“Of course.”
Conrad opened the heavy, wooden door for Megs, following her outside and down the steep front steps. Prayer flags in red, yellow, blue, green, and white snapped in a chilly wind, storm clouds obscuring the views of Everest and Ama Dablam, the air sharp with the promise of rain.
“Is Ahearn here?”
Legends of the climbing world, Megs and her husband did most things together. They had met in Yosemite in the Seventies and then come to Colorado to tackle its fourteeners. They’d started the Team after a friend of theirs had died of hypothermia waiting for a rescue.
“Mitch is holding down the fort in Scarlet.”
“You came all this way by yourself?”
“Hell, no.” Megs looked up at him as if he were nuts. “I hired a nice man with a couple of yaks. I brought a bunch of ghee for the monastery—a thank you to the Lama for hosting you.”
That stopped Conrad in his tracks. “Why are you doing this?”
This trip, the Sherpa and yaks, the ghee, the permits—it must have cost her close to ten grand.
“You’re one of mine. I can’t just leave you here.”
Her words washed over him, made his throat go tight. He drew her into a hug, her head barely reaching his chest. “It’s good to see you, Megs.”
She hugged him back. “That’s what you say now.”
* * *
Conrad haddinner with Megs at her lodge. Most nights he cooked for himself on his camp stove, so this felt like a luxury. Tonight, the lodge’s dining room—which consisted of three rough-hewn communal tables and a wood stove—was all but empty. A row of windows looked out toward the obscured mountains, fat raindrops pelting dirty glass, the fire barely enough to warm the space.
“What have you been doing—besides meditating and growing facial hair?” Megs took a sip of her black tea, still wearing her down parka and woolen hat.
Conrad stirred histhukpa—a thick noodle soup of chicken broth and vegetables flavored with turmeric and cumin—waiting for it to cool. “I’ve done a lot of handyman work for the monks, repairing buildings and walkways. I helped them erect a new stupa for a shrine up the trail.”
“You put your homesteading skills to work.”
Conrad had grown up in Alaska with parents who lived off the land—until his mother had given birth to a stillborn baby and gotten sick of roughing it. She’d taken him to Anchorage, where they’d lived in a little apartment. He’d only seen his father and the homestead during the summer after that. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”
Their host arrived at the table, setting down two mugs oftongba, a hot millet beer drunk through a straw, and a basket ofmomos—steamed dumplings with vegetables. He gave them a broad smile and a polite bow.
Conrad thanked him in the Sherpa tongue. “Thuche.”
For a while, neither he nor Megs spoke, the two of them eating in companionable silence. That was one thing Conrad liked about Megs. She didn’t do small talk.
“What happened up there, Conrad?”
Then again, small talk wasn’t all bad.
Some part of Conrad wanted to ignore her question. He hadn’t spoken about that day with anyone other than the monks since leaving Base Camp and then only vaguely. Besides, Megs had surely read the story in a climbing magazine or online somewhere. But Megs was a good friend, a fellow climber, and she’d come a long way for his sake.
Unable to meet her gaze, he looked out the window. “Bruce wanted to lead. Luka and Felix were in the middle. I brought up the rear.”
“That makes sense. This was Luka and Felix’s first attempt at an eight-thousand-meter peak, wasn’t it?”
Conrad nodded, doing his best not to feel. “I was crossing a ladder over a new crevasse that had opened up that season. There was a crack and a rumble. Before any of us could react, the serac collapsed, crushing the others and knocking me off the ladder. I must have been hit by a chunk of ice because I was unconscious for a time.”
“Jesus.”
“I opened my eyes to find myself dangling upside down over the crevasse, still roped to the others. The ladder was gone. It took me forever to climb the ice to get out. Other than my rope, which trailed away beneath the ice, there was no sign anyone had ever been there. I tried to follow the rope to dig them out, but my ice tools weren’t enough. Then the rescue team came.”
If Megs had tried to comfort him or showed him sympathy, Conrad might have broken, but she kept it technical. “Thank God your harness held.”
