Ice Shock(87)

I can’t see anyone else near my position. Much, much further up the slope I spot some movement. One or two of the climbers who fell in the first little avalanche seem to be emerging from the snow. I feel a stab of anxiety. That was the group of high-school kids. Where are the rest of them? I look over at where the second hut had nestled against an outcropping of rock. It’s gone—buried in a deep slew of snow.

I manage to stand up. That’s when I realize that the rope is still around my waist. It seems slightly loose. I tug at it, gently.

It tugs back, slowly at first. Then with a violence that sweeps me off my feet, it yanks hard at me. I’m pulled right under the snow and dragged along for a second. I’m screaming all over again; my mouth jams up with snow.

Then I fall. Into the ice.

A crevasse.

The idea is so bloodcurdling that I clutch at the walls of the cleft in the ice. I fall about two yards before my hands find an ice ax sunk deep into the wall. It isn’t mine or Ixchel’s, and the handle is slippery, frozen. I grip hold of the top of it. My feet scramble in a furious attempt to find a foothold.

The rope pulls at my waist, even harder this time. The downward force is relentless. It takes all my strength to keep from falling. I can’t see anything below me but snow. But I know that someone’s down there, further down the crevasse. Either Ixchel … or my father.

I try calling out. “Dad … ? Ixchel … ?”

There’s no answer.

My cheek numbs, frozen against the wall of the crevasse. I don’t move an inch, in case I lose my balance. I’m trembling from the effort. I don’t even dare use energy to yell. The snow silences everything. I channel every ounce of strength I have into not slipping further into the crevasse. The ice ax is saving me—it’s so deeply buried that it supports my weight. But I can’t climb—can’t move. The rope around my waist squeezes and pulls at me, as if it might tear me in two. Gradually, I come to the shattering conclusion that whoever is on the end of my rope is hanging freely. Possibly unconscious, possibly even dead.

And when I realize that, I realize who it must be.

If it were Ixchel, I think I’d be able to take her weight. I think I’d even be able to drag her up.

This weight is overpowering me. It has to be my dad.

The idea sends me into a wild panic. I can’t help myself screaming, “Dad! Dad! It’s me, Josh! I’m up here! I’m on the rope!”

There’s no answer. I feel tears of frustration welling up. If only I had a knife, or could spare a hand to free myself of the rope …

But the only thing stopping my dad from falling deeper into the crevasse is me. Just below me, the gap in the ice narrows. Snow has collected around the bottleneck. The rope disappears into that snow. I can’t see anything beyond.

I can do nothing but cling to that ice ax. And pray.

Then I hear his voice. It sounds icy, cold as the layers of frozen dust that separate us.

“Josh. Listen to me. Can you climb up?”

“No … no,” I say. My voice quavers. “I can’t move, Dad.”

There’s an agonizing silence.

“I’m gonna cut the rope now.”

I scream. “Dad, no!”

“Listen!”

I force myself to be silent. Already I’m struggling with tears. I’m beginning to lose sensation in my lower limbs, where the blood supply is choked off by the rope.

“Rules of the mountain, Josh,” I hear him say, wearily. “I may have forgotten everything else but … I remember that much. I won’t pull you down with me.”

“No … Dad … ,” I sob.

“There’s no other choice for me. Now be brave.”

“Please …” But I’m barely whispering now.

And then in a voice which seems to cut like a knife through the freezing air he says, “Josh … this isn’t over.”

Without any warning, the pressure around my waist goes slack.

The fear of being torn apart vanishes.

The weight pulling me down has disappeared. I cling tightly to the edge, my mind racing with horror. I listen for any sound of my dad at the bottom of the crevasse.

I hear nothing.

Dad’s cut himself loose.

My father saved me. But where is he now? I feel useless, utterly lost.

A wave of blank despair hits me. I want to give up right now. Hard on the heels of that thought is another older, colder voice.

Stop crying, you baby. Get out of this place while you still can. Or else what he did will be for nothing.

I blink my tears away and drag myself up, sniffling. The crampons on my boots scratch deep into the ice. I feel a foothold and inch a little higher. My fingers hunt around for a handhold, until I find a small crack in the ice. I finally get the nerve to let go of the ice ax and scrabble upward until I can lodge a knee onto the ax. That helps me to push a little higher still. Finally I stand on the ax. At a stretch, I can just reach the lip of the glacier.