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

of the tents, peering this way and that, but they could not see Hoyt, who was busy holding off inevitable catastrophe for a few more moments.

Then Hoyt said “It is time to cut the cord. Finally. It is time to cut the cord.” Junk was terribly confused by Hoyt’s words, and not knowing what the outcome would be, Junk let his body go slack in total acceptance of falling.

A yell rose up from above the lip, as if Hoyt was summoning all of the energy left in his body. The rope lifted Junk ever so slightly. Hoyt had just stood up. Another yell from above and then a shadow appeared from on high, off a few paces to the south, jumping with great effort out and over the edge of the maw. Hoyt had apparently struggled to his feet, run sideways along the lip, and then sailed out into the air on the far side of a hook-like outcropping of rock. The effect was powerful and immediate. Being more than a head taller than Junk and also heavier, Hoyt’s descending heft pulled Junk up. The rope slid gracefully around the rocky outcropping for the exact same reason the Prusik knots had failed earlier; lack of friction.

The ascending Junk passed the descending Hoyt far too quickly to communicate in any fashion whatsoever. Junk was up at the lip of the maw in seconds and holding onto to the outcropping for dear life.

Hoyt was now dangling far below. Junk could not make him out in the darkness except to see he was not moving, probably resting from his earlier struggle. Junk heard the yell of Sherpa calling out to them and saw torchlight illuminating drifting snow in the sky above. It searched the world wildly for our heroes, but the threshold of the afterlife is not a place easily discovered. Junk looked at the light and hallucinated about movie premiers he had attended in Boston and prison parking lots where he had picked up newly-released friends. He thought of his mother’s candle illuminating the dark cold New England morning in their flat, as she rose before dawn to cook breakfast for herself and her son. Familiar creaks on the floorboards, heralding the coming of a new day and a new fight with his mother and the world. All of these thoughts compelled Junk to continue living, and to live well. Jammed up against the outcropping, he took his smaller ropes and tied them around it and then through his harness. He was now secured to the mountain.

Hoyt was moving below him, but the details of his movements were imperceptible.

“Remember what I said, Aaron” called a gasping Hoyt. “Pass those words along to my family. Tell them I love them and I made a mistake. Mother too. Tell her I love her even if she has no idea what you’re saying. Tell her.”

“I never really touched her you know” Junk called down. “I married her to get back at you but I never touched her.”

Silence from below, then “Can we change the subject?”

“Of course. Sorry.”

The cold and wind were unbearable. The voices of the Sherpa and the lights came closer. “Hang on, Hoyt” Junk yelled. “They’re coming for us! You’ll be able to tell your family yourself.”

But it was too late. Hoyt yelled out “Today I am truly a Christian!”

Junk again remembered the knife in Hoyt’s possession. “Wait Hoyt! Wait!”

Hoyt said, “Now I fall…and rise. To my triumph!”

And with that there was a snapping sound, Junk jerked a little as all of his weight moved off of the main rope and transitioned to the smaller ropes, and the braided strands of hemp that had led down to Hoyt went slack and began to whip about in the wind.

Junk cried aloud. Sharp shards of terror and dull fists of grief brutalized his insides. Arms were reaching down for him and pulling him up but he fought back as if he did not want to be rescued. They were too much for him and he was promptly up on the rocky route to Camp Three. He bellowed his despair into the darkness as the Sherpa restrained him. He blurted out every blue word he had ever learned on the streets.

The fuel that had driven Junk for so many years was gone.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Return to “Civilization”

Other than that, the descent went rather well. By lunch on September 16th, Junk and the Sherpa were making their way from Camp One to base camp at the bottom of the scree. The temperature rose and the men had stowed their coats. Oxygen apparatuses had been discarded en route. They breathed deeply and may have even smelled distant flora in the air.

As you may recall, the two teams’ base camps were but feet away from one another. Now, overrun with Sherpa, porters, and surviving expedition members, it had transformed into a small city. Yet sadly, it resembled a city conquered by a bloodthirsty foe. Many people sat about empty of affect and slumped over in shell shock. Chatham was unconscious under a makeshift canopy comprised of sticks and tent remnants. Zeigler sat on a rock looking off across the moraine at nothing. Thornton, still splintered and buckled from his fall on the scree, moaned from inside his tent. Faces and hands were purple with frostbite. So ruined were these visages that Junk could not distinguish many of the white people on the journey from the dark people. Swollen noses, sunburned cheeks, and cracked lips made everyone appear to share the same tragic lineage. Reunions were short and muted as were introductions. No one spoke any more than was necessary. So consumed were they in their shock that no one even thought to ask Junk if he had made it to the summit.

When Chhiri Tendi saw Junk approaching, he did not run away. “I did not even think of running” Chhiri Tendi recalls. “What was he going to do? Cut out