Beyond the summit: An Everest adventure and Romance Read online

  “It’s slippery enough to ski,” she commented and nodded at his cap. Rolling his eyes towards the brim, he remembered it said SKI VAIL. When he was nervous or scared as a young boy, it felt as though little field mice were scampering all around inside him. As he watched the breeze play with her hair and curl it around her cheek, the mice invited all their friends out to play and were running amok. Hopping on foot as he’d once done for Hillary wasn’t going to impress her. Perhaps this would.

  Taking a deep breath to calm the mice, he bent his knees, yelled, “Geronimo,” and pushed off down the muddy hill. Arms flailing to keep his balance, one leg flying into the air and then the other as he hopped over rocks, he skied with no concept of how to stop other than falling flat on his face. And that was not an acceptable image. He took his eyes off the ground just long enough to see the trail turned sharply to the left with his momentum about to propel him straight off a cliff. With a quick prayer to the god of the mountain, he leapt up and grabbed an overhanging branch with both hands. His legs swung forward trying to tear him loose but he held fast and dropped down. That wacky Marty made me do this foolish stunt, he muttered to himself as he brushed mud off his Levis. Him and all his talk of smacking life in the head. The man’s a menace. But the clapping and cheering behind him soon turned Dorje’s mood around. He forgot about the American for the moment and slogged back up the hill with mud sucking and spitting at his heels.

  When Beth smiled and said, “That was truly remarkable,” in a voice as warm and pure as the first blush of sunlight, it was worth all the aggravation.

  Everyone’s mood changed when they reached a temporary bridge constructed of branches woven together and spanning forty feet over the water. Rushing wildly downstream, the river swelled in a never-ending torrent, wrenching and twisting at tree roots on the bank while enormous white waves crashed into boulders shooting water high into the air. Due to rain, the water had risen considerably since Dorje and Marty had crossed only four days earlier. Uncertain of the safety of the bridge now, Dorje stepped on to test it. As he watched his feet and carefully placed each step, the rushing water beneath him was dizzying. Instinctively, his toes spread to grip the branches as they had done all of his life but now met only the hard insole of boots that slid on mud deposited by those who had crossed before him. His confidence faltered. “Om mani padme hum,” he chanted, praying to nagi, the river spirit, to help him. After reaching the other side, he quickly returned, noting the most slippery spots.

  As he told the ladies he would take them one at a time, his gaze wandered to Beth, wanting to be her hero and lead her safely across too. Like a male dog guarding his bitch, Eric stepped between them. “I’ll go with you, Babe. Let the Sherpa take the women.”

  The Sherpa. Not Dorje or the sirdar, but the Sherpa. With those two words, Eric had reduced him to a non-entity, stolen his individuality and dignity in front of her. Dorje would not forgive him for that.

  By late afternoon they reached camp in a farmer’s field and Dorje was glad to see Beth’s guide had chosen the neighboring one as Dorje had suggested at Lukla. He quickly made sure everything had been taken care of: water boiled for afternoon tea, the latrine pit dug and draped with a tarp for privacy, dining tent and folding chairs in place as well as two-person sleeping tents. When the ladies seemed relaxed and content with tea, biscuits, and popcorn, Dorje’s thoughts returned to Beth. In the next field, she was sitting outside writing in a notebook while Eric took pictures of the camp. As if she sensed Dorje was watching her, she put her pen down and looked in his direction in an unwavering gaze that caressed his face as surely if she had trailed her fingers along his cheek. Once again as if asserting his possession, Eric finished shooting, sat beside her, and took her hand. What an idiot Dorje was for thinking she could ever feel anything for him. Just The Sherpa, he had no right to consider her as anything other than just another mikaru. Tomorrow he would take the ladies to Namche and erase her from his thoughts.

  CHAPTER 6

  After a long, restless night with Eric fussing with his sleeping bag trying to get warm and comfortable, Beth woke to the voice of the kitchen boy outside their door. “Tea, Memsahib?”

  “Yes, thank you,” she answered and unzipped the flap so he could slide two saucers and cups inside before quietly disappearing.

  “What time is it?” Eric mumbled through a yawn.

  Beth looked at her watch in the light of the doorway. “Six thirty. Here, they brought us tea.”

  Rolling onto his back with his arm over his eyes, he moaned, “You know I need coffee in the morning.”

  “Well, don’t think that’s an option, Sweetie.” Resting on her elbows, she sipped slowly, trying not to burn her lips while awaiting the kitchen boy’s return with two shallow pans of warm water for bathing. Knowing the importance of Eric’s daily rituals, she whispered, “Your morning shower just arrived,” and then broke out laughing.

  “Oh yeah? Want to join me?” He rolled on top of her in their double bag. “Let me help you off with those clothes.”

  “What brought this on?” she whispered.

  “I’m damn horny, that’s what. We haven’t made love since Denver.”

  He was so eager that it happened fast, and fortunately Eric didn't seem to notice she wasn’t 100% there. Score one for horniness. It eased her guilt. As he was dressing, Beth told him about hiring Dorje to work for her.

  Stopping in the middle of tying his bootlaces, Eric stared at her. “When did all this take place?”

  “While you were taking pictures of the farm.”

  He yanked the knot tight. “Guess he’s good for something, so you might as well use him” Then he shoved his duffle through the door and crawled out after it.

  While they dined on porridge with nak milk, a flat unleavened bread called chapati, and fried eggs floating in oil, the porters loaded the duffels and tents to head out. Watching Dorje cater to the ladies in the next camp, Beth wondered why this Sherpa intrigued her so. Was it some romanticized notion of experiencing a different culture? No. She’d traveled all over the world and met thousands of men, even had a brief foreign affair, but this was different. A natural fluidity in his movement exuded confidence but not arrogance, and that irresistible smile traveled all the way up to his eyes.

  When they set out, the air held a lucid apple freshness with golden orioles and rose finches flitting from branch to branch, singing to greet the morn. Shadows danced and leapt through thick-leaved trees and then sprawled across the ground like lazy children. Looking for a way to initiate conversation with Dorje, Beth asked, “What happened to our guide?”

  “He left early to find a good camp in Namche tonight because my village is too crowded with tourists.”

  Namche, the social and political capital of the Sherpas, through which most expeditions passed. If he’d said Paris or London, she wouldn’t have been more elated. The story she’d come for was walking right beside her, and she could tell it through his eyes and words. Her job secure now, she had a thousand questions to ask. “Where did you learn English?”

  “It is easy. I listen and speak with tourists like you.”

  And how many have you charmed? she wondered. Yesterday she had caught him gazing at her several times but today, nothing. That was only initial curiosity perhaps. “Other Sherpas haven’t learned English. Why you?”

  “Because I do not want to be a porter or yak herder all my life. For a Sherpa, sirdar is the best a man can do.” With that, Dorje raced up a row of steep rock stairs to join the ladies who had made a water stop at the top. Instead of helping them with bottles from their packs, he herded them to the uphill side of the path gesturing wildly.

  “What’s going on?” Beth asked catching up to them.

  “There,” he answered, nodding downhill. “You must always stand away from the cliff when they pass because they swing their horns and knock you off.”

  Hearing the steady, rhythmic clang of bells all pitched differently, she turned and watc
hed a caravan of yaks loaded with baskets of vegetables and large bolts of cloth slowly winding up the stairs. To maintain speed, they hunched their massive back muscles and thrust themselves forward with their heads lowered. Everyone hugged the hill as the snorting animals passed. Her first yak sighting! Beth found them humorous—these shaggy, lumbering beasts with short hairy legs, bushy tails, shovel-shaped heads, and long curved horns. They resembled little kids bundled up in too many sweaters with their woolly undercoats covered with a coarse outer coat of wiry hairs giving them a bulky look. The beasts’ large, sure-footed hooves scuffed trail dust into small clouds that stung her eyes.

  Blinking to clear them, Beth asked, “Where are they going?”

  “To the Saturday market in Namche. Tomorrow they will return with empty baskets.”

  “And those too?” she asked, pointing to a string of gaily-decorated donkeys following a lead animal sporting a bright red plume on its head and seemingly without a human escort.

  “The donkeys are small and cannot carry much but they move quickly and often travel for eight days to get here. Yaks only go in the high places. It is too hot for them below.”

  “Eric, get pictures of the donkeys,” she called. Then bouncing back onto the trail and walking backwards to search for more caravans, she added, “And go in front to get the one with a plume on its head. The yaks too.”

  While Eric squeezed past the animals, she walked with Dorje, feeling more comfortable in her role as interviewer. “Were you born in Namche and have you always lived there?”

  Eyes straight ahead and his jaw tight, he answered, “Yes, but I left at six and did not return until four years ago.”

  Her journalist tongue was dying to ask why he’d left and how old he was now, but for once she kept her mouth shut even though she was famous for prying more information from people than anyone else. Those questions could come later. For the present, she’d concentrate on impersonal topics such as the significance of the lofty poles bearing colorful flags.

  “Those are Lung Ta, the wind horse,” he said loud enough for the ladies to hear also. “Prayers are printed on cloth with a horse in the middle and four sacred animals in the corners. When the wind blows, the horse carries the prayers to the gods. They bring happiness and good luck to all who meet the air or breathe it, even a bird flying by. When things are not going good for you, your Lung Ta is down. When life is easy, your Lung Ta is up. You can see flags on mountain tops, bridges, temples, roof tops, and outside of every Sherpa house.”

  Hurriedly making notes, she asked, “And the five colors?”

  “They are for the sky, clouds, fire, water, and earth.”

  What an adrenalin rush. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said scribbling it all down. “I never would have figured that out on my own.”

  Looking bewildered by her enthusiasm, he seemed amenable to more questions. When they passed a fifteen-foot boulder with symbols carved in relief and painted black, he explained it was a mani stone, or prayer stone, to protect travelers. “Most have the Buddhist words Om Mani Padme Hum. We repeat them many times when we pray to the gods.”

  “And what do they mean?” she asked, flipping to the next page in her notebook.

  “I do not know your words for them,” he answered simply and then politely extended his hand to persuade the ladies to pass the mani stone on the other side. “You must always go on the left so that when you return you complete the circle of life.”

  The four tourists giggling and scooting backwards while looking over their shoulders to keep from running into each other reversed direction and marched forward with exaggerated strides. Pen in hand, Beth corrected a common misconception that the Everest region was covered with ice and snow year round. Rhododendron painted the dark green hillsides in red, pink, yellow, and mauve. The waxy, white flowers of giant magnolias bloomed high beyond reach. Bearing small orange and purple blossoms, bougainvillea climbed naked tree trunks while delicate pink and white orchids festooned the oaks. Lining the path were rocks covered with colorful lichens and mosses. The exquisite aroma of sweet daphnia filled the air.

  Pointing to the cliffs above the river, Dorje said to watch for musk deer and wild Himalayan goats with dark brown coats and a long shaggy manes. So intent upon spotting one, Beth almost missed her distinctive blue and green duffel in a doko at the side of the path. Had all their gear been abandoned? Stopping suddenly, she asked, “Where are our porters?”

  “There,” Dorje said pointing to a group of Sherpas crouched around a small fire. “They drink only tea before leaving camp and now must rest and eat.”

  “And what are they cooking?”

  “Tsampa. Roasted barley flour.” Dorje spoke to a porter who gave him a brown mass that literally looked like a piece of shit. He palmed it in his right hand, rolling it into a ball, and then made an indention with his thumb and dipped the tsampa spoon into a bowl of chilies and garlic. “It is very good and healthy. Sherpas who work for expeditions make a pak ball with tsampa, sugar, and nuts to give them strength. You try it?”

  An elderly porter with creases in a face folding around a toothless mouth dropped a warm, brown mass into her hand. Terrific. She was stuck now. With a thank-you smile and bow, Beth began rolling it between both palms as she’d done with cookie dough as a kid. But the look of horror on the man’s face told her she had just committed another cultural offense. Now what? Her eyes pleaded with Dorje who graciously explained that in Nepal one must never touch food with the left hand which was used for toilet purposes and considered unclean. Grateful that she was at least right handed, Beth made a Sherpa spoon and gingerly dipped it in the sauce. Dorje’s lips were trembling as if trying to suppress a smile and a whimsical look danced in his eyes. Having gotten herself into this miss, she couldn’t back out now. Taking a deep breath, Beth plopped the tsampa in her mouth—the most god-awful thing she’d ever tasted and Dorje knew it. Smiling, she could play this game too. “It’s great . . . unique,” she told Eric. “Try some.”

  With a raised brow, he took some from the toothless porter who was not nearly as adept as Dorje at hiding his amusement. Obviously all of them knew tourists didn’t share their love of this roasted barley flour. When Eric frantically looked for a polite way to dispose of it without being rude, the porters and Dorje burst into unrestrained, innocent laughter. Beth remembered Marty’s comment about them being easily entertained. Finding this an endearing quality, she laughed right along with them. Grinning, Dorje offered some tsampa to the ladies who took note of Beth’s rapidly shaking head and politely declined.

  Less pleased with their childlike humor, Eric seemed to need to prove himself. Walking over to the heaviest-looking doko, he asked Dorje, “Can I try it on?”

  The laughter-containment quotient doubled. As usual, the porters were squatting on their haunches with their feet flat on the ground—an impossible position for Beth who toppled backwards every time she tried it. Elbows on their knees and chins cupped in their hands to hide smiles, they watched with mirthful eyes. This would be Eric’s shining moment. At 6’ 1”, he towered over them. Other than Dorje who was about 5’ 9”, the tallest porter was no more than 5’ 2”. Slight and wiry weighing little more than 110 pounds, they seemed no match for Eric. Dorje instructed him to sit on the ground and slip the woven straps over his arms. Adjusting the hemp tumpline on top of Eric’s head, he said, “This is the naamlo and this a teko walking stick to help you up.”

  Wearing a smug expression, Eric dismissed him with a backhand wave. As soon as he tried to stand, the doko shifted to the right and he caught himself on an outstretched arm. In a semi-squat and leaning 45 degrees with all his weight on one arm and the doko slowly sliding toward the ground, he had to do something fast. Eric pushed off and tried using that momentum to stand upright, but the basket swung the other way and tossed him on the ground. Dorje and three porters came to his rescue.

  “Jesus Christ, this thing’s going to crush my spine,” Eric groaned.
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  Afraid she’d break out laughing, Beth didn’t dare look. Fingers to her tightened lips, she said, “Try walking with it.”

  Listing heavily to the right, he took three steps, winced, and yelled, “Get this damn thing off me. It’s obviously a two-man load.”

  Snickering, the porters relieved him of the basket and realigned the load. Embarrassed for Eric, Beth whispered, “I’m sure that’s right because you’re the strongest guy I know.”

  “Oh yeah?” he said as the old man who had served them tsampa walked past carrying the same doko. In bare feet with quarter-inch calluses, he climbed up from the river with a steady stride, seldom pausing for breath. “And look at that!” A porter was hiding several large rocks in another man’s doko.