As they were loading up and getting on the motorcycles, Maxence glanced over Dree’s winter gear she’d brought from Paris. She appeared to be wearing ski clothes, like a bib and a jacket, all filled with thick down and seeming to be water-resistant, and her boots came up well over her ankles.
It was red and white, practically a diamond checkerboard like his tattoo on his forearm, and Max wondered if Father Moses had done that on purpose.
Good, he’d been worried about her.
When he’d summoned the private plane, he’d had his winter gear packed and loaded, and thus he’d retrieved it when they got to Nepal. Maxence was well kitted out in black leather winter motorcycle gear and boots, as were the rest of the guys because they’d had time to plan and pack for this contingency, too.
Batsa consulted the innkeepers about the best route to the first village they planned to visit, a tiny settlement in the hills that was not too far away. He seemed confident as he led the caravan of six motorcycles out of town.
They sped under a square arch that had been painted red. The city’s name was painted on the top in white, and Hindu religious symbols were inscribed down the sides. Once out of town, they opened the throttles and sped out into the countryside.
Maxence herded Dree’s motorcycle to take the second position behind Batsa, where he could keep an eye on her. She rode the bike very well, leaning into the turns and keeping up with Batsa easily.
After about an hour, the paved street ended, and the rest of the way was a gravelly dirt road clinging to the sides of the mountains. The noise of their motorcycle engines thundered on the sheer rock walls to their left and blasted into the empty air over the straight drop down to rivers winding between the mountains on their right.
In the warm seasons, these steep valleys would be lush.
In the winter just before Christmas, however, the dead scrub revealed the rock walls and fallen stones of the landscape.
With the motorcycle growling between his legs and the wind rushing over the padded leather he wore, Maxence fell into a rhythm of watching Dree and Batsa ahead of him. He drove slowly to steer around fallen boulders that had clattered down the mountain and hadn’t quite made it across the road to plummet down the cliff on the other side.
When they met oncoming trucks or buses, Maxence took Batsa’s lead and stuck to the side of the road next to the mountainside as they maneuvered around each other. The trucks ate up the majority of the narrow road. A driver could easily force a motorcycle off the road and down the cliff by accident.
The buses and trucks were jubilantly decorated with bright paint and fabric flags, reminding Max of Hindu and Buddhist temple elephants painted with red and yellow turmeric and saddled with ornate gold-fringed blankets. Many of the trucks that supplied the tiny grocery stores of the mountain villages had fringe hanging around the ceiling of the cabs, with icons of Ganesh, Shiva, and Ram in a tiny shrine on the dashboard. Slogans, many of them in English, were painted in white on the red trucks, such asEnjoy Today like It Is Your Last,orMake Today Count,orBud Light.
After two hours of death-defying riding, they stopped to stretch their legs. Dree wrenched off her helmet and shook out her blond hair. Her cheeks were rosy but not cold-chapped, and her eyes were bright with glee. “This is awesome!”
Maxence couldn’t help but laugh with her. “It’s quite an experience.”
“When will we get there?”
“A few more hours.”
“Is there an inn there?”
“We’ll scout the village first, but this will probably be our first day of camping. In another day or two, we’ll reach some larger towns that may have an inn. This area isn’t a tourist destination like the Annapurna circuit. That’s a very long hiking trail that can take weeks, but every hour or so, there’s a little town with tea shops and restaurants, and there are lots of inns and hostels along that road. The Jumla district isn’t like that, so we’re going to have to take what we can get.”
Their group of six motored to their destination, which was a small clutch of thirty houses or so and a population of about a hundred and fifty souls.
When people heard the roar of their engines and the sputtering of their tires on the gravel, they came out to look at what had arrived in their town.
Batsa talked to them, obviously explaining that they were on a charity mission by the English words sprinkled into his quick speech to the people who came out.
One young man had a lumpy bandage held in place with rags wound around his forehead. Blood ran into his eye, and he wiped it away impatiently.
Dree stepped forward, removing her helmet and pulling gray fabric out of her pocket that she whipped over her head. The cloth was a veil like the Little Sisters of Charity in Kathmandu wore, and she tucked her hair behind it. “Let me take a look at that.”
Batsa translated for her and must’ve continued to explain that she was a nurse or other medical professional, because he talked for about three minutes before the guy allowed Dree to gingerly unwind the makeshift bandage and look at the wound beneath.
When she got down to his skin, Maxence heard her gasp. “You’ve been walking around like this?”
Batsa translated what she’d said, but Dree was already yanking medical supplies from the saddlebags on her motorcycle.
Maxence leaned down beside her. “Anything I can do to help?”
She drew a deep breath through her nose, and her eyes fluttered closed for a minute, but she said, “I’m not a doctor, but I know how to suture a wound. It’s not going to be pretty. This guy should’ve had professional medical attention days ago. I can see a lot of his skull.”
Maxence said, “If he could have gotten to a doctor, I’m sure he would have. I see horses and yaks here, but I don’t see any modern vehicles.”
