Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain (48 page)

If the lava chamber of Fumu is indeed that vast, then it follows logically that the eruption of Fumu eons before the Age of Man must have dispensed an absurd amount of lava from the Earth’s gut. The caldera we have been calling the Icy Bellows was formed when that eruption occurred. With the chamber’s contents spent, the land there collapsed, but not much. It could have theoretically fallen thousands of miles into the planet’s Inner Furnace. It did not. And therefore, the conclusion has to be that beneath the crumbly, airy crust of the Earth, at the spot where Fumu resides, for mile upon lonely mile, stretching downward into the Unknowable, there exists nothing at all. And with most of the mantle gone, Fumu is held in place by the gravitational force of something not much more impressive than an oversized cobblestone.

The effect of this situation upon gravity at the peak of Fumu should no longer be surprising to the reader…

Chapter Nineteen: The Locket

Inexplicably to them, Hoyt and Junk’s feet kept leaving the ground. The slightest tightening of a thigh muscle or twisting of the torso would send the men inches into the air. Even with the heavy oxygen tanks on their backs, they would float for fleeting moments. Perhaps if they had backpacks on like their Sherpa Chhiri Tendi, who was now lost to sight in the clouds and smoke, our heroes might have held their ground. But they were not afforded such a luxury. And their new predicament conspired to make their fighting tactics even more pathetic. Punches would miss one another entirely. A knee to the groin would cause the aggressor to stumble. In their exhaustion, they would often stop and collapse against each other like two spent boxers. Depending on how they started the collapse, they might hover above the ground, not touching down for seconds at a time, or they might spin. And when they did touch down, it was several feet lower on the mountainside. Due to the huge void beneath the mountain, the source of gravity was not straight below them, but off to the south a fraction. Should one or both of them continue to float without landing, they would slowly be pulled off the south side of the mountain.

But Hoyt and Junk continued to fight despite their exhaustion and these new laws of physics. They even found the energy to call each other names, like schoolchildren. They did this loudly enough to be heard through their masks by Chhiri Tendi off in the distance, over the din of the wind and lava eruptions.

“
Rake!”

“
Girl!”

“
Street urchin!”

“
Choir boy!”

“
Peasant!”

“
Dandy!”

Their fighting became weaker with each moment. The opponents mostly held each other for balance at this point, with a useless punch to the back coming every minute or so. Slight stumbles turned into brief, floating waltzes. They could no longer get enough breath from their oxygen tanks and their need for the precious gas was increasing with exertion. Their hearts were running out of steam. They were dying. That fact was of no concern to Hoyt or Junk. They had not enough energy to summit nor enough energy to descend. They would meet their end fighting and their bodies would be entwined in conflict for eternity.

The events that happened from this point onward have been clearly documented in the writings of someone whom I wish to keep nameless for the time being, for any mention of sources at this point would give away far too much. I beg the reader trust me that evidence exists to support the occurrences of all subsequent events herein. In fact, although I am not living at home – at least not for the foreseeable future – and a fraction of the source material is here with me in Kirkburton, I invite the reader to visit my summer cottage in Kingsbridge. My housekeeper Ms. Bane will gladly show you the musty stacks of ledgers, journals, and loose scribbling comprising the data supporting the book in your hands. They are on the desk in my study, piled as high as the mountains that are their subjects, bindings fading in the swath of sunlight kindling the room in early afternoon.

Hoyt and Junk were almost motionless now, occasionally slipping a few inches down the slope, tapping one another’s back in the stead of punching. Without immediate rest and shelter, everything would be over soon. An explosion of lava nearby sent small boiling droplets in their direction. The fiery liquid came to rest on the cheeks of Hoyt and the back of Junk’s wool hat. As an indicator of their states, the two did not scream nor jerk in response. They simply groaned and slowly fell down a ledge five feet in height, coming to rest on a patch of untainted snow. Because the patch lay in a slightly sunken position under the ledge, it was protected from the ravages of the weather and eruptions. This trivial feature of the landscape allowed for a pristine spot near Fumu’s summit that was allowed to be like other mountains in the Himalaya, snowy, cold, and devoid of fire.

But there was more to this spot begging description. When the two men came to rest a few feet down from the ledge and the axe in Junk’s belt pressed into the ice, a large chunk of it gave way. The collapse exposed a snow cave. Affording room for one large man or perhaps two small men, the cave lay just above them on the slope, a God-sent haven, there for recovery or at least peaceful expiration. Independently, and probably not thinking of the other, each man took their remaining strength and pulled themselves up into the cave, the task made easier by gravity’s impotence. But their way was blocked by two boots. Boots! Up here, near the top of the Earth! They were of an ancient, European construction, easily a half-century old, black, fastening along the sides, and rising enough to meet a climber’s knee. To add to the curiosity, they were attached to a body. Its upper portions were still obscured in the darkness of the cave. Junk and Hoyt would have to pull the fellow out of it if they wished to identify him and then use the cave for themselves.

The task was simple. They pulled on the stiff legs and the body floated out as if on rollers. Time had been kind to this corpse. It was unmistakably George Malick, a giant of the climbing world, a contemporary of other giants Graham and Mummery, lost in Fumu’s cloud sixty years earlier. Nonetheless, he was still looking like the dashing man Hoyt and Junk had seen in daguerreotypes; strong jaw, conversation-stopping moustache, and eyes that had not lost their intensity even though clouded by death. Most bodies found in the Himalaya are ravaged by extreme conditions, with clothing torn off and skin bleached as white as the surrounding snow. But the wind, fire, and ice had not been given the opportunity to desecrate Malick’s noble bearing. His skin had certainly whitened, and the hair on his face and head had grown unrestrained
post mortem
, silver beard hiding his scarf and bushy moustache obscuring his mouth, but he was otherwise well-preserved in his frigid tomb. His dated clothing was immaculate for a gentleman lost in such a terrible place. The dark loden coat fit him handsomely. His wide-brimmed hat sat atop his overgrown locks and proudly retained its unmarred feather. No oxygen tank or mask was to be found. His climb had preceded such technology, the hearty bastard. Adding to the body’s stately mien was its pose. Malick died as if prepared for the end, body straight as a church pew, legs perfectly aligned, and mitts folded neatly upon the lapels of his coat.

Junk and Hoyt were not paying attention to one another any more. They were both in awe of this great adventurer who had come before them. Had he reached the top? Were they too late? With torn, wet mitts and yet another internal store of energy discovered, Hoyt pulled himself up into the cave and grasped Malick’s pack, which had for years stood upright at the head of the body like a gravestone. Shamelessly rifling through the contents without consideration of respect for the deceased, Hoyt found Malick’s writings. Nothing in the desperate penmanship suggested he had reached the top. It seems Malick had become lost before he could claim victory.

Glowing red ejecta passed through the sky over Aaron Junk’s head, illuminating a shiny object clasped in the corpse’s mitts. Forcing apart the folded hands, the two men gazed at the ancient totem now slowly spinning and floating on a chain extending from Junk’s glove. It was a locket. Junk opened it.

Inside, resting under cracked glass was the faded daguerreotype of a child. By the looks of him, he had been no more than five years of age when the bulb flashed and smoked. The lad sported a blond bob, a smile capable of calming the heart, and dimples big enough to shame the crevasses of Fumu. He sported the black shirt and
starched white collar
of a British
independent
school student of the
late 19
^th
century.
One could almost hear the child squirming in his chair, trying to hold his pose while George Malick and his wife – smiling but out of frame – assured the child the torture would be over soon. The dear thing. One can only hope he was subsequently treated to a handful of black licorice.

The effect of the image upon our heroes was immediate. Junk let the locket go and it floated off with the wind. The men looked into each other’s eyes and held one another’s gaze for what must have been minutes. Their thoughts did not need expression as they were likely in perfect synchrony.
How could they account for a mountain climber’s joy as he walks through empty cold space thousands of feet in the air and countless miles from family, home, and hearth? Masochism? Sociopathy? The query leaves them baffled. If there had been an answer at some time, it escaped them now.

Despite any mutual hatred still coursing through their hearts, the two men had stopped fighting and now were racing to take refuge in the cave, wishing to recover some energy in order to climb down. That is correct. They would climb down or die in the process. But first, rest. They gave Malick’s body a light shove-off and it bounced down the southern slope like a child’s half-inflated balloon. Then it was gone over the cliffs on the Southern Face. With the opening of the cave free and clear, they scrambled up into it and covered most of the aperture with snow.

Not one hour later, enclosed in the cave, Junk and Hoyt were now freezing to death. Each noted in their hardly legible journal entries that the other’s skin had turned pale. Sleepiness overwhelmed them. One would awaken for a moment and shake the other to get the blood moving again. During one of these spasms of activity, a decision was made, and it was a decision that could not have been easy for either man. Since neither had a bivouac sack, the only way to keep warm was to hold one another. For survival, of course. Strictly for survival. Who actually proposed the awkward plan is unclear. Who moved first to initiate the embrace is also unknown. But it is a certainty that over the next several hours, Aaron Junk and William Hoyt found warmth in each other’s arms. The oxygen tanks they wore on their backs precluded them from facing the same direction. We can therefore surmise that the shivering men embraced facing each other. Heads on each other’s shoulders, floating, spinning, and gently deflecting off of icy walls, they danced a sad minuet to the music of muted catastrophe that was all around them. Nevertheless, they danced this sad minuet together.

Chapter Twenty: The Summit

“
Yak shit” says Chhiri Tendi when I bring up Hoyt and Junk’s time in the cave together. “Their recollections of reawakening? Wild, comical yak shit from two men who had more access to Eleanor Roosevelt’s bloomers than they had to their own feelings.”

Chhiri Tendi’s wife, the lovely old girl, has brought us more tea. Chhiri Tendi sips it and after a delayed swallow accompanied by closed, savouring eyes, opens them and looks at me. “How can I be so certain their recollections are fanciful yak shit? Easy. I was the one who found the two bulshitters, and their response to me was – well – let’s just say it was in character. Sure, they started out warm and joyful. But that lasted only up to a point.”

Retreating down the mountain in search of high camp, Chhiri Tendi stumbled over the small ledge hiding the snow cave. The well-prepared, always professional Sherpa had a pack on his back and so had enough gravity to actually “fall.” Upon coming to rest on the roof of the snow cave, it broke open and Chhiri Tendi saw the sahibs within. “They floated around like pickles in brine” Chhiri Tendi relayed.

Seeing they were mortally drained, Chhiri Tendi used the shelter of the ledge to block the wind and light his small cooker. Within minutes he had melted enough snow to make tea for the others. He gave Hoyt and Junk breaths from his oxygen mask and covered their frozen hands with blankets, also strapping heavy items from his pack to their backs so they would stop floating and migrating south: folded up tents, jugs of water, cans of food, and so forth. As the men sipped their tea and ate some chocolate from Chhiri Tendi’s pocket, one of them – Chhiri Tendi did not catch which – muttered “Thank you” loud enough to be heard over the eruptions and wind. Then Hoyt, using slurred words, assured Chhiri Tendi a handsome raise when they got back to civilization. He even went on to apologize to Chhiri Tendi for hiring him for this vanity mission. That the whole damned thing was a mistake and that lives were lost due to him and Junk was too much for Hoyt to stomach. The seated Hoyt touched Chhiri Tendi’s knee to ensure he had the Sherpa’s attention. Looking up into Chhiri Tendi’s eyes, he said with great intensity, “Life, real life, populated with people and compassion, awaits us down the mountain.”

Our heroes rallied thanks to Chhiri Tendi. They were sitting up and their eyes no longer rolled in their heads. Sadly, their faces were dappled in frostbite and Hoyt would possibly have to lose his nose when (or if) he made it down. But for now the two men had some of their strength back and Hope returned as it had so often on this voyage, likely to disappear again with the Ship of Destiny’s next jibe.