorjee’s thukpa could not compete.

  Drew sat next to Nima, an empty bowl of thukpa in front of him. Likely Dorjee would be by soon to bring him more. Drew’s surprising love of her people’s food was one of the many things about her American friend Nima found interesting.

  She kept her primary focus on the front of the tent. Drew had wisely steered them through the evening crowd to a small table in the back, a corner as dark as it was noisy. All around them, Sherpa and a few scattered Westerners ate, drank, smoked, and made a general ruckus. A usual night in Dorjee’s. Normally the place gave her a headache, but tonight it was the perfect cover.

  If Jang came looking for them, he would have to come through the front. That would give them time to react. In the meantime, she and Drew were w
orking through Wanda’s astonishing request, with Drew taking the lead.

  “Do you realize the gravity of what you’re asking? Just passing through the Khumbu Icefall is all but impossible. To say nothing of Everest beyond it.”

  Nima watched Drew turn the small notebook over in his hands as he questioned Wanda again. His hands shook as he flipped through its pages, his eyes bouncing from the book to the front of the tent. Jang was on his mind, too.

  Next to Wanda was her new companion, a British man who had been waiting for them at Dorjee’s when they arrived. Wanda had introduced him as Carter Bruce, a friend of her late father. A few flecks of white peppered the man’s wiry brown beard, but his lined face and thinning gray hair suggested to Nima he was older. Old enough to be her own father, though he was much healthier looking than her Awa.

  Wanda was rubbing her sore leg with one hand while drumming her fingers on the table with the other. Nima could tell by her scowl the woman did not like Drew leafing through her book, nor did she seem to appreciate Nima’s repeated attempts to peek into her pack to see what other mysteries might be in there.

  Nima felt justified in looking at their client with suspicion. Wanda had told them little about who they were searching for before the Yeti incident. It was strange she had not revealed until now it was her father. Nima could not imagine why she would hide that.

  The woman leaned into the table, plucked the book from Drew’s hands, and thrust it back into the satchel at her side. “The Icefall is difficult but possible, no?” Wanda said. “Is it not true the British party did navigate the Khumbu just last week? The Shipton team?”

  It was true, the maze of the treacherous Khumbu glacier had been navigated for the first time the previous week. Nima and Pasang had made friends with many of the Sherpa on the Shipton expedition, the excitement of the accomplishment passing through the tent city of Gorak Shep like a brush fire. Nima had expected to hear the team had made Everest’s summit, but in the end Chomolungma had denied them as she had so many others.

  Would the goddess be more accepting of her, Nima wondered, should she set foot upon her surface? Perhaps the Yeti was the mountain’s guardian, intended to keep those away that Chomolungma did not approve of.

  “The Icefall is not all of the mountain,” Nima said. “Even if the path is clear, Chomolungma will have many more perils to offer.”

  “If I may,” Carter said. “Worry about the mountain itself is a bit premature. Henryk’s book here indicates he found what he sought near this Icefall. Perhaps he did not go past it.”

  “Yet you will not say what he was looking for,” Drew said, scowling at the pair across the table, his irritation plain. Nima was annoyed as well, but she needed them, so she remained quiet.

  “Whatever you are looking for,” Nima said, “Drew’s worry about the mountain makes sense. Guiding you in the valley is not the same.”

  Carter laughed, slapping the large leather pack that sat next to his chair with enthusiasm. “Valid concerns, young miss. Thus, I have brought additional climbing equipment to deal with the mountain’s perils, purchased with a stipend from Miss Dobrowolski’s father, from the best shop in Kathmandu. Very high quality, I’m most impressed.”

  “Such as?” Drew said, spreading his hands wide. “Do you have something to deal with the cold? The lack of oxygen? Avalanches and crevasses? Taking two unskilled climbers―”

  “This is not Mister Bruce’s first mountain, nor mine.” Wanda’s voice was low and measured, designed, Nima suspected, to be hard for the other tables to hear.

  “Other mountains are not Everest,” Nima’s said, her tone grim.

  Wanda nodded, continuing as if Nima’s warning had no impact on her.

  “Of course,” Wanda said. “To continue, my father sent this man a letter similar to the one I received. It was apparently his wish that Mister Bruce accompany us.”

  “Wishes on his deathbed, as it were. As if he knew the end was coming when he sent them,” Carter said. “Poor Henryk. To think of him buried in snow somewhere out there . . . Still, I’m bound by our long friendship to follow his wishes.”

  Drew leaned back in his chair with a sigh. He gave Nima a quick, questioning glance before looking back at Wanda. Did he want her opinion, or her permission?

  “You’re asking us to take an awful lot on faith here,” Drew said.

  The Polish woman shook her head, her fire-red hair shaking into her face. “I’m not asking you to, Mister Adley. I’m paying you to.”

  “I apologize Miss Dobrowolski, Mister Bruce,” Drew said. “It’s just more than a little . . . incredible.”

  “No more so than the . . . snow-man you say was my captor.” Wanda said.

  “Yeti,” Nima corrected, taking another quick glance back toward the front of the tent. “It was a Yeti.”

  “I think we can agree we live in a changing world,” Carter cut in, his heavy British accent much more familiar to Nima than Wanda’s lilting Polish one. “Atoms being split, radar waves, rockets to space. I can accept these mysteries of Wanda’s father’s, as well as your . . . Yeti . . . young miss.”

  Wanda peered past Drew and stared directly at Nima, holding her gaze. Nima wanted to check the front of the tent again for Jang, but something about the fire in the woman’s stare would not let her look away.

  “The question is to you, Nima. Will you take me to the mountain or not?”

  Nima held the woman’s gaze in return, trying to remember that just an hour earlier Wanda had been thrown over the shoulder of a myth, a legend. Now she was asking Nima to agree to another impossibility.

  “Surely the decision is Mister Adley’s isn’t it?” Carter scoffed, indicating Drew with his hand.

  “No,” Nima and Drew said in unison, drawing a grin from Drew. Nima felt a brief swell of pride and appreciation that despite being a few years older and male, he deferred the choice to her. Drew had proven himself to be a skilled climber in his own right, but she and Pasang were the Sherpa after all. These mountains were their home, and she was the older sister; twenty to Pasang’s seventeen. It was her decision.

  Nima stood, walking behind her chair and placing her hands upon it so one could see them shake, and Nima did not want Wanda to see how nervous she was. Everything might depend on this, as crazy as the idea sounded.

  Climbing on Everest. In winter. She didn’t have to wonder what Ama would say, were she alive.

  “I will need a minute to talk with Drew,” Nima said. Without waiting for a reply, she walked away from the table to one of the less crowded corners of the tent. A few scattered patrons still huddled with their drinks, but they were more interested in each other than whatever a small Sherpa woman would have to say to a Westerner.

  Drew was right behind her; she didn’t have to look to know he was there. Over the past several months she and Drew had built a comfort between each other that before she had only shared with Pasang. In a short time they had become brother and sister in all but blood.

  She took a breath and turned to face hi. She saw the mix of worries crossing his face like snow drifting in the wind. It made her feel a bit safer that he worried about her so.

  Even if she was likely to dismiss most of his concerns.

  Drew hadn’t been able to talk to her since they had rescued Wanda. After a brief word of thanks, the woman had been frantic with excitement since checking her father’s journal, nearly dragging Nima down Kala Patthar and into Dorjee’s.

  Time was short, so she preempted Drew’s first question before he could ask it.

  “Drew, I’m fine. Nothing broken, nothing bruised.” She watched his concern ratchet down a bit. “Right now, you’re worried about this idea of Wanda’s. That it’s crazy.”

  “Well, it is crazy!” Drew said with a laugh. “This isn’t just about getting through the Khumbu Icefall in the winter―”

  “Which you know can be done,” Nima interrupted. “The Shipton people did it just last week. I’m sure their path is mostly still th
ere.” If she didn’t add mostly then Drew would have. The Khumbu, being a glacier, would have moved by now, but Nima was hopeful that a route would still be present.

  “Fine, it can be done. By trained climbers and experienced Sherpa, Nima.” He waved his hands at her. “But hey, you and Pasang are great climbers, I’m not arguing that. But past the Khumbu? Up the Lhoste face and maybe further onto Everest itself? In the winter? Yeah, that’s damn crazy!”

  “You’re saying you won’t go?”

  “You know I’ll go if you say we’re going, little sister. That’s not the point. The point is―”

  “The point is, this will let me pay off Jang. No more looking over my shoulder for Jang and his men. No more winters for my father worrying about losing the farm. Maybe even pay for schooling for Pasang.”

  Drew pointed over at Wanda and Carter, now huddled over the table and talking in just as animated a fashion as she and Drew were.

  “We’ve been here six months and she’s the only one who’s given us one rupee. The weather says we’ve got two clear days and nights starting tomorrow. I don’t trust this woman, but we can’t afford to pass this up.”

  Drew frowned. “I don’t trust her either. There’s a lot they’re not telling us. Maybe there’s more to this, but it sounds impossible. And like the old man said, there’s been a lot of impossible lately.”

  Nima reached up, putting her hand on Drew’s shoulder. “Look, I understand if you don’t want to come. Don’t go out of some debt to me―”

  “You saved my life in that crevasse,” he said, shaking his head.

  “You would have saved mine. If you go, do it because you want to. But Pasang and I are going, and we’re going tonight.”

  Nima sighed. It was already getting close to midnight. They had a lot of work to do if they were going to be ready at the Icefall before dawn. She didn’t want to try working through the ice once the sun started to hit it.

  She watched the emotions on Drew’s face; the concern and worry, the planning and thinking of all that could go wrong. Slowly they gave way to the smile she had hoped for.