Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain by Jonathan Bloom (bookreader TXT) 📗

the moonlight. He was above us on the ridge, climbing away, toward the cloud. A tall guy, maybe 6 foot three or so. No one from my team. And then it dawned on me. It dawned on me like the coldest sunrise imaginable. That was Hoyt there. That was the fucker who had dared me here, the man responsible for every horrid event of the past month. And here I was getting a midnight lecture on geopolitical strategy from a lunatic. Take Cole, I thought. Take him but let me go. Seeing Hoyt so close was too much for me. Any consideration I may have had for my old, dear climbing partner was rendered inaccessible by the temptation.

“My captors did not seem to notice Hoyt making his way up the ridge. They were too focused on me. Cole seemed to be fading without the help of his oxygen. His head kept nodding and eyes rolling like so many drunks I had seen around Fenway. Hoyt! Hoyt! I just wanted to follow Hoyt! Stop talking, I thought. Go away. Kill me and end my suffering or leave me to complete my personal war. Hoyt was disappearing from sight. He had stood out as a dark figure against a bright ground of moonlit snow. But as he approached the cloud and the snow mixed more and more with black lapilli and scoria, he could no longer be easily seen. What’s more, he was very far away now, and he might have already started to disappear into the cloud.

“Another person appeared on the ridge between us and Hoyt. But he was climbing down to us. He moved quickly. He held out something in his hand. I would later find out this man was Chhiri Tendi, a well-known Sherpa who had aided Hoover in his efforts to reach the top of Fumu. I had no idea why he was approaching. Perhaps he didn’t know of my rivalry with his sahib and wanted us to join forces? Did he see there was a problem from so far away and now was coming to aid us? No. All of these theories were wrong. When he came close enough that I could make out finer details, I saw he was holding a gun.

“The Cobras finally saw him but did not flinch. When the approaching man took off his oxygen mask, the lead Cobra grinned. He spoke in Nepali to Chhiri Tendi, his sentences riddled with insincere laughter Chhiri Tendi did not seem as jovial. He looked angry. He also looked terribly frostbitten.. He had the gun aimed at the lead Cobra, but his aim was far from true. His arm moved haphazardly due to fatigue and wind.“

Chhiri Tendi remembers holding the gun at these men who had killed his father. They did not seem scared, and Chhiri Tendi knew why. They knew his father had been tortured by the violence in himself; that he could not live with the knowledge that he had killed a man. Being aware of this, what were the odds the son of Phurbu Tawa was going to resort to similar violence? He was not going to pull the trigger, and the Cobras knew it. He is a Sherpa, a people who fancy themselves pacifists. But in the Cobras’ opinion, ‘pacifist’ is just another word for ‘coward.’ “Put the gun down, Chhiri Tendi. You are not going to pull that trigger.”

Chhiri Tendi responded, “Well, as an alternative, perhaps I’ll stick this gun so far up your ass that the next time you gag on your lover, you’ll shoot his testicles off.” The Cobras all laughed out loud. The leader complimented Chhiri Tendi on his humour, saying that it was delightful but unable to help him now.

The lead Cobra said he was so confident in Chhiri Tendi’s unwillingness to shoot them that he would remove the knife from Cole’s neck. He pushed Cole forward several feet. The Cobra leader was now wide open. Chhiri Tendi did nothing. He was frozen – not with cold, but with indecision. Kill the men and continue the shame of his father, or spare the men and fail to avenge his father? Might there be another possibility? As Chhiri Tendi’s mind churned, the Cobra leader said “We are going to leave now and take Cole with…”

“You’re right” Chhiri Tendi interrupted. “I cannot kill you. Instead, I leave your fate up to the mountain.” With that, he aimed the gun at the ridge immediately in front of the Cobras’ feet and pulled the trigger. With a loud report, the gun fired and the bullet disappeared into a kicked up cloud of snow and ash. And as quickly as a single beat of a skylark’s heart, the cornice upon which the treasonous Gurkhas stood broke and fell away. The four aggressors disappeared down the north face of Fumu, yelling bloody murder until distance, wind, and eruptions conspired to swallow their cries whole. As quickly as the threat had arrived, it was gone.

After only a brief moment of taking in the scene, Chhiri Tendi threw Rauff’s gun off of the ridge to the south where it descended into the Maw, returning whence it came. He was upset, but not so upset he could forget his job and his charge. He turned and began catching up with Hoyt. He moved with fresh speed up the ridge, undeterred by the pack and oxygen on his back. The adrenaline suffusing the heart upon approaching victory cannot be underestimated. Frostbite, hunger, thirst; they all step aside when we know our goal is near. Chhiri Tendi was a new man, ready to follow his leader into the Unknown. “Many questions were about to be answered,” Chhiri Tendi told me. “I felt that on the ridge. I felt excitement like I had never known. My failure on the Hoover expedition was about to be wiped clean. The top of Fumu would finally be revealed to us.” He was off like a coney