Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain (53 page)

“
Twas beauty killed the beast.” The code words were not uttered by Gary Cooper, but by some other half-remembered swarthy scoundrel from
The Souls At Sea
. The pirate mumbled in broken English, “Captain Cooper sorry, not here for return trip.” Apparently months back, Cooper had wanted to sneak into Los Angeles for the premiere of “Sergeant York” but had missed it in order to get Junk and his team to India. He was not going to allow the return trip to get in his way a second time; he was currently sneaking into Los Angeles for the premiere of his hero’s follow up film “Ball of Fire.” That it co-starred Barbara Stanwyck only trebled the temptation for the captain. The last time the shipmates had seen Captain Cooper, it was just after dusk off the coast of Malibu and they were lowering him and his young lady friend into a rowboat. He was dressed in an immaculately fitted dinner jacket and she in a glittering formal gown many sizes too large for her frame. We cannot be certain whether they were able to sneak into the premiere that night, but according to the following day’s Los Angeles Times, “an unidentified oriental man” was arrested for creating a public disturbance after offering Ms. Stanwyck a negligee “for later” and then punching out Gary Cooper when the actor came to her aid. The remainder of the captain’s life is a mystery.

The sun was setting as Junk paid off the temporary captain for the extra passengers. He also paid the remaining porters and Sherpa and let them go, thanking them profoundly for their assistance. When it came time to bid Chhiri Tendi farewell, Junk kept it light and to the point. “You’re a top-shelf Sherpa, Mr. Tendi” he said. “I hope our paths cross again. If you’re ever in the States, pay me a visit.” Little did Junk know his offhanded remark would in fact come to pass.

When the time came several hours later for the ship to cast off, River Leaf was nowhere to be found. Literally tons of climbing equipment had been stowed away. The passengers were waiting on deck. The sailors were playing cards and yelling at each other. In a manner rather patrician, the temporary captain threatened Junk: “Five minutes and we leave without her.” Junk was beside himself. He barked out orders to everyone. “Search the docks! Check the bars! We can’t leave without her!” The investigations turned up nothing. River Leaf had held to her declaration on the mountain; she was going to have a try living in India. The ship cast off two hours behind schedule at roughly 11 p.m. Standing at the stern, watching the lights of Calcutta disappear down the Hooghly, Junk was silent. He wrote in his journal later that night, “Hoyt was my enemy, my son, and in the end, for less than a day, my dear friend. When he died, much of my motivation for living went with him. But then she was my hope. I could again be driven by someone outside of myself, and this time, for the right reasons. Not for vengeance or wrath, but for love. Now she’s gone too…the greatest woman…no…the greatest person I’ve ever met. And I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to either of them.” That was the last entry in Junk’s journal from the expedition. Not the high note one would have hoped for.

The voyage home was uneventful despite the war going on all around them. The captain chose a route through the Indian Ocean, south around the African continent, and then northwest to Chappaquiddick. The risk inherent in this route had been the hurricane season, but they were spared any such cosmic mischief. McGee took up vomiting again. Junk joylessly played cards with the crew. Thornton kept to himself and read books from Cooper’s library; predominantly a collection of primers on film making, the Kama Sutra, and German military weaponry. Chatham remained in his bed the entire journey, saying little to anyone. As it would turn out, Chatham would stay ill for the remainder of his short life. His adventures were over, save occasional nurse-assisted outings to the loo. His body never recovered from the excessive damage dealt by Fumu, save one exception. His mouth fully rebounded by the time he was situated in his home in Dallas. He would spend the next three years torturing his nurses with seemingly infinite tales of cannibalism, lava, and crazed yaks, all of which the nurses passed off as the ravings of a madman. He finally succumbed to his wounds in the spring of 1945, mid-sentence.

Thornton would return to Columbia University to continue his linguistics work. At one point he attempted to write a book about the Fumu expedition, but Junk came after him and threatened him with physical violence should he do it. Everyone else had gotten the word, why not him? Junk wanted absolutely no written or verbal dissemination of what had happened. Junk would tell a few famed climbers about Fumu, and that was to be the extent of it. All of the deceased and missing were to be declared lost on either Hoyt or Junk’s respective (and completely fabricated) Alaska or British Columbia expeditions. Families would also be told their loved ones “fell nobly” protecting the others from bear attack. In this way, they would all be left with a sense of pride and with very little motivation to go looking for a body. Thornton never published his book and continued to live the lie like every other expedition member.

The
Souls At Sea
arrived in Chappaquiddick on the evening of December 10
^th
, 1941. These weary, battered men were done waging their own war and now returned to find their nation just beginning its own. A sour welcome home to be sure. The world spiraling out of control around them must have been difficult to piece together. Was it all real, or was it some nightmare of the recent past working its way into waking life? Regardless of whether the disturbance was made of whole cloth or the gossamer thread of dreams, it would remain in their lives for another four sad, uncertain years.

Junk and McGee returned to Boston and – after surgery to remove four of Junk’s fingers and four toes - more or less continued their lives as if nothing had happened. They were given odd looks at parties, Junk due to his hobbling about on a cane, always favoring his left foot, and both of them due to their cracked and burnt faces. But that was about the extent of the differences as compared to before the journey. Legitimate and questionable business concerns alike flourished thanks to an infusion of cash from both Junk and McGee. Only a half year previous, many of these businesses had been on the brink of insolvency, but now their real estate holdings company, their craps games, their chain of department stores, their protection rackets, all of them thrived. So actually, that was another difference from before. Junk and McGee could still be seen out and about, attending parties, gambling at their own establishments, running meetings with shareholders and the like. But Junk’s spoke less now, choosing to hold his tongue unless some dialogue was absolutely required. When he did speak, his voice had lost its stentorian punch. The old Junk could only be heard was when he was inebriated and cornering some young filly at a bar; in other words, every night at around eleven. His savage hunger for women had escalated since their return. McGee rarely saw his friend after midnight. And then in the late morning, he would see his friend again, often wearing the same clothing as the night before and a look of utter detachment. None of these women ever appeared with Junk in broad daylight. Come to think of it, almost everything had changed since their return from Fumu.

Not long after their return came the day Junk had dreaded for over a month. He took a train from Boston’s South Station to New York’s Pennsylvania Station. The cab ride to the Upper East Side must have been horrid; nerves like a muddy bog in the stomach, awareness of looming unpleasantries, and the only solace the promise of a stiff drink on the other side. He arrived at Wizzy’s flat late in the afternoon. “She answered the door in her nightgown, just before dinner” Junk wrote to McGee. “Her nightgown, McGee. She may as well have been wearing a black dress and veil.” Wizzy did not greet him graciously. She did not invite him in. “She wasn’t looking at my eyes, but a few inches beyond my eyes. She saw it already. She knew before I even told her. But I had to tell her anyway. It was more difficult to relay Hoyt’s death to his widow than it had been for me to experience Hoyt’s death firsthand. She punched the door the way a female punches things. She simultaneously gave out a wail like I have never heard before. Then she just stood there, hands cupped over her face, crying.” Junk tried to put a comforting hand on her shoulder but she recoiled immediately.

Junk had time to say only a few things before the door was slammed in his face. “We were friends before the end, Mrs. Hoyt. He told me to tell you he loves you and the boys and that he made a mistake leaving. I certainly understand if you never forgive me. And being his wife, it makes sense if you never forgive him. But as a fellow climber, as the one who introduced him to his mistress in the first place, please forgive him.” Whether she did or did not, we cannot know.

Wizzy held a memorial for her husband. Few attended other than his family and several business associates who had something to gain from their appearance. No mountain climbers. No fellow church congregants. Eulogies steered clear of reviewing Hoyt’s demise given that no one was quite sure what had actually happened. Wizzy would not speak of it and the rumour going about was that he had been killed by a bear in northern Canada. Junk stayed away from the services out of respect for Wizzy. McGee lurked in the back for reconnaissance purposes, holding his hat in one hand and blowing his bulbous, pink nose with the other.

All around was war; sibling rivalry writ large. Gun barrels ripe with fire aimed at the skies. Windows blackened at night. Materials of all kinds hoarded. Air-raid sirens at the ready. Bonds offered up as a benefaction to the gods of war. A whole generation of young men noticeably absent from the streets and parks and churches. So was the state of things as the Year of Our Lord 1942 came into being. Every new day could bring the End. The city of Boston was no different than the rest of the world. It was well known German submarines lurked only miles away in the Atlantic and possibly even in the harbour. Every heart, mind, and tongue was busy conjuring images of ruin.

But for Junk, the End was a mere formality. His actions in this world were already meaningless. He wandered the land like a wraith. While most around him feared the
curtain coming down for the last time
, Junk was already backstage removing his makeup.

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Joy of the End

- Luther Standing Bear

VJ-Day found most Americans ecstatic to the point of kissing nurses. Champagne was uncorked not just to mark victory over the Forces of Evil, but also to celebrate the birth of the world’s newest empire. The United States was a young, strong native who had just proved himself to the rest of the tribe by slaying the monster in the jungle. He had not just killed the beast; he had flensed it and raped it, in that order. No one dared challenge him, not even his father. The future looked splendid for the American people.

But not all American people were well. Aaron Junk was miserable, and that feeling continued well after the war. Fourteen years after Fumu and one decade after the end of World War Two, Junk’s spirit was still dead. The problem is that a man’s spirit can only feign death for so long before his body follows suit. And so it was with Aaron Junk. In 1953, after repeated complaints of utter exhaustion and multiple visits to the doctor’s office, he was diagnosed with acute leukaemia. There was no time to waste. Using every ounce of leverage at his disposal, McGee got Junk in to see Dr. Sydney Farber at Harvard. Dr. Farber did not mince words; aggressive radiation treatment must begin within days and even then, the chances of survival past a few months were slim. Although Junk was ready to give up, McGee demanded his oldest friend fight to the end. “The odds aren’t in my favor” Junk said to McGee. “With a hand like this, I think it best I just quietly fold.”

Only one day after Junk received the grim news, a long distance call came in from Kathmandu. McGee answered the phone. It was Chhiri Tendi. “McGee!” he bellowed into the phone. “The fattest, ugliest woman I ever met! I’m moving to the United States! What are your thoughts on
those
apples?” It had been a dream of Chhiri Tendi’s since he was a young man. Porting paper and guiding mountaineering expeditions had become tiresome and now that his hair was graying and his body slowing down, he wished to take his savings (much of it coming from the “allowance” of Fumu’s lava tubes) and try his luck in the Land of Opportunity. But alas, Chhiri Tendi’s excitement was quickly extinguished when McGee told him the news about Junk. Chhiri Tendi ended the call abruptly, saying he would make his way stateside sooner than planned.

The chain of rapid events continued, for not twenty-four hours after hearing from Chhiri Tendi, another call came in from Asia, this time from Darjeeling. McGee handed the phone to his ailing friend, suggesting he may want to take this one personally. McGee recalls, “He had trouble handling the phone and his ‘hello’ was pretty much a whisper.”

It was River Leaf.

Junk rallied. His cheeks filled with color. The old glimmer of a warm-hearted rogue appeared in his eyes. He sat upright in his chair and his voice returned to its meaty bass register. He unloaded a staccato succession of questions as if his mouth was a Gatling gun. Where was she? What was she doing with her life? Why had she stayed in India? But most importantly, could she please visit him? He wished to say goodbye to her face to face. As one might expect of this stoic Sioux, her responses were short and to the point. Indeed, she was disappointed with Junk’s decision not to rescue his friend high up on Fumu years earlier, but McGee had convinced her the decision made sense to all but her and was therefore not completely cowardly. She continued, “But don’t be so arrogant, Aaron, as to think I would stay in Asia just because of you and my anger toward you. No. I stayed because I wanted to stay, because I did not want to return to the country that was slowly destroying my people. I wanted to start over. And I had spent my entire life doing what had been required of me by others. Wherever the current led, I went without complaint. I was done with that. Now I
am
the current.”