tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24008990639353389272024-03-21T02:27:14.744-07:00Silver BulletUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-33727302872380471982015-09-24T23:28:00.003-07:002015-09-24T23:33:47.118-07:00A Note from Rolf and Ranger <span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>To our great FCR fans,</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Here it is, Silver Bullet Chapter 25 and you'll notice at the bottom of this one it says The End. </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>We can't believe we've finally arrived here. (and after checking that it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in May of 2010 that we posted chapter one.....we're about to fall out of our chairs) Anyway, I think I've said it before but this book started out as a train robbery. THAT was the beginning of the book. Then Jake and Tom said they were dying to climb Everest, so of course we had to start that story too. The Silver Bullet, for those that didn't quite get it, was the name of the train, as well as the impetus between Dale and Tom for that couple to live on the mountain, and for Tom to know that it was time to change as well. </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>It has been a long (and short) five years and we're so pleased that so many of you have commented along the way, bringing many great discussions to life on Yahoo and the Forum. These five years have seen a lot of changes in our lives, in the lives of our friends and listmates on both Yahoo and the Forum. We lost our good friend Tom, who had been very excited to see how this book ended. We're sure that while he wasn't here in person to read it, he was his usual brat self and was looking over our shoulders as we typed each and every word, stamping his feet as we'd take yet another turn that meant the ending was going to take a little bit longer, but enjoying every word. </i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>We've received many notes from readers who have learned a little more about themselves, making changes for the good in many areas of their lives. As authors, it's lovely to read notes from readers who've enjoyed the story as a story, but it means so much more when we know that it's a book that gets returned to again and again, and can affect lives for the better. We thank each and every one of you for the time you've spent writing to us, chatting on either list, and for hanging in there to the very end.</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>For those of you sad to see those two words....The End, as it's been used before, just means it's time to switch to another book title and for a slightly different angle on the ongoing story of the ranch. Mason will return in The Mary Ellen Carter, which will follow directly on the heels of The Silver Bullet. We DO want to know how his story ends, as well as seeing how Tom and Dale continue to grow in themselves.</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Stay tuned!</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Much love,</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>R&R</i></span><br />
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i></span>
<br />tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-25563051259006516522015-09-24T17:32:00.001-07:002015-09-24T18:13:23.381-07:00Chapter 19 - Ranch <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><i>19</i></b></span><span style="font-size: 48pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Jasper was still carving whatever it was he was working on, his head
tipped forward, one booted foot braced against the grass, the other leg curled
under him, and he was turning the wood over in his long fingers as he worked. He’d
been keeping the small fire well fed. It was burning strongly, red and orange and white
where the wood was glowing, and snapping and crackling softly. Its smoke rose
slowly and its light spread out over the grass, creating deep shadows out to
where the town was hidden in total darkness. The stars were bright and crisp in
a navy blue sky overhead and the night smelled of damp grass and woodsmoke. Tam,
rolled on her side with her belly exposed to catch as much warmth from the fire
as possible, lifted her head to look at him. Giving up on what had been, for
over an hour, an uneasy doze at best, Luath ran a hand over his eyes and glanced
from the firelight where Dale lay curled up and clearly asleep close to Jasper’s
side, to a lonely figure sitting some way off on the grass by the river. Moving
cautiously, quietly, Luath slid out of his sleeping bag and Jasper glanced up
at him. He said nothing, just gave a brief, quiet nod of hello, and went on
carving. Beside him, Dale was very still, his eyes closed, his face half hidden
in the curve of his arm, and Luath was glad to see it; the poor kid needed the
rest badly. Luath found his boots and his jacket and paused on the cold grass
beside Mason’s sleeping bag to look down at the other more vulnerable member of
their party. Mason, like Dale, looked to be soundly asleep, his body relaxed,
his bearded face mostly hidden in his sleeping bag. Apparently sleeplessness
tonight was solely a Top problem. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was Paul, with the neck of his jacket turned well up, who was
sitting some way off from the camp beside the river and watching it run by.
Luath, digging his hands deep into his pockets and seeing his breath steam
slightly in front of him, gave him a sideways glance as he reached the river,
keeping his voice low. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Want some company, or did you come over here to get away from us?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There had been times, a long way back in the days when they both lived here,
when Paul had needed a few hours to get away from organising chaos. Unlike many
of the family, neither Luath nor Paul had grown up in a rural setting, it
hadn’t come naturally to them, and Luath understood in a way that Flynn really
wouldn’t, that sometimes you needed to see lights and people, hold a cup of
Starbucks and reconnect with the idea that it was all still out there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paul looked back towards the river with a deprecating grimace that
might have started out as a smile. “I’m fine, I just can’t sleep. Even with Jas
sitting right there, if Dale so much as twitches I have to check on him, and if
there’s a couple of us sitting awake around him I know he won’t be able to stay
asleep for long. So the best thing I could do was come away.”<br />
<br />
It was a slightly brittle tone for Paul, and it didn’t surprise Luath at all. It
went right along with the painfully sharp concern and distress Luath been
swallowing on himself ever since the small hours of last night when they first
started watching Dale come apart. He’d seen Dale’s face when he threw his
journal into the fire, an act so totally out of keeping with Dale’s carefulness
and containment; you rarely so much as saw the man frown, and Luath had seen
the care and the time he took in writing in that book. He’d seen Dale’s face, numb
and white with what Luath thought was probably shock, as he sat on the bank
against Jasper while they rested yesterday. Paul and Jasper were definite that
this was fine and it looked worse than it was, and they were best placed to
know; Philip wouldn’t have been at all afraid of it either. With powerful
memories of Philip, whom he’d loved dearly and learned a very great deal from,
Luath knew Philip would have been right at home on the river bank with them
here tonight, and he’d have understood exactly what was going on, the way he’d
understood it with Gerry and Bear and others, including Luath thought, probably
David. If you lived in Philip’s household you learned not to be afraid of
honesty or acted out emotion, and you learned to see where it was going: like
those of them who suddenly got on planes to Texas as an indicator that they’d
like to talk, please. And most significant to Luath’s thinking, Flynn, who in
Luath’s long experience didn’t take risks with his people except in very
calculated ways, obviously wasn’t rattled. If anything, Flynn was staying
almost curiously hands-off, when Luath would have expected him to be here,
right in the middle of it, the best qualified of all of them to manage it. He
would very much have liked a quiet half hour alone with Flynn tonight to talk
this out, and was willing to bet he wasn’t the only one. Luath sat slowly down
on the bank beside Paul, easing himself somewhat stiffly onto the cold grass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I think I’m in much the same state, I couldn’t get any deeper to sleep
than dozing. Doesn’t this remind you of one of those nights when Philip
wouldn’t go to bed?”<br />
<br />
He saw Paul smile a little, his eyes on the river, and knew they were both
thinking of Philip settling himself to read in the study or out on the porch or
quietly in an armchair in the family room, in pyjamas and his dark red dressing
gown, waving everyone else away to go to bed and leave him alone and he used to
be immoveable on those nights to Luath or Paul’s persuasion. He only did it
occasionally, and never with any kind of explanation, but Luath knew from
experience it was invariably timed with someone in their household who in the
small hours of the night would discover that they needed him, even if they
didn’t think so now. Roger, who had understood Philip at the same gut level he
did the rest of the family, had always been blunt about the need for Luath to just
come to bed and leave Philip to it. Roger would be completely unmoved if he was
out here with them tonight, and he could be very logical. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“What exactly
are you going to do?”</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Watching the river run by, Luath could hear it as clearly
as if Roger said it out loud, and see him fold his glasses and put them
randomly down on the grass by their sleeping bag where he could guarantee
rolling on them or mislaying them during the night unless Luath confiscated
them and put them somewhere safer. <i>“If we need to wake up and do something
then we’ll wake up and do something, and by that point we’ll have some idea of
what it is we need to do. You can’t all stand around braced like a bunch of
midfielders, leave the guy alone.” <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">He’d have been equally calm about retrieving Gerry in high drama from
Texas, as matter of fact that this was just what Gerry sometimes did as he always
was about Flynn’s temper, Darcy’s enjoyment of being shocking and Bear’s
propensity for freezing to the spot and denying the power of speech when things
went wrong. He could get fed up with them sometimes, he bickered with them sometimes
to the point where Luath had confiscated his phone or banned him from email for
a day or two while things cooled off, but Roger never confused frustration with
wanting to them to be anyone else. There had been no judgement anywhere in
Roger; he just loved who he loved. He
too would have been perfectly calm and accepting tonight. He also would have
liked Dale, he would have found a very kindred soul in Dale in ways that none
of the other brats in the family shared; Luath had thought it several times in
those still regular moments when he saw or heard something and mentally made a
note to tell it to Roger as something he’d enjoy, before his brain reminded him
that technically that it was no longer possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">There was still a real and physical ache where Roger should be. It was
not so sharp now as it used to be, but it was still powerfully there at
unexpected moments, and it was especially strong out here under the stars, on
the open land Roger had loved, where they’d first met and both regarded as home.
Biting back a familiar rush of bitterness and well aware of exactly what Roger
would have been doing right now with one of their oldest and dearest friends,
Luath put an arm around Paul’s shoulders and gave him a hug, strongly enough to
pull Paul against him, rubbing his far arm where his hand rested. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Are you ok? What do you need? You must be exhausted.”<br />
<br />
“Actually no, I’m not at all.” Paul put an arm around his waist, gladly accepting
the hug. “That’s another reason I can’t sleep, I’m in high gear.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I don’t know how you handle it.” Luath said honestly. “It’s is hard
enough just to listen to, I wouldn’t know where to start.”<br />
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“Yes, you would.” Paul said with conviction. “If if was Roger, you’d have
figured it out. When I see what Dale’s got the courage to do and how hard he’s
trying – he’s the one with all the energy to keep on going and to push himself
harder, he helps us every way he knows how, there isn’t a way he could tire me
out. He’s an amazing man.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Knowing that feeling well, Luath listened, going on holding him, and
after a minute Paul said softly and with a strength in his voice that was
powerful even by Paul’s usual standards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“When I get a few minutes with him like I did this afternoon.... you
saw him sitting with me picking out quartz? ....I don’t think he’s ever let go
in his life the way he does with us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Luath had seen them together in the shallows for a while, talking, and he’d
seen the handful of quartz pebbles Paul had put into his rucksack. Obviously there
had been something more than what an outside observer could ascertain,
something far more important, and from Paul’s brief, apologetic glance at him
Paul wasn’t going explain either, which Luath also understood. There were
things too private to be shared even with the closest family, and that was
right and as it should be. It had been in Luath’s mind today when he’d gently
pushed Dale back to Jasper, he’d done it on nothing more than instinct, but as
he’d done it he’d realised that Dale needed the information as much as to feel where
that boundary lay. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It isn’t me
you need to be with right now. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Luath forgot sometimes how powerful the emotions were in this dynamic;
what it was like to think like this and feel like this all the time. It was
unsettling to reflect on his normal daily life was in the apartment in New York
and how numbed he’d become used to being. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">They both turned at the sound behind them, nothing more than a quiet
pop of something snapping in the fire, and Jasper stilled too, lowering his
hands to his lap, but neither Dale nor Mason stirred, and after a moment Luath
turned back to the river, shaking his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I wish Jas would let me have a watch. We must be getting on for two or
three am and we’ve had no nightmares so far.”<br />
<br />
They were all three of them braced for it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yeah, like a
bunch of midfielders. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Luath smiled at the thought, and Paul went on watching Dale for a
moment more before he finally relaxed a little. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Hold that thought.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale woke gradually with
the sound of the fire quietly crackling in a way that meant new wood had just
been added. Its warmth was strong against his side and the sky was a deep and
soft grey. Jasper was in sight in the distance on the misty river bank,
fishing, and Luath was knee deep in the river some way further on. Paul was
sitting on the grass close beside him, his dark blue jacket rucked up around
his shoulders and neck, his elbows on his knees, watching the fire and the
river beyond it. It was early – very early, the valley was very peaceful and
very still. There wasn’t even bird song to hear yet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The image of that child walking out into sunny pasture was still
powerfully clear in his head. It was even stronger now he saw the grass and the
valley directly in front of him, and the sense of peace left by the dream was
so potent that it was hard to move. The fire colours in front of him were
intense, as if they were newly painted. The grass, even in the mist was a vivid
green. The familiar lines of Paul’s face looked crisper, his hair and his eyes
darker and every plane of his face seemed magnified, Dale found himself
noticing intensely every crinkle of his eyes, the light within the dark blue.
Paul didn’t stir or glance around when Dale got up. The valley was intensely
hushed in those few moments before full daylight. Dale stood for a moment,
watching Jasper in the river, Luath’s hands skilfully re casting a line from
the makeshift rods they’d manufactured, hearing the soft rush of the river, then
he walked slowly towards the river well upstream from them. Some several
hundred yards up the bank he paused and then crouched, looking for a moment
into the grey and transparent rushing water with the mist hovering over its
surface, then putting a hand down so that his fingers touched the water’s
surface. It wasn’t as cold as he expected. Crouching there, Dale reached for
the idea Jasper had taught him at dawn a few days ago; to gather up what he
felt and to separate it out, to make it a colour, a texture he could visualise
in the water travelling towards him, something apart from himself, calling to
mind Jasper’s soft voice to hear the words. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Think about
what’s in your mind this morning. Find one thing at a time and separate it out
from everything else. Emotions. Thoughts. Concerns. Sensations. Memories. One
at a time, everything you’re aware of. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It came without difficulty this morning, it was no effort to imagine
and to see. Initially it was a grey colour in the water ahead of him. A dark
and a muddy brownish grey, vast, slow moving and syrupy it filled the river
from bank to bank, and it was something so grim that Dale almost instinctively recoiled
from the water as it approached. He knew it for exactly what it was. The
grimness radiated off it, like toxic waste. But it passed him and flowed away,
down river, breaking up and disappearing into the clean water beyond him, and
gradually the oncoming flow of grey changed. It began to dissolve into
something that was first an indigo blue, much thinner, swirling, like ink
flowing past, and it softened at the edge into almost a violet. That edge of
colour as it passed was bright, soft but clear, and it reminded Dale sharply of
the flashes of light he’d seen up on Mustang Hill that had been shot with violet.
Jasper had said something then, a little reservedly, that it was not a colour
indicating something wrong. And it travelled away from him. It passed, leaving
him behind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The colours had disappeared beyond sight downstream, the water was
clear again. Clean. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale watched it flow for a few minutes more, not so much coherently
thinking as just being there, and his brain appeared to just do the projecting
on its own for a moment later there came those delicate, translucent colours like
refractions from a perfect glass crystal under sunlight – a bright, strong,
orangey red colour that lit up the water in front of him with all the warmth of
the heart of a fire, merged at the edge with a rush of vibrant blue that might
have come from a Caribbean ocean, and beyond that a soft violet that flowed
from mauve to pink as it travelled, and touching edges with it, a delicate,
reflecting gold. Dale found himself smiling as he watched them, the light that
came from those intense colours, the names of which he knew very well although
he had no coherent reason for why. Flynn, Riley, Paul, Jasper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">And beyond it came an equally bright light turquoise and green, a soft
but vibrant colour as bright as the gold, swirling and sparkling as it ran over
the river stones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">That’s a new
one, who’s that? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale watched it pass, aware of nothing more than calm interest; frankly
this kind of thing happened so regularly now that there seemed little point in
trying to summon up alarm or concern about it. In fact he was mildly amused at the
fact that he felt he probably ought to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Jasper and Luath were still fishing in the river. Luath had moved
further downstream to a deeper stretch. Paul was still sitting beside the fire,
with Mason asleep in his sleeping bag
some feet away, and another sleeping bag beside Paul – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</span></span><!--[endif]--><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">filled with a sleeper with dark hair, face down,
head on his arms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale saw and recognised him with a jolt that shook him to his core, and
it was like a physical tug, a yank. Abruptly he was aware that his face was
pressed to his arms, the fire was warm against his side – Dale lifted his head,
startled, and found himself lying in his sleeping bag beside Paul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sheesh, these
dreams get weirder! <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Except Luath was at the exact same deeper stretch of river Dale had
seen him move to, Jasper and Luath were fishing exactly where he’d seen them
just a few seconds ago, Paul was sitting exactly as he’d been sitting – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ok, what the
hell was that?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paul put an arm around his shoulders as Dale dragged himself up on one
elbow, and hugged him, closely and tightly with a gesture that said simply: <i>it’s
good to see you</i>, and Dale swallowed on a rush of emotion that seemed to
sear through places as tender and sore this morning as his throat and stomach. But
it was good. It was on top of that wash of calm he’d felt by the river a few
minutes ago and of the child in the pasture, of something having passed on.
Left him. He freed an arm and hugged back, hard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Good morning.” Paul said against his hair. “No more dreams?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ha. Well not bad ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paul turned his chin up when he didn’t answer. His eyes were gentle and
they were concerned, and with Mason asleep behind them Dale reached to kiss
him, briefly and with all the reassurance and the warmth he could put into it. Paul
ran a hand over his face, and Dale saw his eyes change from concern to surprised
pleasure and questioning as he understood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Ok, what?
What’s different?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">I have no idea
how to explain it to you. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was hard to say anything. Mostly a need to be still, to be quiet,
when everything seemed so bright, so crisp and intense around him, and yet it
wasn’t in anything like a bad way. Paul seemed to understand it too; he said
nothing, just sat there with him while the sun went on slowly coming up behind
them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mason joined them briefly when he woke up, then headed down to the
river to join in the fishing, and by the time the sun was making the dew
sparkle on the pasture and the sky was bright blue overhead, they were
finishing the last of a batch of fried trout, heavily jacketed and gathered
close around the fire against the chill of the morning. Very little tasted as
good as very fresh trout on a cold morning in the open air, particularly as a
change from granola and trail mix. Dale ate a little of the one on his plate,
fragments that were so strongly flavoured they were close to overwhelming, good
with wood smoke, with the river, with the green of the wet grass and the loud voices
of the others. Paul looked across at him, watching him set the plate down
barely a third finished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Stomach sore?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale gave him an apologetic look, and Paul took a couple of antacids
out of his rucksack, handing them over to Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Take those, try eating again in an hour or so, hon. Little and often
is probably going to work better today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Luath took the small bottle of pills out of his own rucksack and
swallowed his morning dose. He’d been quiet at home before the hike. Not really
noticeably unless you knew him as well as they did although Paul thought Gerry
had been as aware of it as he had, but half inside himself. Heavy. Less
involved than he usually was with whatever was going on around him, and with
less patience. Out here in the last couple of days, Paul thought he was moving
with more of his usual energy. His eyes were more alert, he was less inside himself
– although they’d given him little choice, he’d been involved every day in
helping them with Mason and with Dale, and Luath was a long experienced Top and
member of this family here where he had strong habits of not staying politely
hands off with them. It was yanking on his instincts, and it showed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale was watching Luath knock the pills back; Paul saw it with a stab
of realisation that Dale must know very deeply what it felt like to be near
someone depressed, and it made Paul think that when they’d climbed in the
canyon, Dale had taken his time, just happening to be where Luath could take
his arm at any time with the same tact Philip used to have. Almost a protective
instinct. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Luath put the bottle away and came back to the fire with his mug of
tea, and Paul thought he’d seen Dale watching him too and he understood it the
way Paul did, since he wrapped an arm around Dale and pulled him over into a
strong hug without comment. Dale was almost swallowed up against him. Mason,
who by now they must have rendered shock proof, didn’t even glance round, and
Paul leaned on his shoulder to get up, saying to him with affection for his
clear enjoyment of the fish he was finishing the last scraps of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You’ve got a definite knack for fishing, Mason. I’m stuffed.”<br />
<br />
“I could get into fishing.” Mason, scruffy and shaggy beneath the brim of his
hat which emphasised the increasingly weathered tan he was acquiring, gave him
a quick grin, knocking back the last of his own tea before he shook his mug
out. “Are we moving on?”<br />
<br />
“We’re moving on.” Jasper confirmed. Mason leaned over to tip the last of the
water over the fire with a practicality that he’d picked up after several days
of fires at every camp, one elbow braced on his knee. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“So which way are we headed today?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Northwest.” Jasper indicated the woods ahead of them. “There were elk
down that way last night, we’ll follow them and pick up the path.”<br />
<br />
Mason raked out the smoking ashes which intensified the woodsmoke smell,
scattering them before he got up. Jasper held a hand out to him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Where are those rocks of yours?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Yeah, I’ve got the lot, relax.” Mason pulled several out of his jeans
pockets and several more from his jacket. “Ten, there you are. All present and
correct.”<br />
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“Give me three of them.” Jasper kept his hand out, waiting, and looking wary,
Mason gave him three. Jasper said nothing more, but put one down beside the
ashes of the fire, another by the makeshift fishing rods and another by the
bank of the river before he went to pick up his rucksack. Mason’s eyebrows rose
as he watched, he looked faintly amused, but he zipped his jacket and went to
get his own gear together. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I spent most of yesterday holding everyone up,” Dale straightened up
from his pack and Paul knew his expression. It was the one that flatly said the
most brutal things straight out loud, because blaming himself first and hardest
was fractionally less awful than being blamed by others. While his voice was
very soft as if it was an effort to speak at all this morning, his tone was quietly
matter of fact. “Including making a scene about half past one yesterday morning
and hurling a journal into the fire. No one’s said a word about it, which isn’t
fair or appropriate, particularly to Mason. We have the same expectations for
all of us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “Hey, that was crisis, not bad temper.
I’ve got nothing like your problems to handle.” Mason said quite gently from
where he was packing his rucksack. “Let it go, man. No one wants to see you
with a pocket full of rocks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“That doesn’t make it fair.” Dale said quietly to Jasper. Jasper
shrugged into his pack, moving calmly and returning Dale’s gaze but not
answering. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“When did we start worrying about ‘fair’ around here?” Luath said
conversationally, clipping his harness on. “I’m pretty sure that used to be a
banned word.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale gave Luath a straight look, and Paul said firmly, “Dale, look at
me. Why did we spend yesterday getting held up? Give me the other half of the
story.”<br />
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It was a hard thing to ask him to say and it was a powerful cue for a mouthful
of icily and courteously worded defiance, or for convoluted rabbit trails; Paul
was prepared to work through either. Dale swung his pack up, shouldering into
the harness, but he met Paul’s eyes, his voice quiet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Mostly because I was freaking out around flashbacks. It wasn’t a good
day.”<br />
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“It really wasn’t.” Paul agreed. “And you made up your mind to let us help and
to talk it out. You could have shut down and denied that anything was bothering
you, you could have bolted, you could have dissociated, you could have played
us, I know it took everything you had not to. But you didn’t, even though it
was ugly and it was messy. I know you want to feel bad about that now. You know
why?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Because the programming says it’s unacceptable.” Dale admitted even more
quietly. “In her house, that was the worst thing I could do.” <br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was an effort not to visibly react with shock or delight that he
just <i>said</i> it. He’d spent all of yesterday going through hell to force it
out in syllable by painful syllable, but today, now, they had the words for it.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
“That was her house, not here and now.” Paul agreed gently, in the same low key
tone, catching sight of Mason’s expression which was fixed on Dale and deeply
sympathetic. “You spent yesterday doing exactly the right thing, love, I’m very
proud of you, what on earth would we want to consequence about that? ‘Please be
traumatised quietly?’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It didn’t get a smile out of him but it got something in his eyes that
Paul read without difficulty, that went to his heart and mostly said <i>thank
you</i>. He held out a hand and Dale took it, holding on to it tightly enough
to let slip that however calm he looked, he was desperate for the comfort. Paul
wrapped his fingers around Dale’s holding them just as tight, and pulling Dale
close to him as they started to walk, Tam trotting ahead of them. They left a
little flattened grass, the raked out ashes and Mason’s rocks behind them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Luath dropped his hands on Dale’s shoulders as he walked alongside them
towards the woods. “I remember now. It was Bear and Roger banned it on the
grounds of over-use on Gerry’s part, and Gerry refused to talk to pretty much
any of us for two days. I’d forgotten the havoc Gerry can cause when he really
sulks, I spent most of those two days keeping Rog busy so he didn’t cave in and
apologise just to calm him down.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I’d have thought Bear would be the one who’d find it hardest.” Dale’s
voice was still very soft but he was distracted; there was very little in the
history of the ranch that didn’t fascinate him. Luath smiled at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You’d be surprised, Bear’s not easily persuaded to do anything much. He
said the whole point was that Gerry used the word ‘fair’ or rather ‘not fair’
as a get out clause to avoid justifying what he actually minded about,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Bear did not put it like that.” Paul said with amusement. Luath
shrugged good naturedly, catching Mason’s eye who was listening with interest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Ok, put that into Bear speak, but that was the gist, and he said Gerry
was proving them right with a whole lot more refusing to communicate. We
thought Bear and Roger had a good point and were staying out of it so long as
nothing worse than sulking was happening. Then Wade got involved didn’t he?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I think Gerry wrote to him looking for moral support and sympathy,”
Paul said regretfully, “He got a letter back from Wade agreeing with the others
and Gerry melted down completely. At which point Philip did one of his
nobody-leaves-the-table-until-you’re-desperate-to-get-along things.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Did he take much of a hand in it?” Dale asked him. Jasper shook his
head, walking with Mason on Dale’s other side. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I never saw him have to. He didn’t say much at all if there was a
falling out. He just put a paddle down on the table and pleasantly invited us
to talk it out. And people did. Quick.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Mostly because the paddle wasn’t an empty threat.” Paul said
reflectively. “People got pretty motivated to start listening, being honest and
taking responsibility for their part in any bickering, and once they started
doing that, problems generally vanished straight away. I don’t remember anyone
getting up from a session like that still mad or upset. Rather a different spin
on your work kind of conflict resolution isn’t it hon?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Well I’m not saying it wouldn’t be effective.” Dale said with
conviction and a hint of his usual dryness when he was amused by something. “I’d
be willing to give it a go. But yes.”<br />
<br />
“You’re all nuts.” Mason said uncritically. “First you want to live out here in
the middle of nowhere with no tv and a whole lot of sheep, then you live with a
guy with a paddle who uses it.”<br />
<br />
“He had a large group of men in the house, most with strong personalities, a
lot of whom weren’t the ‘let’s talk about this’ type. Discipline was how he
kept the peace.” Luath said cheerfully. “I was a bit taken aback too at first,
but it worked. Seen any blazing rows at home yet? People sniping at each other
– and I mean the mean stuff – or the silent treatment, or people refusing to
come to meals or sit with each other?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“No.” Mason admitted a little unwillingly. “And yeah I get it, you guys
are all stuck in the 1930s and it’s kind of cute in a way,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Luath’s eyebrows rose. “Good manners and conflict management is out of
date in your workplace? Dale, you ever noticed that in New York?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mason grimaced. “Ah come on, I
didn’t mean it like that.”<br />
<br />
“You have some of those values yourself.” Paul pointed out to Mason. “<i>Sixteen
tons and what do you get? </i>The music you love isn’t light on values at all,
it’s got very strong cultural roots in what makes for a good man.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mason paused as they reached the edge of the woods where the light
struck down through the trees in shafts, putting a hand up to stop the others. Elk
were grazing at the bottom of the hollow, several hundred yards away, several
massive bulls with their new, heavy antlers still velvet covered and their
winter coats ragged and coming off them in patches now it was spring, tearing
slowly at the grass and rooting amongst the leaves. Their haunches would be
shoulder high on a man, they weren’t so very much smaller than the horses. One
of the bulls lifted its head and turned to look at them, studying them while it
chewed, but the rest of the group took no notice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“No hunters out here.” Mason said softly. “Are there? Look at that. They’re
not scared of us at all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“They see us go by and do our thing, we don’t disturb them. And we’re
bordered by ranches, no one around here is going to shoot at them.” Jasper
nodded at the largest of the elks. “He’s one of the oldest, I know the antlers.
They don’t go that far off our land even in the winter. The coyote or the wolf
packs will sometimes go after the calves or a weak or old bull on its own, but
I’ve seen the mess those antlers will leave a coyote in.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> They stood for a moment more,
watching the elk graze before Jasper led the way round the wall of the hollow,
a route that wouldn’t disturb the grazers. As they climbed down the hollow on a
route that would eventually lead them back to the river, Jasper paused, took
Dale’s hand and drew him towards something to the side of the path, tugging
gently until Dale crouched down beside him. It was a tree sapling; Paul saw it
over his shoulder. Very small, only a few leaves on a sturdy stalk. Jasper dug
gently with his fingers around the stalk, easing it out of the earth until the
roots were freed. He handed the sapling to Dale and straightened up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Find me two more like that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">He said nothing else, which clicked immediately for Paul; he swallowed
a smile and walked on with Mason and Luath, leaving Dale, probably mystified but
not showing it, to search for and locate two more of the saplings, coaxing them
out of the ground with their roots intact, hearing Jasper’s voice behind him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“There’s plenty of moss there. Wrap the roots in it, keep them damp and
find somewhere safe to put them in your rucksack.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">They were headed home this morning as planned, and on a familiar trail
they often rode, they were only a few hours’ walk away from the house. None of
them had mentioned it aloud for Mason’s sake any more than they’d shared the
plans with him that had been made the evening before they hiked out; they
intentionally didn’t give clients much information on what was coming up, and
not until an event was imminent. Their clients were powerful and intelligent people
with strong personalities who were used to having all the information that was available,
to making their own plans and having total control. Part of helping them to
find genuine peace and relaxation here was their learning what many of them had
never experienced before in their lives even as children: to just let things
happen, to be able to be secure within themselves with whatever came along
instead of their stability and mood being dependent on things going the way
they planned. It was something Mason was a lot better at now they were on their
fifth day out here where he’d had no ability to control or predict at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">They were covering ground quickly too. Paul, watching Dale walk at his
usual pace with Jasper, was very well aware of how quiet he was – not the explosive
or disappearing kind of quiet, but an utter weariness that he was trying not to
let show. Jasper was keeping a firm hold on his hand and picking their route
and he wasn’t taking them a step further than necessary. Somewhere on the banks
of the river where Jasper and Mason climbed out on to the rocks to refill their
water bottles, Luath put an arm around Dale’s waist from behind, giving him a
close and crushing hug, and Paul knew he’d seen it too, and understood it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Not far now. Sit down, get some rest.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale never usually took well at all to any implication of weakness, but
he seemed to take that from Luath. He liked Luath, and Paul thought too that
Dale understood and valued the hierarchy of the family he’d joined, he had a
lot of natural respect and time for the older members who had been here decades
before he came which had done a good deal to endear him to them; James
particularly was a sucker for a good looking young man with Dale’s kind of
manners and admitted it freely. Paul saw Dale nod and Luath tugged him closer
and dropped a discreet, hard kiss on his forehead, helping him ease his back
pack off and sit down on the bank. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Paul, give me your water bottle, you must be short by now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paul handed it over and sat down beside Dale, winding his fingers
through Dale’s slightly cold ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“How are you doing, hon?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Tired.” Dale said honestly. Paul waited, watching him, aware that
where yesterday his tension had been painfully visible all the time, his body
language had been huddled, small, tight, today the weariness rolled off him,
but it was a calm kind of weariness and while he was quiet, he was with them.
Not shut down, not distressed, nothing worse at all than as he said: tired. It
was as if he’d burned it all out yesterday, channelled it out, the whole feel
of him was different. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I feel rather zoned out.” Dale said after a moment, quietly. “Not
really thinking anything much, just...”<br />
<br />
“Here.” Paul offered when he trailed off. “And empty I bet. And fragile.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes it helped if you gave him the words for it, and sometimes if
you made a guess and got it wrong he could correct you and build on the start
you’d made. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“It’s not bad.” Dale said after a moment and Paul could hear the effort
to find the words to describe it. “It’s a bit like the morning we went to the
hot springs. It’s definitely not bad, but it’s very different. It’s rather like
a damn great hole of nothing where mess ought to be.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“And you find yourself thinking, if it’s not there and it was such a
big part of everything then who am I. You almost find yourself missing it.”
Luath said from the river bank. Dale looked up at him and Luath brought the
water canteen back to Paul, shaking it off before he handed it over, his voice
very gentle. “You know I found myself guilty as hell this Christmas because I had
a good time? First time in years it hasn’t been, at gut level, all about
missing Rog. And in part that feels like forgetting him, and in part it isn’t
who I’ve been for a long time. You’d think you’d be glad just not to feel so
bad, but you end up almost grieving for that grief.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale looked up at him, and Paul could see he understood, fully. It
always mattered to him when one of them shared something themselves, something
that made them as vulnerable, that said <i>yes, I understand that and I’ve been
there too. </i>It was a shock too to realise how Luath had felt over Christmas;
he’d hidden it well and that was as exasperating as it was sad. Jasper, sitting
down on the grass beside Dale, reached into Dale’s pocket and took out the
piece of rose quartz Dale always carried, putting it into Dale’s hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“My grandfather believed a part of people’s souls was in their bones,
and in the year after they were buried, that essence of them returns back to
the earth and to the life force there. Especially gathering into crystals and
quartz, it’s part of why quartz has such a part in spiritual lore. When you use
it, you have no idea how many people are helping you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Well that was random. And a really disgusting thought.” Mason
commented, giving the quartz a wry look. He was standing calf deep in the water
near them on the shallow shelf of rock at the crossing place, and he’d been
standing there for a moment or two, frowning into the depths of the relatively
clear water. A few days ago he’d have complained loudly about having to step in
running, freezing water, but being constantly muddy and dirty and frequently
wet tended to shift your tolerance to it a lot. Having followed the wagon trail
in the past few days and slept last night in the town built and settled by
them, it was also a far sharper experience to see the wagon frame deep under
the water. Someone’s home and transport had gone down with it, this had been
someone’s major disaster once, although in this depth and in clear water, most if
not all of their possessions must have been recovered. When you knew yourself,
directly, what it was like to sleep out on this land and how dependent you were
on shelter, dry clothes, dry firewood and what food you could catch or carry,
it was far easier to understand the plight of the wagon’s owner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale turned the large chunk of glittering, rough quartz over in his
hand, holding it up for Mason to see. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“It’s not random at all. I dug this up here, it was formed on our land
and we’ve had a lot of people move through or live on this land. To me that’s a
pretty wild thought. And there’s healing influences associated with rose
quartz. Peace. It clarifies and amplifies the qualities it identifies with.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mason gave him a brief and uncritical grin, looking back down into the
water and the downed wagon and digging his hands into his pockets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Totally random. Ya gotta love guys this weird. Luath, I’m really sorry
about Roger, man. That must be hell.”<br />
<br />
“It is.” Luath said to him, and Paul, watching Mason, saw him appreciate the
honest reply to a friend rather than the polite ‘thank you’ a stranger might
have gotten for a formal expression of sympathy. “It has been. I still miss him
all the time, sometimes I do better with it than at others. The tough thing is getting
real about it, when it’s been a long period of time and everyone else has moved
on, when you have to stay functional and if you’re numbed out then hey, at
least you’re coping, right? You’re getting on with your life. Except you’re
not, and deep down you know you’re not. Hardest thing in the world to let
yourself face the bad. Not just face it; go dance with it.”<br />
<br />
“Oh man, you lot need therapy,” Mason started to say as he waded across to the
bank, and Paul saw him look at Dale and wince, “Shoot, look, I don’t mean that.
I’ve got a big mouth and I’m lousy at talking about this kind of stuff with
anyone, find me a guy in my line of work who is? I get embarrassed and I mouth
off.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was one of the most honest confessions Paul thought they’d yet heard
him make. <br />
<br />
“Oh I get being avoidant, I was just the same until I came out here.” Dale said
gently. “Trust me, I get it. I managed an entire career on polite small talk
until I flipped my lid.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mason gave him a rather strange look; Paul saw it and saw Jasper see it
too; Mason had looked uncomfortably towards Dale a couple of times today, and
it wasn’t discomfort with what Dale had confided in them yesterday. If anything
there had been a lot of sympathy and Paul thought no little protectiveness in
Mason for Dale that had come out in a number of ways as an older man to a
younger. It was something else bothering Mason. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">When they got up to move on, Paul noticed that Dale kept the rose
quartz crystal in his hand, turning it absently over and over in his fingers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">They passed the cairn on
the way through the pastures, the pink quartz within the structure glinting in
the midday sun. Luath stopped beside it, putting an affectionate hand on the
stone, then crouching down in front of it. There were no words on the cairn,
nothing official there to mark it, but in the deepest grass growing against its
foot, there were still dried flowers left from last summer, when they’d buried
Gam Saan at Three Traders. Several awkward posies from men who wouldn’t usually
pick flowers had been quietly tucked at the foot of the stones, and a very few
were not quite disintegrated or blown away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“What does this mark?” Mason asked, shifting his rucksack a little
higher on his shoulders. “It’s the same kind of rock you’ve got, isn’t it? It’s
a beautiful thing and it’s in the middle of nowhere.”<br />
<br />
“This is where we buried David and Philip.” Luath brushed more moss off the
base of the stones, more to touch it than because anything needed clearing. “This
quartz is from the ranch too.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It never failed to give Paul a deep sense of peace to see the cairn.
There was still the memory of watching them cut the turf and turn the soil
over, of several of them gently lifting the blanket wrapped figure from the hay
cart they’d walked beside through the pasture, the blanket from Philip and
David’s bed that they laid over them both when they were side by side again.
Like everything initiated by Philip, it had been calm and peaceful and this was
a good place, with good memories. Jasper, standing with Dale and keeping hold
of his hand, glanced down into Dale’s face for a moment, then silently
unclipped Dale’s rucksack harness, took it down from his shoulders and Luath
got up and came to help him separate its contents, stuffing a good part of it
into his own backpack. Dale looked too shocked to argue for a moment, and Paul
got hold of him to stop him interfering as he got his breath back, sounding
extremely formal but too tired to explode. “Jasper. It’s only a couple of
miles, I’m perfectly capable of-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Actually he wasn’t. Seeing what Jasper had seen, the slightly drunk
cast of his eyes that said he was pushing well beyond the point of exhaustion
now and no longer really aware he was doing it, Paul put Dale gently out of the
way and pulled off his own backpack to take a share of the load.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“No sweetheart. Let it go now, you’ve got enough of a job moving
yourself.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mason swung his own pack to the ground, gruffly taking Dale’s bedroll
from Paul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Give me that.”<br />
<br />
He roped it to his own pack, efficiently with a few practiced yanks of the
elasticated rope he’d been using for days to rig his night shelter and to wrap
his own belongings, which were much tighter wrapped today than they’d been five
days ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Why don’t we rest here for a while?” Luath said quietly. “We’re in no
hurry and we could all probably do with something to eat.”<br />
<br />
Dale winced involuntarily, and Paul sat down on the grass and tugged until Dale
lay down in the grass beside him, shoulders against the turf. Luath dug in his
pack and handed Paul the bag of granola. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Here. Jas, you too, you could do with it. Have you got any left?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Jasper accepted the handful Luath passed him, sitting down on the grass
on Dale’s other side to share it with Mason. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Mason, give me one of your rocks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mason glanced up at him, startled, then took another rock from his
pocket, handing it over. Jasper put it firmly down on the grass where Dale’s
pack had rested. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paul, laying back on the grass, watched the sunlight glinting off the
strands of Dale’s dark hair. His eyes were fixed on the sky above them, and it
made Paul think again, with intense tenderness, of sitting with him picking
pebbles in the water yesterday afternoon. He had suggested it at the time on
impulse as a distraction, something sensory and physical to do that would be
calming, and the signs were so slight and so fragile that it was like watching
a deer graze or a bird pick grain out of your hand, while you barely dared to
breathe for fear of startling them. He didn’t think Dale had ever consciously
realised which part of him was so involved in sorting and collecting stones,
doing something Paul was willing to bet he’d never been able to relax and do
with someone he loved as a preschooler. He’d been far calmer afterwards, as if
something at a deep level had been soothed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Do you know,” Dale said to him softly and quite conversationally,
“Before there was a town at Three Traders there were just a few tents on the
river bank, under the shelter of the hill.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Were there?” Paul glanced down at his face, thinking of other things
and only peripherally aware of the actual words. Dale’s eyes were still on the
sky. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“The tents were mostly trappers and traders, they traded furs as the
wagons passed through on the trail which was more or less where the main street
comes down the hill and down to the river, this was a rest stop because of the
water. And then a kind of rough mercantile building went up near to where the
hotel is now. One rough timber building with a green sign, hand painted.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Did you read about it?” Paul asked him, and Dale shook his head
slightly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I could see it. It’s like seeing pictures. Flashes of it.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Like photographs?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“In a way.” Dale sounded calm about it, the calm of exhaustion but
there was a kind of mild interest in his voice. “It’s very like imagining.
Mind’s eye. Glimpses, except I know where each bit should have been. If I stood
on an oil rig or on a building field with a plan, I often used to mentally plan
out a kind of visual construction of where things would be and what they would
look like. I wish I understood more about the difference between imagining and
something else.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The something else was a euphemism and Paul understood it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You said with Mustang Hill, it was as if David was nagging you to
understand something.” he said softly. “Is that the way this time?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale made one of his very British <i>hmph</i> sounds and it was a
cheerful one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“No. As a matter of fact, from what I can ascertain I really don’t think
David gives a toss about the Silver Bullet, he’s not interested. This just
seems to .... be.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
“Mhm?” Paul made it a quiet sound, an I’m listening sound. Dale didn’t say
anything further for a moment. There was something studiedly casual about it,
something that warned Paul he was trying to screw himself up to something, and
finally Dale cleared his throat carefully. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“That cloud over that way, towards the town. That one looks like a ship
in sail.”<br />
<br />
Paul couldn’t answer for a moment, startled and with his eyes stinging. Keeping
his own voice relaxed he lay back on the grass, his shoulder against Dale’s,
feeling for his hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Top gallant? Oh go on, tell me. You know you want to.”<br />
<br />
He felt Dale break into a laugh and his fingers squeezed Paul’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“British Admiralty square rigged, 44 gun frigate, circa 1800. Shut up
and play properly.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The house came into view in the distance first. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The warm colour of the roof reflected back the sunlight, emerging out
of the green pasture in the far distance, and Mason looked sharply towards it,
then looked back to Jasper, his face lighting up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“That’s the ranch, isn’t it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Hot showers and a decent meal tonight, son.” Luath slung an arm around
his shoulders as they walked through the deep grass. “If they’ve left the
kitchen intact.”<br />
<br />
“Oh believe me, they will have left the kitchen intact.” Paul said definitely. “They
know me too well, they won’t risk it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“How many miles do you guess we’ve walked altogether?” Mason turned to
walk backwards, looking out towards the pasture stretching behind them, with
respect in his voice as much as a little very justified pride. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Forty plus. Maybe forty five.” Jasper told him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paul, expecting Dale to give the precise figure, which he usually would
have done automatically, looked at him and found him walking with his eyes on
the house, all his attention on it, and there wasn’t just tiredness in his face
now. Paul squeezed his hand, with the same rush of <i>home</i> in his own
stomach. It was an intense victory after five days of hiking, with those miles
laying behind them, Riley and Flynn ahead of them, Gerry and Ash, home with
everything it meant, and Mason felt it too. That last mile they walked faster,
enjoying the view, and there was a swagger in Mason’s step that Paul understood
and liked him for, something that said he knew he’d faced down a challenge and
done it well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">The red dust yard was its usual tidy, orderly self. Tam darted ahead of
them and Shane bulleted out of the corral, leaping up at her with his tail
flailing. Paul’s heart leaped at the sight of Flynn beyond them in the corral, in
shirtsleeves and work gloves, filling the feed bins. He glanced up towards them
and Paul saw him empty the sack into the last bin, rolling up the bag as he
climbed the rail. Luath shrugged his pack down and dropped it by the barn door,
tipping his head back and stretching until his big shoulders cracked. Paul put
his own down beside it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Mason, why don’t you go grab the kitchen shower and have a good soak? There’s
no need to hurry. You’ve got clean clothes in the laundry room. Luthe, want to
grab the bathroom by your room?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I would pay serious money for a shower.” Luath dropped his arms and
met Flynn with a rough, hard hug that lasted a few seconds too long to be
casual. “Hey brat, it’s good to see you.”<br />
<br />
“You made good time.” Flynn hugged him back, slapped his back and let him go,
dropped an arm around Mason’s shoulders and gave him an equally rough hug. “Hey
Mason. Think you could have got any muddier?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Hey, these are my clean jeans.” Mason said, grinning. “The muddy ones
are in my pack, they practically walk by themselves.” <br />
<br />
“So how was it?” Flynn asked him. Mason paused on the porch steps, following
Luath, and gave him a brief, reluctant nod, still smiling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“.. okay, so it was damn good. Don’t tell anyone.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Flynn gave him one of his very brief, crackling grins and Mason headed
inside, stopping with Luath to get heavily muddied, soaked hiking boots off his
feet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Don’t <i>anybody</i> walk through the house in those filthy clothes,
strip in the kitchen!” Paul shouted after them, and Luath waved back. He was moving
casually enough but he was discreetly herding Mason out of sight; Paul knew it
and appreciated it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale could have made a fortune at poker. His face was calm and he
wasn’t looking at anything in particular while they waited. With deep sympathy,
Paul held on to his hand until Mason and Luath were both inside, then Flynn swung
around, hooked an arm around Dale’s neck and yanked him over against his chest,
and Dale put both arms around his neck and clenched them, his face buried. Paul
ran a hand over Dale’s head and rubbed his back, watching Flynn turn his face
against Dale’s. If he was saying anything, it was out of anyone else’s earshot.
Dale looked very slight against him, even in the heavy jacket, Flynn’s arms so
tightly around him that the muscles stood out on his forearms. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Bath.” Paul said after a moment with his voice rather shakier than
he’d meant. “Flynn, get him out of those clothes and get him in the bath. Don’t
for goodness sake leave him alone in there, he’s barely awake as it is.”<br />
<br />
Neither of them moved for a moment, then Flynn kissed the side of Dale’s face,
hard, looking past him to Jasper, then to Paul, without letting Dale go. His
eyes were very dark, they were the only place he didn’t effectively have himself
under control. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You two ok?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Fine.” Paul put a hand against the side of Flynn’s face, kissed what
he could reach of him and headed up the porch steps. “We’re good. Where’s
Riley?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Should be back in the next half hour. Ash and Gerry went up to the
horses, they’ll be back by four.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Flynn waited for him
strip to the skin in the kitchen, which was remarkably tidy and if Dale was any
judge, had been thoroughly scrubbed this morning. The house was warm and quiet
and wonderfully familiar, the carpet was shockingly soft under foot, the shower
was already running in the bathroom at the far end of the landing near Philip
and David’s and Luath’s room, and Flynn steered him into the bathroom at their
end of the landing, letting him go to run the bath. Dale ran both hands through
his hair, well aware that despite river bathing and washing, he could smell
himself and it was not pleasant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I’m going to shower first.”<br />
<br />
“You can’t be any muckier than you were coming out of the mine. In.” Flynn
dumped a handful of the salts Paul kept in a jar by the side of the bath that
were good for easing out the sore muscles they often came home with, and
gripped his arm, steadying him as he stepped in. The touch of the hot water was
mind blowing. Dale found himself groaning with the sheer luxury of it, heat and
steam and the pressure against sore muscles, and sinking down in it was fatal.
The comfort of it rushed over him, Dale felt the last of his energy slip away
and the aching of his legs and his head redoubled in response. He could have
just laid back in the hot water, closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep
right there. He didn’t ever in his life remember being this tired. Flynn put a
hand under his chin, lifting his face to look at him, then pulled the blind
down over the window, dimming the room. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“What hurts other than the headache?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Legs. A little. Stomach.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">And that part was worrying him slightly. Dale made himself sit up with
an extreme effort, reaching for the soap. The bath wasn’t half full yet, the
taps were still gushing in an amazing way, spilling out endless hot water, and
the soap smelled fantastically clean. He lathered the bar up and began to wash
silt, sweat and mud from his skin. Flynn reached for his hand, turning it up to
see the palm. Dale had forgotten about the now sealed cut below his thumb, it
had been several days since Paul let him stop wearing a dressing despite the
mud they were covered in. The line where it had been was still vivid on his
skin and he suspected it would probably scar, but it was neat. Small. Flynn ran
his own hand over it, then took the soap from him, sitting on the edge of the
bath to soap him thoroughly from neck to feet, his hands as much massaging as
washing, and in some way taking a kind of very comforting inventory that was
sure and strong and measured all of him, from ribs which Dale was fairly sure
were protruding more than was attractive and more than they had a few weeks
ago, to parts of him that were definitely interested despite being exhausted
and argued that there was no such thing as <i>that</i> tired. The entire
inventory was of Flynn’s property after all, piano ribs and all; Dale would
have been prepared to defend that in court, in armour and to dragons if
necessary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Pulling himself together, Dale slid down under the water to wet his
hair and soaped it vigorously, rinsed it out along with the rest of him and ran
his hair back from his face as he sat up, running the water off along with it.
Flynn held a towel up, not letting go of it as Dale wiped his eyes and his face,
then put a hand under his chin again, stooping down to kiss him. It was a
thorough, demanding and extremely searching kiss that went on for a while and
it was wonderful. The feel of him, the taste of him, the utter familiarity of
his mouth and his hands and the strength within them, the rush of emotion and
everything else that tended to rush whenever Flynn got hold of him.... Flynn’s
shirt was very wet by the time Dale came up for air, breathless and lightheaded
and feeling infinitely better than he had in days. Paul tapped at the door,
also wet haired and clearly straight from the shower, and carrying three mugs,
one of which he handed to Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“How are you doing?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Tea. Real tea. With fresh milk. It smelled like heaven, it tasted even
better. Dale shut his eyes in bliss at the flavour, stunned at how a few days
of deprivation sharpened the senses.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Hey!” Riley’s voice yelled from downstairs. Paul put his own mug down
to shout back, his whole face lighting up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Riley we’re up here!”<br />
<br />
From the sound of it, Riley took the stairs several at a time and he erupted
into the bathroom and hurled himself into Paul’s arms, loud and delighted and
radiating it at an intensity that made Dale’s ears ring. Paul hugged him
tightly, laughing, Dale glimpsed his face over Riley’s shoulder, loving the joy
there.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Hi sweetheart, I missed you! How are you? How has it been going?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Crazed, but we’ve been fine.” Riley kissed Paul soundly. “When did you
get in? I didn’t see a thing until I saw Jas in the yard just now, and I was
watching all morning for you!”<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">He let Paul go and stooped over the edge of the bath and Dale hugged
him hard, caring as little as Riley did about getting him wet. Riley was warm,
vital, he felt awfully good and his arms were squashing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
“We walked back from Three Traders, we camped down there last night.” Paul said cheerfully behind them. “It was a
beautiful walk, bright day, that valley is beautiful. It’s so still at night.”<br />
<br />
“You look like hell.” Riley let Dale go and sat back to look at him, and Dale
saw his face change from teasing to genuine alarm. “Dale, you really look like
hell,”<br />
<br />
“Relax, we’re all right.” Paul put his hands on Riley’s shoulders, gently
pulling him to his feet. “He’s going to bed as soon as he’s done with that tea,
don’t harass him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I’m fine, this is mostly nerves.” Dale reached for Riley’s hand and
gripped it. “Paul and Jas deserve the sympathy, I’ve been dragging them through
the valley of the shadow of my mother for the past couple of days.”<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was only them he could have said it to, even couched in such a
pathetic attempt at humour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
“Are you ok?” Riley demanded it fairly quietly, gripping him back. His eyes
were warm and anxious, intensely hazel, the colour was fascinating. Dale had to
draw his attention back under control to reassure him, meaning it honestly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I’m ok. A lot better now than I was.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Yeah, always all the high drama with you.” Riley rolled his eyes and
stooped quickly to kiss him again when Dale laughed. “You can sit there looking
all chilled out and sensible, I know you. Not like we haven’t had all that with
Gerry, he’s been bouncing off the walls while you’ve been gone.”<br />
<br />
“Are they still planning to head back to Seattle tomorrow?” Paul asked with
sympathy and Riley grimaced. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“No, Gerry got a call day before yesterday, it sucks. His surgery got
put back. Some kind of emergency the surgeon had come in, it messed up his
schedule and Gerry got bumped for a week, they couldn’t have done anything much
meaner to him. They talked it over and decided they’re staying on here rather
than going home to wait it out, I think they made the right call.”<br />
<br />
“Easier to keep Gerry busy here, and not off by himself at the gallery all day
where he can get in a state.” Flynn said succinctly. Riley snorted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Yeah, we’ve kept him busy all right. We had them doing the scans on
the horses with Clara and we brought all the calves in, vaccinated and tagged
them, mowed the low meadow and got the hay dry and baled, they’ve both been
asleep on the couch by eight thirty.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Come on honey, get out of there.” Paul handed Dale a towel. “Let’s get
you to bed and I’ll bring you up something to eat. I want something gentler in
your stomach than what I plan on feeding everyone else tonight.”<br />
<br />
“The last time it was this sore, I was starting an ulcer.” Dale admitted
unwillingly as he got out. Flynn steadied him and took the towel, drying off
his back and shoulders, and Paul went ahead of them into their room, pulling
the bedclothes back and sorting through the chest of drawers for sleep wear,
sounding a lot calmer than Dale felt and it was incredibly reassuring not to be
alone with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You spent a lot of yesterday throwing up, you’re bound to be sore. I
think it’s mostly acid darling, don’t worry. If it isn’t any easier tomorrow
we’ll ask Emmett for some advice but if we’re careful for a few days it should
settle down. Ri, go and shower, I’m going to start dinner in a minute.”<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Riley disappeared into the hallway, they could hear him singing as he headed
into the bathroom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Forty years on
an iceberg out in the ocean wide<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nothing to
wear but pyjamas and nothing to but slide.....<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">It was the kind of cheerful nonsense he usually sang in the bathroom
and while he was dressing, a familiar and comfortable sound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale didn’t remember a whole lot after that. It was quiet upstairs, the
room was cool from the open window, the bed was unbelievably soft and the
cleanness and the fresh smell of the sheets, the softness of linen was
overwhelming. Flynn lay down with him, holding
him close and being <i>there</i>, being Flynn, big and strong and encompassing
and quiet as if he knew and understood that the perfect thing he could do right
now was shut up and hold on, and that really was pretty much it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">When he woke again it was dark, and he was locked hard against Flynn,
inside the circle of Flynn’s arm. Flynn wasn’t clutching him, his grasp was
very gentle: Dale realised it had been him doing the hanging on and rather
abashedly slackened his grip. The sky was pitch black beyond the window and it
was freezing cold, and everything was - strange. Flynn spoke at once when Dale moved,
his voice very quiet but alert as if he’d been laying awake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Ok?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">........I’m
really not sure. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Not certain of what to do about it, although disorientation was a perfectly
rational response to having gone to bed at such an early hour, Dale sat up,
reaching for the single reliable excuse at this hour of the night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Bathroom.”<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Be quick.”<br />
<br />
There were all kinds of things wrong with that instruction. Shivering slightly,
Dale slid out of bed and away from Flynn’s warmth, parting reluctantly with the
covers and leaving the light out. He knew Flynn still sat up and waited. It was
really <i>damn</i> cold tonight, it felt like there was a frost outside. The
bathroom was even colder, touching the taps was more or less painful. It was
seriously odd. Wondering if the heating was out and that was what had woken him,
Dale paused on the landing at the top of the stairs, listening for the boiler.
It was running all right, he knew the familiar low distant hum and it was
unusually loud; in fact when he thought about it, he could feel the vibration
through the floor and all through the walls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Is the boiler
going wrong? Is there something I’m missing? What the hell is about to happen?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Part of him wanted to go back to the doorway of his room and look and
check he wasn’t still actually asleep in bed, because frankly now he knew that
happened sometimes it worried him – or that there were no rabid small children
or toy trains or anything else bizarre that tended to occupy his nights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“What are you doing?” Riley’s voice said very softly behind him in the
dark. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">If Riley could see and hear him, then apparently he was awake. Dale
gripped the wall for support, trying to sound a good deal calmer than he felt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"> “Listening for the boiler.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Yeah because that’s always fun at three am.” Riley padded down the
landing to join him. “What, is it going to explode or something?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You two, get back in bed. Now.” Flynn’s voice said distinctly from the
doorway. Riley took no notice. He was standing very close, and he obviously
wasn’t aware of the tremors or the peculiar buzzing sound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Dale?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale jumped at the hand Riley laid on his back; Riley was as freezing cold
as the house was. Riley gripped his shoulder surprisingly hard and to Dale’s
surprise he called out loud, sharply without the slightest care for the time of
night, “Flynn, come here. Paul!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“<i>Shh</i>,” Dale started to say, startled, and Flynn materialised on
the landing, large and quiet and shockingly, he was even colder than Riley was
when his hands closed on Dale’s shoulders. He hadn’t felt that icy in bed just
a few moments ago. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Feel that?” Riley demanded. “How did you <i>not</i> notice that?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Flynn’s hands were extremely firm and Dale found himself moved without
his conscious permission, hearing Flynn’s voice, low and definite in his ear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Come on kid, it’s ok. Halfpint, stop yelling, let’s get back in bed
and we’ll talk about it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“You want to <i>look</i> at him?” Refusing to be hustled anywhere, Riley
snapped the landing light on and Dale winced, putting a hand up to shield his
eyes. The light was searingly bright, the floor was vibrating under him along
with everything else, and his ears were ringing, it was downright alarming. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“What’s going on out here?” Paul came out of his room, and Jasper, who
had apparently been standing on the landing in the dark listening to all this,
quietly closed Mason’s door and came to join them. Dale went where Flynn took
him, slightly surprised by the strength of Flynn’s arm wrapping around his
waist as if Flynn expected him to fall. Flynn put him down on the bed and Paul
put the back of his fingers against Dale’s forehead, then inside the neck of
his t shirt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“All right. It’s all right honey, we’ll get you some Tylenol, get under
the covers. Riley, go down and put the kettle on for me? Make him a cup of tea,
let’s get him warm.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Something’s making a strange sound, I can feel the vibration but I
don’t know what it is.” Dale said as clearly as he could. “The boiler might be
going wrong, we probably need to check on it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“The boiler’s fine, this is called sick.” Paul pulled the covers up
around his shoulders and put a hand under his chin, making him look up, and
even in night clothes, his hair rumpled, his eyes were warm and very comforting.
“Nothing’s vibrating, you’re shivering and you’ve got a fever, that’s why you
feel a bit strange. Look at your hands. You’re just sick baby, that’s all, it’s
ok. Nothing you need to worry about.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paul was right; he was shivering hard enough that his teeth were
chattering with the cold. Dale shook his head, too surprised to take that in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“No I can’t be, I never get ill.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Never. There had been the occasional cold, the headaches and
irritations that bothered everyone but nothing a few paracetamol didn’t handle
enough for him to keep on going with whatever he’d been doing at the time. The
stomach ulcer had been by far the worst he’d ever encountered, and even that
had been shut up by the antibiotics and medications some hotel doctor in Tokyo
had prescribed one night. It had never got in his way. He’d never in his life
felt like this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Riley made a sharp sound that expressed <i>oh for pete’s sake</i>, but
he headed downstairs, not particularly quietly. Flynn came back with a packet
and a glass which he gave to Paul, and he sat down on the bed with something in
his hand. Dale flinched as Flynn put it gently against his ear, holding his
head still.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“I honestly don’t get ill, I never have done, even as a kid. I’ve never
had anything worse than a cold.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Whatever it was against his ear bleeped. Flynn took it away and turned
it for Paul to see. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Hundred and two.”<br />
<br />
“Ok.” Paul sounded very calm about it, every movement he made was calm as if
this was no kind of a problem and happened all the time in the early hours of
the morning. He put two pills in Dale’s mouth, holding a glass for him to drink
and swallow them. “We’ll give it an hour and that should come down two or three
points. I’m not surprised hon, you’ve had a very rough few days. I’m right here,
there’s nowhere you need to go and nothing you need to do or worry about. Are
you going to trust me to handle it?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Dale looked back at him speechlessly, and Paul ran a hand gently
through his hair, pushing it back from his face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Saying it made it real. Paul knew it the same way Flynn did; that
consciously and deliberately agreeing it together made it real. Dale nodded,
slowly, aware that it was alarming to say but that he meant it, and there was
an immense relief in it. The sense of letting go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Yes sir.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">“Good.” Paul gave him a smile that was as comforting as it was relaxed.
“Then we might as well relax and let it roll.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">* <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“He’s asleep.” Flynn sat down on the
end of Jasper’s bed with a half drunk mug of tea in his hand. Riley, sitting
cross legged on the bed beside Jasper, glared at him with a mutinous expression
that said he was staying put only because Jasper had insisted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
“That is <i>not</i> asleep, I saw him after
dinner and he was out like he’d been coshed.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Flynn put an arm around Riley and
pulled until Riley unwillingly gave way, uncurled and lay down against him,
head against his knee. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I told you everything he let go of,”
Jasper said quietly, “He’s just got rid of all that poison he’s been carrying around
for years.”<br />
<br />
“And it leaves a damn great hole, yes, I get it, now is someone going to call
Emmett or shall I?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Half pint, it’s ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“No, it’s <i>not</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Paul came to join them, closing the
door very quietly behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
“He’s down to just over a hundred and one, the Tylenol’s working. I don’t want
to call Emmett unless we really need him, he’s the last thing Dale’s going to
want to deal with right now. I’m willing to bet this is mostly nerves and reaction,
he’s fully entitled to it and he needs peace and quiet and us, that’s all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">They didn’t often hear that tone. They
all knew what it meant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“How do you not notice someone get
that hot when they’re in bed right beside you?” Riley demanded of Flynn again,
who didn’t let him go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“He was asleep, that was what he needed
most.”<br />
<br />
“If he never gets sick, and you come back after days out there soaked and
filthy, and I got sick with Lepto from the water just last year-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It’s a known phenomenon, traumatised
kids have immune systems like horses, the subconscious is a bloody powerful
thing.” Flynn glanced up to meet Paul’s eyes. “Body in survival mode, getting
sick is dangerous. They’ve got to feel pretty safe to let go and let it
happen.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I feel like the meanest bastard on
the face of the earth,” Paul said to him, “Because most of what I’m thinking
right now is <i>yes!</i> Perfect timing and
a brilliant opportunity, I could cheer. Poor Dale.”<br />
<br />
“An opportunity for what?” Riley said angrily, “Want to see how sick we can
make him? Because things were pretty much bad enough before you hiked out, if
it was this rough you should have come home!”<br />
<br />
“If you want to call Emmett, we’ll call Emmett.” Flynn told him. “If that’s
what you think we need to do then we’ll do it, it’s ok Ri. We’re <i>not</i> taking any risks with Dale, I
promise you. I’m not taking any risks with either of you, you know I won’t. But
if he’d had open heart surgery yesterday we wouldn’t expect him to be back to
his normal self today.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“That is a horribly apt way to put
it.” Paul said bleakly. “You’re absolutely right, that’s exactly what it was
like.”<br />
<br />
“Was it really that bad?” Riley said shortly. He’d propped himself on one
elbow, not actually pulling away from Flynn but not co operating either. Uneasy
and angry and alarmed, Paul looked at him with a good deal of sympathy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It was pretty bad. Very much like we
saw in David’s map room when he cut his hand, but worse. More intense.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">He saw from Riley’s face that Riley
fully understood; he looked appalled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">There was a moment’s quiet, then Riley
looked across to Jasper, who so far had been listening in silence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Well? What do you think?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I think what happens to the body is going to be a part
of what's happening in mind and spirit.” Jasper said mildly. “You know why we
hike. It doesn't just detox the body, we’ve seen that plenty of times.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“It pulls this kind of garbage out." Riley said
subduedly. “Yeah, I know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Jasper nodded slowly, reflectively. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">"It's no surprise to me his body needs to
cleanse itself, that’s what a fever does. Healing takes rest, peace and time.
I’m not sure Emmett’s going to have a pill for it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I’m still not celebrating that he’s
sick.” Riley said grimly. Paul reached over to ruffle his hair, wry and
apologetic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“I don’t mean it like that. It’s just
that Dale needs to feel very safe and looked after, he’s fragile and his walls
are right down. We know he craves being fussed over as much as he’s scared of allowing
it: this gives him every excuse to let go. We get a whole few days to do a lot
of proving to him how good we are at looking after him and what we’re for when
things get rough, and he gets a lot of practice in at letting us. Especially when
he isn’t going to be well enough to fight us off.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
“Halfpint, what do you want to do?” Flynn said to Riley. Who didn’t look happy
but finally sighed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Ok. If the fever goes down I’m ok
with seeing what happens. <i>If</i> it goes
down.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/chapter-20-ranch.html"><b>Continue to Chapter 20</b></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger</b></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #222222; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">
<br />
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-53284672858375832262015-09-24T17:28:00.003-07:002015-09-24T18:13:53.161-07:00Chapter 20 - Ranch <div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i>20</i></span></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry and Riley were sniping at each other
in the yard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Watching from the kitchen window, Paul had
no real idea of what was going on and both of them were working while they did
it; tack was being cleaned, horses were being efficiently groomed, troughs were
being filled, but the movements were short and crisp and interspersed with
glares. They moved around each other with what in Gerry might be termed
accurately as a flounce; it was like watching two cats having a standoff. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Skimming the cauldron of stock on the
stove, Paul watched another and apparently sharper altercation as they broke up
a bale of hay together for the benefit of the corral horses who were clustered
around them eagerly as the grass was still recovering from winter. Luath, who
had been hauling several more bales of hay down from the barn loft, slung the
bale he was carrying on to the wheelbarrow, brushed off his gloved hands and
walked down to the corral, leaning on the rail to say something short that made
both Riley and Gerry look up at him. Then come to the rail and rather
unwillingly climb out and stand beside him in the yard. They both looked
abashed. Whatever Luath said to them, it was brief, to the point and concluded
with Luath indicating the house with a thumb and delivering a brisk swat to the
seat of Riley’s jeans to send him on his way. Riley, not looking pleased,
headed towards the house, yanking his hat and gloves off as he came. He let the
door crash shut behind him as he came into the kitchen, and almost at once gave
Paul a guilty look, glancing towards the ceiling as though he could see whether
he’d woken Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“.....Sorry.”<br />
<br />
“What was going on out there?” Paul put the cauldron lid back on. The whole
kitchen smelled warmly of the chicken stock and the bread in the oven. Riley
heeled his boots off and disappeared into the kitchen bathroom to wash, leaving
the door open. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ger.”<br />
<br />
“Doing what?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Nothing.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was another muted crash as muddied
jeans were flung down against the floor. Paul heard the shower start and paused
the conversation until Riley reappeared five minutes later, wet haired, in
fresh jeans and shouldering into a clean t shirt. He sat down at the kitchen
table with an equally vigorous bang that meant at the moment his state of mind
could only properly be expressed by noise, even if was fairly muted noise. Paul
reached one handed into the pantry, found a tin by feel and handed it across to
him. Riley sat back, took the lid off the tin and Paul heard his faint grunt of
amusement and appreciation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Did you bake this morning? I think we ate
everything in the pantry while you were gone.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“That’s what it was there for.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What are you cooking?” Cookie in mouth,
Riley got up to look and Paul wiped off his hands. <br />
<br />
“Proper chicken stock.”<br />
<br />
“What, as opposed to pretend stock?” Riley lifted the lid to peer. “Ah. You
mean your bring you back from the dead stuff.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Dale might feel like something light.”<br />
<br />
“How is he?” Riley’s tone expressed most of what he felt around that question.
Paul started on the few dishes in the sink, keeping his voice calm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“He’s still asleep, Flynn’s up there with
him.”<br />
<br />
“He’s been asleep all day.”<br />
<br />
“That’s what he needs, hon. His temperature’s down, I’ve been waking him every
couple of hours to drink and he says apart from feeling cold and a bit achy
he’s ok, he’s coherent.” Paul shook bubbles off another dish and put it on the
draining board. “I don’t think this is a bug, I just think he’s exhausted.”<br />
<br />
“Oh come on.” Riley yanked a tea towel from the towel rail on the stove and
leaned against the counter to start drying the dishes Paul was stacking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Come on what?”<br />
<br />
Riley glared at the glass dish he was drying, flicking bubbles off as if they
were deliberately in his way. “You know and I know. Every time one of those
things happened to him, he would have just shut down and carried on, that’s what he does, that’s how he thinks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Ouch.</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul hesitated, choosing his words
carefully with real concern for him. “Honey I can see why you’d be upset with
him-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“No I’m not upset with him, I’m upset with her.”
Riley said succinctly. “Him I get. This is probably every damn reaction he
never got around to having at the time, isn’t it? All the stockpile in one go, <i>whoomph</i>, because he does that too. He
can’t dust a shelf, he has to steam clean the entire closet. And I am <i>not</i> mad at him, I just hate this and I’d
like him to stop scaring the crap out of me for five minutes.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley had an acute knack of hitting the
nail on the head, hard enough to drive it straight through the wall and out the
other side. Paul drained the sink and leaned against the counter, watching him,
taking in the suppressed energy with which he was wiping dishes and the weight
in his shoulders. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Mhm. What was up with Gerry?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley, putting a dish back in one of the
wall racks, gave him a slightly sheepish look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“.....He’s better with the cattle than I
am. Today that <i>may</i> have ticked me off
slightly. Luath said to get out of the yard, chill out and stop scowling before
he dropped me in a horse trough.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul smiled and Riley unwillingly returned
it, pausing to give him a rather tight hug as he passed to get another wet
dish. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We were shifting the bullock herd up to
the gated pasture this afternoon, the grass is better up there. You know what
they’re like to move, it’s like a mad hatter’s tea party even with the dogs,
and Ger didn’t even need me. He just has it. I may have said something about I
know he was doing it before I was born, that probably didn’t help.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You think?” Paul said pointedly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley put the last dish away and hung the
towel up to dry. “I know, I know, I’ll talk to him later but he was pretty
patient, he didn’t throw anything at me. Want me to get the new armchair out of
the garage? It was delivered on Friday morning, we signed for it and Flynn said
to leave it wrapped until you’d had a chance to check it was what you wanted. I
didn’t know you’d ordered anything new?”<br />
<br />
“I saw it in a catalogue and I thought it looked a good match for the family
room. Bring it through for me love, we’ll have a look.”<br />
<br />
The house was very quiet. Quiet was something Paul had been working on creating
all day; not just physical hush but atmosphere too; Dale would be aware of it
even if it wasn’t consciously, and it was soothing to him and to Riley, and to
all of them. The house as Philip had kept it, as they all loved it. Calm,
ordered and comfortable quiet, that went with the new polish on the table in
the family room and the jonquils in a vase. Flowers were not something Flynn or
Riley would ever buy in Jackson while they were shopping; Paul suspected Ash’s
hand and appreciated it. He and Riley carried the large leather recliner to a
space by the fire and Riley cut the plastic wrappings off it, raising his
eyebrows as he saw the base. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Wow, it’s a rocker.”<br />
<br />
“Yes, I think we’ll retire the armchair next to the fire over to there by the
bookcase and make it a reading corner, it’s a bit scorched from the fire, and
this one can take its place.” Paul stood back to look at the colour match with
the deep wine red couches and nodded in satisfaction, feeling no need to
explain further as to why he’d gone looking for a rocker for this room. “It’s a
good match, it looks like a part of the set.”<br />
<br />
They manhandled the older armchair to the bookcase corner, and put the rocker
in its place. It was broad and deep, all the chairs in the room were; this was
a room furnished for men, no few of whom were large and needed to be able to
lounge comfortably. Bear and Luath and Jake would have no difficulty relaxing
in this. Riley dropped into it, settling back into its squashy depths to test
it, and grinned as it began to softly glide back and forth, the first real,
heartfelt smile Paul that had seen from him all day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ok, this is wild, I love it. How long do
you think it’ll take for Flynn to notice it’s here?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn was laying on the other side of the
bed close beside Dale. Jasper was doing the same whenever he took a turn up
here with Dale, in the same way Paul did; the proximity deeply mattered and all
three of them knew it. They hadn’t left him alone either, they’d taken it in
turns but at least one of them had been here all the time. Had he been in any
state to take notice, Dale would have pointed out that there was no practical
purpose for them to spend their time watching him sleep, but Paul seriously
doubted if at any time in his life he’d known someone want to or need to be
with him at a difficult time just to be there. More essentially, he was theirs.
They were responsible for him and they would be with him whether he understood
why or not. Practicality had nothing to do with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul sat on the edge of the bed beside him,
moving carefully even though currently it was taking real effort to waken him.
Dale was laying on his side, one hand near his face, very still, his breathing
slow and even and very soft. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Hasn’t stirred.” Flynn said softly, laying
his book down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale had barely moved in hours, this was
the same position he’d been in since dawn. His face was peaceful, this appeared
to be a deep and a dreamless sleep and to Paul it felt like a kind of
hibernation. A shut down, as if his brain had to offline for a while until his
body had time to process. His forehead was cool when Paul touched it, and his
colour was better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I came to see if he wanted anything to
eat, but there’s no sense in disturbing him, he’ll wake if he’s hungry.” Paul
said just as softly. “Dinner’s on the table., You go on down and eat, love.
I’ll sit with him for a while.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He half expected Flynn to refuse. Flynn
tended to stick very close to Riley on the rare occasions Riley was sick and
not much got Flynn more grimly protective than Riley in need, but he was
different about Dale. Calmer, as if he knew without having to stand guard
exactly how Dale was, and Paul thought that Dale was much the same with Flynn.
Flynn gave Paul a short nod and rolled to his feet, pausing for a moment to
look down at Dale with an expression Paul understood. He felt it a lot himself.
Flynn’s arm closed around his shoulders as Flynn passed him, Paul felt the hard
pressure of a kiss dropped against his head and Flynn’s voice in his ear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Are you ok?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Fine.” Paul gave him a quick smile,
glancing up from Dale, and Flynn stood for a moment looking with him, then
heeled out the chair in the corner of the room and sat down, leaning his elbows
on his jeaned knees. Broad shouldered, solid, moving as quietly as he did
around his horses and their brats. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Go and eat with the others, you’ve hardly
seen them all day.” Paul said gently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“They’re fine downstairs, I can eat later.”
Flynn watched him, dark eyes steady, compassionate, and Paul knew exactly what
he meant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Tell
me. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale was too deep in this comatose sleep to
be aware of them, and any part of him that was would hear the voices of people
who loved him, and who’d stood with him through the battle he’d been fighting
for days. Years. His face was immobile against the pillow, shadowed with
stubble that he usually never allowed to grow; it darkened the clean line of
his jaw and reflected back the darkness of his scattered hair which had fallen
forward over his forehead, the eyelashes on his cheek, the line of his brow.
The curve of his bicep below his t shirt showed as tanned against the sheet,
his half curled hand was formed of long, slender fingers, as capable and as
quiet as the long line of his spine and his legs under the covers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What was the worst part for you?” Flynn
said quietly from the chair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">While the others ate downstairs going
through a normal mealtime, and while the light slowly faded outside the open
window, Paul leaned back against the wooden bedstead and sat beside Dale,
watching him sleep while he talked softly to Flynn. And Flynn listened mostly
in silence, with occasional quiet sounds of comprehension or soft questions
that drew Paul’s attention to details, to what he’d seen and heard and felt,
things he hadn’t had time to notice or think of at the time throughout the
night by the river, the hike through the woods and the long night at Three
Traders. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Throughout the night he didn’t stir. Paul paused
more than once by the doorway of his and Flynn’s room, watching the line of the
two of them under the covers in the dark, Flynn’s arm loosely over Dale’s waist
as it often was when they slept. There was a curious peacefulness in seeing it.
Unable to sleep – and not wanting to while the house was this still, while
there was this much peace within the dark – Paul sat in his study for a while,
not turning the light on or opening the book in his hands, mostly looking out
of the window at the familiar shadowed grey yard below where the horses were
dark outlines in the paddocks in the distance and the trees moved softly in the
woods beyond by the bunkhouse. When at length he heard the kitchen door shut
softly downstairs, he went down to the porch, pausing to get a jacket from
behind the door before he went outside. Jasper, sitting on the swing with one
knee drawn up and one bare foot braced on the swing boards, glanced up from
whatever he was carving, met his eyes, and Paul took the other end of the
swing, sitting with him in the all-absorbing quiet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mason had been shocked to find that hike or
not, he was still expected to return to the most basic stage of yard work. Paul
watched him through the kitchen window when Jasper set him to transferring the
rock pile from where it stood to cover a tarpaulin by the barn fifty feet away.
It caused an initial angry outburst, Paul couldn’t hear the words but he saw
Mason’s face and the bared teeth and his expression when after a few minutes he
roughly went to grab a pair of work gloves from the shed and began to work. And
he worked. Angrily, his t shirt showing the sweat stains at chest and armpits,
his forehead smeared from where he ran his dusty forearm over it, but he
worked. From the window Paul saw too when Luath walked by Mason with an armful
of tack and said nothing at all, but dropped a hand on his shoulder and gripped
as he passed, and the look Mason gave him communicated resentment and grim
displeasure, but it was a communication <i>to
</i>him, not <i>at </i>him: the different
was subtle but even through a glass pane Paul felt it. After five days and
nights spent in each others’ company all the time, every hour, the sense of
connection between them was powerful. It was in the mugs of tea he took outside
to the others, and in the look Mason gave him as he took his mug, that said <i>yeah, I know</i>. Paul stood with him for a
few minutes, leaning against the fence rail and drinking his own tea, and Mason
pulled his gloves off, shoved them in his belt and leaned beside him, saying
nothing for a moment or two and then giving Paul a very gruff look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Is he ok?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was obvious which ‘he’ he meant, and it
said that Dale was on Mason’s mind too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I think he’s ok.” Paul said honestly.
“Just exhausted. All he wants to do is sleep, I’m not seeing anything worse.”<br />
<br />
“Poor bastard’s entitled to crash.” Mason said shortly. He drained his mug and
shook it out, a habit acquired on the hike and Paul noticed it as much as the
rolled back sleeves and the dusty jeans. He’d taken hold this morning in a way
Paul hadn’t seen him do before, there was a certainty to the way he was
shifting the rocks that was as striking as the hard work he was doing on
keeping his temper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Anything I can do?” Mason said even more
roughly. Paul leaned on the fence with a strong rush of warmth for him, using
the tone Mason would have heard him use to Dale a lot in the last few days and
knowing Mason would understand it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“Yeah, look at me when you’re being nice like you’re actually going to admit
you’re doing it.”<br />
<br />
Mason gave him a quick look and a slightly abashed grin that split the dust
streaked glower, and Paul smiled, hooking an arm around his shoulders to give
him a hug that Mason returned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We’re all here, we’re keeping the house
calm, we’re carrying on as normal. I think that’s probably what Dale needs
most.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He watched Mason
after dinner that evening sit on the porch steps with Gerry and give him a
tongue in cheek description of the travails of hiking and they both laughed a
lot, Gerry readily enlarging on his own experiences of being wet, muddy and
sleeping out on the ranch. It was good natured and casual, and in Gerry’s hands
it didn’t tip over into trading war stories that justified or made light of
anger, resentment or defiance. An experienced brat and an older man with a good
few years of maturity in various ways over Mason, Gerry was bluntly and
cheerfully open about his own mistakes and Mason didn’t criticise them, and
more tellingly, he didn’t make fun of them either. They talked until dark out
on the steps, Ash, Luath and Jasper joined them and Paul, watching Mason
relaxed against the stair post and absently petting Tam who was leaning against
his knee, saw him sit in the same way as he had when he’d sat by the fire with
them every evening in a makeshift camp, comfortable and settled together to
talk, with each other the sole focus of company and entertainment. Riley drifted in and out of the group like a
ghost, sometimes settling on the porch rail with them for a while close by
Jasper, and sometimes spending forty minutes or so on the window seat upstairs
in Flynn and Dale’s room, silent and watching Dale sleep alongside whichever of
them happened to be there. He couldn’t stay long. Partly because to sit still
and do nothing for so long nagged at Riley’s nerves like acid at the best of
times, and partly because he couldn’t bear to watch without wanting to wake
Dale and check and know that he was still ok. It was a temptation he resisted
without talking to them about it, but Paul could see it fretting at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He settled for a while on the couch with
Paul and with effort Paul could get him to talk or distract him, and physical
comfort meant a lot to Riley. He disappeared with Jasper at dusk for a walk and
came back calmer, and later Paul saw him go down to the shire horses that had
always been Philip’s favourites to watch and talk to, and climb the fence to
their paddock to sit with them and feed them the apples he cut in the tack
room. While Jasper took his turn sitting with Dale, Flynn followed Riley and sat
out there on the fence with him, and he saw Riley to bed which meant he went
without much of a battle and calm enough to sleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the meantime, dishes in need of washing
quietly disappeared from the sink and the floor was mopped whenever Paul came downstairs.
He suspected Ash, who was always easy company in this house and had a
thoughtfulness to his nature that was as understated as it was genially
friendly. Ash generally read, or sat on the porch with Gerry and the others in
the evenings, he was a quiet presence but he was there and Paul knew he was.
Someone who’d hand you a mug of fresh and hot tea in passing, give you a mild
smile and go right on outside without needing you to stop and talk or
acknowledge them. Gerry and he had the same gift for open hearted kindness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And Dale slept. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He woke enough to drink the juice and tea
Paul took him a while after everyone else went to bed on the second evening,
when it was quiet and dark upstairs. Dale-like, there was no complaint at being
woken by so much as a grimace, he drank as if he was thirsty and with Flynn
guiding him, he stood up and walked to the bathroom, steady on his feet. They
didn’t turn any lights on, and like Flynn, Paul found himself moving slowly,
speaking quietly, which Dale seemed to respond to. He answered direct questions
very softly, rather absently, and as soon as they let him lay down, he turned
over and was almost instantly asleep again as if he’d never fully been with
them. But it wasn’t abandoning them. He didn’t turn over away from them, his
body was open to them, and knowing how subtly definite Dale’s body language
could be and having many, many times seen him sit or lay in a way that
discreetly segregated his own space from theirs even if it was only by a few
inches, Paul knew the difference and its significance. Flynn slid an arm under
Dale and drew him into the middle of the bed, and Paul lay down on his one free
side and Flynn lay on the other, in the dark with the grey and silver light
coming through the open curtains and the cool and fresh breeze from the open
window. Flynn reached a hand across Dale
waist to find Paul’s, laced his fingers quietly through them, and they lay like
that for more hours than Paul knew he dozed, as if waiting was what they had to
do. Just be here together to wait with him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley slipped in to join them shortly after
three am. Paul heard Flynn stir and blinked in the gloom as Flynn waved Riley
around the bed to his side. Riley shucked off jeans and slid directly under the
covers next to Flynn, and Flynn shifted over, grunting as Riley curled up to
him, and if Paul had to guess, tangled cold feet with Flynn’s warmer ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You’re bloody freezing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“I was out on the porch with Jas.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Is anyone asleep tonight?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“Everyone else seems to be quiet.” Riley peered over Flynn’s chest to see what
he could of Dale. Huddled together as they were, Dale’s back was hard against
Flynn and his head was turned almost directly against Paul’s shoulder. He was
breathing softly, very quietly, and Paul signalled to Riley to lower his voice;
the quiet around him was important. Somehow it helped and he knew it did, like
the atmosphere in the house, the need for things to happen in their own time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn pulled Riley closer, a brusque and
fairly gentle yank that Riley well understood from experience and he settled
down. There was no sound on the stairs; only the soft scent of hot tea and
Jasper, wearing only jeans, who put a tray softly down on the chest of drawers.
Paul took a mug from him with deep appreciation and watched Jasper distribute
the others, taking his own to the window seat. He’d brought five mugs, one
strong and with milk the way Dale liked it, and Paul let Dale’s cool for a
while, the four of them sitting in comfortable silence while they drank. It
took a moment of rubbing Dale’s cheek and talking to him before Dale stirred
enough to raise up onto one elbow and he drank when Paul held the mug and him,
gladly, as if was thirsty as he had been every time they roused him. But his
eyes didn’t open, he wasn’t awake and as soon as Paul let him go he sunk
straight back into unmoving sleep. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">By this time Riley was asleep on Flynn’s
other side, wrapped around him to avoid falling out of the side of the bed;
Flynn had a pretty firm hold on him. Jasper lounged comfortably back against
the window seat wall, drawing his legs up so that he was cradled by the wall on
either side, outlined against the dim light in the dark. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And they went on waiting. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b8ii-tlWwFA" width="420"></iframe>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
*</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was a gradual,
piecemeal kind of waking that started with hearing the distant and calm, every
day sounds of people on the landing, the shower running in the bathroom, voices
in the distance. The faint but distinctive scent of bacon cooking downstairs.
The warmth of the covers and the comfort of a soft, deep mattress. It was
enough to say very comfortably <i>morning</i>,
and <i>home</i>. But with it came other
things. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was a cowardly urge to sink back into
sleep in an attempt to escape, and it took effort to open his eyes. On the other side of the room in the strength
of the morning sunlight, Flynn was dressing. Dale lay for a moment watching him
with very mixed feelings, the familiar hard lines of his shoulders as he pulled
a shirt on, his outline blurred slightly in the brightness of the sunshine,
jeans not yet buttoned on his hips, feet bare, his hair wet in a way that said
he’d just shaved. The man was beautiful. Flynn glanced over, pausing as if he
felt Dale’s gaze on him, and his face didn’t change but his eyes did, and Dale
had no trouble at all in understanding them or the very quiet tone in his voice.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Hey kid.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">When a few minutes later Paul came into the
room and set eyes on him, his expression was no easier to see. By now sitting
on the edge of the bed and working on clearing the dizziness from his head,
Dale found himself desperate to say anything at all that might neutralise
things back into bearable normality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Good morning.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He saw Paul understand that so well that he
nearly laughed. He cupped both hands around Dale’s face to kiss him, his hands gentle
and warm and his voice teasing in a way that wound even deeper through Dale’s
guts. “Oh <i>nice</i> try. We are not settling in for a game of ‘nothing just
happened’ mister, you can forget it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I am fine, I don’t even-” Dale began,
mostly reflexively, and Flynn interrupted him, buckling the belt of his jeans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Sick means resting. That means here in
bed, until you’re told otherwise. End of. Understood?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The short tone said a whole lot of things
that went with those competent buckling hands and the deeply kind eyes, from <i>so stop worrying what to do, I’ll tell you</i>,
to <i>yeah I know you don’t feel good</i>,
and there was a hell of a lot of comfort in it. And in the answer he knew Flynn
was waiting for, which reaffirmed: <i>my
problem, not yours. Let it go</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes sir.”<br />
<br />
“Sweet.” Flynn stooped as he passed Dale, turning his chin up to kiss him, a
brief and very firm pressure that left the taste and the lingering pressure of
him on Dale’s lips, and that helped too. “I’ll be back in a minute.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He disappeared towards the stairs and Paul
straightened out the covers and began to shake out the pillows, putting the bed
back into comfortable order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“How are you feeling sweetheart? No, stay
put and let me do that.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Prevented from doing anything useful, Dale
raised his hands from helping with the pillows, keeping his voice light. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Would it be quite all right if I go to the
bathroom?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He knew the look he got. Paul put the last
pillow down and sat on the bed facing him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ok, look at me.”<br />
<br />
It was hard. Dale knew he’d given himself away when Paul put a hand out, gently
brushing his hair back from his forehead, his voice comfortingly cheerful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You know what? I’m right here. So how
about you answer the question and we start today on the right foot instead of you
saying something charmingly distancing and walking away? Because I know that
game.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> “I
wish you’d stop doing that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul smiled, but shook his head. “No you
don’t.”<br />
<br />
And that was bloody annoying, but really not in a bad way. There had never been
the knowledge before he came here that it was possible to be this exasperated
with someone and to love to bits both them and the fact they wouldn’t back down
at one and the same time. Or to feel this agonizingly strongly about a man sat
a bare few inches away. Paul just waited, comfortable in the silence and
apparently in no hurry for Dale to do anything much. Which helped. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I do feel,” Dale said eventually to him,
very quietly, “pretty awful.”<br />
<br />
“How?” Paul ran a hand down his back, it was a warm and a comforting touch and
he went on stroking. Dale leaned forward, elbows on his knees, realising his
shoulders were bent mostly because they ached and it was too much of an effort
to hold them up. <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“.......Tired. Really tired. Aching, I’m
not sure why. It’s not sore muscles. Nauseous, a bit. Cold.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Other things he didn’t have the words to
explain, some weirdly kind of good, some really not good, and some totally
inexplicable. And an overwhelming and alarming knowledge that he swallowed on
for a moment before he ran his hands through his hair and made himself admit
it, out loud. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I can’t face today. I can’t.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“You’re exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally, and you spent several
days re-living some really horrible stuff.” Paul said gently. “That is going to
take recovering from, you’ve got every right to be feeling awful. It’s ok honey.
I promise you, if I thought we had anything to worry about I’d be making a lot
more fuss than this.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale gave him a wry look and Paul smiled,
giving him a one armed hug and drawing him back towards the middle of the bed.
“You don’t need to face anything. You’re home and there’s nothing you need to
do and nowhere you need to go. If you stay warm and you rest you’re going to feel
better in a day or two. Lay down, I’ll bring you a sweater and a hot drink.
Let’s try getting you more comfortable.”<br />
<br />
Dale let him make the bed around and over him, once he lay down he felt limp,
entirely without energy. It was worse even than the numb exhaustion he
remembered from the breakdown in New York. Flynn was leaning against the
doorway, arms folded, eyes very dark. He’d clearly been there and listening for
a while, and when Paul headed towards the stairs Flynn came over and lay down
beside Dale, leaning back against the pillows and saying nothing but wrapping
both arms tightly around him. When Dale turned over into his arms he hooked a jeaned
leg over both of Dale’s, heavily surrounding him from head to foot like armour.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul stopped by at
the bathroom on his way downstairs, tapping on the door of the shower until
Riley’s head emerged, dripping. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“He’s awake. <i>Don’t</i> yell and don’t go and grab him.” He added as Riley’s face lit
up. “Let’s let him take things gently and have a normal day, he’s feeling
pretty fragile.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley gave him an expressive look but
grabbed a towel and started to dry himself off. Paul paused in his own room to
finish making his bed, hearing Riley head from the bathroom down the hallway in
the direction of Luath and Ash and Gerry’s rooms, and by the time Paul went
downstairs it was to the sound of Gerry’s voice, faint in the distance from his
room but mildly exasperated, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“Oh for pete’s sake, <i>yes </i>of course
darling, nothing exciting is happening at all. I’ll go right along with
ignoring walloping great elephants in the room anytime you like, it’s fine. Really,
Tops. You all go berserk over the silliest of minor details like they’re the
end of the world, and then go into total denial about anything actually interesting,
do you get some kind of training somewhere? Brain conditioning?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jasper was feeding the dogs in the yard and
unlocking the barn and the sheds. Paul, starting to plate up breakfast, was
joined a moment later by Riley, and following him, Mason, who came by force of
habit now to help set the table. He had trimmed his beard back himself when
they got back from the hike, and kept the rest of his face clean shaven. It
made him look younger and more focused, as if the shagginess had been some kind
of a disguise, and he’d lost some pounds too since he’d been with them,
especially during the hike. His t shirt, tucked into the waist of his jeans,
showed a midriff distinctly flatter and
harder than when he’d arrived. Ash and Gerry came in a few minutes later, Luath
followed them, and the kitchen began to take on the comfortable crowd and
chatter Paul always associated with normality in this house. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Riley, I need your help in Jackson this
morning.” Jasper said when he came in from the yard, pausing to wash his hands at
the kitchen sink on the way. “I’ve got a delivery of feed sacks to pick up.”<br />
<br />
Riley gave him a flat glare over a piece of toast. “If you want me out of the house and away from Dale today you
could just say so.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Oh
dear, we’re going there.</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> Paul opened his mouth to
respond but Jasper spoke first, calmly, taking his seat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I want your help in Jackson this morning. If
you want to rant about it first, you can take your plate out on the porch until
you’re done.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley gave him another, harder glare which
Jasper took no notice of, and Luath passed a dish of tomatoes across to Jasper,
taking in Riley’s expression with a practiced eye. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I can handle the yard work with Mason.”<br />
<br />
“Thanks.” Jasper spooned tomatoes onto his plate, glancing across to Gerry. “Ger,
could you and Ash do the east pastures and the cattle?”<br />
<br />
“The stretch of river where the bullocks are needs digging out, it’s choked on
the curve where they stomped the bank down last year.” Riley said shortly. “I
was going to do that this morning.”<br />
<br />
“It’s fine, we can handle that on our way.” Ash assured him, and Gerry groaned,
flopping theatrically back in his chair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ashley, that means getting <i>wet</i>. I wouldn’t mind, but you’re the one who keeps
giving lectures on how I’m supposed to be in good condition for surgery. I’m
fairly sure that shouldn’t include one having to get wet all the way up to one’s
knackers in perishing cold rivers while shovelling mud about-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You know what? Don’t bother, I’ll do it.”
Riley slammed the half eaten piece of toast down on his plate, shoved his chair
back with a loud scrape and stalked towards the door, grabbing his boots as he
passed them. Jasper got up too, leaving his barely touched breakfast on the
table, and followed, closing the door softly behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“That is not a happy bunny.” Gerry observed
in the few seconds sharp silence that followed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul got up to put Jasper’s plate in the
warming oven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We’re going to get something lethal
climbed or swum today if we’re not careful.” Luath said wryly, handing him
Riley’s plate to put there too. “I’ll keep a close eye on the corral and I’ll
head out with him if he goes out later.”<br />
<br />
“Look, I can dig the damn river out if that’s a problem?” Mason said abruptly
to Luath. “If you’ll give me a hand and it stops all the drama.”<br />
<br />
Luath shook his head gently. “That’s nice of you, son, but you’re restricted to
the yard, aren’t you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Anyway, we’ve got it covered.” Ash said
peaceably before Mason could answer. “Haven’t we Gerry?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry gave him a pointed look, but waved expansively
with his fork. “Apparently. Mason. Darling. Do I have to flutter my eyelashes <i>all</i> morning to get you to pass the
teapot down this way or am I going to have to offer you a blow job? Some of us
are dehydrating over here.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“<i>Gerald</i>.”
Luath said loudly, much louder than Ash’s easy going, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“One.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul, choking slightly on his tea, couldn’t
help smiling, and Gerry caught his eye with a glint of affection that Paul read
without difficulty. He gave Ash a
patently naughty look, but said to the table at large, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I do apologise, perhaps that was a little
crude for breakfast. Darling, teapot. Please.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The corner of Mason’s rather scowling mouth
tugged downwards as if he was trying not to laugh, but he passed the tea pot
over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> Riley
had stalked out through the open gate into the home pasture. It was where
Jasper always sent him with orders to rant if he needed to: Jasper didn’t miss
the connection. The grass was long beyond the gate, knee length and drying
rapidly in the morning breeze and sunshine, and swished quietly around Jasper’s
boots as he walked, heading towards the section of wooden fence where Riley was
leaning. Riley didn’t look round until Jasper reached him, but the hunched
shoulders said he knew very well he’d been followed. Jasper quietly leaned on
the fence beside him, put his arms around Riley and pulled him without effort
off the fence and against his chest. Riley didn’t come willingly, but he didn’t
fight either. Jasper stood for a while, leaning against the rail and holding him
tightly with one hand cupping the back of Riley’s bright and sun warmed
chestnut hair, his eyes on the mountains on the skyline beyond them. Tom and
Jake were due back from their camp three expedition today, half a world away
from here and on equally snow capped mountains. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m not working today.” Riley said flatly
against his chest. “I’m not going to Jackson either. I’m staying here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jasper didn’t argue it, keeping his voice
quiet against Riley’s ear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“What do you think Dale’s going to need today?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I don’t know,” Riley said savagely,
“Because I wasn’t there while you were hiking all over the damn place and he
was going through all this crap, and he’s been sick ever since. I have no idea
what he needs or what to do to make this any better for him. I <i>hate</i> that I wasn’t there, this has got
to be some of the worst few days of his life.”<br />
<br />
Jasper nodded slowly, with real sympathy. “That makes a lot of sense to me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And I know Flynn and I needed to stay and
keep things going here, I know you and Paul were the right people to go, that
was what needed to happen, but it <i>sucks</i>.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I bet it does.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You don’t have to sound all reasonable
about it.” Slightly mollified in spite of himself, Riley drew away and Jasper
let him go, watching Riley crouch down in the grass and pull at a grass stem
until it snapped loose in his hand. Riley rolled the grass stem around his
finger tip, watching it band there. Then he sighed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“He’s grieving, of course he is, and he
needs quiet. Things to be peaceful. Everything kept small enough to deal with. Time.
Blah blah blah. He needed to burn all this off and he’s got a hell of a lot to
process, and I know. I know.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The impotency was as strong in his voice as
the frustration. Jasper leaned back against the fence, hooking his elbows over
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“I see this as our chance to fight back.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley glanced up at him, startled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Fight what?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Her.” Jasper said succinctly. “We’re here.
We can make these days all about feeling safe and loved and with us. We can
make sure that when he looks back at this time the main thing he’s going to
remember isn’t how terrible this was, but that we were here and we made things
easy for him. We can do that, we can do it well and she can’t touch it, and
that’s something that will compete with all the programming he’s got laid down
whenever he’s got a rough ANZ project to handle or he’s having a hard time. I
think that’s going to matter a lot to Dale.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley gave him a brief and fierce look that said
that appealed to him a lot, and as a thought, it helped. After a moment he said
more gruffly, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m sorry about mouthing off at breakfast.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jasper held out a hand to him. Riley took it and
pulled himself to his feet, and gave a rather bleak grunt of amusement as
Jasper found the hem of his sweater. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What, you’re in that kind of a mood this morning?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jasper took no notice, easing the sweater over his
head and unhurriedly working on the buttons of Riley’s jeans to get them open
before he lifted Riley by the hips to sit him on the fence rail in front of him,
which put Riley’s bare chest very conveniently at his head height. He had an
arm firmly enough around Riley’s waist to keep him safely there, and for a minute
or so Riley’s hands held on to his shoulders rather half heartedly. It was when
Riley began instead to hold his head, when his legs hugged Jasper’s hips and he
clearly cared a whole lot less about balancing that Jasper knew he was
beginning to the effect he’d intended. A few minutes later it was quite
apparent that bleakness was the very last thing on Riley’s mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley and Jasper
did not reappear in the kitchen until after everyone else had gone out to start
work. Paul cleared the table in the kitchen, leaving their places set, and
before he had finished the washing up they came in together, Jasper looking as
relaxed as he always did, and Riley, slightly dishevelled, looked a good deal
more himself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Give me a shopping list,” Jasper said to
Paul as he and Riley resumed their seats to finish eating. “We’ll pick up the groceries
while we’re in Jackson, we need wire, saw blades,”<br />
<br />
“Oil, the lamp oil’s getting very low.” Paul sat down at the half cleared table
and scribbled a list from memory while they ate, leaning over once or twice to
check the contents of the fridge. He added a few additional items at the foot
of the list and circled them before he handed the list back to Jasper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“If you can find any of those at the book
store they’d be useful.”<br />
<br />
“Treasure Island?” Riley looked over Jasper’s shoulder to read, “The Secret
Garden, The Jungle Book...?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Just see what of those they have,
otherwise I’ll order them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Are you researching something?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I want them for Dale.” Paul said matter of
factly. “He could do with a bit of gentle escapism.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He was aware of the sharp look he got from
Riley. Jasper put his empty plate in the sink and dropped a hand on Riley’s
shoulder, heading past him to the garage. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Get a jacket.”<br />
<br />
Paul leaned his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes, which felt gritty after
several days of very little sleep, looking at Riley with a whole lot of
sympathy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Are you ok honey?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Sorry about earlier.” Riley put his own
dishes in the sink and stooped over his shoulders to give him a hug that said
expressively a lot of things that Riley wouldn’t. Paul hugged the arms around
his neck and Riley dropped a kiss on his cheek and grabbed a jacket to follow
Jasper, saying something that sounded like, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Give her hell from me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Not long after Jasper and Riley headed out-
and Paul knew Jasper would take his time, the trip to Jackson was as much for
Riley as for anything they really needed – and when the house was quiet for the day, Flynn
went out to saddle up Leo and check on the horse herd where the mares were
getting increasingly close to foaling. He made it a normal day by doing so;
Paul saw the positive effect it had on Dale. It put things back on the same
calm footing they’d been on before the hike, with the focus of the day openly
on working through the fall out. It put a framework around the
incomprehensible; <i>you have your job to do
and I have mine, so let’s get to work. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">When he was gone Paul took a book and a mug
upstairs to Dale, sitting down on the edge of the bed with him. He looked pale
and heavy eyed, and it was clearly an effort to move at all. It was the first
time Paul had ever seen him in bed during the day without looking acutely
uncomfortable, tense and braced for any opportunity to get things back to
normal, and it was a mixed victory, in part because it was clear he felt too
bad to care about anything much. So far this morning he really hadn’t wanted to
eat and they hadn’t pushed it, but he leaned up on one elbow to take the mug
automatically and paused when he saw the contents weren’t tea as he was
expecting, sniffing rather cautiously but with interest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What’s this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“Chicken broth. My grandmother always made it whenever we had anyone sick in
the house, this stuff is liquid gold.” Paul settled beside him, leaning back
against the pillows. “There’s nothing to digest but it’s got some serious nutritional
value, I know I’m putting something halfway decent into you. How does your
stomach feel?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Much better than it did.” Dale took a cautious
sip of the broth, then to Paul’s satisfaction, he took another and deeper one
with definite interest as he got the taste.
“This is good.”<br />
<br />
“My grandmother knew what she was doing, she used to make it by the vat.” Paul
turned up the book to show him the cover. “Lewis Carroll, I wondered if you
wanted to hear more about the Snark.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale raised an eyebrow and Paul grinned,
put an arm around him and pulled until Dale was leaning against him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“Yeah, turn the eyebrow off and come here.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">They pursued it with forks and hope;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">They threatened its life with a railway-share;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">They charmed it with smiles and soap.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">And repeated in musical tone<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe —<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Georgia, serif;">But the crew would do nothing but groan.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale had mostly listened in silence through
the first few sections but he smiled at that part and Paul paused, an arm
around him with the book balanced on his chest where they could both read it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh that rings a bell does it? That’s ok
hon, I spent the first few months I knew Flynn in annoying the living daylights
out of him too. In fact when I come to think about it, I think I established a
relationship with all four of you through being annoying.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You are not annoying.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was no energy in him at all, not even
in his voice. He was huddled under the covers even wearing sweats, and pretty
much all he wanted to do, if Paul was any judge, was to be quiet and to be held
and that was pretty much it. The book was mostly a means for Paul to occupy
himself while they did it, although Lewis Carroll’s writing was in Paul’s opinion
designed for reading aloud. It was like verbal music and he suspected that
while Riley would by now have been prepared to promise him the world to get him
to stop, Dale would appreciate it the way that he did. He thought Dale had
fallen asleep before he reached the end, but he read on anyway, and when he finished
the last page Dale stirred against him, his voice very soft and rather
ambivalent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“........Would you mind reading that again?
If you’re not tired of it or tired of reading or have other things to do, I’m
sure you probably have-”<br />
<br />
“Anything better than getting to lay in bed with you and read? No thank you, I’ll
happily bore you to death with this all day hon,” Paul said gently, “I love
this book, I always have done.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale had closed his eyes again. “It’s like
a logic puzzle set to music.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I thought you’d get that.” Paul ruffled
his hair, thumbing back to the first stanzas. “Do you know how nice it is to
get to share this with someone who’s interested?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Thank you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was softly said, slightly stilted mostly
because Dale rarely knew what to say when you said that kind of thing to him,
but it was sincere. Paul began to read from the start again, rubbing his hand
slowly around and over Dale’s shoulder where it rested, aware that while he was
horribly conscious of a lot of weariness and of sadness in the familiar body
against his, there was none of the tension that Paul was so used to in Dale, or
the subtle sense of distance that meant that mentally he was doing his own
thing, thinking his own thoughts, and there were levels you weren’t supposed to
be aware of. He was pressed close, and the arm around Paul’s waist was holding
on, and he was here. In all ways he was here, and that in itself made Paul hold
him closer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">Come,
listen, my men, while I tell you again <br />
The five unmistakable marks <br />
By which you may know, wheresoever you go, <br />
The warranted genuine Snarks....<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale stirred at the scrape of paper beside
him and woke to find Riley sprawled on the bed with his head propped on his
hand, flicking through the book. He glanced up and managed something between a
glare and a smile, and Dale dragged himself up on one elbow to get hold of him
with a rush of emotion that was near to being choking. Riley hugged him back
hard, swatting him through the covers with the book. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Two days. Two fricking <i>days</i>. How does anyone sleep that long?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">His voice was rough, he smelled so good and
he was so warm, so wonderfully alive, but the words caught Dale’s attention and
he drew back, confused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley let him go, shaking his head. “You.
You were out for two solid days, didn’t you notice?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">No. No one had mentioned that part. More
than slightly shaken, Dale pulled himself upright against the pillows, shaking
his head to clear it. It felt fuzzy. Everything felt both fuzzy and painfully
sharp in bits, it was not pleasant, and any even mildly disquieting thought
sent a shockwave of ice and tension through his body like a fire hose, far
stronger than it should have been and far harder to manage or to rationalise.
He put a hand to his jaw, discreetly rubbing it and realising with a jolt that
he was wearing several days stubble. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“.....What time is it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“About three, the others aren’t home yet.”
Riley dropped the book on the nightstand. “I went into Jackson with Jas. Or I
kind of got dragged to Jackson, but it was nice, we ate at that new Mex place
off the main street and walked a way down one of the trails. Are you ok? Are
you feeling ok?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He was talking so fast it was hard to hear
him and the energy in his voice was overwhelming. And he badly wanted to hear a
yes. The need was in his face, in his voice, it turned Dale’s heart over, and
after two days it wasn’t surprising. How could anyone lose two days? How could
anyone responsibly scare the people they loved by doing that? He had no real
memory of anything beyond the day they’d come home, no matter how hard he
searched his mind, and that was not pleasant. With guilt for Riley and with
growing disquiet, Dale found himself putting a hand against Riley’s face in a
brief and sincere attempt at some kind of comfort, and rolling to his feet,
padding to the dresser for a pair of socks and forcing himself to stand
properly upright and sound properly conversational despite the roiling in his
stomach. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“It looks like you and Flynn managed a week
together without anyone dying?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley grinned, leaning back against the
pillows to watch him. “Mostly. There was one morning early on when Gerry was a
bit – over the top? And I held it together until he and Ash headed out, and
then blew my stack at Flynn in the kitchen. I got stuffed in a corner until Ash
and Gerry rode out- where do you think you’re going?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“The bathroom to start with, I really need
a shave.” Dale headed onto the landing, realising with increasing unease that
his legs were not too steady in a way he’d never before experienced, and that
standing up was taking a lot more effort than it should have done. Riley rolled
up to his feet, following him fast. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Hey, easy – you’re going to need to ask
first? Jas only went to change - are you trying to get toasted? Dale!”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was difficult to both move and keep
irritation out of his voice at the same time; Dale controlled his voice with
the same powerful effort it was taking to control his legs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I am only going to the bathroom, it’s a
legal, human right.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He closed the door behind him and Riley
immediately opened it again, following him inside. “The way you’re shaking
you’re going to fall, will you quit it? Yeah, I am staying-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“<i>I’m</i>
staying, thank you.” Jasper said quietly, taking the door from Riley. “Riley,
go downstairs please.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale’s stomach lurched. There was no
mistaking either Jasper’s tone nor his expression. Riley grimaced at Dale and
went. Jasper closed the door and put his shoulders against it, nodding to Dale.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Go ahead.”<br />
<br />
It was not easy doing this with an audience but this was definitely not the
moment to ask Jasper to leave. Dale finished as quickly as he was able and
Jasper came to stand by him while he washed his hands, offering him a towel. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I need a shower and a shave,” Dale said as
tactfully as was possible, locking his knees and standing square to bring
himself to his full height and look Jasper in the eye. Open, calm body
language. Persuasive, reassuring, “I-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jasper turned him with a swat that
effectively withered the rest of that sentence on Dale’s tongue. With Jasper’s
hands on his shoulders, Dale found himself hustled across the hallway where
Jasper straightened the covers with a few brisk pulls and turned them down for
Dale to get into bed. It did not seem a good idea to show any kind of
hesitation. Dale lay down and Jasper efficiently tucked the covers over him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Turn over.”<br />
<br />
<i>What? <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale rather apprehensively turned over onto
his stomach, folding his arms under the pillow, and Jasper said nothing else,
merely sat down on the other side of the bed. Apparently there was an
appropriate version of being stood in a corner even for those confined to bed.
Shaky, unpleasantly nauseous, Dale relaxed by inches, somewhat abashed, mildly
smarting which was very concentrating to the attention, and very aware of both
the silence in the room and Jasper immediately beside him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He was struggling not to doze off by the
end of the first two minutes. It felt like a <i>long</i> time, and he felt considerably calmer when Jasper finally laid
down the book he had been reading and put a hand on Dale’s back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“When we decide for you to be anywhere else
but here, we will let you know. If you need anything, you will let us know and
we will decide what we do about it. Is that clear?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was extremely specific, and it helped.
It wasn’t possible to answer with much dignity or clarity laying face down, but
sincerity, yes, based on a lot of practice in this household and with this man.
Face half turned into the pillow, Dale still managed it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes sir.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You can sit up.” Jasper got up and
disappeared across the hallway. Dale rolled over and slowly pulled himself up
against the pillows, and flinched hard, his stomach starting to twist in all
directions with alarm as Jasper reappeared with a bowl of water, soap, razor,
wash cloth and a towel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh no. Jas, I can just shower, or I can
wait, it’s fine-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jasper put the bowl of water on the night
stand and went to the dresser, taking out clean sleep wear, taking no notice
whatsoever in a way that reminded Dale forcibly that Jasper handled large,
powerful and frequently uncooperative cattle for a living. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He didn’t give the chance to do anything at
all except acquiesce while he undressed, washed and shaved Dale, extremely
gently and very competently without a drop of water falling on the bed, and the
long, strong brown hands were as deft and unhurried in handling him as his
face, near to Dale’s was calm. It was very sobering in some ways. Jasper
couldn’t have done anything more intimate or that made it more clear who was in
charge, and it was not an easy thing to let any man at your face with a razor.
But at the same time it was Jasper doing it, his familiar hands, his familiar
and quiet way of moving, the known lines of his face, the way his collar
creased at the line of his throat, the familiar line of muscle and bone in his
forearms, the steady brown of his eyes. Flynn had a knack for this too, for the
most simple and profound acts of dominance that were anything but alarming to
experience. And just the fact of it
being Jasper doing it automatically made it both peaceful and extremely safe.
It was rather like bracing yourself for the most awful of roller coasters and
actually finding yourself shown to a seat on a garden swing: not at all the
nightmare that it should have been. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He heard Jasper cross the landing as he
took the water away, listening to the familiar, every day sounds with very
mixed feelings, most of which he couldn’t put a name to, and a few minutes
later Jasper came back and once more stretched out on the other side of the
bed, crossing his ankles and leaning back against the pillows beside Dale to
pick up the book again, holding an arm out to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Is this what you and Paul are reading?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Georgia","serif";">But
oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day, <br />
If your Snark be a Boojum! For then <br />
You will softly and suddenly vanish away, <br />
And never be met with again!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jasper looked up from occupying himself
with the Snarks when Flynn came upstairs, hair damp from the shower and in
fresh clothes. Dale was asleep against him. Not exactly through choice; he’d
fought it but he was exhausted, and held close and still, he’d lost the battle
very quickly. Flynn took the offered book, glanced at the page and closed it,
tapping it against his thigh. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Mason would like a word with you. He’s
showering, I just had a long and pretty well argued case to move on from yard
work, I told him he needed to talk to you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Thanks. Any of the mares looking near
yet?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Belle’s not just bloody near, she’s foaled.
Again, just like she always does.” Flynn said darkly. “Weeks ahead of her due
date, off on her own with no warning of any kind and I checked them all only
yesterday afternoon. Took me a while to find
where she’d hidden herself. That mare’s going to come to a bad end.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“She ok?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“She’s fine. Nice little colt, big, her
colours and feeding well, she’s a bitch but she’s a good mother, and Bandit’s
got her covered. A few of the mares are wanting to be nosy but he’s not letting
anyone into the copse where she’s hidden herself. Pocket and Tash are both starting
to look ready to go but I’ve left them up there for now, Bandit’s got them less
than a mile away on the shallow bit of plateau up by the river, lots of shelter
and those two have never had any problems foaling. I’ll go up again this
evening and have another look.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Left to themselves, all the girls would
rather do it Belle’s way.” Jasper eased himself away from Dale without
disturbing him. Flynn grunted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I swear Belle drops in secret because she
knows if we see she’s near she’ll get put in a paddock. I’ll take a chance on
experienced mares with a good track record, but if we’re going to have a
foaling go wrong, I want it going wrong near a phone and electric light. How’s
he been?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Sad.” Jasper said reflectively. “Quiet. But
ok unless he’s alone with Ri. Then he pulls himself together and hits the <i>I will carry on anyway</i> mode, but alone
with me and with Paul.... he seems to be convinced we’re strong enough to take
it, we’re doing ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn moved around the bed and softly lay
down beside Dale, not shaking the mattress, and as he left, Jasper saw him
settle on his side with one arm over Dale’s waist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul and Riley were chopping vegetables at the
table in the kitchen. Luath was sitting opposite him copying figures from a
note book to the stock book. Mason, emerging from the kitchen bathroom with wet
hair and shouldering into a sweatshirt, saw him and tugged the sweater
straight, coming to lean on the back of a kitchen chair with both hands and
look him directly in the eye, exasperated but obviously trying hard to say it
calmly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I want to talk to you. I’ve done everything
you needed done outside for three days. I’ve done it properly, thoroughly, go
check. The work is good. I get it, I’m ready to move on.”<br />
<br />
“Good.” Jasper went to the kitchen drawer, took out pen and paper and handed
them to him. “Write me a paper on what you know, what you’ve learned and make
the case as to why you deserve to move on to the next stage. A thousand words,
give it to me when you’re done.”<br />
<br />
“A thousand?” Mason demanded. “You never wanted a paper before?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And we needed to do this stage again, so now
you need to write a paper.” Jasper said calmly. “I won’t set a deadline, it’s
up to you when you’re finished.”<br />
<br />
“And what’s the criteria to pass?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“That you’ve done the thinking you need to.
If the paper doesn’t meet it, we’ll talk about why and you’ll have some more
thinking and figuring out to do before you try again.”<br />
<br />
“You’re really going to make me sweat for this, aren’t you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mason let out an explosive hiss between his
teeth and Jasper walked around him to pull his boots on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ri? Can you give the calves a feed for me?”<br />
<br />
There was a cow with three day old twin calves in one of the paddocks that they
were keeping an eye on. Riley took warm boiled water and couple of the
sterilised bottles from the pantry out with him and made up two bottles of milk
which were blood temperature when he was done. The calves, who were
enthusiastic about their bottle supplement feeds, were already at the fence,
pushing their heads through and bawling for them to hurry up. Riley climbed the
fence with one of the large bottles, going down to one knee to feed the first
calf who grabbed eagerly for the teat. They were only supplementing their feed
a couple of times a day to make sure both calves got the nutrition they needed
while they were so small, and to give their mother a bit of help while her milk
came in and she was feeding two; both calves looked lively and in good
condition this afternoon, their eyes were clear, they were lively, and to
Riley’s eye they were gaining weight well. Their mother, who was also enjoying
the high quality feed she was getting in addition to her grazing, glanced up
occasionally and placidly towards them. The one currently gulping the milk down
was a born guzzler who had taken to bottle feeding without hesitation. Her
sister was a much more delicate feeder who tended to sip rather than gulp and
tended from time to time to lose the nipple and then appear to have no idea
what to do about it, which made for harder work, but in comfortable sunshine on
a bright afternoon it was very difficult to do this without enjoying it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry leaned on the fence behind him, one
boot braced on the rail as he watched. Riley glanced up at him, then back at
the calf, keeping a wary eye on her as at this age they easily bashed their
hard little polls into your face through their bouncing enthusiasm and left you
with a bloody nose if you weren’t careful. After a moment he climbed the fence
and took the second bottle, crouching to take the second little heifer in hand.
His voice was lightly conversational, but Riley had known him a long time and
he heard the warmth behind it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You know something? If I’m watching Bear
or Wade or you or any other brat in the family spinning out, there are times when
I know my job is to shut up, get out of the way and let a Top handle it. I know
in that position myself that’s what I’d want and what I’d need, I’ve seen it
work time after time, but I still don’t find it easy. I have no idea what this
must be like for you and Dale, but I really do admire the hell out of you being
able to do that for him.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/chapter-21-ranch.html"> <b>Continue on to Chapter 21</b></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-1978129769808483712015-09-24T17:17:00.002-07:002015-09-24T18:14:26.932-07:00Chapter 21 - Ranch<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-size: x-large;">21</span><span style="font-size: 48pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luath, coming down
from where sheep were roaming on their furthest north east pastures, took a
route home on impulse that led him down by the river where in his opinion some
of the least dramatic but most beautiful sights of the ranch could be seen. The
horse was in need of exercise, although in Luath’s experience of horses, the
big gelding wasn’t too pleased about taking it. Riley had said succinctly this
morning, watching while Luath coaxed him out of the corral, that Hammer was
missing Dale, and it took some gentle nagging to convince the big animal that
they were going the scenic route instead of going straight home as Hammer
clearly had planned. Unlike the leggier, more temperamental of their riding
horses who usually made their displeasure clear by flat out walking sideways,
backwards, spinning around in circles, or planting all four feet and refusing
to move, Hammer just radiated grim disapproval and grumbled in a series of
snorts that made it clear he thought his rider was in need of guidance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luath let him walk, keeping a firm enough
hand on the rein to insist Hammer did things his way, and they followed the
river bank alongside the thicket of thin woodland that grew on either side of
the river, listening to the bird song above them and the rush of the water in
the steady breeze through the bright green buds on the trees, until Luath saw a
glimpse of white through the trees that made him look twice. And then turn
Hammer gently to pick his way through the trees towards the water. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Leo was grazing alone on the far bank, his
reins tied up, and Flynn was shirtless, wading to above his knees in the river
and carrying a rock of bulk and weight that made his shoulders and upper arms
bulge. Luath drew Hammer in, about to call to him, then saw Flynn stoop in the
water and ram the rock deep down into the bed of the river, one foot braced on
what was obviously a higher surface under the water. Luath dismounted, and with
a thought to Hammer’s mood, tethered him to a tree before he walked through the
last of the thicket to the river bank. The ford was half built. Flynn must have
been working on it for days, and it was a heavy, back breaking job in the cold
and against the rushing flow of the current. Luath took in the pile of rocks on
either side of the river bank, the stirred up and muddied water that ran over
the causeway Flynn had constructed of shale and rock, wide enough not just for
a horse to safely pass, but for a wagon too. Exactly as the other crossing
place had once been built some miles to the south across the river; there was a
symmetry here that went with how Flynn felt about the ranch. There was
something in the way that Flynn was working that gave it away if Luath hadn’t
already understood it. Silent. Dogged. In between the hours he was spending
with Dale, Luath wondered how many other hours had been spent here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luath went quietly back to Hammer, pulled
his water canteen out of his saddle bag and walked back to the river bank,
crouching on the edge of the water. Flynn glanced up at him, face expressionless,
and Luath held out the canteen, waiting until Flynn waded over to take it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“This looks like quite a project.”<br />
<br />
“Be useful to have another crossing place over this way. Thought so for years.”
Flynn drank deeply, pulled his Stetson off and ran a wet forearm over his face,
pushing sweat soaked hair back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luath nodded assent, watching the river
flow past. “Pretty sure whoever built the other one didn’t do it alone. Plenty
of us around.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’ve got it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The New Zealand accent was curt. He turned
his back and waded to pick up the next rock and go on working. Luath sat down
on the warm grass and finished off what was left in the canteen, watching.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I got to know a bunch of other people who
lost partners in the towers.” he said after a while, addressing Flynn’s back
and the horse and the river in general. “A few of them went out and ran
marathons. Joined mountain climbing teams, seven peak challenge, that kind of
thing. All men. One of the counsellors told me he saw it in guys where the wife
had a miscarriage. They raised plenty of money for charities but he said that
wasn’t why they did it. He thought it was to do with needing to make a mental
ordeal physical. Something they could fight. Or to go through a physical ordeal
to share in what their partner had been through. I just painted the guest
bathroom. Seven times in about four months, under coat, top coat, the lot,
didn’t really think too much about why.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn embedded another stone with a hard
shove, rocking it into place. He waded to get another one and Luath thought he
wouldn’t answer, then as he hauled the second across the river he said without
looking up, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Not much else I can practically do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’d have thought you were the best qualified
of the lot of us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn grunted, ducking further under the
water to root the rock more strongly in place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“With a patient, there’s no personal
involvement. I don’t usually want to go and kill the people responsible.”<br />
<br />
“Do you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m with Ri. Yes. I’m no role model for
this. Paul’s the only one of us had a decent relationship with his mother.
Riley hardly remembers his. Jas doesn’t. Parents and I don’t bloody mix at all.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The edge was clear in his voice. It was
hard enough to watch the man you loved suffering in any kind of way, as a Top
it punched every instinct you had, but Flynn was a man who had to physically
do, who stepped up to combat whatever threatened or encumbered the people he
loved. It was something Philip had understood. He’d said something once that
made Luath think that Flynn in some ways reminded him of David. To ask either
Flynn or David to stand by and watch someone they loved in trouble went against
every cell in their body. And yet Flynn had the insight and the self discipline
to control it, at least around Riley, Dale and Paul, who were the fiercest
targets of his protection. The chances were strong that Jasper knew exactly
what Flynn was doing out here, and why. There wasn’t much one of them did that
the other one didn’t share in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Are you all right, brat?” he said quietly,
meaning it. Flynn gave him a brief look that said he heard and appreciated what
he meant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yeah.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">More than understanding what painful
impotence to fix it felt like, Luath watched Flynn bed another rock down into
the platform he was building, then got up and shouldered out of his sweater,
and waded down into the river where his boots crunched on shale and the current
swirled against his knees, pulling his work gloves out of his pocket. Flynn
didn’t look up or say anything, but he moved aside to let Luath pass him, and
Luath pulled another large rock out of the pile on the bank. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The most powerful
thing Dale remembered ever after was how it felt to lay, hour after hour, in
the arms of Flynn, Jasper or Paul. Despite the work that always needed doing on
the ranch, one of them was with him around the clock. That hit Dale at the very
deepest levels in the places where he felt most raw. And whenever he had to
stir, to drink or make the several thousand mile trek to the bathroom which
involved separating for a moment or two, when he lay down again they always,
all three of them, pulled him straight back into their arms. Body to body,
feeling them, breathing them, the warmth and the comfort of them seeped gradually
into his bones hour by hour like some kind of osmosis or transfusion, it really
did soak away the bone deep weariness that made it so hard to move, or to think,
or to keep warm, or to find the will do anything much. In a life that had
always been orderly, disciplined, planned and well regimented, there had never,
ever been a time before where he had just ..........stopped. Even when the
breakdown came in New York, things had kept moving, he’d come out here and
started on the ranch work as a client, exchanging one intense focus of
concentration for another. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul read The
Hunting of the Snark from end to end for two days. In his arms, it was possible
to get lost in the predictability and the safety of knowing exactly what the
content of the poem was, exactly how it ended, that nothing unknown or threatening
happened anywhere in it, and in the tones and rhythms of Paul’s familiar voice.
Riley frequently came to join them, sprawled out on the bed and read alongside
them, or chatted about the horses, Belle’s foal, the calves outside, without
requiring any kind of answer. Easy and every day things, as if he found nothing
weird about this. Jasper came in the evenings, and he was quiet in the way that
he was whenever they fished together, a deep and internal peace to him that was
tangible and contagious. He didn’t see this as anything alarming or wrong and
Dale knew it; to Jasper it was simply a natural process. A transition.
Something positive, something known, and it was deeply calming. Thinking rather
crazily of the dream he’d had up on the canyon, of standing with David and seeing
the light of energy in everything, in every blade of grass, in every drop of
water, Dale let his eyes drift slightly out of focus one night, watching the
outline of Jasper’s arm and hip against his own arm, and tired enough to do
nothing more than idly look without any real concentration or emotion, he
caught a very brief glimpse of a kind of haze above the outline, as if Jasper
held him within some kind of protective energy field that encompassed them
both. He had no idea if he was imagining it or it was wishful thinking, and
didn’t really care; it was certainly the way it felt. Flynn said very little
either, but it was in his eyes, in his voice, in his arms that he understood
acutely what this felt like, and he was there through the night when he lay
awake every hour that Dale did, solid, surrounding him, between him and the
darkness. There wasn’t anything he could have said that would have been
stronger than that, or that Dale could have understood more clearly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the third day Paul coaxed him into
getting out of bed and coming down to the family room after the others had gone
out to work, having failed to accept that he needed to dress first beyond socks
and one of Flynn’s sweatshirts. The fire was well established in the hearth and
had obviously been lit some time earlier, and blankets were spread on the
couch. Paul added the pillows he’d brought down with them and held out a hand
to Dale, who looked between him and the couch with a rush of unsettled emotion
that said internally and loudly for the first time in some days, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">No, I
don’t want to! <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Shut
up. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was not a helpful thought and he knew
it. Particularly knowing who it was inside him who was folding his arms,
refusing and preparing for battle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I wish you’d define what you mean by ‘pyjama
day’.” he said lightly to put it into any kind of sensible words. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“A life skill and something you should have
been taught how to do a long time ago, don’t worry about it.” Paul said easily,
waiting for him. “I promise you’ll live through it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He’d been in this upbeat mood all morning,
gently but cheerfully persistent, and it was very hard to refuse him anything. It
didn’t however stop the rush of internal tension that was threatening to take
over. Dale gave him an expressive look and Paul sat down on the couch in front
of him, his eyes a lot gentler than was comfortable to look at. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ok, how about I start for you? Paul, I
feel fragile and horrible and really not up to any of your weirder ideas, and
it’s scary stuff, I can’t handle this. All I want to do is curl up and hide,
and everything feels way too hard, including being down here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">That was really, painfully acute, and the
rebel something inside him paused with its mouth open as it had done before
when Paul did this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And I know I won’t know how to do whatever
you’re about to ask me to do, I’m still trying to get the concept of staying in
bed.” Paul went on with way too much expression in his tone to hear with
equanimity, “and I’m too damn tired to figure out what you might want, and that
matters to me because I like to get it right for you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“When did you change the chairs?” Dale
looked briefly between the familiar armchair and the new one by the hearth and
Paul smiled and leaned over to catch his hand and pull. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And I’m going to rabbit trail because it’s
taking everything I’ve got not to run. Or go for the James Bond mask and
pretend to you I’m just fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He could be so bloody disarming. And
understanding. Dale dropped into the couch beside him and Paul took his hand,
intertwining his fingers with Dale’s, shoulder to shoulder with him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“How am I doing?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It helped. It really helped. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m trying.” Dale held on to his hand hard,
trying to find any kind of words to express this coherently when pretty much
all he wanted to do was plead for them both to go back to bed. “I am trying not
to.”<br />
<br />
“No kidding hon, I know you are,” Paul said softly. “I know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The sympathy in his voice went very deep.
Close against him, Dale sat for a moment absently listening to the fire crackle,
deeply aware that the sweater he wore smelled comfortingly of Flynn, and that Paul
lounged beside him, warm, relaxed, as if they had all the time in the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Hand in the mincer.” he said eventually.
Paul ran his thumb gently over the back of his knuckles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Do I usually do insane and scary things to
you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes.” Dale said pointedly. “Constantly.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul laughed, pulling him over to drop a
kiss on his cheek. “Now say that like you mind. Lie down and get comfortable
sweetheart. No, I mean take the risk, really lie down and relax. I’m right
here, I will not let the gremlins get you, have a different view for a while.
This is going to be ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The house was very quiet. The family room
was tidy as it always was in the mornings, warm from the fire, a small vase of
fresh flowers stood on the polished coffee table and the familiar and steady
tick of the grandfather clock gave the soft background noise that was always in
this room and that Dale often listened to at night. Above the hearth and on the
nearby shelf stood some of the framed pictures that occupied Philip and David’s
room and had begun to spill out into this room too. No few of them included
Dale’s face looking down from in amongst the others – sitting on the paddock
fence with Riley and Flynn, another of him leaning on the porch rail beside
James, a large crowded group of pretty much everyone walking through deep snow
in the yard that had been taken at Christmas. Today when everything felt so
amplified, when the slightest sound sent shockwaves tangibly through his
nervous system like feeling the static on a radio, seeing them there was
surprisingly strong. Paul folded blankets around him without difficulty, he had
the knack of knowing exactly how to make you comfortable. In a quiet room, the
soft and steady crackle of the fire and the leaping of the flames was soothing
to watch, and the physical luxury of being warm, enclosed and to lie down when
you were bone tired and cold, was deeply consoling. He’d never known about this
in numerous generic hotels on miserable days where he’d medicated himself with
working harder, or going for a swim or a run, things that drowned out the worst
of it. Paul sat down on the couch with him, putting an arm around him to pull
him closer, and took a couple of books from the coffee table to show him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We can keep going with the Snark, or we
can try Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland if you feel like it. There’s less logic
and a lot more math.”<br />
<br />
“Maths?” Interested despite himself, Dale looked at the cover, which showed a
small girl with striped stockings and wild hair following a rabbit. Paul turned
it to give him a better look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Progressive mathematics.”<br />
<br />
“Carroll was a maths professor at Oxford, I remember you telling me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You’ll probably get the math a lot better
than I do, I just get the basics.” Paul said wryly. “It was a bit of a
political satire on the development of mathematics at the time. Want to try
it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Curled up with Paul and without witnesses,
it was surprisingly easy to get lost in the text. With memories of his first
university degree, Dale listened with growing amusement to Euclidian geometry
mixed up with rather charming rabbits and tea parties, aware that while
intellectually it was fascinating, on another level he was captivated, far more
than a CEO had any right to be by a children’s story. He had a few memories of being
one of a group of small boys sitting on the carpet in a master’s study at his
prep school on Sunday evenings to be read aloud to, and they were vaguely
pleasant memories although he didn’t remember the books or much more about it
than that. It was a radically different experience as an adult, alone with
someone you loved who was sharing the books with you that he loved, and which
meant something to him. At Paul’s instigation that day and over the next
several days they read, and sometimes they tried some of the milder and the
easier of the board games from the set in the bookcase, especially the oldest
ones in battered old boxes that must have seen use in Philip and David’s first
years here. They were gentle and unhurried ways of filling time, surprisingly
engaging and deeply comforting. Deeply calming. One afternoon they played one
of the Stan Rogers LPs from David’s collection, the same few familiar songs
several times over, some of which Dale had heard Riley and Flynn sing, and
which he vividly remembered the whole family singing on the evening he and
Jasper and Flynn and Paul and Riley exchanged rings. It all raised powerful
memories and associations, <i>good</i> ones
that were some of the strongest and most stable things he knew, and it helped.
For the first couple of days when he was in bed the chicken broth was the only
thing he’d been able to face eating, but around mid afternoon on that first day
on the couch, Paul handed him a milkshake and in front of the fire and in the
peace of the afternoon, the thick sweetness was rather comforting. After that over
the next day or so milkshakes then somehow stretched out to ice cream and then
to pancakes. Eating chocolate pancakes in pyjamas in front of the fire at three
o clock in the afternoon was a distinctly weird combination and it related to
no other experience Dale had on file. But in a very peculiar way that in itself
was helpful. To be doing something so totally upside down and divorced from anything
known, something totally new, fitted in perfectly with this whole situation. Like
Alice, it was a bizarre kind of match, and like Alice, he found himself going
along with it, although clinging to Paul while he did so. He was honest enough
to admit it was clinging, body and soul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">At first, when the others started to come
in to shower in the late afternoon, it was the cue for Jasper to take him back
upstairs and sit with him while he soaked in the bath and then to take him back
to bed, and Dale was glad of it. Any kind of noise made him jump and sent a
rushing shockwave of adrenaline through him which was alarming in itself, it
was like having exposed nerves; everything, even the simplest things, felt
loud, harsh, menacing, and Flynn, Jasper and Paul kept him right away from it.
But over a couple of days the time between their arrival and being sent
upstairs gradually got longer and Luath came to join a board games with him and
Riley when they were showered, it began to be that the others were around in
the distance in the kitchen or stopped to talk for a few minutes, and bit by
bit it felt normal again. It was on the third evening when Paul was working on
dinner in the kitchen, that Riley, freshly showered, pulled a new box down from
the bookcase and sat down next to Dale on the couch to open it, tipping a stack
of tiny cardboard shaped pieces out on the coffee table. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I saw this in Jackson and thought it made
a change from games.”<br />
<br />
It was a jigsaw puzzle. Dale accepted the box lid from him, looking with some
interest at the picture of the map of the states which was, according to the
box, contained within the 500 pieces on the table. He was aware of the
existence of puzzles but had never actually handled one himself. Gerry came over
to perch on the arm of the couch, confidently turning over pieces as Riley
began to spread them out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I haven’t got to do one of these since Rog
used to have his nine million piece ones spread everywhere.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You didn’t do them, no one did them, we
just used to sit and look helpless while we watched Rog put them together.”
Riley pointed out. “There’s no fun in that, Philip used to call it anti social
and make him put them away. I don’t think even Luath really managed to help
with Rog’s weird ones.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry located a corner and pushed it into
position. “I know he used to moan they covered half the apartment. Mind you,
everything of Rog’s covered half the apartment, for a gay man he had shameful
interior decorating skills. Bear and David and I used to conspire to keep him
out of the tack room, otherwise he got it in such a mess Philip had him
spending half his life straightening it out and the other half writing lines.”<br />
<br />
Jasper, watching discreetly from the kitchen doorway, leaned against the
doorframe and understood why Riley had picked up this and several other puzzles
from the shop in Jackson. He hadn’t offered any explanation at the time and
Jasper hadn’t asked any questions, other than noting that Riley had chosen ones
only with 500 pieces or less. Simple enough to be not much of an intellectual
challenge, but that wasn’t the point; watching Dale turn over pieces with the
other two and start to identify the outer frame with rather more purposeful
interest than he’d shown in anything since they came home, it wasn’t any intellectual
part of Dale that Riley was appealing to. He heard Flynn come in from the yard,
muddied and with his jeans damp from waist to ankle, pause in the doorway to
shed his outside gear and then come to stand behind him and look over his
shoulder. Flynn said nothing, but a moment later when Riley glanced towards
them Flynn silently beckoned to him. Riley got up and came to him, following
Flynn into the kitchen and out of sight of Gerry and Dale, where Flynn tugged
him into a bear hug, mud and all. Riley didn’t seem to mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You know I remember what this was like?”
Gerry said lightly to Dale in the family room while they were alone. “I don’t
have your nerve, I did it a lot more gradually and in a <i>much</i> less butch way. But I know what it’s like when you let a piece
of this stuff go. I couldn’t read any book for weeks, the slightest negative
thing in it hit me like a bomb, even reading a cross word was too much to
handle. All I wanted to do for days was lay down and not move, it was worse
than when I had pneumonia.”<br />
<br />
It was hard to hear it put so bluntly into words by anyone else than Paul. Dale
turned over the piece of the jigsaw he was holding, not really looking at it,
part of him wanting to end this conversation immediately, to distract Gerry to
a much safer subject. It would be easy to do.
Or to make an excuse and go into the kitchen where Paul would take
control over what was said and talked about. But this was the man he’d written
to during the Mustang Hill debacle when things were roughest, a man who’d taken
time to talk to him about these things, to be kind, to do his best to help in
ways no one else could have done, and he understood this. Dale sought for the
least stilted tone he could manage, grateful despite his twisting stomach. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What did you do?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh I spent a lot of time hanging with
Philip.” Gerry gave him a half smile that held a great deal of affection. “I
think <i>he</i> spent a lot of time
pretending he wanted to read or write letters so I had an excuse to be
plastered to him for hours on end.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Didn’t David ever mind?” Dale said almost
without thinking from sheer curiosity, and winced. “I’m sorry. That’s horribly
personal, you really don’t have to answer.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry grinned, giving Dale a deliberately
wicked flash of his eyelashes that made Dale smile in spite of himself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh I was very pretty at that age, believe
me. But no, I was no kind of threat to David’s relationship; it was very clear
who the grownups were in the household. Don’t think David didn’t help as much
as Philip did; David just didn’t do a whole lot of sitting still.”<br />
<br />
Dale slotted the jigsaw piece into place and picked up another. Gerry slid
another combined section over to him to add to the frame. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“It must be tricky for you in a group. It’s quite a topic of discussion between the
less tactful of us on the grapevine and you can probably guess who that is, but
while there were plenty of rumours and a general understanding of how things
worked with Riley and Flynn and Jasper and Paul, they are an awfully elusive
bunch as I’m sure you’ve noticed, and being Top-heavy they don’t really do
personal or interesting details. So no one was ever sure how it worked or what
it meant, and it wasn’t until you joined them that they really came out to us
as a group – you were there, it was the day we buried that poor Chinese friend
of David’s. Do you really <i>not</i> mind
that Flynn......... I mean if he does-?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He was being very delicate about it. Dale
slotted together another piece, joining the continent of Africa, far more
comfortable with a far pleasanter subject. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m not naive enough to think Flynn was
celibate the whole time he was waiting for me to be ready. I certainly wouldn’t
have wanted him to be.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He recognised the look Gerry gave him as
holding a certain amount of approval and what looked a little like admiration. “You
really aren’t jealous are you? It would drive me insane, I don’t know how you all
do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I know when they asked me to join them I
would have been perfectly ready to follow their lead on autopilot about sex as
much as everything else.”<br />
<br />
It was peculiar to discover that he actually wanted to explain this deeply
personal stuff, and there was actual pleasure in confiding it to someone who
understood their household as Gerry did. And this was something Flynn and the others
had been teaching him from the start. You shared a little piece of yourself
with someone, they shared in return and bit by bit the connection deepened, and
it was good in ways he’d never fully understood before. This was how you did
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’ve always done what I was expected to
do. In a lot of ways, I’m an extremely good boy.”<br />
<br />
Gerry, who got that in ways few people who lived outside this household would,
smiled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“The polite and socially acceptable stuff.
Personally, I suck at that darling, but I know what you mean.”<br />
<br />
“So Flynn and all of them never mentioned it, or laid a hand on me, said or did
anything at all. They just waited.”<br />
<br />
<i>Some of them are still waiting. And with
no hint of impatience. And there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for any one of
them, just for that alone. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Did they really?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“For months. They didn’t let me see or hear
of anything that went on between them during that time, and of course it did.
But from my point of view it was like living in a monastery.”<br />
<br />
Gerry burst into a crack of laughter and Dale smiled, thinking about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Which put it wholly in my court. I had to
get to my own point of wanting it, admitting it and initiating it myself. They knew
how I’d see it and they were not going to join the category of people I’ve just
politely gone along with as I’ve been told. Which meant me really being there. Me.
Properly. Honestly. And it’s been <i>good</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He thought a bit more about that as he
assembled Mexico, and added detachedly, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“The kind of good you base a marriage on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I told you what happened in that motel.”
Gerry said lightly. “You saw it, didn’t you? Riley told me a bit, that you get
feelings about things, you figure things out. But I know what you mean. It was
years before I met Ash, did you know I lived here longer than I’d been alive
before I got here? I loved that. I had more memories and time here than
anywhere else in my life put together and it kind of cancelled everything else
out. But Ash was still careful at the start – in fact I remember getting rather
mouthy about him being much too careful in my opinion – that I never confused
being with him with any memory of that motel. But I appreciated him not
listening and making us take it slowly all the same.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale nodded with deep comprehension, that
took in what ‘not listening’ probably entailed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Are you ok with the extra week’s wait for
the surgery?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I wasn’t pleased.” Gerry said dryly. “But
yes, I’m fine. I feel more myself here, I always do. Everything’s tighter, Ash
doesn’t have to think twice about who’s listening. Not always so convenient but
I love that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was wonderful, deeply wonderful to be
with someone who voiced so completely what you felt, who was a normal and happy
guy living the same beliefs and emotions you did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m just the same.” Dale said lightly. “I
need to be pushed, particularly when I don’t want to be. I do a lot better when
I am.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You are one tough cookie.” Gerry put a
hand behind his head, pulled him over and Dale was slightly surprised at the
kiss Gerry dropped on his cheek. “Look, you do know this isn’t going to be a
magic wand end to it all? I know it feels like it ought to be after all you’ve
done the past few weeks, and I hate saying it, I really do, but I can’t stand
the thought of you being shattered when you get back to normal and then you find
out it’s still there. You’ve worked so hard, you’ve let go of the worst stuff,
you’ve got it out in the open and that makes a <i>big</i> difference, huge, it really does. But it <i>still</i> is about making the decision not to go with the old habits,
especially when things get rough. Deciding to be brave one more day. It just takes
time.”<br />
<br />
It was painful to hear. And yet in a way, it was also a great relief, as if
some part of him had been trying to confirm to himself since they arrived home,
<i>come on,</i> <i>you did the job,</i> <i>you’re all
better now</i>, when he knew in himself that he didn’t feel fixed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“The battle won, but not the war.” he said
absently, aloud. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“That’s what I mean.” Gerry said lightly
and with sympathy. “I know it isn’t what you want to hear, I’m sorry.”<br />
<br />
“Actually, it’s very helpful.” Dale ran both hands over his face and looked
down at the half built puzzle. “I appreciate it, Gerry. Very much.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry leaned over beside him to turn over a
couple more pieces. “Philip used to say to me when we were going through this
and whenever I had a freak out, that he felt like I had my eyes tight shut and was
clinging on to a ragged six feet of old rope and he was hanging beside me trying
to persuade me to let go and come back over to his rope. Which in metaphorical
terms was a bright shiny, high tech rope, pole dancing the tango in a g string.
I knew it was much, much better than my rope. But I <i>knew</i> my rope. I had a lot of experience of that rope not breaking
on me. Under stress, it’s hard not to cling to the familiar stuff, it takes
hard effort. And that’s ok. Flynn understands that, I’ve made sure he does
although Flynn gets it anyway, and I know Paul and the others do, they know
what you need. I’ll make sure the rest of the family get it too if and when
they need to, this is going to be something we’re going to need to keep helping
you work on as long as necessary, and I know you’re the genius wonder boy, but it’s
still going to take some time. Christmas used to be the <i>big</i> trigger for me. Even a couple of years after the worst of it, I
used to go off the rails around late November and not get it together again
until about the first week in January.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was the familiar sound in the kitchen
of cutlery and dishes being set on the table. It meant Paul was on the brink of
serving up, and Dale took a few slow breaths, bracing himself for what he knew
he wanted to do. Then he got up and walked into the kitchen with all the
dignity possible in pyjamas and a sweatshirt, going to wash his hands at the
sink. It felt like there was a small crowd in there, and very noisy. Everything
moving awfully fast. Flynn’s eyes met his directly across the room, his arms
were folded across his chest and he did not look promising. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh dream on.” Paul said emphatically from the
stove. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I am trying here.” Dale pointed out. Paul
gave him a smile that was as affectionate as his tone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes, I know exactly what you’re trying. Want
to tell me what part of ‘stay on the couch’ you misheard?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley caught his eye across the table and
rolled his in a discreet gesture of sympathy, and Gerry grinned as he headed
around the table to join Ash. It was a known language here, a very comfortable one
that probably passed completely over the head of Mason, and Dale found himself
swallowing on a smile back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I didn’t, I’m sorry.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Then stop strong arming me and get your
butt back there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Isn’t it strange how often your butt gets
all the instructions?” Gerry said conversationally to Mason, “Mine gets hustled
all over the place, it’s quite the social butterfly.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale heard Mason laugh as he went back to
the couch, and Paul followed him a moment later, sucking cheese off his
fingers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“Was there something you wanted to ask?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale gave him a look that was half apology,
half amusement. “Can I eat down here tonight please? I’d like to.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You think you feel up to handling it?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul said it mildly, but quietly enough
that no one in the kitchen would have overheard and his eyes were extremely
searching. Dale nodded, appreciating the care. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’d like to try.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ok, but you tell me if you’re struggling.
Deal?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Deal.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Come here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul held out his arms and Dale got up,
taking advantage of their being out of sight of the kitchen to bury himself and
hang on to him. Paul hugged him tightly, it was a good minute that they stood
there and it melted a whole lot of the tension. Then Paul took his hand and
Dale walked with him into the kitchen where Paul pulled out the chair beside
his. Mason, across the table, gave Dale a quiet and very kind smile as Dale sat
down, saying it almost in an undertone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Hey. Good to see you.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We saw Belle’s colt this afternoon.” Riley
said, helping himself to salad. Luath took the seat on Dale’s other side, large
and solid and his deep liquid voice comfortable, and he put an arm behind
Dale’s chair, sliding it in for him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We stopped by at the mares on the way
home. He’s a beauty, looks just like Snickers but broader set.”<br />
<br />
“We’re going to have to get the book out and start logging and naming them as
they arrive.” Paul brought a large dish of macaroni cheese and another of
meatballs to the table, took his seat and took a plate, spooning on a small
amount of macaroni and a couple of meatballs before he put it in front of Dale.
“Try that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He was sitting very close, his elbow
casually against Dale’s as he leaned on the table. Across the table, Dale
caught Jasper’s eye and his swift, private smile, his dark eyes soft. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“How do you name them?” Mason asked,
helping himself to salad. Jasper took the bread basket from Riley, taking a
slice before he passed it on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Generally it takes being around them for a
few weeks before we get to know them well enough. Some are easier than others
if there’s something distinctive.”<br />
<br />
“Like Puzzle. Or Flint.” Riley said with his mouth full. “Because of their
coats. Hammer because he was so big.”<br />
<br />
“Belle because she is a Southern Belle all over, complete with tantrums.” Paul
put in. “We swear off complicated names, Moo is a great example of how they go
wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Her actual name is Moulin Rouge,” Riley
said when Mason looked at him. “I liked the movie. Flynn just refused to say
the whole thing.”<br />
<br />
“I’m not bloody yelling that across a paddock.” Flynn said bluntly, giving Dale
a look that Dale read without any difficulty as <i>eat</i>. “Nothing wrong with Moo.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And it kind of got stuck.” <br />
<br />
Mason nodded, processing that. “Does anyone want to explain why you called the
dog Ash? I’ve been wondering that for a while.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“He has big feet and a moustache, it’s
obvious.” Gerry said cheerfully, putting an arm around Ash’s shoulders, and Ash
laughed but patiently turned to face Mason to show him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Apparently. Everyone seemed to see it but
me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Awww. We took one look at the puppy and
knew exactly who he was the spitting image of.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry snatched a quick kiss as Ash picked
up his fork, the brief and easy kiss of people who practiced a great deal, and
Dale saw again as he glanced at Gerry, the warmth in his face, the pleasure Ash
took in Gerry’s chatter and bounce, in him being happy. Gerry had gone through this
himself, he knew the territory and he had won, and his win was an obvious and
powerful one. He was an easy part of the chatter around the table, and this was
the stuff of every day here, in the warmth of the kitchen with its familiar and
slightly soft yellow light as twilight grew outside the windows in the yard and
the miles of open, rolling land. Like the macaroni, it was good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mason was
struggling with his paper. No one said anything about it; watching as Mason asked
to be excused after dinner, grabbed paper and pen and went out to sit alone on
the porch, Dale saw that no one was looking or even mentioning it. It was apparently
being left entirely up to Mason when he worked on it, how he worked on it, or
whether he worked on it at all, they were placing no pressure or compulsion on
him at all. He was sitting out there staring at his notebook with one hand
clenched in his hair when Jasper matter of factly told Dale to come up to bed,
oblivious to who around the table heard them. There was a mixture of
embarrassment, exasperation and the same comfort in it that Gerry had
mentioned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Have you seen how it’s going?” Dale asked
him as they went upstairs. Jasper led the way into the bathroom and sat on the
edge of the bath to turn the taps on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We’re here if he wants to talk about it.
So far he hasn’t. I printed off Tom’s latest email for you, I haven’t read it.
It’s over on the chair there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">From: <a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">To: <a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.net">AdenD@horizon.net</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Subject: What’s going on?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">We’re back from camp
3. No answer to my last mail, I’m not interpreting this as disaster but things
sounded a bit hairy the last time you mailed. Are you ok?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Our expedition mucked
about between camp 2 and 3 as planned, doing the whole acclimatisation dance.
Day one, we climbed to camp 2 and slept there for the night. Day two we hiked up
to camp 3 and came down again to sleep at camp 2. Climb high, sleep low as the
saying goes. Day three, we went up to and slept at camp 3. Day four we took kit
up to camp 4 with us and pitched the tents up there before we came down and slept the night again at 3. Day
five, we walked back down to spend the night at camp 2, and day six, we climbed
back down to base camp. Safe, fine, no issues, there was a remarkable lack of
drama compared to all our other trips so far. Camp 3 marks the point where
we’re on sheer ice, right on the face. The camp up there is nothing more than a
few small tent platforms chipped into the ice, it took a while to chip out ones
large enough to set tents. Up there, just stepping outside the tent means
wearing crampons and clipping into lines, we’ve heard the rumours of people
sleepy or hypoxic forgetting their crampons, stepping out and just sliding away
2000 feet down the mountain. We’re set now with provisions and tents ready at
all four sites for a summit attempt, although planning if we can to go straight
from base camp to camp 2 on the way up and down. Camp 1 is a bit dodgy, there’s
been some falls in the area as there often are and we’re not keen on sleeping
there, especially with a client to look after. Whether the client should be
doing this at all? Don’t get me started. Camp 2 is used as the advanced base
camp, it’s well supplied and works as a depot, and once they’re acclimatised, most
people just skip right over camp 1 wherever possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Sleeping at camp 3 was
a weird experience. We’re getting used to breathing being a chore, base camp
feels relatively comfortable now when in the first few days we were here we got
out of breath just getting dressed. At camp 3 it really is an effort. In your
sleep, because you’re getting so little oxygen and you’re not consciously
controlling it, you start on the sleep apnoea thing. Every time I fell asleep
I’d hear Jake stop breathing and it would feel like forever before he took the
next breath, and I’d be braced and waiting and trying not to grab and shake him
to start him off again. I also kept waking up to catch my own breath, which you
do with a loud snort and gasp because at that point your body is going for
pete’s sake <i>breathe</i>. Between us, we
kept each other awake most of the time, and the night went on for more or less
forever. This was the only time we’ll sleep at camp 3 without oxygen. We used
tanks for the first time on the walk up to camp 4, but from our experience this
time and how little sleep we got, and how much poor sleep knocks out your
energy, next time we’ll be using oxygen from camp 3 onwards. I’m not an oxygen
snob, I plan on us both coming home with as few brain cells killed as possible.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">One of the most
bizarre things up here is the temperature extremes. You get going in the early
morning hours when it’s so bitterly cold you’re checking your fingers trying to
make sure you’re not frost bitten, and then by mid morning it’s so damn hot
you’re stripping off layers trying to cope with it. The air is still, and
especially in the icefall or on the Cwm in the mornings where it’s exposed,
it’s like climbing in an oven. So far though, we’ve had good luck with the
weather, it’s been clear every time we’ve been on the mountain other than some
minor snow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">For God’s sake mail
back and tell me something normal that doesn’t involve ice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">T. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">They read the mail together while Dale
soaked, then Jasper helped him dry off and Dale stretched out on the bed at
Jasper’s instruction, resting his chin on his arms with his mind on ice
platforms and mountains as Jasper sat beside him, starting to run his palms in
the now familiar way deeply into his shoulders. He put an amazing amount of
weight behind it. The pressure went right through Dale, which was as much about
being handled in any way by Jasper with that amount of strength and firmness as
much as any actual massage involved. It was never exactly painful, more
intensely firm, deep and finding tender spots without difficulty to work them
out, in a way that made you twitch and wriggle sometimes as he hit a tight spot
the first time, but not with any desire for him to stop. Those strong hands
slid along the full line of his back for a while, slow and unhurried and deep
strokes that after a while gave way to the gentle, rocking and kneading motion
Dale had become used to, except it felt far more intense than usual. Dale
couldn’t help tensing as Jasper reached his lower back and felt Jasper lighten
his touch in response, his voice calm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“Sore there?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Not exactly. Dale hesitated to find a way
to explain it that made any kind of sense. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“...everything feels different. Just
fractionally, not in a bad way, but I’m aware of it. Louder. More intense. Things
even taste stronger.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jasper made a quiet sound of comprehension.
It helped just to say it. Dale turned his face back to his arms and Jasper went
back to massaging, working down his spine with inflexible hands but very gentle
ones with a strength that Dale felt sink into his bones, something he could
entirely surrender to. It was starting to rain outside. The breeze came in
through the open window, the first signs of twilight, and a few faint touches
of rain reached Dale’s skin, carried on the breeze. When he was done, Jasper
lay down beside Dale, pulling the covers up over him, and with the habit of the
past few days Dale shifted over into his arms, settling with his head against
Jasper’s shoulder. Jasper went on running his fingers slowly over Dale’s bare
back, tracing complicated patterns that were as soothing as the sound of the
rain outside. Silence. Jasper valued silence, he believed in peace within
silence, he could be with you for hours without breaking it, and with him, that
peace could always be found. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">When Dale woke again, it was to Flynn
laying against him in the dark, an arm over his back, and he wasn’t sure what
had woken him. It felt very late. Flynn had lifted his head and was listening
with him to what Dale recognised as the sound of quiet footsteps on the stairs.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Mason.” Flynn said very quietly when Dale
looked at him. “Jasper’s out, I heard him go. I need to go check he’s ok, kid.
Want to come?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">They dressed before they went downstairs,
and it was cold in the kitchen, but fresh, the rain had passed on. The back
door was open and Flynn took down a jacket, holding it out and open for Dale to
shoulder into. There was something in the way he did it that caught Dale’s
attention; something that linked to Jasper upstairs earlier, but the connection
was too fleeting for Dale to identify what. On the swing outside, Mason was
roughly dressed and sitting with his hands clasped between his knees, staring
at the dark yard ahead. At his feet was his notebook, opened at a blank page,
and a pen. He glanced up at Flynn and Dale, and Flynn took a seat on the swing
beside him, taking Dale’s hand to draw him down too. Dale hugged one knee,
leaning back into the very slight sway of the swing, breathing the scent of wet
grass and wet earth, and watching Mason’s grim face with sympathy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Can’t sleep?” Flynn said mildly. Mason
grunted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Figured I might as well use the time
rather than just lie there and think about it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And being outside at night was now
something he associated with his head feeling clearer. Dale understood it well. They sat in a silence
Dale understood as Flynn leaving a space for Mason to fill up, and aware of his
own growing frustration that Mason was sitting in silence, not taking that
opportunity. He’d done it himself so many times, he knew the feeling of <i>stuck</i> so well. And when he thought about
it, it wasn’t frustration at all, it was that stuck sensation that was strong
on his mind, as if it was rolling off Mason in waves and battering him. The
swing creaked softly under them and the wind rustled the trees in the distance.
Flynn said nothing for a while, just sitting there, then he said quite
conversationally, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I lost my temper with a guy at college in
my first year. It was over something stupid and petty, but I lost it, and I creamed
him. Seriously. I saw red and the next thing I knew I was face down on the hood
of some cops’ car and three of them were putting cuffs on me while the guy was
loaded into an ambulance, and I ended up in the cells. Alone, I don’t think
they dared put me within reach of anyone else.”<br />
<br />
It was shocking to hear him say it. There was an abrupt and flashing image of
him at nineteen, sitting alone on a concrete floor, his back against the bars, his
arms on his knees, and with it came a rush of bitter despair, distress and rage
and swallowed down fear that hit Dale like a hammer. Only a flash, but it was
powerful and painful enough to make it desperately hard to sit still and not
touch him. Mason was sitting in silence, but he was listening.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I can’t tell you what that felt like.”
Flynn said after a moment. “I’d only been in the US a few months. I grew up
hating the sheep station we lived on, not on good terms with my family and I
left without letting them know where I was going. I’d spent my first vacation
here working, my psychology professor was a friend of Philip, who owned the
ranch – you’ve heard us talk about Philip? I couldn’t afford to stay on the
campus through vacation, wasn’t doing well finding work I could do, but I did
know sheep and farming. Philip let me have free bed and board here, and study
time, if I helped with the ranch work. I was madder than hell about that too,
I’d come to the states to get shot of bloody sheep and farms. Philip and
everyone else here was kind, but I was carrying years worth of bloody angry, I
was in a hell of a state, wasn’t listening to anyone. I was just going to study
the way I damn well planned. And I stewed and I did everything except bloody
deal with it, and then some poor bastard got in my face at the wrong moment and
I put him in hospital.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He said it quietly, matter of factly, but
Dale heard the pain that lay behind it. Mason was watching him and he hadn’t
missed it either. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What did you do?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Sat there and thought about what a waste
of oxygen I was and what a bloody awful thing I’d done.” Flynn said bluntly. “I
was at the college on a scholarship, conditional on no criminal record, nothing
that brought the college into disrepute, I was looking at being shipped straight
back to New Zealand. End of everything I’d spent years working for. I suppose I
was about four hours into that when Philip walked into the cells.”<br />
<br />
“He came to get you?” Dale asked softly. Flynn gave him a short nod, face
immobile but his eyes were very dark. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I hadn’t known him long, I’d only stayed
the once on the ranch and I was lousy to everyone here the whole time. Hated
sheep, hated the ranch and I didn’t hide it. Hated that it was going to be the
only way I could afford to get through the vacations, any man who owned a ranch
or worked on it was mixed right up for me with my father and I how I felt about
him and his damn station – but there he was. He must have paid bail, they
unlocked the door and he walked me out onto the street and took me to a hotel,
made me clean up and sit down to a meal with him. Made me get some sleep. In
the morning he came with me to the Dean, I couldn’t put a coherent sentence
together I was so ashamed but he sorted out the whole fight incident. There was
provocation involved, the guy thank God wasn’t badly hurt, I got off with a
caution from the police and Philip talked the Dean and me into agreeing
mitigating circumstances and that I’d do something about my temper and my
problems. I got suspended, but I was damn lucky that was all. Philip fixed it
so I could still turn work in from the ranch like there was no question that I
had the ranch to go to and they’d have me with or without criminal convictions.
He fought for me the whole way.”<br />
<br />
There was a long silence. Mason broke it eventually, his voice slightly rough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Sounds like quite a guy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“He was.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was another long silence, then Mason
said in the same tone, awkwardly, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“So what did you do then?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn gave him a shrug, leaning forward on
his knees. He wasn’t looking directly at Mason but Dale could see the way his
body was inclined, the calm in his body language that would be reaching Mason
even if Mason wasn’t aware of it, the way an unsettled horse was, his sure
hands lightly clasped. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I didn’t know what the hell to do. Philip
never said a word of blame to me. Not once. No ‘what the hell were you
thinking’ or ‘do you realise how serious this is’. I’d given him every reason
to think I was a maniac and a thug but he acted like he knew it was just a
horrendous mistake. Like I was the one who deserved sympathy. I had no idea
what to do with that. I was nothing more than this bad tempered, bloody minded
kid who’d hung around his ranch for a few weeks shunting sheep, and he dropped
everything and flew out to Colorado the minute he heard I was in trouble. He
brought me back here, and we got here in the middle of the night, there was no
one else awake, no one to see me turn up suspended and with a police warning,
tail between my legs. One of the hardest things I ever did was go down to
breakfast in the morning.”<br />
<br />
“Did you do it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“After what he’d just done for me?” Flynn
gave him a wry nod. “Yeah. I pulled it together and went down to breakfast. And
they had a completely normal breakfast time. I didn’t realise until later that
they’d all had their own time of not knowing which way was up or what the hell
to do, no one thought they had anything to be superior about. And after
breakfast Philip told me to pick a horse, take whatever I needed and go do some
figuring out.”<br />
<br />
“And did you?” Mason asked him subduedly. Flynn nodded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Even I catch on eventually. I was in
serious trouble, I needed help, Philip was offering it. It was up to me to
admit it and take what he was offering, pride or not. I had to admit I couldn’t
control it anymore. You get a choice in that kind of situation. Follow the road
you’re on, no matter how bad, or commit to change, it’s which ends up being the
scarier choice. It took me about four days out on the ranch on my own to think,
but I eventually screwed up the guts to come back here and talk to him. Really
talk to him. Do something about the state I was walking around in.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He’d never heard Flynn talk about this
before. He’d heard only the barest facts from Riley once that this fight had
taken place, and Dale wondered if any of the others really knew what Flynn had
just confided to Mason. Something real. Something painfully honest, and Flynn
wasn’t joking about pride: to admit to this truly cost him. To talk about it
cost him. Mason had felt it, he was listening. They sat there for a while in
the quiet of the darkness in the yard, the stir of the horses in the corral,
the wind through the aspens in the distance. Then Mason said curtly,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Dale, you said I wasn’t scared enough. Man,
I’ve thought a lot about that. I wasn’t. Pissed off, yes, but the day we hiked
through the woods, I kept thinking, you’ve all been saying to me do I realise
I’m an alcoholic, and I’ve been thinking yeah, so what? I’ve been ok with it.
And <i>that</i> scared me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn made a quiet sound of comprehension.
Mason stared at the boards of the porch through his hands, big shoulders tight.
Squared. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“When this fuss kicked off at work, this
complaint..... ah there was this whole meeting and crap with the MD, HR and the
bloody board, all pushing me to come here. Someone had come up with this
programme that fixed CEOs and according to them did I ever need fixing.
Bastards. Andrew – Andrew’s on the board, I thought he was a friend. He was in
my office when we took a break, and I was mad. I was beyond mad, I went down to
my office to get a drink, I needed a damn drink, and Andrew was there with this
contract. He said if I signed it, this list of conditions, then when I came
back with a certificate from here saying I’d been a good boy, I’d have my job
and everything would be fine. The conditions were bull from start to finish.
That I’d behave ‘appropriately’ to staff. That I’d keep ‘appropriate’
boundaries on my temper. And yeah, there was stuff about drinking on there too.
I ripped it up and told him where to shove it.”<br />
<br />
“You felt like he’d let you down.” Flynn said quietly. Mason snorted. It was a
tired, explosive sound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“He screwed me over. Leading the board on
getting me out here, tying my hands, he’s probably half way to having filled my
job by now.”<br />
<br />
“If he’s your friend, maybe writing those conditions was a way he could protect
your job from the board.” Flynn watched Mason’s face, elbows on his knees,
stooped forward to mirror him. “Maybe it was a way to tie the board down.”<br />
<br />
“It was another kick in the teeth.” Mason said heavily. “I worked damn hard for
that corp. I brought the money in, I brought them on, I’m worth what they pay
me.”<br />
<br />
“Obviously. They paid for you to come here, they’re prepared to wait as long as
you need, they believe you’re worth a serious investment. They want to keep
you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“If I’ll be a good boy and play by their
rules.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn nodded slowly, taking that in.
“You’ve said that a few times. Who wants you to be a good boy?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“They do.” Mason said bitterly. “The
board.”<br />
<br />
“And being ‘good’ ties your hands? What does being ‘good’ mean?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mason’s lip curled. Dale saw it, a silent
and mostly involuntary snarl and it didn’t go with the tired, defeated
endurance in his shoulders. He didn’t answer and after a moment Flynn put a
hand on his shoulder and gripped it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I don’t think it’s the board you hear say
that. Think about it, Mason.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mason didn’t answer, and after a moment
Flynn quietly took Dale’s hand and got up, leading them both inside and leaving
Mason alone on the swing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He wouldn’t go back to bed. Dale knew it
and expected it when Flynn quietly led him through the family room and opened
the study door, not turning the light on. From the couch in here, Flynn could
see the porch. Enough to know if the man sitting out on the swing needed him.
Some men needed pushing hard; being one of those men himself, Dale knew Flynn
was an expert in the art, but Mason was a man more gun shy, who needed time to
reach the point for himself. Jasper and Flynn had seen it from very early on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the dark of the study as Flynn quietly
closed the door, Dale got hold of Flynn, pulled him around and Flynn held on to
him. Crushingly, and after a moment his head rested on Dale’s shoulder. The
feel of it was strong in him; the pain of having hurt someone, the shame of
having done it, the regret was still there, and Dale searched for his mouth,
putting all the tenderness and comfort he could into his hands and his lips,
the emotion raw in his chest and in his throat, with a sense of possession that
stole his breath in how powerful it was. <i>My
man.</i> Larger than him, broader, much stronger, Flynn never felt anything
less than powerful to touch, but the strength of what he’d faced down with
Philip was something internal and greater than the muscle and bone under Dale’s
hands. It raised a fierce sense of pride in him. And there was something else
Dale understood about Flynn’s willingness to hurt too. To admit to the same
shame and the same pain he knew both Mason and Dale carried. There was a
sacrifice in it, a power Dale recognised at gut level without the knowledge of
how to put it into words and a love for him that was painful in its intensity.
There wasn’t a sound in the study, the kisses were deep and hard and utterly
silent, and when they paused for breath, Flynn leaned his forehead against
Dale’s. Hard. Heavy. Beloved. Face to face with him, breathless, burning from
neck to knees in highly inconvenient ways they could do nothing with a man in
need out on the porch, Dale felt a few more deeply buried, painful bubbles lift
out of him and burst, lost in something far hotter and far more powerful. It
was what he held on to with both hands, the warm muscle and bone of Flynn in
front of him that demanded him body and soul, and there was nothing worth
hanging onto that distracted from him. Eventually Flynn took his hand and drew
him to the couch, taking a seat at one end and pulling Dale to lie down full
length with his head in Flynn’s lap. Sitting here Flynn could watch the porch,
and he would, for as long as it took. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Against him, under the weight of Flynn’s
arm over his chest, head on the hardness of his thigh and in the peace of
knowing Flynn would choose how long they stayed there, that he had nothing to
do but be with him in this vigil, Dale felt the now familiar press of stone
against his hip and reached a hand into his pocket, pulling out the rose quartz
crystal. It was so ingrained to pocket it that even getting dressed in the
middle of the night he’d automatically taken it from the night stand. He turned
it over in his hands, unable to see much but the outlines of it, more feeling
the roughness of its planes against his palm with mixed and hot, rushing
emotion for Flynn, for the man on the porch, for this house and the people in
it. For the man whose desk stood a few feet away who’d loved Flynn and who had
left this house without hesitation to get him when he’d known he was needed.
Philip. He was strong in this room; to all of the others they found Philip most
strongly here when they wanted to be near him, they found his presence in the
leather bound books, the admiral’s chair, the polished desk and the crystal
inkwell, the peace that was always in here. It was still his room to everyone
in this family. Except if you knew where to look, he extended far beyond this
room. He was in the way they all sat around the table at dinner, the warmth of
the light in that room at dusk, the way Gerry teased Ash, the way Flynn checked
the corral and tack room at the end of the day, the steady tick of the
grandfather clock in the family room, the warmth of the fire in the hearth, his
presence was in all of it. In every one of these men he’d seen as his and loved,
who believed in and were loyal to the values that he’d lived by. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And then, in the twilight between dozing
and sleep, he drifted into the soft green grass of the nursery pastures,
stretching out for miles below the mountains with their white tops, and a small
herd of mares were grazing. Several of them large with foal, others of them
with small foals nursing or sleeping on the grass beside them. Alone in the
valley, no one but him and the horses under the sky, open ground all around
him, Dale walked slowly towards the grazing herd, watching them and looking for
the stallion. It wasn't Bandit and he wasn't surprised by that for some reason.
A black stallion stood instead, on the peak of higher ground some way above the
mares, head high and alert, scenting the air upstream. It was the brush on his
face that warned him. First once. Then again. And then as Dale looked up, from
the light dove grey sky, huge snowflakes glided lazily down, brushing past him
to rest on the grass. Lightly but persistently, in a gentle curtain, it began
to snow, a veil of white floating down from the sky in single white drops that
brushed the mares' hides and began to cover the grass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The hush of it filled the valley. The
cloaking of all sound under the soft, floating white. Dale turned his face up
to it in delight, spellbound. One of the small foals, tiny enough to be only a
few weeks old, stared in astonishment at the large flakes slowly passing his
nose, and snapped at them. Then spun on the spot as he saw them landing all
around him, initially in alarm, and then as his mother continued to graze
unhurriedly, he snapped again at another mouthful. Another red coated foal near
him licked a flake from his mother's side and sneezed in surprise at the cold.
Another of the foals pawed at the grass, cautiously, then jumped with shock as
it clung to his hoof, careening around in a circle which made the snow fly up
off the grass around him, and made several other foals near him startle, and
then dart to join him. There was a brief muddle of foals, bouncing and bucking
with their baby squeals, and then one braver than the rest nudged his nose against
the grass, then flopped down and rolled over in it, wriggling for a moment on
his back with all four legs thrashing in the air. Another one trotted in a
circle, making short runs and bounces with his little legs stiff, watching the flying
flakes around him. The little whinnies and snorts came to Dale through the
snow, the placid mares grazing among the flakes, the stallion unmoving at his
post. A rabbit, frozen in the grass near Dale's feet and dusted with snow,
abruptly shook itself, scattering flakes in all directions, and shot away
across the grass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It wasn't just his own delight that Dale
could feel as he watched. There was pride in the scene in front of him, a deep
pleasure at the small herd of mares with their babies, a proprietary pride. The
sensations and emotions overlay Dale's own like a sheet of coloured film,
slightly different, separate but shared with him. He could sense that he was
taller than usual, that one leg was unfamiliarly stiff at the ankle, he had his
hands dug in his pockets, his hat pulled low on his brow, and he never wanted
to stop watching. And there was a warmth, a feeling that whoever he was, he
knew Dale that looked through his eyes with him and he took pleasure in sharing
this moment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">From: <a href="mailto:AdenD@Horizon.com">AdenD@Horizon.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">To: <a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Subject: Argh<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Tom<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This started out as a
fairly sensible mail when I was writing it a few days back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’m glad to hear the
camp 3 expedition went well and was drama free. Glad too that everything is in
place and you’re taking a few days rest before the summit attempt, and hoping
you can actually get rest instead of do client management. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">You wanted a conversation
that was ice free? While you were at camp 3, I went out on a hike with Paul,
Jasper, Luath and Mason, our client. You’ll know about this, it was news to me
that they did this hiking business with clients but it made perfect sense once
we were actually doing it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I’m writing round in
circles, sweating because of what I want to actually say. Much of me is hoping
you are too occupied with climbing and will not read this anyway, but I suspect
you’ll understand it if you do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I mentioned in a
previous mail I was working through various things regarding my mother. I
always knew I had difficulty relating to people, I realised after I had lived
here a while I had no difficulty loving people, but I came to realise I had a
lot of difficulty in accepting love, which does not work out too well in
relationships like ours where we’re committed to honesty and to communication.
I still find myself rather wryly typing that: I have committed wholeheartedly
to a relationship based on communication with all my deficiencies in that
department. I’ve struggled with knowing how to admit when I can’t cope, to let
them see the things I’m ashamed of or that I don’t have control over, we’ve
talked it through so many times and inch by inch I understood more of it, and
finally I realised with them that this is where the root of the problem is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">It is not an easy
thing to face, to intentionally and deliberately unpack yourself and your past
and look, fully, at what you do and where it comes from. In doing it, I found a
lot of memories that were not easy ones. I could term it in the ways that
Flynn’s textbooks would – post traumatic stress, abreaction, re living of and
releasing of trapped minutes of time, but that doesn’t quantify it in real
terms. It distances it. Essentially I found within myself that child, still in
that time, in that place, hating me and hating everything, thinking and acting
at the very stage it happened and driving everything it saw as connected with
it, the one who actually experienced that loss. So while we hiked, this child
came too and this stuff poured out. Everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I suppose I was mostly
focused on getting to the point of pulling the cork on it. Jasper talks about
clarity of intent, it was a mission, a project, it took a great deal of work
and problem solving step by step to get to the deepest part of it and as it
were, blow the final safe. I hadn’t planned at all for what would come after
that, and I suppose that is typical of me. I don’t think beyond the solving of
the problem, I focus entirely on that moment of success that yes, it’s
unknotted, and then I realise what I’ve unleashed and that I have no idea how
to deal with it. What has hit is a kind of collapse I’ve never had any idea of
before in my life. I’ve never in my life spent days in bed like this. Paul is amazing. He just knows what to do and
what to say and how to be, he’s very calm and relaxed, and they all just keep
on repeating every time I start to panic, this is ok. This is ok. They create a
space all the time where there’s peace and time and it’s safe, and they won’t
let me be alone with it or shut it down. They keep saying what I know and what
we’ve talked about before, that I need to not push it away, I need to let
myself feel it. It washes around like a
tide. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Paul read me the Hunting
of the Snark. Are you familiar with it? It stunned me. It encapsulated
searching for something without being really sure what it is, having never seen
it, with the risk that it may not be what you seek at all, but something that
may destroy you, and there is no way to know. Yesterday we moved on from that
to Alice in Wonderland, which is like being handed a guidebook to the ludicracy
this is. Things may be big or small without warning. At times I feel
terrifyingly small, and other times emotions so big that they’re terrifying, or
I feel that I’m being terrifying or threatening without meaning to, and there is
no logic to it. The whole book is about a child walking through a distorted and
inexplicable landscape, and while this thing inside me won’t talk, it will
listen to a story. Quite beside the point, the mathematics in it walks all over
my brain, the multiplication tables that have warped out of a base of ten,
Alice bound by conventional mathematics in her world within a world where
abstract algebra rules, she has no means to make sense of any of it. The
quaternion tea party where three terms can’t function and are stuck going
around in circles because they’re not on speaking terms with time. I’ve been
bound by polite conventional mathematics all my life in an abstract world, and
made sense of none of it, this is the most sane insanity I’ve ever heard and
it’s entirely new to me. But it’s language I can think in. Someone has to teach
you the words, give you the words, so much thought can only exist when you <i>have</i> the words. I understood it at gut
level with Flynn months and months ago, he taught me how to do it and how to
feel it and understand it. So much of what Paul has done for me is to work out with
me how to put it into words and language I can think about. I grew up as part
of a polite surface illusion. I’ve kept her secret and been her person all my
life no matter what it cost me, things were never put into words. I had no
words for it. Randomly I have moments when I grieve over that. What things might
have been like without it. It’s somewhat like breaking out of that chain, and
then finding pieces of it I’m not even aware of, still clinging. The child is
trailing me, muttering and scowling, but at least I know what it is now. I have
some idea of what I need to do with it, even if I mostly don’t want to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I’ve been wanting to
fight. Hard. It’s wanting to shove against Flynn and Jasper and Paul and check,
a lot, and I know what I’m checking on. I have always been bright enough to
control people around me, for them to see and think what I want them to think,
to do what I feel safe with them doing, and largely it’s not to see me and to
leave me alone. I know I can’t do that with Flynn and Jas and Paul, and I want
to keep making sure they see through anything I can do, that I can’t win and I
can’t fool them to keep reminding myself that they’re stronger than me. That’s
what makes me feel safe. And I’m not being honest there, because I don’t want
to admit that some of this is also about pushing and looking for weakness, Paul
flat out told me he knew what I was doing when I last tried it on him. It’s
about trying to dismiss them as just another idiot I can manipulate when it
feels safer to separate myself, I know I did it as a child. And then within
seconds of that victory comes utter despair, because if you win you’re safe but
you’re alone again. Some of what Gerry taught me to do lately is deliberately
teach Paul the tricks, take them all off the table so there isn’t anything I
can pull that he can’t see through, and actually that bit of tuition from me
was less about teaching him anything than letting him get the full measure of
me. See all of it. Once he did, I haven’t managed to get anything past him
since. He knows what to look for and he’s all over it, and it’s one huge
relief. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">This is safe, sane,
secure love, I knew that long before they asked me to stay. It’s a different
world and I know it is. It isn’t going to go silent or walk away, it isn’t
going to refuse to talk or shut doors, old habits have no relevance here. I
never knew about wanting to slay dragons and climb mountains for someone before,
I didn’t realise how much of your life it could dominate, I will do this for
them because this is what they deserve from me, the very best I can give them,
untainted and unreserved. I’m just aware
I feel – slightly unfocused in some way. I’m not sure how. I’m not sure why. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I’m not asking for a
reply or for wisdom, although in my experience you have plenty of it. Talking
to you, to Gerry, to Riley is part of what’s keeping me sane because you know
what some of this feels like, particularly from our particular perspective, and
Flynn has said to me a few times, admitting the loss, acknowledging it, is what
lets it go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Be safe, we’re
thinking of you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: .5in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale finished typing the mail, struggling
not to re read it or re consider what he’d said, and hit send as soon as he
completed it, before anything within him could argue harder about the thoughts
that were already making him sweat. Once done, even with Flynn sitting on the office
desk and waiting – although he’d been tactful about not looking towards the
screen he was being extremely untactful and obvious about monitoring his watch
and fifteen minutes would mean fifteen minutes – Dale still hesitated a moment
more before he called up the mail he had just sent, and with the sweat breaking
out still stronger across his shoulders and palms, he resolutely pressed
‘forward’ and directed it to Flynn’s inbox. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The day after he
first had the resilience to want to eat at the table with them, the first time
he’d coped with a number of people around him without visibly flinching and
being overwhelmed by it, Paul waited until the house was empty of everyone but
the two of them, helped Dale dress, and they spent a while messing with the
vegetable garden, weeding and tidying. He liked the vegetable garden; apart
from the sensory and orderliness of it, it was something that mattered a lot to
him as all of the ranch traditions did, he was like Flynn and Jasper in that
respect. Like any new information, he didn’t just pick it up as he went along
either; he had found and read books, articles, information that Paul wouldn’t
have thought of, and he used it, and as a result they had healthy and
regimented lines of seedlings emerging from the soil. It was while they were
mulching the bed that Paul saw Dale pause, looking at the label on the fertiliser
sack, and sat back on his heels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What is it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Essentially ammonium sulphate.” Dale said
absently. “Just interesting what gets mixed with what, these are chemical names
I know in all sorts of contexts.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“If they work on the soil I’m fine with
it.” Paul straightened up, brushing off his hands. “You look tired.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’ve been laying around for days.”<br />
<br />
“Yes, for a good reason. Let’s put this stuff away and go chill out for a
while.”<br />
<br />
Dale picked up the sack of fertiliser and collected the tools, taking them to
the shed and Paul, sweeping off the last of the scattered earth from the rails
the demarked the edges of the vegetable patch, followed him and watched him
take down another box from the shelf and examine it, then flip it over in his
hand and go to the water trough in the yard, scooping a small amount of water
into a jar. Puzzled, Paul watched him deftly add a handful of the fertiliser
and whatever it was from the box to the water in his jar. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What exactly are you doing?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">What he got was one of Dale’s deliberate
James Bond looks; he knew it. It was the straight and slightly innocent eyed
look that contained a tiny but sharp glint of fun, intentional teasing, and it
was so good to see that Paul felt it hit his chest, making him smile
involuntarily. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Wrecking a handkerchief.” Dale said
lightly, pulling his from his pocket. Anything that made him look and feel like
this – even for a moment – was not something Paul was about to get in the way
of. Leaning against the post, Paul watched the care with which he did something
to the mixture, then poured it gently through the handkerchief, catching solids
and draining off the water. After which he laid it very delicately on a high
shelf and rinsed out the cup under the tap in the yard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Going to tell me anything about that?”
Paul inquired as Dale closed the shed door. Dale shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“It’s no worse than what Flynn does with
his handkerchiefs. It will wash out.”<br />
<br />
“What are you making?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He got another of those very brief glinting
looks and laughed, reaching to take Dale’s hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ok. Them that ask no questions don’t get
told no lies.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">He was sitting in
the kitchen keeping Paul company while Paul cooked when the others started to
come home. Gerry and Ash came first, their voices reached the kitchen, cheerful
and in conversation as they rubbed down their horses. Riley came next. Paul put
the cake batter in the oven, took a book and walked outside with Dale, sitting
down on the swing. Dale wandered to the porch rail, leaning on it. Riley was in
the corral with Snickers, he’d been grooming him and Snickers’ saddle and
bridle hung on the fence rail, but at the far side of the corral away from
where the other horses were grazing, Riley now had his hands in his pockets and
was walking backwards, at a brisk pace, rapidly changing direction, dodging,
turning, and everywhere he stepped Snickers followed, pursuing him and matching
every turn and step with Riley, until Riley laughed and pulled something from
his pocket to give to him. Dale watched him stroke Snickers’ face, then run a
hand over his shoulder, click, and Snickers went down on his knees and rolled
over onto his side, and Riley stepped over him, pausing sitting gently astride
him for a moment and rub his neck, his chest, slipping him another of whatever
Snickers was crunching, most likely polos, then he clicked again and Snickers
rolled up and heaved to his feet with Riley in place on top of him. Riley lay
down on his back for a moment, draped over him like a blanket, then sat up and
Snickers turned neatly in a circle, reared slightly, boxing with his front
hooves, and then dropped to his feet and Riley slipped down to the ground to
give him another mint. It looked like the simplest playing. Riley made it look
so easy, effortless and fun as if he was merely messing around, but the trust
and the skill within such a game took an expert horseman and hours and weeks and
months of work, not least to ensure that Snickers enjoyed it as much as he did.
It was something Dale could watch him do for hours. He glanced towards Paul,
saying it lightly enough to make it clear he didn’t mind if Paul said no. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Is it ok if I go down to the corral?
Riley’s playing with Snickers.”<br />
<br />
“Go ahead.” Paul put the book down on the swing which made it clear he’d be
watching. The deliberation of it was rather nice. Dale walked down the steps,
past Ash and Gerry at the barn, and climbed up on the corral rail. Riley
glanced up at him with a half smile, still petting Snickers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Hey.” <br />
<br />
There was something about the half smile that warned Dale, and looking
carefully he spotted it in seconds. He dropped off the rail and ducked under
Snickers’ neck to reach Riley, keeping the horse between them and Paul as he took
a strand of sage brush out of Riley’s hair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Brush your knees off.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley glanced down and swore quietly,
hurriedly stooping to slap dust off his jeans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“<i>Damn</i>.
I washed my boots off before I came home, I checked I didn’t tear anything.”<br />
<br />
“Just get the rock dust off your knees. I can’t see anything else.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Thanks.” Riley checked his hands and
followed Dale to the rail, climbing it and dropping to the ground to lift
Snickers’ abandoned tack down. His voice was low and slightly shamefaced. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I was up in the quarry behind the
waterfall, Flynn would kill me and I’m really not in the mood to get killed. It
took most of the morning to shake him off anyway, he was in sight the whole
time until past lunchtime.”<br />
<br />
With a fair idea of why, Dale mentally scanned the quarry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Climbing?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“A bit. And with a rope.” Riley said flatly
in an <i>I’m not stupid</i> tone, which he
qualified a second later with reluctant honesty, “Mostly. And now you’re all
over yourself saying it’s because you’re stressing the hell out of me. You’re
not, so stop it, you’re not personally responsible for everything. Sometimes I
just want to do this stuff without a police escort.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale looked at him and Riley grimaced,
knocking his shoulder against Dale’s as he headed for the tack room. It was
true. If he announced to the others that he planned to climb or swim no one
would stop him, they both knew it; someone would just go along too. It was when
Riley was feeling caged, when he wanted space, when he wanted to let off steam
that he broke this rule, quite deliberately, and while Jasper and Flynn both
came down hard on him if they caught him at it, there had to have been times
when no one knew. And in a way that too was partly why Riley did it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale took the bridle from him and followed
him into the tack room where Riley hung the saddle on its place on the wall,
hooked up the bridle and stood for a moment, stretching out his neck and then
stooping forward to hug his knees, stretching out his legs and spine which
suggested he had more than ordinarily sore muscles. He was supple enough to do
this kind of thing like a gymnast with the same grace with which he rode, and
Dale found his eyes automatically running up the full length of his legs and
the curved seat of his jeans, the line of his spine with appreciation as much
as guilt. Riley straightened up and hooked an arm around him, giving him a
quick and rough hug as he passed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“<i>Quit</i>
it. It’s ok, sometimes it’s about me and not you. We’d better move, this is
about the longest you’ve been out of their line of sight in days, they’ll be
having panic attacks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale followed him out of the stables,
hesitated for a moment, then very gently collected the handkerchief from the
shelf in the shed. Riley stopped to wait for him, looking with distaste at the
grey coffee ground like substance on the cotton. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What’s that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luath and Flynn were coming in together.
They were near the gate from the tops, riding side by side and unhurriedly,
Flynn with one hand resting on his knee, his Stetson tipped forward over his
eyes. Dale led the way up on to the porch steps where Ash and Gerry were
sitting with the old and chipped yard mugs, drinking tea with Paul who was
sitting on the swing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mason was some way down the porch, sitting
with his back to the wall; Dale hadn’t seen him before but he must have been sitting there a
while. He was writing in his notebook, head down, occupied, and he’d clearly
been writing hard, he was covering pages. Someone had taken him a mug of tea
which was standing on the porch boards beside him. Jasper was in the yard not
so far away from him, repairing the strimmer with which he’d been clearing the
long grass around the foot of the gate posts and glanced up to smile as Riley
and Dale passed him. Riley headed up the steps and flopped on the swing next to
Paul who put an arm around him and gave him a hug. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Hi. The kettle’s hot if you want a drink.”<br />
<br />
“I mostly want to sit, I’m bushed.” Riley watched Dale very gently shake the grey
dust over the steps of the porch. “Does anyone know what he’s doing?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“No, I’ve been watching with interest.”
Paul agreed. Dale put the handkerchief safely out of reach, setting it down
carefully on a ledge well out of the sun, and took the arm of the swing on
Riley’s other side. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">They talked idly about the stock for a
moment or two, Gerry and Ash with the cattle, Riley with the sheep where the
lambs were getting large enough to start roam further afield, and Luath and
Flynn tethered their horses together side by side to the barn and walked across
the yard, Luath dropping a heavy arm over Flynn’s shoulders to walk with him
for a moment, and then diverting to go into the stables for the grooming tools
they’d need to clean Hammer and Leo down of a day’s sweat and mud. Flynn came
over to the porch, heading up the steps with his usual firm stride and as his
foot hit the step there was a <i>crack</i>,
like a gunshot, not exactly loud, but loud enough that Flynn instinctively leapt
back from the step like a cat, swearing and grabbing the porch rail as he
almost fell into the yard. There was a loud exclamation from everyone on the
porch, Riley leapt to his feet and so did Ash, there was a definite acrid smell
of gunpowder in the air. In the corral, the horses, who were gun trained,
trotted over to cluster at the rail and look, and Hammer and Leo turned their
heads with interest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was a moment of stunned silence. Then
Flynn looked directly at the group on the porch, found Dale’s face in amongst
the crowd, and holding Dale’s eyes. put a hand on the porch rail to steady
himself, deliberately tapping his booted foot on the next step up. There was a
small puff of smoke and another <i>crack</i>
as the grey powder exploded on impact. On the porch, Riley burst out laughing,
and Mason, Paul, Jasper, Ash and Gerry joined him. Flynn held onto the rail to
step well over the third and fourth step and advanced purposefully across the
porch to Dale who looked back at him with interested, innocent eyes. Riley,
still laughing, grabbed his arm and dragged him to his feet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Don’t just sit there, <i>run!</i>” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was a bit late for that. Flynn, arms
slightly out like a quarterback, grabbed for him and his eyes were dark and wicked,
Dale couldn’t look at them without starting to laugh, aware that he was wholly,
entirely enjoying himself as much as Riley was. As Flynn grabbed for him it was
suddenly easy; Dale dodged on instinct and fled down the porch, vaulting the
rail to land in the yard and head for the nursery pastures. Flynn ran him down
without difficulty, Dale sprinted over the long grass, flat out, hearing
Flynn’s stride behind him and Flynn’s nearness an instant before a hand caught
his belt and yanked him back, and he couldn’t help either the yelp or bursting
out laughing in earnest as he was swung off his feet. Flynn’s breath was hot on
his neck and the world spun crazily. Hanging over his shoulder Dale hung on to
his belt for support, bounced as Flynn walked back through the pasture and
through the gate, up the back porch steps by the vegetable patch, and over to
where the others were grinning on the porch by the swing. There, Flynn sat on
the porch rail and flipped Dale over his knee, pinning him there with one hand
resting on the seat of his jeans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What was that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“A sixth form science experiment.” Dale had
a try at twisting off his lap, still unable to completely stop laughing which
was as undignified as this position. “Properly handled it’s perfectly
harmless.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Perfectly-” Holding him right where he was, Flynn swatted
him, and it echoed around the yard, but his hand was cupped, it was a good deal
more noise than anything else, and he swung Dale to his feet. “I’ll deal with
you later.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’ll detonate the rest of it and sweep it
up,” Dale began, and Flynn grabbed him, folding his arms around Dale’s waist
from behind to hold him still as Luath came out of the stables, curry combs in
hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Shhh.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley, his eyes alive, grinned at Dale and
along with the others, sat innocently still. Mason, who had got up and come to
join the others, caught Dale’s eye, grinned and folded his arms, and Dale
controlled his face with an effort, holding on to Flynn’s arms around him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What’s all the noise about out here?”
Luath crossed the yard towards them and Gerry produced a peculiar sound, folded
his arms and put a hand firmly over his mouth, half way behind Ash’s shoulder
as Luath started up the steps. He hit the remaining powder on the third step
and the detonation made him leap even further than Flynn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/chapter-22-ranch.html">Continue on to Chapter 22</a></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></div>
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-49529742817871173372015-09-24T17:11:00.002-07:002015-09-24T18:14:58.880-07:00Chapter 22 - Ranch <div style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">22</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gerry and Ash missed breakfast
that morning. Dale was washing dishes with Paul afterwards when Gerry came in,
slightly red eyed, and Paul gave him a smile that tactfully didn’t notice. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div>
“Hi love. There’s breakfast for you two in the warming oven if you want it.”<br />
<div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thanks.” Gerry got one plate out, leaving the other for
Ash, and set two places at the table. “Ash is emailing to book a hotel room for
the night on our way home, we’ve had to change to a connecting flight. I don’t
understand about airlines over-booking, one would think that either the seat is
sold or it isn’t, it’s hardly rocket science.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He caught Dale’s eye as he leaned on the counter and forked
scrambled egg into his mouth, giving him a slightly shamefaced look<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m not <i>quite</i> sure
Emily Post would have approved of my reaction.”<br />
<br />
“It’s done with now.” Ash came into the kitchen and Gerry took the second plate
out to hand it to him. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a brief exchange of glances that Dale saw pass
between them, from Ash’s nod at the table to Gerry’s mute plea to Ash’s
slightly raised eyebrows. And Gerry’s wince as he brought his plate and sat
down beside Ash somewhat delicately. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Gerry’s got some lines to write,” Ash said to Paul. “He’ll
be in the study today if you wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on him? He doesn’t
need to be anywhere else until I get back.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gerry grimaced but didn’t say anything. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He was laying on his stomach on the study rug and writing
when Dale tapped at the door a while later, and glanced up with a bit of a wry
smile. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Come in.”<br />
<br />
“Paul sent this.” Dale put the mug of tea down in reach, unsure what diplomatically
to say, and Gerry rolled onto his side and took the mug gratefully, putting
down his pen to bury himself in it.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You British are so polite, Darcy and Bear just demand the
details. Ash doesn’t do refusing to communicate, it’s a bit of an old habit of
mine and it gets stamped on pretty firmly. You’d think I’d have learned not to
do it by now, but I am Cleopatra.”</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
<br />
Dale looked at him askance, and Gerry spread his arm as dramatically as he
could while laying on the rug. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The Queen of denial?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale smiled, and Gerry smiled back. “And we are kind of
under zero tolerance at the moment anyway since someone, I mention no names,
did something really stupid with a plane to Texas in lieu of a conversation. I
can’t imagine why.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whatever he was writing, so far it covered several pages in
Gerry’s free, looping hand and it looked less like a line than a paragraph
duplicating the very first one, written in different handwriting, smaller and neater
at the top of the first page, the first couple of lines of which began:<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">There
are no feelings so bad we can’t talk about them, and nothing I can say that
won’t be listened to</span></b></i></span></span></blockquote>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale couldn’t make out the rest of it, but was slightly
surprised at the tone of it, having expected something... less personal. Other
than having seen Riley write lines on occasion and not enjoy it, it wasn’t
something that he knew much about. It was too easy for him to detach from
something physically repetitive and his own people knew it; it wasn’t something
Flynn or the others ever asked him to do. Essays that involved active reflection
on the things he found hardest, yes, Flynn had no hesitation at all in making
him work his guts out for hours to produce a paragraph of his own that
reflected real thought. His journal was full of them, but none of them made for
painful re reading. Which brought back something that had been nagging at the
back of his mind for a few days now. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Leaving Gerry resignedly writing in the study, Dale spoke
briefly to Paul to ask permission and pulled his boots on, heading outside. Jasper
was by the corral, grooming Gucci who was tethered to the rail and leaning into
Jasper’s brush strokes, her gleaming hide starting to show the comfortable
swell of her growing foal. It was a warm, sunny morning and Dale found himself
rolling back his sleeves as he walked across the damp red earth to Jasper; Paul
was continuing to hand him anyone’s sweater but his own to put on in the
mornings. Actually Dale knew exactly why he did it; the comfort of it was physical
and surprisingly powerful and it was with him all day, enveloped in these sizes
that were too large for him so they reminded him every time he moved, and which
carried, faintly within the familiar smell of clean laundry, the scent specific
to Flynn or to Jasper or to Paul. No one else had commented that he was walking
around in a sweater that came well down past his hips and sleeves that hung
over his hands. It was one of Paul’s he was wearing today, a thick knit in the
dark blues Paul often wore, and Gucci turned her head to snuffle at him,
clearly interested that she was picking up Paul’s scent on him. Jasper glanced
up and smiled, continuing to work over Gucci’s smooth haunches. Dale ran an
automatic hand over Gucci’s soft nose, rubbing as he thought of how to phrase
this. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“.....Luath has my journal.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It wasn’t a complaint. Jasper nodded, apparently
having no difficulty understanding. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You haven’t wanted to ask him for it.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> “I
tried to destroy it.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper moved round to work on Gucci’s
other haunch, briskly running the brush in a steady <i>swoosh, swoosh</i>, and Gucci shifted her weight to her other back hoof
to lean deeper against the bristles, huffing luxuriously and switching her tail
side to side<i>. <br />
</i> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“For a reason, not in temper. Look at
me.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a request, gently said, but it
was a phrase that had taken on a whole lot of new meaning in the past few weeks.
Jasper paused, leaning with his arms on Gucci’s back and waiting.<i> </i>It still took a moment of mental
wrestling to make himself do it, to look him in the eye, fully, deliberately,
to make himself that vulnerable. Jasper spoke quietly and directly to him,
holding his gaze in the way he had that made you feel like he was speaking
right inside your head. <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You were trying to find a way to tell
us honestly how you felt. You spent that whole day talking to us and it was the
hardest stuff you were letting out, it took immense courage. I’m very proud of
you for doing it, I do not blame you for one moment of it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn had said the same thing a few days
ago. To hear it from Jasper, said so firmly and so intently, carried the same
deep impact, particularly from Jasper who had been there and seen it. Riley
would have accepted the comfort. Flushed and conflicted, Dale leaned on the
rail, not wanting to reject what Jasper said but searching for the words to
explain himself. Jasper walked around
Gucci and came to lean on the fence beside him.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But you still don’t feel ok because even if there were
reasons, it was an act of violence. You understand that. So do I.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He did. He’d led Dale through another
disaster some months ago, explaining how to make it right. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“Reparation.” Dale said to him. “You say it takes reparation.”<br />
<br />
“Yes. The saplings you brought back from the woods. They’re on the porch by the
vegetable patch.” Jasper put a hand on Dale’s neck, his palm was warm and it
was a comforting touch. “Plant them out, water them in. Add something that
wouldn’t be here without you.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d prepared for this days ago. Startled
and touched that Jasper had known, Dale found himself demanding stupidly, “Where?”<br />
<br />
Jasper gave him a calm shrug, going back to Gucci, who had twisted her head
around to look at them reproachfully with large, soft eyes. “Wherever you
think, this is your home.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“....If they grow out here in the open they’ll be huge.”
Dale protested. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes. Tell Paul where you are and let him know I’ve got an
eye on you.”<br />
<br />
“In case I turn into a pumpkin.” Dale said half under his breath, going to look
at the saplings. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were good atmospheric reasons why trees did not grow
in the valley here. They would probably die in the first bad weather, the first
storms out of the shelter of the woodlands. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Be honest, you’re
more worried that it’s going to make the landscape look different. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If the trees lived, it would stay looking different for
anything up to the next century. It was far more of a personal mark than Dale
felt comfortable placing. The urge was strong to go back to Jasper and argue
that this was no sensible way to treat either a tree or a beautiful place. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So think for a minute
what he wants you do and why. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i>
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He isn’t going to ask
you to do anything destructive, he values the continuity here as much as you
do, Jas doesn’t believe in any kind of casual damage to anything. This is about
reparation. You don’t have to stuff these in the first place you can think of,
or the place where you hope they’ll be least in sight, that isn’t his point at
all. It was violence against here and everything you believe in here. If you were
going to plan to do something that did some good to repair that violence - if
you were going to put those trees to a useful purpose that served here, what
would you do?<o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He paused on the porch to survey the very familiar and
loved yard and the land around him, the answer coming almost instantly. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’d put them in a
cluster up to the lee side of the shires’ paddock. They’d love the shade and
the windbreak, we worry about them in the hottest weather and the coldest. The
trees would have the support of the fence while they’re growing, the three close
together would give each other enough shelter that they might get through the
winter, and that far out from the house they’d fade into the woods from a
distance, we’d hardly know they were there. But the shires would. </span></span></i></blockquote>
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If Paul was surprised at a brusque comment about going to
plant trees, he hid it well. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> The
planting of trees had not been a subject of study at either school or his
career with ANZ. It took some minutes of searching through one of the botany books
in Philip’s study, stepping over Gerry as he did so, to find what one did about
saplings. Having read and digested it, Dale then located a shovel, took the
saplings with him, and spent a while locating the right spot, watched closely
by the three big, placid shire horses. Putting the trees far enough out of
reach of curious teeth and hooves while they grew, Dale dug some of the same
fertiliser into the earth that he and Paul had been using to improve the soil
in the vegetable bed, planted them deep
and watered them well, which meant sometime of hauling buckets from the tap in
the yard. There was real peace in it. A satisfaction to placing them here,
properly, with the best chances he could give them to grow, and it eased
something within him as he did it. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On his third trip out, a heavy bucket brimming in either
hand, he saw her some way off, sitting in the pasture near to the newly planted
trees. She was about seventeen, the same girl he’d seen walk past them in the
woods a few days ago. Sitting with her legs curled under her, her hands busy
with one wild flower that she linked to another in a chain, picking them from
the grass around her, her long dark hair
fallen forward over one shoulder. She didn’t seem to want anything, she was
relaxed and intent on what she was doing. Her bare feet were clean and as
delicate as her hands, she was dressed only in a light, white peasant blouse
and the flared jeans with the embroidered flower on one knee. She glanced up at
Dale and her open pleasure in the sunlight, the green pasture, the breeze
through the trees and the flowers in her lap washed over him in a rush of
warmth mixed with her smile as she met his eyes, it was nothing more than a
casual and happy <i>hello </i>like a
neighbour passing by in the street. She was gone an instant later, leaving no
trace on the grass. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mason was sitting with his back against the stable wall as Dale
collected the tools and walked back down the line of paddocks towards the barn.
He had his notepad open on his knee and was still writing. Hard. His head was
bent in concentration and he paused at intervals to frown at the page. He also
sat in the dust of the yard without the faintest compunction; something before
the hike he wouldn’t have done half so naturally. Dale walked quietly the other
way around the yard buildings to avoid disturbing him, and he was putting away
the cleaned off shovel when he saw an elderly car bumping slowly over the grass
track towards the yard. It wasn’t one of their neighbours; Dale knew most of
their cars on sight the way he knew Clara’s and Emmett’s. Unlike their
neighbours who wouldn’t have hesitated to drive right into the yard, this car
stopped at a polite distance to the side of the track and two men got out, both
tall, wide shouldered, one with dark hair and the other with long white hair in
a braid almost to his waist that Dale recognised immediately. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper had seen them too, he left Gucci and walked slowly
out to meet them, glancing back to Dale with a clear invitation to join him.
Dale caught him up and side by side they reached the two men, dressed in jeans
and jackets with the strong bones that made their Shoshone ancestry clear in
their faces, who had paused just outside the gate to wait for them. Jasper
offered a hand to the elder man, his voice warm.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mr Williams.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes. Caleb.” The man took Jasper’s hand gently, holding
rather than shaking it as Dale had seen him do at their last meeting. “You came
to Fort Washakie to talk with us about the sacred site on your land. My son and
I are historians, we came to ask you if we might visit the hill for ourselves.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Of course, you’re very welcome. Give me a moment and we’ll
show you where it is.” Jasper turned back to the yard to where Paul had come
out onto the porch having seen the car, and Caleb offered his hand to Dale, his
very bright blue eyes twinkling as he smiled. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale Aden.”<br />
<br />
He was as captivating as he had been at their first meeting. There was a warmth
in his smile that was both a surprise and a pleasure; Dale felt the
friendliness within it lift him as the man took his hand, a strong hand but no
grasp, no squeeze, more the gentler touch of a friend or a family member.
Joseph, shorter and thicker set than his father, smiled too, offering his hand
in turn. Jasper came back to them with a set of keys. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We can drive one of the jeeps most of the way if you’d
like, it’s about a mile steep walk.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We would enjoy the walk.” Caleb said with a rather dry
look at the car. “I have sat long enough this morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From Joseph’s smile it was a familiar complaint. Caleb’s
age was difficult to guess as they walked up through the now calf deep, gently
rolling green grass up the long hill; Dale thought probably eighty at a minimum
and very likely more from the tan of his deeply lined, weather beaten skin. His
long back was slightly stooped and he took his son’s arm at times over the
rougher ground, but he moved with a strong pace and with energy, looking around
them at the river in the distance and the shape of the hills stretching up
ahead of them. They walked without talking too, in the same comfortable quiet
that Jasper knew. It gave a hush to the woods as they reached them, where even
the birdsong seemed muted, where the light filtered down through the new green
budded trees and in the distance as they walked through the narrow path in the
woods that wound uphill, they could hear the river. The clearing was still a
quiet and peaceful place. Caleb paused at the edge of it and Jasper put out a
discreet hand to take Dale’s, drawing him aside. He crouched down some way back
from the clearing itself and Dale sat down on a fallen log by him, politely not
watching as he realised that Caleb was praying. They let the two Shoshone men
enter the clearing alone, a sacred site in a way Dale knew he had no real idea
of the significance of. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The atmosphere here was wholly different than it had been on
the night when Roger had .... Dale paused on the thought, still not fully sure
what had happened on this hill. Like many of the stranger things, it had
imprinted itself differently on his memory. The emotions were intense, and they
were good, all of them were good. He vividly remembered the sense of awe, the
sense of peace, the intensity of tenderness in David’s face when he took
Roger’s hand. He remembered Roger’s face, the distracted calmness like an
anaesthetic against the fear and confusion that battered Dale through the smoke
and the noise, stuck in a moment of time without understanding where he was or
what was happening so that he could be without fear. He remembered their conversation,
such as it was. But the rest – like many things he thought he had seen through
other people’s eyes – like the foals in the snow – the images themselves were
gone, there was only the knowledge that they had been there. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because it wasn’t my
memory they were recorded on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At some point he had become used to the idea. He wasn’t
sure when, except that when it happened – like this morning, the girl on the
grass –it was nothing strange. And in some ways it had never felt strange, not
when it was happening. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They sat there in the woods for over forty minutes, and it
was like sitting in a cathedral, the sense of hush was physical. Peaceful. When
Joseph and Caleb rejoined them, Caleb looked pensive and not like a man who had
seen what he came to see. They walked together down the narrow path towards the
hay meadows that covered the long hill that led home, and Dale, walking at the
end of the line behind Caleb, found himself hunting for any polite way to say
it, concerned for him. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did you find what you were looking for, sir?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I am not sure.” Caleb paused as they reached the edge of
the woods, looking down the long valley. “I’m tired. May I sit for a while?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He sat down on the grass, crossing his legs as if he were
used to it and resting his elbows on his knees. They sat with him, Dale
automatically crossing his legs too as he often sat with Jasper outside. He
felt as much as saw Caleb survey him, not at all a critical look. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You have the gift. Will you tell me what you saw in the
clearing on the hill?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a sincere shock to hear someone speak so directly of
it. Dale glanced at Jasper for help and Jasper gave him a calm nod of
encouragement that made Dale want to demand out loud, <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At what point did I
agree to it being anything so concrete as a ‘gift’?! I don’t remember admitting
to that! <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Except that it was hardly polite to argue with an older man
who radiated a whole lot of qualities that Dale strongly respected, and
evasiveness....... was largely about fear. The house lay below them in the
valley, the horses tiny in their corral, the red roof of the house warm under
the sun and a contrast to the bright green of the rippling grass all around
them. Dale took a slow breath with his eyes on it, searching for the simplest
way to explain it. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I was handling a work project that wasn’t going well. I
was working up on the hill for some of the day and on the project the rest of
the day, and I became stressed, which I’m afraid may have been what disturbed
the energies in the clearing. Jasper and I went up there together and
experienced what we discussed with you when we visited Fort Washakie.”<br />
<br />
“A psychic attack.” Caleb said with comprehension. “Yes.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Was it really? It was odd to hear it termed as such a known
thing. Dale took that on board, marshalling the other facts to summarise. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“...Afterwards I had a number of dreams. Disturbing dreams,
always around the members I know of a particular generation of our family.
Always about one of them falling. I didn’t understand them, they were
distressing, but as tends to happen they escalated. I’m still not sure how, but
gradually I got the feeling I needed to go up to the hill and that what was up
there was not dangerous. It looked and felt dangerous but I’ve dealt with many
difficult and emotionally – violent – conflicts in my working life, and it
didn’t feel right. Our herd stallion became agitated and defensive of the land
as if another stallion was challenging him, and it seemed to me to be
protective. Rather than defensive. Particularly given what we knew of the
clearing’s history.”<br />
<br />
Caleb nodded slowly, listening. Dale linked his hands in his lap, glancing down
at the quartz ring on his fourth finger. It was a habit now, a brief way to
stabilise himself, like the feel of the earth under him, the sense of space all
around him. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jasper and another member of our family came with me up to
the hill and this time I – pressed through the attack I suppose? I knew it
wasn’t harmful. When I looked at what was really there, it was illusory, I
could walk through it. When I did, I saw the clearing wavering between the
landscape as it is, and another landscape, sometimes nearer one than the other,
but a combination of both, and the white stallion was circling, protecting the
man in the middle of it.”<br />
<br />
“You knew him.”<br />
<br />
<i>Don’t tell him that! <o:p></o:p></i></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></i></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He was aware of the internal instinct, the urge he
understood now as a separate voice, the thoughts of the angry child on the
landing, because to share this deeply personal information was to give away
control, to make himself too exposed. It took a moment of breathing, to feel
the system inside him jerk towards a familiar response, and to halt it. To
deliberately and intentionally control it and to continue anyway, even though
his chest was tight with irrational anxiety. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We are ok. This is
ok. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is not!<o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m the grown up. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The kid’s emotions clearly expressed his opinion.
Separating himself from them to a place where he could think clearly, Dale said
levelly, <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes. He was a member of our family too. He died in New
York in the twin towers attack.”<br />
<br />
“And you spoke to him?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He was confused.” Dale hesitated, still not very sure of
the facts himself. “I’ve seen it happen with another-”<br />
<br />
“Spirit.” Caleb supplied when he stopped.
“Yes. I believe you.”<br />
<br />
Dale took another breath, looking again at Jasper, who was listening quietly, body
relaxed, eyes steady. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m right here. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></i>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The magic words. They helped every time, and it was the
first time Dale realised it wasn’t just him that it helped. It reached and it
calmed that furious, primal part of him that was watching with its small fists
clenched, near to raging. Candidly, some of the internal tension fading away,
Dale ticked them off on his fingers, aware his voice had slipped into the familiar,
matter of fact tone with which he played back data. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There are different kinds that I’ve seen. There are what
I’d deduce to be some form of cinematographic imprinting on the landscape,
events that under certain circumstances replay the recording on the geographical
site where they happened. I’ve seen Shoshone children playing by the river.
Shoshone horsemen on the hill. Heard wagons on the wagon trail. I’ve stood on
the site of the town in the valley, Three Traders, and seen what used to be
there and what the town looked like in its working life. Then there are what I
think of as visitors. Spirits that are in a place because they want to be, and
they’re calm, doing what they want to do in their own time and not bothered about
what anyone else is doing. Usually they’re doing things they love to do,
sometimes they’ll show me or tell me something they’re thinking about that
gives them pleasure, or just acknowledge they’ve seen me. There is one visitor who
is rather different,”<br />
<br />
“Who interacts more directly than the others.” Caleb sounded unsurprised, which
startled Dale into looking straight at him. Caleb gave him a nod. “Go on.”<br />
<br />
“....He was the one who drove much of the dreams and the thinking about Mustang
Hill.” Resisting the urge to demand to know why Caleb was unsurprised by this
and what he knew, Dale pulled himself back to the data with some difficulty. “David.
I never met him in his lifetime but I saw him not long after I first came
here.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He lived here?” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He built the ranch.” Jasper said quietly. “This is his
land, we are his family. I never met him either, but I saw him too years ago.
He has a strong presence here.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The validation helped. Caleb listened carefully to this,
nodded again slowly to process it, and looked back to Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He drove your dreams of the hill.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He was pushing me to go there,” Dale said frankly. “I knew
he wanted me to work out what to do and he was impatient it was taking me so
long. I didn’t realise until afterwards that he needed me to start the process
so he could finish it. He showed me that
what was there was not dangerous. Since I first came to the ranch, any time
there was real danger, I saw him and he drew my attention.”<br />
<br />
Caleb inclined his head, accepting this. “So when you did not see him, you
understood. Yes.” <br />
<br />
“The third category are people who seem to be stuck in a moment of time on repeat.
They’re not distressed, they’re not afraid, although I can feel the energy
around them is distressed.” Putting it into the terms he’d thought of before,
Dale said it out loud. “It’s as if they’ve been anaesthetised, in an insulated
bubble of time. You can talk to them if you join them in that moment, if you
focus with them on what is real to them in that moment, but I can’t draw them
out of it. Both times when I’ve done it, David has been there and he’s walked
up to the person, spoken to them, and he seems to be able to reach them and reassure
them enough that they go with him. I don’t know where. Both times I’ve seen him
walk with them and they fade away. Once he said to me I was holding on too
tight, to let go and let him through.”<br />
<br />
Caleb nodded slowly, with a faint smile that was pleased, approving. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And what do you think this means?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I have no real idea.” Dale admitted. “He came to the
family member here. Roger. I tried talking to him and he couldn’t have a
conversation, he had the same thought going round and round, he was perfectly
calm but couldn’t think about anything else. David walked over to him, took his
hand, and Roger went with him. David took the fear away.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No real idea?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh the man was a born Top. Dale acknowledged it and conceded,
steepling his hands to think. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“With the second one I knew enough not to try to draw him
out of what he knew. I joined him there, I drew him into conversation – and at
that point I more or less hoped David would turn up and take over as I didn’t
know what to do next.”<br />
<br />
“And he did.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.” Dale sat for
a moment, trying to find a way to say it that sounded even faintly rational.
“The visitors appear to be where they want to be in time and space, and they see
the places they’re in as they want them to be. Most likely as they knew them in
their time, even if the landscape has changed since their memory of it. Roger was
in confusion, a mixture of what he was frightened by with where he wanted to
be. He loved the clearing when he lived on the ranch, it was one of his
favourite places. I think his fear, his confusion, his energy triggered the
energies in the clearing.”<br />
<br />
“As the spirit stallion was said to protect the people who lived on his land.”
Caleb said thoughtfully. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We received identification of his remains that morning.”
Jasper said evenly. “We had been waiting years, we’d heard potential remains
had been found a few days after Dale first experienced the energy in the
clearing. I don’t know whether it had to do with Roger’s remains having been
disturbed...”<br />
<br />
“Or whether he was found because you raised energies which drew others to the
place where he was.” Caleb finished slowly. “Yes, I see.”<br />
<br />
<i>Seriously? <o:p></o:p></i></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale looked from one to another of them, shocked. Caleb
interested, Joseph listening quietly, calmly. Jasper, quite serious. Caleb
looked again to Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“How long has your gift been awake?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Seriously?!<o:p></o:p></span></span></i><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“....It started when I first came here.” Still watching
Jasper’s face, Dale answered without thinking. “I saw David sometimes. Spoke
with him sometimes. It’s evolved gradually from then. It isn’t something I have
a great deal of conscious control over at all, sometimes I can pick up a
feeling or some images from an object if I’m relaxed and not thinking about it,
but mostly it happens when I least expect it. Once or twice I’ve known a piece
of information I have difficulty seeing how rationally I could have reasoned
out when I’m talking to a person.”<br />
<br />
“Do you have vivid dreams often? Nightmares?” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He
does <u>not</u> need to know that!<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper
knows, it’s no secret, it’s irrational to worry about sharing it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Often and severe ones. Especially
lately. There were some incidents from a long time ago that came up, that I
needed to work through.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caleb nodded again, reassuringly. “Yes.
It’s common with a waking gift. Anyone doing any form of cleansing,
preparation, has to release what’s blocking them, it’s a normal thing in our
beliefs. As you develop your communication with that energy, it looks for
blockages in your own heart and mind that hinder you, and it will help you if
you choose to work on them and release them. I don’t have it myself, I have the
awareness and teaching that all my people do.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So what is it?” Dale found himself
saying straight out. “What would you term a ‘gift’?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There are times and cultures in which
to know of these things and to do these things was not only entirely every-day,
but every child was raised to do it as they were raised to know how to walk and
talk and eat.” Caleb rested his linked hands on the grass in front of him,
watching Dale with those very bright, warm eyes. “They were taught to use and
to develop the natural faculties we all have, just as any man can be taught to
play the piano. Some will learn a little despite great effort, while some will
become competent players. Some will have a talent, and learn quickly and become
especially proficient. And a very few will have a natural, inborn gift. You may
not have had the teaching, but you have those faculties as every animal does,
and you have the gift. Enough that you have begun to teach yourself. My father
had it too.”<br />
<br />
“But I was never aware of anything like this before I came here, and I’m past
thirty. If I had this kind of – skill – surely it would have appeared before
now?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“If your hearing was never stimulated as
a child – if there was no speech and no voices around you, no music, no
training given to your ear- would you have developed it well as a sense?” Caleb
said gently. “You would have learned to recognise the warning sounds of danger
and the cues of sounds that meant things to you, but would you have learned the
nuances and discrimination you have through living in a culture where hearing
is a constantly trained and vital sense? Would you recognise the sound of an
oboe from a cello or sarcasm from loving teasing? Cultures that have no
understanding of a ‘sixth sense’ as it’s termed, don’t train it or seek to
understand it or intentionally use it within their daily life, it’s undeveloped,
but a mother still wakes because in a moment her baby will begin to cry. A man still
cancels a plane ticket because he has a bad feeling about it.”<br />
<br />
“You have your boiler or your car serviced off schedule for no reason, except
that you have a feeling it needs it.” Dale met his eyes. “Because
subconsciously, you’ve registered that the sound is slightly different,
something unusual has caught your attention at a level you weren’t aware of.”<br />
<br />
“Yes. It’s natural information, it’s what your senses perceive, but everyone
perceives energy as they perceive sound, touch, taste, smell and sight. As you
do.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I have always been a problem solver.”
Dale said slowly. “I’m eidetic. I take in information, process it and find
missing parts. That was what I utilised in my work before I came here.
Intuition was a part of it. There’s a creativity and imagination that extends
mathematics and quite possibly I learned to use my senses in a way I didn’t
understand before, but what I’ve experienced since I came here is wholly
different.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve known this awakening of a gift happen
to people who never sensed it before, particularly when they’ve reached a
strongly spiritual or emotional point in their lives.” Caleb said simply. “It
depends on when you are ready, when you have the knowledge and maturity to
fulfil the purpose, and there is always a purpose.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But why me?” Dale found himself saying
from the heart. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caleb smiled, giving him an easy shrug.
“But why not you?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was no answer to that. Caleb’s
voice was gentle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“It’s given to you for a reason at the right time. If you do nothing, if you do
not want it and you choose in effect choose not to listen – then wait out the
dreams, focus on every day things - it will fade back down. You might have
flashes of it all your life but it will be in the background. If you choose to
listen and to practice, to work on it like any ability, then it will develop
and you will learn to use it with skill, experience and intent. It’s your
choice.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“A purpose like what?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caleb shook his head. “That’s your task
to discover. No two gifts are exactly the same, and your gift has woken here,
based on who you are, what you feel, what you have experienced and what you know.
In our beliefs these are not random preparations, you will have sought out the
learning and experience you were meant to have before you came here. Someone
who may use their gift for counselling people may have lived through a violent
marriage or the loss of a child, domestic troubles that will enable them to truly
know what someone else with domestic troubles feels who comes to them for help,
and meet them without judgement. The question is, are you willing to learn and
to find the purpose in your gift? If so, you will find in time what it is that you’ve
been preparing yourself for longer than you have realised.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper had said that to him before.
Coming at this time it was poignant, painful. Dale cleared his throat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“...From what I’ve experienced with
these energies, it’s always to do with listening. And about people avoiding
fear.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Roger. The trapper by the hot springs.
Gam Saan. Dale paused, trying to find a way to explain it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve spent time facing and dealing with
things in myself I’ve been avoiding all my life, I <i>know</i> that fear. It’s as if these things need to be heard, and I
understand that because I know it in myself. If it isn’t heard, then it makes
itself felt in other ways. To move forward, you have to be able to face it and
let it go.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Trouble
shooting. In my working life I was sent to work out and unblock what was stuck,
that was what I did. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Even when what wants to be heard is
alarming, there must be someone to hear it. You’ve found the courage to turn
around and face the darkest fears you have, to look squarely at the fear that
freezes you.” Caleb said gently. “That qualifies you to help others do the
same. Which others, where and how, I think are up to you. And I think perhaps
too, your friend David.”<br />
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<!--[endif]--><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Time, friendship, listening, persistence.
That was what most helped their clients; it was the philosophy Riley, Paul,
Jasper and Flynn lived by, and had taught him. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">The
men who created this household always took in people in need, they offer friendship
and acceptance and help, that’s what they gave to all of us and the bargain we
all know – because they gave it to us, because we have it here, we share it
with others. We have a responsibility. </span></i><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve
been preparing for this my whole life. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And it came not with alarm or surprise
but with a sense of definite, comprehending joy that now he knew, he
understood, and it was <i>right</i>. It was
so right it was breathtaking, like a dislocated limb snapping back into place, and
it gave meaning, real meaning to things that for so long had felt like a
wasteland, like time wasted, time lost. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What I ‘see’ or think of are very often
in symbols.” He said aloud, and there was excitement now, that this man knew the
very things he’d puzzled over for months, fumbling to understand. “It’s as if
shared experience and shared knowledge is where we can meet, where I can
understand.”<br />
<br />
“A spirit only has your knowledge to work with to talk to you,” Caleb agreed.
“It has to use what is in your mind. So it will work in symbols and codes. You
are someone who loves to learn and has the gift of memory, so you have a good
deal of information it can use. The more you expand that knowledge the more is
there for them to work with. You can consciously develop it. Read. Find out.
Explore. Talk to people and learn from them. Build the vocabulary in which
spirits can explain to you. Look around you for symbols and learn what they
mean, especially in the old knowledge, in times when understanding of such
symbols were common place. There may also be symbols that only you recognise,
things that give meaning solely to you. They can be messages. Indicators.
Communications. They might be anything – objects, animals, numbers, colours, things
which will give meaning to you in the moment when you see them, if you can learn
to recognise and read them. Some will be transitory, only relevant in that
particular moment. A few symbols may become ‘yours’, ones that always hold a personal
message for you, such as a number that seems to follow you. A colour. An animal
whose image you see around you often in pictures, carvings, or which you see in
unexpected places.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Eagles. I’ve often seen eagles in
places I didn’t expect.” Dale said quietly. Caleb nodded, calmly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The earth to air messengers. They fly
higher than any other creature, they see to the ground with clear vision; that
is their symbolism. In our terms, if an eagle blesses you with its presence
then it speaks to you of a powerful gift of clarity and vision you have been
given. Something to use for good, for others.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Seeing them was always associated with
times of clarity when Dale thought of it – of discovering something deeper,
such as Roger on Mustang Hill, or within himself, as they had hiked through the
woods by Three Traders. As if the ranch itself was telling him, clearly, <i>look</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And colours.” he said aloud, thinking
further about those days on the hike. “What do colours symbolise? They come up
consistently, always the same ones with the same significance?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caleb smiled. “What do you see them as?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t know what they mean, I just
know who they’re associated with.” Dale admitted. “And that’s just –
instinctive, I suppose, there’s no logic to it. Each colour is attached to a
person. The red is a fire colour, brightly lit, warm, I couldn’t exactly
categorise it as scarlet or a named tone. The blue is turquoise blue, sea blue,
again light and bright. The third colour moves from a mauve tone to a light but
intense pink, sunset pink rather than sharp coloured, and the fourth is a
light, soft gold which is delicately coloured.”<br />
<br />
“You understand that the qualities of the colour tell you more than just the
colour itself.” Caleb said with approval.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I just have a thing about being
accurate.” Dale said somewhat wryly. “The word ‘red’ isn’t at all an accurate
reflection of what it is.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> “The meaning is very much affected by those
qualities and the accuracy matters. What a muddy red would tell you is very
different from a deep red or a light red or a fire like red.” Caleb linked his
hands between his knees, relaxing his shoulders in the sun’s warmth. “You know
who each colour symbolises. So what do you think those colours tell you?
Extrapolate.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The teaching tone was encouraging. Dale
leaned on his knees in the grass, letting his mind reach again the rather
detached, academic scanning feel that he was used to, finding that he was
enjoying this.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The association with the red is of
fire, but not in a dangerous sense. More as a camp fire or a log fire,
something of comfort and warmth. It’s bright. Compelling, not in any kind of
negative way, it’s – exciting. Dynamic.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Seeing red around or representing a
person is likely to tell you they are active, strong in will and survival
oriented, and likely a person around whom there may be some friction. The
brightness of the red can tell you too that you see a passionate being, and
that will be sexually and emotionally.”<br />
<br />
Dale felt himself flushing a little, as much as he nodded with appreciation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“......that’s very accurate. The
blue....” he paused, letting himself take that step further, deducing what he
felt from that colour at instinctive level as he had always done. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I
recognised Flynn in the red. I knew that was him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The blue is a turquoise blue, a sea
blue from a warm and sunny climate – warm and sunny being the associations I’ve
made with it, aren’t they?”<br />
<br />
“Exactly, you know what it tells you. Listen to yourself. Blue often indicates
sensitivity, intuitiveness, someone empathic.”<br />
<br />
“Yes, certainly.”<br />
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<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Especially
with animals and other wary beings. Riley. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Caleb smiled, watching him. “So what about the colour that changes, the flow
from violet to pink?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The pink is light and bright, not a
hard colour. It’s a natural colour, like the sky. The violet I’ve seen before
in other contexts and I know can signify a spiritual link – it’s a warm colour,
attractive, gentle.”<br />
<br />
“Pink can indicate creativity in a person. Someone loving, compassionate. The
violet tells you they are intuitive. Like the eagle, yes, it speaks of a link
to something deeper. This may be a person with a great understanding of
themselves and of others, a person of deep heart who uses their intuition
well.”<br />
<br />
Paul. It was perfectly accurate. Dale swallowed, reflecting on the fourth colour.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And the gold – I know gold is generally
associated with spiritual meaning. It’s a gentle shade of gold. Subtle, light
and giving out light, there’s a delicacy to it – it’s beautiful to watch, but
there’s the feel that...”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale hesitated, feeling it but unsure
how to translate it into words, then let himself think of Jasper and understood
it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s elusive.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caleb nodded slowly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Gold is associated with someone who
knows themselves spiritually, who is consciously guided by their highest good.
Someone with inner knowledge who offers you protection. These are the qualities
that <i>you </i>know in these people, that
tells you who they truly are. I may see
something entirely different, but those are the signs speaking to and informing
me. <i>My</i> signs are no use to you, they
give you no knowledge. What you see informs you more deeply about what you
know.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“There’s a fifth colour,” Dale said lightly. “I only saw it the once. It was a light
turquoise green.” <br />
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<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caleb ran his palm lightly over the
rippling grass beside him. “Green is an indicator of someone who loves. People,
animals, the world around them. It’s also an indicator of change, or someone
who creates change. The turquoise indicates sensitivity, compassion – the two
together might indicate a healer of some kind. Who do you think that might be?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">...I
think it’s me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“How can I know?” Dale asked him. “How
is there any way to really know if I’m just imagining an image or a colour
because light reflected off a stone and put the idea into my head? Or if I’m
seeing an eagle for a reason, or because an eagle just happened to be hunting
in that direction and has nothing to do with me at all?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You won’t.” Caleb said candidly. “No
one does. At the bottom of this is belief and faith, and that is all. Yes, just
belief. In yourself, that what you feel and sense and see is valid and has
meaning to you. The more that you are prepared to listen and believe yourself,
the stronger it will grow and the more skilled with it you will get, but it
will never be a precise, quantifiable, scientifically proven thing.”<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m a clinical perfectionist and a
mathematician.” Dale said after a moment, very dryly. “So someone has a real
sense of humour.”<br />
<br />
Caleb laughed, and so did Joseph, not at all a critical or unkind laugh, and
Caleb’s eyes were twinkling when he spoke. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The spirit world will not hesitate in
the least to push you to work on the very worst of the weaknesses you have. But
you are the only one who could know what an eagle might mean to you today, at
this moment. The symbols only have significance within your day, your mind and
your meaning, but as you grow more experienced, as you practice, you will learn
to see and to use the information to find meaning. And sometimes it will have
meaning and sometimes it will just be a bird of prey passing by; until you have
the whole picture you won’t know, but you will have considered the
possibilities. The context is everything, and you know this. You tell me not
just the shade of a colour, the subtleties, the position of it, but how it
feels to you. The emotions, the sensations. You look at them all to understand
where it fits.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like
gaining pieces of a puzzle. I’ve been learning this. To open up to the
emotional information as well as the factual, to see the whole of the data, not
just the safe and the sterile parts. To feel it, not just analyse it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The other part,” Caleb said gently, “is
in how you approach whoever it is the gift is meant to help. It is a form of
service. The purpose of a gift is always some form of service that you are
called to. That service must by necessity be selfless and it is open hearted. Without
judgment, we speak with encouragement and kindness towards others; that’s
something my people value. Whoever or whatever you are led by spirit to
approach, the gift requires that you learn to meet them in just this way with
the same open heart you would have for a child of yours. Unconditional and
without judgement, to work from love for that person whoever they are, and that
is no easy thing to understand.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
But it was. Dale swallowed, thinking of that bitter eyed little boy by a dusty
broken window, the battle where logic had failed, where the only way in had
been to face and somehow find compassion for that child, no matter how he felt
himself. To find that means of connection. Paul had been teaching it to him for
weeks before he understood it enough to reach and deal with that child and the
battles between them, and Paul’s work had been based on months of all of them
teaching him step by step. Philip had possessed a heart that did this. Philip,
who saw Gerry in desperate need through the illusion he had built of the
manipulative thief. Flynn, inside the angry fighter. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Recently it’s been frequent.” He said
to Caleb, thinking about it. “I’ve seen people all the time. Visitors. Just friendly
contact, there’s no messages other than look at this – something that gives
them pleasure or that they’ve come to see. I know sometimes I’ve dreamed
through someone showing me something they love the memory of. Butterflies in a
pasture. Foals in the snow. I know it’s looking through someone else’s eyes,
there’s no work there, no purpose.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well do you only talk business with the
people around you?” Caleb asked. “The connection you have with spirits are not for
work, these are not professional relationships. Those ‘visitors’ want to
communicate their now to you in the way all beings do. They will sense if times
are hard and want to comfort you. My father told me when he was young and his
gift first developed, he had to learn that while it began as a game to enjoy,
and the spirit world saw to it that he explored and he learned within safe
play, there was a serious purpose and responsibility to what he could do. You
are an older man, you already understand purpose, seriousness and
responsibility. I would understand that the lessons the spirit world sees you
in need of are different. The spirit world has no wish whatever to scare you or
do harm, it’s showing you that it is a safe place, that you can trust in it. It
will look after you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Trust
is really not something I’m great at either. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You will have talked about this
together.” Caleb said, looking at Jasper. “You understand this. May I ask you? Are
these questions Dale has brought to you?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Some of them.” Jasper acknowledged. It
was the first time he’d spoken in a while, he’d been listening closely. Caleb
watched his face. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But you haven’t taught him all of what
you know. There is something you are afraid of.
I can feel it, and so can Dale, and it’s the same fear you had of the
reservation that I could feel in you too. You told me you are ‘nominally’ of
the Tsalagai. You have the blood, it’s in your face.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“On my mother’s side, yes. I don’t know about my father, I
was not reservation born.” Jasper steepled his hands in front of his face and
Dale saw Caleb still, his eyes on Jasper’s face and deeply compassionate. Joseph,
on his other side, was still, listening. Three faces with the Native American
bones, the tan of the skin, the length of their hair – it was a powerful thing to
sit with them and see Jasper mirrored in two other men, but the mirroring was
deeper than just the physical features. They had his deep quiet. Nothing to do
with sound, but a physical quiet that Dale knew intimately in Jasper’s familiar
body next to his, in his hands clasped together, in the line of his nose and
his jaw, the dark of his eyes beneath the brim of his Stetson. It was a while
before Jasper said steadily, <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“My grandfather was a grandson of the Cherokee who escaped
when his tribe were cleared from Virginia. He lived in secret all his life, we
lived hidden and in the open air in the forest, no one ever really knew we were
there, and he raised me as he was raised, with his beliefs, with his way of
life. When he died, I made my way to a Cherokee reservation where I knew his
family and his people had gone. It was naive of me.”<br />
<br />
“You expected to find them living as you lived.” Caleb said very gently. <br />
<br />
“My grandfather was born and raised alone by an isolated family, and he raised
me in a culture a century and a half old without time having moved on. He knew
parts of songs with only some of the words, knowledge he’d learned himself from
someone trying to remember as best they could, and he and I talked to each
other in dialect that was archaic when I met people who lived within the
reservation. The elders were very kind, but my claim of a family connection was
a very distant one, and my way of life was not theirs.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“They did not make you welcome?”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The fault was entirely on my side.”
Jasper said quietly. “If I had allowed it I have no doubt they would have done
what they could to help. I was as alarmed by the houses and cars and
electricity as I was to find how alien I was among them. I left the
reservation, and in time I met the man who owned this ranch, who made me
welcome here and gave me the freedom to live on his land in the way I knew.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So that is why you’re ashamed to come
to us, and that is why you will not teach Dale.” Caleb said with comprehension.
“You carry that scar. You believe you are not of us, and not of them and you
have no right to know.”<br />
<br />
“All I know is what I learned from my grandfather.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Whom you trusted and you loved. That is in you as much as
I can see everything he taught you.” </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caleb watched Jasper’s face, his own face deeply
compassionate and Dale felt the warmth of it, a strength of feeling that he’d
never felt from a westernised man talking with a relative stranger. It might
have been how a man would speak to a dear friend or his son, gentle, and not in
the least invasive or blunt. “If you live wholeheartedly yourself by what he
taught you then you do know it. It’s tested, true knowledge and you have that
right.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper hesitated for a moment before he spoke. “Logically
there must be flaws in what I learned. It was not the knowledge of a tribe, it
was not from elders and teachers, it was simply what he remembered of what his
family remembered, with pieces lost and forgotten.”<br />
<br />
“If you know it and live by it from a man you loved, then why would it not be
good enough for a man who loves you?” Caleb asked him. “Why would you not
honour him in this way? You are of this land, you are of the people here. You are
a good man. A good son.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a long silence, and Dale watched Jasper’s dark,
liquid eyes, his heart going out to him, although there was nothing he could
say or do that would help as much as this gentle man beside them could. They
sat for a while together, a group on the sun warmed grass facing each other, before
Caleb said reflectively to Jasper, <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I would have liked very much to have met your grandfather.
It would be wonderful gift to hear what was remembered and preserved by his
family that we might have forgotten that once we knew.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He stretched his back, sitting a little straighter, then
smiled at his son, who had been listening quietly. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Now I understand why I am dreaming of my father and that I
must go to the Mustang Hill.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As Joseph helped his father to his feet and they began the
walk slowly down the hay pasture, she passed them again, unhurriedly across the
grass towards the woods, her feet bare below her flared jeans with the pink
flower embroidered on the knee, the white peasant blouse, her long dark hair
tucked behind one ear and blowing out behind her in the breeze, just
fractionally slower than grass moved around her, flowing out into a quality of
light instead of a clean end of solid object. She met Dale’s eyes as she
passed, and her dark liquid eyes lit up when she smiled, a sweet, private smile
that knew he was the only one who saw her. It was ridiculous not to have
realised long before, but her strong cheekbones, the rich dark colour of her
hair said it as much as her eyes. Dale felt her as much as he saw her, as if
the energy that took her form radiated out and touched him. Small and light
boned, her head barely reached the middle of her son’s chest. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">*<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> They ate
cake out in the chairs on the porch, with mugs of tea. Gerry, called out onto
the porch to take a break from his lines, met Caleb and Joseph without a
flicker of surprise and his usual charm as if he was perfectly accustomed to
finding exotic strangers amongst them. It was the same in every man of Philip’s
that Dale had ever met; any friend of a friend, any visiting stranger. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Are they going to have any hang ups about the gay thing?”
Mason said shortly under his breath to Jasper when he came to take his mug of
tea from the tray. Jasper shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No. ‘Respect for all’ and ‘there is no one right path for
all’ are fundamental values in their culture. No difference presents an issue.”
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Which is just as well as some of us screaming queens are
easier to hide than others.” Gerry said airily, wrapping an arm around Mason to
give him a hug as he passed. “It’s all right darling. Ease the hackles down,
you won’t have to defend us.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It gained him a quick grin from Mason, who didn’t duck away.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“My son and I are both historians.” Caleb explained to
Paul, accepting a slice of cake and settling on the swing beside Joseph. “We
knew of the story of the hill and the site there, and some songs of the Chance
River. One or two of the families in Fort Washakie lived in the town of Three
Traders within living memory before it was abandoned.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Would any of them know anything of the train robbery in
the town?” Mason said through a mouthful of cake. Caleb looked up at him with
interest. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“When was this?”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“1928. We’ve been researching it. The train was robbed
leaving the station during a sighting of the Dead Man’s Hill ghost. Which we
think may have been a decoy for smuggling.” Paul explained. “Possibly-”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well <i>probably</i> a
whole job lot of moonshine, but we can’t prove anything at all,” Gerry cut in,
“It would have been exactly what David would have been up to his eyebrows in
and we think it was made in the town, we don’t know any more details.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale saw Caleb’s mildly amused glance at Gerry for the
interruption and Jasper put a hand on Gerry’s knee. There was a moment of quiet
during which Dale saw Caleb reflect, carefully and with consideration, sorting
through his remarkable memory, then looked at his son. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I cannot remember anything immediately about a train
robbery.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Joseph shook his head, finishing his mouthful of cake
before he spoke. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I can do some research.” <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was conversation about other things:
Three Traders, the railway station. Caleb gently encouraged Jasper to talk of
them through comments that were not questions requiring answers, but which
merely invited Jasper to share information if he chose to. There was an immense
and a gentle courtesy to it, and it was as if Jasper knew the same steps of the
verbal dance and how to do it. In every day terms Dale had always known that Jasper
chatted far more than Flynn; he joined in social conversation easily in the
family contexts where it was expected. Knowing Jasper much better now, Dale
suspected he did it because it was the habit of the people he loved and lived
with, and he made them comfortable, but unlike most people who mingled trivia
and purpose freely in their chatter, Jasper rarely <i>said</i> much at all while he did it. As if in his mind there was a
clear demarcation between friendly social noise, and communication. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When he had something to say and was
talking to you there were far more silences and it felt and sounded quite
different. He was talking now in the way Dale knew as most essentially himself,
with a quiet respect that Dale recognised as towards an elder in the terms
Jasper knew it, and Dale could recognise that Caleb knew silence as
communication in the same way Jasper did. Not as awkwardness or a breakdown in
the flow of communication, but as part of the natural and comfortable ebb and
flow of interaction. Dale watched Caleb, barely listening to the words but discreetly
and intently watching and absorbing Caleb’s face, his tone, the gentleness in
his eyes and the attentiveness he paid to Jasper’s answers, the skill with
which he invited them forth. Invited, not drew. It was a whole skill within
itself, based on something far more significant than mere academic manipulation
of someone to elicit information that you wanted. From years of learning and
using the craft of managing people in business situations and having absorbed a
great deal of knowledge about it, Dale watched with appreciation in the full
knowledge that this was a part of it he’d missed out on, and he learned
everything he could. It was the same missing link: the emotional component, the
willingness to emotionally join this conversation yourself on equal terms that
had never been needed in managing a client. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And despite his fascination, in another, tiny
compartment of his brain he was still unable to stop himself repeatedly locating,
organising and turning over and over every single image he had of <i>her</i>. Jasper’s mother. There was no doubt
in his mind as to who she was; he knew her face because he knew her son’s
intimately, but beyond the basic facial and bone structure information he still
would have known simply by the feel of her when he saw her pass by Jasper.
Every time he had seen her she had appeared peaceful, happy: stringing flowers
together in the meadow, walking past them in the woods. Every time she had
glanced up at him as he passed with a smile, not addressing him or seeking
anything of him, just the friendly greeting one neighbour might give to another
in passing. Nothing more complicated than... hello. Just the simplest thought
that her greeting might be for no better reason than she knew who he was to
Jasper, shot a jet of warmth right through him so powerful that it was
overwhelming. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Both Caleb and Joseph finished all of what
was on the plate they had been given, and returned the plate to Paul’s hands
with a quiet, pleasant thanks directly to him. The ritual manners within the
gesture were gentle and it contributed to the atmosphere within the group in
the same way their careful and attentive listening did. Philip had known this
too. These manners, more subtle and more westernised but still old world
courtesy that belonged perhaps to an older and kinder time, had been inbuilt
into the root culture of the ranch household. Caleb had asked nothing more
about Jasper’s grandfather and Dale understood that he wouldn’t. From
observation, from what he understood from the conversations he had listened to
between Jasper and Caleb, personal questions were not something lightly asked
and not before others. No intrusive requests would be made. It was not until
the men got up to take their leave that Jasper said quietly and formally to
Caleb, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“If you would like to see more of the land
here, or to talk further of what my grandfather remembered, you are always welcome
to visit again.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale walked with them and with Jasper to their car in the
pasture, stepping to open the door for Caleb. The old man leaned on the car
door, one long, brown hand braced there. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I heard the message and so I came.” Caleb said to him
cheerfully, and softly enough that Dale knew only he heard it. “Now I could
choose to go and to do nothing more. I am not Cherokee, so I might ask ‘why
me’. It’s not of my fault. But in the greater picture, I am of a people that
perhaps did not do as well by one of our own as we could have done, and there
may be things I can do that would ease that.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Caleb’s eyes on his face were very soft, almost painfully
kind to look at, although his smile was as placid as if they were talking of
something as every day as the weather. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“When you see that there are things that you may do, why
would you walk away? Anyone and anything on your land is part of the family you
belong to.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And this man did not mean within the limits of his house.
Or his reservation. Or the centuries old Shoshone plains here, or even the
state. Caleb’s hand rested very gently on his as he got into the car, and Dale
stepped back to watch with Jasper as it bumped slowly away across the grass
towards the track winding into the distance towards the road. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was out of sight when Jasper’s arm slid
around his waist, pulling him over so they stood pressed hip to hip, body to
body, looking together at the now empty grass track ahead of them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There are not,” Jasper said after a while,
quite conversationally, “Going to be any plans we’re not involved with.”<br />
<br />
He had a knack of pulling a thought out of your mind before you’d fully
realised you were thinking it. Dale turned to him, pulling himself together to
say something coherent, and stopped as he met Jasper’s eyes because they were
warm. Not distressed. Not withdrawn. Soft and calm and peaceful. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper’s hands rested lightly but quite
firmly on his hips, Dale had to look up to see his face<i>. </i>He was moved - <i>full</i> – and Dale understood that very
well himself, his own mind was rushing and it was difficult to contain the many
and multiple thoughts and emotions washing through him – but with nothing that
wasn’t powerfully good. It was another blow of knowledge, something that clicked
together as a realisation at a very deep level. How the right person to listen
in the right way could reach directly into someone’s soul and soothe something vital
there, one deeply buried part of them that very slightly changed everything.
Flynn telling a simple story to Mason. Jasper’s mother, with a simple smile of
hello. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve
seen it happen here again and again. For Mason on the porch or a trapper sort
of ‘what’ in the woods, it’s exactly the same thing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because those tiny, painful parts of you
held a power that could drive sheer havoc, they could dominate you entirely,
they could distort your whole reality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bloody
hell am I qualified to know that from experience. This <u>is</u> what I can do.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a strange perspective to suddenly
see every step in his life, every twist of it, leading purposefully here.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">*<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Asleep before the
clock reached nine, it was very dark when Dale woke again to Flynn’s hand on
his shoulder. He smelled of horses, frosty air and hay, and his hand was cold,
he was dressed in a heavy sweater and jeans, and he held another of his own
sweaters in his hand, his voice very low not to disturb the rest of the house,
and warm in a way that Dale knew instantly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Want to see Mia have her foal, kid?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The yard was softly lit outside with a couple of
the oil lanterns on the porch at a little after three am. No light had been
taken nearer the big paddock but the moon was bright tonight, the sky was clear
and dotted with stars, and the grass was soft grey. Riley, fully dressed in a
roll neck sweater into which he had his chin dipped against the crisp air and
his hands dug deep into the pockets of his jacket, was sitting on the lowest
rail at the far end of the paddock and Jasper was sitting on the grass beside
him. There was little breeze, it was very still and quiet. Cricket was grazing,
and Pocket was visible near to her with her head stooped low over something on
the grass that was standing in a very wobbly and uncertain way, it’s head
pressed into her side. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“A filly.” Riley said very softly as Dale leaned on
the rail beside him. “About two hours back. We’ve been watching Mia ever since
and her waters broke a few minutes ago.”
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB">He was alive with delight about it; Dale could read
it in him in his face, his voice, his body, although he was moving slowly and
with great care for the mares across the grass. The big paddock was the one
used by the horse herd during the very bad weather in the winter, surrounded on
two sides by a large, open shelter. The mares had the choice here of being
inside or out, and all three were showing a clear preference for the open grass
despite the crispness of the night, the same grass on the rolling plateaus
beyond the fence where they roamed with the herd. Mia was nearest to them, </span><span lang="EN-GB">laying stretched out on her side
a few yards from the other mares, still other than her huffing sounds and
occasional movements of her upper hind and rear leg as if she was walking in
slow motion. A ghostly white bubble was
visible below her tail, hanging perhaps a foot towards the grass. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
leaned beside him on the rail, folding his arms to watch. A moment later two
more sets of footsteps came quietly down the yard and Paul and a roughly
dressed Mason joined them, sharing the mugs of tea they were carrying. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“How’s
she doing?” Paul said under his breath. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Beautifully.”
Riley’s eyes were on the mare, but he took the mug and drank appreciatively. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“She’s
acting like a pro, you’d think this was her third, not her first.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mason
sat astride the lower rail beside Jasper who glanced up to smile at him. Mason
looked intent, he was rapidly losing the sleepiness and Dale appreciated his
instinctive understanding that it was a time to be quiet, to not disturb the
mare at work some yards away. This was the first of their horse herd he’d ever
seen born, and even after seeing the coming of so many lambs and several calves
this spring, it wasn’t something possible to be hardened to. Mia paused again,
laying still, and Dale heard her soft panting, like soft snorts, carrying in
the still night air. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
luminous white balloon like bulge slid a little further forward and suddenly
within it, a moving head stirred and lifted on the grass. A recognisable head,
and Mason swore very, very softly, sounding awed. Slowly, the shape moved
forward. Neither the live, stirring head in the sack, nor the mare, appeared in
any kind of hurry. Mia rolled up on to her chest, looking thoughtfully into the
distance. The calmness of her was remarkable. The shape slid gradually still
further out and now over half of it lay on the grass by her hind legs. The head
lifted within the sack and then two legs became visible, the hooves sticking
out of the edge of the broken, white filmy sack. A dark, wet nose became
visible, pushing out from beneath it, steaming slightly. For what seemed like
forever, they both lay there, the foal gradually pushing up with more stability
until it raised its head and its forelegs emerged from under the sack. It was
laying on its chest, the lower half of its body still inside Mia, its little
front forelegs draped over Mia’s hind hock. In the shadows, even dark with the
wetness of its coat, it was possible to see the foal was light coloured. Mia
turned her head, craning right around, and looked at it with intense attention.
She continued to look for some time, without moving. Then she returned her gaze
to the middle distance, and made several more low huffing sounds. It was hard
to know if she was expressing discomfort or commenting on this thing that had
appeared on the grass. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good
girl.” Flynn said softly. His voice had gone to the very deep, soothing tone he
used to the horses, a soft rumble. “Good girl, that’s the way.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mia
turned her head again to look at the foal with fixed fascination as if she
couldn’t believe it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“Does she need help?” Mason said under his breath. “What about its back legs,
is it stuck?” <br />
<br />
“No, she’s got it in hand,” Riley told him. “The umbilical’s still attached,
see it? How thick it is? The baby’s still getting blood pumped in, and needs
it. She’ll get up when she knows it’s time. This is why I love foaling them in
pastures. They’re so much calmer. They don’t rush, they don’t try to get up too
soon because they’re anxious.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Just
trust them to pick a frosty night.” Flynn said quietly. Riley grinned but shook
his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“They
could be inside if they wanted, they don’t want to. They’re outside girls. Come
on Mimi. That’s so great. You’re doing so great baby.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Mia continued to look with intense attention at her foal. And then she turned
away and lay down again, and for some minutes she and the foal lay still there
together. Then finally and carefully, Mia gathered herself as if she had
reached a decision, pulled her front feet under her and stood up, and the
foal’s hind legs dropped. The last of the bag and the cord lightly tore,
separating them, and Mia unhurriedly turned and put her nose directly down to
her foal’s. She pawed lightly at the grass beside it for a moment or two, then
her sniffing continued, examining her foal as if ensuring that all of it was
there. And gradually her sniffing became licking at its hind quarters, its back
as it raised further up on its chest. Mia mildly went on standing, walking very
unhurriedly around it at times while she looked into the distance as if she was
waiting for a bus, but at other times lowering her head to lick her foal for
long minutes at a time. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What is
it?” Mason said softly. He sounded stunned. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hard to
say, but from the size I’d think a colt.” Flynn put a hand down to Riley’s
shoulder. “Go on halfpint. She knows you best.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley gave
his mug to Jasper and got up, walking unhurriedly over. Mia didn’t glance up
from her foal and Dale heard Riley’s voice as he crouched, taking the foal in
gentle hands. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Clever
girl Mia, what have you got? It’s a boy,” he added. “Well done sweetheart, he’s
beautiful. Mason, come here a minute?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Will
she mind?” Mason said a little apprehensively. Flynn took his mug. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not if
you move quietly and slowly.”<br />
<br />
Mason went with care to Riley who turned a little on the grass to let him reach
the foal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Feel
his hoof, it’s amazing. You only ever feel that when they’re absolutely new
born – feel how soft it is? Ridiculously soft, it hardens up fast as soon as
they’re born, but that’s how she can have him without him tearing her up.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Face to
face now, Mia was nuzzling and licking her foal and he had his face up to hers
to nose back. Calm, close. Watching, mesmerised, Dale felt Flynn’s arm wrap
tightly around his waist and Flynn shift so he was standing solidly against
Dale’s back, and Flynn’s hand slid under his sweater in the dark, finding bare
skin and rubbing discreetly. Slowly. It wasn’t until that point that Dale
realised he was shaking. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pocket,
her nose down to her own foal, stood statue-like near Mia. Cricket, grazing and
apparently taking no notice of them, had her back to them and Dale, after
months of Flynn and Riley’s tuition knew it wasn’t through lack of interest.
She was watching out for them, alert and looking out while Mia was distracted
and vulnerable. The relationship between the herd mares was remarkably close. Riley
got up, taking Mason’s arm, and they quietly came back to the fence. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“They
bond straight out like this in the pasture.” Riley said with satisfaction,
retrieving his tea. “I’ve seen it over and over. Put them inside, stable them
and the mare’s often more cautious, too much going on to relax, but out here
with the other girls.... look, she’s already grazing.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
long will it be before...” Mason began, and stopped as the colt abruptly began
to lurch and fumble towards stretching his long, awkward front legs and bracing
his tiny hooves against the grass. It took him some minutes, wobbling, and it
was a failed attempt to get much higher than his chest, but a definite one. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“About
twenty minutes usually.” Riley said softly. “If they’re not up in an hour we’d
worry, but he’s keen.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It took
about five minutes more of several failed attempts before the foal abruptly
lurched up and managed to stand, all four legs splayed and braced. His coat was
drying and becoming fluffy, pale in the moonlight. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So what
are we going to call this one?” Riley asked Mason, who looked slightly taken
aback. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No
idea, what would you call him?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB">“We’ve
got no shortage of horses to name, this one’s your problem.” Riley dug him
gently in the ribs. “Think about it.”<br />
<br />
</span><span lang="EN-GB">“In bed.” Paul collected empty mugs. “Mason, I’m going
back up now, you might as well turn in. There’ll be nothing else to see before
morning. There’s scones in the pantry if anyone gets hungry.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He and Mason went inside, Dale heard the
kitchen door shut softly. It was even quieter in the yard when they’d gone.
Flynn, tight against Dale’s back, bent his head and Dale swallowed hard at the
pressure of Flynn’s stubbled jaw against his, the heat of his breath and the
stroking of his hand on his torso that sent waves deep into his stomach that
fought back against his trembling. The intense comfort of him. It didn’t do
much to stop several hot tears escaping down onto his cheeks where they burned. On the pasture grass, Mia continued to lick
and nose over her foal, working on his quarters as if to help him in his
fumbling attempts to get up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/chapter-23-ranch.html">Continue to Chapter 23</a></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></span></div>
<br /></div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-32274894378962613032015-09-24T16:53:00.000-07:002015-09-24T18:15:30.851-07:00Chapter 23 - Ranch <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>23</b></span><span style="font-size: 48pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The house was very peaceful in the dark. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At four thirty am everything was still, and
the light from the windows that spilled across the family room was a softened,
ink navy blue rather than black, casting shadows deep across the stone flagged
floor and into the corners beneath the rough grey stone of the pillars and
around the foot of the stairs where the grandfather clock ticked softly and
steadily in time with the swinging pendulum in its deep, Victorian tone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Seated with his chin on his knees on the
soft carpet halfway up the stairs, Dale watched the darkened room below. Flynn
had come to bed an hour ago and was deeply asleep in their bed, and even with
all his energy and his ability to never really show it, he was tired. He hadn’t
stirred when Dale slipped out of bed and Dale left him with the sheets lightly
drawn up to cover his shoulders. Everyone else was asleep, glimpsed through the
partly opened doors when Dale silently paused to check on each one of them in
turn, lingering to look and mark each one of them with a near painfully warm
and intense sense of something he couldn’t put a name to. Luath along the
hallway, big, square and solid under the covers, his breathing as deep and
smooth as his voice was. Gerry and Ash in their room at the other end of the
hallway, back to back with the experienced comfort of men who had been sharing
a bed for many years, the unconscious partnership acted out even while they
slept. The mares in Bandit’s herd stood and covered each other’s backs like
this while one of them grazed or slept. Riley, his hair scattered on his
pillow, was sprawled on his stomach with the loose limbed comfort of a cat, one
long leg bare where he’d kicked back the sheet. Paul lay next to him, with one
gentle hand relaxed near his face and Dale stood for a moment with his eyes
lingering on the curve and expression of those fingers that said so very much
about him. Mason, soundly asleep, was submerged under the covers with only the
top of his hair fully visible. Not Jasper. His room was empty and Dale
suspected he was still outside with the mares; he was always harder to predict on
any clear night, and on lamb watch in the early spring Dale had often seen him
spend the night in the frosty pasture outside, dozing seated upright against a fence
post with nothing more than the collar of his jacket turned up. Time alone
outside was precious to him, especially in the dark. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There
are going to be no plans we’re not involved in.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale found himself smiling at the thought
which came back to mind in Jasper’s familiar voice. Jasper knew him well. It
was a warm and comforting thought that came with a little guilt, because
sitting here like this came perilously close to being an expression of exactly
those plans and half formed objectives, strategies and a lot of other things
that were filling every corner of his mind. But the urge to smile was stronger
than the guilt and he went on sitting on the stairs, aware of the house and
them all and of the data running around and around in his mind yet to settle
into a shape or a pattern he could fully grasp. In extremely reprehensible
defiance of this household’s rules, not that this house lacked experience of
witnessing brats bending rules in the middle of the night. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That was a rather lovely thought too. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was so radically different to sit here
on the stairs in this house with these people, with a clear memory of sitting
just exactly like this by the stairs at night in the house in London years ago,
looking down at the black and white tiles he’d known so very well at one time
in his life. And how it felt now to know that in those same hours when he’d
been sitting there in that mausoleum, this house had been sheltering men he’d
come to love, many of them brats behaving quite possibly as badly as he was at
this moment. It had been standing here all the time, on another continent,
patiently waiting. Time was a strange thing. Sometimes it didn’t seem to run as
straight forwardly in one direction as you grew up believing it did. Like a
river, it flowed, and it circled and bits of it passed backwards and forwards
and swirled in eddies without ever ceasing to be a part of that whole. To
comprehend it took a willingness to open your mind, and to let go of what you
thought you knew in the light of the fresh and wider knowledge that actually
you didn’t <i>know</i> very much at all. You
might guess. You might suspect. You might commit yourself to being a student.
All you could ever truly be was willing to learn. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><u><span lang="EN-GB">This</span></u><span lang="EN-GB"> is what I’m for. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was no real surprise to have his train
of thought interrupted by a young man bursting out of the dark kitchen in front
of him and slamming the door. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He slammed it with all his strength; Dale
heard the almighty bang and yet knew it wasn’t with his ears that he’d heard
it, and that no one else sleeping in the
rooms upstairs would be aware of it, or of the thunder of feet running up the
stairs. There was that delicious feeling to it as he relaxed his mind, let it
grow, of seeing into a story book, of the magic of a page opening to show the picture....
and the young man dropped down a few steps below Dale to sit and hug his knees.
There was the now familiar giveaway in the quality of light, the edges of him,
the movement just slightly slower than time. It was Gerry. His face was
familiar even where it was buried in his arms; Gerry perhaps seventeen years
old, slight with a curved but almost fragile build, an almost painfully pretty
face which was the picture of devastation. Tears were flooding down his cheeks.
At the foot of the stairs, a man walked unhurriedly out of the study, opened
the kitchen door and put it back where it usually stood, and Dale heard his
voice, mildly conversational. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Anything I should know? “<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The voice that answered from the kitchen
was British and sounded frankly unimpressed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He thinks this is about being slighted,
unwanted and unappreciated. It's actually about not wanting to do the washing
up.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thank you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It took effort not to laugh out loud. Dale
watched the older man walk to the foot of the stairs with a wave of real love
as he saw his face. It was the one he knew from photographs, the same calm face
of the man he’d dreamed about who’d grasped his shoulder and quietly encouraged
him to turn and face the shadows on the landing in a dream some nights ago.
Philip, with his hair just beginning to turn steel grey, in immaculate white
riding jodhpurs and a shirt and riding boots, without a trace of haste or
irritation in his face or body. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>What?</i>”
Gerry demanded through his tears. He raised his head and gave Philip a spitting
glare that unkindly increased Dale’s urge to laugh even further, knowing very
well if the Gerry he knew was sitting beside him at this moment he would be
laughing too. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Excuse me?” Philip invited. Gerry dashed
an angry hand across his face which scattered tears slightly more decoratively.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You <i>say</i>
don't fight, go away. So I went away!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That sounds like a good decision.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And I'm <i>mad</i>, I'm <i>allowed</i> to get mad.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Have I said you weren’t?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You haven't come to be nice,” Gerry
accused. Philip leaned against the banisters at the bottom, folding his arms to
reflect on that statement. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And you know that how?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You never do!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Come down here.” Philip held out a hand
and Gerry shied back with as much drama as if Philip had turned a gun on him.
Philip simply waited, hand outstretched. “One. Two.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The numbers came calmly and with almost no
pause between them, and Gerry clearly knew there would be no hesitation before
three arrived. He was unwillingly up and moving on two and Philip took his hand,
steadying him down the last few stairs to the ground. Through the open door,
Dale saw him walk with Gerry into the study and sit down at his desk and Gerry
hurled himself down on the floor beside Philip’s feet as if he was a galley
slave. Philip calmly took up his fountain pen and continued to work on the open
papers in front of him, apparently undisturbed by the young man sobbing
piteously and at penetrating volume beside him, and as he leaned forward Dale
saw a flash of silver beneath the hem of his jodhpurs at his immaculate right boot
heel. A piece of steel barely visible. Something that connected up to another
dream, another insight, another piece of the puzzle clicking into place. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But it was Gerry who held his eye. Dale
watched with a kind of horrible fascination, well aware from the covert glances
Gerry cast up at the desk – and they were very covert, if you hadn’t known
where to look and watched the extremely discreet movements of his eyes you
wouldn’t have thought Gerry cared in the slightest if anyone else on the planet
was listening – that his entire attention was focused on Philip. He concealed
the cough from the sound-making that was hurting his throat extremely well, but
the noise settled down a little. And gradually Dale heard him quieten, only the
angle of his shoulders showing the extremely subtle transition from frantically
defensive to honestly tired and frustrated. Mostly with himself. Dale’s heart
turned over for him, recognising every inch of his body language, knowing
exactly how it felt. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Philip didn’t look up from what he was
writing, but one hand reached down unhurriedly to rest on Gerry’s bent head,
his thumb smoothing Gerry’s hair back from his forehead. It was the gentleness
of the gesture that gave away how much he understood. It was a moment more
before Philip held out his hand to Gerry, and while Gerry took it and stood up,
his first movement was still a sharp step back, putting more distance between
himself and Philip even though he held tightly on to Philip’s hand. Philip
didn’t make any attempt to lead him closer or to look up from his writing and
eventually Gerry seemed to reach a decision and dragged his feet the few inches
distance to Philip’s side as if it involved wading through mud, and let Philip
draw him gently down to sit on his knee and put an arm around him. The conflict
was still painfully clear in his body, the awkward twist that was a mix between
leaning hard into Philip while still turned away from him, the desperate longing
for comfort conflicted with the unwillingness to allow himself to feel
comforted. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What the <i>hell</i> do you think you’re doing?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn could growl incredibly well even in a
barely audible whisper. Dale jumped hard enough that he had to grab the wall to
avoid falling directly downstairs, particularly as he had the oddest sense that
his right ankle was stiff. As he expected, with his concentration broken, when
he glanced back to the study it was dark and there was no one there. In shorts
and nothing else at the top of the stairs, Flynn looked large, muscular and
extremely real. Dale got up to go to him, hands raised calmingly to reassure
him that nothing awful was happening, and Flynn’s hand closed on Dale’s arm as
soon as he was in reach, helped him up the last few steps and Dale yelped as Flynn’s
other hand impacted soundly behind him, swatting him the entire length of the
landing towards their room which hustled him a good deal faster than was
dignified. Somehow Flynn managed to swat quietly too. He shut the door behind
them and put Dale straight down on the edge of the bed in front of him. The man
could shift him with one hand and not a whole lot of effort, there was
something distractingly attention-grabbing about that in multiple ways. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This was probably a good moment to be
tactful. It was definitely harder to do when you’d just been chased down the
landing but Dale tried for the best tone of voice with care. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Just sitting on the stairs. It seemed
like-” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">His stomach lurched hard as Flynn
interrupted him with a short nod of complete comprehension and took a seat on
the bed beside him with a purposefulness that was unmistakeable. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right, let’s get this straight. You are <i>not,</i>” Flynn yanked him across his lap in
one clean pull that left Dale sprawled face down and starting to sweat as Flynn
tugged his shorts straight down and far too far out of reach, and the chill of
fresh air hit upturned bare skin through the open window, “Ever sitting alone on the stairs through the
night in this house. I don’t care what you think your reason is.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Draped over his knee reasons always seemed
far less convincing than they did when considered standing up. Any instinct to
converse further was stymied by a swat so hard Dale’s breath deserted his lungs
and he jumped, grabbing for the bedclothes with a fervent yelp. The cotton of
his shorts was thin and the swats on the landing hadn’t been mild ones, but on
the bare stung infinitely more acutely and Flynn’s hand was large, well practiced,
and covered a great deal of ground. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Yes</i>
sir,”<br />
<br />
“This is a house full of people who love you, they are right here to talk to,
day or night.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The second swat was if anything even
harder, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I am right beside you if there’s anything
on your mind,”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The third was really no better, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>I</i>
will do any protecting that is necessary. <i>I
</i>will make sure the people in this house have what they need,<i> I</i> will let you know where you need to
be and what you need to do. It is not your responsibility.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That went so very deep that Dale’s breath
caught for another reason, a physical jolt that hit him deep in the knot of
tension in his stomach, jerking it loose like a hitch shaken out of a rope. He
hadn’t been fully aware he was thinking it until Flynn put it into words. Flynn
paused, his hand resting on Dale’s flaming butt where it felt cool and heavy
and infinitely reassuring at a moment when logically it shouldn’t have been
reassuring at all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We have rules, they stand to deal with
every situation, especially ones like these. If you have too much on your mind
to remember them, believe me I’ll remind you any time you need it. You do not
live in London any more. Am I making myself clear?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Mine,
back off</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">. <i>Let
it go.</i> He did this. Like he did with the horses, not by force but by blunt,
definite actions, and Dale trusted it more than he did any words from any man
he’d ever met. None of whom he’d loved in his life with anything like the force
with which he loved this one. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes sir.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“Good.” Flynn’s voice was extremely definite. “Because if this happens again,
we’ll discuss it with a paddle.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He said nothing else. His hand lifted again
and Dale was twisting over his lap within the first ten intensely impressive
seconds, trying not to blurt out what first came to mind. Which began with <i>Flynn, for Pete’s sake not so hard,</i> And
moved on to <i>no really, not that fast</i>
Followed at some point by <i>ok, ok, I know,</i>
<i>I’ll be good! </i>By which time he had no
attention left to spare that it sounded like gunshots in the quiet of the house
at this hour of the night and someone was going to hear, because Flynn took him
straight over the edge of what he could cope with and beyond any ability to
think or fret about anything at all, and it meant letting go of everything.
Having to, willing or not, without being able to hesitate over releasing any of
it, because control wasn’t in his hands anymore. He was very tangibly aware of
being the absolute centre of Flynn’s attention, of having no control at all
over how long this went on, breathless, smarting furiously and unable to do
anything like keep still by the time Flynn finally paused, resting his hand
once more firmly against Dale’s bare and scorching backside, and there was no
room left for anything in his mind but Flynn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Any doubts on how you use the stairs in our
house?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>No</i>
sir.” Dale blurted it out loud and clear with total conviction, and Flynn, to
his deep relief, pulled him to his feet. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get into bed, do not move from it again
before I tell you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale slid under the covers extremely
hurriedly when Flynn lifted them for him, and Flynn lay down beside him,
putting an arm out to slide under Dale’s neck and to yank him hard over so they
lay body to body, Dale mostly face down against him within a grasp that felt
like it wasn’t going to let go again tonight. The feel of Flynn head to foot
against naked skin, was intense. Dominatingly, overwhelmingly intense, making
it very hard to think about much else at all other than to know again and
acutely what this felt like when you truly let go, to find the overwhelming peace
of no responsibility to have to think or plan or know what to do. To feel truly,
wholly safe no matter what might happen, because it didn’t matter. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a relief so deep that there weren’t
words for it. Dale hung on to him and breathed out. Flynn growled something
against his hair too quiet for him to hear the words although he got the
general gist, and Dale felt the hard pressure of a kiss against his head.
Recovering his breath and finding it extremely difficult to keep still despite
the strength of Flynn’s grip, and in far too good a mood to be at all appropriate
considering he properly ought to be extremely subdued, any thought of sleep was
obviously and completely out of the question. That thought was the last thing
he remembered. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He awoke to the
definitely distracting feel of warm weight and teeth working on the nape of his
neck, something that was not entirely a kiss and not entirely a bite and that
worked its way slowly and thoroughly from his neck out towards his shoulder
blade, and Flynn’s arm and the leg draped over him were too heavy and gripping
too firmly to be disturbed by the squirming he was not quite able to control. Flynn
was an extremely physical man in every conceivable way, and Dale’s body had
decided months ago that it was all for this, whether or not Dale’s mind
happened to be keeping up at the time. Without being fully awake Dale found
himself every bit as interested as the pressure of Flynn against his back made
it clear that Flynn was, and definitely not capable of coherent thought that
went much beyond a reprehensibly lazy <i>mmmmn....</i> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn didn’t let him move either. Those
rather penetrating teeth worked their way <i>all</i>
the way down his spine while Flynn held him exactly where he wanted him,
branding inch by inch until they concentrated on his tailbone, at which point
levitation or possibly melting was becoming a serious possibility. There were
definitely things his sixth form physics master, while an educated man, had not
been aware of. And then Flynn’s palms grasped his hips, Flynn’s knee slid
between his and Flynn lifted him to his knees, and physics could go chase it
itself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was some time after that when Dale,
having been laying with his head against Flynn and regaining his breath,
remembered that he owned a watch and groped towards the night stand for it. He
barely got a glimpse of the hands at eleven thirty before Flynn’s hand closed
over his, took it and tossed it towards the chair where his clothes were draped
and Dale’s were neatly folded. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We were up half the night; those that
weren’t have gone to do what needs doing. Good morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He rolled up on one elbow to kiss Dale,
thoroughly, undoing a good deal of the breath regaining work, and Dale put a
hand up to run it through tangled, sandy hair, looking up him with a deep sense
of stability that had to do with the multiple sensations still ringing through
his body, including the faint soreness of his butt, and far too much Flynn in
his head and everywhere else. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Now you get around to good morning?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You weren’t complaining.”<br />
<br />
No, really not. Flynn’s eyes glinted at him and he stooped for another swift,
biting kiss. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Shower.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul was setting
the table and Dale came to take the cutlery from him as the stove top was busy
with pans. Paul held onto the cutlery, pulled him down by the shoulder to kiss
his cheek and drew out a chair, pointing to it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good morning. Take a seat, you’re not
taking over the universe in here either. I heard Flynn explaining things to you
in the early hours. You’re lucky he got to you before I did, you’ll keep look
out on the stairs over us feeling like that over my dead body.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Flushing slightly but not in any bad way, Dale took the indicated chair. “I
didn’t feel like ‘that’, I was just thinking about it. Can I have a shirt
please?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You can think about it in bed any time you
like. With us. And yes, you may.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A green one was waiting folded on the
counter along with a grey sweatshirt of Paul’s, and Paul held the shirt for
Dale to put on, waiting for him to button it before he pulled the sweater over
his head and settled the collar, something he did with far more time and care
than was at all necessary, and he expected eye contact while he did it. When he
was done he handed Dale a print-out from the counter. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That was in your box from Tom when I
checked the accounts this morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale sat down at the table, skimming
rapidly through the email. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From: <a href="mailto:LameduckRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameduckRus@Mountaineagles.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To: <a href="mailto:AdenD@Horizon.net">AdenD@Horizon.net</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: </b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wish I had half your guts and I know
never will have. You see this stuff in yourself and you get off your duff and
do something about it. I see this stuff in myself and I have done all my life,
and I piss off up mountains and snarl at Jake. I didn’t show your mail to him,
and that’s another hard admission. Not that he wouldn’t want to see it, he
loves news of any of you. But there’s way too much in your mail that could be
me and I can’t face talking about with him because he would <i>get</i> it. Properly, about you but still worse
about me. At least if I don’t show him something in writing I can go on
pretending that he probably doesn’t know.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I bought him a medal thing once. A Saint
George medal, little silver medallion in a market in Peru. He never takes it
off. I told him it was the patron saint
of boy scouts, the usual kind of flip and sarcastic comment I make, and he
laughed. I’ve never told him it’s actually the patron saint of heroes. Look.
Snarks. I didn’t know much about them apart from the basic reference. Jake did.
There’s a fair bit of Snark hunting going on up here too, but Snarks are a just
a simplified version of the root myth and I think the original would make a
hell of a lot of sense to you now. Ask Paul about the Fisher King. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Nos morituri te salutamus<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What does that mean?” Riley asked,
glancing at the Latin script over Dale’s shoulder. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We who are about to die salute you.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That doesn’t sound very positive.” Paul
held Dale’s eye for a moment and Dale saw the same anxiety he felt reflected back
there. “Is he ok, hon?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It
doesn’t sound like it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Possibly these weren’t the most helpful or
supportive things to be discussing with a man at risk of his life in a highly
dangerous situation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Has he had any more ideas on the train
robbery?” Riley asked with his mouth full. Dale shook his head absently. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That one’s sorted.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a brief, startled silence, then
Riley tore off half his bread roll and lobbed it across the table at Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You <i>what?</i>
You <i>know</i>?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale fielded the roll without difficulty. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes. Well at least how I’d have done it. There’s no actual
evidence.”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley picked up the other half of the roll
to shy and Flynn put a hand over his, confiscating it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Enough with the throwing unless you want
to spend the rest of the meal in the corner.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> “When you know this
stuff you <i>explain </i>about it.” Riley
surrendered the roll, not willingly. “Some of us are dying to know over here,
you don’t just sit on it like it’s not polite to mention it-”<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I haven’t really had time to think about it properly. I
have a hypothesis, untested and very likely wrong.” Dale said apologetically.
Riley shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Look it’s <i>us</i>, just tell us. Do you want a pen and paper for this?”<br />
<br />
“Probably.” Dale admitted. “There’s still a few things I’d like to check and be sure of first.”<br />
<br />
“Why don’t we go down there then?” Riley suggested. “We can get the stock work finished early and
go over there this afternoon, have a look around and you can check out whatever
you like if you promise you’ll tell us?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Count me in,” Gerry volunteered immediately. Luath
nodded, clearing his mouth before he spoke. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Me too, I’d like to see what we could figure out.”
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“To be honest, the best way would be to pace it
out. A practical experiment.” Dale said reflectively. “With the distance and
the timings accurate.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You seriously want us to go to Three Traders and
rob a train?” Mason said dryly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale gave him an apologetic nod. “Theoretically,
yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mason shook his head. “You’re all mad. The whole
damn lot of you.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> The
yard was full of horses by a quarter to one. Leo, Snickers, Hammer, Nekkid and
Moo had all been out to work that morning and were waiting tacked up in the
yard fairly patiently to see where they were going next. Jasper saddled up
Gucci and Flint, and Luath walked Boris and Raglan, the two heavy shires, up
into the yard where he and Riley saddled them. Dale, journal work completed to Flynn’s
satisfaction, came out to help, aware of Mason finishing his own chores with
his eyes on Riley, and with a good idea of what Mason was thinking. Riley
worked damn hard. Fully engaged, active, competent with his hands as much as
how he stood and climbed and walked around this rough terrain, talking freely
to the horses, calm and at a deceptively relaxed pace that kind of matched with
the competency of his hands. Broken wire, hurt stock, fence posts, whatever
Riley did, he did it well and thoroughly. He just never made it look like work
at all. Jasper came in through the gate with a handful of mail and took an
envelope across to Mason, whose face visibly lit up as he took it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s my mom. Spider handwriting, I’d
know it anywhere.”<br />
<br />
As hers were the only letters he was receiving there wasn’t any doubt who the
letter was from anyway, but Jasper gave him a calm nod and took the rest of the
mail into the kitchen. Mason opened the letter and gave it a brief glance
through that didn’t disguise his urgency to read, then folded it and put it in
his pocket. He’d read it thoroughly later. Dale had seen him once or twice
sitting on the swing and reading one of those handwritten letters slowly,
several times over. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“They get like this when it’s all
handwritten mail.” Riley said very quietly to escape Mason’s ears. Dale ducked
under Raglan’s neck and came to help him with the big harness kept for the
shires. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do most of the clients get mail?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Pretty much all. You were probably the
first I remember who didn’t. Or didn’t care about contacting anyone outside
here.”<br />
<br />
There was a few seconds silence while they worked, then Riley said lightly as
if he was afraid he’d said something hurtful, “If they go on to do a lone camp
out, we ask the wife or family or friend or whoever to send a letter we give
them to take along, and make it something special. Flynn or Paul usually has
the conversation with the family to talk about what kind of things to think
about putting in. Anything that’s been hard or caused trouble between them.
Anything hard they need to say, lay out exactly how behaviour or mixed
priorities have affected them and their relationship. Kids. Friendships if it’s
a friend rather than family. What’s most important to them about the
relationship they have, what’s good about it, how they feel. It’s why we only
let committed people have contact, where they’re determined the relationship is
going to improve and they both want to work things out, Flynn encourages them
to really say in a letter the things they couldn’t say out loud. He got me to write
a letter like that to my dad once. I decided not to send it in the end but it
makes a difference to lay it out. Tell it and say it in writing, even to
yourself.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He said it casually, but Dale didn’t
mistake his tone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why did you decide not to send it?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I didn’t see the purpose in hurting him.”
Riley said simply. “And didn’t think it would achieve anything. We get on ok,
we have probably as decent a relationship as either of us really want, where’s
the point?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Yes,
exactly</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley glanced up at him and his always warm
hazel eyes were rather gentle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s not always that easy. Flynn wouldn’t
contact his people at gun point. Anyway, it helped me, and we’ll get Mason’s
mom to have that kind of a letter written and here for Mason when the time
comes. The letters have a lot of impact on clients every time, it’s kind of the
best and the worst all mixed together. And they’re out on their own with a
couple of days of nothing to do but read and think, read that letter again and
think some more. Big priority fixer.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“How does a lone camp out work?” Dale
climbed the bottom rail of the fence to heave Raglan’s saddle from the top rail
to Raglan’s broad back. “Define nothing to do?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“At all.” Riley gave him a quick grin.
“Nada. The rules are strict. No books. No distractions, we search them for
anything they shouldn’t have before they go so nothing gets sneaked. No work to
do, they get their letter, a journal and a pen and that’s pretty much it other
than clothes and food. We take them out a good couple of miles and set them up
somewhere near water with a view worth looking at, mark out their boundaries
for how far they can wander – usually not more than about two hundred yards in
any direction – and they do 48 hours there completely alone in that spot. No
sleeping until it’s completely dark. If they want a fire or to heat food or
water they make it. If they want shelter they make it.”<br />
<br />
The skills they’d taught Mason on the hike. Dale nodded slowly, reflecting. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“And they do what?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Up on the sloping pasture beyond the gate,
Bandit was in sight, standing alert and watchful above the herd of grazing
mares and the few very small foals, including the two born just last night. The
mares appeared in no hurry to move away from the ranch. The stallion was
scenting the wind for weather, for threats, for the information he constantly gathered
to keep his herd safe, his mane blowing slightly as he turned his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Whatever they see as a good use of their
time.” Riley followed his gaze up towards Bandit, then tugged the girth strap
to tighten it another notch. “Sometimes one will screw around. Break the rules
and sleep the time away, or spend the whole time ranting to themselves about
how much it sucks, or zone out and throw stones at the water, wander and just kill
time until we come get them. We know how they do – they think there’s no one
for miles and we encourage them to, but actually one of us is about half a mile
away with an eye on them a lot of the time, Jas picked the spots we use to have
good cover viewing, so we know exactly what
they’re doing. We don’t step in unless it’s a safety reason, actually I’ve
never known us need to step in, but we know if they break the rules or screw up
and further along the line we’ll send them out to do it again, and usually then
they start figuring out to get serious and make use of the time for real. But
most of them find when there’s no distractions at all, there’s damn all to do
but think, it’s a major wakeup call and its where they most often start making
plans. We had a client a couple of years back who visits sometimes and told me
when he’s losing the plot now or knows he’s slipping back into bad habits he still
goes off and fishes all night, sits outside in the dark and his head comes back
together again.” Riley paused, then dug an elbow in his ribs quite firmly. “Hey.
You’ve got the ‘there’s something I haven’t aced yet’ expression on your face.”<br />
<br />
“You didn’t use that strategy with me.”<br />
<br />
“Yeah, obviously?” Riley gave him another dig, that was both pointed and
affectionate. “Getting you to <i>stop</i>
thinking for five minutes was more of a problem.” He glanced up as Paul closed
and locked the porch door and he and Flynn came down into the yard full of
tacked up horses. “Feel ready to go rob a train?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m only planning to pace out the ground
and be sure.” Dale warned him. Riley shook his head, dropping a hand on his back
as they headed towards Snickers and Hammer. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, you’re not, this is not some boring
maths problem.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By mid afternoon
they were through the woods and the nine horses walked together over the
smooth, rolling green pasture where once the wagons had rolled, to one of
Dale’s favourite views of the ranch: the cliff edge of the plateau where the
ground just dropped away below them, revealing the town of Three Traders tucked
into the wall of the valley. They paused instinctively there to admire the
view; it was too startling not to. The silent roof tops and the red earth roads
covered the ground, still and warm in the afternoon sun, with the wheel of the
mine in the distance by the thin blue shine of the river at the very bottom of
the town. They took the steep wagon road that wound down through the town,
where ox and horses pulling the wagons had paced once with their heavy loads,
past the shelters that began highest up as shacks with perhaps one window where
a rag of ancient and dusty fabric still blew, to gradually proper houses where
some glass still remained in the windows, where a few battered gates still
stood, marking long overgrown and wild gardens returning to pasture in front of
the splintered, weather beaten front doors. The houses grew closer together and
in thicker clusters as they reached the main part of the town, and near the
bottom of the street the shops began to appear with their distinctive fronts,
the entrances to empty stable yards where the stables were silent, and deserted
workshops, smithies and timber yards. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No one spoke as they rode, even Gerry was
silent and they made no sound but the quiet clop of the horses’ hooves on the
road. There was something in the peace of the town that was not uncomfortable
but which drew a respectful silence out of you in return. The resting place,
the depository of so many people’s lives lay here. They turned onto the main
street where the railway line ran parallel to the line of hotel, the Mine Shaft
Saloon, the shops and the stables, where the roof of the station and the
platform stood unmoved and undamaged, and there Flynn drew in Leo, turning in
the saddle to find Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok. Where do you want to start?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale saw Riley glance over at him, then swing
his leg over Snickers’ back and drop down to the road. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Let’s try the saloon, Dale? That’s where
it all began, that’s where we think the moonshine was.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s all still here,” Dale heard Mason say
softly as they walked through the swinging door into the saloon, leaving the
horses grazing the rough grass beyond the railway line. “It’s <i>all </i>still here.”<br />
<br />
“What couldn’t be taken on a car or a train generally stayed, the town was
abandoned bit by bit and it’s pretty isolated.” Paul said with compassion for
the furniture and the glasses still on the shelves. “Mason, don’t go up or down
any stairs without checking with us, we’re still figuring out what’s safe.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The cellars have stone steps.” Riley had
already disappeared into the kitchen and the back rooms where he and Dale had
slept weeks ago, the night it rained and they were camping here. “This is the
printing press, this is where we found the town newspapers. We never found a
still.”<br />
<br />
“You wouldn’t, prohibition lifted in the 1930s. If there was a still here, it
would have been dismantled long ago.” Paul told him, coming to examine the
press. “And any still would have been well hidden, quite possibly even out in
the woods. You might find an old still in a shed in more far flung places, or
because people liked the taste, but a saloon would have started buying in the
real stuff by rail as soon as it was legal.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But we’re talking about the train robbery
right in the middle of prohibition when there was a still somewhere. And Dale,
you say there was some kind of a meeting at night before the robbery?” Riley re
emerged into the body of the main saloon. “Here, while the Connellys were in
town.”<br />
<br />
“We know that how?” Gerry inquired. Riley brushed that off before Dale had a
chance to think about how to respond. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Never mind all that, we just do.”<br />
<br />
“Some of us need the full story here,” Mason pointed out. “Because I’m totally
confused.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“During the prohibition era, a moonshine
still was run from the town, and when the moonshine was ready, a message was
put in the town newspaper to say “the moon is full”.” Jasper said calmly. He
was standing by the fireplace, arms folded, waiting without the faintest sign
of impatience. “We’ve found it in the newspapers from the time. At the time the
robbery took place, the Cheyenne police were here investigating illegal alcohol,
and they thought James Dwyer, the owner of the saloon, was responsible.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And a crook.” Riley added. “Possibly in
the with the Connelly gang, who were a known bunch of crooks.” <br />
<br />
<i>Right. <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale put a hand on the bar beside him,
thinking of an image that had come to mind several times. The crowd of men in
here – and abruptly without trying, he could hear it, smell it, the crowding of
wet, rain-soaked bodies and not just men. Women, children, the atmosphere in
the room was strong and unmistakeable. He pulled a box of matches from his
pocket, the box he’d collected from his saddle bag as they left, and struck a
match, sheltering it with his free hand, and deliberately turned to Riley to
try the experiment, well aware of the internal voice pointing out loudly that
this was a stupid risk, it probably wouldn’t work, he’d look a total fool for
trying it and no normal person could justify believing in this rubbish anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes,
I know who you are, breathe. We’re ok. If I’m wrong we’ll survive it, but I
have to learn how to make this work. Properly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ri?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley looked at him quizzically. Dale held
out the lit match towards him, and understanding, Riley stretched out a finger
towards the match. And jumped, pulling his hand away as the flame abruptly
flared towards him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“For pete’s sake! Even matches hate me
now!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The knowledge was confirmed, along with the
memory of the conversation he and Riley had been having the first time the fire
jumped. It was good. It was exciting, intensely exciting in a wonderfully kid
type way as things often were with Riley, unchartered water, and Riley looked at
his face and grinned at him as he shook out the match. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Flynn, he’s getting that insane look.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some
symbols will have meaning only for you, and only you will know in that context
what they mean. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ash and Gerry were standing together in the
loose circle that had gathered around him, Luath and Mason next to them. Jasper
was watching him calmly, waiting. Paul with open interest. Flynn’s dark green
eyes met his with acute encouragement that said clearly, <i>go for it kid</i>, he was standing close, and Dale took a discreetly
deep breath saying it clearly to himself and the room and whatever it was that
needed to be told, with intent. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“James Dwyer was never a crook. That was my
mistake. James is not the protagonist here.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He struck another match, offering it to
Riley, and this time Riley much more cautiously approached the flame with his
hand and then waved a finger lightly above the flame without it moving from
tranquilly burning up the match. Dale shook that one out too and replaced the
matches and the box in his pocket. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Point
proven. Thank you. I just needed to listen. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Take the supposition that James Dwyer –
and I would make an educated guess that he was a friend of David’s - is the one
who is running the still and distributing moonshine. It’s a small private
supply to the town, a quiet and successful little enterprise that worked well
out here a long way from the police and the cities. Maybe over time it gets
even more successful and James gets a little more ambitious, so once in a while
a shipment goes out on the Silver Bullet to other towns along the line. We can
guess at that because the ghost drummer boy is a well known legend in Three
Traders, and he is seen to walk on rainy nights.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But it isn’t really a ghost.” Mason said,
frowning. “You have the jacket, don’t you? With the buttons?”<br />
<br />
“Yes. It’s an old English smugglers trick.” Dale said crisply. “Dwyer may well
have got the idea from David. You paint clothes with phosphorus, probably the
drum and the drum sticks too, and the jacket we found was an old War of
Independence one so it looks authentic. Someone wearing the clothes and with
the drum muffled so it makes no sound, walks in the dark at a good distance
from witnesses, slowly beating a silent drum, and you’ve guaranteed that you’ve
got the attention of everyone in the vicinity. This is the 1920s, we’re barely
past Victorian times and this town is isolated, probably still stuck socially
and practically in the 1890s. Plenty of superstition around, so as well as the
people who’ve actually seen the ‘ghost’, there’ll be plenty of people who
thought they did and have added on to the legend and built it up over time.”<br />
<br />
“So the ‘ghost’ is someone employed by James Dwyer.” Riley finished for him.
Dale gave him a brief nod. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I think that’s a reasonable assumption. We
know the ghost is most often seen on wet and rainy nights.”<br />
<br />
“Because that’s when it’s easiest to make a train stall on Dead Man’s hill,
lose enough speed to stop and have to go back to the station for another go.”
Riley finished for him. “The ghost on the rails.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Probably walking towards the train. And
the night train that passes through Three Traders is the Silver Bullet.” Dale
went on. “So when the ghost is seen, the train slows, the traction on the rails
is poor and she can’t make the hill. The driver has to back her down to the
station and get her ready to make another run at the hill. In the few minutes
the Silver Bullet is in the station building up a head of steam, a compartment
door quietly gets opened, a few extra crates put on, and someone in the know
will get them off as the train stops in other towns along the line.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But why make the train come back to the
station?” Ash asked. “Why not just load up the crates disguised as other
cargo?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Because of the manifests. Tom clued me in,
I’ve seen some at the museum.” Dale said apologetically. “These trains are the
only real communication between these towns at this time, they carry
everything. Mail, supplies, everything, so at every station parcels and crates
are being taken on to be put off somewhere else. This is before computers and
tick boxes and large organisations where people don’t care and go home at five
o clock. You’re talking about a small team of men running <i>their</i> train out in the middle of nowhere in all weathers for days
at a time, who do their job with brain, pencil and paper. I’ve worked with that
kind of ethos. There’s real pride in it. I’ll bet you couldn’t have put a box
on the Silver Bullet without the guard making sure of exactly what it was and
what was in it, where it came from, who put it on, and where it had to be put
off. The whole system runs entirely on their working memories and people in
these towns depend on it. And bootlegging is illegal, the courts have a heavy
hand with it. Al Capone is driving the Chicago police and the government mad,
there are people running around with machine guns, this is a serious national
problem. So the police are watching trains and borders all over the states.
Cargo often gets searched, and if alcohol is found on board a train, guards are
likely to lose their jobs at best, if not end up in a courtroom. So when a
train is loaded up in the station, the goods are checked and logged as they’re
put on, and the guard makes damn sure he knows what’s in those boxes. When the
guard’s made his final checks, he closes the compartments – no passengers in
the goods compartments, those doors won’t be opened again before they reach the
next station - the station master clears the train to leave and he sees her out,
so there’s an eye on her until she’s clear of the station. The train crew can
be assured there’s been nothing sneaked on board that’s going to get them into
trouble.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But when she comes back a second
time.....” Luath said with comprehension. “She’s only backed in to get up
enough steam to make another run at the hill, there’s no reason for anyone to
check again.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Especially if, as we know from the
‘ghost’, the bootleggers are choosing dark, rainy nights when visibility is
poor and no one wants to be outside a moment longer than they really have to.”
Dale agreed. “When the Silver Bullet backs down into the station her guards
have moved on to their next job inside her and the driver and fireman are working
hard to stoke her up and build up another head of steam to run at the hill
again which will take a few minutes. The station master here probably has the
kettle on and has gone back to his office. The passengers are aboard the train,
and anyone seeing them off has left. The passenger compartment blinds are
probably down for the night and outside visibility is poor. She’s going to be
in the station for a few minutes pretty much unobserved, especially considering
she’s a long train and the goods compartments are a long way back. It’s going
to be easy to quietly open a compartment, add a few crates and shut her up
again without anyone noticing before she gets up enough steam to have a second
try at that hill.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So James Dwyer of the saloon is rum
running – moonshine running-” Paul said, thinking about it, “Sneaking a few
crates on the train out to other towns, and from the records of the ghost
sightings it’s working pretty well, they’re doing it fairly regularly.”<br />
<br />
“Then we factor in the Connellys.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mason snorted. “Ah. Classic. Hostile
take-over. Seen it many times.”<br />
<br />
Dale nodded at him. “Exactly. I’d guess that someone in one of the towns where
James Dwyer’s crates were dropped off is less than discreet, and the Connellys
get to hear about the thriving little Three Traders moonshine racket, and the
money it’s making. Once they know, it’s easy to come to Three Traders and
blackmail James; he’s the one with the still and the history if the police come
looking.”<br />
<br />
“But there’s the Sheriff here in the town, isn’t there?” Luath protested. “Doesn’t
he count as ‘police’ in this town?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul made an aha kind of sound, smiling at
Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The curious incident of the dog in the
night time. Now I get it. It’s a Sherlock Holmes quote, about a guard dog
didn’t bark during a burglary, which meant the person who broke in was an
insider - someone the dog expected to be there. The Sheriff was in on it. He
was no threat to James because he already knew what was going on, in fact if he
was happily looking the other way he was probably a regular client himself for
moonshine. Those public notices in the newspaper of ‘new moon’ suggest there
were a lot of people living in the town who enjoyed the supply.”<br />
<br />
“So there’s plenty of people to be blackmailed if James Dwyer doesn’t do exactly
what the Connellys say.” Dale added. “His friends. Maybe big names in town like
the Sheriff. The Connellys see an opportunity to make big money. Alcohol sells,
it’s a big black market with a link to some serious and well known players and
here’s a town in the middle of nowhere, quietly and very successfully knocking
it up right next to a train station linked to a whole lot of other towns all
the way to the cities in the next states, with no one suspecting a thing.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“They must have thought Three Traders was a
gold mine.” Riley said ruefully. Dale gave him a slightly surprised look. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes? It is.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gerry laughed and Ash, who’d been standing
with him listening to this, gave Dale a nod of encouragement. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Like Mason said, a hostile takeover bid of
a very effective little money spinner except they have big plans instead of a
small and private still that’s an open secret between friends.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We know there was a huge stockpile of
moonshine made.” Dale told him. “500 bottles that we know of. That’s far more
than the town community would use. My hypothesis would be that the Connellys
demand that instead of the steady trickle of a regular few bottles here and an
occasional few crates there, a large shipment is produced to be sent out
through Dwyer’s system that’s going to make serious money in a city.”<br />
<br />
“But they could never sneak that much on or off the train, that would take
forever to lead up. Their whole smuggling system relies on just a box or two
here and there that get quietly slipped on when she’s backed down into the
station.” Riley pulled himself up to sit on the counter beside him, and Dale
had another brief, flashing image of David, standing on the bar, the shouting and
the cheers of a wet crowd of people here in this dusty, empty room where the
nine of them stood gathered together. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ll get to that. Let’s say that Dwyer has
been forced to agree to manufacture this shipment on his still. 500 bottles.
And to send it out on the Silver Bullet in his usual way. That’s a huge risk.
Far, far higher than the couple of crates slipped on and slipped off in the
dark on rainy nights. If this goes wrong then it’s Dwyer doing years of hard
labour in Cheyenne prison, not the Connellys. So let’s assume he’s been
blackmailed, risking terrible trouble if he does, and worse trouble if he
doesn’t, and other men in Three Traders who have helped with the still or the
deliveries or bought it are going to go down too. Like we’ve agreed, we have no
idea who was buying moonshine from James here. The Sheriff, the judge, the school
teacher, probably half the respectable people in the town, the whole town is
facing serious trouble if things go wrong. <i>But</i>.
Dwyer is a friend of David’s.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ah.” Luath said with enjoyment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Four and twenty ponies.” Dale said to
Paul. “I should have thought more carefully; that said it all. It wasn’t <i>just</i> the Sheriff in on the Connelly
problem. It was the whole town.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“In on the robbery?” Riley demanded. Dale
leaned back against the bar next to him, which `involved leaning against
Riley’s knee, thinking again of the crowd in this dusty room. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes. This was a close, tight and isolated
community and they were people who stuck together. They survived winters out
here, they took care of each other, they were all each other had. Roofs were
fixed, food was shared, we saw that in the papers. The papers even named
relatives arriving on the train and who they were visiting for pete’s sake,
everyone in town knew everyone else well enough that it was reportable news. I
doubt the Connellys had any idea of what they were taking on in messing with
Dwyer.”<br />
<br />
“They certainly wouldn’t have catered for David,” Gerry said wryly. “I saw
David get really irritated a few times in my life, I would <i>not</i> have messed with him.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You constantly messed with him!” Paul
pointed out, and Gerry laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not like that, believe me.”<br />
<br />
“So the Connellys have just poked a bear with a stick.” Riley said happily.
“With no idea of what they’re waking up or how this town works.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The remainder of that community feeling out
here was still found in the way the ranches welcomed visitors out here, the
doctor and the vet and neighbours always offered meals and help, the way
strangers were met by Philip and David’s family because they were raised by
David who’d lived through times where a family might die down the street from
you on a cold night or when a flu epidemic swept through. It was something
rarer now, it didn’t live in the cities or the tower blocks where you might not
even know the name of the woman at the front desk who brought your mail every
day. If you needed food in Three Traders, you hunted it. If you needed shelter,
you built it. It was something Dale had experienced directly on the hike, the
responsibility and the intense closeness that came with it to the people you
were with. It was crucial to the understanding of this. It wasn’t enough to
have the facts, to pace the gradient of the slope, to know the train weight and
speed. You had to know who the Three Traders people were, what mattered to
them, what their reality was, that was important. You had to have felt it
yourself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There was a meeting held here in this
room.” Dale said slowly, thinking for every detail he could remember because it
all mattered. “It was a rainy evening, dark, everyone was wet through but there
were women, kids – in a saloon that’s unheard of in itself – but it was full,
they were standing and it was packed. David was stood on the bar, he had to
shout to make himself heard because they were cheering. I think David knew a
way to get Dwyer out of trouble, the police out of Three Traders without anyone
arrested or harmed, and the Connellys gone for good.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So what did they do?” Gerry demanded.
“What did David do?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is where we need to work it out.”
Dale led the way and they walked together, through the doors and down the
wooden steps of the saloon into the street where the shop fronts stood on
either side of them, and across the empty dirt street, and up the steps that
led onto the train platform. The rusting train stood a few yards down the track,
a large and elderly remainder of the trains like the Silver Bullet that once
passed through this station. Behind them, the ticket office and the station
master’s office and what had probably been his sleeping quarters in the rooms
upstairs, stood empty and silent. A lone bench still stood on the platform. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You can’t sneak 50 crates onto a train.”
Dale said half to himself. “And we know the cargo that went missing the night
of the robbery had been logged on the manifest as being loaded here. I think
the Connellys forced Dwyer to take an overt risk. Those 50 crates of bottles
went onto the train listed as something innocuous, canned goods, jars, whatever,
and there was no problem loading them. I think it’s likely the guard knew
people here well enough that they briefed him on what the town was about to do
and he looked the other way for them. Now Dwyer would have had to see those
crates loaded on and sign for them, so if anything goes wrong, the trail goes
back to him, not the Connellys. So while the train is in the station, 50 crates
of moonshine are loaded right under the eye of the guard, and Dwyer is legally responsible.”<br />
<br />
“Why don’t Dwyer and the others just refuse to do it?” Ash asked. “There’s only
three of the Connellys, why co operate at all? There’s enough men in the town to
handle them.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“David would have known exactly how to be
sure the Connellys never tried blackmailing Dwyer again.” Luath said wryly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale shook his head, with that brief,
flashing image of the drummer boy, like a rat in the rain, running between the
houses in the dark with the drum around his neck. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t know why. Perhaps there’s another
factor we don’t know of yet, but so long as those crates are available to be
found in the town, Dwyer’s at serious risk. If the Connellys are caught they’ll
blame him; Dwyer manufactured the stuff, he put it on the train. I think the
plan this night is that the compartments are checked and closed by the guards
when they’re satisfied everything’s in place. The train leaves the station and the
someone dressed as the drummer boy, painted in phosphorus so he glows in the
dark, is waiting in his usual place up on the hill.”<br />
<br />
“But the crates are already on, why bother with the ghost trick?” Riley asked
him. “Why would they need the train to come back to the station tonight?”<br />
<br />
“Because the Connellys aren’t on the train.” Dale turned to look up the track,
towards Dead Man’s hill, assessing the slope. “They’re known criminals. They
can’t just buy tickets and sit with the passengers until they can wander back
to the cargo compartments. The police are in Three Traders so they’ve been
keeping a low profile all day. And the compartments are checked and closed by
the guard as the train is made ready to leave. So the train has to leave the
station, checked and in order. As usual, she has to fail on the hill and come
back down and on her second return there’s no one watching. So the Connellys’
plan has to be that they’re going to get into the cargo compartments and travel
with their shipment to wherever they’re taking it, they must have had plans. There
might have been a robbery or a hijack planned somewhere out in open country,
people waiting to meet the train. We do have the facts that the train leaves
the station on time that night with those 50 crates aboard. A few moments later
the ghost is seen and the Silver Bullet fails on the hill and comes back down
into the station. An open compartment door is noticed as she gets up steam for
her second try, and when someone has a look, those 50 crates are gone. The Connellys
are never found in Three Traders, the police eventually give up and leave
knowing nothing.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So what happened?” Mason demanded. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale turned back towards the street. “We’re going to need the horses for this.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s not dark yet.” Riley, leaning with
his arms folded against the side of the station building, flashed Dale a look
that was wicked enough to break Dale’s concentration. Beside him, Gerry’s eyes
were alight and Mason was listening with interest. Jasper and Flynn, shoulders
blocked together, stood behind him, listening closely, and Luath, Paul and Ash
were on the edge of the platform, listening as they surveyed the hill and the
train track. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Let’s wait until dark. Proper test
conditions.”<br />
<br />
“You just really want to run around the town playing cops and robbers.” Paul
told him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley shrugged, not bothering to deny it,
but looked from him to Jasper and Flynn, and then back to Dale, speaking
directly to them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m saying let’s set out to do actions
with intent and see what happens. The worst that can happen is it’s just fun,
but we’re here, David was ours, that has to be pretty strong doesn’t it Dale,
if you’re trying to pick up on stuff? Let’s give it a try?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> It
was so blunt, so directly in front of everyone that Dale found himself looking
blankly at Riley. And then he felt Jasper’s hand take his and grasp and Jasper
said just as cheerfully beside him, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That sounds like it might be interesting.
I say we try.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You do know. Trust yourself.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They were out in the pasture near the river
where they would make camp. Paul was collecting saddle bags full of the
provisions he’d organised this morning and there was a small and comfortable
crowd of them in the afternoon sun unsaddling hot horses who were keen to get
rid of their tack. Including Jasper, who said it quite simply while he worked
on Gucci, in a voice soft enough that Dale knew it reached only his ears. It
was so acute it made his stomach jump. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Giving himself time to think, he slid the
bridle off Hammer’s willing head and the heavy body immediately lurched down to
his knees irrespective of whether Dale was in the way or not. Dale got out of
reach of huge hooves as Hammer turned onto his back and rolled, rubbing himself
blissfully on the grass, and gathered Hammer’s tack neatly together, watching
Jasper handling Gucci gently around her slowly swelling sides that marked her
coming foal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“I want to do a lone..... hike. Thing.” That did not seem a properly respectful
or mystical way to put things, and mathematics had a pitiful and inadequate vocabulary
to express these kinds of thoughts in, but Dale put his faith in Jasper and
blurted, as he’d only ever been able to do with these men. “I have ......there’s
a reason I need to be alone with this, there’s something I’ve got to do.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper stated it as a simple
acknowledgement of fact. His calm acceptance was another shock. Shaken, Dale
found himself saying the biggest concern he had, and a fully justified concern
however he tried to assess it; <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“....Paul is not likely to agree. I know it’s
the wrong time to ask, wanting to be alone isn’t a good thing, I understand
completely....”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But this isn’t wanting to get away, it’s a
going towards. Isn’t it?” Jasper said mildly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course it was. And of course he was
right, because it was Jasper who had taught him how to do this in the first
place. These beliefs were a part of Jasper, uncynical and wholehearted; that the
things you saw and touched and walked were as powerful and meaningful as what
you thought and felt, that you could not separate out one from the other. While
they hiked, Jasper had used their land to help him and Mason travel and act out
what they were thinking and feeling – the walk through the night into the new
beginning of a sunrise; the struggle up through the dankest part of the woods
to climb up into open pasture in the sunshine – it had been powerful, it had
held every meaning and this desire was the just the same. A journey towards. A
seeking to find. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And
it’ll make sense if I can just physically do it because I don’t know how to
explain, I just know how to try and understand it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know you’ve told me,” Dale said slowly,
“That there were cultures where men went seeking an ordeal... or time alone...
to understand something better. Make a commitment. It’s something that needs to
be.. heard. Physically done. I can’t exactly provide an action plan or a risk
assessment or a forecast, I really don’t know how to express it any more coherently,
it’s just something I know.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper ran a hand down Gucci’s smooth neck
and let her go. “Which is enough. Obedience in a relationship like ours is not
about wanting passivity from you, you know us better than that. If it’s
important, then tell us about it. If need be, stand up for it until we do
understand. Paul might have his concerns, but he loves you. He will want to
understand, and I can help him. But I don’t think they’ll find it as difficult
as you’re expecting.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The relief was inexpressible. With no idea
how to thank him Dale just obeyed instinct and put an arm out to him, giving
him an awkward but very tight hug, and Jasper gathered him over and held him
for a moment, face against his. His skin was cool, the scent of him was
familiar, it was very safe in his arms, and his voice was deeply calm. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You are doing this absolutely right.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They walked over together to join the
others as the horses began to spread out and graze. Above them on the red earth
hill, the town with all its rooftops looked down with its big mine wheel black
against the bright blue afternoon sky. Jasper pulled a bow drill from his
saddle bag and held it out to Mason, who grinned, took a knife from his pocket
and went to cut a patch clear of turf for a fire. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I need to learn how to make myself one of
these. Does it matter which wood you use?”<br />
<br />
“Talk to Dale.” Jasper nodded in Dale’s direction. “He spent some of last
summer experimenting with the different woods on the ranch, and drill size and
length until he figured out which worked best.”<br />
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<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale,” Paul glanced up from the saddle
bags he was unpacking and his blue eyes were shrewd, seeing a little more than
Dale felt ready to explain. “You come and sit down for a while, you look like
you need it. Riley, you too, you were up all night with the foals.” <br />
<br />
“I’ll go swim.” Riley said easily, dropping his own saddle down beside his bed
roll. “It’s too warm to sit around and I slept in this morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, for about two hours, under protest,
which was nothing like the amount of sleep you lost, and you’ll be up half the
night tonight too.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale settled on the grass by Paul, watching
the fire start to crackle in Mason’s now practiced hands, and with amusement recognising
the oh so reasonable tone in Riley’s casual; <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t need a break, I need a swim. I can
sit around in the water all afternoon gold hunting.”<br />
<br />
“Gold hunting?” Mason demanded, looking up. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“That mine over there was originally a gold mine,” Riley flashed his ring at
Mason. “This is made from gold from the mine, they used to pan for gold in this
river. Dale, going to try diving this stretch again?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We never find anything?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley snorted. “Yet. Where’s your sense of
adventure?”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale returned his smile, unable to help it.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“Riley, if you make me come get you, you’re going to regret it.” Paul said
mildly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Riley walked away instead to the edge of the water, casually enough that it
didn’t look exactly like ignoring, and Flynn, without looking up from Leo where
he was lifting off tack, said in a deep tone, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Riley........”<br />
<br />
Riley stopped on the spot but grimaced at him. “I’m just looking, I want to see
what the temperature is like-”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, you’re seeing how far you can go
before I get serious.” Paul got up and headed towards him. Riley took a step
back, looking distinctly surprised, which turned to outright startlement as
Paul turned him around and swatted the back of his thighs crisply, hustling him
towards the fire. “And you’re hoping that having an audience is going to save
you. Want to sit down yet?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Paul!” Riley sat down hastily to get away
from him, giving him a scowl that wasn’t altogether disapproving. “Look you’re
supposed to get like that with <i>Dale</i>,
not me.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul knelt to open one of the several
saddle bags he’d packed, extracting tea as Jasper unhurriedly took a seat on
the grass beside and behind Dale, hooking one hand in his belt to tug him back
so that ready or not, Dale leaned back into his chest. The comfort of it went
very deep right now, and Jasper’s voice behind him sounded easy, as relaxed as
the arm that wrapped around his waist. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re the one always telling us to
tighten up.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> “Yes,
but on him, not me.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul pulled Riley over and kissed his cheek
as he spooned tea into the pot. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’ll live. And it’s not like you get no
opportunities to dive that river to your heart’s content. I’ve been thinking
for a while Dale Edward, when you’re doing better I want you to take at least a
couple of weeks and do a whole lot of things like go diving for gold.”<br />
<br />
“What?” Dale, hearing his middle name which with Paul was rarely a good sign, gave
him a rather alarmed look. Paul pushed the kettle deeper into the fire. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“When was your last vacation?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That was a ridiculous question. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“.....Probably climbing in the Tetons with
Jake and Tom?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That was not a vacation, that was a
training project with plans and goals and maps and heaven knows what, and you
worked flat out the whole time.” Paul pointed out. “I meant an actual
vacation.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale looked at him, feeling perilously
close to spluttering. “I’ve had <i>plenty</i>
of that since I’ve been here – right now, I’ve been on vacation for weeks!”<br />
<br />
Paul shook his head, quite satisfied now that he had Dale’s attention. “Rubbish
and you know it, this is extremely hard work. I meant vacation, hon. Holiday.
When did you last have one?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But I always had breaks when I was
working-”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn interrupted him, quite bluntly as he
came to take a seat on the grass with them. “No. Times when the phone was off
and for a good block of time you just hung out with nothing to get done, and
you just did what you wanted. When?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It linked to something Dale had reflected
on himself in the past few days since the hike: that this was the first time in
his life he remembered that he had simply stopped. Let go. It was rather
alarming that Paul had so succinctly seen and comprehended it and was acting on
it whether Dale was ready or not. And that was the reality of this relationship
and of true honesty; letting go of that control. Consciously, intentionally,
gladly. Even when it scared the living daylights out of you. Dale found himself
giving Paul what he was afraid was a distinctly trapped look; Jasper smiled,
not letting him go, and Flynn shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“College holidays. School holidays. Keep
going back.”<br />
<br />
“........Well I pretty much stopped, they were mostly tutoring times, but I <i>liked </i>doing that....” Dale began
slightly defensively and Gerry and Riley both laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Exactly.” Paul said firmly. “I want you to
take an actual vacation from doing anything worthy or goal oriented or
stressful or about anyone else. The absolute minimum I’ll accept is two weeks,
but I’d much rather it was longer. Take some time for yourself, no projects, no
plans drawn up, just doing whatever you feel like on the day. Take one of us with
you and swim. Ride. Explore. Lie in the pasture with a book. Go to Jackson and
spend a few days at the museum. Enjoy yourself. It is not going to be scary I
promise you hon, we’ll help you figure out how to do it, but it’s important,
it’s something I think it’s long past time you did.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I can’t possibly do that, I haven’t done
anything useful for weeks!” Dale said rather helplessly. Paul made an
exaggerated roll of his eyes that made his teasing very gentle and playful
rather than exasperated. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes exactly, there’s the crux of our whole
problem. Since when did you have to earn your keep around here, mister?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of
course I do! <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The look on Paul’s face made it quite
apparent that there were aspects to that argument he needed to rethink. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Riley, will you feel slighted or overworked
if Dale takes a few weeks off?” Jasper asked calmly behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.” Riley said promptly. “You’ve seen me do
this plenty of times whenever I need to, except I know how to <i>say</i> I’m taking an afternoon to myself,
or a day out to go climb or ride. I agree. You never have a clue on when to
stop, and do you ever need to learn to do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were times when Riley just translated
the most difficult things into wonderfully plain terms that made them far
easier to get at gut level. If he said it was ok, then he meant it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Start getting used to the idea.” Paul
advised, starting to brew tea. “Because in a few weeks from now I’m going to
insist on it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well that added to a very great deal
already on his mind, and oddly not in a bad way. Dale accepted the steaming cup
he was passed and held it for a moment, listening to the crackling of the fire
and breathing the soft, now beloved scent of woodsmoke with Jasper’s warmth
close against his back, with a sense of safety and orientation that was almost
hard to let himself feel it was so powerful. And with another busy corner of
his mind reflecting on someone else who had climbed the Tetons with them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“...Paul?
Do you know anything about the Fisher King?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes,
it’s one of the King Arthur legends.” Paul passed the last mug to Luath and sat
back on his heels to drink his own tea as he reflected. “I can’t remember off
hand where to look for it. Although it’s one of those original staple story
themes that gets into everything. I think I’ve got a copy of the Morte d’Arthur
somewhere.”<br />
<br />
“So what’s the gist of it?” Riley asked, who enjoyed any kind of story. Paul
gave another and more careful look at Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Where
did you get an interest in the Fisher King?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom
mentioned it. He said the Hunting of the Snark was a simplified version.”<br />
<br />
“So go on then?” Riley prompted. “What’s it about?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well
there’s a young prince,” Paul said thoughtfully, “And probably by ‘young’ the
myth means adolescent. Impulsive, brave, fearless,”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
weren’t we all at that age?” Gerry murmured sentimentally to Ash, who smiled. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“- who
wanders into a clearing in the woods. There’s no one there, but there is a
salmon cooking on a spit.” Paul went on. Around the fire, everyone had fallen
quiet to listen. “He’s hungry and he helps himself to the salmon, and depending
on which version of the legend you follow, either he’s terribly burned by it,
or else another knight challenges him to battle for stealing the salmon. Either
way he’s terribly wounded, usually it’s written as in the thigh but the implication
is it’s a genital injury and he’s emasculated.”<br />
<br />
“Ouch, the poor boy.” Gerry winced at Mason, who had also grimaced. “This is
sounding increasingly like a horror story.”<br />
<br />
“It’s figurative more than anything, the stories this old are very heavy on the
symbolism.” Paul looked again at Dale who was, if Paul was any judge, intently,
missing nothing, although his eyes and his hands were calm. Focused rather than
tense. “It means it leaves him ‘cold’, without emotion or feeling, living a
numb half life. Too ill to do anything real with his life but not able to die.
Most of his time is spent on a bed in terrible pain, and the only time he can
forget his pain for a while is when he’s alone outside, fishing.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
as random as Jasper’s mystic ants.” Riley pointed out. Jasper smiled but didn’t
rise to the bait. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
probably the same kind of representational legend, yes. Salmon is a common
symbol in the oldest stories.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
does it usually stand for?” Dale asked. Paul sat back, considering. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Knowledge
or insight, I think.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
the same in the Cherokee stories I grew up with.” Jasper agreed. “Salmon are
associated with wisdom and inspiration.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Cool
how the same thing crosses cultures.” Mason said with interest. “I mean who far
back enough saw a salmon and said right, from here on, stick one of those in a
story and it means wisdom. It’s wild.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know
it goes back a long way.” Paul told him. “I’ve read some of the Finn McCool
Celtic hero stories, centuries old, and in one of them – probably another
version of the Fisher King story actually - Finn accidentally burns his thumb
on a salmon cooking over a fire, a mythic beast a druid caught to eat so he
could take in its power, and Finn gains all the wisdom himself through sucking
his burned fingers. A fish icon means wisdom in Celtic art, and the Christian
symbol of the fish was more or less laminated on top of the more ancient pagan
myths and beliefs the way much of Christianity was. In terms of the Fisher King
story it essentially means a young man impulsively touched knowledge or
experience he wasn’t ready to handle, as young men very often do, and the
injury, to his pride or to his masculinity left him half a man. It’s an
emotional or spiritual injury. The fishing – the only respite from his pain - symbolises
the things in life that comfort him emotionally. Fishing might also equate to
music or writing or walking alone. I think a lot of men might understand the
concept of that kind of wound.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So what happened to the king in this
story?” Riley demanded. Paul took another sip of tea as he thought about it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well the injured prince becomes the king.
And as king, he inherits the duty of being the chosen protector of the holy
grail, as his ancestors were. There are all kinds of legends around the quest for
the grail and what it means, but in this legend every night there is a
procession of the grail through the great hall of the Fisher King, and the
grail heals anyone in the castle in need, except for the Fisher King himself
who is kept alive by it, but is too badly hurt for it to help. The meaning
underneath it is probably that he’s numb and detached, and not able to feel
anything in response to something of good or beauty. He can be in its presence
and know that technically it’s beautiful, but he can’t feel it spiritually,
it’s about the isolation of being depressed or distanced. I think that’s a
human thing, that you can be in the presence of things you know you love, that
are good, but not be able to feel them the way you want to at that moment in time,
and how lonely that is.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You can take the horse to water but you
can’t make it drink.” Luath said wryly. “Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Beside him, Dale’s eyes had gone very dark.
Flynn was watching him, Paul saw him, well aware Dale would get the symbolism
of this very acutely. Mason was looking distinctly sober too. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Then one day,” he went on lightly, “when
he’s fishing, he meets another young and rather naive knight called Percival,
who’s on a quest. Percival doesn’t know who he is, but they spend the day
together, and then Percival asks him if there’s shelter for the night nearby,
and the Fisher King tells him there’s none within thirty miles. But that if he
goes down the road a way, turns left and goes through the drawbridge, he’ll
find shelter.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He just said there’s none within thirty
miles?” Riley protested. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, but it’s symbolic again, these
stories come from oral traditions where everyone listening would have
understood the meanings,” Paul explained. “In the same way you might call
someone a Grinch, or The Ghost of Christmas Past and most people get what
you’re implying, it’s a shared culture. It means there’s no <i>physical</i> shelter within thirty miles. To
go down the road a way, means to go towards your own heart. To turn left – the
symbolic meaning of left is to turn towards your unconscious mind, your
imagination. And then cross the drawbridge into it. Percival is being told to
look in himself for his answers to his quest. So Percival follows the
directions, finds himself in the castle and that night he watches the
procession of the grail, but he watches without saying anything, asking no
questions, just passively observing. So the procession finishes as it always
does. Nothing changes. And when Percival wakes in the morning, everyone is gone
from the castle and he’s alone. So he leaves and goes back to the real world.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s a bit sad.” Ash said, reflectively.
“The dangers of passivity. EM Forster would have been all over that.”<br />
<br />
“A lot of writers have been for centuries, this is old stuff.” Paul agreed.
Riley shook his head, not interested in Forster. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So? What happened next?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well Percival goes on for half his life,
carrying out brave and chivalrous deeds and not really being filled by any of
it,” Paul said it as lightly as possible, all too aware of Dale and how sensitive
a point that was likely to be for him. Dale had the intense stillness to him
and the intensity in his eyes that Paul knew as Dale recording every aspect of
this for purposeful information and it wouldn’t just be what was said; it would
include with exact precision the tone of voice, the choice of words, and he
would probably be mentally cross referencing it with goodness knows what else,
all at high speed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Probably a natural downside from having to
go through life being called Percival.” Gerry observed. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Behind Dale, Jasper’s eyes were calm when
Paul met them, and he was the one with his arm close around Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And this goes on,” Paul went on, “Until Percival
is a middle aged man and he’s tired of life without knowing why. Then he meets
a hermit who tells him quite sternly that he missed his purpose in life, which
was to heal the Fisher King.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s very similar to what you say.” Dale
said thoughtfully to Jasper. “People following their purpose in life move
forward. People who don’t listen to themselves or the signs, or don’t seek for
them, go metaphorically around in circles and you can see the stagnation.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper merely nodded slowly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So the hermit gives Percival the same
directions, although they’re far away from where he saw the Fisher King years
ago: to go down the road, to turn left and cross the drawbridge, and Percival
finds himself again in the Fisher King’s castle. He watches the procession
again that night, but he’s older now and he has more experience of life, he has
curiosity and he’s ready to commit to looking for answers, and he calls out as
he watches, “Whom does the grail serve?” And the answer comes back, “the grail
serves the grail King.” As soon as the question is asked, the Fisher King is
healed by the grail.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a brief silence around the fire,
then Riley shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“That makes no sense.” <br />
<br />
“It’s about an internal journey.” Flynn said quietly. “To be whole, to heal an
emotional injury you have to find your way back inside yourself, and recognise
it <i>and</i> consciously challenge it. Act
on it, involve yourself to change it. And the point is that the gift, the
exceptional, comes with the injury. It’s the insight it gives you, and how deeply
it makes you feel or think about things that ordinarily people don’t have any
need to. have any need to. You gain
hidden knowledge about life and people. The Fisher King is a wounded man, but
he is also the keeper of the grail, which is the answer in itself, the source
of healing. There’s plenty of stories based on the marked man, where the wound
is the mark of the gift or the exceptional. Gulliver. Chiron the centaur. I
always liked the legends of Chiron.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Riley grimaced, not looking convinced. “But the grail is a cup, isn’t it?”<br />
<br />
“It’s usually visualised as a cup.” Paul said. “But it’s still allegorical. The
grail stands for the utter exceptional, the most sacred secrets of human life.
In terms of these legends, searching for the grail is a lifetime pledge taken
by a knight who has already taken on all the duties and sworn responsibilities
of his knighthood, to searching for the highest truth of life. And it’s not
just about finding what they’re searching for but how they live and the values
they live by in the name of that search. Percival realises that the real sense
of connection to life, a life worth the living, isn’t found through doing brave
deeds to his own satisfaction or doing the things that serve his own purpose,
but about having an allegiance to something greater than himself. That kind of
allegiance meant total dedication and loyalty to someone who was sworn a knight
in the times of these stories. Under the codes of chivalry it was sacred. When
they committed themselves to a man or to a duty or a promise, it wasn’t
breakable, there was no such thing as wiggle room. Their honour and their
integrity were something they’d defend to the death. That’s another theme
that’s been explored by writer after writer for centuries.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>They
sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care.</i>..” Dale said half to himself.
There were too many thoughts in his head now to consciously keep hold of, he
was aware of them gathering and re sorting themselves at the back of his mind but
he pulled on one of the many connected threads vying for his attention. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What happened to Philip’s ankle?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He knew the look Paul gave him, as well as
the tone of voice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok, where did that come from? We don’t do
random demands for information, you’re not a search engine.”<br />
<br />
“It was his right one, wasn’t it?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale.” Paul said firmly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale knew exactly what he meant; only Paul
really spotted what he was doing and knew as well as he did that it wasn’t
something he should really be allowing to take over. However Luath answered,
from the other side of the fire where like Flynn he was sprawled full length on
the grass with his weight on one elbow and his cup between his hands. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He was born with a club foot and the
pioneering treatment available to the highest paying families at the time was
surgery. From what he told me once, I think he had several very painful
surgeries on it when he was a child and they just made it a lot worse, the
position was corrected but his ankle ended up completely fused. You wouldn’t
have known unless he told you. He didn’t limp.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“But he wore a small steel brace thing on
the heel of his riding boot.” Dale said to him. Gerry smiled, a faint,
affectionate smile as he thought about it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, he did. They were on all his boots,
someone in New York used to make them and mail them out here, I remember the
parcels.”<br />
<br />
“The ankle kept him out of the army during the war,” Flynn said, draining his
cup and shaking it out. “Which is how he came to meet David, he was doing some
kind of related work for the war office when he came through Three Traders. The
ankle was how he came to be such a horseman. When he was a kid he couldn’t run
or play football according to his family traditions, but he could ride and play
polo and train his horses, and I think he spent a lot of his childhood riding.
There wasn’t much he couldn’t do with a horse.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Or a man. Those
years of training had helped more than horses. It was another confirmation;
another puzzle piece slotting into place that brought a deep sense of personal
satisfaction that no work challenge had ever compared with. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">The wound marks the gift. </span></i><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">*<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley got his swim
in the late afternoon sunshine. They all went in, Mason stripped off with them
without the faintest hesitation, and joined in taking it in turns to dive the
deeper stretch beyond the mine to search the river bed where they found no
shortage of pieces of quartz but no gold. He was a fairly strong swimmer,
although it was Riley and Jasper who could stay down the longest and search the
most efficiently. Luath made several good natured attempts and came up near Dale
after the last of them, coughing a little as he surfaced, and Dale steadied him
and waded with him towards the shallows where Luath sat down to get his breath,
leaning a hand on Dale for support. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m fine. Wow. I don’t do that enough
lately.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He actually looked in strong condition to
Dale, broad shouldered and solid with his skin streaming water, the deep
blue-black tones to his skin that were as beautiful as the depth of his even
voice. Relaxed. Smiling as he watched the others fooling around. He was going
to be one of those men who grew more good looking as he grew older, as the
bones in his face and his build continued to mature. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did Roger like to swim?” Dale asked a
little carefully, never sure if it was a subject Luath preferred to avoid, but
Luath’s smile deepened, a quiet but real warmth coming into his eyes that
wasn’t always there. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Once you got him in, yes. It took some
work, you had to get the book off him and hide it first, but yeah. He was good
for me. I got exercise finding ways to coax and harass him into doing anything
but read.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Less interested in diving, Gerry was
floating lazily in the shallows where Ash was sitting, elbows on his knees,
chest deep in the running water where the sun glittered off the surface,
smiling at something Gerry was saying. Dale blinked at the bright light of the
water, opening his mouth to say something impulsively that was at the front of
his mind although it made no sense whatever, and then hesitating. And then
deliberately and rather carefully he said it without looking back at Luath, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You never go to L.E. hell anymore?”<br />
<br />
Luath said nothing, but Dale saw his head turn and his face change. For an
awful minute Dale had no idea what he was thinking or whether he’d made a
serious mistake in saying it out loud, then aware that it was too late to
retract it now said hesitantly, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What <i>is</i>
L.E. hell?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Luath didn’t answer for a moment,
continuing to stare at Dale, then he glanced down at the river, his voice very
gentle. “Delhi. The Delhi Bell. It’s an Indian cafe, it was one of my favourite
places to eat, we used to go there a lot. Rog always called it Delhi hell
because it was a student kind of place, back street and noisy, always crazy busy.
He used to tease me about being too strait laced to go slumming it with him in
a place like that, but the food was amazing. No, I guess I haven’t been there
in years. Hadn’t thought of it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was no logical answer to that. Luath
leaned on the bank, his voice even more gentle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No one told you about that, did they? I
don’t know anyone else knows the place exists.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m so sorry, this happens.” Dale said
rather awkwardly, “I don’t mean-”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Luath put a big arm around his shoulders
and dropped a brief, firm kiss on his forehead, interrupting him. His dark eyes
were slightly blurry, but there was nothing reproachful or distressed about the
gesture and it was enough to understand what he meant. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You knew I was thinking about Rog, and
that’s a very nice memory, I hadn’t thought about it for a while. It’s good
timing. Maybe you need to just trust your instincts are right.”<br />
<br />
<i>The right word at the right time. And
faith. It really does work. <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Besides,” Luath said gently, “I always
heard your instincts were pretty sharp. Jeremy Banks has always sworn by them.
Did you know he used to call you his silver bullet?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?” Dale snapped off his train of
thought, startled, and Ash put a hand on his knee to brace himself as he slid
back into the water. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’d forgotten it, but I heard him say it
more than once. The solution he could rely on to fix any mess; just send you in
there to deal with it. Oh and the white knight.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Grey knight.” Dale corrected
automatically, familiar with the business terminology he’d been familiar with
since.... since his teens when he first began to suction in this kind of
information faster than he’d fully consciously processed. “It was always on ANZ
terms and in their interests.”<br />
<br />
Luath shook his head. “Banks always called you a white knight. You always
preserved the good and worthwhile, you were objective and you worked with a
company facing take over instead of wanting to grab and dissect for parts and
immediate gain. Banks said he had black knights everywhere, never a shortage of
them, but if he needed a white knight to do the right thing, know what was
salvageable and bring it in, it was you he sent.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like a piece on a chess board. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Like a prince, on an endless mission to
rescue the lost princess. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A numb, efficient campaign of years, unconsciously
done with service dedicated to a good man who had been good to him. <i>Even then I was looking for a strong man to
serve.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was an old word, with an older meaning,
specific to men and to the deepest concepts of manhood, the deepest and most
ancient values of men, and probably Tom and Paul would understand it properly,
they were the ones who knew and loved the stories and shared them with him. Dale
looked up at Luath’s face, which was kind and this was a man who loved Flynn,
who loved this land, who was .... more of his blood in some ways than anyone in
that house left in England. A few feet away those men were messing around in
the water, their voices in his ears, their presence immediately there, real,
stronger than anything else he’d ever known. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were far better, worthier campaigns
to dedicate your life to that weren’t numb at all, and it had taken him over
thirty years to discover it. Commitments that were so powerful, so emphatically
and shatteringly <i>good</i> that it was
hard to think clearly about them, and which were not based on cold logic or isolated
thought but from the fiercest and most powerful whole of you. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were a few
things to do before they went out to the town. In the last of the afternoon
light Dale carried out several of the preliminary tests privately with Riley
and Snickers and his watch, and as dusk set in they ate and set up the camp for
the night and banked the fire. Jasper quietly slipped his hand into Dale’s as
the others laid out their bedrolls and rinsed off cups and plates in the river,
guiding him away from the noise and the domesticity and the light of the fire,
and the chatter. The others didn’t really notice them leave; Jasper had the
gift of moving discreetly enough that you barely saw it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was much quieter and cooler out in the
pasture. A still night and a dry one, and some way out in the deep grass Jasper
drew Dale down to sit with him on the ground. He was still in his shirtsleeves,
the only one of them who hadn’t put on either a sweater or a jacket against the
growing chill of the evening, and as they sat down, he put up one hand to the
leather strip that bound his hair at the nape of his neck, pulling it free and
pocketing it so that his hair spilled down over his shoulders. It was the way
he did it that Dale understood; a clear change of state, a deliberate preparation
for something, in the same way as he sat cross legged on the ground, back
gracefully straight as always, his hands, lightly on his knees. The position in
which he cleared his mind, thought, and spoke most from the heart. Dale felt
for the rose quartz crystal in his pocket as he settled in the cold grass,
facing him. That was his own ritual of preparation, and it was becoming a
familiar one. Something Jasper had said on the hike, a belief from Jasper’s
heritage, had echoed a great deal in his mind all afternoon, and touching the
familiar rough and grainy planes of the crystal brought it back more strongly; <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
essence of those buried in the earth moves into the crystals, the stones, so
when you use them you have no means of knowing who or how many are helping you.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper had taught him the simple routine of
preparation, Dale had long since internalised it and it was automatic to take a
breath in and then let it go while letting all the tension in his body drop.
Golden light. In front of him, behind him. Above him. Below him. To the left of
him. To the right of him. The ritual was very calming and as he visualised it
he felt his mind clear, the sense of stepping slightly back from himself, of
stepping out of the river to watch it flow below him and around him without
touching him. Of being alert to everything, the scanning sensation he’d known
all of his working life, although never with this electric current of feeling
so alive, so aware and so present. And so intensely aware of the man in front
of him who was doing the same, his larger and long fingered hands loose on his
knees, his eyes lightly closed, his face lifted towards the sky. When Jasper
opened his eyes and put a hand out to lightly cover his, it was so intense a
touch it seemed to reach directly through his chest, searing and delicate all
at once. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ready?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If he let himself – and it wasn’t about
concentrating, it was quite the opposite, about letting go – there were sounds
from the direction of the town. Very far away as if in the far distance, but
wheels rattled on a street, men’s voices shouted in a long abandoned railway
yard where freight was being unloaded, a steam whistle blew for the end of a
mine shift that had finished decades ago.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do you hear that?” Dale asked him very
softly, and Jasper gave him a faint smile, still grasping his hand. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As they walked slowly towards the camp
together, Dale saw Jasper quietly slip his shirt over his head, fold it and
drop it on his bed roll, and despite the chill of the evening, he walked on
naked to the waist in just his jeans and boots. It made him look taller and harder
to see in the dark, as if he became a part of it, the shadows on the hard
planes of his chest and his flat torso, the wide blades of his shoulders; Luath
glanced over as they joined the others who were waiting for them, and Dale saw
his slight double take and Ash’s startled expression but neither Flynn, nor
Paul who walked closest to them as they started towards the town, showed the
faintest surprise and Riley, after one acute look, said nothing, but he walked
close to Jasper over the grass. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Somehow together
they had a subduing effect on the others. Possibly Jasper kept them a few steps
ahead, possibly Flynn or the others had spoken together and agreed to be quiet,
but there seemed to be no chatter now, nothing ordinary to break the mood as
they walked in a tight, quiet group of men through the night towards the
station on the silent main street on the edge of the town. Riley led Snickers
and Flynn led Leo, both horses snorting and snuffling softly as they paced the
rough grass on the far side of the rail track, opposite the station. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was dark, the first stars were becoming
visible overhead but it wasn’t hard to see. Standing on the line in front of
the old decaying station building and the platform, Riley looked at his watch,
pausing with one booted foot braced on the old, rusting rail. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s five to nine. So the Silver Bullet’s
in the station. Passengers on board, all freight loaded, waiting for the signal
to leave.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“She’s stood here a few hours.” Dale shut
his eyes for a moment, pulling all the data to the front of his mind. “She was
loaded up in daylight. It’s a long way between stations out here, and with the
mine, she’ll load up on coal while she’s here. So she’s taken on board water.
They’ve hand-loaded a truck full of coal. Maybe more. The crew have eaten.
Rested.”<br />
<br />
“Met up with Miss Sally-Ann Whoever at the Saloon upstairs.” Gerry said,
grinning. Ash dug him gently in the ribs and Luath shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Doubt it. James knew this town, he would
have known the saloon keeper like David did, and he always said this was a
respectable place.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And it’s pouring with rain.” Riley, with
his eyes on Dale’s face, ignored Gerry entirely. “Now what?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We wait until she leaves.” Dale turned up
his own watch, walking slowly along the line until he reached the very end of
the platform where the engine would have stood. “Ri, have Snickers ready.”<br />
<br />
Riley gathered up Snickers’ reins and pulled himself easily up into the saddle,
waiting for further instructions. Behind him, Flynn also quietly mounted Leo,
holding him with one hand, the other hand resting on his jeaned knee. Dale kept
his eyes on his watch, aware of the group of silent men standing in the dark
with him and the growing sense of excitement without quite understanding why. Night
after night for years, the Silver Bullet had stood right where they were at
this hour of the night, building up a head of steam in the darkness as her
fireman stoked her boiler high. Other dark shapes stood further behind them.
Old and rusted trucks, mouldering gently away where they’d been left...... and
behind one of them was a long, thin and sinister shape aimed directly up past
the mine, up towards the lower slopes of Dead Man’s Hill. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The jolt was sudden. A flashing sense of
looking down the barrel of a rifle, the familiar sense of the weight of a rifle
in his hands and the image of the boy drummer darting between the houses like a
rat. Dale looked sharply up towards the end of the town and glimpsed him. In
the red soldier jacket, with the tall hat and the drum around his neck, and the
young face that turned towards his in the darkness was white with fear and
tearstained. It was another second before Dale realised he could barely see the
detail of that face; the wave of fear and the sting of tears was a sensation he
felt in one sharp rush more than something he saw. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“They had a gun on him.” Dale said abruptly
to Jasper. “He was maybe eleven or twelve years old and one of them down here
had a gun trained on him.”<br />
<br />
“Who, hon?” Paul said softly, and from the tone of his voice Dale was suddenly
aware of how icy his own voice had sounded. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“One of the Connellys. They took the boy as
a hostage. One of the Connellys was over there behind the stock cars with the
boy in his gunsights the whole time. Another of the Connellys must have taken
him from here past the mine and up onto the hill ready to stop the train,
keeping him in line for a clear shot all the way. The child was terrified.”<br />
<br />
“So now we know why the town was co operating.” Flynn said grimly. “Bastards.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale looked down at his watch marking the
last few seconds. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Now. The station master would be on the
platform waiting. The whistle blows. The flag is shown. She’s cleared to go.
Ri?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley touched Snickers into a slow walk
forward along the rails as they walked beside him, Flynn bringing Leo on the
far side and a little behind them like an outrider. The locomotive would have
been on high steam in the station. Noisy. There would have been clouds of
steam, the fireman and driver had speed to gain by the time they reached the
hill. At Dale’s signal Riley touched Snickers into a trot, gathering speed
gradually, and as Dale called again at the foot of the hill, Snickers broke
into a canter, curving ahead of them up the track. They began to leave the town
behind, moving on into the silence of the open pasture and the hill. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“So where’s the kid?” Gerry said as the
hill began to steepen. Snickers was still just visible ahead of them, cantering
steadily, and then abruptly he screamed and reared and Riley caught him and
turned him rapidly, gathering him in. Jasper was visible ahead of him, bare
chested, his hair loose in the moonlight, stood like a statue on the old rail.
Dale hadn’t seen him leave them down at the station, nor move to position
himself ahead of them on the hill, but Jasper had known the exact spot, and a
little further up the hill behind Jasper for a second he saw a young boy in
uniform looking straight at him, his jacket glowing a soft, luminous and
ghostly green that lit his face and the bare hands holding the drumsticks,
silently beating his muffled drum. David had known exactly how the trick
worked; it was still a shock to see it suddenly in the darkness, even in one
brief glimpse and knowing it was nothing more than a staged trick. The train
crew on a dark and rainy night must have found it terrifying to see coming at
them out of the night. The boy in his ethereal uniform, sent out to perform his
familiar prank which to a boy that age must have seemed like a good game when
he played it for the moonshine runners, would have walked in terror that night,
knowing that down at the foot of the hill a gun was trained on him and ready to
fire if he did not do exactly as he was told. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Here.”
Jasper said aloud, putting a hand out to soothe Snickers. “The boy was
sent to walk out and meet the train here. The train hit the brakes. She might
have struggled on a bit further, but she’s losing speed all the time now.”<br />
<br />
“By the calculations I can make with the gradient, she would finally slow to a stop
about here.” Letting the sight of that luminous green child go with an effort, Dale
walked on a few steps further and dug his heel into the turf, finding the spot
he’d marked there before. “If she doesn’t have the momentum to go further, then
the driver has to let her reach the point of a complete halt before he can
reverse back down to the station to rebuild a head of steam and try again. So we
have some seconds of slow walking pace, and a period of standing still before
he begins the reverse. And they’re shaken, they’ve just seen the ghost on Dead
Man’s hill. Ri, with me walking alongside you at this pace, could you pass a
crate to me?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, easily.” Riley confirmed from Snickers’
saddle. “But not fifty crates.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale ignored that, indicating the angle of
the track. “Keep in mind again, this is a dark, rainy night. She’s a long train
on a steep curve, and the driver doesn’t have clear sight of anything much more
than a car or two back. So once she’s stopped, he’s going to back her down
slowly, she already doesn’t have much purchase on the rails. More time moving
at walking pace along this section. Now look where we are.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The woods.” Mason commented, nodding to
the side of them. “Like you’ve said. That’s convenient.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
“But it’s fifty crates.” Riley pointed out. “And the Silver Bullet’s going to
stop for how long? Thirty seconds? She’ll move slowly enough to lift things off
for maybe what, another minute? How are you going to shift that much in one
go?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There would be only one way I can think of.” Dale admitted.
“It’s not an exact calculation even if you adjust for the weather, weight,
load, the uneven ground, and adjust for human stress and agitation affecting
performance, but one man here and ready in the dark as soon as the driver’s
passed, walking at average human pace and probably hurrying-”<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Probably? During a train robbery? You
think?” Riley said to him. Dale came over to him, detaching from Snickers’
saddle the four heavy saddle bags he had filled in the stables this morning
before they rode out. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is the approximate weight of a
crate.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Approximate?” Riley dug a hand into one of
the saddle bags and pulled out a couple of small but solid rocks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ten bottles per crate, old glass, one
bottle weighs about three pounds, twelve ounces,” Dale told him. “I checked.
Ten bottles, thirty eight pounds and a little over five and a half ounces,
essentially two and a half stone. With the additional weight of the wooden
crate they were using per ten bottles, just under three stone.”<br />
<br />
“Because we can’t possibly just guess.” Riley said to Paul. “That would be
ridiculous.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale held the bags out to Mason, who was
nearest. “Mason, take these from here to the edge of the woods, fast stride,
put it down and run back.” He turned up his watch and Riley saw him click the
stop-watch button. “Go.”<br />
<br />
Mason took the saddle bags and covered the rough grass easily, walking at a
swift stride, swung the saddle bags down to the grass just behind the tree line
and jogged back to them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Fifteen seconds.” Dale told him. “Call it
fifteen to twenty with a heavier load, bad weather, poor visibility, and doing
it under pressure. So in that minute and a half that Silver Bullet is either
stationary or moving at walking pace, one man could clear approximately four
crates at the very most. To clear fifty crates within that ninety second time
frame is going to need a minimum of thirteen men doing the carrying, and a
minimum of six men, probably more, in the car handing the crates down to them.”<br />
<br />
“So you think there was a team of at least nineteen men – probably more –
hiding in the woods to get the crates off the train that night.” Mason said
wryly. “Seriously?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“How about a whole town of people?” Dale
retrieved the saddlebags from the tree line, taking out the rocks to drop in
the grass. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The meeting in the saloon.” Paul said to
him. Dale nodded, an eye still on his watch on the dark hillside. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes. My guess is that when the train
reached the point of slowing, someone was already on board her – perhaps
climbed up onto the roof as she left, or was sitting in a carriage and walked
back through the train to the goods vans – and they opened the compartment door
and a lot of people got on board here. A lot more people were waiting in the
woods in the dark, and the crates were shifted by a lot of hands, very fast. It
would have been easy. It’s a dark night. It’s raining, the visibility is poor.
Easy for people to quietly walk the back paths and streets out of town and
gather up in the woods the same way in the newspapers they used to gather up
for picnics and ballgames together every weekend, they assembled up here in the
woods and they waited for the train. And when she stopped and the doors opened,
they whipped the whole lot off and out of sight in under two minutes. By the
time the passenger cars and the driver passes this spot reversing down, there’s
nothing left for him to see. No one in sight, they’re gone.”<br />
<br />
“Which leaves the Connellys waiting down there by the station to get into a now
empty compartment.” Mason pointed out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale gave him a dry nod. “Yes. While the
crates are being spirited away, what I suspect is a small but effective faction
of some of the fittest men in the town, including David, are left in the empty
compartment, and they close the door and ride the train back down into the
station. When the train reaches the station and the Connellys open the
door....”<br />
<br />
<i>And the door slid open on men grinning in
the dark, men who leapt at the openers of the door. <o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“They get one hell of a surprise.” Mason
said with satisfaction. “I get it.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What do you think they did to the
Connellys?” Riley demanded. Luath answered, sounding rather grim. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“If David knew they had a gun held on a
child, I think we probably don’t want to know.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I have no idea, except that I suspect they
enjoyed it.” Dale said with conviction. “The evidence is that the Connellys
turned up in another town unharmed, they carried on their criminal career so it
wasn’t anything too dreadful, but we know they were never recorded as being found
in Wyoming again.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And on his way home, David shoves the
phosphorus jacket in a bag and stuffs it down a rabbit hole under a tree by the
river, expecting it to rot away there.” Riley finished for him. “Evidence gone.
The Connellys gone. Moonshine gone. There’s nothing left for the police to
find. No wonder they were ticked off. Just a whole town full of people looking
innocent.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Except for fifty crates of moonshine now stacked
up here in the woods?” Luath pointed out. “What did they do with it? That’s a
lot. A lot of bottles, a lot of boxes to hide with the police poking around....?”<br />
<br />
“We know where they took it....” Riley began, looking at Dale. Dale took his
eyes off his watch. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ninety seconds. The train’s heading back
down to the station and David’s on board. The Connellys are ready to get on the
train down there in the station. The train’s been stopped and it’s reversing
back, they’ll have let the kid go, they think it’s all over. I told you, there’s
a whole town of people in the woods. Walk this way.”<br />
<br />
“What about the horses?” Flynn said quietly. Dale started down the bank ahead
of them with utter certainty. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Bring the horses.”<br />
<br />
Even in the dark he knew where they would be. They had found them during the
hike; something that every miner in the town would have known, that the
children who played in the woods would have known, wide enough to take carts
down, horses down.... Riley felt the first of them beneath his feet and paused,
kicking to find the dimensions of it and his voice lifted with excitement. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Steps! There’s steps cut right here!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The miners’ steps. We found them on the
hike.” Dale indicated the direction with both hands. “Straight down, guess
where they lead?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“How far do they go down?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“All the way.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Booted
feet rang on them. Carts trundled. Voices were lifted and happy and excited,
torches flared in the woods where no one could see, there was a whole town
here.... </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">Dale glanced over to catch Riley’s eye,
saw his grin in the darkness, and turned with him. And gathering speed, they
jogged together directly down them, absolutely safely on the old stone even in the
dark, with Snickers trotting after them. Somewhere in that glorious run down
the steep, broad steps Dale heard Riley’s whoop in the darkness, a yell that
sounded like <i>olly olly oxen free! </i> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were figures walking on the steps,
figures who smiled as they flashed by. Two children pulling a wooden truck on
wheels together, filled with bottles who were laughing. A man leading a mule
with two crates strapped to its back. A woman with a pram with bottles inside
walked with an elderly woman with a basket of bottles, a man with a crate on
his shoulder..... streams of people with torches, who had worked together in
hushed delight like some complicated children’s game combined with a community
picnic in the woods. The boy in the phosphorus jacket hanging open, his hat
gone, the drumsticks loose in his hands, grinning as he caught Dale’s eye with
the cheeky grin of a kid. Dark haired, the bones of his face were familiar. A Shoshone
boy, his teeth very white. Riley dodged past them unseeing, but all of them
looked up and smiled; they remembered this night well and it was with pleasure.
And the steps ended at the bottom of a bank that Riley jogged straight up,
pausing at the top to dig with his heel for the wooden trap door. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Out of breath, Dale knelt on the mulch and
old leaves to brush them aside. A new trapdoor was there; it didn’t surprise
him. He suspected Flynn, but someone had fitted new wood, with new and gleaming
steel bolts, and Dale slid them aside and Riley helped him lift back the trap
door as the others reached the foot of the steps behind them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What’s this?” Mason said, looking with
interest at the trapdoor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Something else only the people living in
the town would have known about.” Riley grabbed his penknife from his pocket
and shone the torch beam down into the tunnel below. “The ladder’s sound, it’s
perfectly safe, go look.”<br />
<br />
“And the tunnel’s safe.” Flynn said bluntly behind them. “I got rid of every
broken or breaking bottle and cleaned it out, there’s no fumes down there now.
Probably the old trapdoor rotting and leaking and letting damp in caused the
bottles to ferment in the first place.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No more drunk sheep then?” Ash’s voice
said somewhere in the dark. “That’s a relief.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
Mason knelt to look and then climbed down the ladder, disappearing into the
dark, and one by one they followed until Riley, the last of them, dropped to
the ground and led the way to the stack of old wooden crates stacked against
the wall. He lifted the top of one and they heard the clank of a bottle, then
the gleam of dark orange glass as Riley shone the torch on it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Here they are.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“These are the crates from the train?”
Mason demanded. He sounded awed and Dale saw Gerry lean by him, picking up a
bottle with equal care and respect. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good grief, they’re still in perfect
condition. That’s amazing, they’ve sat here all this time?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The whole lot was just disappeared into
the ground.” Riley said with satisfaction. “The Connellys never knew where it
went. The police never found it. The people of Three Traders never came near
the stuff again – not safe to have it in the town when the town’s being
watched, and they probably never wanted to see it again- and it got forgotten.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And it’s all still here.” Paul ran a
wondering hand over the crates. “It works, doesn’t it? A whole town, they just
disappeared the stuff away in the dark.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What is this place?” Mason, who had pulled
out his own penknife, shone the beam over the small steam train on the rail
behind them, and whistled in awe. “What’s this? Good grief, what else is hidden
in here?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We think it was a siding.” Riley watched
Ash lean beside him, examining the little open cabin of the train. “The engine
must have been used for bringing coal to loading points or back to the mine or
the main line once, the other two mine shafts aren’t far from here. When she
wasn’t needed any more, they just bricked up the entrance. The miners would
have known about her, and about the access hatch.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And David never mentioned this to anyone?”
Luath said somewhat darkly. Gerry’s voice snorted. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You know exactly what he was like for
secrets and stashing things away, of course he didn’t. Except maybe to Philip.
Why brick it up?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“It was a common Victorian strategy for
unused engineering.” Dale said absently. “Waste not want not. If it’s bricked
up, it’s out of sight but still there in good storage condition if you want it
again later.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That was David’s philosophy in a
nutshell.” Luath said dryly. Dale felt Luath’s arm wrap around his shoulders,
pulling him over against a much larger and warmer body. “You’re shivering.
Let’s get out of here, it’s like a fridge.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> They
walked the horses with them back up the steps through the now quiet woods, the
stars growing brighter and crisper above the canopy of the leaves all the time.
Their breath was beginning to steam in front of them as the night grew colder.
Boots crunching on the crisp leaves they walked up the bank and emerged out of
the tree line onto the pasture beside the old and rusted rails of the railway
line, and it was there that Dale felt and heard it; a sudden body blow of sound
and scorching air and draught as something huge ripped past them in the
darkness at high speed just inches away. There was nothing to see; nothing at
all, but the blast of air was so sharp he staggered, breathing the
unmistakeable hot and acrid smell of coal steam, and with it came the sharp and
deafening blast of a train whistle. His reel backwards sent him crashing into
someone behind; hands grasped his shoulders and steadied him and Dale knew
instantly it was Jasper. Both the horses reared, Gerry’s voice, shocked, swore
in the darkness, Mason’s voice just as sharp snapped something that was
somewhere between a profanity and a prayer that was as awed as it was vehement,
Riley’s eyes were wide and his mouth was open and Paul’s stunned face turned
towards his but his eyes were alive with delight. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">*<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was impossible to sleep after that. No
one seemed to say much but Dale lay on his bed roll with Riley next to him and
Flynn on his other side, aware that both of them were awake and that Riley was
staring up at the sky. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It took a long time for the fire to die down,
and longer for anyone to fall asleep. Somewhere in the hours afterwards that
Dale lay and listened to the night in the pasture around them, he heard Mason’s
breathing even out and soften, and one by one the others joined him until it
was very quiet in the open land beneath the stars. The whole sky was lit with
them when he heard the soft movement of boots on the grass and glanced up to
see Jasper, still shirtless, who had been sitting silently on the far side of
the fire, his elbows on his knees, looking into the flames. Jasper saw him stir
and paused where he was on the grass, waiting. Giving the courtesy of time for
Dale to reach his own decision. Dale felt softly for his boots, got up and
padded barefoot out into the pasture some distance from the others before he
pulled them on. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They walked together down to the softly
babbling river that whispered as it ran endlessly through the night. Jasper
followed the bank downstream for some way through the grass that swished around
their ankles, moving further from the town and from the thin smoke pillar rising
into the sky that showed where the others slept. Where the river widened and
heavy boulders made a grey beach, Jasper walked out onto the furthest of the
boulders and crouched on the edge, putting a hand down to the water. Hands deep
in his pockets Dale watched him, the way his hair flowed over his shoulders,
the arched line of his spine, long and graceful. Jasper rose unhurriedly to his
feet and took off his boots, then his jeans, standing naked for a moment above
the water before he quietly crouched and slipped himself over the edge of the
boulder, entering silently with the grace of an otter, making barely a splash
to disturb the flow. Dale came to the edge of the boulder, crouching to watch
him stand, chest deep in the rushing, icy water, facing the oncoming current so
it washed over him and past him, hearing his voice repeating something softly,
not in English. The surface of the water whitened as it ran in eddies around
the rocks in mid river, the current twisting and curling it in the moonlight
around the man so quietly within it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale knelt where he was on the rock and
watched the river with him, and heard the quiet splash of water the multiple
times that Jasper lifted it to his face and to his head. Something men on this
land had done in this water for centuries before either of them were born.
Something the rocks and the woods had seen before the town grew on the hill, or
the mine was dug, in the days when the gold washed freely down through the rivers,
unwanted and undisturbed. The breeze softly rustled the leaves of the trees
beyond the bank, the air smelled of fresh water, of grass and earth, and the
rock was rough beneath his knee, cold and textured beneath his hand. Powerfully
sensory. Powerfully real. It overwhelmed what would be, if he allowed it, a
rush of words and thoughts and internal noise that would stifle both this peace
and this certainty, and following Jasper’s example Dale laid his palm more
firmly on the stone, letting his mind clear and be aware of nothing except the
reality of what was here. What was now, what was around him. And then he rose
and quietly, not to intrude on the thoughts of the man in the water, and
deliberately, to be fully present and there in what he did, undressed. Taking
off the outer layers of clothes to let the night air touch his skin, all of him.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Feeling the intensity of bared feet on the
rock, the vulnerability of removing the last few items that stripped him
completely to the night air, to feel the touch of the wind and the light drops
of the water as the river rolled past. He put his clothes aside and stood there
for a while, looking up into the sky above the trees where the bright stars
touched the darkness, high and clear touches of light in their ancient
patterns. Then as Jasper had done, he sat down on the rock and slid into the
water gently. Softly as an animal would, his breath torn out of his lungs at
the ice of the water that flooded over him. The shock of it was for a moment
painful. And then within a few seconds the shock began to fade, his body began
to accustom and he felt the steady pulse of the current against his chest, all
through his body, the wash and rush of the energy of it flowing against every
inch of him, around him, past him. It was like standing in a flow of pure
oxygen. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper had completed the ritual. Dale stood
aside long enough to be sure, to know for certain, and Jasper turned to him.
Saying nothing. His eyes very gentle, neither inviting nor suggestion because
Jasper wouldn’t. He wouldn’t pressure even that much, and there was an intense
gentleness to it that was so very much Jasper. Dale swallowed on the rush of
emotion that raised, and instead waded slowly towards him, pausing in the water
directly in front of him to put a hand very lightly on Jasper’s chest where the
droplets of water were slowly running down. Taller, longer in every bone, Dale had
to lift his head to meet Jasper’s eyes which were liquid in the darkness, deep
and very soft with an expression in them so warm that it stole the rest of
Dale’s breath. He raised his hands, running his palms lightly not over Dale’s
skin or physically touching him at all, but passing over what Dale had learned
from him as the energy that stood out beyond his body, the unseen extension of
him, in a delicate pass over his face, over his head, a gesture as fluid as it
was beautiful as he bent his head to find Dale’s mouth. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There had been dreams about this.
Fantasies, which if Dale was honest, had been gently touching the back of his
mind for months about just how it would feel to taste Jasper’s mouth like this,
what Jasper’s familiar and skilled hands would feel like on his skin doing this
...... those thoughts had always raised excitement in him combined with utter
apprehension, but the answer was wonderfully that Jasper always touched him in
exactly this way just in a more subtle version, whether he was massaging or
even merely handing him a cup. And nothing with him was unfamiliar or raised
the faintest tension because this was as much a part of Jasper as anything else
he did. With Flynn, Dale was still learning and loving the lessons, but what he
was certain of was that with Flynn this was something powerfully physical just
as Flynn was physical in everything; just the thought of Flynn’s hands on him
tended to make Dale start reflexively needing to think of Black-Scholes
formulas to be able to remain at all sensible, and Flynn liked to hold. To be
close, to see your eyes, to place you exactly where he wanted you, it was
always a physical conversation with him and it could be playful or it could be
breath-stealingly serious depending on both their moods with a whole spectrum
in between. They were both intense people and it was something Dale had no hesitation
at all in encouraging him in with a lot more enthusiasm than was probably
dignified. With Riley..... it was relaxed and wonderfully easy and Riley liked
to talk and touch and tended to laugh a lot. He found fun in it that was
utterly contagious and something that Dale had never previously known existed,
and the act was always as sweet tempered, affectionate and as deftly uncomplicated
as Riley was. With Jasper...... Jasper was deeply gentle and unhurried, the
strength in his hands very tangible but something you sensed more than felt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Between the ice of the water and the compelling
heat of Jasper’s mouth sensitively exploring his, Dale found it hard to breathe
or think about anything much. The stars in the sky faded, the boulders and
grass on the bank faded, there was only Jasper and equal measure of hot and
cold sensation. The water was electric, every nerve ending popped and crackled.
The quiet of the night and the soft babbling of the river disappeared behind
the roar of the blood starting to charge through him. He barely registered the
change from freezing water to the still faintly warm boulders where they paused
a moment to regain their breath. Jasper's hands were rubbing deeply over his
shoulders, running water off and pulling warmth back into the skin. Dale did
the same for Jasper, though his hands kept drifting down over the hard and
smooth planes of Jasper's hips, before reaching behind and pulling gently on
the softer skin there. He wasn’t sure which of them made the first move down to
the grass, only that it was Jasper’s hand under his back that slowed and
controlled the impact, and Dale put his hands up to capture Jasper’s dark head
and draw him down so that Jasper’s body covered his. As Dale continued to rub
and massage, he didn't need light to see what he was touching, his fingers drew
their own map. The tanned, smooth skin over sinewy muscles, the darkness of the
hair that had slipped wet over his shoulders, the tendrils tickling Dale's body
where they touched him. The golden ring that glinted on Jasper’s finger was a sign
to the rest of them and to the rest of the world, one of the five. But here and
now in the dark, in this place, this most singular man was most definitely his
and his alone, at least in the middle of this ineffable night. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Strong, long
fingers. Soft, gentle, massaging the
muscles beneath the skin in the same way he could carve things out of wood, able
to see what was underneath and call it forth. This man saw and sensed with his
hands, he was entirely and consciously present in time and in place and in his
hands like this there was no difficulty in understanding how he rooted himself
in the richness of the earth beneath them, the sky over them, the water beside
them. He was of all of them. His eyes
were dark, liquid, intensely gentle above Dale’s and they gazed directly in to
his because to Jasper this was a very different kind of merging, a touching of
something greater than physical, something that was more powerful than his long,
cool and powerful legs between Dale’s, or his palms that were pressed against
the grass, against the ground, while Jasper moved slowly, gracefully in Dale’s
hands. He could do this as beautifully and as agonisingly slowly and firmly and
deeply as he could massage; Dale, who knew his hands well, knew this as deeply
as he knew Jasper’s face, his quiet breathing, the deft and slender sureness of
his body, and he found himself reaching his own hands to Jasper’s face, holding
him there as gently as Jasper moved with him, cradling the wonder of that
expression and the warmth in his eyes. Beyond his hands, just barely, he could
see something he had seen once before. The faintest shimmer of something that
surrounded not just his hands, but both of them. As if the energy of his body
and the energy of Jasper’s not merely just touched together, but combined.
Became one living entity that surrounded and enclosed them both. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/chapter-24-ranch.html"> Continue on to Chapter 24</a></span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</span></b></span></div>
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-21431411299434872732015-09-24T16:46:00.003-07:002015-11-12T13:54:00.687-08:00Chapter 24 - Ranch <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-size: large;">24</span></div>
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When<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> Jasper pulled
the ninth trout from the river, Mason glanced over, then reeled his line in.
Dale waded back to the shore, wet from above the knees down in the thin early
morning sunshine, and Mason took one of the fish from the bank, crouching and
pulling one of the stable pocket knives from his pocket to gut it over the
running water. Dale took another, working alongside him, aware that Mason now
picked up one of the knives every morning from the stables by habit. There was
no wincing or delicacy in the efficient way he cleaned the fish. The changes in
him came so gradually that they were easy to miss, but Dale could remember the
hour and the day of most of them.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">His back was slightly stiff and his
shoulders a little sore this morning; he hadn’t noticed at all at the time but
he suspected he would find a few grass and rock grazes there when he next
showered. And they made him have to swallow, aware his mouth was twisting
helplessly up into a distinctly giddy smile as he thought about them, because
even feeling like a teenager with a hickey – and that was yet another stage he
had completely missed out on at the time - they were a mark of something too
good to have words for. It was easy this morning to feel protective towards
Mason, to be able to move from a personal sense of deep inner warmth and
stability because if you had it, it became so easy to share it.... Jasper had taught him that too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“How is the paper going?” he asked quietly
enough for Mason to ignore if he wanted to. Mason grimaced at the fish in his
hands, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“I haven’t worked this hard since I was in
fourth grade. The thing is,” he went on after a while, quietly but with the
jocularity Dale was starting to recognise, “I know Jasper. I could write all
aspirational stuff like a good boy. I’ve written bullshit documents for years,
I write brilliant ones. I make a living by it. And if I try that on him he’ll
just smile and hand it back and I can go right on shifting damn rocks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">He was right. Mason went back to working on
the fish, his voice a little lighter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And if I did try that, then ok it would be
a load of crap and I wouldn’t be ready to quit with the rocks. Which sucks, but
yeah, I get it. You know this place changes you without you realising it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh it does.” Dale found himself saying
quietly and with utter conviction. “It really does.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mason didn’t look up from his fish but his
face had softened. “I think sometimes about how much I’ve done since I got
here, and it’s only been a few weeks. Just a few weeks, but you know something?
I’m never in my life going to forget some of this stuff. Riding. Building
fires. Fishing. Sleeping out and hiking, that was wild, I’d never do that in my
normal life. Never would have tried it. Climbing that canyon. Three Traders.
Last night. Sheesh. That was <i>wild</i>.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He paused for a moment and Dale knew he’d
felt that blast of air and heard that whistle like the rest of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“This town’s an amazing place, I’ll never
forget camping down here as long as I live. Serious.” Mason sat back on his heels,
looking down at his hands. “I mean look at me. Covered in fish guts, wet,
covered in muck from the corral, muddy- half the time I don’t even notice it
now, it’s normal. And the stupid thing? I realised it on the hike. The really <i>stupid</i> thing is I keep finding despite
all the muck and the rocks and the damn paper writing, even with the damn paper
writing, I feel <i>good</i>. I keep finding
myself having fun, which is crazy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“When no one’s ever made you this angry, or
pushed you this hard before.” Dale said with comprehension. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“Or called you on your crap every time you
try to dish it.” Mason said ruefully. “Hell, not even my mom is that good. And I haven’t had a bedtime since I was like
ten. But the really weird part? I still want a drink. Oh I want a drink,
whenever things get rough the first thing I think is I could murder a double
scotch. But I stood there last night in amongst all that moonshine, and I
thought - if you gave me one of those bottles, I wouldn’t drink it. I don’t
know why.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale rinsed his knife and closed it, pocketing it, and
letting the thought come out of his mouth without hesitation. “That’s bullshit,
you know exactly why. You just don’t want to admit it. I keep seeing you do
this, Mason. You bitch and you moan, and say you don’t care, and then you dig
in anyway and do a damn good job. Why are you still trying to pretend you’re an
arse? You’re not fooling me.” <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">And
that’s Riley coming straight out of my mouth</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">, he
added to himself, hoping it was a good enough imitation; he personally had never
known Riley to get people wrong. Mason looked a bit pole axed. Dale leaned a
hand on Mason’s shoulder to get up, collecting fish as Jasper waded up river
towards them, his stomach beginning to curl in rather delicious ways at the
sight of him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">They took the cleaned fish back to the fire
where the others were assembling for breakfast and Dale knelt to help Paul
split them and drop them into the two skillets ready and heating over the
crackling fire. Mason went abruptly to his belongings rummaged through his
pack, yanked out his notebook and came to join them, thrusting it out to
Jasper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Jas. Put me out my misery man, please. I
can’t wait any longer on this.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“Want to go somewhere more private?” Jasper
invited. Mason shook his head rather wryly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“It’s no secret, is it? I’ve been hanging
all this out in public since the day I got here.”<br />
<br />
“Who among us hasn’t, darling?” Gerry reassured him. Luath brushed off his
hands, giving him a friendly smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“Well Jasper for a start. Paul. Ash. Me-“<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry pulled a horrible face at him. “Oh shut up, don’t you get bored of being so
perfect?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mason smiled, although his eyes were on
Jasper crouching to read thoughtfully through the sheets of paper in his hand.
Gerry gave Mason a compassionate look, flopping down in the grass on his back
beside Ash and trailing his fingers affectionately down Ash’s back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“You know, Ash had a try at getting me to
write essays at one point? It never went well, I used to get into more of a
state about what to write than I did about the reason I was writing it in the
first place.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes, and Roger always said that was just a
long game on your part to get out of doing it.” Luath observed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Ash smiled and Gerry laughed. Flynn
stretched out full length on his side on the grass close beside Dale, propped
himself up on one elbow and picked a strand of grass to tear between his
fingers. He was clean shaven, wet haired from a brief and efficient wash in the
river which made him look fit and vital and ready for action, and he smelled wonderfully
of shaving soap, leather and grass. Still in a distinctly sensitive state, Dale
couldn’t help putting a hand back to find him, doing nothing more than rub
whichever part of Flynn came first to hand with the familiar feel of the muscle
and bone and warmth that belonged to him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">That was another far too intoxicating
thought and it was hard work to keep his eyes off Jasper, and Paul and Riley in
turn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Do you usually get nervous around work
presentations Mason?” he asked with a definite effort to sound together. And
not thinking about things that had no place at all at breakfast when you had no
business being higher than a kite. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“No.” Mason said frankly. “Not at all,
never have. I haven’t sweated over anything like this in years. I did good in
school, I did good in college. I win. That’s what I do, I don’t usually run
into picky bastards like you lot. I still don’t believe you freaking <i>demoted </i>me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Dale glanced over at Flynn’s face to see
the expression there, and read it without difficulty. It was discreet in his
eyes as he watched Mason, the strongest emotions rarely reached his mouth, but
it was gentle. A similar expression was in Riley’s face as he sat down beside
Paul on the grass; not sympathy, but real and wholehearted understanding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“How old were you when your dad left,
Mason?” Dale said on impulse, not fully sure why he was saying it. Mason
glanced over at him, a slightly brittle look. He was trying hard not to watch
Jasper reading the paper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“……. Thirteen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">The summer he was thirteen; Dale knew it as
clearly as if he’d said it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“Did you stay in touch with him?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mason shook his head, lip curling slightly
which said as much as his tone. “No.”<br />
<br />
“You were the one left to look after your mother and sister.” Flynn said
quietly, and his tone was one Dale recognised, the gruff and deep kindness that
seeped warmth into your bones. “Lucky for them you were a good student, a
strong achiever.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">There was a sudden sense of doors slamming,
several doors, the sounds of raised voices, a tidal wash of bitterness and hot
tears and a basketball being slammed again and again for hours against a hoop
on a garage somewhere in the dark; the rush of emotion passed through him and
faded again. Dale felt the steady thud of the ball as much as heard it, but he
knew it wasn’t with his ears that he heard.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB">How
does a strong, bright thirteen year old make the world go his way when he’s
afraid and left to be the man responsible for his family? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB">With
the only skills he’s got to play adult games. Demanding. Bullying. Looking big.
Whining. Manipulating. Winning at any cost. </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">Dale’s
heart went out to him in that moment of total comprehension, seeing exactly
what Flynn saw and understanding it with some of the deepest and most painful
parts of his own memories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Kids
are strong. And loyal. And they’re the unsubtle, un-distilled version of the
adult before they’ve learned what to hide and disguise. They do what they have
to. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And adults just carried on more subtle,
socially acceptable versions of the strategies they’d learned kept them alive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB">“Who
tells you to be good?”</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> Flynn had asked Mason that
night when Mason couldn’t sleep, a phrase that to Mason was a strong trigger,
and it was obvious now who. It was probably the last thing his father said to
him as he walked out of the door. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You’ve done a good job with this, Mason.”
Jasper said without looking up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mason tore up a couple of blades of grass
and twisted them in his fingers, brusquer and not looking at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I just want you to know, yeah, I was
screwing around, wasting my time and yours, and I won’t do it again. Not just
because I’m gonna get through to the end of this freaking ‘programme’ and ace
it because I can learn how to make a damn bow drill and handle a damn cow, I’m
a damn CEO for pete’s sake and you don’t scare me. But. You’re decent people,
you try to help, and you don’t deserve to be screwed over. So don’t think I’m
promising you to be a ‘good boy’; I’m not. I don’t know how much I really buy
into all this stuff. I’m just willing to give it a fair hearing and I am going
to quit drinking. That’s it for now.”<br />
<br />
“I respect that.” Jasper closed the
notebook and handed it gently back to him. “Well done Mason. You’ve earned back
the privileges of the next level. You can ride out and work along with us from tomorrow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And then?” Mason said rather shortly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Those privileges will stay as long as they
go on being earned. Over the next few days we’ll talk about what your next
writing assignment will be-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“<i>Another</i>
one? Oh man- ” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And,” Jasper carried on, unmoved, “you can
start work on that when you’re ready.”<br />
<br />
Mason gave him a long, fulminating look. “... are you seriously going to make
me write an assignment for every level?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes. That seems to work for you.” Jasper
said calmly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Mason gave him a hard look that wasn’t
wholly unimpressed. “You’re one hard son of a bitch, you know that?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Why don’t you go take a walk if you need
one, and get it out of your system?” Jasper suggested quietly. “Take some time.
And then we’ll talk.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yeah, because that’s more ‘<i>respectful’</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“That’s right.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It gained him another hard glare, but after
a moment Mason shoved to his feet, and Luath dropped a friendly and quietly
approving hand on his shoulder as he got up. Mason walked away towards the town
without looking back, but Dale had seen that stalk done with a lot more anger
and purpose than Mason was using now. No one else around the fire said
anything, either critical or sympathetic, and Dale knew many of them had been
there themselves. Philip had not been exactly easy with Gerry or Flynn. Flynn
had not been exactly easy with him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“If you want a mentor for that kid when he
goes back to work, I’ll do it.” Luath said when Mason was out of earshot. “I’d
be glad to. He’s got a lot of guts, Mason. He’s well worth the effort.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“I like him too.” Gerry said comfortably from his position in the grass. “He’s
quite a sweetheart when he’s not waving his dick and bawling his head off-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luath leaned over and swatted Gerry very
accurately and soundly enough that Gerry yelped and the swat rang on tight
denim. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m done with the crudity.” Luath told
Gerry in no uncertain terms. “There’s been way too much of it around me lately,
and if you were looking for a reaction then sunshine, you got one. Quit it.
Now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Sorry.” Gerry said it unusually sincerely
and penitently, rolling a little further on his side to see Luath’s face. Luath
held the glare on him for a moment before his face softened and he went back to
drinking tea. Beside Gerry, Ash hadn’t so much as blinked or looked round. It
made Dale realise again, anyone marrying into this family fully understood the
strength of the links between those among them who had lived together. They
joked about it, they called themselves the ‘in laws; but they all got it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You don’t need to push, I’m not that
depressed.” Luath added more mildly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Not now you’re not.” Flynn said bluntly.
Luath snorted, but smiled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yeah, shut up.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry settled back on the grass and rubbing
rather ruefully at his hip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You have a <i>hard</i> hand, I’d forgotten.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Stop worrying.” Luath told him. “And you
can tell Darcy to stop worrying too, if he’s egging you on.”<br />
<br />
“He’s not; we’re not checking emails.” Ash said matter of factly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“It’s like living in a bubble,” Gerry
complained mildly, “I have no idea what’s going on out there or what any of
them are doing. Are you heading back to New York?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The question was asked in the same
flippant, casual tone but Luath answered it gently, hearing the same anxiety in
it that Dale did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“No, I don’t think so. I’m doing better out
here, and I think I need to be around ‘us’ a while longer.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You do.” Gerry said flatly. “You really
do. Not alone in NY with Darce. You get way too Toppish around Darce.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I don’t at all.” Luath said firmly. “But
if I’m not in the way I’m planning to hang out here another good month.”<br />
<br />
“This is your home. You’re not a visitor, you live here.” Paul pointed out,
“You all do. You come and you go whenever you feel like it, and for what it’s
worth I agree Luath, you need to be here. If Darcy wants to be sure you’re ok
then he knows where you are, we’re not short of beds and it’ll be great to see
him too.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
*</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luath
drove Gerry and Ash into Jackson to catch their plane that afternoon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It wasn’t an easy goodbye for Gerry. He and
Ash went out with the others to do the stock work, he’d come home in dusty and
muddy jeans and boots, showered... and he emerged from the bathroom a good deal
quieter, in city clothes that he looked rather lost in. Out in the yard by the
waiting car, Dale returned his very tight hug with a great deal of emotion,
understanding this man very differently to the way he had when they first met
and aware that Gerry’s embrace was wholehearted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was very hard to phrase without sounding
stilted, Dale was aware his voice was tightening but made himself get something
of what he had been thinking to come out of his mouth while only Gerry could
hear him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Thank you. This would have been harder
without… I’m very grateful you were here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry let him go and kissed his cheek, a
gentle and much meant kiss without the faintest self-consciousness. “You are
one tough cookie, and you’re one of us so try stopping me. Listen. You call me
or write to me any time. Any time, hear me? I’ve been there, believe me no
matter how bad you think it is I will get it, and if need be I can help make
sure they get it. And if you quit or you start backsliding, I will personally
come back here and kick your butt. There is nothing you can pull that I haven’t
tried at least twice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was flippant but that in no way hid the
sincerity and Dale stooped on impulse, dropping his own swift kiss on Gerry’s
cheek before he stepped back to let Paul take his place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry hung on for a long time to Paul, and
eventually Paul said something into his ear before he gently turned Gerry into
Ash’s arms and Ash got with him into the four by four. Mason was in the shot
gun seat; he’d taken Luath’s invitation to go along for the ride and for
company, and from his expression he had no little sympathy for Gerry himself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Left in the yard as the four by four pulled
out of sight down the track, Riley turned back to face Flynn who still had a
bridle over his shoulder. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You realise this is the first time in
weeks it’s just been the five of us? Quit work for a few minutes? Half an hour?
Something?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And do what?” Flynn unslung the bridle
from his shoulder, draped it over the porch rail and put an arm around Riley
instead, pulling him over to give him a hug tight enough to tug him off his
feet. Riley hugged him back, hanging on to him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Nothing. Sit down. Talk.”<br />
<br />
“Horses to feed.” <br />
<br />
“Talk.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Troughs need filling.”<br />
<br />
“Talk.”<br />
<br />
“About what?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Anything.”<br />
<br />
“There’s something I’d like to ask.” Dale found himself saying rather more
stiffly than was comfortable. Jasper gave him a look that held a whole lot of
reassurance, heading unhurriedly up the porch steps and leading them gently but
purposefully inside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Sounds to me like a good time to do it.
Flynn?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn looked up, arms around Riley, but
they followed and Jasper settled in the family room, a room that tended to be
used during the day only for the most important group discussions, and by doing
so he added a kind of purpose and platform that Dale appreciated. Riley dropped
quite deliberately into Flynn’s armchair and Flynn yanked him up out of it,
wrestling him out of the way to sit down himself and haul a now laughing Riley
into his lap to subdue him, Riley’s long jeaned legs draped over his, and
Flynn’s arms folded over his chest, bare below the roll of his sleeves. Jasper
took the rocker by the fire, and Dale, irritated with his own tension, dropped
heavily down into the long couch between them, slumping back into the leather
to try to find some words to start to express this coherently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Do you know,” Paul said, sitting down
beside him. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you throw yourself down into
any chair around here?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“He moved the dressers over in our room the
other day.” Flynn said over Riley’s head. Dale gave him a half sheepish glance,
not quite sure what he was being teased about. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“They were out of line with the windowsill
and I can’t stand uneven lines, it’s been driving me mad for months.”<br />
<br />
Riley laughed. Paul slung an arm around Dale and pulled him over to kiss him.
“And until this week you just gritted your teeth and put up with it. Stop
looking so worried. I love you acting like you really believe you live here.
What did you want to talk about?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">And
here goes.</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> Dale steepled his hands, aware it was
launching a ship he didn’t really know the direction of. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I will need to do a lone camp out, in the
next few days.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was a rather startled silence, broken
by Riley’s exasperated; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I knew it!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And Paul’s calm; “Where did that come
from?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn’s gaze was steady on him, then he
glanced across to Jasper, who hadn’t reacted, as if this was no surprise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ok. Want to tell us about it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“<i>Not </i>because
that’s what other clients have done, I’m honestly not that obsessive.” Dale
said to Riley to reassure him, and paused, awkwardly aware he had no idea at all
how to put this into words. “Or at least now I’m aware of it and I do try not
to be, not necessarily always successfully but I have been known to try.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He inhaled slightly more sharply as he felt
Paul’s hand slide gently under his sweater and find its way to his back, the
warmth of his skin, the extreme comfort of his touch and the simple and most
powerful nonverbal connection. And not for the first time it was like another
part of his brain abruptly came on line in response to the touch. He took
another deeper breath, leaning into the touch, the comfort of it, and let the
rabbit trail go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“...Jasper and I spoke to Caleb Williams.
About a lot of things, but he asked me how long I’d had a... ‘gift’. I didn’t
have to tell him, he recognised it. He said his father had it too. He thought
he’d been ‘steered’ here, he has dreams too that put information together.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“It must be a relief to talk to someone
else who’s experienced it.” Paul said mildly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“It’s a normal thing to him,” Dale told
him. “That was what hit me most.”<br />
<br />
“It’s normal to the Shoshone in general.” Jasper said calmly. “And the
Cherokee. David would have known about it, he would have understood it, he had
friends among the Shoshone people who were still living here. In Caleb’s words,
it’s like playing the piano. Everyone has the capacity, but some people are
better at it than others and some people have a natural talent and become
concert pianists.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale looked down at his hands, aware of
Riley watching him with calm, cheerful interest that said he was waiting for
more. Paul beside him, hand still rubbing his back slowly, relaxed on the couch
beside him. Flynn’s eyes on him and knowing the expression there. Deep and dark
green and safer than anything he’d ever known in his life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Blurt
it out kid. It’s all right, stop choking on it. Just get it out and then we’ll
make sense of it. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“This is going to sound insane,” Dale said
to them frankly. “But you know as well as I do, I came here with no bloody idea
what to do other than work, around the clock on as much as possible at a time
and as complicated as possible because that left me no room for actually having
to think. I can pull my weight here and that’s fine – Paul, I know, I know
you’d rather I didn’t think about it like that but I do, I owe you all
everything. I can’t explain what that’s like. I want to be here, I don’t plan
on being anywhere else as long as I live, but I’ve still been wondering what
the hell I’m for. I’ve spent <i>years</i> wondering what I was for, maybe it
was just not wanting to accept I’m a failed CEO.”<br />
<br />
“You are not a failed anything,” Flynn began very definitely and Dale gave him
a small smile. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“<i>Yes</i>,
I am, I had to face that. I spent years just passing the next academic
challenge someone else put in front of me, I didn’t <i>do</i> anything. Not since the day I started school to the day I came
here. I drifted into carrying on an extremely good con trick I didn’t know how
to get out of – or chameleon trick or
idiot savant trick or whatever you want to call it, I wasn’t very good at much
at all but getting the maths right, and I didn’t realise I had any other
options. It’s felt like one total waste of time and life and a pitiful excuse
for any kind of human being until I came here and you started making me think
and make decisions for myself. So I can make sure I do the work to be the best
partner to you I can be, and the best rancher for this land I can be, but I
still kept wondering what’s all the high speed memory rubbish for if it’s no
good for anything that matters. Other than the freelance work ANZ sends, which
let’s face it, might as well be crossword puzzles.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Across the room, Riley grinned at him. A
flash of humour, affection, like a flash of sunshine, and Dale found himself
smiling back, his tone lightening as it lifted him. Because he meant this, but
the humour of it was acutely real too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“But Caleb knows. He knows what the high
speed stuff is for, he knows what all the CEO stuff was for, he knows what the
dreams and the mess and all the rest of it is for, and he can explain it in
terms I can make sense of. This – whatever it is – as he explains it, and the
way I feel it, is a responsibility.”<br />
<br />
“It is. It’s a sacred personal responsibility.” Jasper agreed quietly. “I think
David probably took on a very similar one.”<br />
<br />
Dale looked at him sharply, and so did Flynn before he said with comprehension,
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Eagle Canyon.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Philip gave Flynn and me a token, years
ago, with a request we took it back to Eagle Canyon, to the sacred ground there
that David had known about.” Jasper said levelly to Dale. “It was a token David
had been given by the Shoshone people who lived here. It was an eagle feather;
in their terms they entrusted him to act as a guardian for the people and the
spirits and all living things they left on this land when they moved on. Those
people would not see this as insane at all, they’d see it as the most serious
matter reserved for the strongest and the most responsible of their people, a
responsibility for a warrior. The most mature of all possible responsibilities.
Philip knew what it meant and after David died, he held the token for David
until towards the end of his life when he asked Flynn and me to take it back to
the canyon. He respected it, David taught him exactly what these things mean.
If Philip was sitting with us now he would be the first to tell you on David’s
behalf not to hesitate to take this very seriously indeed.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was clear that he spoke from direct
experience. Moved, Dale swallowed, immeasurably reassured. And with still
deeper conviction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“...Whatever it is, it’s been trying to get
me to see for a long time, but I’m not quick on the uptake. Caleb called it a
choice. He says this kind of gift awakening comes at the right time of a
person’s life, and with me it’s later but that the – the experiences of the
person matter for the kind of work they’re able to do.”<br />
<br />
“Like Philip, you have the business skills.” Paul said with quiet
comprehension. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And the factual skills.” Dale said matter
of factly. “The problem solving, the massive banks of what I thought was
useless trivia. I just thought I was obsessive and liked information, a kind of
stupid, pointless habit. But the trivia matters. What happened matters, what
people did and thought matters, and without having that information you can’t
fully understand how. This is something
I can do, this is what I’m meant for. It’s something I can do for the ranch and
the family, it’s something I can do for Philip and David although that probably
sounds ridiculous. There is a job that comes with ... whatever it is. The
responsibility isn’t just preservation,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Preservation?” Riley interrupted. Dale
gave him a short nod. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Land. The town. The history, the records,
although that’s a part of it. It isn’t just helping clients or people who come
here, it’s to do with <i>every</i> person
who ever came through here, whenever that was, because time isn’t necessarily
linear, and the energies stay. The energies go on being a part of what’s known
and held within this ground, and they matter.” Dale paused, aware that he was
talking faster and not particularly clearly, but with more passion than he’d
ever felt for any other project or insight in years of intensive study, because
this was real, this mattered, and for the first time in his life there were
people who were involved, who were crucial to every single thing he did, and it
mattered deeply to him that they should understand it. “If I held a tuning fork
and struck it, we’d hear the vibrations for a while and then they’d fade away.
If I then touched that tuning fork to a glass of water.... and then you took a
drink from that glass of water, as your lips touch the water, you’d hear the
vibrations again. The water acts as a conductor. A struck tuning fork touched
to a table with a glass of water resting on it is inaudible but the glass will
shake and can shatter. The vibrations are picked up and stored in the water.
This is basic physics, I’ve known this since I was a kid, energies move, they
are stored in natural materials, they <i>are</i>
always there. It’s just a case of conduction.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> <br />
“The whats.” Riley said with comprehension. It was such a comfortable word; a
shared joke between the five of them, a term only they would understand, and it
helped a great deal to hear it. Dale gave him a grateful look and Riley gave
him a small, <i>keep going</i> smile. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“The whats.”<br />
<br />
“The ones that are stuck. Your whole de-conglutination problem. See, I do
listen.”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“When they’re stuck I
recognise the feeling. It’s the same one I have, I know exactly what being
stuck feels like.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And you know what it’s
like to face it and work through it.” Flynn said quietly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What about Gam Saan
though?” Riley asked. “That wasn’t someone stuck, he was just mislaid.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale leaned on his
knees, thinking about it as he watched Riley’s face. “That was about knowing
the whole story. All of it. Bit by bit we found it and we worked it out and we
walked it,”<br />
<br />
“And we found him.” Riley finished for him. “You’re a trouble shooter, you
always have been. I see how that works. So what do you plan on doing? Wandering
around the ranch in your free time, looking for whoever’s ‘stuck’? Won’t there
be a kind of finite number of them to tick off your list? There can’t be that
many?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was such a practical
comment that Dale laughed, feeling the last of the tension leave his shoulders.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I have no idea.
Absolutely no idea.”<br />
<br />
“That’s a radical oversimplification.” Jasper said mildly. “As we saw on
Mustang Hill, energy doesn’t patiently wait around in neat boxes for someone to
come and deal with it. It’s layered on our land and things stir and rise and
subside, it’s the nature of all energies, it moves with the season, the
weather, one thing touching another that triggers a reaction. What Dale is
talking about is more to do with untangling, finding threads and linking them
to other threads as they arise, it’s about time and place and a point of
connection, and someone watching it. Taking responsibility to watch it and be
part of it and live with it. Mostly it’s a responsibility to simply be aware
and present with the right intent. It’s like us with the clients. We don’t go
out and look for them. We’re just here and prepared when in the right moment in
time circumstance blows one of them to us, and we build a relationship with
them within the culture in which we live, and we learn how to connect with that
particular person in the way that they need. It’s as unique as they are, it’s
just about finding the right path for them as we need it.” <br />
<br />
“Finding the whole story is important.” Dale paused for a moment, gathering his
thoughts. It helped a great deal to say this out loud to them, to talk it
through. “Like the saloon keeper, James
Dwyer, the fact that he was innocent is important. Without that information we
might not have figured it out any further.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Not to mention that
was probably the most important information as far as James – or David- was
concerned.” Paul added thoughtfully. <br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Narratives are
crucial. Anyone’s construction of reality is a narrative. Memories are
narratives, humanity is all about stories and communicating their own story.”
Flynn leaned back with his arms still around Riley, watching Dale. “So what is
the lone camp out to achieve?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“This is a calling. It’s a form of service.”
Jasper said when Dale hesitated, not at all sure how to explain it. “Caleb said
that if Dale ignores this, if he chooses not to encourage it or take on that
responsibility of this gift then it will fade down.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Will the dreams go?” Paul said softly. Dale
flashed him a look that appreciated his understanding, some of those dreams had
been horrifying to experience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“They’re not exactly a part of what he terms
the gift. More a stage of preparation, getting rid of the clutter and rubbish
that’s part of a gift waking up. So either way, yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“But if he works on understanding this gift,
it will develop ,” Jasper went on quietly, “And it’s likely he'll find out more
about exactly what it's 'needed' for and exactly how he best uses it. That kind
of service involves a serious commitment. And time to think, clearly, without
distractions.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“So I’m guessing you’re in favour of this.”
Paul said to Jasper, who inclined his head calmly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes. In Cherokee terms, in Shoshone terms,
this is something normal, natural, it was something traditionally every man did
when he truly became a man. And plenty of us in this family understand about
needing time alone, and how powerful it is to spend time alone out here when we
want clarity of thought and heart. We encourage our clients to do it for
exactly that reason.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was a moment’s silence, and then Paul
said apologetically, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I do understand. I do. Dale, I’m just not
sure I like the idea of you being away from us right now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You just got through telling him you wanted
him to have a vacation and go do whatever he wanted?” Riley pointed out. Paul
winced. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes, and now I’m regretting it. Mostly for
very selfish reasons. I didn’t mean like this, and I meant in a few weeks, not
right now. You’ve had a very hard month or so honey. Life-changing hard,
physically and mentally and emotionally and it’s really knocked you. I know how
much it’s knocked you. I can see this is important to you and yes, I can see it
makes a whole lot of sense because it’s exactly the kind of person you are
anyway and I’m all for anything that makes you happy. But personally I want you
right with us and with me while you’re having a hard time, and trying to think
more objectively I do think you <i>need</i> to be with us at the moment, not
brooding on your own. We’re working on attachment here, being away from us
doesn’t help that.”<br />
<br />
Dale found himself swallowing on a smile at the thought, as amused as he was
touched to the heart. “Paul, I told you I was looking for things that were
good? Good energy? This is all good. It’s demanding, it’s exciting and it’s in
a good way, it’s a lot to think about but it’s all about being here, with you,
about working harder on .... being connected. Really, properly connected to you
and to here and everyone else here, it’s all part of the same thing. This is
honestly the <i>entire</i> opposite of brooding. Or separating.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
Paul nodded slowly, not happy but listening. “Can you take someone with you?
Jas?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yeah, in the whole spirit quest or snark
hunting or Fisher King Grail thing, people tended not to take their significant
others along.” Riley leaned comfortably back against Flynn. “Kind of so not the
point.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“So you’re in favour too?” Paul asked him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yep.” Riley said calmly. “I felt that train.
I heard it. So did you. Does he look shut down to you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What about you?” Paul said to Flynn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was very seriously said. Dale watched them
with love, and said it quietly and with all respect, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I can see it worries you, but this is
something I need to do. It isn’t optional. I am prepared to wait if you feel
the time isn’t right-”<br />
<br />
“I feel the time is exactly right and waiting isn’t helpful.” Jasper
interjected. “Readiness is a vital part of this and it needs to be respected.”<br />
<br />
Flynn gave Dale a steady look that Dale felt as much as saw, then nodded. “I
don’t see any reason to say no. Forty eight hours, same as we would with a
client.”<br />
<br />
“It really isn’t about competing with clients.”<br />
<br />
“If I thought it was, you wouldn’t stand a chance of me agreeing.” Flynn said
bluntly. “Forty eight hours.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale gave him a nod of appreciation, familiar
with a hard line when he saw it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Thank you.”<br />
<br />
“Then I think I’m out voted.” Paul said a little ruefully. “When are you
planning to do this, darling?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Soon.” Dale paused, giving it some thought.
“Tomorrow. Or maybe the day after if you’d prefer. I also intend to be
tattooed. I thought that was probably something I should mention.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was a moment of absolute silence, which
surprised him slightly, then Riley burst out laughing. Paul gave Dale a rather
limp look, his mouth still open. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“........Yes, I think that’s possibly
something we should talk about first?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m not nuts.” Dale glanced from Paul to
Flynn who looked somewhere between startled and amused, and Jasper who looked
completely unsurprised. “I’m honestly not nuts. David had a sparrow tattoo,
didn’t he? The symbol for home. It meant something to him and I’ve been
thinking about it a lot, I understand it. If I’m a marked man.... I’d like to
be marked in my way, with something that means something to me and is about
here and now. On my terms. Not on hers.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“An eagle?” Jasper said quietly. Dale nodded, too familiar with Jasper to be
surprised. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes. That seems to be the symbol I’ve been
given.”<br />
<br />
“It’s a mark of the commitment.” Jasper said to Paul, who still looked stunned.
“Blood sacrifice. It’s been a part of ceremonies like this as far back as the
records go. It makes good sense.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Where?” Riley asked and Dale was glad to
see he was somewhere between outraged and delighted. “Where do you plan on
putting this? Because you’re not marking up your back, you have a fantastic
back. And I <i>hate</i> big tattoos on men,
but something small is pretty ...... um.......”<br />
<br />
From the move of his eyebrow he quite liked the idea. Dale touched his left
collarbone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Here. Where it would be underneath a
shirt, I don’t intend on flashing this at clients or having it visible in
meetings. And yes, small and plain. Up on Mustang Hill, the carved rocks where
the Shoshone pictures of the horses are? There are two eagles marked on those
rocks. Just a simple black line drawing, but that’s something that belongs to our
land. I’ll copy that.”</span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">“Well there’s no sense in asking if you’ve thought about this, because I
know you will have thought about it inside out, upside down and sideways,”</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> Paul had said at last. <i>“But please can you hold off hiking anywhere
until tomorrow? Give me a little time to get used to the idea?”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The conversation had ended with people
going to do the putting away and sweeping and yard chores that every day
securely ended with. It was an extremely comfortable way to conclude it. As Jasper
and Flynn headed out towards the yard, Riley had caught Dale’s eye with a
rather glinting look that Dale recognised, that went with the suggestively
wiggled eyebrow, and Dale followed Riley discreetly into the family room and
through the door into the garage where Riley took down the keys for the other
four by four still standing there, and held them up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“How do you feel about a really <i>bad</i> idea?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I think it’s totally reprehensible,
there’s no way it will end well, and we really shouldn’t do it.” Dale said
frankly. “I’ll drive.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley laughed and tossed him the keys, Dale
caught them one handed and grabbed his chin with the other hand to kiss him,
and went to unlock the safe where their wallets lived. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You’d better check they’re out of sight or
we won’t make it down the drive.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">They left a note; not that Dale expected
there to be any doubt about where they’d gone or why. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley knew Jackson well and he had no
difficulty in locating what they needed. It was a rather different experience
to the history of the thing. Instead of thorns and dye and a man by the fire,
an immaculately clean studio and machinery did the job by a man wearing gloves,
who had watched the drawing Dale produced with a ballpoint and scrap of paper
on his counter with growing fascination. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“That’s exact.” Riley said when Dale
finished the last line. “Your memory is amazing, that’s it exactly, I’ve seen
it on the rocks up there.”<br />
<br />
“This is a local design?” the artist picked up the paper, turning it to see.
The very simple black line drawing was oddly beautiful in its starkness, just a
few lines that implied a picture, but implied all the most vital parts of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Shoshone.” Riley said lightly. “Pretty
old.”<br />
<br />
Shirtless, Dale leaned back in the chair and looked beyond the window at the
town as the man worked on his shoulder. The same town David had known. The same
town that had grown from trappers as Three Traders had, long before anyone knew
what tourists were. Long before he was born or ever knew this town existed.
Riley put his hand out, taking his, and Dale glanced up at him, giving him a
faint smile and squeezing his fingers. Riley gave him a faintly twisted grin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yeah I know you’re ok. You might be able
to sit there and look like you’re waiting for a bus, but I can see what he’s
doing. I just feel like I ought to be holding your hand.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Actually the intensity of the sensation was
just as vital as sitting here with Riley was and Riley’s fingers over his were
warm, strong and alive. Dale kept hold of his hand, breathing evenly as the
artist continued to work, and every single breath made it clearer. Stronger. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It
was getting towards dusk when they got home, the car bumping slowly over the
green grass track that wound the long way from the wooden gateposts at the road
to the house. The late afternoon sun was reflecting warmly off the red roof of
the house as they pulled into the shade of the garage next to the other parked
four by four, indicating that Luath and Mason were home. Riley turned the
engine off, locked the car and put the keys back on their hook, shooting Dale a
quick grin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Ready to face the music?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The house was quiet and deserted. There was
an unfamiliar truck parked in the yard and they found everyone out on the porch
with teacups, still in their dusty working clothes and gathered in the chairs
and on the porch rail around Caleb Williams, who looked up and smiled at the
sight of Dale. Seated beside him was another elderly man of Native American
descent with equally white hair, drinking a cup of tea on the swing. Caleb
politely extended a hand between him and Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Dale. May I introduce to you Patrick Doe?”<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“How do you do, sir?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
Dale came to take Patrick Doe’s hand, who grasped it in the same gentle manner
that Caleb did. Jasper quietly introduced Riley who did the same, and came to
take a seat up on the rail beside Flynn. Paul reached out a hand out to Dale,
drawing him down onto the arm of his chair with a hand that slid companionably
into his hip pocket out of sight of the others but where Dale could still feel
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Mr Doe was just telling us some very
interesting facts about Three Traders.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I am the last of my family who was born in
the town.” Patrick Doe said calmly over his tea cup. He was a solidly built man
with closely cropped dark grey hair and with sunglasses in the pocket of his
open necked plaid blue shirt. Perhaps in his mid eighties, although as with
Caleb it was hard to guess. “And so Caleb came to ask me if I had heard
anything of your train robbery. I did.”<br />
<br />
“We found the moonshine.” Riley offered the information a little reservedly,
careful not to interrupt, and Caleb looked over and smiled at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“In the tunnel, the bricked up old tunnel
for the mine engine. Yes”<br />
<br />
“I remember putting it there.” Patrick told him. “I was one of the many people
from the town in the woods that night. I was five years old, and I helped my
sisters to bring a wheelbarrow down the mine steps with bottles inside. I
remember it well. My mother carried bottles in her apron and coat pockets, and my
father was one of the men who unloaded the crates from the train when it
slowed.”<br />
<br />
“So we were right.” Riley caught Dale’s eye and his own eyes were alight,
delighted, as alive as they had been when they made the shared run down the
miners’ steps in the darkness, and it warmed Dale to the heart. “We really did
get it right!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">That ‘we’ was so very much appreciated. It
was never easy to look away from Riley when he looked like that, but there were
facts that urgently needed checking and Dale made himself state them, taking a
grip on himself because unconfirmed data wasn’t just wrong, it was maddening,
but this was the wildest part of his conjectures and inside some part of him
was protesting wildly and needed a firm hand. But a patient one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I ……had an idea that there was a boy who
played the ghost for the smugglers on rainy nights,” he said aloud, rather
stiffly but definitely, and very aware of Paul beside him and that hand still
in his pocket, because without it he wasn’t sure he would have had the nerve.
“He was dressed as a drummer boy, painted with phosphorus. And I thought there
was a gun aimed at him that night.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
Patrick simply nodded slowly with a faint smile. “Yes. That was my brother. He
did some odd jobs for James Dwyer at the saloon after school when he was a boy.
Sweeping, washing the steps and the windows, running errands….my mother did not
like it. But Dwyer was a good man and he did not allow my brother into the
saloon rooms themselves and my brother was determined to do his part to bring money
home to our family, so she and my father agreed he might. They did not know
about the ghost trick until the trouble began with the Connellys, although it
was well known that moonshine was brewed at the saloon. My brother enjoyed
creeping out of the house in the dark to play at smuggling with Dwyer and his
men in his phosphorus painted jacket and drum; our parents never knew of that
part. But the men were all from our town, they knew our family and they took
good care of him, it was a good natured kind of a game. Nothing worse. Until
the Connellys came.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“The meeting in the saloon.” Riley said to
him. Patrick smiled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I remember that too for it was the first
time I had ever been allowed inside the saloon. James Dwyer and your David came
to my parents’ house that morning. Dwyer was in great distress, he had confided
his troubles to David and together they came to tell my parents that the
Connellys were holding my brother hostage and Dwyer was to put moonshine onto
the train for them that night. Boxes and boxes of it. My brother was to walk to
stop the train as the ghost, and none of us were to interfere if we wished to
see him unharmed. So the word was passed from person to person through every
shop and workshop and home and the shifts of men at the mine that there was to
be a meeting in the saloon that afternoon, and everyone came in the pouring
rain through the back way, through the stable yard and the saloon kitchen where
nothing could be seen from the street, and it was your David who told us the
plan. So after dark, we went in small groups, different ways not to draw
attention, and we walked the back paths out of town and gathered in the woods
to wait to take the crates as they were unloaded.”<br />
<br />
“And your brother was let go without being harmed?” Mason demanded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And some of the men rode the train back
down to the station?” Dale added. Patrick gave him a sober nod. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“They did. My father and David were among
them, with several more of our men who were friends of David’s from the old
settlement on your land. When they joined us later as the bottles were being
put into the old tunnel, they told us we would have no further trouble from the
Connellys.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“What happened to the Connellys?” Riley
asked. Patrick laid his cup down in the saucer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“I know what my brother told me he saw. He was in the station with the
Connellys when they pulled the door back on that compartment and found men, not
bottles. The Connellys were lucky they were not lynched. Other men were in the
history of the town’s justice not so long before I was born when their crimes
were directly against the people living there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Do you know why they were not?” Caleb
asked gently, looking at Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He was smiling. There was a real purpose
behind this question, it wasn’t casual at all, and Dale saw it even as he
searched his mind for what he hadn’t yet seen. It was always when he thought
most instinctually, when he just stood back from the data and let the patterns
form that the most important things leaped out at him, and almost instantly he
saw it. Such a small thing, but of such importance and of such certainty. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Because David, and your father and your
men from the settlement were there.” he said aloud, and Caleb inclined his
head, his smile deepening. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Luath glanced at Paul and Dale heard the
half sound that began to protest what they’d known of David, but it made
perfect sense. Jasper had taught him this too, and Dale caught Jasper’s eye,
saying it to him as much as Patrick. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“They were all Shoshone men, and they were
David’s friends. They didn’t believe in .... punishment... so much as
restorative justice. Not retribution. No harm. Reparation and learning. Like us
doing someone else’s chores for them if we’ve disturbed their peace or taken up
their time unfairly. David had a temper, but he believed in it too.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And Philip did. Their household was still
strongly rooted in those beliefs eighty years later; Dale knew them first hand.
Jasper smiled, giving him a faint nod of agreement. Patrick laid his cup down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“The Connellys could not repair what they
had done, but they could learn how it felt to be powerless. And sometimes the
strongest action our people can take is to laugh at foolishness. My brother
said they were stripped of all their clothes and drenched in pine tar from the
railway yard,”<br />
<br />
“Scalded?” Mason said sounding horrified. Patrick shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“No, not at all. Pine tar of that time was
liquid in barrels, it needed no melting. It is however intensely sticky and
difficult to remove from the skin. I remember my mother trying to scrub some
from my hands when I was a child and had been playing around the carpentry
yards, it was a common enough substance. Then my brother said they were rolled
in coal dust to remind them of our town, there was plenty of that too in the
railway yard from the coal trucks and it stuck well to the tar. And then they
were warned what would happen to them if they ever returned to our area, were
tied face down over their horses and the horses taken out onto the main road to
Jackson to be turned loose, and that was the last that we heard of them. It
would not have taken them too many hours to work their hands loose of the ropes
and untie each other. Riding through the county naked would have presented a
bigger problem. And they would have been weeks in removing all the tar.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul glanced up at Dale and then got up and
disappeared into the house for a moment. When he re emerged it was with two
orange bottles in his hands that he was wiping of the last of the dust. He
offered them to Patrick, who reached to take one with wondering hands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“These are the same bottles?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“The same.” Paul took his seat, handing him
the second. “Please take them. After all, you helped to put them safely away in
storage, they should be well aged by now.”<br />
<br />
“And quite drinkable still.” Flynn said, straight faced. “We did check.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />When<span lang="EN-GB"> the car
pulled out of the yard, Flynn turned to Riley and Dale, crooking one finger to
beckon them over and pointing at the ground directly in front of him. Riley winced, going to him rather slowly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh come on, there was a note.....”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes. Which I read, thank you.” Flynn put a
hand on each shoulder and steered them towards the kitchen door. “Go wait for
me in the study please.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Sometimes it’s nice to just do things
without making them into a whole big deal?” Riley pleaded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn waited, and after a moment Riley
sighed and trailed Dale towards the study. Flynn followed a few minutes later,
closing the door quietly behind him. Riley, slumped on the couch, gave him a
glare that was a lot more appeal than resistance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Look. It didn’t need to be a big deal. It
wasn’t something that ought to be all clinical and organised and Toplike, it
really wasn’t, it’s a frickin’ emotional thing. And I couldn’t stand sitting
around <i>waiting</i> to book an
appointment, or us all go into town to do it like we’re taking him in for
surgery. If he was going to do it, it just needed to get done.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn leaned on the edge of the desk and
folded his arms over his chest, looking at him rather thoroughly. “Are you ok?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley shrugged easily. “I’m fine, he’s fine, we’re both fine,
everything’s fine. I was with him and I wasn’t going to let him do anything
insane. You know him, he sat there like they were carving it on wood instead of
on him, no blood, no screams, I didn’t faint, it was all highly sensible, but
if you’re asking me I think it looks fantastic.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn nodded and looked across at Dale.
“Good. And how are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was no pressure in the question, but
with Flynn you always read his eyes and paid no attention to anything else.
Dale answered him gently, with the same warmth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Great.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“And the just taking off?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“We left a note?” Riley pointed out. Flynn
shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m asking Dale.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale considered it, giving Flynn the most
honest answer he could. “It was fun.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh. My. God.” Riley murmured, slumped on
the couch behind him. Flynn however simply gave him a calm nod as though that
made perfect sense.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Fair enough.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">They both knew the drawer he leaned down to
and Riley jerked upright in protest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Flynn! We left a <i>note</i>!”<br />
<br />
“Yes. Because you wanted to do it your way without risking anyone
disagreeing. We don’t do that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“This was different to usual.” Riley said
definitely. “Come on, you’re not even mad. You get this as well as I do, I know
you do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Riley was right. Of course Flynn did; he
absolutely got this. Flynn took the transparent Lexan paddle out and shut the
drawer, voice gentle. “Yes, and so do you.</span><span lang="EN-GB">
Dale?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was, what in English would be known as a
‘fair cop’. Dale reflected on the saying, going to him with a distinctly
twisting stomach as he started to unbutton his jeans. However worth it, that
paddle in Flynn’s hand was not something at all possible to look at with
equanimity when you knew what he could do with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn waited until he lowered his jeans and
shorts and put out a hand to guide Dale over his knee, smartly enough that Dale
felt the breath whoosh out of his lungs, found himself grabbing for the floor
and compromising with Flynn’s ankle for support as his feet left the floor, and
being tremendously aware that Flynn could shift him without difficulty with one
arm and without effort. And that he’d been damn careful that no part of Dale’s
newly tattooed chest came anywhere near being touched. He had barely a second
to register the hard warmth of Flynn’s legs against his stomach, the extreme
vulnerability of his well raised bare behind or Flynn’s hand firmly on his back
before the paddle landed briskly behind him, right across both cheeks with a
ringing swat as it met bare skin. Not exactly hard, but a good, sound, well
placed swat that Flynn did not pull back on, and the Lexan <i>stung. </i>Dale jumped and bit down on the instinctive hiss of shock, it
was like the abrupt descent of several dozen wasps all stinging in unison and
it tore the breath out of you, but Flynn just brought the flat of that paddle
soundly down on his butt another five, rapid times in pretty much the exact
same place, with a firm hand and without the slightest pause to allow for
catching of breath or accommodation of sting being added emphatically to
already stinging skin. That paddle was
remarkably good at communicating Flynn’s feelings; the rain of swats was brief
but those few seconds were extremely memorable. Dale was past being able to
keep still by the second swat of the paddle and by the third he was wide eyed, making
increasingly loud sounds that bore no relation to anything sensible, clutching
at Flynn’s ankle to prevent himself throwing a hand back and finding himself
squirming vigorously. After the sixth, Flynn swung him back onto his feet
directly in front of him to meet his eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I don’t like notes.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">With that paddle in his hand and that
expression on his face, Dale found himself nodding with emphatic acquiescence,
unable to stop himself grabbing for and squeezing the intense and burning
stinging of his butt. Standing still was an impossibility, breathing was not
easy either and the desire was overwhelming to not give Flynn the slightest
reason to apply that paddle any further. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“<i>Yes</i>
sir.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Get dressed, that corner over there, hands
on your head. Riley.” Flynn let Dale go, held out his hand to Riley, and Riley
sighed heavily but got up to go to him, rolling his eyes at Dale with a
distinctly unsubdued twinkle as he passed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“How are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn, on his way to lock up the
outbuildings and make the final outside check for the night, put an arm around
Paul’s waist on his way, giving him a quick and rough hug in passing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paul, making up the morning’s batch of
bread at the kitchen table, gave him a nudge with his hip which was as close as
he could get to responding while his hands were covered in dough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I’m ok.”<br />
<br />
“Really?” Flynn hung the towel back on the warm rail on the front of the stove
and leaned against the counter to watch him. He’d chased Riley and Dale up to
bed straight after dinner; Riley at least had been vociferously not pleased
about it but mildly in disgrace over their disappearing act this afternoon he’d
known better than to risk pushing his luck. And Dale at least was in need of
some quiet and time to process. Mason, Jasper and Luath were occupied in the
family room with a card game, well out of earshot; there was no need to worry
about being overheard. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I get it.” Paul told him. “I do. I don’t
have to like it, but I do get it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn made a quiet sound of comprehension.
“He was always a powerful person, a leader, he needs a mission for the next
fifty years. He needs a purpose and a responsibility to fulfil that he can get
a grip on. I think it’s interesting that the mission is here, and being part of
us and taking care of the ranch, about people and connection, and emphatically <i>not</i> about finance or mathematics or
anything tangible. Do you know what that says? I’m not sure he could make a
bigger commitment to us if he tried.”<br />
<br />
“And he does the big gestures.”<br />
<br />
“He does. Can you see the prince on the white charger in this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">That was it. Precisely. Paul nodded slowly,
pausing for a moment and thinking again of this morning, watching Dale sit
across from him on the other side of the fire in the pasture. He thought of
himself as so low key, so quiet; he had no sense of his own presence that could
take over a room without effort or without him even noticing he’d done it. A
hurricane contained in a cobweb-thin crystal glass. The image was ridiculous
and Paul smiled at the thought of it, but he’d watched Dale sitting there this
morning, his grey eyes alive and penetrating as he listened to Mason and
watched Luath and Gerry bickering, all of him intently present in the same way
that Flynn was. Not saying much but involved in everything, with everyone. And
with a smile sweet enough to light up the dark or to melt your heart, and he
was totally unaware of that too. Gentle and naïve in some ways that made Paul
fiercely protective of him, and so powerfully committed in others that it drew
even fiercer protectiveness. Flynn was right; Dale had come to these emotions
at a time in his life when he took them on not only with the same focused intensity
Dale gave everything but also with a man’s full sense of responsibility. He’d
fought battles over board room tables that Paul knew he would have struggled to
comprehend; he’d held responsibility for the livelihoods of countless people in
companies, projects and industries; he’d established evidence in the course of
justice with international courts knowing that the immense financial and
personal implications for the people involved rested on his work and its
veracity. He’d withstood pressures and attacks of a strength Paul knew he had
no real understanding of – Jeremy Banks’ white knight. A man of precisely the
kind Philip had deeply appreciated in the warrior lists of men who ran the
financial and corporate world; a man who held old values and who stood by them.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">A man like Dale would make never make some
vague or pale commitment to the responsibilities of a gift in the terms Dale and
Jasper had described it to them. To Dale, it was about people and a place he
had committed his life to. His desire to make this pilgrimage was no dramatic
gesture; it was the instinct many powerful men before him had had through
centuries of time when a life changing decision lay before them. This was a strong
and experienced man’s serious, considered pledge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And yet he was also still exactly that valiantly
courageous, lionhearted little boy willing to fight dragons for the people he
loved. That was how Dale loved, and there was a child’s purity and
boundlessness within it. It was how he’d loved his mother and it was how he loved
them. He needed the stories, he needed the words and the images to understand
and express what he felt because these feelings were emerging fully fledged
again for the first time in years for him. They were some of the best and the
purest feelings in life, feelings that many adults lost touch with and became
blasé about as they grew up. Few men got to experience them for the first time in
adulthood. If they did, they might express it like this. And what Dale was
preparing himself for was also, Paul knew, the conscious commemoration of having
freed and transferred that love and loyalty to them for the rest of his life. To have a day and a time and a place in which
he had drawn the line and knew he had become wholly theirs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Did you see him throw himself down on the
couch?” Paul said out loud, still thinking. “I nearly cheered. It was so hard
not to freak him out by getting too excited. That’s the first time I’ve ever
seen him do that or anything like it. Not carefully, not politely, not like a
guest,”<br />
<br />
But like a man with his own people, in a place that belonged to him and where
he was safe to let the shields go all the way down. It was an unconscious
gesture that had spoken volumes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Those days you made him spend in pyjamas
just crashing out with you on the couch was some seriously good imprinting.”
Flynn watched him knead the dough briskly and efficiently, hands moving without
Paul giving it much conscious thought. “I can see the effect it’s had.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“It just finally dawned on me, all this
time we never really worked on him feeling like this house was home.” Paul
leaned on the table, working the dough expertly one handed. “We worked on it
feeling like his, but I didn’t think it down far enough; it’s not the same
thing. All the rest of us came here already knowing what home is supposed to
feel like, we just got to feeling that way about the ranch ourselves by osmosis
but I don’t think Dale had any concept to start from. The first day we tried
it, it took a lot to persuade him it really was ok to just not get dressed, all
day, he was home where it didn’t matter. How unsafe do you have to be feeling
to not be ok to leave your room in your own home unless you’re fully and
properly dressed?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was more than that and Flynn knew Paul
understood it in the same gut way he just understood many of the most important
things. That establishing the sense of having roots here, being safe here, was
about having the time to know the sights and sounds and the intimate
familiarity with a house at every hour of the day; to do it with someone
capable of making you feel safe enough and who could be with you in every way
it was possible for someone to be with you and lead you through it; who could
teach you and coax you to feel and internalise it from them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“You’re so good at this,” he said to Paul
with a lot more feeling than could easily be expressed, “You’ve done something
amazing for him. No one else could have done it this well, do you realise
that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Oh you could have.” Paul said dryly,
“You’ve known the game we were playing from the start, you saw this coming
months ago.”<br />
<br />
“If I’d had to, then I would have done the best I could,” Flynn said it quietly
and definitely enough for Paul to look up and know for certain that Flynn had
spent hours thinking about this. “So would Jas if need be, but it would have
been based on what we learned from you and it wouldn’t have been like this. Jas
and I don’t speak the language like you do. It doesn’t come naturally for us,
it isn’t who we are but it’s as natural as breathing to you. You did this for me
when I first came here, so of course I’d want Dale to have that from you too;
you were the one who could teach Jas and me and I know how it feels. So believe
me, what I could have done wouldn’t have been half of what you’ve figured out
how to do with him, and it <i>is</i>
amazing. It’s amazing to watch.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was difficult to answer or to breathe
for a moment; it was never easy to find words for Flynn on the rare and private
occasions that he looked at you or spoke to you intently like that in a way
that turned your heart over, and he almost always took you by surprise and
picked the most inconvenient of moments to do it. Flynn abruptly straightened
up and hooked an arm around Paul’s waist so hard the bowl rocked, and Paul
lifted sticky, floury hands up out of danger, tipped backwards at a sharp angle
and kissed, hard, one of Flynn’s deepest and most thorough kisses that stood
for a whole lot of emotion that Flynn tended to act on rather than verbalise.
It was a wonderfully appealing language, and it was a good few seconds before
Flynn stood him up and let him go, his hair and shirt floury, his face gruff,
his eyes extremely soft. He dropped another, much gentler kiss on Paul’s mouth
and headed out to finish feeding his horses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">After a few moments of looking down at the
bowl with half kneaded bread in it, breathless and distracted, Paul pulled
himself together, finished setting the bread to rise and scrubbed the table. And
then he took out the phone and the address book in the drawer by the sink, and
sat down to start dialling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale was woken by Jasper’s hand on his
shoulder with the first grey of dawn outside their window. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
It wasn’t so unusual; if Jasper wanted to fish before breakfast he sometimes
came like this and Dale stirred and turned over, aware that Flynn stirred
beside him, became aware of Jas and went back to sleep. Jasper put a finger to
his lips and indicated the door. Dale got up, softly grabbed his clothes and
followed, leaving Flynn asleep behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">On the landing Jasper paused, putting a
hand on his arm to stop him. He was shirtless, wearing only jeans and his skin
was cool as if he’d been outside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“If you’re ready to go, get what you need.
Are you taking Hammer?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He meant it. Dale’s head cleared in one
swift rush and he felt his heart rise with it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Yes.” he said definitely. Jasper nodded. <br />
<br />
“I’ll get him. Go ahead.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale dressed rapidly in the dark on the
landing, donning the clothes he’d taken off last night. The same ones he’d gone
to Jackson in and been wearing while the tattoo artist worked. Already worn
clothes that carried yesterday into today and not fresh ones; for some reason that
seemed important. He put a hand lightly over the new mark on his chest for a
moment. It was tender, he’d removed the light dressing from it last night and
it was nothing more than slightly reddened around the edges now. No one else
was awake. Dale listened for a moment, half tempted to go to Paul and Riley who
would mind most and to say goodbye, but Jasper’s purpose in helping him leave now
was to let those distractions go. Jasper might be in for an earful at breakfast
when they woke to find him gone, but he was clearly ready to take it, and it
was not as if Dale was leaving; he would still be on their land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale checked on the familiar cool and rough
plains of the crystal in his pocket, squeezed it, and went softly downstairs to
grab a jacket and hat. The yard was misty in the thin grey light of very early
morning. Jasper was rapidly saddling Hammer out at the far end of the yard,
well away from the house, and over the porch rail hung one of Paul’s heavier
sweaters and a pair of saddle bags. They were well packed – only one person
packed that well in this household – and Dale lifted them and the sweater, a
little surprised. He took them with him to join Jasper, keeping his voice low. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
“Did you put these out?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“They were laid out there ready when I came
in this morning.” Jasper tightened Hammer’s girth with a deft tug. “I think
Paul suspected you might be needing them early.”<br />
<br />
So he knew. Dale hefted them, well aware of what Paul was likely to have
packed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I won’t be needing anything much.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“But Paul’s a part of this for you; let him
be.” Jasper took the saddle bags and attached them to Hammer’s saddle, nodding
at the stables. “Take a rifle.”<br />
<br />
In the shed and the tack room Dale automatically filled his pockets with the
essentials he knew he’d need. A knife. A bow drill. He pocketed a sensible
amount of ammunition and a rifle along with chlorine tablets and one of the
large water sacks that carried enough to keep a horse supplied if necessary,
and after a moment’s thought picked up one of the old blankets, taking that
too. Jasper had tethered Hammer to the fence down by the home pasture and was
sitting on the fence beside him. Dale packed the rest of his gear and attached
it to the saddle, and Jasper quietly patted the rail of the fence next to him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">If Dale had to guess, he hadn’t gone to bed
yet. He looked part of the dew soaked pasture out beyond the fence, the grey
sky and the grey water in the distance, the rustling aspens. His skin was
softly toned like the bark and his whole body was quiet. Calm, steady, deeply
at home and the peace of him was tangible. On impulse, Dale relaxed his eyes a
little, let his shoulders release and his eyes soften and just a little he
could see it; the soft flare of light visible around Jasper, especially
gathered around his head and shoulders and his hands, and when Dale climbed up
to sit beside him he could see the energy brush and mesh running around both of
them. It was intoxicating and yet not at all distracting this morning. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“There was something I wanted to tell you
this morning.” Jasper said. “I thought you might like to know it. Did you ever
think about how David came to be here?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">Yes. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I thought he wandered for quite a few
years until he found somewhere to settle?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“I doubt he was even in the US legally.”
Jasper said, and it was with affection for a man neither of them had ever met
although they lived in his home. “Philip probably ensured it later on, but
David just walked over the Canadian border and kept walking until he found
somewhere he felt like staying. I’ve thought of that many times. A man who
drifted all his life, who ran away to sea and never put down roots, just walked
onto this land and never left again.”<br />
<br />
“Because of Philip.”<br />
<br />
“Because of Philip, but he was settled here for some years before Philip joined
him.” Jasper looked out over the pasture in front of them, his long fingers
wrapped around the fence rail. “This house was derelict when he found it. Just
an old shell of a small cabin. Not much more than the kitchen with a cot in one
corner and a horse stall where the garage is now.”<br />
<br />
“Do you know why he stayed?” Dale asked him. Jasper nodded slowly, watching the
grass ripple out ahead of them like water. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“Philip told me. David was sick when he
came from Three Traders. He stopped here for shelter because it was the first
building he came to, it was winter and he had no choice, he couldn’t go any
further. And at that time, where the ruins of the Shoshone village are now,
there were still a few Shoshone families left living on this land. They would
have known as soon as someone entered their territory, they would have known
David was staying in the cabin and would have watched him to see if he meant
harm. When they saw the smoke from the chimney stop despite the snow and the
horse was still tied in the stall they came closer to look, and when David was
next able to stand and walk out of the cabin, the horse had been given water
and grain. There was firewood stacked by the door. There was food in a bag on a
nail. Unlooked for kindness at a moment he most needed it. Anonymous.
Undeserved. Whatever David had been wandering from or towards, Philip thought
that act of kindness stopped him in his tracks. He figured out who had helped
him, and he got to know them. At least one of them if not more befriended him.
Talked to him. Taught him. From what I know David understood, he spent time
with an elder who took the time and the care to teach him. Not just the basic
understanding of them and their ways, but real teaching. They taught David in
much the same way my grandfather taught me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“As if he was one of them.” Dale said
quietly, understanding. Jasper nodded slowly. <br />
<br />
“They taught him as if he was one of their own men in need of healing. The
trust that involves is remarkable. The acceptance that deep into their
community means to me that there must have been deep two way bond, so David earned
it from them. When teaching is offered like this it is because there is
learning. Real commitment. I suspect they were a good deal of the reason that a
man who had been alone for twenty five years lived in a very happy marriage for
the rest of his life.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“So when David brought those Shoshone men
with him to Three Traders that night….he was with close friends, and of course
it was handled in the way it was.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">“When the Shoshone moved on, when they left
the ranch land,” Jasper said gently, “I don’t know why they left. Perhaps there
were too few of them, perhaps they were finally too isolated here and had
family and a better place to go to. But they gave David an eagle feather. They
would do that to one of their own. It means they left David as their family
here. They left him responsible for the land and their family and the family
whose bones are here. The ancestors, the spirits, their sacred land, their
burial grounds. There is no more sacred responsibility in their eyes, these
things never pass from the land. And in their beliefs, any spirit or energy, living
or dead that is a part of the land – person, beast, trees, the grass itself –
is family. And treated as family, and cared for as family. That was the duty
they entrusted to him. They would not have done that without love, or without
certainty that he was worthy of and fully understood the faith they placed in
him. And he and Philip lived by it all their lives. They taught us to live by
it too, in our own ways. It took me a long time to realise, listening to and
watching how Philip ran this household, there was a good deal of home - in the
way that I was raised and the way I understand home - underneath it. For a long
time I thought that world I knew as a child existed nowhere else and I’d never
know it again. I’d given up on it. I thought no one would ever even be able to
understand what it meant to me except Flynn and Paul… and this was a long time
before I met Riley or you. But when I finally listened? When I finally let
myself come into this house and be here – truly be here - it was here all the time.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br />Jasper <span lang="EN-GB">asked no
questions about where he was headed. Along with his instruction to take a rifle
his meaning was quite clear. Dale mounted up into Hammer’s saddle and sat for a
moment, eyes closed, letting himself relax. Hammer chewed at his bit, waiting
patiently, and after a moment Dale turned him gently towards the home pastures
and rode out into the open green land. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He rode almost due west. A direction he
rarely went in except for the months when Bandit guarded his herd in the soft,
lush pastures that lay below the landing strip in the south west land that ran
down to the rocky heights and canyons further south. Hammer was fresh and
restless and as soon as they were on even ground Dale let him go and cantered
until the house was long out of sight behind them. For some hours he rode as
the sun grew higher in the sky and there was empty land all around him, no
other living being in sight and silence but for an occasional bird hunting.
Then somewhere in the far west of their land, on impulse Dale turned south and
walked Hammer as the ground slowly started to grow higher. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The mares very rarely came up this way.
When their foals were small they liked the shallow, sweet grass hollows that
made for an ideal nursery. This ground was some of the wildest on the ranch,
some of the least trodden of all their land, and as it grew steeper and
rockier, the grass began to be patchier, interspersed with open boulders and
faces of rock. The climb was gradual enough to be easy on Hammer but by Dale’s
calculation the ground level was rising steadily. It was late afternoon when he
finally reached a broad plateau in the shelter of an even steeper pinnacle of
rising rock faces to the north and east that presented a barrier to going any
further, and Dale drew Hammer in and dismounted to let him rest. While Hammer
grazed, Dale walked on to look in more detail at the path ahead and climbed
several steep, rocky banks that led him up through scrub woodland and then onto
to a plateau of bare, red rock. Boulders as large as cars lay scattered like
some giant game of marbles and Dale paused at the sight of carvings on their
faces. Horses. Symbols. An eagle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
Dale instinctively put a hand over the still extremely tender new tattoo on his
skin. It was the same picture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He walked slowly on up the uphill slope of
rock, and suddenly the horizon burst into view before him. The plateau ended in
a sheer drop, so sharp it was shocking, and laid out below it….. laid out below
was miles of open ground, the Teton mountains in the far distance, the electric
blue sky against the green of the grass. Dale’s breath caught and he stood
frozen with the shock of it. It was beautiful. Outstandingly beautiful, a view
that was a gods-eye perspective on the world below, and he knew now where he
was. Riley had told him of this place, had pointed it out to him from the
ground, Flynn had mentioned it yesterday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Eagle Canyon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The sacred place. The place the last of the
Shoshone to leave their land had entrusted to David. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale walked slowly to the edge with a sense
of presence around him that he had only previously felt in cathedrals.
Somewhere mighty that carried the hush of centuries of prayer. Thought and
spirit and peace that had soaked into the rock and was held there for all time.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He stood there for a long time, looking out
over the open land below, lost in the majesty of that view. It was passing from
afternoon to early evening when he pulled himself together and walked back down
to the plateau where Hammer grazed, and collected dry wood from the scrubby
trees and bushes to build a fire. He gave Hammer water and took a long drink
himself, aware that Paul would have left food in the saddle bags and knowing
that he would not be eating it. He wasn’t sure why; just the gut feeling, but somewhere
on the hike he had begun to associate that feeling of clarity with an empty
stomach. He did unsaddle Hammer and take down the saddle bags, opening them
briefly to see what was inside. Some of it was indeed food as he’d suspected. Another
held an additional canteen of water and a first aid kid which made Dale smile a
little. That hadn’t even occurred to him. But the other bag contained his
journal, a pen and a thick bundle of paper. Dale took the journal out with a
well of emotion that this was so exactly the right place for it and that Paul
had understood and thought to send it with him. The bundle of paper beneath it
was a large one held together with an old fashioned cross of string, knotted in
the middle. Dale knelt down on the grass, turning the bundle over to unknot the
string. The papers were all envelopes. A whole pile of envelopes simply
labelled with his name in Paul’s handwriting. Curious, Dale opened one… and
then another, and then another, and then another with his throat tightening painfully
as sheet after sheet of paper came into view. Each of the envelopes held a
print out of an email dated late last night, and the names signed at the
bottom…. The names were all familiar ones. In amongst the pile there was one
particularly thick envelope and when he opened it there were four separate
handwritten letters. One in Flynn’s writing, one in Paul’s, one in Riley’s, one
in Jasper’s. For a few moments, breath caught in his lungs, Dale held on to
that pile of letters, looking at the sheer number of them and remembering
acutely what Riley had said. That on these lone camps, the family sent a
letter. An important letter. There were a large number of people here who had
decided they counted as his family and needed to be a part of what he did
today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was hard to put them down and finish
building the fire. He made himself do it properly, to wait, until he had water
heating over a good fire, until he had the bedroll laid out neatly at a safe
distance from the fire. Then he took the letters, left Hammer grazing and
walked back up to the very edge of the canyon, sat down with his back against
the rock and the world open in the valley before him, and opened the sheaf of
papers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There was an email from Wade. James and
Niall had enclosed two separate emails in their envelope. So had Gerry and Ash,
their mails written from a Denver hotel. Theo’s email spoke for him and for
Bear and Bear had added a few sentences at the end, which Dale knew for Bear
represented severe effort. A long handwritten letter from Luath. An email from
Darcy. Two folded letters in Paul’s handwriting but one signed Jake and the
other signed Tom. And there were other mails too, kind ones from other men that
Dale had met at Christmas or on their brief visits to the ranch, even some from
men he knew only by name and had never yet met, but heard the letters from that
Paul shared with them all at breakfast. All of them were men who had loved
Philip and David and at some time had called this place home. The ones from the
members he knew best were the longest: Luath’s, Ash’s, Gerry’s, Jake’s and
Tom’s, and they were intensely private reading, something that person confided
directly to him, but they all essentially shared the same thing. What they knew
and loved of him, how in their eyes he made a difference. The ones from the
elder members of the family, James and Niall and Wade, who had known and lived
with David and Philip from the start, mentioned their own experiences of
joining the family and of what Philip and David valued most in the men they
welcomed into their home. And most intensely private of all were the four
handwritten letters from his own people. Flynn, Jasper, Paul and Riley. Who
knew the very most about what he struggled with, what his very worst demons
were and what mattered to them all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Each separate paragraph on every page was a
fresh body blow that went to the core of him and shook him fundamentally. He
had no shields against this. No way to know how to control the effects, no
previous knowledge to know how to hear this or deal with hearing it, and if he
hadn’t been so alone and unobserved he couldn’t have borne it. At intervals he
was forced to pause until he had himself under sufficient control to see and to
clear his eyes of the tears that ran hotly while he read. Every single one of
them was intensely warm, personal and spoke directly about the things that
mattered the very most to him. That they loved this land too, that he made
their people and their loved ones happy. He made their home a stronger and a
better place; that they saw him understand and value the things that Philip had
valued and believed and that they had loved Philip for. And that David had
valued those who did their best for the people around them and who had the
strength to face difficulties and to stare them down. The things that mattered
the most to Dale, the names, the people, the places, all of them mattered just
as much to the men who had written the letters in his hands. Wherever they were
in the world, they had been here and they knew it the way he did. It was
something they all shared in, something they were all committed to in the same
way they were committed to each other. And he held a piece of each of them in
his hands, their writing, the words that had come from them to here. They had
all of them lived in the house where two men had been so in love with each
other that you could feel it, tangibly, in their home. It was in the walls, it was
in the ground, it was in this land that was theirs and it held together a
network of people that stretched out far beyond the bounds of the ranch, raised
with the values these two men had learned here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">This
is the responsibility I take. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It was Tom’s letter he finally went back to
when he was able to think again, particularly the last two paragraphs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";">I’m glad you found the Fisher King story
useful. It’s one I’ve thought about for years, it makes a lot of sense to me.
I’ve been sitting in that castle for about twenty years trying to pull up the
courage to ask the question. Did you know about Plato’s Devine Design? ‘<em>There is a place that you are to fill
and no one else can fill."</em> It just takes both the guts and the
insight to look for it. Something else you might find interesting given what
Paul’s telling us: did you know the night before a man was knighted he
traditionally spent a night alone in a ten hour vigil in a holy place? Prayed,
meditated and prepared himself to make that lifetime sacred commitment to the
principles he was vowing to serve, until the morning when his sponsor presented
him with his shield and sword and he swore his oath of allegiance. I’m not
surprised that’s what you feel drawn to do. I’ve done a little of it myself in
the last few days, our Sherpas see this as a supremely spiritual place that is
earned, not an entitlement.</span></b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";">I’m dictating this to Paul
over the satellite phone and the reception’s bloody awful so I need to keep it
quick. We’re at camp three today. Tonight we’ll go up to camp four, sleep the
rest of the day and in the early hours we’re making our summit bid. We’re both
in high places tonight and both preparing ourselves to be worthy.<br /> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";">Ex animo<br /> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";"> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";">Tom.<br /> </span></b><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "bradley hand itc";"> </span></b></blockquote>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale sat for a long time, his mind turning
over and over with more in it than there was room for. The sun was starting to
go down beyond the canyon and was sending out long tendrils of soft red and
orange light when he finally opened his journal and began to reply with pauses
to look out over the view, drafting the letter back that he’d email to Tom when
he got home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">When the last sliver of sun sunk out of
sight and twilight was casting shadows across the rocks, Dale left the letters
safely weighted with a rock and went back down to the plateau. Hammer was peacefully
grazing. Dale took him water, damped down the fire to be safe and picked up
Paul’s sweater, shouldering into it against the evening chill. It was warm,
soft and comfortingly scented of Paul, like being wrapped in him, and it raised
a wave of strong emotion at the touch of it. It made Paul here, as much as the
ring on his finger meant the others were here. Dale checked the camp once more
and made sure Hammer was safe, and then he slowly walked back up to the top of
the canyon and took up a seat beside the letters, preparing himself. Cross
legged, facing out over the ranch land. He had a sense of tense excitement in
his belly; as if he was sitting waiting for something truly wonderful. And with
that in mind he let his mind clear, let his eyes drift out over the land he
made his promise to, and sat still, watching and waiting as the stars slowly
began to come out over head. And it was then he let himself think it. Clearly,
with intent, his hands laid on the cooling rock of the ranch ground. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">I
take on this duty freely and willingly, with a sound mind. I know and I believe
in the values of those who took this responsibility before me, and in their
name and in love of them I swear, I will be here and I will learn to do
whatever I may for whatever on this land may need us. Whosoever and whatever
they may be. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He sat there through the night. Hour by
hour by hour, and he didn’t notice the time pass. Deep peace and stillness sank
into his bones and there was a pureness to this place that made it so safe he
could let his mind float, thinking of nothing in particular. He forgot his
body, his awareness spread out wider than that. The moon hung high and bright
above the canyon and moved slowly across the sky, and he watched the light
change slowly from darkest black to blue to soft and misty grey and then a soft
thin blue. And as the sun rose slowly on the horizon to the east, an eagle
passed overhead, hunting. Dale watched it circle slowly, watched it until it
passed out of sight and was gone, like a benediction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"> </span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijEzb69Hrx9dxtmNM25PbTLIrbrGXoXsz9k-OK3kQEDxsUDpF5Lzpxs9DJIkgWNrE8J5C1mScftX7yoP6Ami2z_sHUmK_BxCoiBdBm6h9RDkVqZsxGfuboYsgGTHwko-GEbVadq5EuxCc/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijEzb69Hrx9dxtmNM25PbTLIrbrGXoXsz9k-OK3kQEDxsUDpF5Lzpxs9DJIkgWNrE8J5C1mScftX7yoP6Ami2z_sHUmK_BxCoiBdBm6h9RDkVqZsxGfuboYsgGTHwko-GEbVadq5EuxCc/s320/unnamed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">He took the letters with him as he walked
back down to the camp. Hammer whinnied greeting to him and Dale took him fresh
water before he built up the fire and sat down before it to heat water for
himself. He took out his journal to write while it heated, thinking for a while
and then writing slowly. He heard the boots come from behind him, brisk and
purposeful on the grass. A stride he recognised, that didn’t mess about. He
didn’t need to look round. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">David took a seat on the other side of the
fire from him, his elbows propped on his knees, and he smiled. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b>The End</b></span></div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><br /></b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<br />
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<br /></div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-86697466546151805492015-09-24T15:52:00.000-07:002015-09-28T01:12:23.721-07:00Everest - Chapter 15<div style="text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-large;">15</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">To:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com"><b><span lang="EN-GB">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">From: </span></b><a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.com"><b><span lang="EN-GB">AdenD@horizon.com</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB">Subject: Re: Re: Well just to cheer you up</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB">>>What’s happening with Flynn
and the others? How are they handling this?<br />
<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Flynn tends to make the world very small and straightforward when things
are rough. It’s like being able to find the stillness to think about ‘right
now’ instead of ‘everything’. There’s so much conviction in his ‘I’m the only
thing you need to be paying attention to’ attitude that I find myself believing
him. Paul is Paul only more so, he’s been amazing. Riley calls this standard
brat stuff and is completely unstressed about it – to quote him, my work scares
him; this is normal. Jasper is also very unfreaked by it. This kind of thing
figures pretty strongly in his philosophy, it’s something you have a
responsibility to do and it’s good, it’s not something to worry about.
I’m stunned at how patient they’re being with this mess. It doesn’t matter.
They tell me that over and over again, it doesn’t matter, not to stress about
it, it’s all a part of getting where we want to go. In their perspective the
occasional disasters are just hiccups, nothing more significant. Gerry says the
same thing, that in mid disaster he’s always convinced this time the world is
ending and he finds himself avoiding Ash’s conviction that no it isn’t, this is
fine, this is just a problem we can plan for and deal with. It’s that ability
to keep your eyes on the big picture, not get lost in the moment. I do that all
too easily.<br />
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry has joined Riley in agreeing mine is the total reversal of their
experience of being stressed out or in trouble, they both swear their chores
quadruple if they’re grounded. I use any kind of activity or distraction to
zone out and get further away, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to break
the habit of. Flynn and the others work in a similar way with clients, starting
them out in a very small structured routine and enlarging it gradually. There’s
a sort of pyramid of functionality, starting with eating well, sleeping well
and being able to be calm, and working upwards, in line with criteria for being
allowed to leave the house, leave the yard, work with someone, work alone, etc.
A few times I’ve reached the absolute bottom of the pyramid and been sent to
bed for a few hours to calm down, which also helps me keep in mind that calming
myself down is something I have to actively focus on and accept help with if I
want more rope. Watching the client and joining in monitoring his level of
functionality has given me a clearer understanding of my own experience of it.
I never would have tried reducing stimulation or deliberately managing my
stress in this way when I was at work or put any effort into figuring out why I
felt and why, I just used more and more distraction to block it out, sublimated
it, and I can see now why bad became worse. I don’t ever remember anyone
teaching me ‘this is how to calm yourself down’. ‘This is how to figure out
what your problem is and deal with it when you’re in a state’. Maybe I just
wasn’t paying attention on the day in school they taught everyone else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
I suspect Gerry is also on what Riley refers to as ‘a tight leash’, but
is looking calmer and more relaxed than he was when he first arrived, certainly
he’s smiling far more. I can see things being kept very deliberately calm in
the house right now, there’s a team effort going on. Ash is working Gerry hard,
they’ve been out with Flynn and Riley every day, and Ri is getting worked just
as hard from what he says, and from the chores he and Flynn are dealing with
before he comes in for dinner. Luath is going out with them too, and I suspect
he’s pushing himself as much as Ash is pushing <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Gerry, and the same way Jasper pushes the client. Exercise,
organisation, things to do, and tired enough to be relaxed and to sleep well:
it’s a plan I know. There was something in one of Flynn’s papers on
neurological regulation, sensory organisation and activation of the frontal
lobe via exercise and physical tasks, I need to get his papers out and re read
them more thoroughly. I distinctly remember thinking when I first came to the
ranch that they had hit on an extremely useful excuse for a free source of
labour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
<i> >>Are you able to let
them handle it?</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
Yes. They’re making it as easy as possible, we’re talking more about it
than is at all comfortable, and now of course they’re taking no crap about it
either, which was the aim but sometimes is easier to cope with than others.
Breakfast time didn’t go too well a couple of days ago and Paul and Flynn both
walked with me out as far as the pasture and out of earshot of the house, where
I tried to explain some of it, which didn’t go well, and Paul as soon as he got
the gist, went straight to what I actually meant. Try standing in a wet pasture
in the rain at seven am in the morning, politely stammering out that it’s
somewhat discomfiting having a crisis in front of witnesses with Paul
interpreting by yelling at the top of his voice with dramatic emphasis.<span class="apple-converted-space"><i> </i></span>It’s difficult to stay stressed
once someone’s made you laugh like that, and hard to feel like an idiot when
Paul’s cheerfully acting a far bigger one. The morning did get better.<br />
<br />
How are you handling anything with Jake when you’re under canvas and around
other people all the time? That’s pure curiosity and an extremely personal
question, I don’t expect an answer, and Riley has said before that you and Jake
are often with or around teams of people you’re guiding, so this is probably
something you’re very used to. I’m not sure on reflection how I would cope
being anywhere with the others where they weren’t free to react as they usually
do. I rely on it too much, especially at times when I’m not very together. But
then this is still fairly new to me, and I live in a household where there’s no
time or activity off limits. No one’s worried about what the client hears or
sees unless things get fully physical, as he’s participating in the same
standards and values, just in a different role and to a different degree to me
and to Riley.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
Where are you on the mountain? I know a climb up to camp three was next on the
schedule.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br />
Thinking of you <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .5in; margin-right: 1.0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Dale.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">
~ ~ ~ ~ ~</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">To:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.com"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">AdenD@horizon.com</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">From:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com"><b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Subject: Oh for God’s sake change the subject line
occasionally</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"> >> with Paul yelling at the top of his
voice with dramatic emphasis<i> </i>........... <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">are you serious?! How do you stand still in front of
that? Jake wouldn’t dare, I’d change my name and emigrate. The whole thought of
it makes me want to go for a long, long walk. Argh.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>In Inja’s sunny clime where I used
to spend my time</i>, etcetera etcetera,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>and
you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB"><br />
</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> We’re still in base camp. I made
Jake take a few days rest to be sure he’d got over the altitude sickness, and
the weather turned and it’s been rough high up for the last 24 hours. There are
two teams at camp three right now, and according to the radio they’ve dug in
and not been able to move. It’s proving to be a changeable year, with
unpredictable weather slots. The trouble with that is that as soon as there is
a clear slot identified, a lot of teams will grab it and try to go up together,
and some of the teams are large and very slow moving. The next plan we need to
make is an expedition to camp 3, which will be the longest expedition so far,
and after that we’ll take a few rest days in base camp and get ready for for
the final expedition to camp 4 and the summit attempt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
How we handle stuff up here and in public. I’m not a lines or essays or
corners sort of person, I never have been. There aren’t that many corners in
your average jungle. There was a certain amount of thought on my part early on
that I probably should pull myself together and/or be made to do it, but Jake’s
useless at stressing about anything and just said it wasn’t for us. We live
pretty un-material lives too, so there isn’t much that can be withdrawn.
I don’t deal well with limited space, and it isn’t usually about issues that
can wait, so it is almost always physical. We’d most usually use a paddle, but
we tried out a few things for the times when discretion’s the better part of
valour and settled on some martinet thing Jake had as part of his Mounties kit
for dusting dress uniform, which is allegedly French traditional although I’ve
told him it looks downright kinky to me. It is practically silent and it hasn’t
drawn attention, and here most people are more interested in trying to sleep or
get warm than care what anyone else is doing in their tents, and while it’s
probably something that Gerry et al would frown on we’ve worked on the
principle of what people don’t know won’t upset them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
What’s the significance of activating the frontal lobe? Regulation? If
exercise does it, we ought to be regulated to the nth degree up here but no
one’s looking that regulated to me. Possibly cold and low oxygen undoes the
effect somewhat. The household sounds under a tight regime right now, which I
admit sounds quite interesting. How is the train robbery investigation
going? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Look after yourself <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB">Tom<br />
</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
* ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">From:
Gerry <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">8.23am
<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">To:
<u>Bigbear, Niall, Darcy, Wade</u> <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">Ok,
wtf is going on? I’m in hospital <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">you
know? Being operated on? I’m sitting here in a gown with no back to it and no
dignity and you lot have started world war three and I have no idea what’s
going on! Will someone explain the three thousand emails in my box? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">From:
Darcy <u><o:p></o:p></u></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">8.26am<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">To:
Gerry<u> </u> <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">THERE
you are! Thank God, are you ok? When is the surgery? How have you got hold of
your phone???<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">From:
Gerry<u> </u><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">8.30
am <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">To:
Darcy <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 3in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">We
just got here. Don’t want to talk about it. Ash had to go fill in forms, he
just gave me my phone for the first time in days, what is going on???? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">From:
Darcy <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">8.33
am<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">To:
Gerry, Bigbear, Niall, Wade <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">Some
witch queen has been badmouthing Jake’s expedition in the press. Her son, who
sounds a complete ass, is on the expedition and blogging from there. We’ve been
commenting on her column and his blog, Niall’s been doing it with all his
initials and rank in full and so has Wade, and now other bigwigs have seen it
because of Niall’s commenting and some of my clients saw it too on my Twitter
feed and started commenting and it kind of exploded, the downside is she’s
loving the publicity. Btw, you’ll have a letter from Jake’s solicitor on your
doormat when you get home, you’re going to want to get rid. Quick.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">From:
Gerry <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">8.35
am <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">To:
Darcy, Bigbear, Niall, Wade <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">Why
have I got a letter from Jake’s solicitor?? I’ve been on the ranch for weeks
being utterly innocent, I haven’t been this good in years! <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">From:
Darcy <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">8.39
am <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">To:
Gerry, Bigbear, Niall, Wade <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">Yeah
what was the Top/brat ratio in the house again? 5:3? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">From:
Gerry <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">9.41am
<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">To:
Darcy, Bigbear, Niall, Wade <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">Shuddup.
It was 1:1, Dale counts as at least three. Letter???? <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">From:
Darcy <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">9.44am
<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">To:
Gerry, Bigbear, Niall, Wade <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #9bbb59; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3;">There
were some comments posted on the column under your name. Bear felt you would
have made them if you were able, so he made them on your behalf before I got
hold of him. That bit hasn’t come to light yet but you’re on the circulation
list for the cease and desist letter, so saving his butt is down to you.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">From:
Gerry <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">9.46am
<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">To:
Darcy, Bigbear, Niall, Wade <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #8064a2; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4;">Again.
Seriously. I leave you lot for fi <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #c0504d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent2;">From:
Ash <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #c0504d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent2;">9.48am
<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #c0504d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent2;">To:
Darcy, Bigbear, Niall, Wade <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #c0504d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent2;">Guys,
Gerry’s being got ready to be taken down now, thanks for distracting him while
he waited. I’ll let you know this evening how he’s doing. He’s fine, don’t
worry. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #c0504d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent2;">xxxxx <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><i><u><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">The Flight of the Phoenix:
the exclusive blog of Phoenix Loudon’s epic ascent of the World’s Highest
Mountain. <o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">2nd May <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">At Camp Three! <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">I arrived in good time
yesterday and am blogging from the spectacular heights of the Lhotse Face. In
the early hours of the morning we’ll go up to Camp Four, sleep the rest of the
day, and in the early hours we’ll make our summit bid. Thank you for your many
kind comments and congratulations about the fellow climber I saved in the Ice
Fall, and for your good wishes to him. He’s recovering well, although his nerve
is badly shaken. I don’t chatter with the others much, I’m known as a bit of a
silent watcher, but I’m there where I’m needed and I think they know they can
rely on me. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">Being somewhere alone and
this wild lets you think so clearly. I’ve been sitting here tonight reflecting
on the story of the Fisher King… and it makes me think too of Plato. “There is
a place that you are to fill and no one else can fill”. If you just have the
guts to look for it. The night before a man was knighted he spent a night alone
in a holy place, prayed and meditated and readied himself to be worthy. Our
Sherpa see this as a supremely spiritual place that is earned, not an
entitlement. We’re in a high place tonight and preparing ourselves to be
worthy. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">Ex amino. Rock on! <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
slept on oxygen that night. It was a slightly less comfortable experience than
staying awake and jabbing forks in your legs. The oxygen was set only at a
trickle to supplement breathing through the night instead of provide the
equivalent of sea level air; just enough to help avoid flat out hypoxia, and it
needed to last for hours. Whacked up to full stream your tank might last you a
mere two hours if you were lucky, and you’d need to have more oxygen bottles up
here to go through than anyone but the big client expeditions with the very
large teams of Sherpa support could provide. It took effort to breathe and to
doze, which was the best either of them managed at all, but they were in better
condition in the morning than they’d been on their previous night at this
altitude. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
started out to camp four together at a little after four am in the morning of
May 3rd, this time dressed in the full gear they’d been carrying since base
camp. Several layers of fleece, down suit on top, and the wind suit over the
top that would block the sub-zero winds from penetrating. Dorje grinned at Tom
as he and Jake checked that their crampons were properly fitted before they
settled the big black shiny masks into place under the goggles that completely
covered and obliterated their faces, checked that harnesses were on right, and
zipped up the tent behind them before they stepped out onto the steep slope of
the Lhotse face in the dark. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
were only a few other climbers stirring as they left; a few lights on in the
other tents scattered across the Face. It was too early in the season for the
crowds that would be up here in a few days’ time, when there could be queues of
fifty or more in a single file queue ahead on the ropes, some of them
floundering and taking forever to move, holding up everyone behind them in
these sub-zero, dangerous temperatures with oxygen running out while they
waited. More than a few climbers had lost their attempt – or lost fingers or
toes to frostbite - purely because they got too cold and ran out of oxygen
while waiting, and had been forced to turn back. It did not make the client
expeditions popular who brought climbers up here with frankly inadequate
mountaineering skills to flounder on the ladders or steep stretches of rock, or
needing long minutes of rest at a time between every step they took; the
thought of Max or Bart up here under these conditions made Tom shudder. It was
taking everything he had this morning as he clipped back onto the rope and
continued his way up the Lhotse face behind Jake, to find the breath to put one
foot in front of the other and make himself get going when his body was stiff,
sore and tired from overuse. Although this was the wall that led to the real
runner’s high, he knew it and he committed himself grimly to pushing through
it, making himself warm up and stretch and use his body properly, get his
breathing controlled, get his mind sharp and on the job, get his technique
right. They’d left in advance of most of the other teams up here too who would
set out around five am. Jake kept them well ahead for the same reason; to have
clear ropes. The price they paid was the extra hour of darkness and the extreme
cold of the night, but they were fast enough and experienced enough as a team
to handle that in return for the payoff of no time spent standing around. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was hard to make themselves heard above the oxygen masks in the wind and they
moved in more or less complete silence like spacemen, every inch of skin
covered and the bulky windsuits battered by what passed for the early morning
breeze up here which raised a low mist of snow around them. Lit only by their
headlamps, moving in a sequence of Bill, Spitz, Jake, Tom and Dorje, they began
the traverse – the trail that led from one side of the Lhotse face right across
to its other side, and they reached the yellow band still in full darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
band was the most obvious part of the sea bed that Everest had once been and it
rose up out of the snow like a vast stone beach emerging out of the sea. The
limestone band cut right across the mountain here, a wide layer of sedimented
rock that held fossils and the ancient remains of crustaceans if you had the
time, breath and energy to spare to look for them. Depending on the weather,
this stretch could be covered in ice and snow in any amount of combination.
This morning it was dusted with snow but it was largely one big stretch of
undulating frozen rock to climb, in crampons, which grated horribly and slid
against the limestone. It was not unlike trying to climb a cliff in roller
skates, and without the ropes it would have been somewhere between bloody difficult
and nearly impossible. At sea level it would not have been a particularly hard
challenge to climb for an experienced climber. Here with minimum oxygen, the
slipperiness of trying to make crampons grip on rock, it was a leg sapping,
breath stealing ordeal that took some time to cross as the sun came up, casting
red light in streams across the rockface. Aware that Jake paused regularly to
glance back to him and that while he was taking it slowly he was moving well,
Tom followed in his wake, some tiny corner of his mind beyond the intense
concentration singing the ancient words from a carol he’d known since
childhood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mark
my footsteps good my page, <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tread
thou in them boldly <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thou
shalt find the winter’s rage <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Freeze
thy blood less coldly… <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>In his master’s steps he trod –</i> it was a
romantic fancy that made him half smile beneath the cold and sweaty discomfort
of the oxygen mask, but it helped. This place was wild, with its primordial
coils and swirls of rock beneath the dusting powder of snow, the elephants
graveyard of the mountain, the resting place of bones of monsters unseen by
human eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At
the top of the yellow band Jake sat down for a moment to wait for him, reached
down to take his hand and pull him the last few feet to sit with him, panting
for breath. The sun was almost fully up. Looking back down the band – it was
like sitting with him on the edge of some crazy cliff, looking out over the
sheer drop below, the insanely steep ski run of white snow slopes all around
them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“All
right?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
had to raise his voice over the mask and the wind to be heard. Tom nodded,
still gripping his hand. Breath taking. Beautiful in the new morning light. The
exhaustion and the strain in his legs was worth it for this, for this view
here. It was unreal. The flash of blue caught his eye on the rock, some way
down and to the right of them, well off the rope marked trail up. A more
careful look identified the sprawled body. Legs. Boots. A hand flung out that
was now skeletonised. It was not the first body he had seen up here; there were
a couple visible on the Cwm, and the general law above camp three was not to
look around too much because you’d almost certainly find things you really
didn’t want to see. From camp three upwards, most bodies lay where the person
had died; no one had the oxygen or energy to spare to do anything more than
move themselves. It was still impossible to see that sight without a deep
internal shock that the body could be a year old or a decade old, that he or
she too had been through the same camps, done the same acclimatising and work
they had done, and somehow it had ended here. Jake pulled on his hand,
indicating to him to get up and steering Tom ahead of him on the rope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
Lhotse face continued above the band, another eternity spent on the steep ice,
slogging one step at a time up the rope. It was a bright morning, blue sky, sun
overhead, but the winds were hitting them at sixty miles an hour, battering and
rattling with so much noise that hearing each other was impossible. It was like
the flapping of massive wings, endlessly buffeting overhead. The trail finally
reached the end of the traverse and the last obstacle between them and camp
four; the Geneva Spur. It had been named by the Swiss expedition in the 1950s,
a black, snow speckled buttress of rock that looked far larger and more
intimidating when you reached it than it did from a distance. They had placed
their oxygen cache at the foot of it and they paused there to change their
oxygen bottles which were now running on empty to new ones, leaving the empty
canisters in the cache and shoving a couple of spare new bottles each into
their back packs, the weight of them was hard going at this altitude. It took
time with clumsy hands, and Tom turned Jake around to check his equipment and
ensure it was set right to a steady, low flow, and that the valve was free of
ice before he checked the others. Not with any lack of trust in their skills;
it was mostly for his own reassurance but no one argued with him. Bill,
stockier than ever in his suit. Spitz. Dorje, the shortest and most efficient
of them all at this height and he was the fastest with the oxygen kit and had
sorted out Spitz’s recalcitrant bottle. And Jake. Wide shouldered, towering
over the rest of them in the additional bulk of his suit, like the giant and
timeless Knight Templar in the Allingham tale. A man who should have been
carrying a fourteenth century cruciform longsword here, not an ice axe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was a steep, mixed climb of snow and rock scrambling over the spur in the wind,
and in this place few climbers managed step after step in sequence – it was
nearer to step, get your balance, breathe. Step, get your balance, breathe. You
fought for every step here as your body fought for breath, and you had to know
what you were fighting for and want to win more than you wanted oxygen or to
just be allowed to stop. It was a straight forward uncomplicated battle between
you and the rock, the basic drive to conquer. There was no room for anything in
your head but that, and it was as oddly, purely peaceful as it was painful. At
the top of the spur as they came over the lip was the sudden, spectacular view
of Everest herself. Huge, an intimidating giant, and now she was directly in
front of them. This was the rood screen to her chancel. The open door that
showed heaven to the celebrants. And below her the ground now opened out like
into grey shale covered plateau and not too far along it there was the South Col
and finally the tents of camp four, the highest camp in the world and seated
well within Everest’s Death Zone. So called, because up here the human body
literally began to die. With not enough oxygen, with the withering cold that
could freeze exposed skin in seconds, where it was impossible to stay hydrated
even if you drank constantly, where exhaustion was the price of any movement of
your oxygen depleted organs and muscles, it was a battle of time; to get where
you wanted fast enough to achieve it and get out again before your body
deteriorated to the point you could no longer move. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Camp
four was on that plateau, a large open area like a theatre stage the size of
several football fields that allowed for tents to be well spread out in
different areas for different expeditions. It looked like the surface of the
moon. Several hundred old oxygen bottles and fragments of torn remains of tents
were visible, the remnants of old expeditions, and the few new, securely
pitched tents placed among the rags for this year’s expeditions. A black bird
walked slowly among some of the rags, picking at them. It was something of a
shock to see a living creature. The east end of the plateau dropped about 7,000
feet down the Kangshung Face into Tibet. The west end a mere 4,000 down onto
the Western Cwm. A sharp drop and a short stop in either direction. Standing on
it, Tom looked out over miles – how many hundreds of miles – with a sense of
awe that gripped him to the heart and stole what was left of his breath. An
immense world of white cloud below them, where sunlit peaks penetrated the
cloud field occasionally with their sharp pinnacles of grey and snow-capped
white. This was it. The top of the world. The place above the clouds. The
ascent into heaven’s realm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was a bare, vast place and it was a private place seen only by the eyes of
those who had earned it with their own sweat and strength, who had proved
themselves worthy enough to climb here themselves. The tent they had pitched
there together on their last visit was a large one, it would be shared by all
five of them today which meant more of a chance of staying warm. Dorje dropped
his pack and went to check the moorings of the tent, tightening and stabilising
them with expertise Tom could only envy. It was good to get the packs and the
mask off. Dorje glanced up and smiled at him as he came to help There was an
exhausted muddle of chipping ice, getting stoves lit and ice in pans to melt in
the tent– staying even reasonably safely hydrated was going to mean a nonstop
cycle of melting snow to drink until they left for the summit. Seventeen hours
of extreme climbing lay ahead of them tonight, during which time eating and
drinking would be mostly impossible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
five of them crammed in together to the tent, where despite the closeness of
them squashed together, the thermometer read 30 below. At this point, sweaty,
exhausted, there was no nicer way to put it, they just plain stank at close
quarters once the tent was sealed. Spitz shrugged off his pack, flopped back
against it, and Tom saw him crash almost instantaneously into sleep. Jake
shifted into a corner of the tent, grabbed Tom by the harness and shifted him
over to sit between his knees and lean against him, making more space for Bill
and Dorje. Neither of them would think twice about it. As far as Bill was
concerned, there was not one single member of the Abeausante team who was
straight; Beau surrounded herself with people she felt comfortable with. And
Dorje glanced at them once with gentle, slightly wistful eyes but didn’t look
again. It was difficult to envisage what life was like for a gay Sherpa Khumbu
man. Nepal had legalised homosexuality only in the last eighteen months. It
meant people were no longer imprisoned for an average of two years for being
caught; Nepal were certainly working on welcoming LGBT international tourists,
but among their own population, particularly in the distant rural villages the
Sherpa came from where the traditional culture remained strongest, it was
taboo. It was unlikely Dorje had ever verbalised to anyone what Tom saw gently
present in him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
melted ice. Drank. Melted more ice. It took about 2 hours to get even mostly
hot water. No one talked much, and attempts to eat were dogged and soon
abandoned. Up here the digestive system just ceased to work at all, it took in
no nutrition. By early afternoon they undressed the amount that was bearable
and climbed into sleeping bags, resumed their oxygen masks and huddled deep
inside the thick down. It was one of those times where the fact that he and
Jake could share a bag was very, very much to Tom’s way of thinking a blissful
bonus. They were far warmer together than either of them would have been alone,
and exhausted and sore, all he really wanted to do was curl up to Jake and shut
his eyes. On the oxygen it was difficult to really do more than try to sleep
and wait for zero hour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We
were so crowded together we lay body against body right across the tent; if Tom
and I hadn’t been able to occupy one sleeping bag together we wouldn’t have all
fitted in. Tom was dozing at intervals, I could feel him let go against me and
the moments where he went limp and his breathing got so spaced out it was
mildly alarming, but his face was turned against me, and when he relaxes like
this it means he’s turned his head off. It’s one of the hardest things he can
do, and it was a great relief to know he could do it tonight. That he could let
himself take comfort, let me do the worrying for both of us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tonight
I was getting a bit too good at that. You have to be able to ignore a rather
huge amount of discomfort and personal stress to get up here. You can’t be hung
up on being clean or having enough to eat or being warm enough or that your
throat is now bleeding and you’re coughing up bloody phlem and bits of your
throat lining from the constant icy air. Unfortunately the people who can do
that also tune out the signals that they’ve committed too much and are in
danger. They’re people obsessed on a goal, who push themselves, and that makes
them likely to get summit fever and die trying. Summit fever as it is known
here has taken a lot of lives – people who fought for their goal, sacrificed
everything for it, and had nothing in reserve to survive beyond the achievement
of it. Tom and I were both such people and we were <i>not</i> going to be counted in their number, neither was any other man
in this tent if I could help it. This mountain is the closest physical
challenge in the world to walking into the valley of death and coming back; if
you achieve the summit you actively do that. Take your body to the brink, it’s
extreme climbing for that reason alone. Less than one third of those who
climbed here ever reach the summit – not all of those make it down again – and
half of those climbers are Sherpa. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
racket that started outside began with lights and the crunch of feet on the
shale and then high voices over the sound of the wind that rattled the tent;
voices distressed enough that I listened and then sat up to unzip myself and
yank off the oxygen mask, sliding quickly out of the bag and grabbing my down
suit and outer boots. Bill was sitting up on the far side of the tent but let
me go, wincing as I opened the outer flap and drenched the inside of the tent
with the icy wind. There were two climbers some way from us, outside a tent
brightly lit from the inside with a lamp, but the two men were roughly dressed
in their down suits and milling outside their tent entrance with that total
lack of co-ordination that comes from severe shock. I’d seen it in victims at
plenty of crime scenes. The wind was brutal across the plateau, it was
shockingly cold – the kind of cold where bare skin freezes in seconds and I
grabbed the nearest guy and shook him a little, pushing him towards his tent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get
your gear on. What happened?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
got a flood of language I didn’t understand other than it was high and cracked
and horribly distressed. It wasn’t Spanish, but something in the vicinity of;
possibly Portuguese, but I crawled into their tent and thrust all the kit I
could see at them, pushing it into their hands. The third man in their tent was
curled on his side in the sleeping bag at the far side. His colour said most of
what I needed to know. Outside I heard Tom’s voice, hoarse over the wind but
managing broken phrases in Portuguese and a moment later he ducked inside the
tent behind me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re
saying he’s dead.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re
right.” I took my hand away from the guy’s jaw where I’d been searching for a
pulse, or anything, even the faintest trace of breathing, making absolutely
sure. His eyes were fixed and dilated and there was no response. He was just
starting to cool; probably no more than an hour or so gone. With no sign. No
obvious cause. It happens sometimes here; he’d probably stroked out or his
heart had given way or he’d quit breathing through the lack of oxygen, he’d
just died in his sleep, five or six hours away from his summit attempt. We were
never going to know why; there would be no getting him down from here. Outside
I could hear one of his team mates sobbing. I pulled the sleeping bag hood
gently right up and zipped it, enclosing him. These guys had only the one tent,
they were going to have to use it tonight willing or not, and this was not
something they were going to find easy to do for themselves. Tom stooped to
help me and somehow we manhandled the guy outside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Usually
we’d have done it in seconds, a smooth lift and carry together. Here…. the lack
of oxygen, it was like trying to move underwater. We were clumsy, tired,
impeded by our motor skills being off, by the heavy suits we were encased in,
and it took us some minutes to get the limp figure which felt unbearably heavy
even outside of the tent, and then to be able together to drag him some way
from the tents. Dorje was there on the plateau. The Sherpa avoid death on the
mountain. Many of them will not touch or go near to a body, their beliefs struggle
with it, and he watched us but I could hear his voice through the wind, saying
something in his own language I didn’t understand. Tom dropped on one knee to
help me place the body and ensure it was completely covered by the bag.
Wherever we put him now was where he was likely to stay for all eternity, and I
saw Tom’s hand move to cross himself as he straightened up; I had a fair idea
of what he was murmuring too. I put a hand on his arm and went with him to the
other two climbers, standing shattered and distraught outside their tent. Tom
said something to them in their own language, a few phrases, and one of them
grabbed for me, clutching my shoulders and sobbing against me for a moment. I
hugged him, not able to do anything else for him, and then he let me go and he
and his companion returned to their tent, which was I was sure, the very last
place on earth they wanted to be tonight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was pitch dark out here, completely silent and so isolated – so barren – that
it was like being on the moon. There was something alarming in this darkness, a
sense of this place so powerful that it was like being watched; I hadn’t been
this nervous about a dark place since I was a little kid. I hustled Tom ahead
of me towards our tent and we stripped off a few bits and got back into the
sleeping bag as Dorje settled back into his bag next to us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
happened?” Bill said quietly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Died
in his sleep. One of the Portuguese team.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Bloody
hell…. The poor bastard.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
pulled Tom closer against me, wrapping both arms tightly around him. I’d read
once that at the high camps you would feel like you were climbing with the
worst case of flu you can imagine. They were not far wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dorje?
Are the Sherpa as disturbed by deaths here as it’s rumoured?” Spitz said
bluntly in the long, sombre silence that followed, broken only by one of us
coughing at intervals. We were all at it more or less constantly now. Breath
steamed in front of all of us and every face I looked at was sunburned brown,
flushed red with the nip of cold and weathered, showing dehydration and
exhaustion in equal amounts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje,
huddled in his sleeping bag beside us with a book in his hand, looked over and
gave him a faint smile. Spitz had commented to me that Dorje spent as much time
reading as he did sleeping since we left base camp; always the same book with a
battered, green cover, a book of prayers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
not like go near bodies. Touch bodies. Say superstitious in the books, I know
that word.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
seemed a vaguely derogatory term to me; the western inbuilt superiority. Tom
had muttered to me about many westerners here didn’t understand humility and
care for others as a purposeful value in a strong faith in the Sherpa and just
saw it as the deference of the naturally subservient and were happy to benefit
from it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There
is belief that spirit there near the body for time after death… climbers laying
on the mountain have restless spirit nearby. And funeral important for re birth
–no funeral is not good thing to us. Death is…. Polluting.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
a bit rough on the poor guy, it’s not his fault.” Bill muttered. Tom coughed
again, laying on his back against me with his eyes on the tent roof above, and
shook his head, waiting until he had the breath to talk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No,
it’s just not a word that translates well. Polluted to us means ‘dirty’. Some
of what they mean is there’s a separation occurring between spirit and body
that is felt by people around it- it’s like the idea of women menstruating
being ‘unclean’ in the old testament, it’s a buggering up of translation, the
Romans didn’t get semantic content. It’s not about ‘unclean’, it’s that there
was a potential for the most holy moment of life, for a spirit to enter and
animate flesh, and now there’s a kind of death of that potential life, and that
creates a kind of… spiritual vacuum where there isn’t exactly life or death.
This is that same intensely powerful energy in reverse, the separation of flesh
and spirit.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Other
spirits are attracted, overwhelm – balance – of those too near.” Dorje said,
searching for the words. “Lungta. In our faith we maintain our balance, our
duty to maintain, and not look on things or touch things that distort us, what
we take inside ourselves. We encourage spirit to move on, to form new life, not
linger in old, finished. It take great strength to witness present spirits
without them touching us, strongest only of lamas, not us.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’d
heard Jasper speak of similar beliefs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
of your angels, Tom?” Dorje said after a moment of slightly noisy heavy
breathing as we worked for air and the occasional spluttering as one of us
breathed too deep. “Do they guard balance in death for you? Which one?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Several
of them have been called the Angel of Death,” Tom’s eyes had gone distant but
in the peaceful way I was starting to recognise and know what he was thinking
of. That cathedral on another continent, a place he had loved, what I thought
was in some ways the deepest and the most peaceful part of him, held safe there
in his sanctuary. He saw this as a very similar place. He was distressed about
the guy outside, I could feel the stillness in him but he was calm against me,
his body turned against mine. “Azrael. Samael. Gabriel. They’ve all taken the
role at different times in stories. They bear away the worthy – mostly they act
as guides. Good counsellors.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
wasn’t the first time I’d noticed a major omission and dug my fingers into what
I could reach of his ribs, making him squirm. “Are you going to tell me what
your problem is with Michael? He’s the most renowned Angel of Death of the lot
of them, he never gets a mention in any of your stories.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
always forget about him.” Tom gave me a sideways sheepish smile. “Yeah, I
suppose Michael too.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><u><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">Excerpt from The New York
Times, May 4th <o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></div>
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<i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">... the Twitter feed has been exceptionally active, with several
well-known celebrities contributing their comments which has resulted in the
post going viral last night. The blog has received thousands of hits worldwide
in the last few hours; those who have followed Phoenix over the past few weeks
know that this story of a young man’s assault on the world’s highest mountain
has been gripping and often poetic, particularly including his now famous post
from camp three: <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">The night before a man was
knighted he spent a night alone in a holy place, prayed and meditated and
readied himself to be worthy. Our Sherpa see this as a supremely spiritual
place that is earned, not an entitlement. We’re in a high place tonight and
preparing ourselves to be worthy. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">Ex animo. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">His signature – the ancient Latin for ‘from the heart’ – makes
this a particularly touching sign off the night before the most dangerous part
of this climb, and is a reminder that this quest is indeed one of heart and
soul as well as body. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">His mother, Madeleine Loudon, a journalist of the Manhattan
Times, describes herself as ‘proud and terrified’. She is appearing this
morning on the Today Show to share how it feels to be waiting for news that her
son has summited in the climbing jargon, and returned safely to camp within the
death zone – the most lethal part of Everest. Phoenix set out on his climb to
the summit in the late hours of last night with his goal to reach the summit
itself this morning. We hope as you are reading this that he is indeed found
worthy and is safely stood upon the pinnacle of his quest. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From: <a href="mailto:Ash@Gerashley.net">Ash@Gerashley.net</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To: <u><span style="color: #000099;">Theo; James; Luath; Flynn</span></u><span style="color: #000099;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject: Um, I
have a question? 9.42pm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hi guys <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Just to let everyone
know; it’s done, over, Gerry’s doing well and we should be going home in the
morning. He was awake and very much with it by lunchtime, has very little pain
and has been enjoying himself this evening holding court to what seems like
about half the population of Seattle who popped in to see him. It was an effort
to keep visiting down to an hour, but it’s wiped him out and right now he’s too
deep asleep to be bothered by the gown, the décor, the nurses, being messed
with or anything else. Thank you for the flowers, his room is swimming in them.
Thank you too whoever very kindly thought of the crate of food that appeared in
the porch, I hadn’t had time to think of shopping since we only flew in this
morning and was extremely grateful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I nipped home while
Gerry was in theatre, changed and grabbed some things he needed and checked the
mail since we’ve been away from home a few weeks. I’m fascinated that Gerry
appears to have a letter from Jake’s solicitors asking him to stop posting
comments on some newspaper website, particularly since I know Gerry has had no
internet access for several weeks. From the cc list it looks like family
business, so can anyone help me out here? What exactly is going on? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ash <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">PS – phones on
and waiting for news on J&T, they have sworn to let the ranch know when
they are safely down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><u><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">The Flight of the Phoenix:
the exclusive blog of Phoenix Loudon’s epic ascent of the World’s Highest
Mountain. <o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">3rd May <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">8.50pm <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">This is it! I just radioed
down to Base Camp to check in. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">It was a sad day for us up
here in camp four. One of the Portuguese expedition died in his sleep. It
happens occasionally here, the poor guy must have stroked out or stopped
breathing, his team mates are devastated. I had to help them move him out of
their tent, the whole of our team were shattered for them. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">The communications tent is
full of people around the radio, all full of good wishes for our expedition.
Hopefully in a few hours we will be radioing down to them with the good news
that it’s happened - the Phoenix is on the Summit! <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #000099; font-family: inherit;">Rock on! <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a kind of dim twilight outside when they began at around eight pm to
prepare. It was a relief to finally get up and get started; the sense of
tension became manageable with something to do, although no one spoke. With
breathing an effort, it took time in the light of their head lamps to put on
the gear and double check kit, harness, boots and crampons, to drink, to try to
get down some packet soup that carried some calories, to manage some glucose
tablets, to fit on a brand new bottle of oxygen and start it at the low flow
they would use to climb. To don their very lightly packed backpacks. For the
first time carrying nothing but the emergency supplies for the next few hours,
no sleeping bags, no gear; it was a great difference to shrug it on and clip
the harness and know – the months of preparation were over tonight. There was
nothing more they could do to make ready, this was it. None of them had really
slept, none of them had done any more than lie and try to rest their body; even
thinking straight at this altitude wasn’t easy, but that wasn’t the reason for
no talking. It was too great a task ahead of them for chatter. Inside his down
suit as he zipped it up, Tom found another crinkled scrap of paper and unfolded
it, hunched over it as that was the only privacy possible in the tiny, crowded
tent. Jake’s handwriting was scrawled across it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">You are worthy. You are loved. You are
free to do this if you choose to be. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Free
of heart and free of the people in Sussex, their ghosts and the feelings they
invoked. If he chose to be. Jake understood that. Free of the kind of spiritual
pollution Dorje had spoken of this afternoon; the mountain was angered by
pollution of any kind brought into her sacred cloisters. Free to be with Jake
doing whatever he chose to do. Like cutting away the chain that bound Scrooge,
the burden that encumbered Pilgrim. The weight of what he carried in himself,
the impurity he had hugged to himself for years, afraid to release it until he
came here. And bit by bit it had flowed out of him until he looked at this note
now, at this moment, and smiled because it made sense. Because he was excited
and deeply scared and had a grip on both, and Jake did too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">You are free. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Outside
the tent he paused beside Jake to look up at him and Jake turned him to stand
face to face, the two of them very close in the windblown, dark plateau unnoticed
by the others and their preparations. Jake pulled off both sets of his gloves
for a moment to take Tom’s face in his hands, look straight at him, his voice
quiet but the tone that went right through Tom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Are
you ready?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
didn’t mean had he checked his crampons. Tom met his eyes, the Mediterranean
aqua here in the snow and desolation, the warmest thing up here at 8,000
metres, and knew that question meant if he wasn’t sure, they’d be staying
behind for a short discussion before following the others and Jake wouldn’t
think twice about it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes
sir.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
looked at him for a moment more, searching his face, and Tom let him look, let
him see. And then Jake smiled, his eyes lit and he bent his head to kiss Tom’s
forehead, like the old ancient benediction, then he lightly kissed Tom’s mouth
and put his gloves on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Come
on then.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A
few feet away Dorje, shrugging his pack into place and straightening his red
and yellow woolly hat, caught Tom’s eye and gave him a warm, equally alive-eyed
smile as he began to fit his face protector and oxygen mask. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill
radioed down to Shem when they were ready to leave. Shem, Max and Bart seemed
to be camping out in the communications tent, they answered immediately and
their brief conversation was mostly good wishes. They were settling in with
coffee to keep a vigil around the radio: no one in base camp in their compound
would get much sleep tonight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Just
before 9pm they hiked together in a tight group the rest of the way across the
dark, silent plateau in a steady wind. It felt to Tom like some ancient rite
more than the simple, honourable tradition of explorers and the intense
excitement – the awe of it – threaded itself through his belly. Druids had
processed like this in the dark towards Stonehenge. The Knights Templar had
drawn swords to enter two by two to the divine ceremonies of Roslyn Chapel. It
was the approach of armed men together towards a gateway that a few human souls
slipped past in darkness in this month every year, and not all of them ever
returned. Somehow everyone whispered here. In the far distance a small flicker
of light ahead indicated a couple of other climbers on the triangular face
ahead of them, but most of the big expeditions were still preparing below,
there would be no crowds here tonight. The real break in the weather had not
yet come. They would climb against strong winds; not the hurricane blasting
ones Everest was capable of year round, but not yet either the clear conditions
that would mean most of base camp trying for the top. This was their best,
quietest chance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
night was still coming. It was cold, as Tom had expected and prepared for in
the blasting wind, but the sky above them was absolutely clear. This was the
final, longest and toughest part of the climb. The true summit was still
concealed above them, they were above 8000 metres now and it was just over a
mile to the top. A mile that took an average of 6 to 9 hours for the average
summiteer. There had been horror stories of years where snow was so heavy up
here that climbers struggled to wade thigh deep, and other years where the snow
was so thin that climbers scrambled and slid with their crampons on the rock,
losing energy fast as they scrabbled for purchase. This was, the Sherpa Ice
Doctors had confirmed who had been up here to fix the ropes for this year’s
expeditions, a good year. There was snow, enough snow that the route was
already marked by the tracks laid down in it, but not deep enough to be wading
in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
hours of hard work up the Triangular Face to the Balcony seemed to take
forever. It was here, above every foot he’d covered on this mountain, that Tom
felt his will tested the most. It was steep, pitch dark, nothing to see but the
flickering light of his head lamp casting a small pool of light on the snow in
front of him illuminating Dorje’s boots tramping slowly forward, and the pool
of light cast ahead of him. Nothing to do but resign himself to thinking about
the rope and each step and Jake behind him, the discipline of moving, step
after step upward, stubbornly ignoring the fatigue, the struggle to breathe,
the cold, the pain in his legs and chest. Gradually they spread out in their
line; this was a climb each climber made alone, their focus on their own body.
Their breathing was loud over the masks and the carabiners jingled on the rope
in the buffet of the gale blasting over the face, filling their goggles with
blown snow, buffeting them at each step. It was a slog, a mind numbing struggle
that went on and on through the night, nothing easier than that; he wasn’t
prepared to see the headlamps above him suddenly stop and realise he was
standing on the balcony with Spitz, Bill and Dorje, the first flat area since
they left camp. They paused there to rest, to change oxygen bottles to the new
ones Dorje had stashed there for them some days ago, to drop their masks and to
drink hot tea from their thermoses. It meant stripping off outer gloves for a
few minutes to fix the screw of the new bottle into the regulator, and they’d
practiced this a lot to be ready for this moment in the dark, not thinking
clearly, but they hadn’t known to practice it with hands shaking with cold, the
penetrating cold that struck as soon as the layer of gloves were removed. Tom
did it as fast as possible, shivering hard. It was minus 42 degrees when he
checked the thermometer function on the altimeter that hung on his harness.
Jake dug in his pack and pushed several glucose tablets into Tom’s mouth,
taking several more himself. He was standing angled to Tom, acting as a wind
break to shield him; Tom saw it as he hugged his hands to his chest, trying to
keep himself warm, and stepped closer to run a hand over his back. Spitz was
sitting on the ice, head bowed to catch his breath. Bill crouched beside him.
Dorje stood a few feet away, his head raised, looking up at the mountain above
them. The moon was rising below the balcony, huge and luminous and just short
of full, and above them stars were sharp, bright pinpricks of light in a
midnight blue sky. It reminded Tom of the sky he’d read of above the dying
Titanic, another still, freezing, beautifully lethal night among ice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From
the balcony they climbed on up the South East Ridge, and if the Triangular Face
had been a bastard…. It began quite gently, but as they reached the ridge
itself, it was a long section of steep, jumbled rock to climb where there were
extremely steep spots where all you could do was brace yourself on the front points
of your crampons on the bit of jutting out rock you were standing on, push your
jumar on your harness ahead of you and pull yourself up. Hillary had likened
this stretch to climbing roof tiles and Tom had always loved roof tops – that
helped. And at least moving and forcing yourself to maintain a pace kept you
warm. Above those rocky slabs of the ridge it got even steeper hellishly so,
and then suddenly it opened out into a wide snow slope. This was the South
Summit. And above it, for the first time visible above them, was the true
summit. Her most cloistered secret. Her white, frozen heart. And as if in
response to their reaching that point, the wind began to drop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
up and down undulation of her highest slopes meant a climb downward for a while
to reach the foot of the Cornice Traverse, the most exposed section of all the
climb. Tom had seen pictures of it: it was a steep knife edge to haul up, like
climbing the angular corner of a pyramid. In places, the small snow path that
gave purchase for climbing was no more than five foot wide between the two
triangular planes of exposed rock, and on one side lay an 8,000 foot drop down
the southwest face. On the other side was an 11,000 foot drop down the
Kangshung Face. This was the spot where some climbers were hit with vertigo or
panic. However in the dark it was less terrifying. You could not see anything
but the snow path and the rope ahead of you and Tom was grateful for it. In the
dark, in utter, thumping exhaustion to a degree he’d never before felt in his
life, a blinding, numbing exhaustion, it was simply a cast of follow the path
and deal with the next immediate challenge. His mind was working too slowly to
really think about anything further. It was here, at some point on that slope,
that he became aware of something beside him. Beside him, on a path that did
not exist, the being was walking beyond the narrow knife edge ridge; a silent
companion from the side of his eye that had no real shape but had most definite
form. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
had read of this phenomenon. No few climbers reported it, he had wondered with
fascination in his study whether he or Jake would experience it and how it
would feel; in the reports it always occurred at this point, above the balcony,
travelling upward on the last stretch to the summit. Hillary had imagined there
was a companion beside him with whom he had conversed as he climbed. Many
others had described the same. In the moment….Tom found there was no sense of
surprise, no sense of academic interest, no sense of anything but a calm
normality that someone should be walking there, just as it was normal for Jake
to be climbing steadily behind him. A deep, flowing, uplifting calm such as he
hadn’t felt in years, as though the mountain was somehow pouring it through
him, up through his crampons and every step he took upon the ice. Some part of
his brain was aware that this was the result of hypoxia; the oddest part was
that it was a familiar feeling, one he had known before. Decades ago, when he
had been very small, when he had been free to wander the cathedral for hours in
that world of coloured light and candles and carven stone, he had known it and
he had forgotten it until this moment. In the alcove opposite the stained glass
windows of the Archangels with their spread wings. In the smallest and his most
favourite of the little dedicated side chapels where he curled up on the stone
ledge for hours in the silence, gazing at the pictures, this sense of a
formless, benign and comfortable companion had been there, filling him with
that peaceful ease. It waited for him as he automatically checked the anchor
point of the rope he was switching onto, there was no sense of needing to talk.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Beyond
the Traverse lay the Hillary Step, the 40 foot wall of rock that Hillary had
climbed, the first human to breach this point of the mountain’s sanctuary, by
jamming his shoulders and feet into a thin crack and levering himself up,
hauling his Sherpa friend up behind him. There were ropes there today, good
ropes, although only one of them could climb at a time and Tom waited with
Jake, stamping his feet to thaw them out of their increasing numbness and
rubbing his hands in their thick, heavy gloves while Bill went up the ropes
ahead of them. Beyond him was the first deep blue cast of dawn, a thin sliver
of light on the horizon that grew slowly, lifting the darkness away. Sunrise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Above
the step the ground was unroped and vague, as if it went nowhere. In the thin
early morning light Tom followed Bill’s footsteps forward towards a strange,
white set of massive cornices made of snow swept upwards into twisted and
curved points by the sweeping winds, strange towers and pinnacles like some
Russian fairy palace…. and abruptly – there. There it was. There was no further
mountain to climb, just an end with a sharp drop in all directions. A few
flapping prayer flags, a few tightly tied down photographs, notes, the altar
itself. He heard Bill’s holler of delight ahead of him, saw him and Spitz grab
each other in a bear hug, saw Dorje move towards the prayer flags slowly like a
man in a dream. Tom walked past them and dropped on his knees in front of the
world below. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
knelt there for some time, watching the sun come up over the cloud fields
spread below him. Watching the day return to the heavens. The holiest hour out
of every twenty four. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mine
is the sunlight, mine is the morning <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Born
of the one light Eden saw play… <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When
he finally stumbled to his feet it was to find Jake standing behind him in the
brightening sunlight, watching, and he held out his arms as Tom turned to him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was actually possible from here to see the arc of the horizon. High enough to
see the world was round. One of the secrets of mankind only visible on earth
from here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>What you have seen, you forever carry
with you</i>.
He had thought that in abandoned cities in jungles un-trod by humans in
centuries. In caves and on waterfalls, in deserts, in the buried depths of the
sea in wrecks and hidden ruins he and Jake had dived together. Some of the most
wonderful moments of his life. There were secrets of beauty, of hidden wonders
that they kept for the world of things few human eyes saw, and this was one of
the rarest and most sacred. Whatever he did in the rest of his life he knew he
would carry this moment, this view, this secret of what truly lay up here at
the highest point of the planet. They radioed down to Shem, Bart and Max,
knowing that many other teams on the mountain would be listening in and
smiling, glad for them. The brief conversation included a lot of cheering, muffled
shouts through the radio as the three in the tents below celebrated with them.
All five of them. Here, unscathed. It would set the reputation of the
expedition, and it would be one of the success stories of all this year’s
expeditions; Mountain Eagles would be known as one of the winners. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
stayed there only twenty minutes. The pinnacle of the world, the most wonderful
of places. But the greatest half of the climb now lay in front of them and
their oxygen was running out, their tanks draining every minute they stood up
there with the balcony to reach where the full canisters were waiting, and they
gathered themselves and began together the slow and careful climb downwards
from her highest point, leaving her prayer flags streaming their blessings in
the wind above them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
were coming down off the Hillary step towards the top of the cornice, the ten
foot ascent upwards – the very last ascent with every other step from this
point downhill. It was infamous. Rob Hall, one of the most renowned of Everest’s
climbers, had foundered here, too exhausted to make that ten feet upwards and
survive. Tom was half way up it when he saw a flash of red to one side of the
trail, tucked below a ledge of rock, and paused, then crouched down to look. It
was a snow suit; he recognised it with a jolt of alarm. The guy was so curled
in under the ledge that it would have been easy to miss him, but there was no
dusting of snow on him. He was unclipped from the line, there was no sign on
the path, they had walked right by him in the dark a couple of hours ago
without noticing. Tom unclipped himself, feeling Jake’s hand immediately close
on his harness as he knelt down over the figure and turned it onto its back,
pulling the scarf away from the face. There was no oxygen tank. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was a man – Tom recognised him vaguely as one of the independent climbers, a
young man climbing without support and without oxygen… an admirable ambition
but it looked as if it had gone horribly wrong. He was breathing. It was
between his teeth – and his teeth were bared and clenched tightly when Tom put
his hand to the man’s jaw, there was a very slow, faint pulse and when Jake
leaned past him to raise an eyelid the man’s eyes were fixed. But he was alive.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get
him in the sun.” Bill said through his mask behind them, coming with Dorje to
grab his feet. It took the five of them, breathless and clumsy, to drag him out
from the shadow of the rock. In the sun he stood some chance of warming a
little, or at least slowed the process of his freezing to death. Jake pulled
his thermos from his backpack. The hot tea they had carried up hours ago was
tepid now, but Jake poured some against the man’s teeth, a little at a time. It
ran straight back again, the teeth never unclenched. Dorje had pulled off his back
pack and pulled out a full canister of oxygen. He had clearly been carrying it
as an emergency spare and he took off his own mask, gently overcoming Bill’s
protest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
can climb from here, not much to carry.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
fixed the oxygen tank to the mask and turned the regulator up to full flow,
fitting it over the man’s face. Jake pulled up his radio, crouching where he
was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
is Mountain Eagles. We’ve got a downed climber just below the Hillary Step,
he’s one of the independents, does anyone know his name?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was no answer but static for a few minutes. Spitz had opened his medical kit
and took one of the several pre-loaded syringes of Dex they all carried,
fumbled to uncover a patch of skin on the boy and stuck him, shooting the Dex
in. Then a heavy Russian accent from somewhere on the mountain came back on the
radio. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mountain
Eagles. Aegerter was to summit yesterday. Swiss.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
had heard the name in camp. Loic Aegerter, an ambitious young mountaineering
champion making a name for himself worldwide. Twenty three years old. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
boy’s face could have been an old man’s visage under the oxygen mask. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
haven’t much time,” Bill said quietly, standing back with his hands on his
hips. His eyes above his mask showed deep pity. “Our oxygen’s not going to last
out Jake, we need to get down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
still waited. It was shocking how cold it became just hanging around here, even
in full sunlight. Jake tried the tea again without any more luck, and lifted an
eyelid again. The boy’s brown eyes were still fixed in their sockets. He was
breathing still but rigid, showing no more sign of reviving than they had when
they found him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No
one could be brought down from above 8,000. It was a fact that no one ever had
been. The Cornice Ridge was the next obstacle that lay ahead and no one not
able to climb by themselves could possibly be taken, roped down, lowered or anything
else- it took all you had up here to breathe, to move yourself, to survive
yourself. Even below 8,000 it took a team of around eight experienced Sherpa to
lower down an immobile climber at immense risk to everyone involved, and it
very often resulted in injuries, accidents and deaths among the rescuers. Tom
shut his eyes for a moment, knowing what was coming next and bracing himself
for it as Bill said quietly but definitely, “Ok. We’re out of time people, we
have to go. There’s nothing more we can do for him.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was an unthinkable thing to do. Unthinkable to just… leave him. Jake reached
for Tom’s hand, drawing him to his feet with too strong a grip to argue with,
guiding him to the rope and watching to ensure he clipped on. He was turning up
his radio again as he clipped himself on, standing squarely between Tom and the
figure laying in the sun on the ice. Dorje came quietly to join him, and Spitz,
the last to rise from the climber’s side, came the most slowly to the rope
ahead of him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mountain
Eagles. We have the climber on oxygen, we’ve given him Dex. He’s still alive
but he’s not reviving. Is anyone in a position to help?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
a few days from now as the full season came into swing and many people were
climbing on this route the big expeditions, who had enough Sherpa support
spread across the mountain, would consider requests like this and whether or
not a rescue attempt was possible. Often it wasn’t. Not through lack of
compassion or interest, but through sheer practical impossibility. There was
another long moment then the radio crackled and a German voice answered. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mountain
Eagles, this is <i>Abenteurer</i> expedition
at base camp. Is he talking? Can he stand?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“His
eyes are fixed.” Bill said behind Jake. “He’s unresponsive. Breathing, but his
jaw’s clenched, he isn’t swallowing. He was without oxygen probably all night.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Then
he’s going to die.” The German voice said soberly but bluntly. “If he has gone
down there, below the step… there is nothing you can do for him, I am sorry. It
is hard, I know, but you are going to have to leave him.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
keyed the radio again, his face was expressionless below his goggles. “Is
anyone near enough to bring him more oxygen? Anyone near to Camp Four?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake.”
Shem’s South African accent cut across the line, quiet above the static. “If
he’s not responding then I agree, you’ve done all you can. There will be no way
you can get him down from where you are.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Our
team are on their way down from Camp Two,” the German voice apologised. “The
Portuguese team are descending, they have abandoned their summit attempt. There
are no other teams in your area Mountain Eagles. If he is not reviving on the
oxygen you have given him then you have already given him every chance, he is
not going to recover. I am sorry.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
a risk he took when he came up here.” Bill said quietly to Jake. “He knew what
he was doing. We need to move, Jake.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was horrible. Beyond horrible. They had talked about this, been prepared for
this, and yet in abstract it meant nothing compared to being stood beside a man
in this state. Tom glanced at Spitz who was standing quietly but from the
shaking of his shoulders, not without emotion. How did you walk away from
someone up here, knowing what you were leaving him to? “I will stay.” Dorje
said behind him. “I will wait hour, see if he revives.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
won’t let you do that,” Jake said levelly, “Not without oxygen.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje
smiled at him. “I independent climber. I stay.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dorje-”
Bill began explosively. Jake paused for a moment. Then took off his own oxygen
kit and handed it to Dorje, blocking Tom’s reflexive grab to stop him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dorje,
take this. Yes, take it. Between my kit and what’s left of your other oxygen
bottle you’ve got enough to wait and still get down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Jacob</i>,” Tom said furiously. Jake shook
his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.
We’re heading down, the oxygen’s getting thicker all the time, it’s a clear day
and we can move it. Let’s go.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If
<i>anyone’s</i> going to do this without
oxygen it’ll be me, <i>not</i> you.” Tom
spat at him, “I’m the lightest here-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
he’s a stubborn, <i>stupid</i> oversized
bastard,” Bill said behind them. “Tom don’t argue with him, don’t waste the
bloody air, just move. Move it, now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
left Dorje with what they had left of hot fluids as much for him as for Loic.
Bill got in front of Jake and Tom climbed close behind him, seething and
praying in close combination. Only the most serious elite of the climbers – the
athlete elite of the mountaineering world – ever climbed here in the death zone
without oxygen, and none of them to his knowledge was Jake’s height. Spitz
stayed right against Tom’s back as they went down – at speed, the descent here
if the ropes weren’t cluttered with people was about three hours, far less than
the hours of painful fighting their way upward this morning, and they were
going fast enough to stay warm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">At
the balcony, Tom pulled his own mask away and handed it to Jake, turning up his
regulator to full power for a few minutes while they drained the tank. Jake
took it and sat down, breathing the full air for a few minutes and to Tom’s
relief his eyes were clear, he was moving well and with his usual, smooth,
graceful co ordination, he was showing no serious signs of being any more
hypoxic than the rest of them. There was as much fierce pride in him as utter
fury with him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
taking him on down to camp three.” He informed Bill over Jake’s shoulder. “It’s
still early enough in the day and I want him down at least that low.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
might be going well so far, but he was still utterly terrified of seeing Jake
start to reel and hear his voice start to slur, the hypoxia that had happened
at camp two on their first night there. Bill nodded agreement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right.
Spitz and I’ll stay at four tonight and wait for Dorje, that’s a good plan.
Come on, let’s get moving.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
handed the oxygen mask back to Tom and put it on him, steering Tom ahead of him
towards the rope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
reached camp four around eleven am, a tight climb of just over two and a half
hours, and Tom stopped only to change oxygen bottles, shoving a spare one in
his rucksack. Bill gave him a rough, hard hug on the plateau. He looked
exhausted, grey and ready to drop and Spitz looked no better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Go
on. Get him down. And don’t thump him, he’s always got to do the noble thing.
You of all people know he does.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Too
angry with Jake to speak to him, Tom started ahead of him down the steep route
to camp three with fierce concentration and equally fierce prayers that he
could do this, watching his every move. Thankfully this was one of the shorter
camp descents and the Lhotse Face allowed for several stretches of being able
to rappel down the rope; just over an hour later they reached camp three and
Tom unzipped the tent, threw his rucksack down and ripped his crampons off, and
crawled across to make room for Jake, who sat down more heavily to take off his
own gear, and breathed out. A long, heavy breath of relief and exhilaration. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was tired. Tom had never seen him look more tired – or actually more alive or
more elated. His eyes were on fire, he looked horribly scruffy, weather-beaten,
thin and wild and utterly, spectacularly beautiful, and a whole lot of other
emotions in Tom fought with the desire to bat him hard across the back of his
head and shake him. Instead he grabbed for his own radio. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mountain
Eagles. Bill, Shem, we’re at three. We’re fine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
heard Max’s voice in a short, “Thank God,” and Shem’s South African accent
breathe out in a gusty sigh from base camp. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Halleluia.
I’ll send those emails out, let everyone know you did it and you’re ok. Well
done guys, bloody well done.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good.”
Bill’s voice sounded exhausted. “We’ve been waiting for you to check in. Right,
Dorje’s called down to say he’s fine, Spitz and I are going to get some sleep.
Do the same. We’ll catch you up in base camp.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Come
here.” Jake said, dropping onto his back on the mat as Tom let go the radio.
Tom batted his hand away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
not bloody talking to you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
evaded the swipe, grabbed his arm and yanked. Tom collapsed on the mat beside
him, exhausted and fuming and… bloody euphoric himself. The high was …
outstanding. Out of this world. Beyond any high he’d ever found on any
mountain, ravine, harbour or anywhere else with Jake in the last few years. To
have done this with him – that moment on top of the world with him this morning
– was one of the greatest moments of his life. There was the craziest urge to
laugh, to whoop and shout, far more than he’d felt in that sunlit moment of
actually standing on the summit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
know what?” Jake said to the roof of the tent, finding his hand and winding his
fingers through Tom’s and his voice was both wondering and with the same sound
of laughter that Tom was suppressing. “We did it. You and I, we actually <i>did</i> it!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Euphoric
or not, they were knackered. It was a long time before Tom could summon up the
energy or interest to force himself to move, to roll over and light a stove, to
fill pans with clean snow and ice, to work on re hydrating and undressing some
to get into a sleeping bag. His body was aching fiercely, limp, almost too
exhausted to respond. He was laying beside the stove in a half doze, waiting
for the snow to melt with a plan of getting tea down them both, forcing Jake to
use the oxygen mask to sleep to replace some of the oxygen debt his body would
be carrying around for some hours yet, and then both of them sleeping the clock
around – when the radio buzzed and crackled and a voice with a French accent
said anxiously, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“’Allo
all expeditions. Is any expedition missing someone? We have spotted a climber
on the ropes about three quarters of the way up the Face to camp three, he has
been hanging there a while and he is not moving.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a moment of silence, then several buzzes on the radio from teams checking
in who were mostly around camps one and two. Jake reached a hand over and
grabbed the radio from his discarded harness without sitting up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey.
This is Mountain Eagles. It’s not us. Tom and I are at three, the rest of us at
four. We’ve got no other climbers on the mountain.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well
he has to be somebody’s.” the French voice on the radio rose a little. “Guys
please, this climber isn’t moving, we’ve been watching him over forty minutes
now since we spotted him, he’s in trouble and the weather’s turning.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?”
Tom leaned over to the radio and changed the channel. “Max? It’s Tom. What’s
the weather doing?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
another of these flash gales, it’s coming in fast.” Max said darkly, “It’s come
out of nowhere in the last half hour, looks like it’s going to be a rough
night. You guys well battened down up there?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ll
get the tents checked and tied down.” Tom told him. “Thanks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
sat up to zip his down suit and reached for his crampons. Jake changed the
channel back to the main one. The French voice was still arguing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
going to have to go down and get him, the guy is clearly in trouble! Will you
people check in? Where are the Taiwanese couple?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Back
at base camp as of this morning and probably in their tents asleep,” someone
else’s voice said over the static, “I spoke to them both when they came down
together, I’ve seen them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s
no one at camp three not already knackered,” another voice protested. “We’re
headed up to camp four in the morning, if we go down now that’s our summit bid
buggered, can’t anyone at camp two come up?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
quicker to go down and take him down with you than for people to try climbing
up, especially with the weather,” someone else argued. “Has any expedition got
guides or back up team they could send?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
is Mountain Eagles,” Shem’s South African accent cut across the radio, sounding
sharp. “Has any expedition seen Phoenix Loudon today? Is he in camp with you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-16.html">Continue on to Chapter 16</a></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-21235254749036409792015-09-24T15:45:00.001-07:002015-09-28T01:09:41.359-07:00Everest - Chapter 14<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: right;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">14</span></i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">To:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com"><b><span lang="EN-GB">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">From: </span></b><a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.comSubject"><b><span lang="EN-GB">AdenD@horizon.comSubject</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB">: <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">Here is the news in English</span></b><span lang="EN-GB"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My apologies for the delay in replying to your mail. I could at this
point offer a number of excuses, but to be frank it’s been a rather crowded few
days. You and Jake may like to know that Gerry is here. He took a plane out of
Seattle one night when things all got a bit much, and Luath and Flynn met him
at the Texas airport. He, Ash and Luath are currently staying with us. Gerry
has some minor chronic gallstone concerns for which Ash explained they have
booked surgery shortly in Seattle. We’re assured this is routine minor surgery,
minimally invasive, and should result in Gerry being far more comfortable.<br />
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sincerely <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB">D</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">To:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.com"><b><span lang="EN-GB">AdenD@horizon.com</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-GB">From:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></b><a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com"><b><span lang="EN-GB">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</span></b></a><b><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject: Re: Here is the news in English<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thanks for the news on Gerry. Jake’s response included a whole lot of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>what?</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>how?</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and he’s gone to ring Paul. I’ve
accused him of only wanting in on the gossip but he says it makes a change from
camp gossip.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
I was glad of your email and any news that didn’t involve ice. We’ve had
a bloody nasty few days. We went up to camp two as planned, made good time, no
problems and were settling into our tents when an Australian team radioed down
from camp three to say one of their team had fallen, and above camp one if they
say someone’s ‘fallen’ they mean the climber was last seen plunging down
several hundred feet of ice face. The ice might as well be granite, if you’ve
bounced down several hundred vertical feet of it at high speed you’re not
likely to get up again. The guy hadn’t clipped in to the safety line, he was
probably in early stage hypoxia as it was the first time he’d been that high
and no one was near enough to see he was in trouble, he lost his balance and
was gone. We went out to take a look around and Jake found him. I’ve seen quite
a few human remains in various states in my time, but this poor bastard was
smashed, and I hope he was dead long before he came to a stop. There was a
quick debate by radio with the Australian team about what they wanted to do,
it’s not easy getting a body down from anywhere above base camp and a lot of
risk for everyone involved in trying. The agreement was we left him where he
was for his team to make a decision. Most bodies here are interred by being
lowered into the nearest deep crevasse, it’s the best you can do. On the other
hand, I’ve seen a certain amount of people up here not wanting to go anywhere
near someone dead or dying, it’s too immediate a reality to deal with.<br />
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We went back down to camp two and started to settle in again, and then
Jake started sounding slurred and had a bad headache, all the signs of cerebral
oedema, which scared the living hell out of me. I was livid with the Australian
team that after climbing all day to our own carefully planned limits we’d had
to go out to spend more energy at more altitude, and get stressed and upset
which raises the risk from mountain sickness. Totally irrational, the poor
bastard didn’t mean to fall and there was nothing his team could have done.
It’s a constant balancing act up here between what you can safely plan to do,
taking into account your own limits, and what you can then give beyond those
limits for someone else who unexpectedly needs help or gets into trouble,
without you putting yourself and your own team in danger. It was dark by this
point, Jake absolutely refused to let me short rope him, and it’s not easy to
have a row at altitude where there’s hardly any bloody oxygen. It took us over
four hours in bad weather to walk down to base camp to the team doctor, who
stuffed him full of fluids and painkillers and she and I sat most of the rest
of the night in her tent watching Jake sleep until we were both convinced we
didn’t need to descend any lower. I swear, we talked about this for weeks
before we came out here, and it’s not like we haven’t been used to doing high
chance things together for years, but up here I’m wary all the time for myself
and you’d have to be insane not to be, but I’m even more scared for Jake while
I’m watching him take all the same calculated risks I’m taking and its 24 hours
a day, constant, taking those risks and escalating them. I don’t want to quit,
but I don’t do great under stress either, so all in all it’s a joy to hear that
there are still normal people out there doing normal things, and that other
people are having a lousy time as well as me.<br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: .3in; margin-right: .3in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB"> T</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ * ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale…
said something about a child following him around.” Tom said a whole lot
later. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was pitch dark outside, a clear night and so cold he was watching the
condensation of their breath crystallise into delicate ice on any surface it
touched. Even tears turned to ice up here. There was a curious sense of – peace
left in him, aided by the physical exhaustion of the day’s climbing. Of no
secrets left and the burden of them released, leaving him empty and feeling
slightly drunk. Of being open and sensitive in a way that was almost
overwhelming, even the most ordinary things. The press of Jake’s body against
his in the sleeping bag they were zipped into. The Day-Glo orange of the tent,
the familiar bits of their kit by the door. The utter silence of the ice
outside. In base camp it was never completely silent, the ice fall groaned and
creaked and cracked and rumbled frequently and people came and went with their
boots crunching on the shale. The music could be heard in the distance until
late from compounds holding parties trying to keep warm. Up here – people up
here were tired. Extremely tired. They got to their tents and they rested.
Hard. And when the temperature went down they zipped in and burrowed into
sleeping bags to try to stay bearably warm and you might as well have been the
only tent on the mountain, hours of hard climbing away from civilisation. You
heard nothing. You saw nothing. Isolated tents in an isolated, tiny village of
canvas, half way up to the roof of the world.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Stuck
in that moment, hating him and hating everything… I think he must have been
very small when whatever it was happened. He said he was looking with intention
at trapped moments of time, those memories, how they were still affecting him.
They were the root of why he found it…….” he trailed off, not sure how to put
it into words. Jake waited, his back solidly to the wall of the tent which
shielded out some of the cold that radiated through it, one arm behind his
head, the other competently folded around Tom around his shoulders where it
gave most warmth as he lay on Jake’s chest, huddled particularly close tonight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Although if you’re honest – you might
stalk around the place looking confident and tough but you spend a hell of a
lot of time clutching him just like this when there’s no one else to see. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That
thought in himself would have usually made him force himself to let go, ashamed
and angry with himself and determined to do better. Although the determination
never lasted very long. He felt that exact pull now; the impulse to shut down,
close up, the well of anger – and for the first time saw it from the outside
for what it was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Because that’s too needy. Too demanding.
Pathetic. Who wants to be around that? Be a man</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whose voice is that? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mine. Saying what – probably – I thought
my father would have wanted me to say. Did I ever really hear him say any of
that? It means ‘I don’t like myself’. It means ‘I know I’ll eventually bore you
to tears of hanging around me’. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fear.
<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That
was not possible to say. Tom took a breath instead, trying to choose his words
carefully, aware that the impulse to slide down into that angry, dark, grim
wallow that usually would have swallowed him whole without his noticing - was there. But somewhat palely there, and he
felt stood apart from it. It felt different. The ability to look at it and
choose – was different. It took some careful breathing but he could feel the
choice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
He said it was ironic he and I both wanted relationships so based on
communication. Honesty. When we both suck at it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Suck?”
Jake sounded amused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
lousy at it. I know what he means. He gets the necessity, he’s committed, he
wants to do it, he works on learning how.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
heard you give him some pretty good advice over the summer.” Jake said mildly.
Tom gave a rather bitter snort. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh
I can talk the talk no problem. Academically I could lecture in it. Being A
Better Brat. Undergrads sign up here. Just don’t ask me – or rather you I
suppose – what the hell it looks like when I’m actually doing it in my own life
rather than telling someone else objectively what they should do.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
and I do just fine. If I needed you to do something differently you’d be the
first to know.” Jake said definitively. “I don’t.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Only
because you compensate for me all the time.” Tom fumbled a hand out in the dark
to find his face, pulled it over to find his mouth and kissed him. “You’re way
too nice and way too sympathetic-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah
if you had your way you wouldn’t stop until you were in chains in some dungeon
somewhere.” Jake dug his fingers into Tom’s ribs until he squirmed. “Still
feeling too guilty to enjoy it either, which is why you should never be allowed
to get your way under any circumstances. You do not <i>need</i> to do anything differently for me or because of me because we
are fine the way we are and I’ll make very sure we stay fine, I have got that
one covered. If you <i>want</i> to, that’s a
very different matter. If you want to, then whatever you want to explore or try
I’m with you all the way. But I’m equally cool with hanging out with Lucifer
slash Cain, slash anyone else dark and evil you feel romantically personified
by until the end of time if that’s what you’re up for, that’s the guy I fell in
love with.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
are a<i> lousy</i> Top!” Tom shook his head,
somewhere between deeply touched and exasperated. “You are supposed to be
exhorting character building, moral development, the pursuit of excellence and
all kinds of stuff good little brats are supposed to get on with, you are <i>not</i> supposed to encourage me to be dark
and twisted if I want to.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why
not?” Jake said practically. “It sounds good to me? You need sleep,
sunshine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
do you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah,
but I’ve got you to repress first.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re
not going to get any watery tarts lobbing swords at you up here, I promise you.”
Tom shifted over onto his back to let Jake get more comfortable in the position
he usually slept in. “Yetis possibly.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
felt as much as heard Jake laugh. A deep, rich sound even with the strain the
cold air was taking on his throat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah.
Settle down or it’s the vache. I’ve warned you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
smiled, watching the roof of the tent above them with its faintly sparkling ice
coating. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Although
we’re lying on a sea bed. There’s fossils of marine life in the rocks here,
I’ve seen pictures. This was all under the Tethys sea once, there were
prehistoric monsters cruising here before the Indian shelf smashed into
Cimmeria and ploughed the ground up thousands of feet into the sky.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
froze it. Gliding plesiosaurs, placodonts and pistosaurids once passed over
this surface before it sedimented into rock, built of once-living bone and
earth. From low depths witnessing warm ocean giants to be thrown to a height
towering above the world, to be encased in shimmering ice. This was a strange
place and had been so for millions of years.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
watery tarts are not all that implausible.” he amended. “If one does hand you a
sword she’s probably legit.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Neither
of them slept much. Shortly after 4.30am they got up in the freezing, cramped
cold of the tent, moving with care to avoid knocking the canvas and showering
everything with crystalised ice which would then melt and make everything wet,
melted enough ice to drink and force a few spoonfuls of hot oatmeal down,
kitted up again and the five of them zipped up their tents and walked out
together into the icy dark, leaving camp two behind them to start up the Lhotse
face. Tom was pulling his boots on with fingers that still hadn’t properly
warmed up when he felt something crunch under his foot and investigated the
inside of the boot more thoroughly. Jake was outside the tent, crampons on,
rigging the ropes a little more securely to ensure the tent was still there
when they came back. The crunching sound turned out to be a scrap of paper with
Jake’s writing across it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">I love you. </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Soppy bugger.</i> He’d taken to
doing this. In the last few days Tom had found several messages, some
schmaltzier than others, hidden in the most unlikely of places so that he kept
stumbling across them. He sat looking at this one for some seconds with his
eyes stinging before he shoved it deep into the depths of his snow suit and
finished putting his boot on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
first stretch out of camp two was a bugger of scree and loose rock that camp
two sat on, which was hard to walk on in the dark, took time as it rolled and
shifted under your feet like walking on a steep shingle beach, and sapped
energy from your legs as you floundered over it. Beyond that was a walk over a
snowfield so gentle it might have been the nursery slopes of some ski resort if
you didn’t have to constantly check your path for snow bridges that would give
way as soon as you stepped on them. And that last section of the Cwm led to the
towering blue ice wall of the 5000 foot Lhotse Face. From there it was a long,
slow climb directly upwards, much of it on near vertical faces, ladders and
ropes and ice cliffs, and they planned to be several hours up it this morning
before the sun was full up and embarked on its daily job of making the mountain
less stable after the deep freeze of the night. They would ascend nearly 3000
feet today, an abrupt and vigorous increase in height over a relatively short
distance when up to now the gradient had risen gradually. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
paused at the Bergschrund crevasse, the thirty foot wide crack in the mountain
where the Cwm ended and the Lhotse face began. It was like standing on the edge
of a canyon. Tom thought of it as another of her posterns, the crossing into
the deeper, private and demanding realms of her lands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">We
may not see her armies, <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">we
may not see her king <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Her
fortress is a faithful heart, <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">her
pride is suffering… <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ladders
were roped together, balanced over the distance where as you walked, you saw
the bottomless, mighty wall of the other side of the canyon disappearing down
into the dark; textured layers of ice that dwarfed you. The majesty of it was
as powerful as the heart thudding long and lonely walk over that ladder in your
crampons, with nothing to hold on to but the two ropes you slid through your
hands. Watching Jake make that walk again to follow him made Tom’s heart thud
in his throat and dried his mouth more than the cold air did, watching his
every step intently with dread until he reached the other side. It was far
worse watching Jake do it than doing it himself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
then for grinding hours, they climbed. Concentration here was crucial; the
Lhotse Face had been responsible for so many deaths on Everest, and every step
had to be planned considered and placed with care with less and less breath in
your lungs and less oxygen in your muscles to do so. With every metre of
altitude you gained, your blood lost a little more oxygen to travel around your
body, leaving you drained, weaker, foggy brained and starved of calories,
dehydrated. And just as the ice chips they dislodged tumbled down the face
behind them, there was always the risk of falling rocks here, rolling down from
above and smashing into unwary climbers. They were about a third of the way on
the ropes up the Face towards camp three and daylight was starting to cast
across the ice when the radio crackled and a woman’s South African accent
emerged from the static. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mountain
Eagles. Jake, are you there?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
lifted the radio on his harness, pausing for a moment on the ropes and his
crampons dug into the ice, and checking the teeth of his jumar were gripping
before he leaned back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Shem,
what can I do for you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Sorry
to bother you. I’ve got an urgent family call for you on the Sat phone? Paul.
He says he needs to talk to you both.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Go
ahead.” Jake looked down to Tom who was climbing behind him, raising his
eyebrows as the radio hissed. Paul’s voice was unmistakeable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake?
Everyone’s fine, don’t panic. I need some help.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
up a rope in Nepal at about ….” Jake glanced down the sheer slide of the Lhotse
face dropping away beneath them in the early light of dawn. “Six thousand, five
hundred metres. Sure, what can I do for you? What time is it there? Aren’t you
heading to bed yet?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale
is headed out on a lone camp, I’ve got a few things to do.” Paul sounded quite
cheerful about it. “You know how we do this for clients? We ask for letters
from their family for them to take up.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
Jake’s ranch lot would call without hesitation to every member of their family,
despite whether or not they were up a mountain at the time. The distance made
no odds to any of them. Tom, who had watched similar calls come to Jake and
seen his involvement and attachment to what many men would have seen as mundane
domestic stuff through the letters that somehow managed to reach them and
always kept on arriving wherever Jake was in the world, saw illumination and
warmth come into to Jake’s face and he nodded understanding, shifting his
position carefully on the rope. “Yep. We’re nowhere near email and right now we
need to think what we’re doing, can you call back in – say four hours? We can
dictate something to you then from both of us. Sorry about the time
difference.” Tom heard Paul laugh over the radio. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Don’t
worry, I’m going to be up all night anyway. Talk to you later.” Jake let the
radio go and carried on climbing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Lone
camp?” Tom said behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve
seen them do it with clients.” Jake’s sentences were slightly punctuated with
his need to breathe and climb at the same time. “They spend 48 hours out
camping by themselves on the ranch. Space to do some thinking outside, let the
quiet and the open air work on them. So either they or Dale have decided it
would be good for him. They usually ask the client’s family to send letters for
him to read while he’s there. Share what’s best about their relationships,
challenge whatever is a problem in the relationship that needs fixing, if
necessary the terms on which the relationship can continue. They’ve had clients
who have taken some pretty tough letters out there with them. I don’t think
Dale’s got anything to worry about.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No,
Dale would state any issues he needed to address in his relationships himself,
first and far more strictly than any of them could: that wasn’t the kind of
challenge he really needed at all. What he needed was exactly the kind of
approach Jake would take. Tom flushed slightly under his face protector,
reaching for another hand hold and thinking of himself last night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>No, I won’t, I can’t.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>It’s ok. It’s all right, I think we can
do this</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No
barking, no reproach. When Jake talked like that, it was possible to believe
they could do absolutely anything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje
was not far above them. Tom suspected he had been hanging back on purpose,
keeping a watchful eye out for them although he climbed with the lightness,
speed and strength that was typical of so many of the Sherpa men, and he could
have been well ahead of them if he’d wanted to be. He smiled at them as they
caught him up, nodding from beneath his red and yellow wool knitted hat above
his black down suit, moving at a steady pace that matched theirs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Is
a beautiful day. She very beautiful on day like this.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">She
was. Majestic and gigantic, like something sprung from the writings of Jules
Verne. Another world, a silent and carved one.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“Such beauty is reserved for distant,
dangerous places, and nature has good reason for exacting her own special
sacrifices for witnessing them.”</i> Jake left off quoting long enough to
switch onto the next rope, but Tom recognised the author. Jake had been born in
Byrd’s own neighbourhood, great grandson of his contemporaries; another man
born with wild blood and an adventurer’s heart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“A stirring dwarf we do allowance give
Before a sleeping giant.” </i>Tom said in return, waiting for Jake to move on
before he transferred his own rope. Jake gave him a quick grin, glancing down
over his shoulder to meet his eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“Art thou afeared? Be not afeared. The
isle is full of noises…” </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Like
avalanches. Yeah. Get on with it.” Tom switched onto the next rope and followed
him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“Sometimes a thousand twangling
instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices…”</i> Jake paused to
shift his grip and dig his crampon in deeper before he took the large step up
and across to the next handhold. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
your spirits, Tom?” Dorje asked. He sounded gently intrigued by this, a very
old game of theirs. Tom climbed the last few feet up the wall onto the slightly
easier ground of a walkable slope, catching his breath. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Just
stories. Not the demons and angels I was telling you about.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
are angels?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
were demons and spirits of all kinds of good in Sherpa beliefs, but not angels
as other faiths knew them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Spirits.
Messengers, holy guardians. Where I grew up there were pictures of them.
Especially the archangels, the highest form of angel. They were my favourites.
They were in a set of windows on one side, coloured glass.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Which
he knew and could remember as acutely as if he were still sitting on the stone
ledge across the aisle, tucked into the alcove, watching the daylight shine
through the faces in coloured shafts to pool on the flagstones below. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re
too often pictured as wet looking individuals with Aussie beach curls and soppy
expressions.” he said more curtly. “Lot of rubbish. On our windows they were
far more like the texts. More realistic. Most of them men. Tall. Strongly
built, strong faces. Wings like swords or shields. Or eagles. Wings as large
and tall as they were.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
saw Dorje’s eyes as he grasped that and understood it as he understood it in
himself. Gentle eyes in steady faces; warrior built men with wisdom and love in
them, in the way they stood, in the way they looked down into the body of the
cathedral, in the set of their shoulders and the grasp of their hands, but not
in any sentimental sense of the word. There was nothing soft or mawkish about
these beings. They were holding swords and it was clear they would have no
difficulty in seeing any bullshit for precisely what it was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There
are seven of the archangels.” Tom paused for a moment to stretch his back and
glance down the way they had come. The ice face soared away below them. “The
highest and holiest of messengers, the right hands. Every one of them has
different interests and values according to their own way, they’re recorded in
the old texts as being distinctly different personalities.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
who are they?” Dorje asked with interest. Jake was listening too; Tom could see
his attention as they climbed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Gabriel….he
stands for integrity, the power to hold onto your convictions, especially when
you’re alone. Commitment. Steadfastness. In the Christian sacred texts he’s
most often the messenger of God, sent to mortals with the ability to talk
without terrifying. <i>Be not afraid.</i>
Samael… his values are for fairness, constant mindfulness and care of others
and your surroundings in terms of your self control, your self discipline.
Ramiel…. She stands for her love of people and the values of friendship: trust,
empathy, care and warmth for every being, whether they’re a stranger or not.
Azrael….he stands for the patience to create stability, to resolve conflict and
injustice peacefully and patiently, with forgiveness, to avoid hostility.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
names were deeply familiar. Soothing. These were the stories, the people and
faces that went back to his earliest years, he’d known them as well as the
animals entering the ark in the east window and the characters in the nativity
in the stone relief on the side of some ancient Bishop’s tomb, the names and
the faces built into his world. This
seemed an extremely apt place to be naming and reflecting on them, speaking
them aloud like the daily repetition of the ancient Latin prayers and chants in
the sanctity of the cathedral at home where people’s little lives came and went
but the words went on unchanged in other voices. This was an unearthly place,
an ancient and a sacred one. A place fit for angels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again
he remembered standing with his father looking at the gold leafed pages in one
of the huge books in the great cathedral vault with his father’s voice
explaining the names, the values, the words and their meanings, things penned
and illustrated by hand centuries before and kept safe among the priceless gold
chalices and the jewelled sceptres and the other oldest, most precious secrets
the cathedral guarded through time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Uriel
– His values are for honesty, commitment to morality. Resistance to distraction
in following your commitments and promises. And Raphael stands for healing, the
will to take up the ugly, the tedious, the boring jobs with sacrifice and no
obvious or glamorous reward, particularly towards those you don’t agree with or
particularly see as deserving-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">He’s probably working overtime for the
Pink Peril. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a shout from above and several more rocks bounced down the face, thankfully
some way from them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
values are much the same.” Tom went on as they continued to climb again. “Same
ideas. Just given to different names. They were messengers. Guardians. Soldiers
when necessary. Once there was an eighth, Lucifer, who led a rebellion against
the status quo in Heaven and battled the others, and he and his followers were
cast down to Tartarus, a sealed depths. The fallen angels.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
glanced back and met his eyes directly, smiling but giving him a very definite
shake of the head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Everyone
went on more or less compulsory bed rest in camp three. With the ground too
steep to leave the tent without being roped up, once they got there and took
their boots off, they were restricted to the four walls of canvas until they
stepped out to climb on in the morning. Dorje shared Bill and Spitz’s tent
again. Tom suspected that either Bill had tipped him off that he and Jake
fidgeted like all hell or had invited him in order to give them a break; Bill
was tactful like that. However he and Spitz were the most tired of the group on
reaching the camp. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“All
that climbing and you two are still bloody hyperactive.” Bill said sourly when
Jake brought him a sack of the ice chips he and Tom had just hacked to keep
them going through the night. He and Spitz were sprawled directly across the
floor of their tent while Dorje was sitting placidly lighting the stoves. “And
too bloody chirpy, go away. Some of us are knackered.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
were all knackered. It just worked out in different ways. Arms throbbing, legs
on fire with muscles threatening to cramp, Tom dumped stuff to the sides of the
tent, managed to stretch out from end to end of it and did a sharp, brisk set
of push ups, forcing his calves to loosen out and stretch and his biceps to
work the extensors as well as the flexors he’d been overusing all day, and his
spine to remember it was supposed to work in alignment. It bloody hurt to begin
with, but he and Jake had been in athletics training since before adolescence
and it involved developing a different relationship with pain. It was something
you worked with, something you managed strategically, and you picked up a lot of
tricks of the trade on the way. Jake was crouching in the open doorway of the
tent, elbows on his knees, sunglasses pushed to the top of his head, just
watching him with an expression in his eyes that made Tom snort as he stopped
and knelt up to shake his wrists out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not
a chance, forget it. Go and roll in the snow.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Taken
Ibuprofen?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.
Double dose.” Tom leaned over to take one of Jake’s crampons as he took it off,
turning it over to check the blades. There were a couple of practical hours of
sharpening their blunted crampons and ice axes, checking their kit and then
reading in the icy afternoon daylight of the open doorway of their tent,
watching the extraordinary view before them. And as the afternoon faded away
they sat shoulder to shoulder watching the sun go down on Everest. The golden
light fading slowly from the ice as the shadows grew longer, looking down from
their freezing eagles’ perch down the massive ice wall below, silent because it
was too remarkable a sight for words. Tom had sat in some spectacular places
around the planet with Jake and seen no few sunsets but this one – this was
something else. And then as the temperature started to plummet, the breeze
began to get noisy, to rattle the tents and send snow flurrying up from the
ground like dust and the world outside began to freeze solid, they zipped up
the tent, shut out the worst of the cold, and Tom felt his stomach clench. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
wasn’t entirely sure why and he was aware he was doing it more for the look of
the thing rather than with any real purpose but while Jake lay down to read
again, Tom unpacked his rucksack, checked it again and re packed it, aware that
Jake was whistling Santa Claus is Coming To Town half under his breath,
probably subconsciously. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>He’s
making a list, he’s checking it twice</i>…
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was a fair and sensible thing to do, no one headed up to the summit without
knowing their kit was straight and everything was there, but Tom knew it was a
little too thoroughly done to be quite convincing, particularly since they had
already done it once together about an hour ago. After which he fidgeted with
the harness for a few minutes, making some unnecessary adjustments to the strap
length. And then with a sinking feeling he couldn’t quite control, he found
himself making a direct, impulsive attempt at crawling to and unzipping the
tent door. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was getting far too cold and windy to have the tent open. More to the point, on
the Lhotse Face where stepping out of the tent unprepared could mean an
immediate descent of 3000 feet in about eight seconds, it was not a smart move.
It had been a lethal move for no few climbers in this camp, and Jake had left
their boots and crampons directly in front of the tent entrance as he had last
time at camp three, blocking their way to make absolutely sure neither of them
could absently or half asleep take a step out there without thinking. Before he
got half way there Jake signalled in one jerk of his thumb to get away from it
right now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His
signals were pretty unmistakeable if you knew him. Tom paused where he was,
looking at him for a few seconds with his heart thumping and no real idea what
he was doing, but his voice was to his own ears very soft and quietly
persistent and coming from somewhere else entirely than him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It
isn’t even dark yet-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d
seen Riley argue plenty of times; Flynn and the others usually warned.
Explained. Jake didn’t, and it was just as well he didn’t as Tom had played Sea
Lawyer to several other men who had very kindly tried, driving them to
distraction and making him unfairly and hotly frustrated with them. This, with
Jake, was the equivalent of leaning over to the red button marked <i>‘do not push’ </i>and punching it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
sat up in one smooth movement like a jaguar dropping down off a branch, Tom’s
arm got taken in one clean swipe to pull him over and mouth drying rapidly and
stomach dropping like a stone, Tom found himself kneeling while Jake, looking
genially calm about it, all too efficiently peeled him straight out of his down
suit, dropped it to one side and turned Tom over his lap. Panting on the low
oxygen and sweating despite the biting cold in the tent, Tom felt his fleece
pants and underwear stripped straight down, Jake’s arm fold around his waist
and grasp his hip to keep him steady and his palm landed in a very rapid flurry
of loud, crisp spanks that rained all over his bare backside. As cold as he
was, it felt <i>extremely</i> sharp; getting
oneself spanked when this cold was a seriously bad idea at any time, it was
something Tom knew academically from experience but rarely remembered until it
was too late. He squirmed; he couldn’t help it; the ouching and yelping and
whining that burst out was undignified and equally involuntary, he had no
choice about that either, and there was definitely a little kicking involved. It
didn’t last long – the downpour was maybe thirty seconds at most – but Jake
meant business and his backside was smarting fiercely and radiating heat and
his eyes were wet when Jake paused and to Tom’s alarm instead of helping him
dress, stripped him of the rest of everything he wore, down to the skin which
was no joke in this tent where their breath was steaming brightly in front of
them, and unzipped the sleeping bag. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“In.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
moved fast from his lap. The inside of the bag was freezing. Jake knelt up to
strip off his own down suit, undressing to his fleece layers beneath, and slid
into the sleeping bag with Tom, zipping it up around them both before he lay
back to lean against his rucksack and pick up his book once more. Brat sorted.
Problem over with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Feeling
extremely, wholeheartedly sorted and unable to prevent himself sliding a hand
down to rub some of the intense sting out of his backside which gave far too
much away to Jake about how it felt and how much of an impression it had made,
Tom turned over against him for warmth which, from Jake’s body heat, rapidly
combined with his and within a few minutes had raised the sleeping bag interior
to a comfortable temperature. It did not make being stark naked feel any less
exposed or tangible, it felt rather like having been peeled and it made the
touch of Jake’s body head to foot against his bare skin feel much more
penetrating. He’d wanted Jake’s definite action. Except that Jake tended to be
a whole lot more definite than he was prepared for. He wouldn’t use the martinet
up here; that was probably hyper cautious actually but Jake did as Jake
decided, and Tom was extremely glad he hadn’t reached for that horrific cream,
he didn’t feel up to handling that at all tonight, but that had been…. Bloody definite. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This
was <i>not</i> what book heroes did the
night before they went to slay the dragon or find the grail or whatever it was
they were questing about. They knelt in chapels and got their mind on the job.
Cleared their consciences, sharpened their focus on their intent, their purity
of heart. They did not struggle with the impulse to jump all over the last
nerve of a boyfriend who had no reservations whatsoever about applying his hand
to your butt, they did not end up naked and feeling extremely pathetically
clingy in sleeping bags, it was ridiculous.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>What exactly do I think I’m doing?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
stove, with its small, struggling flame heating the ice chips in the pan, cast
its clean light through the tent like a candle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What’s
the worst thing I’ve ever done with you?” he found himself blurting out to
Jake. Jake thought for a moment, marking his place in his book with one
hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Bought
tickets for that God-awful performance of <i>A
Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum</i> in Cyprus by the British am
dram society….. where most of the cast was over fifty and huge elderly women in
togas were playing the courtesans and the guy playing Miles Gloriosus was about
five foot two, eight stone wringing wet and singing about his mighty
chest-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
didn’t sit, you paced around at the back and kept laughing in the wrong
places.” Tom poked him with an elbow. “I’m serious.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
am I, I should have spanked you for that.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
worst.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Worst
meaning what?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh
come on.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
do you mean by worst? The most upset I’ve seen you get? The most trouble you’ve
gotten into?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
sighed hard, exasperated as Jake would never be easily manoeuvred anywhere. “A
list. You know a normal couple would come up with a list in seconds?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
fun is normal? You mean what I’ve been most bothered about, don’t you?” He said
it with gentle precision that made Tom wince. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…It’s
not like I think you keep a score sheet -”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
can’t think of it in those terms, you’ve never ‘done’ anything.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh
for God’s sake Jake, I’m a bloody disaster area, you’ve been straightening me
out for years.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
not what it’s like. Is it? It’s not what you tell Dale he’s doing.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It
isn’t what <i>he’s</i> doing.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
rolled over to lay on his stomach, propping his head on his hand above Tom
where he could see his face. “Why not admit it’s exactly what <i>we’re</i> doing? With all the romance you’re
capable of, with all the thought and feeling you’re capable of, with all the
meaning and purpose that matters to you? Because we are, I’m qualified to know
this. I happen to know exactly how fantastic knocking around with you is. I
don’t plan on doing anything else the rest of my life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
proper response would have been to mutter something about <i>soppy bastard</i>; Tom didn’t manage it, but Jake pulled him the rest
of the way into his arms and lay down to hold him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
think it was swimming the harbour at Dover.” Tom said eventually, not very
steadily. “That was probably the worst.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“In
what way the worst?” Jake said quietly. “The one you feel worst about right
now? Because I remember that as my mistake leaving you alone without seeing you
were too stressed out to handle it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Balls,
you never signed any agreement to be psychic, it was my responsibility to tell
you. You’d have stayed if I’d asked you-”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
wouldn’t have wanted me there,” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
would. I always want you there.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah,
I know. And in that state you try your hardest not to admit it and get rid of
me because otherwise you’d weaken and let me see.” Jake finished gently. “I
know you. I know how it works. And you couldn’t have told me. Then. Now… I
think it would be different. It takes time to learn to communicate, any couple
have to figure it out between themselves.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale
gets this you know. They talk about not withholding, he just gets it and sets
out not to do it, it’s something they can talk about.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why
don’t you say what you actually mean?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
wish I was strong enough to do that. I know why they value it, I agree, I agree
completely, I don’t do that with you and I should.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But
it’s supposed to involve bloody torturous negotiations and explanation and
reasoning, and all the rest of the crap?” Jake smiled at him, quoting something
Tom had said to him awkwardly, a long time ago in a garden in Cairo. “It’s not
going to make any difference, we both know perfectly well. Do you want help?
Without all the supposed bloody torturous negotiations?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was smiling. Tom remembered it as a fearful, defensive declaration – the most
romantic he’d been capable of at the time:
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m a grown up. I do not need looking
after. I do not need sorting out or fixing. I make my own decisions and I’m an
awkward, bloody minded cynic so it’s a waste of anyone’s time trying anyway. I
don’t buy into the fairytale crap and this isn’t being swayed by jet lag or the
place or anything else – <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d
never fooled Jake for a moment. And he’d always known it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
wind rattled the tent skin and the little flame of the stove flickered on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
wasn’t long after that Shem radioed up to say Phoenix had stayed another day at
camp one, too tired to want to face the ice fall yet and having too good a time
socialising with the Canadians. Pemba and Lobsang were staying in the camp with
him, and she wasn’t concerned, but if he wasn’t feeling fit enough in the
morning she’d climb up to camp one herself and take a look at him. And she had
Paul on the phone again. Jake took the
phone first and Tom listened in silence to the quick and very kind letter that
Jake dictated, lying beside him with his eyes on the view beyond. Until now
they had been climbing in a canyon. From here, the top was all too visible
above them. The weather was sharp and clear and holding, it was perfect
climbing conditions. Dream climbing conditions, almost too good to be true. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
I knew Philip,” Jake said calmly beside him to the phone, “and I knew David,
they would have loved you and been very proud of you. I know too how happy you
make the others and they are people I love, and I know how much my partner
values your letters and mails. I thank you very much for that Dale, it makes
you an important person to me too and I’m very glad you found your way to us.
With love, Jake. Got all that? I’ll hand you over to Tom.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
handed the phone across to Tom. Who cleared his throat, sitting up to take a
grip on himself. He’d been thinking all day about this. There was no time or
place better to say these things to someone who would- truly understand them.
Exactly as he did, on the other side of the world. If he could only find the courage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hi
love,” Paul’s voice said warmly over the phone. “If you wouldn’t mind giving me
a couple of lines I know it would mean a lot to Dale; checking for your mails
has been one of the few things he’s been interested in over the last few weeks,
he’s really appreciated them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Is
he ok?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
had a rough time.” Paul sounded gentle. “He’s doing ok, but it hasn’t been easy
for him. I admit I’m not keen on him being away from me for a couple of days or
him being alone, but it’s important to him. I know he’s shared some of what
he’s working through with you. He wants time to think and prepare himself, this
is a formal commitment he’s making to us. That matters a lot to Dale, he needs
to do things fully and consciously and in an organised way, the gesture is
important.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
was so absolutely right. These pilgrimages – they were huge acts of sacrifice,
of purpose, the ceremony was deeply important. The act of purification was
deeply important. These gestures were known to man as far back as recorded
history went, in every culture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
was laying on his back, against his side where Tom could feel him. Tom drew a
deep breath. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok.
I’m going to try, these things never come out too well for me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Honey,
it’s you he likes, not your flowing prose, I promise.” Paul said lightly. “Just
a ‘hi Dale, I’m thinking of you’ would matter a lot to him right now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale.”
Tom shut his eyes, trying to think. “… I’m glad you’re going on the camp. I
agree with you. Being somewhere alone and wild lets you think clearly. I’m glad
you found the <i>Fisher King</i> story
useful. It’s one I’ve thought about for years, it makes a lot of sense to me.
I’ve been sitting in that castle for about twenty years trying to pull up the
courage to ask the question.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake’s
hand came down over his shoulder, purposefully, and Tom reached for it, gripped
it hard, watching Jake’s fingers wind through his. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…Did
you know about Plato’s Devine Design? <i>‘There
is a place that you are to fill and no one else can fill." </i>It just
takes both the guts and the insight to look for it. Something else you might
find interesting given what Paul’s telling us: did you know the night before a
man was knighted he traditionally spent a night alone in a ten hour vigil in a
holy place? Prayed, meditated and prepared himself to make that lifetime sacred
commitment to the principles he was vowing to serve, until the morning when his
sponsor presented him with his shield and sword and he swore his oath of
allegiance. I’m not surprised that’s what you feel drawn to do. I’ve done a little
of it myself in the last few days, our Sherpas see this as a supremely
spiritual place that is earned, not an entitlement. I’m dictating this to Paul
over the satellite phone and the reception’s bloody awful so I need to keep it
quick. We’re at camp three today. Tonight we’ll go up to camp four, sleep the
rest of the day and in the early hours we’re making our summit bid. We’re both
in high places tonight and both preparing ourselves to be worthy…” He
hesitated, knowing what he wanted to say, and finally said out loud, “…Ex
animo. Tom.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a moment of long pause where Tom felt his stomach knot with anxiety that
either Paul had decided he was a complete and utter twit, or that the line had
been broken. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then
finally Paul said very softly, “I’ve got it. Thank you honey. Thank you both
very much. You be careful, we’re all thinking of you and we’re wishing you a
good, safe day tomorrow. Please let us know as soon as you’re safe?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
will.” Jake took the radio gently from Tom. “Love to everyone. Goodnight Paul,
get some sleep.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
stuffed the radio out of reach and put a hand up to run a finger down Tom’s
cheek, his eyes very soft in a way that went right through Tom’s heart and into
his guts. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
are so beautiful. You know that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br /><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<b style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-15.html">Continue on to Chapter 15</a></b></div>
<b><div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</span></b></div>
</span></b>tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-46251222467285361672015-09-24T15:38:00.003-07:002015-09-28T00:57:32.818-07:00Everest - Chapter 13<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">13</span></i></b></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><br /></i></b>
<b><i>Letter from Emerson and Bennett LLP<o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Counsellors at Law,<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">est. 1901, Boston, Mass:<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">May 1st<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Copies circulated to:<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. G. Meier, Seattle, Washington;<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Honourable Judge N. P. Carey, Lansing, Michigan;<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. B. Winthrop, Portland, Oregon;<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. D. J. Rosario, New York, New York;<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sgt. W. T. Cole (ret.d) Corpus Christi, Texas;<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Professor M. G. Damiano, Universita de Roma, Rome;<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr. M. Perez, Hobart, Australia<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Sir<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am instructed by Mr. Jacob Winthrop Forbes in conjunction with your comments posted to the Manhattan Times, publication date April 30<sup>th</sup> article ‘Only Hours To Go! #Idiedathousanddeaths’ by Madeleine Loudon, and in particular your social media referencing #notbloodylikely, #dramallama and #overit, to present his compliments, to thank you most kindly and to inquire on his behalf: does your husband know that you are out?<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yours most sincerely<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Reginald Emerson<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Attorney at Law.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They started up the mountain for the final time with the summit as their goal in the early hours of May day. May the 1st, the festival of Robin Hood and St George. In English history this had traditionally been a day of gathering may blossom from the hawthorn trees, a holiday with May poles and Morris dancing and other such scary elements of life in the British Isles. He’d always loved the smell of hawthorn blossom at this time of year at home where the scent hung in the air in the fields and lanes. May didn’t seem to have reached the icy chill of base camp in the dark.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They had met in the mess tent shortly after four thirty am with coffee and breakfast, filling up their thermoses with hot tea to carry with them, and they entered the ice fall in ordered silence. Spitz, Bill, Lobsang, Phoenix, Pemba, Tom, Jake and Dorje.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I want to ask Dorje to try for the summit with us.” Tom had said abruptly to Jake in the middle of the night on the day of that God-awful meltdown. Neither of them had been sleeping, not that it was ever easy in base camp, but Jake appeared to have no plans for sleeping tonight and was quite simply lounging with an arm behind his head, the other around Tom, watching condensation form on the tent roof above them by the light of the battery lamp. He hadn’t turned it out tonight. He hadn’t commented either, just left it where it was, casting its soft, diffuse light through the tent and preventing the darkness or shadows from surrounding them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He made an interested <i>hmm</i> sound, which made his breath steam above him. Tom twisted his head to see his face, feeling as passionate about this as he felt as uncertain and chaotic about every other damn thing on the planet right now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s climbed as a porter, he’s climbed with us as a guide, but if he can put a summit on his record then he’s going to be in demand as a guide for expeditions next year, he’s not going to have to worry about employment again. He’s been good to us. The oxygen cache was his idea and he’s a bloody good climber, he’s fully acclimatised.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And there were other reasons why the summit was a precious opportunity to Dorje. Vital reasons that no one else would care about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We can arrange for <i>all</i> our guides to make their shot with Shem if they’d like to.” Jake added, thinking about it. “She’d appreciate the company. Pemba, Lobsang and Phurba. That’s a good idea. Yes, if Dorje feels like climbing with us I’m all for it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill and Spitz had immediately agreed. Dorje had been such a vital part of so much of their work with the clients that he and Pemba in particular were established parts of the team, it was hard to imagine being here without them. Dorje had gladly accepted the invitation, as had the other Sherpa guides: ‘thank you’ wasn’t a word used much by the Sherpa men, they tended to deal in actions more than words, but their pleasure was shy and clear. Lobsang and Pemba were prepared and planning this time to support Phoenix as far as he climbed, to stay with him and to go down with him as the need arose. Dorje, Tom made very clear, would be an entirely free agent on this climb. A part of their team but climbing for himself as they all were, and just as Pemba and the other two would be free to on the next summit bid. If Phoenix made it through to camp three this time, then he’d be acclimatised enough to be a part of that summit bid with Shem and the others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shem had checked their medical kits comprehensively and personally the day before they left, oblivious to Bill’s exasperated protest to leave his kit alone and he was perfectly capable of doing it himself. The painkillers, the pre set syringes of dex, the dex tablets: she checked the lot and replaced and added supplies where she saw need, and Tom kept his distance but let her get on with it, aware she made no invasion of any other part of their kit but the medical supplies. She had made a quick but thorough examination of every one of them too in the last hours of the day, spending a while sounding out Jake’s chest before finally shaking her head and pulling her stethoscope from her ears to let him put his shirt back on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Completely clear. You’re fitter than a bloody horse, you’ve acclimatised well and I have no idea how with your height, I thought you’d be the one I had to worry about. Tom, how are the shins?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">She poked and prodded thoroughly. They were still slightly tender: they were going to be, and higher up Tom had no illusions that they’d be painful. But the hours of taking anti inflammatories, massage and ice that Jake had kept up irrespective of whether he was willing or not, had done the job. She cleared them all as fit to go, and she would be here, manning the radio with Max and Bart, keeping the deserted camp going and ready for any need for support that might arise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">She joined them in the mess tent for that last breakfast, dressed and quiet in this frozen hour. Tom had held a suspicion for a while that she kept an eye all the time on what they ate and that they all did eat regularly; it was unobtrusive but she was always around at any mealtime and more than once he’d seen her hand a mug of hot chocolate to someone, apparently just sharing a spare cup while she drank from her own, but it was often someone who’d been too tired or busy to eat, or was looking cold or drained. He avoided her enough to evade the risk of her trying her strategies out on him, but he saw a strongly nurturing instinct in the way she did it that did not gel with her stilted conversations with Emily, an oddness that she did this so carefully and with commitment to a random group of semi strangers up a mountain but not with her child. She stood with her hands dug in her pockets, her collar turned up high to protect her face and watched them walk out of camp. In silence; for some reason they all left in silence, the hush of the camp seemed somehow appropriate. Tom glanced at her face as they left. Unreadable. Weathered and still and as unmoving as her body in the thick jacket, scarf and hat. Watching them go somewhere she had yet to go, to fulfill a dream she’d held for years of climbing here. Pemba was waiting by the stupa as they left the compound and one by one they walked through the smoke from the fire he had lit there, burning the incense and juniper branches on the altar where rice and wine and sweets – a muddle of mars bars, M&M packets, chewing gum – was piled. Dorje caught Tom’s shoulder as he passed through the column of smoke, moving him deeper into it so it covered him. It was a blessing. Protection. Jake, directly behind Tom, walked deep into the smoke column with him, the white stream clearly visible in the darkness. And on the other side lay the mountain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This was a place for purity. For focus and clean thought and for that reason Tom tried to blank Phoenix and anything else from his mind as they hiked up through the maze that was the entry into the ice fall, moving one after the other like Men at Arms moving quietly through the predawn landscape to take up positions for a battle. All of them scruffy, nondescript in the dark. Just woolly hatted, head lamped figures in varying heights with harnesses strapped over their climbing gear. And as the path wound higher, entering the twists and turns that blocked out the last glimpses of the tents and the lights behind them, it was like leaving Tartarus physically behind. Climbing up out of the slough of despond to somewhere untainted, somewhere sharper, less complicated, intensely more demanding. Spitz was leading point this morning, moving with the deceptive ease of long arms and legs and experience of ice climbing gained in his childhood in Spain. Bill was following him, brisk and efficient, a neat climber who for all his solidity and short, stocky power went lightly over the ladders as they reached the popcorn machine itself, the beginning of the icefall. Tom took the next place in the chain, ahead of Jake who had an eye on Phoenix climbing in the small crowd of Sherpa guides behind him. Pemba, Dorje and Lobsang had him more or less surrounded this morning; they clearly planned on there being no accidents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There were places here where the route was narrow enough for only one climber to pass at a time and with care. Around a sharp blind corner Tom reached the edge of one of the crevasses too wide for the route to either pass around or for ladders to cross directly. You had to climb down into these gullies, down far enough to climb through the interior where the gaps were narrow enough for ladders, and then up the other side again. Spitz was already crossing one ladder deep below him over a gap; behind him Bill was just switching off the rope that led down the side to clip his harness onto the next rope that followed Spitz. Tom clipped onto the rope down and using his ice axe and crampons made his way down the vertical ice wall into the depths of the crevasse. It was about ten feet down. Darker in there. Blue in the darkness and yellow white where his headlamp shone on the ice, like some frosted ice palace from the childhood tales. He switched his harness between the fixed ropes again onto the long one that led across the bottom of the crevasse and began the clamber over the awkward pinnacles and bumps and angles of the tumbled mess of ice inside, working his way towards the single ladder that crossed the eight foot wide gap of the heart of the crevasse. Jake was coming down the vertical wall behind him, Bill was crossing the ladder ahead of him, and some metres ahead of Bill, Spitz was walking through the ice path towards the opposite steep wall. Then ahead, abruptly without a sound, Spitz disappeared feet first, straight down as the ground gave way below him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The fixed rope they were all three of them linked to snapped taut, Tom felt it yank as well as saw it move, then one end gave way behind him, tearing out of its mooring in the ice wall with the titanium screws and whipping through the link on his harness as Spitz plummeted on the end of it, until a split second later Bill grabbed it in his gloved hands, dropping to his backside in the ice to stabilise and root himself with his crampons dug as deep as he could. Tom edged fast past Bill where he was sat braced. Bill had got the rope locked off, his teeth were gritted but his position was good and in this moment he was stable. Unhooking the coiled emergency rope from his harness where he carried it, Tom sounded out the ground just in front of the hole the fixed rope descended down into. It was a phenomenon known as a snow bridge. A thin patch of ice over the top of a crevasse, disguised by the snowfall on top of it. An illusion of solid ground. It acted just like solid ground until a mis-step broke through it. Spitz had gone right through creating a hole roughly three foot in diameter, his pack had broken it wider at the back. He was hanging from his harness on the fixed rope about ten feet below. He had his ice axe hacked into the wall and was working on finding a foothold on the sheer ice wall, but the fixed rope wasn’t designed to take this kind of strain, Spitz knew it, and he wasn’t moving too much. He was dangling, held only on the rope between Bill’s grip and the other ice screw attaching the other end to the ice wall, which was all too likely to give way too any minute. If it did, there would be very little to keep him from plunging however deep this crevasse might run, and even if he survived the fall, he would be irretrievable. Heart thudding, chest tight, Tom felt Jake’s hand close on the back of his harness, pulling him back onto safe ground and taking the back half of his rope, working efficiently to get it through his harness and wrapped around his waist in a way he could anchor as Tom clipped the other end to his own harness. The second coiled rope from Jake’s harness went over his shoulder and Jake secured the other end of that one to himself as well, bracing him as Tom moved forward again, crouched down and swiftly but with great care eased himself over the edge not to break any more ice down on top of Spitz, taking up the strain slowly to give Jake time to accommodate before Jake began to belay him slowly as he walked down the wall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There was no need for talk. They’d done this so often in so many settings, jungles and ravines, forests, caves, waterfalls; Tom was the lighter climber of them by a couple of stone and Jake was an expert in handling a rope for him in a way that Tom trusted entirely; it was putting a very well-trained manoeuvre into action and they did it so fast that it was bare seconds before Tom was climbing down beside Spitz. Spitz had been scattered with snow and ice as he’d fallen, it was all over his face, his beard and hat and suit, he was white faced, his teeth bared. Tom crab walked across the wall to reach him, leaning down to clip the second rope onto Spitz’s harness and tugging it hard to check once it was secure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Got you. It’s fixed. Jake, he’s safe.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake had help up there, Tom felt it within seconds; Jake was perfectly capable of handling the rope by himself efficiently while Tom climbed back up the wall but he was simply towed up fast without much need to climb. Tom pulled himself up over the lip to find Dorje with Jake on his rope and Bill and Pemba hauling up Spitz on the other rope. A minute later Spitz got into Bill’s grabbing distance, Bill caught his harness and dragged him up onto solid ice, and Spitz rolled over, wheezing for breath. He was shaking all over. Tom felt Jake’s arm close around his waist, lift him to his feet and hold him hard against the solidity of Jake’s body, drawing him back from the edge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Let’s get the hell out of here. Tom, go.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake gathered up the ropes, disentangling the fixed line and wrapping it around his waist, bracing it for Tom to pass Spitz. Tom put a hand on Spitz’s shoulder as he edged around him, clipped on to the line Spitz was still attached to and climbed rapidly on to the next fixed line on the vertical wall up out of the crevasse. Pemba and Dorje were already working on the other end of the fixed line behind them, setting another titanium ice screw to repair it. In a few minutes there would be no sign this had ever happened other than that hole in the ground, narrow enough to jump. Bill was crouching beside Spitz, an arm on his shoulders. Jake reached them, running the rope around his waist, and took Spitz’s arm to help him up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Now, let’s move. Spitz, follow Tom.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Spitz’s hands were shaking. Tom felt the vibration on the line behind him as Spitz began to climb, heard Spitz’s gasping breaths and looked down, keeping his voice quiet as he climbed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nearly there. Not far. Breathe, you’re nearly there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He reached the top, rolled over and leaned down to grab Spitz’s harness, stabilising him and dragging him the last few feet as he clambered over the top. He rolled over there, sat up and put his forehead on his arms. Tom crouched beside him, put an arm over his shoulders and felt the shaking abruptly worsen, the few gasping breaths that said for a moment Spitz sobbed silently. Bill climbed over the edge, his face softened with compassion at the sight of Spitz and he dropped a hand on his head, pressing over the snow scattered black woollen hat. Jake was the last over the edge, he paused to check the stability of the rope behind him, then reached for his thermos, unscrewed the top and poured a drink. He crouched in front of Spitz to put it in his hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get that down. It’s over. We practiced for this, it happens and it’s over now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They had rehearsed it. This and many other scenarios, hoping they’d never have to use any of them, but no rehearsal was the same as finding yourself dangling on a rope that was tearing out of its fixing, dangling helpless above a drop of God only knew how many feet. No matter how much you trained, you couldn’t prepare yourself for the animal fear of a near miss like that. Tom tightened his arm around Spitz, who fumbled for his hand with one of his and gripped it hard. And then he took another deep breath and reached for the offered cup of steaming tea. The few lines of Latin he muttered were under his breath but Tom recognised them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui…”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“Sancta Maria, Mater Dei,”</i> Tom said softly with him, supporting Spitz’s shaking voice with his own. <i>“Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Spitz glanced up at him, wet eyed, but managed a shaky, faint smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Que Dios te bendiga.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pemba, a good Sirdar with an eye to his client first and foremost, had kept the pink snow suited Ice Warbler behind them on a safe spot until the rope was once more secure. Lobsang emerged first over the ice wall to join them, Mr Loudon behind him and Pemba following him with the quick, efficient, light movements all the Sherpa seemed to make, no matter how hard the ground. Dorje came last, leaving the fixed rope restored behind them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tired already?” Phoenix said brightly to Spitz.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He couldn’t have seen much. Tom reminded himself of that before he reflexively got up and gifted Ostrich Loudon with a whole new orifice. At the back of the crowd, mostly working on climbing down the wall on the far side, he probably hadn’t seen Spitz fall. They’d had him out so fast it was possible he had never realised at all. It hadn’t affected him either, so even if he had seen he probably wouldn’t see why it mattered, but an idiot could have perceived right now that Spitz was shattered, not tired. Tom gripped Spitz’s shoulder and got up, waving Phoenix ahead of him fast before Spitz – or Bill, who looked livid – had a chance to answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ll keep moving.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake stepped back, putting Loudon between himself and Tom as they clipped onto the next rope, mostly focused on getting Mr. Tit Loudon and his humungous mouth as far away from Spitz as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Sherpa believed in mantras. A non-emotional phrase or thought that allowed for centring the mind and tuning out extraneous matters. Loudon’s was probably something like <i>blah blah blah</i>... Or a whole lot of butterflies. No wonder the kid had no worries about being towed up the mountain; he had no comprehension of the dangers here, not the ability to see the wider picture, or anything much that didn’t touch his agenda. Tom watched him, starting up the next serrac. There were <i>focused</i> climbers in base camp. He’d watched a number of them in the meeting of expedition leaders the other day, the people who blocked out everything but their focus, their goal for the day, it was in the nature of the athlete. They varied between the elite and the obsessed and Tom was well aware that he and Jake fell into that category themselves; it was merely that some were saner than others. This was different. It was a simplicity of thinking, not malicious but the egocentricity and wilfulness that came in a kid before theory of mind developed. What his father would have called a <i>young soul.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wonder what the hell kind of soul he thinks I have?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">His father would be kind to Loudon. He had always in Tom’s hearing been a compassionate man, a man who spoke with care and interest of all other people, who sought to understand his fellow man, to put them into comprehensible terms, to find something in them of the person he could relate to. Give him a man with AIDS, a drug addict kid, a battered wife – no few of them had appeared in the church from time to time – he could sit down with them and talk as easily as he talked to Lord and Lady Whoever at an evening dinner and they would respond to him. Tom had grown up in the middle of that hugely mixed society in and around the cathedral, watching him do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But not to me. If I hadn’t been his son… If I hadn’t been his son he’d have talked to me as kindly as he did the others, whoever I was, whatever I’d done. I suppose he didn’t live with the others. They didn’t mess with his private life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d been so saddened. The sadness had been terrible to bear. His mother had just never spoken of The School Incident. Never. She’d pretended very effectively that it had never happened, and really… probably she’d been very little different to the way she’d always been.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">That incident... changed things. But not really that much. I think… I think maybe it was always like that.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At least the <i>Snark</i> stuff was gentle nonsense without too much deeper meaning, exactly the kind of thing I wanted taking up space in his head right now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It took the whole day after the meltdown in camp, doing nothing much but laying together and getting him warm before he completely stopped shaking. Hours to get to the point where I was convinced he was recovering from the state of shock he’d been in when I carried him out onto the plateau. Hours to get him feeling safe enough to unfreeze and be able to talk, and when he had, he’d said things I’d never heard him get close to before. I’d seen him in the lower levels of this state plenty of times but never this bad. Never this distressed. He still thought he’d hit me. I’d seen his face when he came at me and there was no aggression anywhere in it. Complete overwhelm, yes. Knowing I was going to make him let go the disaster he was just about containing, and panicking; yes. But whatever he’d wanted to do when he hurled himself at me, hurting me was not a part of it. Tom is a pretty useful man to be alongside in a fight, and we’ve had to handle a few together in our time. A couple of drug runners we’d accidentally stumbled over in Nicaragua came to mind. If he’d intended to hit me, he wouldn’t have missed. I’d just stood there representing everything he felt safe enough to hurl himself against, everything that was too much to keep inside any longer and he’d known I’d contain him. We hadn’t got down to exactly what had triggered him although he’d told me everything he could and I had a fair idea. Later when he was starting to get restless and was together enough to cope with being anywhere near other people although I kept him with me the whole of that time because right now I wanted him in arm’s reach never mind in my line of sight, I had a quick ransack through our inbox and the deleted box and anywhere else I could think of to retrieve mail but there was nothing there to find. That didn’t mean it had never existed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Impulse wanted to lob a quick email at Wyoming basically along the lines of <i>will you kindly stop your brat stressing the living hell out of mine?</i> It wouldn’t have been fair or just, and I was not annoyed with Dale. If we were on the ranch tonight I certainly wouldn’t have asked Dale to stop or interfered, although I’d have insisted on being there and hearing what was said. It was not Dale I wanted to punch out; I reserved that particular desire for a clergyman in England.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>It may not be a good time, but it’s <u>his</u> time. And I know it feels like he’s coming apart. He isn’t</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn knows what he’s talking about. Apparently his brat did too, but I’ve seen the evidence and the changes Flynn has guided in people, me included. That part of his advice was what he knew I needed to hear, and it wasn’t so hard to get. I’d never heard Tom say any of this stuff before. Not even be able to hint at it without going numb and shutting down, or sliding off the subject in another direction. This was new, this was different and I could feel the difference. Difference is good. Difference goes somewhere new. He just looked like it had beaten the hell out of him on its way, he looked shaken and bereft and shattered, and it was horrible to see. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I persuaded and nagged gently until he ate, settled us in for a very early night, and dug out a large bar of chocolate and the silver hip flask I carried in my kit which I’d had filled in a little bar in Kathmandu with French brandy. We shared the chocolate, washed it down with the brandy, and alcohol in high altitude is pretty potent. We rarely drink, we rarely get the opportunity, but on the extreme quiet as he doesn’t like to admit to them, Tom has a few very expensive tastes and really good brandy is one of them. He relaxed bit by bit, his eyes gradually began to look less hyper alert for danger and flashing to every sound, and eventually, near to dawn he slept, his face hidden in my chest in a way he rarely lets himself do. I lay for a long time feeling his soft, even breathing against me before I could doze off. In a couple of days we’d be heading out of here on our summit bid; that was what he needed. For things to get moving, for the waiting to be over. Once that started he’d have plenty to focus on, to keep him physically and mentally tired out, to enjoy; plus emails weren’t going to easily follow us up there. That was probably a good thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our kit was packed, stacked and ready to go. Bill was supervising that part, plus keeping an eye on Mr. Phoenix Loudon Esquire, who was being cut dead by Bart and Max who were disgusted with him and defensive on our behalf. Shem was managing a fairly icy politeness, I don’t think she had the heart to cut him entirely. Spitz was pretending largely that Mr Loudon didn’t exist, and from Bill’s account, Phoenix hadn’t noticed much of any of this at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I’d asked Phoenix, our little P.A.L, to join Bill and I for a little chat about his decision to run a press conference without notice on our expedition, he’d looked up from his laptop with a bright smile that was just the sunny side of panicky and I’d thought he was at least aware that we weren’t going to be happy with him. As we worked through our discussion and once he’d accepted that being charming was not going to prevent us having this conversation, his main defence was that a) it was our fault for coming back early; if we’d come back when he’d expected us to we’d never have had to know about it, and b) if we would just accept doing what he wanted when he wanted it, he wouldn’t be forced to go behind our backs and we’d get along fine. When I finished laughing and explained that the word ‘no’ might not have figured much in his vocabulary up to this point but it did now he’d met me, cutting in ahead of Bill who was looking increasingly like he was about to start shouting, Phoenix tried out some tears on us. Evidently that too was usually pretty effective at getting people to back off and stop saying things he didn’t want to hear and he was good at it. Real head down, dripping eyes, sad but brave, manly <i>I don’t cry but you’ve driven me to it</i> sniffling, the works. I was thinking mostly of Flynn and his manipulative behaviours bingo sheet, which he swears they don’t have written down anywhere for their clients but I know he and the others play all the same, while we waited politely for him to finish. It was clear he felt we should have been apologising and trying to pacify him. He then tried arguing that we were about to lose his valuable custom if we didn’t stop annoying him; Bill explained that we did not give an airborne digestive process about that and it would take a mere half an hour to get a chopper out here to remove Phoenix and his money to Kathmandu, and he’d be happy to help him pack and wave bye bye. At this point I expected Mr Loudon to get annoyed, get real and get down to business. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Instead it was apparent he’d run out of strategies and was plain bewildered we didn’t seem to know the script. And were still being cross with him. Or rather looking grim and talking to him quietly, seriously and in Bill’s case, damn sternly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d taken off the backwards boy-band cap and had resumed a knitted hat. I didn’t know where he’d got it; it didn’t look at all his kind of thing or belong with the rest of his kit, but he was wearing it roughly shoved on the back of his head and the collar of his jacket turned up like Tom did. He didn’t, as Tom and I had expected, start threatening us with bad press. I wondered whether he was naive enough to believe we weren’t aware of his blog or to see this as two separate situations – that he said what he wanted there in private and it wasn’t a deliberate attempt to impact on us, so we shouldn’t take it personally. That made a difference. This lad wasn’t the brightest of buttons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill and I had discussed our possibilities in the few minutes we’d spent planning before I went to get Phoenix. There was the whole tempting option of flying Mr Loudon the heck out of our hair. The probable consequences of that one didn’t bother me at all, and the consequences of him staying had the potential to bother me a whole lot. Tom really didn’t need this crap, none of us needed this crap, we’d given Phoenix multiple chances here and our duty was long since done. But. With the cash he had available, as naïve and bloody willful as he was, with clearly his mother and press agent egging him on with no greater grip on reality or intelligence than he had, I could see exactly how this might go. There were men in base camp living hand to mouth outside of the climbing season; he’d find someone who’d take him up whether he was fit to go or not, and who might not worry about the ethics or safety of doing so. Worse, he might just grab the kit and go anyway. I could see a risk of us ending up abandoning our climb to have to get Phoenix down off the mountain, because even if he flew himself right back here and climbed independently, we were still going to feel responsible for him. Too much risk of us ending up averting – or worse, participating – in a tragedy that we wouldn’t get over. That Tom, particularly, would never get over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The right decision for the team was that, however irritating, it was going to be less hassle to have Phoenix in our tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I explained to him what slander was, in some detail. His eyes got a bit wide. I further explained breach of contract, data protection, invasion of privacy and would have included press regulation except I wasn’t convinced he was understanding a lot of what I was saying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was working for security firms and the CM Police it was often the case that the armed robbers you were escorting from the scene where they’d been terrorising a small crowd of people were chatty, pleasant guys in the van who told you about their pet dog and swapped anecdotes about their favourite hockey team like the last few hours never happened. Or the surly looking guy you just pulled over in his car for erratic driving goes big eyed and swears it isn’t his car, he’s never seen the car before in his life despite the fact he’s sitting in it, and he certainly wasn’t driving it. Besides he doesn’t even drive. What Flynn calls immature cortical development and poor executive function: they don’t get why the fact you damn well saw them do it should have any bearing on the situation, reality gets distorted their way and cause and effect link up the way they think it should without a need for fairness, truth or objectivity. Essentially the body’s fullygrown but you’re dealing with someone whose brain has wired itself up around social skills stuck somewhere in early grade school. A lot of the time there’s good reason. Most of the worst criminals I ever met had childhoods that made you desperately sorry for the child they were, and should have involved the prosecution of at least one key adult in their life. There are others who have been raised and trained by equally poorly equipped adults, and others who have just not been required by life or circumstance to grow up. I ran into no few of those at boarding school. Tedious.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lunch was dhal. It nearly the blew the top of my head off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Phoenix signed the contract I wrote out in front of him and nodded a lot with his eyes still wide while I read him the riot act in words of one syllable. The mess tent needed fixing; a tear around one of the plastic windows was starting to rip loose and I got that sorted before I left, half an eye on Walter Mitty settling down with his laptop again. A bit forlornly I thought. Less evil genius than pest. Tom had him pegged about right. He usually does.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">However Mr. Loudon was not getting any opportunity for further creative pestering on this expedition.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They made it through the ice fall in under four hours, struck right through camp one and were out on the blindingly white snow of the wide Western Cwm in the blue ice canyon around nine am. It was too early to be seriously hot there yet, but even in the bright early morning sun they had stripped from the waist up down to t shirts and sunglasses and were hauling it slow and steady, surrounded by the sharp, colossal grey and white mountains on every side. Nothing but snow, rock and open sky, and the few climbers in the distance on the Cwm ahead of them. A silent world, open to the sky. Tom, Spitz, Bill, Jake and Dorje were all carrying oxygen canisters and the additional kit they would need at the higher camps and their backpacks were heavy. Pemba and Lobsang between them were carrying all of Phoenix’s kit. He was climbing with nothing at all but the clothes he wore, and Tom had to give credit where it was due, he kept up with them through the ice fall. He was light and he was reasonably fit now from the training, and he’d picked up the techniques they’d taught him; this was his third time through the ice fall and he didn’t do that badly. It was above camp one on the start of the Cwm, the relentless slog interrupted by the ladders crossing the crevasses that he slowed. A lot of climbers in base camp maintained that ‘anyone relatively fit can climb Everest’. Loudon was giving an excellent example of why that just didn’t work out. The Cwm was a relatively gentle stretch; if you weren’t doing it with so little oxygen, with the severe fatigue and effort of movement that it caused, it would be an easy walk. At this altitude and beneath the heat of the sun, even this was a struggle. Jake had stayed close with him, pacing himself to Phoenix as Tom paced himself to Jake, watching Phoenix, with that stupid pink suit finally stripped down to hang around his waist as he was sweating like a pig, gradually get slower, and slower, and the pauses to rest become more frequent as he had to recapture his breath and talk himself into making the next few steps upwards. He’d burned out all the energy he had in the ice fall, matching their speed; he had nothing left now. The stamina, mental or physical for this climb just wasn’t in that pretty little body. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was less than a quarter of the way up the Cwm when he finally sat down on the ice, white and panting and coughing. Jake crouched near him, waiting, nodding hello to a couple of climbers from the German team as they passed them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s the ankle playing me up again,” Phoenix said plaintively to Jake when he had some breath to spare. “If the Sherpas can help me up as far as camp two I’ll be fine when I put it up for a few hours.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Here we go.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake nodded calmly, unmoved. “What help do you need?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The rope thing, like Bill did?” Phoenix indicated with his hands. Hot, legs aching fiercely and fed up, Tom resisted the urge to spit, mostly in an attempt to get some of the foul taste out of his mouth that Phoenix left him with. Jake shook his head serenely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I told you we weren’t going to do that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But it’s the way to help an injured climber, isn’t it?” Phoenix persisted. “I’m not tired, it’s just the last of a healing injury. Nurse it a bit and I’ll climb on tomorrow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake smiled, but Tom saw his eyes level and fix very directly on Phoenix’s in a way that made his own stomach tighten and apparently got Phoenix’s attention very quickly too. “Phoenix, Tom is walking on half healed shin splints. Bill’s coughing his lungs up, Spitz is bruised and probably in shock, we’re all a bit on the battered side. That’s how it is here. We’re going higher, it’s a long way to camp two, it’s going to get a whole lot tougher than this. If you’re not up to making it to camp two you’re going to find the Lhotse face impossible.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But I’ll be fresh in the morning, I just need a little help now!” Phoenix protested. “This is what I paid the big bucks for, that’s what they’re paid to do, they’re climbing to help me! It’s no chore to them!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>‘They’…. I knew this was going to happen</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom opened his mouth, perfectly ready to explain to Batbrain Loudon exactly what was on his mind, and Jake cut in ahead of him, cheerful but blunt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No. I told you how it was going to be. I decide how this expedition runs, not you, and no one on this expedition is going higher than they are fit and able to do alone, I don’t want to see anyone die. I have a partner and family, the Sherpas have wives and families, I’m not risking their lives trying to rescue a climber who ignored the warning signs he was struggling, went higher than he should and didn’t know when to turn back. No one is taking on the drain and risks of short roping anyone not in serious, immediate crisis. If you’ve hit the wall and you’re taking the decision not to climb higher then that’s no shame, it’s the hallmark of good sense. A lot of good, sensible climbers will decide the same and some of them won’t make it as far as you have. I’ll take you back down to camp one, Pemba and Lobsang will stay with you, you can rest and go down to base camp in the morning.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And with all his messing about, he was keeping them out on the Cwm just as the hottest hour of the day hit it. It was about 90 degrees out here, the glare off the ice was getting bad and Tom put a hand up to shade his sunglasses. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Whichever one it is, the longer we stand in the heat, the harder climbing it’s going to get and you’re going to end up with snow blindness.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Up or down?” Jake asked Phoenix. Who glowered at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do you know what publicity you’ll get if you put me on the summit?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake shook his head. “I’m not ‘putting’ anyone on the summit. I’m organising an expedition for climbers to attempt the summit themselves if they choose to and they’re able to. Big difference. Get up, we need to make a decision. Up or down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Phoenix swore at him. It wasn’t particularly creatively, and he stopped with his mouth open when Tom interrupted him and swore a whole lot more comprehensively, dispassionately and loudly at no one and nothing in particular. Two Australians climbing around them gave them a rather alarmed look. Jake gave them a friendly nod and smile. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, I can do that too.” Tom snapped when he finally ran out of phrases in English to reel off. “Know all the words, any idiot can say them. Act like a grown up for God’s sake, and make a rational decision. And keep your filthy mouth off Jake, he’s most of the reason you’ve been able to climb at all.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He got a flat stare of equal dislike straight back at him. Phoenix had dismissed him the first time he ever laid eyes on him. Not manipulable, saw straight through his crap, way too much like him. Brat competing with brat. Then Phoenix got up and slowly carried on up the rope. He managed another fifteen minutes up the steep bank in which he covered twelve feet at most, largely on his hands and knees before he sat down again on the ice and this time Tom could see the frustration openly in his face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I can’t. I’m done.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I understand, and I respect your decision.” Jake said mildly. “We’ll see you down, camp one isn’t far.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was fifteen minutes climb down to camp one; a much shorter, easier climb that the Pink Canary managed with no sign of a limp, just of being very tired and struggling with both the physical challenge and the reduced oxygen. Jake saw him to his tent and left Pemba starting a stove in the tent he and Lobsang would use, promising he’d see to it that Phoenix had a meal and plenty to drink and that they’d take him safely down to base camp in the morning. Jake radioed down to their base camp using Phoenix’s radio and left him with it talking to Shem, Bart and Max. Shem at least would give him some consolation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was one hell of a slog back up the Cwm in intense heat, at the worst possible time of day to be doing it having stood around half the day with Duckface Loudon. As a result it was their slowest time up the Cwm so far, near to three hours hard trekking, and by the time they reached camp two where the twenty or so tents were clustered in the snow in small, scattered groups, Tom’s legs were painful to the point that every step made him swear under his breath in a steady litany, sweat was streaming off him and he was tired to the point of being light headed. Their tent was waiting. Spitz, Bill and Dorje were sitting in the sun with their own tent flaps open, Bill and Spitz stripped down to underwear to cool down in the heat and to let their sweat soaked clothes dry off. One of them had thoughtfully left a sack of clean ice shards by Tom and Jake’s tent, ready to melt for water. Tom stripped off as far as he could, filled a pan with them, stuck it on their stove which lit after some persuasion, and bolted ibuprofen with the last of the long since cold water in his flask while Jake parked him on the floor of their tent, got his crampons and boots off and checked his legs over. They were sore; expectedly sore but no worse than they had been, and Jake went out again to hack another pan of ice shards, wrapping these ones in a towel to put on Tom’s shins and dropping him on his back with his legs raised by both their rucksacks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How burned are you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“... Burned.” Tom admitted. Jake dug in the rucksack for the heavy duty sun lotion they were re applying every couple of hours up here due to the sun glare off the ice. And in ridiculous places. Tom winced, snorting slightly as Jake ran a palmful of the lotion over his face and under his chin and around his nostrils. The glare came straight upwards; if you’d never before had suntanned nostril interiors, here was the venue to explore it. Jake smeared another palmful of the stuff over his own face, covering a tan that was turning a deeper weather beaten golden brown every day beneath his fair hair. He tanned easily at any time. Tom, with his black hair and Celt white skin and always bloody awkward, burned far more easily. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake radioed down to base camp before he settled down. Shem reported that Phoenix was resting and being appreciated by a couple of women from the Canadian team, and seemed in good spirits now despite having to turn back. Tom suspected that he had already managed to twist the facts around into something more comfortable in his mind, but the freedom of him falling away from the team was a great one. A release. Up here, beside Jake in the white, barren slope of camp two with a view through the open tent flaps of desolate, white spectacular magnificence against blue sky that reminded Tom of Hilary’s quote – <i>ants in a land made for giants</i> – with the challenge of the higher mountain there above and awaiting them in the morning, life was fiercely, harshly wonderful. Free. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Anything else sore?” Jake asked him, stowing the radio away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, I’m fine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake sat heavily down on the mat beside him, digging in his soft inner boot to explore one foot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I'll need to adjust my socks tomorrow, I think. Can't afford a blister.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom sat up at once, grabbing for his ankle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Let me see.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The foot was cold, mostly white even through the layers of clothes he’d been wearing, but the small patch of pressure was visible. Tom examined it carefully, then swatted his leg, leaning past him to grab their first aid kit and find an alcohol wipe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You be careful. Pad that bloody sock. Properly.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I will, it’ll be fine.” Jake said mildly, watching him clean the pressure spot thoroughly. The alcohol usually hardened the skin off; hopefully that would prevent it breaking down. Tom checked the seam of his sock before he turned it inside out to keep the seam away from Jake’s foot and shoved the alcohol wipe into the side pocket of the rucksack. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Those socks could climb by themselves.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re going to have to, to keep up with yours?” Jake pointed out, putting his sock and boot back on again. “I don’t know whether Paul’s going to tell us to wash what we bring home or take it down to the far end of the ranch and burn it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Paul’s not going to have to do anything for us, I’m binning the lot when we get to Kathmandu.” Tom informed him, “We’ll grab the basics in the market there. Enough to get to the US in.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They’d picked up razors and a whole spectrum of peculiar, cheap clothes bought from market stalls all over the world, entire changes of kit were something they were familiar with. There were very few items they carried, either of them, that were permanent fixtures in their lives. Jake put the ice back over his shins before he lay back on the mat beside him, looking out at the white snow and blue sky visible beyond their feet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Keep that there. Did your mom do the laundry at your house?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom looked sideways at him, thrown and a little unsettled. “Where did that come from?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake shrugged. “You were the one living in the actual family home, not me. I’m interested.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… no, the house keeper saw to that kind of thing. Cleaners did the house a couple of times a week and they handled the ironing.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You learned at school? You’ve never had any problem looking after yourself.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I did a lot of outward bound stuff at school. Survival stuff, and school were pretty strong on you doing your own laundry in the upper years. So yeah. Lived out of takeaways mostly at university.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know Philip always made sure everyone that came through the ranch doors could take care of their own needs.” Jake said reflectively. “I saw him invest years in that with some of the family. Laundry, running the house, cleaning, keeping their room straight. Cooking for themselves and others. Not just how to do it and doing it well but the whole responsibility ethic. I don’t think he planned on any guy of his being helpless or a pain in the ass with whoever they set up home with.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“... that must have gone down better with some than others.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom said it stiffly, aware he was sounding like a stilted, affected prat and that it in no way reflected how interested he was, or encouragement to tell him more. Jake smiled anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh, definitely. Some always needed help in the kitchen, some always needed help in the laundry room. But everyone had to try.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…..Wade’s very practical. Army.” Tom said shortly. In the summer they’d spent on the ranch he’d been drawn to the irascible elderly man and liked him a good deal. “I’ll bet there isn’t much he can’t do. But I can guess Gerry’s reaction faced with chores he doesn’t fancy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Actually, he’d very much liked Gerry too from seeing him around the ranch once or twice. For very different reasons, most of which involved carefully avoiding him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I think he and Ash, er, shall we say ‘work’ on that?” Jake grinned as Tom snorted. “But Gerry’s the really house proud one in that household. You didn’t get much of that opportunity at home, did you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What, to pick out curtains? I was fine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There's that word again. Fine.” Jake turned his head to meet his eye, kind eyes but penetrating nevertheless. “I don't want to hear that word again unless you're talking about grains of sand.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom felt the thud of response in his chest. Laying down the law wasn’t much Jake’s style, he’d never put boundaries around language before – or at least overtly. And it was ... Captivating. Alarming and captivating, and bizarrely safe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I was asking about whether your mom or dad ever spent time with you teaching you how to take care of yourself on your own.” Jake said gently. Tom found his mouth opening, stomach revolting at the thought. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They didn't need to.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’d argue that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I was perfectly competent.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, that isn't the question, is it?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>I</i> didn't need anything from them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, but you deserved it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not emotionally, not financially, <i>nothing</i>.” Tom said fiercely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You deserved it.” Jake said again, still gently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom rolled over, about to get up and stalk out, which was not easy to do in a tent, and made still less easy that Jake put an arm out, effortlessly holding him where he was with his tone conversational. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You know I’d always heard it's not easy to leave when you're flat on your back?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was so ridiculously unfair and so typical of him that Tom swiped what he could reach of his hip, near to laughing in spite of himself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Git.” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I think …” Jake sat up to look at the saucepan of water on the stove. “..We finally have hot water. Tea or chocolate?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“... tea. Let’s pretend I'm a bloody grown up.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom sat up when Jake let him go, curling up in a ball to hold the mug that Jake passed him. Jake, who had emptied one of the American dried meal sachets of chocolate into his own mug before re filling the pan with more ice to start the process over again, re wrapped the towel around the ice shards and put it once more over Tom’s legs and sat back with his mug cradled between his hands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This stuff reminds me of the old cocoa blend Philip liked. He used to make this in the evenings when I was a kid if he was reading with me – not very kidlike stuff I admit, that was mostly what was best about it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom glanced up at him and Jake shrugged, sipping chocolate. “<i>The Iliad</i>. <i>The Odyssey</i>. I loved that one. <i>Under Milk Wood</i> ... <i>the sloeblack,</i> <i>slow, black, crowblack, fishingboatbobbing sea…</i> although David swore he couldn’t do the accent right. Who read with you at night?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He said it so cheerfully. Normally. Tom put the tea down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do we have to do this?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well if you feel like being wetter than a bloody lettuce you enjoy yourself.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was ahead of his move towards the door, which lay across the path of Jake’s legs. He hooked an arm around Tom, shifted under him and Tom found himself pulled into Jake’s lap, trapped there as Jake settled with his back against the rucksacks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did anyone read to you when you were a kid?” he said as conversationally as if this was normal. Appalled, Tom squirmed against him, trying and failing to break the grasp of Jake’s arms which were expertly wrapped around him and holding on all too easily, his heart starting to thump hard. Not through fear, not through distress but because this went <i>deep</i>. This was a <i>deeply</i> private thing, something Jake knew damn well, and he was opening up even wider pretty much everything they’d opened up down in base camp the other night. Right now, all in one go as if now it was stuff that got talked about, ready or not, right here in this tent in the ice fields of the mountain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We are not talking about this crap!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Yeah, some hope</i>… Jake sounded sympathetic but he shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That isn't an answer.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well you're not getting another one.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“... is that how it is?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake’s voice was very mild but there was something in the way he said it that froze Tom internally and his twisting to escape quite promptly stopped. Jake’s tone had gone a fraction deeper. Definitely focused. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I asked a question.” he said quietly before Tom had time to think, and it was a soft quiet, a calming and not a sinister one. “I expect an answer. So take a breath, calm down and tell me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">His arm around Tom’s waist was still holding pretty firmly. But his other hand was rubbing slowly against Tom’s back as if he knew exactly how this felt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I expect this of you. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So Jake was apparently convinced they could do it. And that it was time, and they needed to. And Jake had earned that trust a million separate times, over and over again, every damn time he’d been patient, waited, said nothing and just cheerfully followed on. He’d more than earned it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It took a lot of effort. It was one of the scarier things Tom had ever done. But he shut his eyes, leaned hard against him and stayed where he was, took a deep breath and tried to get a grip, to let this happen. Aware that Jake was quiet, holding him close in the grasp of his larger, stronger body as if he was something delicate instead of gangly, still rubbing, not pressuring. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.” He managed to say eventually. “Yes, they both did. A lot. My mother taught me to read when I was… three or so. Early. Probably in desperation; reading was about the one thing that got me to sit still…. Most of the classic British kid fiction of the time. Enid Blyton. Rosemary Sutcliff. Kenneth Graham. AA Milne. All the stuff I got you to read, you know it all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I remember. That’s reassuring to know.” Jake sounded calm about it, exactly as if this was a normal social conversation. Tom kept his eyes shut, unable not to think of the texts in the vault at the cathedral, the giant books on the lecterns. He’d thought about them a lot in the last few weeks. About many things in that beautiful place. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… my father read some of the cathedral library books with me when I was small. The vault stuff. Sacred texts, a lot of them were handwritten there in the cathedral when it was an abbey. They’re beautiful things. Illustrated. Blues and golds, commissioned by – oh ridiculous names. Kings. Dukes. Historical names you’d know.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He and Jake had handled and read texts like that in some of the most ancient libraries in the world together, Jake loved artefacts and ancient script like he did, he found the same magic in them, but Tom could vividly remember being barely tall enough to see the top of the lectern, watching his father’s white cotton gloved hand very gently turning the pages of an eight hundred year old leather bound tome nearly as big as he was, hearing his voice reading the secrets of the curling, ornate script. Right now his hands were shaking hard. Which was so stupid. So irrational. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake nodded slowly. “What about children’s books?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>How</i> is this the place for-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Shhh. It’s ok, you can do this.” Jake’s tone was gentle and Tom paused, horribly aware his tone could be called whiny. Trying to just trust him and let go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… yes. I loved reading, my father liked to read, the house was full of books.” “Well that’s nice to know too.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake’s hand slid gently up his back, pausing to massage soothingly at the nape of his neck. “So they weren’t horrible about everything.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They weren’t horrible at all. They were decent people, decent parents, they did their best. I was just hard work and I was too much. I don’t blame them for that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I was a handful too for the same reasons.” Jake observed gently. “But people seemed to figure out how to manage. You said it was a mutual decision that you were self sufficient when you went to university.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Really?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He said it quizzically, his tone very mild but it wouldn’t have been possible to bluff. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…I made it. They didn’t have to do another damn thing for me, I got permanently out of their hair.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Financially, emotionally, practically.” Jake echoed quietly. “Did they have any input into this?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They didn’t really argue.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did you want them to?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom shrugged slightly. Awkwardly. “The fact was they didn’t.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They hurt you badly enough that you left them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It wasn’t petty. It wasn’t attention seeking, it wasn’t a ‘gesture’. There wasn’t a relationship left by that time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And that was their doing, I know. They started it. You already felt alone, so you thought you might as well be alone, then they couldn’t hurt you anymore.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">How does he know this stuff? He sounds like he was there. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Idiot. He listens to you. He’s been listening to you for years. He knows you. You know he does. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They let you down when you needed them most.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Yes.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And you felt like you didn’t deserve to ask for anything more. Is that true?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… Probably.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Probably?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… Yeah.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did Dale deserve his mother and what she did to him?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll bet he never publically humiliated her or screwed up the way I did.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom.” Jake said softly. “I said this before. You were a child. You did something that came naturally, in innocence. Not something intentionally, maliciously wrong. How could you have been able to see all the implications of that with adult eyes? How could you have had that knowledge at your age? And why should you have been the one that protected your parents when no one did much protecting for you? Is that really a reasonable thing to expect of a twelve year old?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">… No. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I run when things go wrong.” Tom said bitterly, not entirely sure why he said it. “You know that. Freak me out and I’ll bolt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know. When it’s all too much, that’s the only thing left that helps.” Jake’s voice was close against his ear. “That’s ok. It’s coping, and we get it. Do you see what I mean now about anger? You never want a fight if you have a choice. You don’t hate anyone, you don’t want to hurt anyone, you won’t fight them to get what you want, you’ll leave. You won’t stay anywhere you think you might cause hurt. Philip used to say that anger was fear with a different coat on.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fear. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">It isn’t anger, it’s fear. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed… <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was right. He was absolutely right. In many ways, it was humiliating to realise because he’d always known this. Always been a coward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">What man is afraid like this? All the time of everything?! Much of the growling and snarling… is don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me. I hate it because it’s threatening, it’s stressful. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake reached one handed into his rucksack and Tom saw the notepad he pulled out, the cheap lined tear off sheets they carried, and a biro. He flipped to a blank page and wrote something for a moment, then laid the pen down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I want you to copy that ten times underneath.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>No!”</i> Tom pulled against him in alarm, shocked to the point of incoherency, “No I bloody <i>won’t</i>,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s all right. You can do it.” Jake gathered him close enough to stifle the panicked struggling, talking very gently. “I’ve got you and I think you can do this.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s a stupid, childish-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s ok. I’ve got you, it’s going to be ok.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a time he’d nagged Jake to do exactly this. To use lines. To just insist he did whatever other brats did. And at the time he would have done it with dignity, in silence, with detachment. Certainly without making a horrendous scene like this, he had no idea why he was doing it except that he couldn’t stop. He was still trembling and it wasn’t with cold. He’d never been this upset about any form of discipline between the two of them since the day they’d met. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s such a simple thing! Just do it. For pete’s sake just shut up and do it. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Once he would have added ‘<i>what does it matter anyway</i>?’ Right now he knew exactly why it mattered. He still couldn’t move. After a moment Jake lifted him over to lay on the sleeping bag, putting the pen and book in easy reach and lay down beside him, one arm around his waist, his body against Tom’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You can do it. Take your time.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Aware that stupidly, ridiculously, his eyes were starting to water, Tom stared at the sentence written on the paper in Jake’s rapid scrawl. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i>I deserved to be cared for as a child, and I deserve to be cared for as an adult</i></b>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I can’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">His voice was rising in a really horrible, cracked kind of way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Try.” Jake’s hand was softly rubbing his back, his voice was very gentle. “It’s just you and me here, it’s going to be ok. How about letting that in just for a moment?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">People did this all the time. Gerry. Riley. Dale. Probably Wade at some point in the distant past. It was such a known, familiar thing. A mundane, tedious thing; that was the whole point of it. And it was <i>ten</i> – a mere, pathetic ten. It should have been hundreds, he more than deserved it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d never realised it could feel this<i> hard</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s ok.” Jake said again, running a hand over his face. It wasn’t until he did it, wiping away various patches of flooding wetness, that Tom realised he was actually in tears. Helpless, pathetic, quiet but heaving tears. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Melted bunny flambé. On ice. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He picked up the pen by sheer force of will, trying to focus on the paper. His hand was still shaking, his handwriting came out like some spidery kid’s scrawl. Any proper Top would have objected immediately, torn the page out, demanded proper effort and control. Jake went on murmuring encouragement and laying there rubbing his back like it was perfectly fine, his chin against Tom’s shoulder, which helped enormously, prevented him from freezing entirely to the spot. And somehow, snivelling without being quite sure why, he wrote. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s what a kid that age does when something awful happens, isn’t it?” Jake mused aloud, running his fingers through the getting too long hair at the nape of Tom’s neck, somewhere around line six. “I remember. You can’t show the kind of emotion a little kid would at twelve – you’ve got too much dignity for that, you’re at the age where you mind terribly what people think of you, you’re afraid to embarrass yourself and you don’t really know how to handle hard emotion anyway, what to say, what to do with people…. Old enough to feel it, sensitive as all hell but none of the experience. So you have to do the ‘boy’ thing. Gruff. Stoic. I don’t care. The silent treatment. The hard shell. You can’t let anyone see what’s underneath and you don’t know how to begin handling it yourself and so what gets seen is… strop.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was borrowing freely from Tom’s vocabulary, the compassion deep in his tone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And no one knew how to deal with that either, did they?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2b0bb1; font-family: inherit;">The Flight of the Phoenix: the exclusive blog of Phoenix Loudon’s epic ascent of the World’s Highest Mountain. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2b0bb1; font-family: inherit;">1st May <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #2b0bb1; font-family: inherit;">At Camp Two! <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #2b0bb1; font-family: inherit;">I’m here! Arrived early afternoon after a bit of a tight call out in the Ice Fall. Our Spanish team member made a bit of a beginners mistake and put his foot through an ice crust and the next thing I know we’ve got a team member dangling about twenty feet down inside a crevasse and in deadly peril! Thank goodness Dorje, our quiet but efficient Sherpa guide, knows what I’m capable of, and in seconds he was handling the rope for me while I climbed down alone into the darkness. I managed to abseil down to my stricken comrade and get another rope on him, and our wonderful Sherpa team hauled him out. The poor guy sobbed like a child once he was back on solid ground. He’s Catholic, I respect his faith and I don’t mind admitting I sat and prayed with him until he got his nerve together again and we climbed on. I heard the Sherpas talking afterwards about a quick rescue and a worthy climber; it’s good to have their approval since they’re the expert climbers among us and you know how much I admire them. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #2b0bb1; font-family: inherit;">One of our expedition members then began to slow on the ascent up to camp two, and our intrepid expedition leader was cautious as usual and turned him back. I admire the guy for going down, a good climber knows his limits and lives to climb another day. The rest of us pressed on and made camp two in good time, and we’re tucking into our fabulous MREs and candy bars since we’re too high up here for proper cooking. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #2b0bb1; font-family: inherit;">A few of my followers commented here and on twitter about my sharing that I’m known in the camp as a bit of the strong and silent type. I’m not antisocial. But I’m here with a job to do and I’m not the type for chatter or partying as some of the expedition members are, or for flirting around with some of the (hot) chicks in the other expeditions. Sometimes I get a bit restless, it happens, and I’ve done the occasional night climb here alone, just me and the mountain. When the going gets tough, the tough get going! <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #2b0bb1; font-family: inherit;">On to camp three tomorrow, only two days now from the summit. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #2b0bb1; font-family: inherit;">Rock on!<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-14.html">Continue on to Chapter 14</a></span></b></div>
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-34556580302958230602015-09-24T15:36:00.000-07:002015-09-28T00:54:37.289-07:00Everest - Chapter 12<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 1; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i><b>12</b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He said nothing of the email to Jake. However the black - black - mood was less easy to hide. Jake watched him checking oxygen tanks for a few minutes when he re-joined them, and Tom was unable to not be aware of Jake watching him, or his matter of fact nod that meant he’d made a decision.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Like that is it? Come on then.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It sounded so deceptively casual. Tom’s stomach lurched immediately and deeply with an exact knowledge of what Jake meant and what he intended. He didn’t look up, savagely checking another oxygen bottle’s regulator. This lot had been checked over several times already but it was so crucial not to end up on the summit with an unreliable or difficult bottle that the multiple checks were necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake stood and waited for him. He never looked grim, he didn’t do the pointed ‘Look’ thing Tom had seen many other men do, he wasn’t given to snapping orders. He just stood there, being large and cheerfully immovable in his fleece jacket, gloves and hat against the bite of a snowy morning. Quite a bit of snow had fallen in the night; the tents were dusted, the ground and the crates were dusted, it made the place look even more desolate and wrecked than it usually did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“No.”</i> Tom snapped at him under his breath when it became clear Jake was going to stand there until the next ice age came through. “I’m busy, I’ve got stuff to do, we’re <i>not</i> doing that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Declaring war never worked either. There was about a nanosecond between Tom snapping that out in the nastiest tone he could come up with, and Jake genially barging directly between him and the oxygen crate and Tom knew no matter what resistance he put up, Jake would just walk into him and bulldoze him, gently but inexorably towards their tent. Somewhere in the few seconds as Jake closed the distance between them, Tom exploded and lunged at him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was nothing so nice as ‘resistance’: it was full blooded lashing out in a way he’d never lost it enough to do in his life, not with anyone. Vicious, terrible and utterly uncontrolled, he hurled himself on Jake with all his strength and his fists clenched, and it lasted about two seconds before Jake wrapped his arms over Tom’s and held him too tightly to struggle, lifted him straight off his feet and walked directly out onto the open plateau of grey moon rock, snow and ruin well beyond their tent and away from the shocked faces around them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He stood there for a long, long time, holding Tom in that safe, crushing embrace that didn’t let him move, with his chin against Tom’s head while Tom fought him with everything he had and totally unsuccessfully, with breathing that was horribly loud and ragged. When the red mist cleared slightly and he ran out of the strength to go on fighting, his knees nearly gave way under him. There was the equally horrible and nearly overwhelming compulsion to let go and release the full weepy if not utterly hysterical, limp bunny performance on him, complete with stupid apologies, like there was any possible way to apologise for doing this to the man you loved. Particularly when it wasn’t his fault and he was the last person you’d ever want to take your awful crap out on. And when for some bizarre, stupid, <i>stupid</i> reason he still insisted on loving you. He managed somehow to keep that back. To shut his teeth, try with all the strength he had left and at least shut the hell up and try and stem the mess he was pouring all over both of them. Jake said nothing while he did it. Even a word of comfort would have been too much to handle, but in silence he stood like a rock and he held on with arms that were utterly inescapable, and Tom eventually got to the point where he could breathe more or less quietly again with his forehead hard against Jake’s shoulder and his hands knotted into the fleece of Jake’s dusty jacket, clutching him to the point his hands hurt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When he got there, Jake’s arms tightened around him still further in return for a long moment, crushing and safe, then Jake guided him unhurriedly across the plateau towards their tent. Tom blindly walked with him, trying to get himself and his face together, and in their tent Jake put him down on the padded floor of the two side by side air mattresses and the ridiculous thickness sleeping bags, zipped the outer door closed behind them and took Tom’s boots off before he removed his own and turned the tent heater on. Their kit occupied most of the ‘lobby’ end of their tent; head torches swung from the overhead rail in easy reach alongside an overhead battery lamp, crampons, ice axes and rucksacks were organised and by the door with a towel beneath them soaking up the bits of snow and ice that tended to melt off it all. The inner section of the tent with its separate zip closed door that insulated more warmth in a smaller area at night, was essentially one large bed. Other than the mattresses and sleeping bags it contained only the crate of books and the things stuffed in the tent nylon side pockets, like the basic first aid kit and water bottles, wash kit, the multiple bottles of sun block you went through by the hour here where the sun blazed off the ice. It was the end of the tent where they kept anything that was crucial kit that couldn’t get wet; their boots went there, their gloves, the dry bag which held what was left of clean, dry clothes, everything separately wrapped in plastic to avoid it dampening. It had been ‘home’ for some weeks now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom numbly co operated with Jake peeling him out of his outer clothes, then Jake stripped himself, zipped their bed compartment closed and pulled them both into the depths of one of the thick, hooded sleeping bags. He zipped that too closed around them, a soft, deep and puffy down shield that shut out the world beyond the tent. Inside its sanctuary where no one would ever see, Tom wound himself arms and legs around Jake, trying to maintain enough self control not to snivel out loud while Jake held him. Gathered him close enough to feel his strength and his warmth and held him. And very slowly, gradually for the first time in what felt like days, Tom felt his heart start to slow down and then warmth began to creep back into him again, reaching chilled hands and feet. They lay together like that for several hours. Bill’s voice at some point called quietly from outside the tent, sounding concerned,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You two ok?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">No.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Jake’s arms tightened, holding him still before Tom fully realised he’d tensed, and he called back cheerfully without moving, “We’re good. Sod off Bill, there’s a good chap.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill’s boots crunched away out of hearing and Tom relaxed inch by inch back into Jake’s grip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">What was all that about?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many Tops would have insisted on being told, pulled teeth if necessary and he could only ever have loved or bothered with a man like that, who was quite unafraid of this kind of mess and took no truck from those capable of pulling the kind of crap Tom knew he did on more or less a daily basis. He knew damn well he’d fight to the death with any alpha male that thought he could force some kind of deep and meaningful, understanding little bunny chat on him. Defeat the entire purpose of the poor guy trying with every tool at his disposal and all the force he had, outwit them, out manoeuvre them, outlast them, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to quit until he’d won…. and yet he still would desperately want them to try, in the shameful, secret and truly, ruinously naive hope that he might lose. As Dale had said, you had to know. You had to destruction test it, no matter what the cost. Better pay now than pay later.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But Jake wouldn’t mount up across the jousting field from you. He wouldn’t seal his helm and salute and engage in equally gentlemanly battle on known terms. You’d turn up to fight Jake to find he’d nicked your horse, organised a team of archaeologists into excavating the jousting pitch for something really interesting and bought you a coffee. No rules. At least not ones you could ever get a grip on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom bit Jake’s shoulder, relatively gently, and Jake’s arm around his waist tightened. He sounded placidly sleepy for a man who’d just been domestically abused.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah you can explain the sex injuries to Shem when I need antibiotics. I was just thinking. I think my first crush was Camilo Aberquero when I was about…. ten and a half? Several years above me at school, he played football. Nice legs. And I occasionally stayed out on the ranch with Philip and David and knew they were gay, the relatives were fine with <i>Philip</i> being gay on the grounds he was Philip. And eventually it dawned up me that pretty much so was everyone else I knew who lived or visited there. I was falling over good role models. So it was a bit different for me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">How the hell did we get onto this?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mouth slightly open, Tom found himself clutching Jake for dear life, very aware of Jake’s relaxed body beneath his, the warmth of the sleeping bag wrapped around them, the layer between the ice outside and them inside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was hard enough sometimes to be on the ranch where the men there were so openly, frankly themselves. Not just visibly, obviously gay - Tom had done a few gay resorts in his early twenties and spent the time up on cliffs or swimming at the very far end of the beaches, avoiding every other man in the resort and rendering the whole point of being there entirely empty – but their relationships. Natural, there, all the time. Easy. Enjoyed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Who is Lucifer, what is he?”</i> he found himself misquoting somewhat incoherently and very bitterly. “Do you think he really was the arrogant bastard Milton paints him as?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“As opposed to what?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake sounded comfortably interested, never one to mind apparent random leaps of subject. Tom shut his eyes, tried to shut his ears, shut everything, it was too hard to even think about this. He felt like one whole raw wound, head to foot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“A… basically good character who made a bloody awful mistake, a stupid error of judgment, and was cast out of the home he loved, from the God he loved, to live the rest of eternity in exile from him. Can he truly be <i>bad</i>? He was an archangel once. With the beliefs and the faith of all of them, he was one of them. Did he really revel in his fall and what it meant, the freedom to be evil unleashed? Or did the evil come from anger, resentment, bitterness at himself and the consequences he caused? Or is there an angel in eternal grief and agony of soul, a <i>good</i> soul, presiding over Tartarus with all the pain and anguish of what he witnesses there and what he’s lost? Can anyone stay good or pure in the face of that kind of grief? Doesn’t it twist you? Is <i>that</i> evil? Or if he is just an arrogant, oblivious bastard and that’s his only sin then I’m all kinds of a hypocrite because Loudon is exactly that and so am I and who the hell am I to refuse to understand or connect with someone just because they piss me off?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake reflected on that, not disturbed by its heat or incoherence. Then said thoughtfully, “What were your parents like together?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did they flirt? Were they good friends? Given to PDAs?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…God, no.” Thrown, Tom found himself reflecting quite dispassionately for a moment, trying to find images that fit Jake’s question. “I don’t know. He annoyed her quite a lot, she’d get tight lipped and say nothing but go and flower arrange or write letters or make phone calls radiating deep freeze. Never any rows, making a scene was worse than committing murder. Whole lot of passive aggression.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How did he tick her off?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Being late for meals. Making decisions about the garden she didn’t agree with. Setting dates for engagements without consulting her; that used to cause a wash of iced politeness over dinner. I don’t think he did it deliberately, he was a bit on the absent minded side and he was with people all day, when he got home he wanted to read, write, shut down... she didn’t like it. They had separate rooms. Always had separate rooms actually, I don’t remember ever seeing them come out of the same one, but they were both uptight about that kind of thing. You never saw them in nightwear or went into their bedrooms, just wasn’t done.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “Very formal.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t know. She was a Bishop’s wife. Three stripes on her handbag, senior wife, she was very good at it. All her responsibilities as well as supporting him in his, she worked seven days a week and that included running the house and cathedral domestic affairs.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Colleagues rather than friends?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That said it really. Tom had a sudden flashing image as if from above of how he and Jake were lying in this moment. Crushed together in a sleeping bag, scruffy, unshaven, wrapped around each other in a sprawl that felt so normal because it was so very well practiced, and even after that God-awful scene outside, still talking the kind of flippant rubbish they always talked together, that could run without thought or effort whether they were on a plane, in a forest, up a mountain, at three am in the morning, at noon over a formal lunch… He couldn’t imagine his parents doing anything of the kind. Couldn’t imagine one of them clinging to the other for comfort. It was too foreign an image to relate to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We had this driver at home when I was really small – Lance. Not sure why there was a driver actually, but he did a whole lot of other useful things around the house too. I wonder if it was felt there just ought to be a man about the place.” Jake said conversationally. “Huge great house, several live-in women of various ages and one kid. Lance had the flat over the garage. I used to spend hours with him washing the car or ‘helping’ clip hedges or roll lawns or whatever he happened to be doing that day, he spent a lot of time chasing me around, played football with me, took me with him if he went out to stores or to pick anything up for the house. He used to say it was his job to tire me out enough to stay out of trouble. I adored him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What happened to him?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nothing. He got married when I was about eight, she lived with him in the flat for a while, then when I went to boarding school he moved on to another job. I know they had three children at the last count, he would have made a great dad.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… I mostly used to knock around the garden and cathedral.” It was easy to think of the exact colours and shapes and pathways of every part of it, he’d known it so well. “The close was walled and gated, very safe, no cars, but it was big. Adults always around who knew who I was. And I wandered off constantly; I could get any doors open, windows… I was probably going more or less where I wanted by the time I was three or so, I don’t think my mother was happy about it or it was her idea of child rearing, it was more she and the house keeper and the current au pair had to stay sane.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Au pair?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dozens of them. Usually from Commonwealth countries on programmes with the school of religious studies in the town, mostly various states of Africa, the Cameroons... Twelve week course so they changed frequently. They were supposed to help with childcare.” It was domestic detail, petty stuff he hadn’t thought of in years, it was odd to pull it out and put it into words. “They did a lot of looking after Clara – my sister – but there’s quite a big age gap between us and I wasn’t easy. I remember my mother shouting at my father about it and him saying I’d be fine in the close, it was a perfectly safe place, dozens of people around to keep an eye on me and she needed to stop worrying. I don’t know what she wanted him to do about it. She had a lot of demands on her time, coming home to find I’d been utter bloody chaos all day can’t have helped. I was too difficult for the au pairs.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did you like them?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.” Tired, drained, Tom found the admission coming straight out without thinking, he’d never really reflected on it before. “I don’t know why, they were all nice enough. I was just born a little bugger.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I can’t see many kids that age liking new faces every three months.” Jake said reflectively. “And you like time to get to know people to be comfortable around them. Or possibly you just wanted your mom.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For some reason that felt a hotly uncomfortable, shameful kind of a thought and Tom flinched from it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because good boys don’t think like that, do they? Not macho, not appropriate. And yet here I am, still latched onto him.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s a disgusting thought,” he said viciously, “That at your age you’re still carrying around baggage like this – like carrying around the bloody horrible kid you were, you never shake it off. <i>Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man</i>… I’m clinging to you the same way; maybe this is just some stunted growth thing. I couldn’t cling to them so here am I at my age clutching you, it’s pathetic-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“Behold, thou hast driven me out this day, and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth…”</i> Jake interrupted him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The quote was shocking; it stopped him dead. It was the heart of it. The absolute heart of it. His chest seized, it was hard to breathe. Jake put a hand under his chin when he didn’t answer, lifting Tom’s face to his.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s what’s on your mind, isn’t it? Answer me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He said it so gently and yet any time Jake gave an order he expected to be obeyed. Tom swallowed, closing his eyes to escape Jake’s, trying ineffectually to turn his head away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why is that too hard to tell me?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Don’t be ridiculous, I just did-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Look at me.” Jake’s hand hadn’t moved from his chin. Tom felt his face burning, the hot, nauseating shame swelling out of all manageable proportion, and heard Jake’s voice drop half an octave to a tone that went straight through him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom. Look at me.” He did it. Helplessly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He had no idea why, except he couldn’t have not done it, and maybe that was why Jake never usually spoke to him like that. Jake’s eyes were that turquoise blue that always reminded him of some sunlit bay in the Mediterranean, somewhere with white sand, coral reefs and seashells, and they were unbearably soft.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’d so much rather you yelled.” Tom found himself saying helplessly, and completely incoherently. Jake smiled faintly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Think I don’t know that? You don’t need shouting at. It never takes any kind of severity to get a message through to you, I can’t imagine it ever has.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That was a shock to hear. Jake ran his thumb lightly over Tom’s lips.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Cain and Lucifer. The shamed and cast out. The unfit to belong. That’s what you’re thinking of. Isn’t it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It had been hard enough to get it out once; twice was impossible. Jake’s voice softened even further, very quiet, his breath warm against Tom’s face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tommy. You have got a choice. Tell me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Years of diving off cliffs. Swimming rough waters. Doing truly stupid things that took no courage at all. <i>You’re so brave</i>…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… Yes. I always have.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Because that’s how it felt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You were twelve. Twelve years old. As an adult, do you see that as good way to handle that situation? A normal response?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In that light, it was shockingly clear. Tom found his mouth opening stupidly in defence, not even sure why.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You can’t apply modern standards to times when the culture and received wisdom was different, that’s rule one of anthropology-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I can apply normal human feeling about how I expect people to behave with those they love, and I know when I find them wanting.” Jake said definitely. “They were the grownups. They were the ones with the responsibility. It was an awful, damaging way to handle things, it was about <i>their</i> lack of skills, not about what a child needed in a very vulnerable moment. And while I accept they did not do it with malicious intent, they were adults like you and I are adults and they made mistakes just the same way we do when we’re het up or in the heat of the moment. They, with their own reasons, their own baggage and their own purposes, with all the influences of what was going on in their wider lives. <i>Not</i> because it was the right thing to do or because you deserved it. There is <i>nothing</i> evil or shameful about you. Nothing. You’re telling me about Lucifer because you know you yourself were a good person that a bad thing happened to, and admitting it is painful because you trusted what you were told by people you loved, that you were what was bad. It was hurtful, it was wrong, unfair and you’ve suffered because of it. You’ve been that good soul grieving, and you know it. And no, you do not ‘cling’ in any immature way. You don’t cling nearly enough to be good for you in my opinion, and it’s something we’re going to work on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There was so much of that lecture that went so deep. It was painful and freeing and intensely hard to hear, and yet from Jake, said that gently – it was impossible not to believe it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I am trying so hard to step away from that anger.” Tom said with difficulty when he was able to say anything at all, aware that he was shaking and more than slightly evading the point and hoping Jake wouldn’t realise. “I tried at the monastery. I’m trying all the time. It isn’t working-” He stopped, aware he sounded pitiful; needy and pathetically despairing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know. I know you’re trying.” Jake’s tone was absolute. “I see it. I still think it’s the wrong sin you’re trying to confess. You’re not an angry man. Your father wasn’t, none of your family were, you’ve never carried a problem with your temper. I’d know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I just tried beating you up for God’s sake!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, about that.” Jake settled his shoulders more deeply into the pillow of his rucksack to get comfortable. “When you need a hug that badly it’s fine to just ask for one? That works too?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom ran a hand over his eyes, somewhere between laughing and perilously close to tears and hearing the crack in his voice. “That <i>doesn’t</i> make it ok! I spend half my life growling and snarling,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Are you trying to get me to believe you?” Jake pulled him closer, tucking Tom’s head into his neck in a position that was shamefully close to the definition of ‘cuddling’, and he sounded amused. “That’s not the same thing as being angry. It’s not the action, it’s the intent, isn’t it? The intent of the heart. Come on, you know this stuff better than I do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a theological idea that went back centuries and crossed multiple cultures. Juries debated it in courts even now: the action was viewed only in the light of intention. In the eyes of God, a good deed done with poor intention had no value; <i>action is the overflow of the heart</i>. Tom had heard his father talk about it years ago in the ringing vaults of the cathedral to a congregation of hundreds. If what you held in your heart was anger, it would spill out into your actions. If you were pure of heart that purity was expressed in your actions. It was exactly the same as Dorje’s belief of the water tank; the maintained internal balance to ensure what came from one was good. His people consciously knew how to feed the inner heart, where Christian culture tended to focus more on feeling guilty about not achieving it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I am angry all the time, I am! It’s anger that spills out into everything. Impatience, irritability, suspicion, cynicism, doubt... doubt about bloody everything. I just need to get better at anger bloody management. Deep breathing. Meditation. Something. If I do that, it’ll be fine.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What’s a Snark?” Tom asked him a while later. He heard Jake grunt as he thought about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Just the place for a Snark the Bellman cried<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">as he landed his crew with care<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Supporting each man on the crest of the tide<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">with a finger entwined in his hair…”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s a poem, Lewis Carroll, I used to love it as a kid. Some people think it’s a mystery, they’ve tried to solve it, other people think it’s just a piece of good nonsense poetry and fairly straight forward, it’s about an expedition after a mythical beast. Where did you hear about it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Something Dale mentioned.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, I can see he’d love Lewis Carroll.” Jake said reflectively. “Another left field mathematician.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the early evening they walked together to the communications tent and to get dinner from the mess tent, and Tom stood in the doorway for a while, somewhat shaky around the knees but eating a vegetable curry that was extremely good while Jake checked their inbox. Shem was talking quietly on the satellite phone, Tom saw her face more than her voice. She was sounding warm although her responses were brief; her face was detached and he thought she was struggling a little with her side of the conversation. She ended the conversation soon after and Tom nodded to her as she got up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Emily?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shem nodded slowly in return, digging her hands into her pockets. “Emily. How are you? How are the shins?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Better than they were thanks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Stay off them.” Shem nodded at a deckchair. “As much as you can, I know you’ll climb anyway but it’s going to be a lot easier if you’re careful.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That was more fluent than anything she’d said to her daughter and he saw her realise it at the same time as he did. Shem sighed heavily, glancing at Jake who was skimming through emails.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know, I know… It’s supposed to be an anathema isn’t it? Not loving being a mom. I just wasn’t cut out that way. I’m not good at it, not that Emily’s not a great little girl but... A mother’s never supposed to say that, we’re not even supposed to think it. It’s just supposed to be naturally wonderful and there’s something wrong with you if it’s not.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From her point of view Tom could sympathise; she was another adult who made mistakes, who had no higher knowledge, just was muddling through life on experience gained and doing the best they could in the circumstances. It was all kinds of damaging to struggle on being the shell of the person you were supposed to be, concealing who you actually were. Not just for you, but for everyone around you; he’d seen no few men who’d done it and left victims behind them when they couldn’t lie any longer. Children. Wives. But then there was Emily who apparently showed no sign of missing her mother – in Tom’s mind and from his own experience such a total lack of indication was likely to be overcompensation, a wall in front of emotion too sensitive or unmanageable to be shared – but who called the satellite phone here every evening. From Emily’s point of view how reasonable did it feel that her mother felt she was not cut out for parenting and preferred to be here? Would she in the long term be proud of her mother’s career and her climbing history here, or would she remember missing her, wanting her and knowing she wasn’t important enough to Shem for her to stay at home? It was a situation in which there could be no winners.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We never do know our parents adult to adult, or as equals. I was a ‘late’ addition to the family. Did my mother actually want another child after Clara? Or was it something that happened to her unplanned and she had no choice? I can’t blame her for resenting that. What if the idea of parenting doesn’t match your reality? She didn’t sign up for a ‘challenging’ kid. Neither of them did, but you can’t exactly divorce a kid or resign if you’ve had enough or you can’t handle it. Did she ever feel like this? No good at it and no way out? She couldn’t disappear off to Nepal for months at a time, or sod off into jungles. He could bury himself in his work only so much – the four of us were stuck with each other. Thank God for boarding schools.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake got up and turned off the laptop, handing a sheaf of papers to Tom. Shem smiled at him, nodding at Tom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get him off his feet. And keep him there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, I’m good at that.” Jake said breezily. Tom accepted the papers, swatting him with them as Shem laughed and walked away in the direction of the mess tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oaf. What’s this?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was the <i>Hunting of the Snark</i>, downloaded from the Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s the <i>Fisher King</i> yet again.” Tom told him a while later, lost in the words. It was rolling, memorable stuff, he could see how Jake would have absorbed chunks of it as a child. Jake nodded slowly, reflecting on that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, I suppose it is. A lighter version but that’s the gist. The blind search.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shem. Shem is a handless maiden, Emily and her father took her hands. Was my mother one? Was my father?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Hunting the Snark</i>.” Jake said pensively. Tom picked up the printout again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Or the Boojum.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-13.html">Continue on to Chapter 13</a></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</span></b></div>
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-6481317781405813882015-09-24T15:32:00.003-07:002015-09-28T00:52:24.860-07:00Everest - Chapter 11<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 15.6pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">11</span><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
headed down to base camp early the following morning after another bad night
trying to get some sleep in the painfully thin air. When they suited up and
exited their tent in the early morning to meet up with Spitz and Bill, neither
of them looked much better. Bill, short, stocky and nearly square in his
climbing gear, grinned when he saw them. Spitz, much taller, leaner and wiry
even in his thick snow suit with dark curls emerging under the edge of his wool
hat, looked merely bad tempered and gave Tom a short nod in lieu of good
morning. No one felt much like chatting. It was much faster and in some ways
easier heading down into the thickening oxygen; it took far less time to go
down than it did taking every step upwards, but that in itself added more and
different dangers. Tired, heading ‘home’ and desperate to get there and rest,
it was easy to hurry, to be more careless than you usually were when climbing
up, and tiredness did things to the brain. Clipping on to the rope seemed like
so much hassle when you could just hold onto the rope and walk, running it
through your glove. You found yourself scaling ladders without much care where
a few days ago on your way up you’d been using high concentration, care and
acute awareness of several hundred feet of crevasse below. Just above the ice
fall Tom grabbed Jake’s harness, yanked him to a halt and checked it, ensuring
every link was secure, and gave him a short shake by it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
damn well pay attention. No you can’t bloody kiss me here, get off.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake’s
gloved hands caught his hips for a moment, pulled him over into a rough, tight
hug that pulled him up off his feet and Tom returned it in spite of himself,
with a powerful need to be as close to him as possible that was neither mature
nor appropriate. They’d spent the night saying not much but staying very close
and that sense of intense closeness had followed Tom all the way down the
mountain. Often he felt closest of all to Jake when they were climbing or
running together, something that demanded silent, shared physical symbiosis.
Those conversations in the hours at camp three had been… Tom was aware of
something raw, still fragile and undefinable nagging constantly at the back of
his mind, desperately uncomfortable and hard to tolerate. He clipped onto the
rope, following Spitz down with a sharp eye on Jake behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
sat down at crampon point to get their crampons off their boots with cold
fingers and walked down into the camp, aching and tired. A few steps on, Tom
felt Jake’s arm slide around his waist and lift a lot of his weight as he
walked, and Jake’s voice near his ear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Shins?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">You’re not supposed to know that either.
<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Every
step was extremely painful, it had been for hours, since early this morning
when they left camp three, but it was worsening rapidly now. It was not
something Tom wanted for Jake to know at all, but Jake was damned hard to shake
off and there no way to argue without the others listening in. With that in
mind, Tom gritted his teeth and tolerated it. They trudged past the other
expeditions’ compounds – and became aware that theirs appeared to be swarming
with a lot of people in bright jackets and a lot of noise. A chopper was on the
plateau at their end of the camp, its massive blades stationary. Bill glanced
back to Jake and raised his eyebrows, heading slightly faster into the camp.
Shem was sitting in a deckchair outside her tent, buried in a book and looking
highly fed up which was reassurance there was no medical crisis going on. She
lifted her head from the neck of her battered parka like a turtle with a plait
as they reached her and gave them an expressive look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thank
God you’re back. Welcome to the press conference.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">What?! <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
were about twelve of them, but in their small compound the effect was of people
everywhere, men and women, in bright, immaculate puffed jackets and shiny boots
and hats and sunglasses, all bustling around and freely taking pictures of
tents and kit as lot of them were carrying cameras. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Two
so far with suspected altitude issues.” Shem said acidly, getting up to walk
with them towards the mess tent where the heart of the chaos appeared to be
going on. “Journalists. One camera man that I’ve doped up so he stops throwing
up every two minutes and one with a headache. I’ve pointed out the stupidity of
just getting in a chopper at Kathmandu and beetling straight up here like
they’re going to the mall but no one’s listening. Half of this lot were in New
York yesterday morning.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is Pecker. This is bloody
Pecker-head. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Loudon
himself was in the middle of the mess tent, stood on a crate so he was risen up
above the level of the small crowd addressing him. He was wearing a bright
sunshine yellow jacket and down pants to match, with a bright pink cap on his
head, all of which to Tom’s eyes looked brand new as if taken out of the
packaging this morning. Any clothes worn for real around here got scuffed,
dusty and wet in minutes; these were immaculate. Clothes for show, not for
wearing. So this event had been planned for. Loudon was clean shaven – probably
the only male resident of base camp not sporting a beard since hot water was
difficult to organise and the chore of shaving a difficult one. Most people
settled for getting basically clean occasionally. Loudon hadn’t let go of his
reality in the slightest to grasp that of being on the mountain, despite the
number of days he’d been with them. His fair hair was tufting sweetly out of
the cap, the effect was vapidly pretty like some boy-band drone and Tom felt
his bubbling irritation swell abruptly into hot, serious, focused dislike. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
don’t remember agreeing to this?” Jake inquired beside him. He was still taking
a good part of Tom’s weight and he sounded as if he was being introduced to a
verger’s wife at a garden party. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No
one knew it was coming.” Shem nodded at Phoenix. “Apparently this is his
interview from his mother’s newspaper before his summit attempt. We got no
warning, nothing, they just arrived half an hour ago. I found out when a
chopper landed and three people stuck a microphone under my nose and turned a
camera on me. Did you know Mr Loudon was making a summit attempt with you?
Because I didn’t and I thought I had a say in it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
is not making a summit attempt with us.” Spitz said shortly and with venom. His
dark eyes were glinting dangerously and he looked tired, furious and ready to
bite. “And I am most happy to say so to any journalist I may see here.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Max,
looking extremely fed up, nodded to them from across the crowd with what looked
like open relief. Bart, behind him, looked equally grim and was hiding behind
his sunglasses, his cap pulled low over his brow and his collar turned up.
There was no sign of any of the Sherpa members of their team other than the
cook, who was periodically looking rather darkly out of the side flap of the
mess tent as he worked on dinner. Shouts from the journalists carrying out the
mob were now becoming distinguishable sentences as Tom limped closer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What’s
been the hardest point so far, Phoenix?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
home comforts have you brought with you to get you through?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
are you taking up to the summit with you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">The High Altitude Barbie Oxygen Kit with
Pink Accessories and the Yay World Peace sparkly deely boppers. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“One
would think he had commissioned the entire expedition,” Spitz said very loudly,
adding something in Spanish too indistinctly for Tom to comprehend more than
the swear words. “I will give an interview gladly - Gentlemen, let me explain
to you what goes on here!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
shouted it loud enough for the journalists to turn, and Tom saw Phoenix catch
sight of Spitz with open horror. Mr Dodo Loudon hadn’t been expecting them to
walk in on his little show here; he’d obviously been banking on them being
occupied up the mountain and out of the way until it was safely over. Something
like this would have taken weeks to organise; he must have had this plan in
place for some time. The rudeness of it. The arrogance of it, the total
disregard for the rights, feelings and privacy of anyone else on the
expedition, rose in Tom’s throat like a red mist. Ahead of him, Bill tried and
failed to grab Spitz’s arm, Spitz’s temper was explosive once it was released;
they’d seen him blow a few times and the fall out afterwards could take some
containing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake,
catching Tom’s eye in one quick sideways flash, let go of Tom, took a discreet
but rapid few strides away to the side to separate them and stomped on a crate
with his heavy climbing boot, hard enough to shatter it and send the pieces
flying, loudly, across the shale. The crash made everyone in the compound jump
including Spitz, and there was a sudden silence. Jake entered it without
hesitation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
about fricking time you showed up, what the hell were you playing at?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
directed it straight at Tom, a full blooded thunder at the top of his lungs,
and Jake had been trained to shout orders across a parade ground and spent
years of his life yelling to men on horseback across pastures and herds of
bellowing sheep and cattle. He could be deafening when he wanted to be. Tom
matched his stance as Jake squared up to him, digging his hands into his
pockets and glowering as hard as he bellowed back, aware they now commanded the
fixed attention of everyone in their compound and no few people in the
neighbouring ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well
someone had to re set the tent in the freezing bloody cold, do you think it
gets done by itself?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
was carrying the fecking stuff down that you forgot to take last time and I
knew you couldn’t be assed to this time! And if you could set a damn tent
anyway I might pay more attention!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was working. Bart and Max looked horrified. The journalists had spun around and
mouths were open, several were coming rapidly with cameras. Bill, used to them
and never one to need instructions, nipped quietly through the journalists to
the back of the tent and grabbed Phoenix’s arm to yank him down off the crate,
talking to him rapidly, sharply and in an undertone. Tom was heartened to see
that it was not a gentle grasp. He took that in from the corner of his eye as
he shouted back at Jake, gladly letting his temper slip its leash and a whole
lot of pent up steam bursting out from under his cork for the first time in
days. Shouting? It was possibly even screaming, he was aware it was echoing
slightly off the peaks around them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Like
you ever do anything bloody useful up there? You try hammering something into
the ice for once, try figuring out which end of an ice screw is the sharp bit
without breaking your bloody fingernails, then you can complain how badly I set
tents!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’d
do more hammering if you didn’t spend the night snoring your head off and
keeping everyone in a five mile radius awake!” Jake snarled back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
very nearly burst out laughing at that one. He was aware of Spitz’s abrupt
snort behind him and it took iron discipline over his face and body to keep
going. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">You
bastard, play fair! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If
you want someone else to climb with, be my guest!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
stalked away, fast, escaping around the back of the mess tent fast before he
lost control. He could hear the alarmed hum of voices behind him as he left.
Jake met him around there a minute later, hooked an arm around his neck to hug
him, and Tom stifled his laughter into Jake’s shoulder, feeling Jake shaking as
much with his own. It felt so good. Good to shout and yell and good too to be
silly, to be laughing with him like this. Jake kissed his cheek soundly and
stooped, lifting Tom off his feet and carrying him the few hundred yards behind
the tents to theirs. Tom froze, grabbing his shoulder for support, then twisted
hard enough to have made most men unable to hang on to him at all since he was
neither sweetly small, boy band-ish or delicately built. More like 160lbs of
six foot length, angles and bloody awkwardness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey,
get off. Right now. Jacob get the hell off me!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
stopped all right. Unhurriedly, although his grip did not slacken in the
slightest. And Looked at him. He never did it this overtly. It had been
shocking enough to see it up in the privacy of camp three – here...? In the
reality of base camp, with other people nearby, Tom felt his gut clench and
twist with something visceral, and that was infuriating too. He did – and he
was furious with himself for it – stop fighting. Once he stopped, Jake carried
him the rest of the way to their tent, unzipped it one handed and put him down
on the padded floor of the entry way. And then he put a hand under Tom’s chin,
turning his face up to look directly at his eyes in a way that made Tom’s
stomach lurch sideways and not in an unpleasant way, because his blue eyes were
soft, understanding and very much Jake. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Stay
there. I’ll help Bill get rid of this lot.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
chopper blades started a few minutes later; one army Major and one Mountie
together would have no trouble running off a bunch of journalists. Tom felt the
shudder through the tent as the thing took off, the heavy beat of the blades
roaring overhead, and then the usual and ordinary half-hush, half-mall type
noises of base camp took over once more. To his greater alarm Jake brought Shem
with him when he came back and without so much as a hello he knelt down and
stripped Tom gently but directly of his boots and then out of his down pants.
Unable to stop him, Tom mentally grimaced at the state of his shins, shifting
to get away from Jake’s hands. The couple of rubbed spots had bled, there were
stains running down his legs but it was superficial. Much worse was when Shem
prodded gently around the lower inside point of his shin bone, and that hurt
like all hell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re
right Jake, it looks like shin splints.” Shem confirmed. “Sorry Tom, it’s very
common around here. I can’t see any swelling, if it only really started today
then rest them and stay off your feet, ice it – that’s going to be easy around
here – and I’ll give you some high dose ibuprofen if you swear you’ll eat and
cushion your stomach. And stretch your calf muscles out thoroughly, that may
help turn it around quicker.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
was crouching beside her, watching with far too much concern and it was always hard
to take. Today it was intolerable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Where
did you leave the body?” Tom demanded roughly of him to get his eyes off Shem
digging some kind of antiseptic out of her bag. He took the soaked swab from
her before she could use it, scrubbing the grazes efficiently to get the blood
stains off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
had a chat with Mr Loudon.” Jake said cheerfully. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Where
are all the Sherpa? What’s Loudon done to bother them?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well
he got the journalists to take a lot of pictures of him beside the stupa,
looking noble.” Shem said shortly. Her plait had fallen over her shoulder and
she tossed it back. “I doubt he’s got much idea of what it means. No, the
Sherpa guys have seemed fine, Dorje, Pemba and a group of them disappeared off
into the ice fall together very early this morning with kit, I’m guessing
they’re sorting out camps or something, they didn’t say. When are you four
planning your summit attempt?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
next good weather window.” Jake took a seat on the ground beside Tom, watching
him work. “We’ll take a few days rest and check the forecasts, and set our
date.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
know Phoenix is planning on going up with you?” Shem put the antiseptic away in
her bag and dug for a card of tablets. “Tom, take those, try and get the
inflammation down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
wouldn’t have made it as far as camp two without a lot of help,” Tom said
shortly, accepting the pills before Jake could. “There’s no way he’s going to
get himself up the Lhotse face to camp three.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
didn’t explain the how of the Pink Peril getting to camp two; it was bitchy and
there was no need to repeat it. Jake shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
hasn’t met the criteria. The camp three acclimatising trip has happened. If
he’d been fine up to camp two I’d gladly plan for him to do a camp three trip
now and plan on summitting with us next week, but he hasn’t qualified himself
to go any higher.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re
going to have to explain to him in really small words then.” Shem said dryly.
“Because he says he’s coming with you. That’s what he’s been telling the
journalists. The blog and his mother’s newspaper apparently are all waiting to
blaze the headlines of him on the summit.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
thinks he’s going to get towed up like Bill towed him up to camp two,” Tom said
under his breath once Shem left. “Why wouldn’t he? He got someone else to do the
hard work last time and it worked out fine, I’m willing to bet he’s going to
expect one of us to drag him up to the summit itself.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
gave him a shrug, not looking very bothered by the prospect. “I won’t be doing
it. Believe me, you won’t either. Spitz is more likely to kick him off the
Lhotse face and see whether the bird really does fly,” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jacob-”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
Bill’s definitely not. I think he’s well aware he’s been had.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
fact Bill was deeply embarrassed about it. So far Jake knew he’d managed to
keep that from Spitz who would be livid on his behalf and unable not to act on
it. Jake passed Tom a bottle of water to take the pills with and sat down on
the mat beside him, pulling Tom’s legs into his lap to start rubbing and
massaging his shins around the sore muscles, the gentle bullying that forced
the stored acids in the muscles to start moving and dispersing. Tom winced,
swore and bolted the pills, enduring Jake’s work with his teeth gritted and the
rest of him as far away as possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Which
will make you the bad guy in this newspaper headline you realise? It’s going to
hit national press, Jacob Winthrop Forbes: the bastard that wouldn’t let our
hero grab his moment of glory and an analysis of how you were probably jealous
or bent and keeping the expedition money to summit yourself, we’ve seen this
kind of thing done over and over again! There are several horror stories of
what happens up here when people make decisions based on what’ll be spread in
the press afterwards rather than what’s safe and right! People have died on
those decisions.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
not happening here.” Jake said genially. “I don’t give a damn what the papers
want to publish,” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
<i>do</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“When
did you last read a paper?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Harry</i> is going to have to stand up and
take this one because I won’t let you.” Not distracted Tom grabbed for Jake to
make him look up. “I won’t, I’m telling you now. He was the one that got
Parrot Bloody Loudon up here and told him he could try climbing, he’ll have to
stand behind his paperwork and make it clear that Parrot didn’t qualify. At
least we’ve put the paperwork and finances in order and he can stand honestly
and show everything’s been done above board.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re
not at this stage going to convince anyone that Harry is the leader of the
expedition, are we?” Jake asked him. “Even if I was willing to do that. The
clients know him as the host of the walking train to and from Lukla; he goes
down the mountain, not up it. You, me, Bill and Spitz make all the climbing
decisions,” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“With
you and Bill as the expedition leaders. Mostly you because you’re the one who’s
had to lay down the law to him. He’s going to pin this on you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
welcome to have a try.” Jake fended off Tom’s hands and reached again for his
legs. Tom twisted away to avoid him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get
<i>off</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
collared him gently by the wing of his half opened jacket, not letting him get
up. “No. I’m fine with calling up the lawyer and telling him to sue for breach
of contract and anything else he can think of if it comes to it. He’d probably
enjoy the exercise, he usually sounds constipated. What can Phoenix really do?
Whinge in newspapers or on tv? We don’t see either, we don’t care.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>I</i> care what he does to your name and
reputation.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It
won’t matter because we’ll be in Peru or Venezuela or Cambodia, doing something
far more interesting where no one cares who we are, what we’re doing or why
we’re there.” Jake paused and pulled him over to kiss the glare Tom was fixing
on him, thoroughly enough to dilute it at least slightly, his voice getting
even quieter which compelled Tom to quieten down too to hear him, whether
willing or not. “Listen to me. Phoenix chucking his toys out of the pram is not
something we’re going to get invested in. Why care what a lot of tedious people
think who have so much time on their hands they can spend it fixating on petty
details and perfecting the art of being judgemental? It’s boring.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Most
people would have thought that meant he wasn’t bothered. Tom, who knew him,
knew ‘boring’ was about the most damning criticism Jake was capable of. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
calm the hell down.” he summarized shortly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah.
Calm the hell down and sit still.” Jake was smiling, his intense, soft eyed
smile that always burned its way through any mood of Tom’s, lifting Tom’s legs
back into his lap to continue, unhurriedly but with a very definite grip that
was not about to let go. “There’s more interesting things to do.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
and Bill went together to talk to Phoenix later. Tom’s attempt to come too was
met by a cheerful and absolutely unambiguous No. Tom knew why. Jake had ambled
off to see what was for dinner and to deal with Phoenix on the way, he was
about equally interested in both errands. To Tom, just knowing it was going on
was stressful enough; being there would be a lot worse. It was protective, and
bloody typical, and it reminded Tom unpleasantly of a regular and nagging
thought that crossed his mind all too often lately; <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">There is going to come a time when all
the endless moods and the clinging and the snarling and the baggage gets too
much and I finally get to the end of his patience. How much of a millstone can
I make the poor guy carry? And why the hell should he have to anyway? He came
here to enjoy the mountain. Haven’t let him do much of that so far. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">With
an eye to the state of his legs if he planned on being able to make a summit
attempt, he worked hard on not giving into the agitation, getting up and
pacing, going for a run or thinking too much about what was going on in the
mess tent. Or, that if he was at all honest with himself, he was a hell of a
lot less bothered what Jake said to Loudon than that right now Jake was out of
his sight, not here, and that was – just too damn pathetic to tolerate, he
needed to get a grip. Now. It was still going on twenty minutes later when Bart
passed the tent – quite intentionally, their tent faced away from the others so
the only way to catch Tom’s eye was to walk all the way around it. Tom laid
down the book he’d been trying to focus on and Bart squatted where he was on
the shale, giving him something of a grimace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey.
Shem said you’d got a case of shin splints on the hike down today. How are you
doing?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Sore,
but it happens.” Tom propped his elbows on his knees, trying genuinely to get
his mood under control and find a social tone because it wasn’t hard to like
Bart or Max. “Too much high impact work on hard surfaces up there. John ok?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
gone.” Bart sounded a little regretful. “Harry arrived the evening of the day
you headed up the mountain, he stayed overnight and ate with us and he and John
shipped out in the morning, Harry’s hiking with him back to Lukla airport. It’s
just us two buskers and Loudon you’ve got left hanging around now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re
glad you and Max are staying.” Tom said shortly. “We appreciate what you’re
doing with the radios, you’re part of the expedition.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thanks.”
Bart looked genuinely pleased by that. There was a moment of extremely awkward
silence, then Bart said less comfortably, “I know Loudon’s in with Jake and
Bill.” He paused for a moment, looking awkward. “Look, I said to Jake, I don’t
want any of you to think we knew what Loudon was planning. We were as shocked
with the newspaper mafia appearing by chopper as you were, none of us gave
permission to be photographed or interviewed, we weren’t even asked and we were
pissed off about it. Jake said he’s made some calls about nothing with us in it
to be used without us seeing it first and giving permission, he’s done what he
can, but we know it was kind of a done deal you know? Those guys use what they
want to use and the paper just pays the court fine later. Loudon isn’t any kind
of celebrity, no one knows or cares who he is. One of the reporters told us,
his mother’s a minor known name and this is about both of them and their hired
publicist trying to get themselves into the public eye. She’s been writing a
weekly series in her newspaper column about the agonies of a mom with her hero
adventurer son in the death zone-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
snorted and Bart grinned. “Yeah, like he’s got anywhere near there. If you read
her articles you’d think this expedition was being led by Loudon in a Captain
America outfit. And his blog isn’t much better. Most of what he says he’s done
is what you two, or Bill or Spitz have done and he’s seen or heard about.
Especially the entry where he single handedly helped another team member with
HACE down through the ice fall in the middle of the night.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
stared at him and Bart flushed, but nodded, looking embarrassed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah.
Sorry, there was a lot of talk in the mess tent about that and he was listening
with his ears flapping – I mean jeez, I’ve been in the ice fall, I couldn’t
even get through it once so I have some idea of what that must have been like
and we were like, wow, this is rough stuff. We didn’t realise then how little
conscience Loudon had. He does a whole lot of bigging up how fantastic the Sherpa
are too and all the conversations he has with them in the blog; that goes down
a bomb with the readership. The rest of us know he treats them like the hired
help, he doesn’t know their names and most of them pretend they don’t speak
English if he’s around. Max and I, we just thought you should know.” I will not
go and punch Loudon’s teeth in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I will not go and punch Loudon’s teeth
in</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
took a number of slow, careful breaths to get his temper back from hurling
itself against its chain. The thought of that night still made Tom feel sick. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Have
you heard anything of how the conversation with Bill and Jake is going so far?”
he said levelly when he could manage it. Bart grunted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah.
Loudon tried shouting like he does at us or the Sherpas but only for about a
minute so I guess it wasn’t working well. He was sobbing when I passed the tent
a minute ago. Probably hoping that’ll go down better.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
sounded pissed off about it. He didn’t have anything to worry about in fact;
Jake would do anything for someone in need or distress, but falsity of any kind
slid off him like water off a waxed duck, he didn’t have time for it, and his
bullshit detector was in good working order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Let’s face it, I keep it fit most of the
damn time</i>.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But
Bill… Bill was too nice for his own good. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was almost another hour before Jake came back, with the kind of expression Tom
associated with him either needing a good, hard run, highly athletic sex, or
preferably both, not necessarily in that order. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
came to a compromise.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“To
do what?” Tom said suspiciously, moving over to make room for him. Jake dropped
flat on his back on the mat, closing his eyes against the bright sun overhead.
The day felt as if it had been going on for years; it was only about 4pm, and
they were both knackered and twitchy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
comes with us. As far as he can get, under his own steam, and we made it damned
clear no one is helping him or roping him.” Jake added definitely before Tom
could explode. “He tried hard to argue for two Sherpa to help him up with us,
he doesn’t get at all that he can’t just go from acclimatising at camp two
straight up to the summit with us – he’s not that sharp a pencil when you get
right down to it. He wants what he wants and he wants it now; logic doesn’t
enter into it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Spoilt.
There was little more revolting than a spoilt adult male. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>He’s a Barbie boy in his Barbie world,
life in plastic, it’s fantastic…</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
song had been everywhere in airports for months one summer, Tom blocked it out
of his head with an effort. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
we said he climbs as far as he can on his own.” Jake went on. “If he can get to
camp three himself within the same seven hour window we’d expect of any of us,
and he gets through a night ok there, then he goes down while we go on and make
our summit attempt, and we’ll plan for him taking some rest days and then
making a summit attempt of his own. <i>If.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">”
He was never going to get up the Lhotse face under his own steam. He didn’t
have the strength, stamina or endurance, he didn’t have the willingness to be
uncomfortable, he certainly didn’t have the discipline, his body wouldn’t cash
the cheque. Which meant they were relatively safe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
got a few home truths while we were at it, including that if he pulls any more
stunts like bringing the journalists in, he’s on a chopper out to Lukla and
he’ll be hearing from a lawyer in the morning for breach of contract with us.”
Jake added. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Would
have been simpler to have kicked him out now for breach of contract and used
that as the excuse not to let him climb.” Tom said sourly. “And don’t you dare
give me the ‘he’s just a kid with a dream’ crap. He isn’t. He’s a manipulative
little sod who doesn’t give a damn about the mountain or anyone else. Was it
you that softened or Bill?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Neither
of us, although Bill feels bad that he helped this happen by roping Phoenix up
to camp two.” Jake spoke gently, the tone Tom hated when he was really bitching
at him and knew full well he was doing it. “If he’d never made camp two and had
to quit that probably would have been the end of it. Phoenix’s argument is he’s
made every camp we’ve taken him to so far and he doesn’t see the difference
between getting there himself and being helped. We both felt the only
responsible way to deal with this so he doesn’t just try going up by himself or
paying any Sherpa he can find to take him up, is that Phoenix has to realise
for himself what his limits are. We’ll take him up with us, at our pace, and I
made him sign a written agreement with us; either he keeps up or he makes his
own decision to drop out.” There was a tone in the way he said it that Tom
recognised: Jake had no difficulty dealing with difficult people, it didn’t
bother him in the slightest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
were just times when Tom wished to God that Jake was a less honourable man.
“We’ll make it his choice, and we’ll take Pemba and a strong Sherpa team with
us,” Jake said even more gently, watching his face. “So when he’s ready to stop
there’s a group to stay with him and take him down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah,
down through the lines of decent climbers, trying to get up the mountain around
a tourist in a pink bunny suit ‘making his choices’.” Tom stopped himself as
soon as it slipped out and shut his mouth. “I’m sorry. That was foul.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If
not downright adolescent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
know you’re upset.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
am not bloody upset!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
got hold of his hand, not letting Tom pull away. “Upset. And you’re frustrated.
I am too. It seems like a sensible response to me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
know the kind of tricks he’s going to try when he realises he can’t do it by
himself.” Tom said with difficulty, trying to keep his voice civil. “I’m sorry,
it’s not you I’m angry with. It’s him. You should push back.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Against
him or you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Him.
Both of us. Me. For pete’s sake push back, I’m a miserably, nasty bastard,
don’t let me act like this-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll
decide how you need to act. This time I plan on you and I climbing with him,
just you and I, and we will handle him if he tries batting his eyelashes. We’re
not going to fall for it.” Jake hooked an arm around Tom’s waist, tugging him
so they lay shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip. Larger. Warmer. Solider. It’s
ok. It’s going to be ok. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
would never say it aloud, he knew as well as Tom did that Tom would shrug that
straight off, but that was what he was saying all the same. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
heard the scuff of boots approaching and Tom sat up, aware of Jake’s arm
staying firmly around his waist, keeping him where he was. It was Dorje who
came around their tent, and Tom relaxed a little, managing a smile at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dorje,
we missed you when we got back. Shem said you were fixing something in one of
the camps, is everything ok?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
replace supplies at camp two.” Dorje said with a little more reserve than Tom
was used to seeing in him. He looked from Jake to Tom for a moment as if he was
expecting them to be upset with him, then said rather forcefully, “Then I take
oxygen to camp three with Lobsang and Phurba, they volunteer come with me. We
make another oxygen cache above camp four. You not be angry, you not be proud.
You be safe. This our expedition, our companions be safe on our time, we do
this. Mountain Eagles be ok.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
and Tom looked at him for a few seconds in surprise, then Jake started to
laugh. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
one you didn’t think of, sahib.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
dug him in the ribs with an elbow, speaking quickly to reassure Dorje who
looked alarmed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dorje,
he just means we were arguing about this all yesterday evening, Jake had asked
Pemba to sort it out when we were back and there was time; you beat him to it.
I thought it wasn’t fair of us to ask you. I should have known you’d see it too
and stopped to think how you’d feel. You’re right, this is absolutely your
expedition and you have every right to tell me off, you’re a friend. You’re our
friend, and I’m a fool.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nah,
not a fool. Just not very trusting.” Jake said cheerfully. Tom ignored him,
reaching out a hand to grip Dorje’s arm and squeeze, aware the other man’s
always gentle face was lightening with both understanding and sympathy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ignore
him. Thank you. I don’t mind, Dorje. I don’t mind when a friend helps.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<u><span style="color: blue;">Flynn O’Sullivan</span></u><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>To:
</b><a href="mailto:LameducksRus@MountainEagles.com"><b>LameducksRus@MountainEagles.com</b></a><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
Re: Another Update Jake <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You know I am a
lousy commentator on family therapy and family dynamics. Show me a negative
parental figure and I’m coming from a point of view of extreme prejudice and I
know it, so if I wasn’t aware you’ve got no other recourse up there I’d be wary
of saying much at all. But Dale has gone through a lot of this ground and is
still going through it so I have some idea of how you’re feeling. Keep in mind
Tom will probably have cut straight to the bottom line. It’s not unusual for
the main facts to come out first; what won’t have caught up or been let out yet
are the real feelings involved. Those are the bits that take the processing.
There are a few things I would think right now: the first being that Tom’s
perceptions seem weighted towards how difficult he was for them, how he made
them feel shame, how he disappointed them. So there were four people in that
family and he is carrying the blame for whatever was going on in that household
at the time. So my response would be to wonder what the marriage was like, and
what else was happening that made it easier for everyone if he took on that
responsibility. Communicating to a child that they’re difficult is the flipside
of an adult acknowledging they feel they’re failing in their role as a parent.
If the adult finds that thought too threatening they’re the ones in the
household with the power, they can displace it onto the child and the child
doesn’t have the language or experience to challenge the reality they’ve been
given by the most powerful and trusted people in the world, they just accept
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There is the
concept of the <i>‘scapegoat’ </i>child in a
family in difficulties. It’s usually the most vulnerable child in the family,
the most sensitive or the one who threatens the status quo of the dysfunction
the most, and that child becomes the receptacle for whatever the adults in the
family would prefer not to deal with. It’s not unusual for the other children
to be encouraged and rewarded for joining in the belief that the scapegoat
child is the source of everything wrong, and it turns into the family ‘secret’
that all of them, including the scapegoat, are invested in because it’s a
powerful part of what binds them together. Even if the child separates
themselves from the family later in life, the rest of the family still have
their receptacle out there somewhere to send blame towards, continuing to serve
its function. Parents in a highly public job, public figures, may find it
easier to play out the sympathy eliciting situation of a difficult child than
to risk feeling outed as less than perfect parents, or to name the child as the
source of stress in the home to give a socially acceptable narrative for a
struggling marriage. A scapegoat child as an adult usually still believes what
they’ve internalised: everything is their fault and the shame is theirs. A
positive view of them isn’t ok and shouldn’t be allowed to happen; they always
have a responsibility to care about other people’s needs, feelings and problems
and are often very sensitive to them, but it isn’t reciprocal and they’re
usually a bit alarmed if you suggest it should be. Once they start to
re-evaluate their experiences in the family they have to then question their
‘adults are right/good, therefore I must have been in the wrong’ belief and see
it in another light, and that’s when they may be able to decide to give back
what they’ve been carrying for those adults, often having thought it was their
problem instead of understanding they’ve been hauling someone else’s baggage as
an unwitting mule. <i>A stooge in someone
else’s drama.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">What you can do
is exactly what you’re doing. I know very well it doesn’t feel enough. Be a
safe place for him while he thinks this through. Make it something he can talk
to you about and encourage him to think about it in the context of the whole
family rather than what he believes he did wrong. With the strength of Tom’s
fear reflex when I’ve seen it here…. I think you’re absolutely right to take
this very gently indeed and follow his lead. He isn’t coming apart, although he
may feel like it, it’s an active step towards something healthier and stronger.
Painful and difficult and hard for you to see him go through, but on the other
side of this process is the real relief, and it’s coming out now for a reason.
We work here on letting our clients sit with a feeling long enough to be ready
to feel something different instead of having recourse to the strategies
they’ve been used to throwing at it, day in and day out for years. I wonder if
some of the pressures you’ve got to deal with there are having that effect for
Tom. It might not be the most convenient time, but it’s his time. Call or mail
me any time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<u><span style="color: #0070c0;">Darcy </span></u><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<u><span style="color: blue;">BigBear; Niall; Wade; Gerry;</span></u><span style="color: #0070c0;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Who the hell is <b><span style="color: red;">this woman</span></b><span style="color: red;"> </span>slagging off Jake in <b><i>the Manhattan Times???!</i></b> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a meeting between all the expedition leaders the following evening; there
was every year. All through April the top of the mountain was hammered by the
jet stream that sent the spin, the plume of white vapour flying from the summit
like a flag. Even when it was still and bright sunshine at base camp, up there
it would be like walking in a hurricane. At the beginning of May with the
approach of the annual monsoon from the bay of Bengal, the jet stream was diverted
for a few weeks- sometimes only a few days – into Tibet, and for those very few
days there would be clear, calm weather at the top. This was the window almost
all of the expeditions were aiming for. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After
weeks of passing each other, climbing up and down the same ropes, through the
same camps, the couple of hundred other climbers were becoming known faces and
some of them known names. Tom sat through the crowded meeting in the Canadian
expedition compound with Jake, Bill and Spitz where as far as possible the
expedition leaders compared dates and agreed a schedule with the plan that not
all the expeditions would shoot for the same date and there would be a log jam
of people on the ropes at the top. With many stretches where only one person
could climb at a time, it was necessary to move in a line, and slow climbers,
too many climbers, climbers waiting to come down a rope that someone slow was
climbing up – people could run out of oxygen, lose fingers, toes and noses to
frost bite, and run out of the energy left to climb down to safety while they
stood in the cold that even in the good weather meant exposed skin froze more
or less instantly. This year the break in the weather was expected to reach its
best on May 8th. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Two
independent climbers, both of them serious professionals who were climbing
alone and without oxygen, were willing to take the very first spot on May 2nd.
The big expeditions with multiple clients to get up who were less experienced
climbers were keenest for the safest dates and the safest weather, and Bill and
Jake bid for May 4th. Early in the season which was where most of the small
expeditions of serious climbers were willing to make their try and leave the
slopes free for the climbers who would need more time, support and create the crowds.
That left the big expeditions to organise the dates from the 5th to the 10th
among themselves, and while in previous years there had been times where an
expedition had refused to co-operate and insisted they would go whenever they
decided to and without regard to who else was climbing that day, this year
every expedition agreed to a specific slot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was no guarantee. The break in the weather was not guaranteed. Some of the
expeditions would more than likely find the date they planned for turned out to
be unlucky in terms of weather and conditions and would be unable to summit.
That did mean that in some years expeditions went anyway when the weather
cleared and ignored their planned slot, but this way was better than the free
for all that would have occurred otherwise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was the 28th of April. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From:
</b><a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com"><b>LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</b></a><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>To:
</b><a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.net"><b>AdenD@horizon.net</b></a><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
What’s going on? <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We’re back from
camp 3. No answer to my last mail, I’m not interpreting this as disaster but
things sounded a bit hairy the last time you mailed. Are you ok? Our expedition
mucked about between camp 2 and 3 as planned, doing the whole acclimatisation
dance. Day one, we climbed to camp 2 and slept there for the night. Day two we
hiked up to camp 3 and came down again to sleep at camp 2. Climb high, sleep
low as the saying goes. Day three, we went up to and slept at camp 3. Day four
we took kit up to camp 4 with us and pitched the tents up there before we came
down and slept the night again at 3. Day five, we walked back down to spend the
night at camp 2, and day six, we climbed back down to base camp. Safe, fine, no
issues, there was a remarkable lack of drama compared to all our other trips so
far. Camp 3 marks the point where we’re on sheer ice, right on the face. The
camp up there is nothing more than a few small tent platforms chipped into the
ice, it took a while to chip out ones large enough to set tents. Up there, just
stepping outside the tent means wearing crampons and clipping into lines, we’ve
heard the rumours of people sleepy or hypoxic forgetting their crampons,
stepping out and just sliding away 2000 feet down the mountain. We’re set now
with provisions and tents ready at all four sites for a summit attempt,
although planning if we can to go straight from base camp to camp 2 on the way
up and down. Camp 1 is a bit dodgy, there’s been some falls in the area as
there often are and we’re not keen on sleeping there, especially with a client
to look after. Whether the client should be doing this at all? Don’t get me
started. Camp 2 is used as the advanced base camp, it’s well supplied and works
as a depot, and once they’re acclimatised, most people just skip right over
camp 1 wherever possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sleeping at camp
3 was a weird experience. We’re getting used to breathing being a chore, base
camp feels relatively comfortable now when in the first few days we were here
we got out of breath just getting dressed. At camp 3 it really is an effort. In
your sleep, because you’re getting so little oxygen and you’re not consciously
controlling it, you start on the sleep apnoea thing. Every time I fell asleep
I’d hear Jake stop breathing and it would feel like forever before he took the
next breath, and I’d be braced and waiting and trying not to grab and shake him
to start him off again. I also kept waking up to catch my own breath, which you
do with a loud snort and gasp because at that point your body is going for
pete’s sake breathe. Between us, we kept each other awake most of the time, and
the night went on for more or less forever. This was the only time we’ll sleep
at camp 3 without oxygen. We used tanks for the first time on the walk up to
camp 4, but from our experience this time and how little sleep we got, and how
much poor sleep knocks out your energy, next time we’ll be using oxygen from
camp 3 onwards. I’m not an oxygen snob, I plan on us both coming home with as
few brain cells killed as possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of the most
bizarre things up here is the temperature extremes. You get going in the early
morning hours when it’s so bitterly cold you’re checking your fingers trying to
make sure you’re not frost bitten, and then by mid morning it’s so damn hot you’re
stripping off layers trying to cope with it. The air is still, and especially
in the icefall or on the Cwm in the mornings where it’s exposed, it’s like
climbing in an oven. So far though, we’ve had good luck with the weather, it’s
been clear every time we’ve been on the mountain other than some minor snow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For God’s sake
mail back and tell me something normal that doesn’t involve ice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">T. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From:
</b><a href="mailto:AdenD@Horizon.com"><b>AdenD@Horizon.com</b></a><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>To:
</b><a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com"><b>LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</b></a><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Subject: Argh Tom <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This started out
as a fairly sensible mail when I was writing it a few days back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m glad to hear
the camp 3 expedition went well and was drama free. Glad too that everything is
in place and you’re taking a few days rest before the summit attempt, and
hoping you can actually get rest instead of do client management. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">You wanted a
conversation that was ice free? While you were at camp 3, I went out on a hike
with Paul, Jasper, Luath and Mason, our client. You’ll know about this, it was
news to me that they did this hiking business with clients but it made perfect
sense once we were actually doing it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m writing
round in circles, sweating because of what I want to actually say. Much of me
is hoping you are too occupied with climbing and will not read this anyway, but
I suspect you’ll understand it if you do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I mentioned in a
previous mail I was working through various things regarding my mother. I always
knew I had difficulty relating to people, I realised after I had lived here a
while I had no difficulty loving people, but I came to realise I had a lot of
difficulty in accepting love, which does not work out too well in relationships
like ours where we’re committed to honesty and to communication. I still find
myself rather wryly typing that: I have committed wholeheartedly to a
relationship based on communication with all my deficiencies in that
department. I’ve struggled with knowing how to admit when I can’t cope, to let
them see the things I’m ashamed of or that I don’t have control over, we’ve
talked it through so many times and inch by inch I understood more of it, and
finally I realised with them that this is where the root of the problem is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is not an
easy thing to face, to intentionally and deliberately unpack yourself and your
past and look, fully, at what you do and where it comes from. In doing it, I
found a lot of memories that were not easy ones. I could term it in the ways
that Flynn’s textbooks would – post traumatic stress, abreaction, re living of
and releasing of trapped minutes of time, but that doesn’t quantify it in real
terms. It distances it. Essentially I found within myself that child, still in
that time, in that place, hating me and hating everything, thinking and acting
at the very stage it happened and driving everything it saw as connected with
it, the one who actually experienced that loss. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So while we
hiked, this child came too and this stuff poured out. Everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I suppose I was
mostly focused on getting to the point of pulling the cork on it. Jasper talks
about clarity of intent, it was a mission, a project, it took a great deal of
work and problem solving step by step to get to the deepest part of it and as
it were, blow the final safe. I hadn’t planned at all for what would come after
that, and I suppose that is typical of me. I don’t think beyond the solving of
the problem, I focus entirely on that moment of success that yes, it’s
unknotted, and then I realise what I’ve unleashed and that I have no idea how
to deal with it. What has hit is a kind of collapse I’ve never had any idea of
before in my life. I’ve never in my life spent days in bed like this. Paul is amazing. He just knows what to do and
what to say and how to be, he’s very calm and relaxed, and they all just keep
on repeating every time I start to panic, this is ok. This is ok. They create a
space all the time where there’s peace and time and it’s safe, and they won’t
let me be alone with it or shut it down. They keep saying what I know and what
we’ve talked about before, that I need to not push it away, I need to let
myself feel it. It washes around like a tide. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul read me the
<i>Hunting of the Snark</i>. Are you
familiar with it? It stunned me. It encapsulated searching for something
without being really sure what it is, having never seen it, with the risk that
it may not be what you seek at all, but something that may destroy you, and
there is no way to know. Yesterday we moved on from that to <i>Alice in Wonderland</i>, which is like being
handed a guidebook to the ludicracy this is. Things may be big or small without
warning. At times I feel terrifyingly small, and other times emotions so big
that they’re terrifying, or I feel that I’m being terrifying or threatening
without meaning to, and there is no logic to it. The whole book is about a
child walking through a distorted and inexplicable landscape, and while this
thing inside me won’t talk, it will listen to a story. Quite beside the point,
the mathematics in it walks all over my brain, the multiplication tables that
have warped out of a base of ten, <i>Alice </i>bound
by conventional mathematics in her world within a world where abstract algebra
rules, she has no means to make sense of any of it. The quaternion tea party
where three terms can’t function and are stuck going around in circles because
they’re not on speaking terms with time. I’ve been bound by polite conventional
mathematics all my life in an abstract world, and made sense of none of it,
this is the most sane insanity I’ve ever heard and it’s entirely new to me. But
it’s language I can think in. Someone has to teach you the words, give you the
words, so much thought can only exist when you have the words. I understood it
at gut level with Flynn months and months ago, he taught me how to do it and
how to feel it and understand it. So much of what Paul has done for me is to
work out with me how to put it into words and language I can think about. I
grew up as part of a polite surface illusion. I’ve kept her secret and been her
person all my life no matter what it cost me, things were never put into words.
I had no words for it. Randomly I have moments when I grieve over that. What
things might have been like without it. It’s somewhat like breaking out of that
chain, and then finding pieces of it I’m not even aware of, still clinging. The
child is trailing me, muttering and scowling, but at least I know what it is
now. I have some idea of what I need to do with it, even if I mostly don’t want
to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve been
wanting to fight. Hard. It’s wanting to shove against Flynn and Jasper and Paul
and check, a lot, and I know what I’m checking on. I have always been bright
enough to control people around me, for them to see and think what I want them
to think, to do what I feel safe with them doing, and largely it’s not to see
me and to leave me alone. I know I can’t do that with Flynn and Jas and Paul,
and I want to keep making sure they see through anything I can do, that I can’t
win and I can’t fool them to keep reminding myself that they’re stronger than
me. That’s what makes me feel safe. And I’m not being honest there, because I
don’t want to admit that some of this is also about pushing and looking for
weakness, Paul flat out told me he knew what I was doing when I last tried it
on him. It’s about trying to dismiss them as just another idiot I can
manipulate when it feels safer to separate myself, I know I did it as a child.
And then within seconds of that victory comes utter despair, because if you win
you’re safe but you’re alone again. Some of what Gerry taught me to do lately is
deliberately teach Paul the tricks, take them all off the table so there isn’t
anything I can pull that he can’t see through, and actually that bit of tuition
from me was less about teaching him anything than letting him get the full
measure of me. See all of it. Once he did, I haven’t managed to get anything
past him since. He knows what to look for and he’s all over it, and it’s one
huge relief. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is safe,
sane, secure love, I knew that long before they asked me to stay. It’s a
different world and I know it is. It isn’t going to go silent or walk away, it
isn’t going to refuse to talk or shut doors, old habits have no relevance here.
I never knew about wanting to slay dragons and climb mountains for someone
before, I didn’t realise how much of your life it could dominate, I will do
this for them because this is what they deserve from me, the very best I can
give them, untainted and unreserved. I’m
just aware I feel – slightly unfocused in some way. I’m not sure how. I’m not
sure why. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not asking
for a reply or for wisdom, although in my experience you have plenty of it.
Talking to you, to Gerry, to Riley is part of what’s keeping me sane because
you know what some of this feels like, particularly from our particular
perspective, and Flynn has said to me a few times, admitting the loss,
acknowledging it, is what lets it go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Be safe, we’re
thinking of you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For
hours through the night Tom thought about the parts of that mail that had
branded themselves in his mind. It hurt to read. It hurt still more to know he
wouldn’t respond. He could so easily have reciprocated. He could easily have
confided as much himself to that man in Wyoming as Dale was saying to him, and
he knew – oh he knew what Dale meant. And yet chilly, he knew he wouldn’t. In
the morning he went through the rituals of life here at the camp, he spoke to
Jake in the civilities and sentences that meant nothing, and like a cuckold’s
walk of shame he slipped into the communications tent while the others were
unpacking barrels of fresh supplies from the daily yak train that arrived at
base camp, and typed in a few lines, the bleak equivalent of the coward does it
with a kiss. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From: </b><a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com"><b>LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</b></a><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>To: </b><a href="mailto:AdenD@Horizon.net"><b>AdenD@Horizon.net</b></a><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject: <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I wish I had
half your guts and I know never will have. You see this stuff in yourself and
you get off your duff and do something about it. I see this stuff in myself and
I have done all my life, and I piss off up mountains and snarl at Jake. I
didn’t show your mail to him, and that’s another hard admission. Not that he
wouldn’t want to see it, he loves news of any of you. But there’s way too much
in your mail that could be me and I can’t face talking about with him because
he would get it. Properly, about you but still worse about me. At least if I
don’t show him something in writing I can go on pretending that he probably
doesn’t know. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I bought him a
medal thing once. A Saint George medal, little silver medallion in a market in
Peru. He never takes it off. I told him it was the patron saint of boy scouts,
the usual kind of flip and sarcastic comment I make, and he laughed. I’ve never
told him it’s actually the patron saint of heroes. Look. Snarks. I didn’t know
much about them apart from the basic reference. Jake did. There’s a fair bit of
Snark hunting going on up here too, but Snarks are just a simplified version of
the root myth and I think the original would make a hell of a lot of sense to
you now. Ask Paul about the <i>Fisher King</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Nos morituri te salutamus</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
Fisher King. But not handless maidens. That one was too difficult to confess
to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Nos morituri te salutamus</i>. Largely
because writing such bullshit as that in this place meant he damn well deserved
that Caesar’s thumb be down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-12.html">Continue on to Chapter 12</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-25324242134574323302015-09-24T15:28:00.000-07:002015-09-28T00:40:45.791-07:00Everest - Chapter 10 <div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i>10</i></b></span></div>
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The Sherpa didn’t like camp three. It was too inhospitable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was at the top of the Lhotse face, the steep blue ice wall was steepest just below camp 3, where the Australian climber had fallen. This was Everest’s wild lands. The comforts of base camp – even of ABC, which was harsher but still busy and relatively well equipped – were left behind now. Up here her heights were steeper, harder, whiter, harsher with every metre of height gained. The blue and white face of the ice and the gargoyles of grey rocks and white spires arising from it were like carven stone. Majestic and silent and the size of long departed giants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">To set up a tent at camp three you had to hack out a horizontal platform in her still sloping ice to have a space you could cling on to in a tent. There was not a lot of level ground. The sky was grey and while when the clouds cleared and the sun hit the ice it could get hot, it was still colder up here; a far sharper cold than they’d experienced anywhere lower. Tom pulled his face protector out of the way, his breath steaming as they knelt, hacking the platform as smooth as they could get it, and his beard was frosted. Jake snapped a quick picture of him while he was busy and not looking: Tom rarely co-operated with photos if he knew you were taking them. He was tired; they were both tired, but the challenge of the climb and the stark beauty of this place spoke to Tom, Jake could see it in his face, in every line of him as he worked, admiring the strength of him, the arch of his spine, the powerful expertise of his hands with the ice axe. They were both high as kites despite the thin air and the physical struggle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They had climbed from base camp up to camp two yesterday, making the slow, steady plod up the steep, exhausting and never ending slope of the Cwm. Slow and steady and stop as little as possible was a tactic they’d used for years at altitude in Peru – although nothing like the altitude here – but under the heat and the thin air, every step upwards cost and it plain hurt. They spent the rest of the day stripped to the skin to survive the boiling heat at camp two and got through the night huddled together in the sleeping bag when the temperature plummeted from 32 to -26 bringing a biting cold. Your eyes didn’t glue themselves shut with sleep in the night at camp two; for a start, sleep was difficult to impossible to find for everyone at that altitude, and secondly, any moisture from your eyes just froze on your face. Eating was equally difficult now. At this altitude the body had barely the oxygen to handle digestion and the desire to eat was gone. A mouthful or two forced down made you feel full, and yet the body was burning three times the amount of calories it did at sea level even if you lay and did nothing. They drank high calorie hot chocolate and Tom was putting up with Jake repeatedly pushing glucose tablets into his mouth to suck; at least the distraction of something in your mouth took some of the focus off the discomfort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They’d slogged the six hours up to camp three this morning together in a team with Spitz and Bill; a slow, painful, steep climb up the ice wall of the Lhotse face. Some parts of it you could stand and walk. Many parts of it were a hands and knees climb, finding foothold by foothold to climb up vertical ice face with your crampons dug into the ice as you pulled yourself up. It took concentration. Concentration, commitment and faith. Endlessly clipping the carabiner and sling from your harness onto each new rope as you reached the base of it, before you moved your jumar over so that at no point were you clinging to the face without being hooked onto something, risking a fall from grace. It helped moving with others you knew so well, whose rhythms and pace were yours too; the group rhythm absorbed you in and made it easier not to stop, to just to continue upwards, handhold by handhold, even as your body protested cold, exhaustion, the longing for rest. Once Bill, taking the lead, had shouted, a sharp, loud shout that made all four of them duck close against the ice wall and Jake, who usually made Tom climb ahead of him but this morning had stepped in front of Tom to clip on to the rope and climb first, grabbed Tom’s collar and pulled him tight in to the wall below him, shielding his head. Three rocks tumbled past them. The size of a hand, no bigger. Barely more than pebbles if you put them in a garden, but tumbling down the ice face and this steep, hard surface, they gathered a speed and velocity that would mean they could smash a man’s skull like a bullet. At the foot of the Lhotse face this morning they’d seen thousands of them embedded in the ice where they’d fallen; this was no place to linger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill and Spitz were also on their knees, working on chiseling out the platform for their tent now a short way off from them, also working in silence as breathing took almost too much effort now, and moving mechanically slowly. They were all exhausted from the climb. Most climbers at this stage would crowd into one tent; it was easier to keep warm huddled up together apart from the difficulty and energy involved of setting up tents, but being crowded as well as cold and half suffocated… Tom and Jake would find that difficult, and so would anyone who had to share a tent with them, and Spitz and Bill knew them well enough to know they would always pitch somewhere of their own. The exception would be camp four. The hours they would spend up there in the death zone would be done at too great an altitude and without enough energy to spare to do more than rig one tent between the lot of them. At that altitude, crowding was the last concern on anyone’s mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They’d got their down suits out of their rucksacks this morning in camp two for the first time; Tom’s red with black patches at the knees, pockets and down the arms, and Jake’s was yellow with the same black patches that Tom had acerbically told him would look like a stray life buoy as he grabbed it off the shelf in the shop. It had been apparent that he’d thought that was the one Jake needed and Jake hadn’t argued, Tom generally had his reasons and Jake never cared much beyond whether what they bought was warm and functional. Tom had stripped his suit off his shoulders while he worked this morning and the arms were knotted around his waist below white t shirt. He was visibly leaner than he’d been a few weeks ago, his ribs and his collarbones were more visible and his body angled more sharply from shoulders to his waist at the apex of the triangle. The weight they had gained in the winter for this was disappearing rapidly. They were both going to be enough on the bony side to drive Paul nuts when they returned to the US.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The snow was much deeper up here now than it had been before the storm according to the Sherpa who’d spoken to them on their way down through Camp two yesterday, and laying loose on top of the ice face it made this place both more beautiful and more lethal, disguising the sheer ice laying in wait beneath for an incautious step. The storm that had pinned two teams down for two days and ended their summit attempt had made rags of a few less than well pitched tents and had simply blasted others away; a Sherpa team was some yards from them replacing and repairing some this morning and the snow rose thickly in heaped piles, half burying the brightly coloured fabric. The weather had snapped back to fair as fast as it had turned bad; the reports were showing this as a changeable, unpredictable season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Changeable and unpredictable was a good overview of their compound at base camp too right now. Harry would be only a day or two away from base camp by now, on his return journey from escorting Lawrence to Lukla airport, and Jake had offered Bart and John the option to hike back to Lukla at their own pace with him to catch a plane whenever they were ready. John had accepted and was packing up to head out; the disappointment of failure to him was keen and Shem was spending a lot of her time discreetly keeping him talking and occupied while he waited to leave. The limits of John’s own body had come as a shock to him and Shem had murmured something to Jake about his never having fully accepted or faced the diabetes, making this a double blow for him. This place stripped you down, there weren’t many things you could hide, even from yourself. But Bart had asked to stay on and man the radio for them during the next stages of the expedition. He was enjoying himself in base camp and being part of the group, he and Max were both reluctant for one of them to leave without the other and they planned to hike back to Lukla and return to Kathmandu together, and according to Bill, Bart was making himself very useful with the technological side of things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And then Max and Phoenix had come together to Bill and Jake in the mess tent that evening and begged for one more try at camp one, to be allowed to climb with them as far as that point on their expedition up to camp three.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Their argument was fairly simple: of all the clients, Max had come the nearest to reaching camp one in the time allowed in the trial and Phoenix had put passionately his belief that his twisted ankle had been the only thing holding him back. The response was anything but a simple matter. Jake would have dismissed it simply; no, they weren’t going there again and the clients needed to get over it. The tests had been fair, the opportunities had been given, the safety concerns and responsibilities they had all held from the start for the clients were very acute ones, and on top of that was Tom. There had been some release of stress for him in a definite decision and knowing the clients were not at any further risk; he needed that clear line. For them to step back in the game piled all the uncertainty and pressure back on him. But it wasn’t his sole decision to make and Bill’s first response had been fair enough. Both Phoenix and Max had come close, they’d worked hard and progressed well, and one more shot wasn’t an unreasonable request to make. No few clients on the commercial expeditions took several tries to make it through to camp one the first time within the time limit. Spitz’s answer had been unrepeatable, but his general gist was Hell No, they were not wasting energy bailing out exhausted, stuck clients they already knew weren’t up to the climb, having to take them back to base camp and losing their camp three acclimatisation expedition. They were either climbers or guides in this; they could not be both. Jake was well aware that Spitz too found the clients both a stress and distraction and they did not as a team need to start the most serious part of the expedition on a row between themselves. Shem was less decided, but had no medical reasons why they should not try again and leaned towards yes. She well understood the longing to climb with a large and now established expedition, to be part of the group going higher even if you could only follow some of the way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The grapevine in the compound was highly efficient; they were still discussing it when Pemba, Dorje and Lobsang, another of their climbing Sherpas, came as a group to say they had heard of the request and they volunteered to climb with Phoenix and Max and take full responsibility for looking after them, including bringing them safely back to base camp. Therefore Phoenix and Max’s plea for one last try need not affect the expedition. Which left the casting vote as Tom’s. Who, not in the least to Jake’s surprise, had said very little, listened without expression, and then said grimly and unquestionably, yes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>What?</i> Why the hell ‘yes’?” Spitz demanded explosively. “What ‘yes’ have you thought at any point through this fiasco of Harry’s? You have made the best case against it from the start! This weighs on you like it weighs on me and I know it, there is no need for us to consider this all again. They made their time trial, they were not ready and now the expedition moves on, this is the way of it and it is in their contract. The reasons for ‘no’ are no less than they were before their last attempt at the ice fall!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom looked directly at Jake. “Because I know you want to say no and just end the whole question, but if you do it’s because of Spitz and me. Particularly me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And if it was not that there were other people involved in this complicated situation, they both knew Jake would have said no and blithely stuck to it; this would never have been open for discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">But this is not just about you and me.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s nothing wrong with that at all.” Bill said wryly. “Jake’s got a point Tom, none of us want you or Spitz affected, we’ve discussed this plenty of times now and your reasons have always been good ones. Our expedition matters too and I’m not saying it doesn’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah exactly, we keep on having this same argument and it always ends the same way.” Tom folded his arms, nodding at Bill who was watching him with concern. “I’m not afraid to rock the boat, Bill, I still stand by everything I’ve ever said about amateurs on the mountain. I just see that ‘no’ is not working here. It hasn’t worked from the start, so it’s probably time we caught on that it’s probably the wrong answer.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje, the only one of the Sherpa who had stayed to listen to this debate, glanced up to meet Tom’s eyes and Jake saw his faint smile and nod of comprehension. It was very much Tom; it was exactly what Jake had expected. Tom would always put anyone needier before himself, instantly, he would sacrifice for them. It was what he did. And he had the same kind of gut understanding too that the Sherpa did about the presence of place, about the natural forces around them wherever they were, about a greater presence than them. In jungles, in rivers, in ancient cities; Tom knew the stories, he understood them, he internalised them and underneath the sharply acid practicality there was the mind of a romanticist man who didn’t believe too much in coincidence. It was one of the many things about him that Jake loved fiercely, but it was inconvenient at times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom’s glance at him was curtly apologetic but they knew each other well. If Jake had wanted him in the meeting as back up Tom was well aware Jake would have asked him first; they’d have gone to the meeting together with a plan. If Jake needed him to change tack, to say something other than his honest opinion he’d signal it. They’d handled plenty of tricky situations tactically.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So let’s try yes deliberately rather than when circumstances just work out that way. I trust Dorje. I trust Pemba and Lobsang, we all do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I do too.” Shem agreed. She was listening with her arms folded on the back of the reversed deck chair she was sitting on, watching faces. “Dorje, I know you guys know exactly what you’re doing, I saw you with the clients on Lobuche. They’d be safer with you than with most of us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“My only question is what happens if Dorje or the others need to turn the clients around for their own safety and bring them down.” Tom looked directly at Jake, then across to Bill. “Max would listen. He’s got a brain. Loudon hasn’t.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll climb with Loudon and the others to camp one then,” Bill said cheerfully. “He’ll listen to me. If I have to turn him around I can start him down with Dorje or Pemba and then carry on up to camp two after you lot.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ha. So it’s only to camp one.” Spitz said darkly. “Yes. And then it will be only to camp two, pretty please, and so we go on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom didn’t say anything but he glanced at Spitz and after a moment Spitz got up off the corner of the camping table and gave Tom a brief and very rough hug. Tom didn’t respond; he often didn’t, nor did he unfold his arms, but he didn’t step away either and Spitz knew him. He wasn’t going to take that as any kind of rejection. He glared at Jake and Bill when he let Tom go, but said slightly more calmly, “If you are all to be noble then I suppose I too will have to be noble. Yes, yes all right.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And so Max and Phoenix set out with them from base camp to start up through the ice fall at a little past 4am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Phoenix and Max had quickly fallen behind of course. Tom had gone at his usual pace, the one he could sustain for hours, and Jake had paced him without debating it, Spitz climbing close behind them. With the shadowing of their very patient Sherpa guides who could easily have outpaced all of them, Phoenix had done his best to race ahead at first, apparently having learned nothing from his last trip, but Bill had climbed in front of him and forcibly held his pace down, with the result that at nearly noon, Phoenix and Max together, with the Sherpa guides and Bill had made it into Camp One. They were staggering, they were utterly knackered, but it was a well and fairly earned victory for them. Jake went to meet Max and congratulate him, the man whose fitness had been a great concern to them a few weeks back and yet who had of all their clients progressed the most strongly, and saw Max’s eyes travel with awe up the heights of the Cwm and the now visible pathway up to Everest before he gave Jake a crushing hug. And then he said quite frankly with what breath he had left, reaching to give Lobsang, who had climbed with him, an equally emphatic hug.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That climb was great. This is wild. Thanks. Thanks so much, that was an experience of a lifetime and now I’m done. It’s amazing to be here but I’m not going higher. This is out of my league and I’m not too dumb to know it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Phoenix said very little that Jake heard other than what he knew Tom thought of as Look At Me Being A Good Boy noises whenever he thought Jake was watching or was in earshot. He’d been a cheerful, positive little bunny in a way that to Jake quite visibly made Tom’s hackles rise, while the Sherpa guys prepared hot water and food for them, warmed their tents, managed their gear. Tom hadn’t commented, and as far as possible Jake kept him away from being around the clients at all, just shepherding them out of Tom’s vicinity and interspersing himself and distance between them. Most of their day since the early hours had been focused on hard physical work of climbing without breath to spare, and unlike Spitz and Bill who made their own time and climbed usually without worrying where the other one was, Tom and Jake always paced each other the same way they did on a run. Synchronised climbing and synchronised survival, staying within reach of each other. At least when Tom was climbing, his mind was occupied along with his body and a pure physical challenge like this fuelled him at his deepest level. His energy and his climbing was strong today, focused and channelled; he did it faultlessly. It was the break he always needed from thinking and Jake appreciated it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was only later, outside their tent at camp two where they were spending the night that Jake saw Bill, Dorje and Phoenix entering the camp together, and saw Tom beside him look with his eyes sharpening. Spitz, who had climbed at his own pace was already in his tent and didn’t see. Dorje shepherded a clearly exhausted Phoenix to the client tent he and the other Sherpa had set up days ago alongside the other tents from their expedition, and Bill gave Jake a sheepish shrug, coming over to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know, I know. He asked. Begged. Said he wasn’t that tired, he really wanted to do it and Dorje said he was happy to climb with him. I didn’t see the harm. Dorje’ll take him down in the morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pemba had planned with Dorje to return to camp two this morning to meet him and Phoenix as they came down; that was a little more insurance in Jake’s mind to know Phoenix would get down to base camp safely and without being more than Dorje could handle alone. Which had meant he, Tom, Bill and Spitz had set out alone this morning for camp three.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why are Sherpa guys all called the same thing?” Max had wanted to know at camp one which was busy with multiple expeditions and guides all around them. “I’ve met about six Pembas so far, four Dorjes, four Phurbas, they’re all called Pemba, Dorje or Phurba in every expedition. It must be confusing as hell in the villages.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Naming traditions.” Jake heard Tom tell him. “Sherpas usually call their child after the day of the week they’re born on, which puts them under the protection of the god of that day. Pemba means Saturday. Sacred virtue names are very common too. Dorje means ‘wisdom’. Up here they believe you need the spirits on your side as much as possible.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was something Tom believed in too, even if he wished he didn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here at camp three they got their tent raised on the ice platform and roped and screwed it down as tight as possible, getting their crampons off before entering as not tearing holes in either the tent or their down suits was a priority and all too easy to do with ice knives on your boots. Outer boots followed, and Jake put them directly in front of the flap of the tent as a barrier and physical reminder. Once boots were removed at this camp there was no leaving the tent. At all. Too many climbers had been too tired or foggy to remember to put their heavy boots on over their soft inner boots, had taken a step out onto the steep ice face and next been seen thousands of feet below, smashed like an egg. From there, they started the long haul of the next chore; melting ice to make fluids, and once the stove was burning they flopped down on the padded floor of the tent and their sleeping bags and worked on trying to get their breath back and ease throbbing, exhausted muscles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dorje spoke to me yesterday evening.” Tom said while they lay and waited to the ice to melt. The snow up here was pure white in a way you normally saw only in picture books, untouched by pollutants, and the little tin pan on the stove made an odd kind of font. Over the slow, thin flame of the high altitude stove in this low oxygen it could take literally over an hour to melt to water and then get the water up to enough warmth for a badly needed hot drink in order to stay warm as much as hydrated. Meeting every human need up here where humans were not meant to be was an effort of will and practicality. “Penguin was damn careful who heard or saw him do it, but he leaned on Bill hard to get up to camp two, and Bill ended up short roping him the last half of the way.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake gave him a quizzical look. Tom gave him a grim nod of confirmation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The Sherpa don’t usually tell tales, they hate spreading trouble but that worried Dorje. Loudon’s flirting with Bill at full power, it’s all big eyes and soft smiles the same way he’s keeping you happy with yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir. As pretty as he is, I don’t entirely blame Bill for falling for it, but he’s charming Bill into helping him up above his level of competence.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And what he thought of Loudon using those eyelashes and God knows what else to siren Bill – Bill for petes sakes who was as cheerfully hard bitten as they came and not easily distracted by a pretty bum – was probably better left unsaid, but in Tom’s mind was another mark on an already well-marked card. It was not pleasant to see a fool being made out of a good hearted man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If Bill was willing to help him then it isn’t really our business.” Jake considered it from several angles and shook his head. “It’s our opinion, nothing else.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“My opinion is that Loudon is a twat, but that isn’t relevant to whether or not he has a right to climb.” Tom said shortly. “My point is that it’s going to be our business if at any point we have to help Bill get Tweety-Pie peeled off the mountain and back down to base camp.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dorje, Pemba, Lobsang, they’re experienced, they’re better climbers than us and they’re here to worry about the clients, this is their area of expertise. That was what we agreed. We let them do their job yesterday and they’ve got Phoenix covered. He’s probably safely back in base camp by now, Dorje or Shem would have radioed us if there were any issues.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You know how Loudon talks to the Sherpa.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know he knows how I’ll talk to him if he pulls any crap on any member of staff on our payroll.” Jake said amiably.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom cast a brief glance at him, noting both the tone and the glint in the eye, not without appreciation. Jake never turned that on him; he never had to, but he’d obviously turned the full power of it on Mr Albatross Loudon, and from the vigorous sucking up that went on whenever Jake was in his vicinity, it had made an impression.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">So the little pink bugger likes strong men. Don’t we all. That doesn’t make him fit to be up here, or ok for him to get his stupid neck broken.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d spent a good twenty minutes sitting with Dorje in the entry way to the tent yesterday at camp two, warming a bit in the sun which beat down and glared on the ice and bright white of the snow so that without your sunglasses you risked snow blindness. Jake had been chatting with Bill and Phoenix who was loudly making a show of drinking in every word he said – sometimes it was staggering how obvious the machinations of a seriously obnoxious bunny could be – but it had been then that Dorje very quietly confided to him what Pemba and Lobsang would not have said. Tom had thanked him for it, soberly and with confirmation that he would share this only with Jake and only as needed, and that it would be for the good of the climb and not for any personal reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>However tempting.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But selfish motives weren’t something Dorje would appreciate; it was something that was a conscious part of his thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Isn’t he driving you mad, doing this?” Tom had asked him. “He is me, I admit it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje shrugged a little, smiling. “Different to us. We are peaceful people by choice. We do not give religious acts for ourselves to seek enlightenment. We do them for others. Tolerance, not anger. Care for person even when person makes it difficult – this is more of an offering. Bigger act of tolerance, more valuable.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You think like that when you’re guiding clients?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How many of the Sherpa here think of their work.” Dorje said simply, looking around at the makeshift camp and the tents in the snow. “We have people to care for and protect on our mountain, this is what we do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But you must want to summit too? Pemba has twice, he told me. You must want that chance too?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje nodded slowly. “Yes, of course. We all do. But summitting here is not glory to us. It is to go closest to heart of faith. The top is holiest place we have, and we leave offerings there. The prayer flags spread blessings… compassion, peace on the wind. We speak to the stupa in the camp every time we leave it. All this to us, all part of climb is religious. You understand this, you nod to the Stupa too when you leave or enter, we have seen you do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That was alarming. Tom found himself saying it a little stiffly, looking across the Lhotse face across the ice. A number of people were making their slow way up the fixed ropes, like ants on a white ant hill.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… My childhood was a bit like yours. My father is a spiritual leader, I grew up not in a monastery exactly but inside church walls. I understand what you mean.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At gut level. It had been years since he last lived day in and out around peaceful, explicit faith of this kind in years, been part of a community with the physical presence of objects of devotion directly among them, and among other men living their faith neither subtly nor demonstratively: to the Sherpa this was as simply intrinsic to their day as wearing clothes and eating. But the memories were all there that once he had, and it had felt very like this in many ways. The peacefulness. The amity of it. The connection to one’s core that was so difficult in adulthood and as a child had been so easy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And now this giving you thoughts you not have before.” Dorje said gently. Tom nodded a little, surprised, and Dorje returned the nod calmly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Too many thoughts and feelings get put there by world around and not from inside. I see this in Kathmandu, so much going on. All things coming into head all time. Here, not much world but mountain. Your inside self show through and take attention instead.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">And it’s angry, bitter and stressed out, no matter what I try to get rid of it. And I don’t really know why.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom took a deep, slow breath to stifle the rush of feeling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I wish it was less angry.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Maybe anger say something you need to hear.” Dorje said simply. “Lungta. Does not just happen because we say it, it is strength of will. For good energy you must let go of bad, and this is what you do here. This is why you feel anger, it pass through you to leave. I was taught life changes all the time. Not good to hold on to what is past when things are different now, no need to carry it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What if you don’t know how to let go of it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Like attracts like.” Dorje brushed melting ice off his battered gloves and smiled at him. “Peacefulness inside attract more peacefulness come to you. Questioning and wondering attract answers. By intent, by seeking, you are call answers come to you. Is true,” he added, grinning as Tom looked wry. “You believe and love qualities you see greatest and so you drew Jake to you. And Jake did same for you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He understood about him and Jake. There was complete comprehension and acceptance in his voice and his body, and it confirmed what Tom had already thought for a while.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I really doubt Jake dreamed about finding a grumpy, bitchy so and so-” he began, and Dorje laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You love wild places. You tell me about them. Oceans and lost cities and jungles. You love freedom of them and words written down, you have thoughts above ‘now’ and ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ and ‘hungry’, and…” he struggled for the words, “Not hot water, not shelter, not food.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Privation.” Tom gave him a wry nod. “Yeah, we like it basic, I admit it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a kind of peace and purity in it that Jake appreciated as much as he did. No conditions anywhere ever got Jake down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Quiet to think in.” Dorje agreed. “You touch places and feel them and you come here to mountain in thirtieth years. That a thing we know as Sherpa, man in his thirtieth years fate touch him then if touch at all. You come now for good reason. So Sargamatha, she will hear you. Some she notice just a little, some no thought, all coffee, iPod. But you think and she hear you, she make you earn what you want. So you be careful up here, my friend.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i>Isn’t this what Dale does? Seeks. Like a heat seeking missile, ‘I want to know’.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>In Inja’s sunny clime where I used to spend me time a servin’ of ‘er majesty the Queen</i>,” Jake said in a rather good British accent. Tom pulled himself together and looked at the not much melted ice in the pan with sympathy, dipping his first two fingers into the pan to feel. The water on his fingers was cold. Fresh. Exactly as untainted at this height as it had been when it fell from the sky onto her slopes. And some instinct made him touch it very privately without Jake seeing, to his forehead. The rest of the hand gesture was blurred, too swift to be a recognisable genuflection anywhere but in his mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Desperate for a drink?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was what the poem was about after all – the knight on the field of battle being the humble water carrier and not the trained soldiers. Like the simple Wart pulling the sword from the stone. The strength of heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…<i>And you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it.” </i>Jake said definitely. He wasn’t talking about the water. Tom looked across at him in shock. He hadn’t realised that Jake had read that particular mail before they left. Not that there was ever anything that was exactly secret from each other, but…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Got what?” Jake asked gently. Tom shrugged, deeply uncomfortable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Just a joke.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, I don’t think it was. What was it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Stomach knotting, Tom looked over at him, taken aback. He never did this. No inquisitions, no pushing, Jake normally just waited. Or worked around it. Half the time he either knew what Tom was thinking or was three steps ahead anyway, but…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You don’t do this.” He said half in protest. Jake lay back, propping his head on one elbow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I often don’t <i>choose</i> to do this. That doesn’t mean we don’t do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We. A definite we. And while it was very comfortably, easily said, it was a fraction sterner in semantics than Jake usually went.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Be damned careful what you wish for around here</i>…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom swallowed. Jake put a hand out to catch him by the collar, pulling gently but very firmly so that Tom crashed down into his arms and Jake kissed him. Firmly, mouth and forehead, chaste kisses but searing all the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s me. I don’t bite.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You do. Pretty effectively.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Only when I really feel like it.” Jake held him right where he was, their faces close, looking direct at him with the aqua blue eyes that were full of warmth as if this was some private game they were playing, but it was a steadier look than usual. All the force of him coming out clearly in a stream, like a laser. Tom had always known he was capable of it, he’d always felt its presence there; to actually <i>see</i> it felt like being pinned down by his eyes, even as Jake said even more gently, “You’re telling a lot of what’s on your mind to other people; not to me. I’m not ok with that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The rush of anxiety, in particular about having hurt him, was as bad as the shock that he knew. Tom put a hand directly to his face, running it roughly over his cheek.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… Yeah, because they don’t ask questions or matter or know me, and they won’t get worried about things that I’d like not to matter. <i>Not</i> because I can’t talk to you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So what is it Dale has that you wish you had?” Jake asked him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Total humiliation. It started right here. Tom lay flat on his back, closing his eyes as he felt his face heat painfully. Jake’s eyes weren’t wavering; he could feel them even when he couldn’t actually see them. His gut was still twisting and he had to admit it wasn’t entirely in dread. A lot in dread, but not entirely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I fantasise for years about you doing this and what it would be like, and where do you choose to do it to me? Up a frigging mountain where there’s nowhere to run!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bloody typical. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There is no point in even talking about this.” he said out loud. It was a stupid phrase, it never worked, a typical Top would be on that like a tiger on a mouse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Don’t you tell me what there is and isn’t point in discussing young man; I’ll decide that thank you very much –<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s every point. I want you to have everything you want.” Jake said mildly. “Who would more than me?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He said it so simply, such a shattering thing, that Tom felt his eyes sting in response. His voice sounded even gruffer than usual when he managed to say it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The guts to sort myself out.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What do you want to sort out?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom gave him a pointed, <i>who do you think you’re kidding</i> look. Jake looked right back with those soft eyes that were not wavering even slightly. He was way too good at this, it was scary to have it so directly aimed at him. This was what happened to other bunnies. They handled it. It really wasn’t easy. There was strength in those eyes, determination and even worse, so much warmth they were painful to look at. Tom swallowed a couple of times, stomach frozen and twisting, feeling acutely like a deer in the headlights, trying to find a way to start. It never really got anywhere, but Jake was still looking. After a moment Jake put a hand out to his rucksack and Tom found his mouth opening in a hurry, very keen to get Jake’s mind off martinets and their power of getting his attention focused ready or not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, we don’t need that up here, I’m chilled, I’m not going to do anything stupid, I swear I’m together-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It wasn’t the martinet he took out. It was a tube of something and a packet. Thoroughly confused but deeply apprehensive, Tom watched him open the packet which was not, from Jake’s demeanour, about to be anything good.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m not taking any risk of you bruising or marking up here in this cold. Take your suit off.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">…What?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He looked and he sounded very relaxed about it, but he really wasn’t kidding. Extremely warily, stomach trembling, Tom edged his arms out of his sleeves and slid the suit down his back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… Look, I’m entitled to the whole <i>‘look at me young man and answer me when I speak to you’ </i>and ‘<i>you will not stress at 2000 feet’</i> lecture, or counting to three or something before you go nuclear, this is cheating-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know, it’s probably the altitude.” Jake took his arm, guiding him to lie face down beside him. He’d unwrapped a thin disposable glove from the packet,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Where the hell did you shop when I wasn’t looking? I’m bloody searching your kit the second we get back to base camp!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And put it on before he opened the tube. Tom saw the name on the tube with a jolt to his stomach that made his jaw drop open in shock.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh good God who have you been talking to? Whoever it is I’m going to kill them…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake pulled his shorts far enough out of the way and Tom felt the small dab of cold cream on each cheek even in the chill in the tent, then his gloved palm rubbing it over his butt, evenly covering each side. He was extremely careful about where it went, staying well away from the more vulnerable places, and when he was done he peeled off the glove, turning it inside out and tucking it back into the packet before he drew Tom’s shorts back in place and helped him up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Put your suit back on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a relief to get back into the warmth of the thick down suit and Tom did so hurriedly, watching him fasten the cap back on the tube and put it away with deep apprehension. Right now where the cream was on his skin he was aware of nothing more than a faint tingling coolness. Jake put him face down on the sleeping bag against his leg, and calmly went on sitting melting the very reluctant ice. The cream did very little for a while, and then as the warmth of the down suit and the warmth of the tent began to creep into Tom, suddenly the stuff began to activate. Initially just a sense of his butt getting very warm that grew steadily hotter, and hotter, until it burst into a fierce stinging that was… extremely unpleasantly like the immediate seconds after a sound encounter with a paddle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The worst part was it was damn impossible to rub through a thick down suit and other layers, the wretched stuff made him fidget and wriggle against Jake and increasingly mutter into his arms, which Jake took no notice of other than to sit with him and rub his back, which made it all the more bloody pointed and made it a lot harder to tough out. When Jake lay down beside him at last, Tom rolled over into his arms and admittedly clung to him, turning his face deep into Jake. Jake hugged him strongly. The stinging heat was easing slowly – very slowly – and it was all too exactly like having been spanked, when he knew he’d very much deserved it. He never knew if it was because it assuaged the guilt somehow, or unblocked some stubborn part of him that held his mouth closed, or re-established in his mind his gut faith in Jake’s strength; he’d never claimed to understand it. All he knew was that he found his mouth opening and his tongue loosening in line with his still burning butt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m sorry.” He said rather unevenly into Jake’s chest. “I never wanted it to feel to you like I couldn’t talk to you, you’re the only person I ever can talk to.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Or have ever been able to.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why not about this then?” Jake ran his fingers through Tom’s hair softly. He was draped comfortably back with his head against his rucksack and the relaxation in his body was genuine; he did this. Large and warm and so laid back that it kind of seeped into you in a way that was overwhelmingly, bone penetratingly safe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t know. You matter. It’s too real if I say it to you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I think you’re thinking a lot about your parents. And home.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He knew. It was a shock and it shouldn’t have been; Jake picked up so much by sheer osmosis it was ridiculous. But to have it put so directly into words and brought out loud, immediately into the air between them was hard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">The elephant in the tent.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh for God’s sake. It’s an elephant that’s been following you around for days, it isn’t subtle. He’s just got tired of waiting and called you on it.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… It hasn’t been my home since I was eighteen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It blurted out as a weary more than an unhappy thought. Jake nodded slowly, still smoothing his hair. Tom shut his eyes, concentrating on the feel of Jake’s arms and the background echo of the steady stinging burn of his backside in this flimsy nylon capsule in this silent, snow bound place. Here, on the roof of the world, they were going to have this conversation; Jake was alarmingly clear on that. And he was right; it needed to be had, however hard. And yet there didn’t seem anywhere sane to start. Tom finally blurted out one thing that had occurred to him a few times in his life and particularly the last day or two.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… All my life I heard my father talk about love to other people. Forever talking about it, the semantic depth of it, the different facets, the responsibilities of it, the cultural interpretations of it, the anthropological effects of it - all his sermons and addresses, all his work, he <i>studied</i> the whole concept of love. He was a spokesman for the foundation belief in it. I just couldn’t help noticing he never brought his work home with him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a wryly sarcastic comment, a pathetic attempt to lighten the utterly pitiful, and Jake didn’t laugh. Tom sighed, shutting his eyes, pressing his forehead harder against Jake who hadn’t budged an inch and was listening quietly. The confession was hard, he could barely say it out loud.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “… All this compassion and care and warmth for other people. I’d hear him talking to other people who were in bits and he’d be so good with them. He probably came home and needed to put the walls up to rest and put together the energy he needed to keep on doing it. At home he just wanted to be left alone and he’d listen to music or read, or write letters.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A moment’s silence and then it burst out of him, a question he’d thought for years and never spoken. “Wasn’t Philip like that? It must have been like that. How can anyone live like that all the time?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, Philip wasn’t like that.” Jake said quietly. “It wasn’t a job he did. It was who he was.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> That was nearly as hard to hear as it was painfully intriguing. Because to Jake, Tom had always known Philip hadn’t <i>felt</i> like that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“With my father…” he said with difficulty, “There’s the politician role within it too, all the politics of the church, the leadership role, he’s good at it. But it’s a public life. There isn’t much of a private life at all for a Bishop or their family, the Bishop’s wife is pretty much a persona in her own right and ends up at all kinds of functions with him or by herself, everything’s in the public eye all the time, every day is stuffed with events and secretaries and appearances and commitments and we had to go along to most of them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The family were part of the kit for many of these events. A necessary addition to the event photographs and the public appearance, reported in the court circulars. <i>The Bishop and his family attended…</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“My sister is older than me. She’s like my mother. Quiet, self contained, great organiser, never rocks the boat. I was difficult, unsociable, never slept, always scruffy, wasn’t good at the family presentation bit, mostly I just went off on my own and they were probably glad of it… I couldn’t leave stuff alone when I was a kid, into everything. See it and do it; I could never sit still for two minutes unless I was reading. I took the bolt pin out of a table once at a fete and the table collapsed, tea and scones everywhere and people screaming. They’d just look at me with this tired, ‘<i>what did we do wrong for you to be like this’</i> expression.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s a bullet hole in Philip’s study ceiling that I put there.” Jake said a little ruefully. “The gun cabinet used to be kept in there and someone hadn’t got around to putting a rifle away. Straight up through the ceiling, through the room that Paul uses for a study now, through the floor of the map room and out the roof. The roof got repaired, I know that since I got sent to help. I don’t know if the other rooms are still holed through. I was nine at the time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Went off in your hand?” Tom looked up at him, distracted and curious in spite of himself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, it was on his desk. I saw it, picked it up and fired it.” Jake winced slightly at the memory. “No intent to do it, no malice, no forethought of any kind, zero impulse control. I was horrified by the damage. Like you say. See it and do it. I was the same. Niall rescued me from a tractor I started up a day or two later because the keys were in the ignition, and stopped it before it ran a fence down. After that Philip kept me within reach most of the time, taught me a whole lot about stop and think, and everyone in the house got <i>really</i> tidy any time I visited.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">We’re possessed by the same demon, you and I.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One American, one Englishman; two little boys on two separate continents. Tom pushed his fingers through Jake’s golden hair with a flash of compassion for the shocked nine year old with a smoking gun in his hand. He knew that feeling all too well.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You bloody vandal. In the study with the revolver, like Colonel Bloody Mustard. You never told me that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’ve never felt comfortable to talk about Philip or any of them.” Jake said gently. “I can guess Philip must seem to you a similar kind of man to the one your father was. He wasn’t. He kept his work at home, and he less talked about it to us than did it. Demonstrations. Words in practice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“My father is not a cold person.” Tom swallowed, thinking of the face of the man in his mind with detachment. “Not at all. You’d find many people who’d swear to you he’s a wonderful man, he’s much loved. It just gets – shown to the people he works for. I suppose I’m very like him, aren’t I? Like father like son. The good intent’s all there, the academic knowledge is all there, we’re both just bloody incompetent at doing it with the people that really matter.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You are <i>not</i> incompetent at doing anything with me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was quite emphatically, sternly stated as hard fact, and it was the most exactly right thing he could have said. For nearly five years that had been nothing at all that they hadn’t done together. Here where there was no one to see, Tom turned his face against the slightly damp patch of Jake’s snow suit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…They were very patient. I was hard work. God knows you know I am. Things got a bit better when I went away to prep school and wasn’t causing havoc all the time. The holidays were limited periods of chaos.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How did you come to lose touch with them?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was hard to answer that. Tom tried for a moment to find the words, thinking of Dale who did this. Worked at this. And forced himself to admit it. It still came slowly. Grotesquely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’d… just moved up to public school, I was twelve and this other kid in the same form… he was sweet. A really ….nice boy. We hung around together a lot, we were probably each other’s first real crush…. We ended up the last ones in the changing room one evening after some games thing and we were talking, and we….we ended up kissing. We were <i>twelve</i> for pete’s sake, it was the first time either of us ever kissed anyone and we hadn’t a bloody clue what to do, it was clumsy boy peck on the cheek stuff, hardly snogging, but the games master came in to lock up, he saw us, and all hell broke loose. We both got dragged into the headmaster’s study, separated – I never saw him again actually, I have no idea what happened to him – and I got sat in an armchair and told not to move.” He paused for a moment, drawing breath. His face was burning painfully at the memory of the shame of those hours in that silent adult room, here in this tent balanced high on this mountain with Jake against him he could still smell the leather of the chair, the dust of the books, the scuff of the carpet under school shoes; acutely feel the sick, awful dread he’d felt at the time sitting there in the terrible hush like the still hour before an execution with no idea what was going to be done to him. Trembling all over. Chill with sweat. The terror as intense as the shame. He’d never disclosed this to anyone. It had never been put into words, he’d spent years trying to forget and had never managed it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… No one would talk to me or look at me. There were a lot of adults coming and going and whispering in the hallway, they were horrified. It was like a death. So awful no one could talk out loud. I sat there for bloody hours, and then about half past ten that night my father appeared without a word with my suitcase in his hand and his face….. he took me home, and that was the end of my career at that school. I’d absolutely shamed him and my mother. To be fair they never said that – they never said anything about it, no one talked to me at all for days, but it was pretty damn clear. They were so sad. So disappointed. And a few weeks later I got sent to a different boarding school and that was it. We never talked about it. We never really got back on speaking terms again. My father did tell me at some point, very seriously, ‘I forgive you’. I remember him saying it; just that. It was clearly a big deal for him and he’d had to work hard to get there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… He forgave <i>you?</i>” Jake sounded slightly stunned. “What the hell did you do with that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I had no idea what to do with that.” Tom acknowledged. Face very near to Jake’s he could feel Jake’s energy rising around him and it was always powerful when it moved; he was angry. Jake so rarely got angry about anything much in this world and he was trying hard not to show it, but feeling it in him was in one way alarming… and in another way it was extremely heartening in a way Tom hadn’t expected. “I think I said thank you. In fairness the embarrassment I must have caused him was huge. This was the nineteen eighties, not many parents had a clue what to do with gay. He was upset it wasn’t an aberration I grew out of, he asked in a roundabout way a few times when I was older. I wasn’t very tactful, I probably made it clear he still hadn’t bred the red blooded hetero he’d hoped he had. Although I stayed a bloody monk after that until I was nineteen. Purer than driven bloody snow. And then no ‘real’ people.” He added more quietly. “Ads in the Gay Times mostly. Thank God for the Gay Times and the Pink Paper, the university LGB stocked both. Not that I ever did more than go in there and get them. Not only gay but <i>kinked</i> gay too, there wasn’t a chance in hell that was going to be ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“With your parents?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“With anyone. God no, not my parents. We reached this mutual arrangement when I left school; I applied for a university grant as a single person with no place of residence, they breathed a huge sigh of relief and the university made arrangements for me to have access to the halls year round. The black sheep sodded off. I was hard work right from the start, they weren’t equipped to deal with me and they had a very demanding career taking up most of their time. Wrong kid for the gig.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They lay there together in silence for a long time. It was not an uncomfortable silence; Jake knew exactly when to shut up and for that Tom couldn’t have loved him more. It seemed so ridiculous to have hesitated to tell him this, to be so afraid when he was so utterly trustworthy and Tom knew it better than anyone. There was no one safer than Jake in anything. He should always have known that. Eventually Tom shifted his head slightly on Jake’s chest, pulling up another stray thought.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… I used to climb. Even when I was really small, I was forever getting into trouble for going up trees as far as I could to sit there for hours, or up on walls or up ladders or fire escapes on to roofs. They tried getting me into sport to burn all the energy off a bit, lone stuff. I wasn’t good at the team games. But sailing, I learned to sail when I was seven or so and I used to take a mini skiff out on the lake; rock climbing, swimming, diving, surfing, running. Every damn thing I could do, always about travelling, faster and further and higher. Thinking about it now, I was probably subconsciously trying to get away. All those tough sports. I remember an aunt saying to me ‘you’re so brave, all these things you do’, and I knew even then it wasn’t brave at all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mhm.” Jake stroked his hair for a moment, Tom could feel him breathing. Comprehending, compassionate, still bloody angry; it was radiating off him like a force field although he wasn’t voicing it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You should <i>make</i> me do this more often.” Tom said eventually. “Tell you things. Deal with them. Why the hell do you put up with it? It shouldn’t be something you let me opt out of, you should make it a discipline thing, something I should have to do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That isn’t your decision to make, is it?” It wasn’t often he heard Jake use that tone, or sound even vaguely stern. Tom looked up at him, surprised, and Jake wrapped both arms around him, yanking him over and hugging him, rib creakingly hard, his face pressed to Tom’s for a moment. His voice was softer when he spoke again, directly and very quietly into Tom’s ear. “I love you. I will always love you. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. I won’t give you silver hands.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~</span></div>
<br /><b> From: <u><span style="color: blue;">Flynn O’Sullivan</span></u></b></div>
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<b> To: <span style="color: blue;"><u>LameducksRus@MountainEagles.com</u></span><br /> Subject: Re: Update</b><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Hi Jake</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gerry is his usual self, don’t worry. Eating well although Paul’s being careful what we feed him, Ash says on the quiet he’s grouchier and more easily upset than usual but he’s been better since he’s been here and being kept busy, and outside of these bouts of stomach pain he’s been having over the last few months, he’s been ok. They’re just getting more frequent and by their doctor’s advice it’s time to do something about it. Tell Tom not to worry if he doesn’t hear from Dale for a few days. He, Jas and Paul have taken Luath and our client out on a hike, they’re going to be out of touch for a while. Needless to say, we’re very relieved you and Tom made it down from Camp Two ok and you recovered so fast. Paul says he’d tell you to be careful but you wouldn’t pay any attention, so please keep in mind he’s thinking of you and cringing. The rest of us are wishing you both all the excitement and fun and only as much danger as you enjoy.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Love</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The camps were fast getting busier as more teams worked on their acclimatisation. Every day more people were heading up and down the ropes between the camps and more tents appearing. It was the cue to me that we needed to get on with our summit attempt before the crowds really started and made things dangerous up there. The plus side was that the mountain mail service was beginning to get more and more organised. Most of the base camp communications tents had access to emails and someone in base camp to check the inbox several times daily, email was too embedded in most people’s lives not to. It was common around here for emails to get printed out, put in a plastic bag with the name of the intended person and the camp they were at scrawled on it, and handed to whoever was headed up the mountain. This small community of a couple of hundred people were on the move constantly now and climbers in every camp would shove named mails through the right tent doorways if they were unoccupied. It meant emails arrived at camp often within only a few hours of hitting an inbox. Tom was cynical about how the Western world had managed to fit their pet technology to the mountain but it seemed human enough to me. Most climbers willingly participated, knowing that other expeditions in turn would bring up and deliver their mail; these communications from home and family were precious to people so isolated and taking their bodies to the very limit up here. I found Flynn’s mail in a plastic bag dropped through the flap of our tent at camp three while we were making our climb up to camp four that morning, and read it to Tom while he dropped chipped ice into the pan to melt. It raised a smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the first time this morning we’d put on the oxygen masks we’d practiced and practised with. Knowing we were going to have to handle the kit and tanks in the cold, in full kit, often in the dark and with hypoxia at its most severe, particularly if we got into difficulties and needed oxygen the most, we’d trained together, all four of us, in the same way that Tom and I trained with our diving kit. Sitting in the dark of the communications tent late at night several times, just assembling and testing and putting on and taking off, doing it without light, with our eyes closed, getting it as fast and smooth as possible. Reading the dials, practising the drill for unfreezing the dial and valve.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was nothing like wearing oxygen at sea level. When we started up the oxygen canisters in our back packs early this morning with the trickle of flow that would take the edge off the slow asphyxiation of the death zone while making each canister last as long as possible, the mask felt more like it was blocking air than giving it. I’d expected it to be not much different to deep sea diving; we knocked up our regulatory hours and plenty more besides every year to stay certified, but for the first hour as we climbed, despite the thrill of the climb and of being here and the intense physical challenge – and ok, we’re junkies, we’re honest about it - I still kept finding myself pulling the mask down, fidgeting with it, trying to convince myself that it was helping rather than hindering. Tom looked at me often as we climbed, several times he poked whichever bit of me he could reach with the edge of his ice axe or yanked my mask back into place. Tom’s selfdiscipline is iron, he hadn’t touched his mask this morning and he had the edge on me in fitness here where being smaller and more lightly build is a strength. He was moving like a machine. Which is, if you’re interested, phenomenally hot when he’s framed against a blue sky and white ice with a rope around his chest and is dripping frost, sweat and competence in equal amounts. I could feel his buzz too, as strongly as I could feel mine. I never had to worry about his not being able to keep his head in the game so long as we were doing anything demandingly physical. Our long conversation last night was put away for the time being, and if anything, I’d thought last night he was largely relieved. Calmer, some of the steam let out that he’d been simmering on. Right now he was completely subsumed in the head space of the climb and his fierce enjoyment of it and I was glad of it. Bill, who’d done this climb before and was an old hand at using the kit, was just fine with his oxygen kit, he put it on and headed out without hesitation. Spitz I saw fiddling a few times and knew how he felt. So I mostly kept my eyes on Tom and my mind on the job and focused on ignoring the mask.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a relief to drop off all the equipment we’d hauled up between us from base camp in our rucksacks; a stove, food, the oxygen bottles that would begin our cache of emergency spares, some of which we’d keep here and some in a cache half way up to the summit. We’d bring up more with us when we came on the summit attempt, but the emergency extras were very necessary insurance in the case of bad weather, delays, trouble on the summit climb. It had made for heavy packs to carry, but you saw Sherpa climbers passing by all the time with far heavier loads, and several Sherpa teams were setting up tents at camp four while we were there with far less effort than it was costing us. It took all four of us working together a couple of hours to dig out a base and set up our one single tent, something that at base camp any one of us could have done alone in a fifth of the time. It was a real trial of strength and of team building, something we’d been working on since last Autumn, to the point where we could just do together without needing to move the oxygen masks and face protectors to talk at all. A long, exhausting day with the bonus being that our camp at four was now set and ready, and we’d forced our bodies through the last step of acclimatisation – to have experienced and worked at the death zone and won our biggest yet of the big races on the way to achieving the summit. As knackered as we were our bodies were generating yet even more red blood cells in response; it was a big investment in the hours of hard climb ahead of us on our summit attempt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The climb back down to camp three was far faster than the climb up. Tom had moved like a pro all day with the smoothness and rhythm that he’s built through years of serious running, but once we cast off boots and outer clothes in the tent he pulled up the legs of his down pants to check his shins and I saw they were bleeding a little even in the extreme cold, rubbed raw where his heavy climbing boots had rubbed. He’d shown no sign of it, I doubted he’d really been aware of it until he stopped working and freed up his mind to think about other things than the climb. His palms, like mine, were blistered from the ropes even though we were both wearing two pairs of gloves, and all four of us were coughing frequently, the Khumbu cough with a vengeance now as our airways were really getting scorched. I pulled out the extensive first aid kit we were carrying and did what I could, which he didn’t appreciate but knew better than to argue about; broken skin was not good up here. As poorly oxygenated as we were, even the slightest skin damage was painfully slow to heal, infections were easy to get and they sapped your strength and your energy when you could least afford to lose it. We struggled to get down the contents of an MRE pack between us. At least Tom was eating well and with enjoyment now when we were in base camp; I should have thought of that earlier. It had turned into a kind of challenge between our Sherpa team and their cook to come up with a dish hotter than we’d eat once they knew we loved the chillies and heat in their local food. I don’t think Tom had noticed but I saw them lurking, watching us digging into whatever dish I’d collected from the cook tent, all of which were fantastic, and they’d laugh and quietly report back to the cook that he’d failed, we liked that one too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was finding it harder to stay hydrated now we’d been at this altitude a few days, and joy of joys was at the stage of producing dark brown urine whenever I used my pee bottle – the bottle every one of us up here carried that saved having to leave the tent with all the attendant putting on outer boots, crampons, or leaving the ropes or trail while climbing, or going outside during the night or when exhausted. The contents rapidly froze up, you chipped it out of the bottle with your ice axe and dumped out the mess of ice when you could at a camp. Tom, with his more compact build was thankfully doing better than I was and after a couple of hours of painfully slowly melting fresh snow and ice to make a hot drink, getting it down and starting the whole cycle over again, he was showing signs of being decently hydrated. I had no choice but to keep on with the melting and drinking, a process that took into the early hours of the morning before I finally saw things improve a little and stalled off the immediate risk of a kidney infection.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re going to have to bring up more canisters and plan to sleep on oxygen up here on the summit attempt, this is ridiculous. We’ve got the stuff, that’s what it’s for, we don’t need to get this drained overnight.” Tom informed me during one of those melting ice cycles. He’d continued to help with the drink making. He hadn’t commented but I knew he was missing nothing including the colour of my bodily fluids and what it meant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I lay back beside him on the sleeping bags to watch the stove. This was becoming my strongest impression of this whole journey in a curious kind of way; not the climb but the hours and hours we were spending laying together on the rock and ice face of the mountain, side by side, talking. Tom had said more to me last night than he’d ever been able to confide before about a time in his life I knew was too painful mostly for him to even think about. I’d never before pushed him as to why. That is not the way into Tom. I’d felt the wall of wariness around him on the first night I met him; sometimes I see him move subconsciously as a stranger moves around his space, adjusting to maintain the tolerable distance between him and them, it’s the same as his eye contact that becomes more fleeting with strangers or with pressure. The walls go up, he freezes, slips away. Sometimes you barely see him breathe. Years ago when I was too young to really understand what I was learning, I’d picked up from watching Philip how to build trust between you and a wary or mistrustful animal; with calmness, without looking directly at them, by doing the opposite of what they expect, by sharing your agenda rather than imposing on them. I saw him do it with horses, as I grew older I realised how much I also saw him do it with men. If Tom and I are alone together it’s very different, there is immense affection and a need for affection in Tom, the stifled longing for and demanding for attention that he’ll show to me in extreme privacy, he and I we do just fine. But I’d seen the hunger so clearly in his face at base camp when he’d read Dale’s mails and in his answer to them and it hit me to the core. He couldn’t hide it, and while I’d always seen a reluctant fascination with what we saw other discipline relationship couples do, and I’d always understood why he had to dismiss those men so emphatically as bunnies to tolerate it – the brat doth protest far, far too much - I’d understood that it was a very wary interest from afar. It had never been like this before. He’d never signalled so very clearly to me a longing to be able to make this kind of deepest, hardest disclosure and connection a discipline matter, to be helped to say what he was trying to. And that was the difference. Whether Dale had set this wheel of Tom’s in motion over the summer – I’d seen and heard conversations between the two of them that had surprised me, Tom’s often at his least forthcoming with people he’s really drawn to- or whether the mountain was having this effect on him, or the enforced hours of confinement, for whatever reason, he felt ready. It had still nearly broken my heart to see it. And I’d trodden so carefully with him last night, so aware of what terribly fragile ground this was for him, what an immense risk he was trying to take with me and wanting to work with him as I could see he wanted and needed me to, but for him to feel safe too, as safe as I always need to be for him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This was going to go down with him like a lead balloon, but he was right and I’d reached the same conclusion myself last night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I agree. I radioed down to Pemba this morning to organise getting some extra bottles up here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom looked over at me with shocked outrage all over his face. So far we’d asked for help from our Sherpa team for our clients only; it had been a matter of pride for us that we climbed here independently, on our own strength and merits and without having tents and supplies carried and prepared for us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If we need extra oxygen up here we bring it up! We are not pulling the white sahib crap under any circumstances!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve already pulled it.” I told him apologetically. “If Sir Edmund comes up here to tell us off I promise I’ll do the talking, but I want both of us getting alive and well off this mountain. I’m funny like that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> The look I got should probably have turned me to salt. Tom sat up, furious, grabbing the saucepan on the stove to shake the ice viciously to break it up faster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If we can’t do it properly on our own resources we don’t deserve to do it properly at all!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I ran a finger down his hunched spine, leaning past him to pull out more drinks sachets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Feel like hot chocolate or...” I flipped the packet up to see it, “Horlicks- what the hell is Horlicks? – for the next round?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “Jacob.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s not my fault I’ve never heard of Horlicks, it sounds like a brand of cough mixture.” I pointed out. Tom glared at me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Let’s ask the others. We’re up here as a team, this needs to be voted on, properly. Move it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I let him tow me to my feet and went with him, donning our boots and heavy jackets and we crowded into Bill and Spitz’s tent among Spitz’s letters from his various amours since it was apparent he was in the middle of writing one, and Bill’s compass and various other nick knacks. He probably knew exactly where we were by latitude, longitude and sea level, he usually does, it’s a bit of a hobby of his. They weren’t sleeping either, they were glad of the company, and Spitz, while I could see he was reluctant as Tom was, heard Tom out in silence and then gruffly agreed with me. I’d known how Bill would see it without needing to ask; it was going to mean us hauling more oxygen up here than we’d planned, we had the expert support available in our team and we needed to ask them for help, and Bill is practical to the core. Although even had Spitz and Bill been all for the independent option for themselves, my decision was still made for Tom and me, and Tom would be well aware of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is our preparation problem, it’s something we didn’t expect,” Tom looked around us with growing frustration in his face; I think he’d hoped Spitz at least would see things his way and sway me. “So now we handle it, we don’t pay someone else to do it for us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We problem solve, it just means an extra climb,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And extra time, and extra risk, and extra energy in addition to what we’ve all burned so far helping the clients out.” Bill, with the collar of his bright orange fleece turned up around his ears and sitting among the strands of the rigged up washing line that was holding up his and Spitz’s damp socks in the forlorn hope they’d dry overnight, looked apologetic but he sounded firm, I could see he was well aware how upset Tom was and I suspected he was stepping in and saying this clearly so I didn’t have to, thinking it would be easier on Tom right now to be mad at him rather than me. He’s not above a little good cop bad cop, Bill. It works quite well on Beau. “That’s cost us all. Which is Harry’s fault and I’m bloody sorry about it, but we’ve handled it in the way we’ve thought best and it’s taken all of us time and energy we would have used for ourselves and our preparation. I think asking Pemba and Dorje for their help with this one thing is a fair compensation and we need to cut ourselves some slack.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I think we have to handle it.” Tom retorted. “I’d rather know I didn’t summit because I did everything myself, properly and couldn’t do it, than I summited because I relied on paying someone else to do the tough stuff and nurse me up there!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, that’s very noble.” Bill said affectionately. “But dropping a few spare cans of oxygen at camp three for us isn’t exactly nursing you. It’s starting to get busy up here. I agree with Jake, I want us done and gone before the crowds around the summit get heavy. We’re tired, we’re losing weight, I don’t know about you two but Spitz and I are notching up the aches and pains and minor injuries higher every day.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He didn’t comment on the fact that the two of us were coughing as much as he was. This whole conversation was being punctuated by frequent hacking and spluttering from all four of us. “I know you like the pure version Tom, I admire it and I know you’re not afraid of the work, but realistically I don’t know we’ve got the physical resources left to do another trek to camp three just to bring up oxygen. Not if we want to have a chance at the summit. Or to keep on traipsing through the ice fall. You know the risks of something going wrong in there increase every time we set foot in it, and Spitz and I have done five trips through so far – six when we go down tomorrow. You and Jake, it’s seven so far. Including the summit attempt we’ve got to pass through three more times, and that’s more than enough. I say we chuck this one in the fuck it bucket. It’s a little bit of pride we’re letting go for the sake of safety, that’s all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They took the vote. It ended three to one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Stupidly trying to reopen the subject again post vote with Jake when they got back to their tent got him no answer other than a cheerful and immediate reapplication of whatever horrible stuff was in that tube Jake carried. Apparently it was very possible to get spanked even at ridiculous altitude. Jake did it genially but it was like running into a brick wall. Which much confirmed in Tom’s mind how high and hard he was spinning right now; Jake at Defcon One was a dead giveaway. It wasn’t the most comfortable feeling, but it was a very safe one; Jake had handled things exactly right yesterday, in exactly the way Tom knew he’d needed him to. Not that that had been at all comfortable either, but today… Today had been better.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I won’t give you silver hands.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wrapped around him in the sleeping bag afterwards, sniffling and subdued but calmer and able to let the matter go, which was very different to miserable, Tom reflected on that phrase for the hundredth time since last night. He knew of the reference. It still took him a while of thinking- to be more honest, almost an hour of screwing himself up to the nerve to open the subject – before he said stiltedly,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s the Handless Maiden, isn’t it? The Brothers Grimm. I can only remember parts of it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There was a miller.” Jake shifted slightly to get comfortable, settling on his back with an arm behind his head and the other around Tom. “Who got tired – as you do – of working so hard for so many hours for so little money. And the devil saw it and came to him and made a deal. He would show the miller how to build machinery so that he could grind far more corn with far less work, and make more money. A whole higher lifestyle. The technological dream from the capitalist point of view. The only price is whatever is standing behind the mill – which the miller knows is only the old apple tree. So he agrees, the devil helps him build his machinery, it works like a charm, suddenly he has a lot more money coming in, much more free time, the family are living a much higher lifestyle, and the miller goes with the devil to collect his price. Except to the miller’s horror, it’s his daughter standing behind the mill, not just the apple tree. But he’s not willing to give up what he’s achieved. So there’s various versions of how it happens but there’s never anything to suggest the daughter resists – the devil amputates her hands as his price.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Lovely.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, don’t you just love the guy. The miller and his wife keep telling the daughter, they can afford servants now, she has a life of luxury, they can meet her every need, she doesn’t need to work or to do anything for herself so what does she need her hands for? And she’s ok for a while. But after a while she starts to cry, and can’t stop, and nothing anyone can do can comfort her.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Depression. Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So she goes away alone into the forest and wanders there. An angel guides her to a pear orchard, and she can’t pick any fruit, she can’t touch or pick up anything, but she manages to eat a pear where it hangs on the branch and keep herself from starving. The orchard belongs to a king, and when he hears from his gardener about the one pear hanging eaten on the branch that the gardener finds every day, he hides himself and keeps watch, and meets the maiden. And they fall in love and marry, and as the Queen of his Kingdom the King has made for his beloved and wife, a pair of beautiful silver hands.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Chauvinist bastard.” Tom said shortly. Jake grinned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, that’s one interpretation.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s the bird in the gilded cage, isn’t it? The women’s trap. Virginia Woolf, the Room with the View... You don’t need to be able to ‘do’ anything darling, just look pretty and I’ll meet your every material need because I can’t envisage any other needs you might have. It’s no different to what her parents did to her.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Or you can look at it as the maiden representing the yin or feminine aspect of a person and the miller representing the masculine aspect.” Jake pointed out. “Taoist, I Ching, inner masculine and inner feminine, yang and yin in all of us. A battle within the self.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“With the miller representing the yang, the ambition, the drive, the practicality, and the daughter the yin, the emotion,” Tom said, recognising the theory. “The ambition sacrifices the ‘hands’, the feeling part. You’ve been hanging out with Jung again, haven’t you? Wuthering Heights, sex and long walks, DH bloody Lawrence and his spoon obsession-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nah, Stoker’s the most fun of that bunch.” Jake nipped briefly at his neck and Tom pushed him off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is the Fisher King in another form, isn’t it? The wounding of the self.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Self as emotion, emotional perception, the damaged sensitivity of a soul.” Jake desisted from chewing on his jugular. “Except the Fisher King is wounded by experience from his own curiosity. The maiden’s wound is inflicted from outside from insensitivity and practicality. So the yang part of a man decides that yes, the practical and financial pay offs of technology is worth the sacrifice of his yin inner self and he makes the deal with the devil – what does he need his inner self for anyway, when all his material needs are being met?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Until depression sets in and he doesn’t know why because he doesn’t understand what he’s denying himself. What more can there be.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is what Flynn and the others feel so passionately about.” Jake said wryly. “They meet a lot of handless maidens in their clients.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So she goes into the forest – which in this context represents the wild, a lone vigil in nature, Pan a la Forster, a journey to the self, where she meets her angel and the king.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom reflected. “And the silver hands are given with the best of intentions, but they’re just more artificiality, it doesn’t address her loss in any depth. A material answer, bought and paid for, it just covers up the deficit.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s the common answer to most spiritual pain isn’t it? Buy something. Go on a course. Join a gym. Or a case of going through the motions, creating an outward illusion to try to meet a need.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…Which we could do.” Tom saw it as soon as Jake said it and shut his eyes for a moment. “Now I see. Yes. We could go through the motions. We could act it out. All the bunny stuff. You always said you wouldn’t do the lines and corners even when I tried to talk you into it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Silver hands.” Jake said very gently. “We could act out what the others do – Gerry and Ash, Flynn and Riley. Fake it and hope we make it. But it won’t make those feelings of yours go away and it would just be – covering it up. Gilding the cage. You’d still feel it as a cage, and eventually you’d realise it didn’t make you happy, I’d just put a nice face over it. Covered it up so you looked like everyone else on the outside even if you couldn’t feel it inwardly. You wouldn’t feel I saw you or that I heard you, it wouldn’t be you. I’d far rather be a lousy, honest Top.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For a moment Tom lay against him, barely breathing as he processed that, remembering something he’d said to Dale months ago in a pasture in Wyoming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Why do you do this? Because you’ve never felt so loved in your life</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then he rolled up to find Jake’s mouth and kiss him. A lot, incoherently while Jake held his head between his hands, his long, strong fingers cradling. It was a while before Tom subsided on top of him, several things conflicting in mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m handless.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am handless.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a shock to view it in that way – and yet so true, so strongly true that Tom felt the knowledge slip right through him and unlock somewhere very deep inside. Jake had known this. Known it, patiently watched and waited, guarding, not pulling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…So what happens?” he heard himself asking, and his voice sounded embarrassingly cracked. Uneven. “With her silver hands?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“She’s all right for a while.” Jake stroked his hair, combing his fingers slowly through it and his voice was still gentler. “They have a baby. Then she starts to cry again and she can’t stop. The depression is back. She has servants, they meet her every need, her baby’s every need but she can’t feel happiness. She wants to touch her child for herself. Care for it herself. So she takes the child and slips away into the forest again. She’s wandering there when her child falls into a river. Her silver hands are useless, she can’t catch or save her child, there’s no one to help her. In desperation she thrusts her silver hands into the water anyway and tries – and her hands become flesh and blood again, she takes out her child with her own hands restored.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The artificial solution worked for a while. Staved the pain away a little longer. How true was that? Tom had met many unhappy men in his life who ticked from one new solution or distraction to the next, white noise that blocked out their unhappiness without ever being willing to face themselves and address the real problem beneath. Many made multiple false attempts without daring to go deep enough and ended up compelled to return again to the edge of the forest of their particular mess.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I don’t understand the end. I don’t know what that means!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The stress rose like a wave, choking, smothering. And Jake rose beneath him like a volcano, rolling him gently over onto his knees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB"></span><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We need to drink again my boy. You get the ice, I’ll get this stove going. Come on, we’ve got a night to get through.” <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-11.html">Continue on to Chapter 11</a></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
</div>
</div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-29375759301037037602015-09-24T15:24:00.003-07:002015-09-28T00:35:35.138-07:00Everest - Chapter 9<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: right;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">9</span><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
read the mail several times from start to finish, aware his mouth was dry and
his heart was starting to thud exactly as it had in the ice fall the night he
climbed down with Jake with altitude sickness. Then too fast for accuracy and
with several impatient stops to correct his typing he shot the message into the
machine and hit send. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.com">AdenD@horizon.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
Re: Well just to cheer you up <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale, what’s
happening with Flynn and the others? How are they handling this? Are you able
to let them handle it? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">And I’m a bloody hypocrite because in
your position I wouldn’t. I know what you should do, I know they need to know
and deal with this for you and that is what will work for both of us, always.
But… <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
instincts were strong to grab Jake, show him the mail and have him get the
satellite phone and call Flynn right now, whatever the hell time it was in
Wyoming; to deal with the risk fast because if Dale was managing to conceal
this in the way Tom knew he himself would be doing in Dale’s position, Flynn
needed to be tipped off immediately. In brat terms this was a major SOS. Huge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
yet Dale had confided in him… and Tom couldn’t bring himself to betray that
loyalty until he knew more and had more of an idea of how unsafe Dale really
was. In their weird and wonderful world there were so many different kinds of
safety aside from the basic physical, and so few people would understand how. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
<i>said</i> it. He said it. Plainly. To a
relative stranger. He didn’t understand it, which he admitted freely, but he
tried to, and Tom sat for a moment more in front of the laptop in the
communications tent, torn between respect and a great deal of concern, and a
whole lot of other searing emotion he couldn’t put a name to which filled his
throat so tight that swallowing was difficult. His hands were shaking on the
keyboard. He had only a moment more and he knew it; Jake was barely letting him
out of his sight, he had gone to the mess tent to collect breakfast for them
both. It was another rest day, life here swung between major feats of exertion
and the several days your body needed to recover from it. The clients were
going to be flat out after yesterday’s climb. Somehow he shut the laptop down
and by the time Jake appeared with a dish in his hands, the screen, thank God,
was safely blanking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Any
mail?” Jake offered him the dish as Tom got up. Lentil stew and rice; it was
one of the staple dishes the Sherpa cook made for his own men, quite a number
of them were extremely good cooks and spent the winter working in the tea
houses in the area as well as on the smallholdings and farms their families
ran. The cook had been delighted that Tom and Jake had defected entirely to his
home cooking and not the high carb American diet he was producing for the
clients, and what he made was excellent and far more to both of their tastes
being simple, spicy and fresh food that was much better digested and suited to
the altitude and the physical work here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Just
Dale.” Tom walked with him back towards their tent, the stew in his hand and
the smell of it today was turning his stomach. <i>And we’re not sharing details until I hear back from him. <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll
ring again in a day or two and see if they’ve got Gerry down off the ceiling
yet.” Jake helped himself over Tom’s shoulder to a piece of unidentified
vegetable with his fingers, tossed it up and caught it in his mouth as he walked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “He’s going to be much better there than
sweating it out in Seattle.” Tom said abruptly. Jake looked across at him,
eyebrow raised. Tom grimaced at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah
don’t give me that look, it’s not like I don’t get it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
took his arm, turning him round, and Tom shoved him off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Looking
to see who had a gun in your back.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re
not funny.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
sprawled out and ate on the roll mat in the doorway of their tent in the
growing sun and heat of the morning. Or Jake ate, and Tom tried to. After which
Jake leaned over to his rucksack and to Tom’s dismay pulled out the martinet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Let’s
get the morning chill out session sorted.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Arguing
didn’t help or delay things much at all; Jake just got his hand and less pulled
than just towed, gently but with the subtlety of a Sherman tank until Tom ended
up going where he wanted. He was developing a technique with the damned thing
that made Tom hate it with a passion, all eight strands of it, and it wasn’t
the same at all as the kind of spanking he associated with being in trouble. It
didn’t draw tears, it didn’t come with the same kind of emotional catharsis he
associated with those times, it just made him bloody wriggle like an eel and
yelp and make the kind of fuss he cringed to think about, and it did cause a
catharsis all right. Just a different one. Of having to let everything else go
because he couldn’t do all of that and this, he couldn’t feel that and this. It
meant being right here, immediately now, because it wasn’t just the damn
martinet it was Jake, right there, in his... face, kind of, and insisting in a
very Jake way of him letting his grip slip on the tension and breathing and
this morning – yeah this morning, however much he hated to admit it, he bloody
needed it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
those moments there was nothing at all but Jake. As if there was no one else at
all in base camp, or in Nepal. The rest of the world went right away, even Dale
and that bloody mail and the several tons of rusty iron apparently occupying
his chest, and it was like all that weight being shifted off him willing or
not. It was very difficult while laying pants down across his lap afterwards,
just about trying to breathe instead of gasp with his backside feeling like it
had hosted a nest of bees, to care about anything much except whatever Jake was
thinking, what he might do next, the solid pressure of his thighs, the warmth
of his hand and the sound of his breathing; nothing else mattered next to that.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Eventually
Jake’s hand ran over his lower back, patting mildly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Think
that’ll hold you for a few hours?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
total sod.” Tom said to the roll mat without very much conviction, and when he
could find the breath. “This is ridiculous, you can’t do this every bloody
day.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Watch
me.” Jake said cheerfully, helping him up. Which was a shock because Jake never
sounded serious about anything and never threatened idly. They lay side by
side, Tom sprawled face down beside Jake and watching the tranquility of the
mountains in the distance. They were faced away from the rest of base camp: the
bustle and woolly hats and sunglasses and bright jackets that made it look like
a mall in a ski resort. Eventually Jake put out a lazy hand to rummage through
the crate of books, pulling up titles to find one he hadn’t read yet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Want
one of these?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
shook his head. He was clinging to the feeling of subdued peacefulness, of
wanting to be as close to Jake as possible with all his strength and to not
think. At all. It was pure cowardice and yet he clung on. Jake stretched out
again beside him on his side, close enough that he pressed the whole length of
Tom, one heavy arm draped over his hip and his head above Tom’s like a human
shield. “What do you want to read right now?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Faust.”
Tom said it without thinking. The longing had been on his mind a few days.
“Paradise Lost. The Morte D’Arthur.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Angels
and demons and quests.” Jake mused, running a hand slowly up and down his hip. <i>“I love those who yearn for the impossible.”
</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His
rich voice made the most mundane of quotes into something magical. Musical,
something you could hear afresh and reflect on for hours. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“We must always change, renew,
rejuvenate ourselves, lest we harden.” </i>Tom quoted automatically from the same
author as it rose to his mind. Jake, head leaning on his hand, quirked an
eyebrow at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Are
you feeling hardened?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was an almighty crash that happened almost the instant Jake spoke; like a train
wreck taking place a few hundred feet away. Tom was on his feet a split second
later, aware that Jake, who had been behind him, was now half a step in front
of him, his shoulder full in front of Tom’s and blocking him. There was nothing
visible near base camp. Just about four hundred people in the camp frozen to
the spot, looking towards the icefall. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It
wasn’t in the fall.” Jake listened carefully to the echoes dying away. “That
was Nuptse.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No
one would be affected by it then. They were used to the thundering and crashes
and sudden cracks the glacier made, particularly at night; they were a steady
backdrop sound track to base camp. But the big ones were shocking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje
was on his knees some way off by the edge of the mess tent, re fixing the
screws that held the tent to the ice. All the tents needed re setting every
couple of days as the glacier moved under them; Tom had re done theirs
yesterday evening. He had paused to listen to the crash and as it died away, he
glanced back to Tom and smiled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Big
fall. Avalanche. Someone sing too loud again.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
had been in the rumours passing around base camp yesterday, that a group from
the Taiwanese expedition had been enjoying singing vigorously in the ice fall
to warm themselves while they took a few moments’ break, until a more
experienced climber pointed out to them the extreme unwisdom of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">John,
Bart and Max had emerged from the mess tent looking more interested than
concerned, and Bart had a camera in hand. Jake went across to them, he’d never
leave anyone even potentially anxious or in danger of wandering closer for a
better look, and Tom followed, pausing by Dorje to take the rope and brace it
for him while Dorje fixed the ice screw. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Other
expedition Sherpas talk about you.” Dorje told him, checking the screw and
moving on to the next. “The climber you cut out of ice. They say quiet man, not
say much but do much. Look like this at other climbers,” He pulled a grim
expression which was so odd on his usually cheerful face that Tom smiled in
spite of himself, “And they get out of way and be quiet. They happy you did
work right with them. Respect for mountain. Respect for people. I say you eat
our food, you climb ok, you might make good Sherpa one day.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
snorted, a brief laugh that was as much surprise as amusement. Dorje was
unusual for a Sherpa man around here, there were a number of things Tom
observed that to him said a great deal. The other Sherpa in their expedition
liked Dorje, he was welcome among them, and Tom had heard them call him ‘Ang
Dorje’ among themselves; the ‘Ang’ part used in Sherpa names was often a
diminutive; it meant ‘small one’ or ‘beloved’, a pet name from the people and
community in which he had grown up. But Dorje slept alone in his own tent
unlike any of the others, and they accepted that. He acted more alone than the
other Sherpa ever did who were a close knit group used to close social and
working bonds, and his sense of humour – it was gentle, but it was extremely
acute and it spoke to Tom of a number of things that set this man slightly
apart in his community in the way that only another who’d experienced being
apart in that way would recognise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
were a monk.” Tom said to him abruptly, hoping it wasn’t rude to ask but unable
not to. Dorje glanced up and smiled at him, a relaxed and easy smile that
didn’t fit with the power with which his hands were bolting the ice screws
down. He was short, but the thin, wiry muscle in his shoulders and trunk Tom
could only envy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do
you know of any tales of here, the spirits on the mountain?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje
nodded, fixing another rope. “My grandparents told me many. When they were
young the Lama in their village say never go to mountains. Spirits and demons
in mountains, you go there and not come back. Very bad. But when I young in
monastery, I learn the Sherpa people very long ago walked from their homeland
to look for Shangri La, and they stop here. Hard land, but they stop here.
Spirits, yes. Not demons. Are there spirits in your stories Tom?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Angels
and Demons, oh yes, aplenty. Jake was heading back towards them and Tom didn’t
answer; Jake had soaked himself in the same literature Tom loved and he picked
up too fast on hints through even the most obscure quotes; he’d already given
Jake uncomfortably too much information. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>You hypocrite, you’re telling Dale to do
one thing while doing another. You know damn well what you’d advise yourself to
do. His stomach clenched like a fist at the thought. </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
spent time that morning discreetly checking and re checking the email inbox on
the laptop while Jake read. Or at least he thought it was discreet. When, to
his relief the mail finally hit the box, Jake looked with him and turned over
to see the screen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
is the one you’ve been waiting for?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Damnit. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
read with him, scanning the lines rapidly and with concern. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.com">AdenD@horizon.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
Re: Re: Well just to cheer you up <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">>>What’s
happening with Flynn and the others? How are they handling this? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn tends to
make the world very small and straightforward when things are rough. It’s like
being able to find the stillness to think about ‘right now’ instead of
‘everything’. There’s so much conviction in his ‘I’m the only thing you need to
be paying attention to’ attitude that I find myself believing him. Paul is Paul
only more so, he’s been amazing. Riley calls this standard brat stuff and is
completely unstressed about it – to quote him, my work scares him; this is
normal. Jasper is also very unfreaked by it. This kind of thing figures pretty
strongly in his philosophy, it’s something you have a responsibility to do and
it’s good, it’s not something to worry about. I’m stunned at how patient
they’re being with this mess. It doesn’t matter. They tell me that over and
over again, it doesn’t matter, not to stress about it, it’s all a part of
getting where we want to go. In their perspective the occasional disasters are
just hiccups, nothing more significant. Gerry says the same thing, that in mid
disaster he’s always convinced this time the world is ending and he finds
himself avoiding Ash’s conviction that no it isn’t, this is fine, this is just
a problem we can plan for and deal with. It’s that ability to keep your eyes on
the big picture, not get lost in the moment. I do that all too easily. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gerry has joined
Riley in agreeing mine is the total reversal of their experience of being
stressed out or in trouble, they both swear their chores quadruple if they’re
grounded. I use any kind of activity or distraction to zone out and get further
away, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to break the habit of. Flynn and the
others work in a similar way with clients, starting them out in a very small
structured routine and enlarging it gradually. There’s a sort of pyramid of
functionality, starting with eating well, sleeping well and being able to be
calm, and working upwards, in line with criteria for being allowed to leave the
house, leave the yard, work with someone, work alone, etc. A few times I’ve
reached the absolute bottom of the pyramid and been sent to bed for a few hours
to calm down, which also helps me keep in mind that calming myself down is
something I have to actively focus on and accept help with if I want more rope.
Watching the client and joining in monitoring his level of functionality has
given me a clearer understanding of my own experience of it. I never would have
tried reducing stimulation or deliberately managing my stress in this way when
I was at work or put any effort into figuring out why I felt and why, I just
used more and more distraction to block it out, sublimated it, and I can see
now why bad became worse. I don’t ever remember anyone teaching me ‘this is how
to calm yourself down’. ‘This is how to figure out what your problem is and
deal with it when you’re in a state’. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention on
the day in school they taught everyone else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I suspect Gerry
is also on what Riley refers to as ‘a tight leash’, but is looking calmer and
more relaxed than he was when he first arrived, certainly he’s smiling far
more. I can see things being kept very deliberately calm in the house right
now, there’s a team effort going on. Ash is working Gerry hard, they’ve been
out with Flynn and Riley every day, and Ri is getting worked just as hard from
what he says, and from the chores he and Flynn are dealing with before he comes
in for dinner. Luath is going out with them too, and I suspect he’s pushing
himself as much as Ash is pushing Gerry, and the same way Jasper pushes the
client. Exercise, organisation, things to do, and tired enough to be relaxed
and to sleep well: it’s a plan I know. There was something in one of Flynn’s
papers on neurological regulation, sensory organisation and activation of the
frontal lobe via exercise and physical tasks, I need to get his papers out and
re read them more thoroughly. I distinctly remember thinking when I first came
to the ranch that they had hit on an extremely useful excuse for a free source
of labour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">>>Are you
able to let them handle it? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes. They’re
making it as easy as possible, we’re talking more about it than is at all
comfortable, and now of course they’re taking no crap about it either, which
was the aim but sometimes is easier to cope with than others. Breakfast time
didn’t go too well a couple of days ago and Paul and Flynn both walked with me
out as far as the pasture and out of earshot of the house, where I tried to
explain some of it, which didn’t go well, and Paul as soon as he got the gist,
went straight to what I actually meant. Try standing in a wet pasture in the
rain at seven am in the morning, politely stammering out that it’s somewhat
discomfiting having a crisis in front of witnesses with Paul interpreting by
yelling at the top of his voice with dramatic emphasis. It’s difficult to stay
stressed once someone’s made you laugh like that, and hard to feel like an
idiot when Paul’s cheerfully acting a far bigger one. The morning did get
better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">How are you
handling anything with Jake when you’re under canvas and around other people
all the time? That’s pure curiosity and an extremely personal question, I don’t
expect an answer, and Riley has said before that you and Jake are often with or
around teams of people you’re guiding, so this is probably something you’re
very used to. I’m not sure on reflection how I would cope being anywhere with
the others where they weren’t free to react as they usually do. I rely on it
too much, especially at times when I’m not very together. But then this is
still fairly new to me, and I live in a household where there’s no time or
activity off limits. No one’s worried about what the client hears or sees
unless things get fully physical, as he’s participating in the same standards
and values, just in a different role and to a different degree to me and to
Riley. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Where are you on
the mountain? I know a climb up to camp three was next on the schedule. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thinking of you <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">He does it. It scares the hell out of
him but he does it anyway. He’s barely known for a year what this even is, and
he’s light years ahead of me now. I do none of this. I won’t even try. Even
here, I won’t try. Not really. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
shame was so powerful it was choking. And yet other parts of what Dale so
honestly explained grabbed him by the throat with emotions too peculiar to
name. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
telling you a lot, isn’t he?” Jake said mildly as he finished reading. Tom
didn’t answer for a moment, struggling to take his eyes off paragraph four
since it was gripping him with a really horrible kind of morbid fascination in
amongst all the rest of the turmoil. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah.
If you ever, <i>ever</i> dare even try
that…” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What,
shouting with you in pastures?” Jake gave him a brief, affectionate grin. “You
look like you’re finding it far too interesting a thought. Are you happy he’s
ok or do you want me to phone Flynn?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
wouldn’t drop him in it like that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
would if you thought he was in trouble.” Jake leaned his chin on Tom’s shoulder
to read through again, his hand slipping companionably into Tom’s hip pocket.
“It sounds to me like they’re well aware of what’s going on.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
dug an acute elbow into his ribs as Jake’s hand wandered. “Stop it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
wasn’t built to be celibate.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Me
either. Get off.” Tom rolled over and lay on his back next to him, shoulder
hard against Jake’s. Jake propped his head on his hand, looking down at him.
His St George’s medal hung a little way out from the hollow of his throat, a
tiny wrought silver thing that Tom knew very well from daily sight of it. There
was nothing more fitting that Jake could be wearing. Shaggy faced, scruffy, his
golden hair on end, against the backdrop of the cold, bright morning and the
sharp colour of the tent skin he was beautiful. A shining man, vibrantly alive
in every inch of his skin as he was in everything he did, from pitching a tent
to climbing a rope to reading a book, to that lazy, sweet smile of his he was
directing down into Tom’s eyes right now. A golden man. Tom put a hand out to
roughly ruffle his hair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Find
something to do, you’re only reading my mail because you’re bored.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
we’re here, celibate, eating lentils, freezing our balls off, what are we
supposed to do all day?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Read.
Meditate.” Tom grabbed the nearest book from the crate and whapped him fairly
gently over the head with it. “Improve your filthy mind. This isn’t supposed to
be easy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
laughed but grabbed the book before he got whapped again. “Hike with me down to
Tengboche.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
bloody miles.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
looked at him, for a moment seriously torn. Jake gave him a smile that bordered
on the wicked, raising his eyebrows. Tom shook his head and sat up, grabbing to
collect his sleeping bag. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Rest
days are supposed to be about resting. Climbing this mountain is supposed to be
about concentration, preparation, not heading down into the valley every five
minutes because you need a shag.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
not complicated.” Jake got lazily to his feet, starting to pack his rucksack.
“I’ll tell Bill we’re off.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was a two-day hike down to Tengboche. The trail down was getting busier with
expeditions and yak trains heading up the valley with equipment towards base
camp as they came down, and they spent two days walking with the increased
speed of the increasingly acclimatised, down through the barren, bare and harsh
landscape to spend the night at the spot where they’d slept last time, and then
in the morning down further through the valley. Past the Mani prayer stones,
through the villages and their small shrines, and into the deeper valley which
now, a few weeks after they’d last been here, had its hill slopes alive with
blossoming rhododendrons everywhere, their large, exotic blooms of all colours
everywhere you looked. With the rich air over two thousand feet lower than base
camp, the softer light away from the glare of the ice, the heat of the day and
the beauty of the flowers and hills, it was like walking into Immanuel’s Land
from another story that Tom had known deeply from his childhood and onward. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“And
when thou comest there,” </i>he said half to himself, <i>“From there thou mayest see the gates of the Celestial City.”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
glanced across to him and smiled; looking with him back up the trail they had
come down. Everest and Lhotse dominated the skyline here in the distance. The
white mountains, the gates of Celestial City. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
went up into the hills by the monastery and there they dropped their rucksacks
and sat down together on the rough grass with the clear view down across the
carved red and white buildings on the plateau, the whitewashed stupas and the
prayer flags that fluttered in the wind. Tom propped his elbows on his knees,
losing awareness of aching legs as he watched the tiny figures of tourists and
the red robes of the monks in the courtyards among the buildings. It was a
panorama from the gods. About five pm when the light was well softened and it
grew quiet, and the moving figures of people among the buildings grew few and
far between, Jake got up and brushed his now very well worn pants off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Coming?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
must have looked like a couple of tramps. The tourists had left, seeking the
warmth of the teahouses in the village. Twilight was starting to draw in and
the temperature plummet as the sun went, and Tom paused by the carved gateway,
looking at the two brightly painted statues of dragons snarling outward into
the valley, one on either side. A monk was walking unhurriedly towards them,
keys in his hand. Jake made a slight bow to him, smiling. Tom had never yet
seen many people resist that smile, mostly because it was, like Jake himself,
honestly warm and glad to meet them, and the monk returned it, looking from him
to Tom. Then without a word he gestured a hand welcoming them past him into the
yard, and he walked away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
had obviously been about to lock up. It was a gesture of kindness, a
willingness to be inconvenienced, and its simplicity was touching. Tom walked
in silence through the grey stone paved courtyards, the steep stone steps and
walkways, past the buildings, the stupas, pausing before the shrines. So
different from the ancient painted altars in the little chapels of the
cathedral where he had grown up, but in the same bright colours. Different
figures and faces, but still a place that held a kernel, a steady burning
memory of years of people’s hopes, faith, questions, requests, the reliquary
for centuries of faith and human feeling. Like there, the peace retained and
soaked deep within the stone was tangible. There was no one else here now. Only
the one monk lived in the courtyard to keep the keys, no meditations or
teaching went on in the dimly lit rooms of bright red, blues, greens and golds
on the pillars and walls with the polished wood floors and blue and green
vaulted ceilings, but from the courtyard the sky began to turn a soft red as
the sun sank and clouds drifted like smoke before the mountains. The red
painted windows with their tiny, ornate lattices let in the growing dark and
the empty rooms held the stillness that Tom knew from the cathedral he had
spent his childhood in. Careful to walk clockwise around each sacred object, he
stood for a moment before a mighty prayer wheel, turning it softly with one
hand. In Kathmandu there were prayer wheels set against the walls turned daily
by the locals as they passed them by. Faith was built into the very walls where
these people lived, it was tangible and peaceful and beautiful here in this
open place on the roof of the world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Om mani padme hum</i>, the mantra was
written on paper that was placed within these wheels so turning them was to
repeat the mantra with its purifying energy. The speech of enlightenment with
meaning built into each syllable. From what Tom understood from the sterility
of books, it didn’t translate well into English and he knew his comprehension
of this was superficial to put it mildly, but the six syllables were meant to
touch and purify the six realms of suffering. The energy of the mantra was said
to transform the six negative emotions of pride, jealousy, desire, ignorance,
greed and anger, to clear the disturbing emotions from the mind that led to
negative force and suffering. Om for pride and ego, ma for jealousy, ni for
passion, pad for ignorance and prejudice, me for greed and possessiveness, hum
for aggression and hatred, The same thoughts, just by different names to the
ones he’d grown up with on another continent to here, in another ancient city. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Samael,
of mindfulness. Azrael, of stability. Ramiel, of trust. Uriel, of honesty.
Gabriel, of integrity. Raphael, the angel of the courage to undertake tasks
that were tedious, difficult and unglamorous, with sacrifice involved. Michael…
<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
swallowed on that thought and looked around for Jake. He was standing before a
shrine, tall and chiseled even in the windcheater and fleece he wore, leaner
than he had been a month ago and more weather beaten in the face, his golden
hair flying in the wind although he took no notice of it. One of them light,
one of them dark. Day and night. Sunshine and shadow. It was so extreme a
difference when they stood side by side that it was almost silly. His hand was
still resting on the prayer wheel. Tom spun it again, slowly, watching it turn
with the mountains in view through the gaps in the wood, thinking of Dale on
the other side of the world, near other mountains, with so much more strength
than he had. And the crushing weight of the dragon on his own back, even here
in the respite of the silence in the valley around him. And even if he barely
understood it, he found himself reaching for what very little he did know in
desperation. In supplication. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anger. My sin is anger, I name it and
please, I let this anger go. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I will not
carry it with me any longer, I will not let it hurt Jake or what we came to do
here, I will not let it weaken me, or take it up onto your mountain or take
anything negative into your holy places. Om mani padme hum. I know what I come
to do here, and I let this go. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
glorious weather in the valley turned as we reached Gorak Shep on the return
hike back up the glacier. They say it rarely snows at base camp, as it’s too
cold. However, we hit base camp late afternoon with the sky a dark grey and
strong wind blasting light snow into our faces, and most of the mountains above
camp had disappeared under thick cloud which gave away the weather conditions
up high. Bill, Spitz, Dorje, Max, Shem and Bart were huddled together around
the radio in the communications tent and Max was pulling up some slowly moving
multi coloured weather picture on the open laptop. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s
two teams stuck up at camp three.” Bill said soberly when he saw us. “The first
summit attempt was planned for the day after tomorrow, but they haven’t been
able to get up to camp four, they’re pinned down where they are and it’s pretty
bad there.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
glanced at the screen, looked sideways at Bill’s face and I saw his face
shutter as he unclipped the harness of his rucksack, freezing up again where
for the last thirty six hours alone with me I’d seen it be more mobile and him,
and known he’d felt some peace. Shem tried to catch his eye and give him a
smile, without success; he wasn’t looking. I hoped she wasn’t going to try
mothering him. I’ve seen both men and women try mothering Tom; something about
him just pulls that out of some people and it never goes well. I dumped my
rucksack by the door and came to lean on the back of Max’s deckchair, looking
over his shoulder at the screen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
is it lower down?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Max
sat back to let me see. “They’re saying it’s blowing hard at camp two but not
the blasts they’re getting higher up. Camp one isn’t too bad. This came out of
nowhere, the weather forecasts were ok last night and the guys at camp three
said the wind just hit up there like a bomb in the early hours.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Looks
like they’ll be waiting a few more days to make their summit attempt.” Bart commented.
He was leaning on Max’s other side, these two were becoming like Laurel and
Hardy. Wherever you found one you found the other, they were both easy going
and upbeat guys who were openly enjoying themselves being here and it was
visible even in their concern now. “They’ll be bored to death killing time up
there.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill
shook his head. “They don’t have a few days. It’s bloody thin air up at camp
three; you’re weakening every hour you spend up there. If they sit at that
altitude for long they’ll run out of supplies and the energy and strength to
climb any higher. That was what happened to my team here a few years ago, we
couldn’t get up above camp three on our attempt, the weather didn’t break in
time and we had to come back down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Max
looked both impressed and concerned. We’d been saying this kind of thing to him
and all the clients regularly since they got here, but most people take in
information in small pieces, processing slowly as experience builds up. What
looks at first like a manageable big picture turns into a nightmare when you
start trying to take in all the details. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
you didn’t make another attempt?” Bart asked him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill
shook his head. “We were financed for supplies, food and oxygen for one
attempt, and that was big money. Not many teams can cover coming back down to
base camp for a decent rest, re supply, then head back up again, even if their
permit allows it. It all hangs on the weather.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
didn’t mention what it was like for a group of a group of army men to give up
on their objective when they’re guys who don’t quit easily, admit their own
fitness deteriorating when their fitness is a matter of fierce pride, and come
home without the summit attempt being mad. I knew the whole story and dropped a
hand on Bill’s shoulder as he passed, and got a brief smile from him. He loved
having a team of men to organise here, a base in need of a quartermaster and
active things to do, this was what he excelled at and, better still, from my
point of view he was thoroughly enjoying himself doing it while accepting Tom
and my need to vanish down the valley, up to camp two, hike up and down the
plateau, move all the tents and dig them in better… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
like having a bloody golden retriever with you around the place,” he’d said to
me more than once in the last few years. “Running laps around you, covering
three times the distance everyone else does, diving into any body of water it
passes, and just when you’re knackered and you want a sit down and a beer, it
brings you a bloody Frisbee.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was balding slightly on top, his breath was steaming in front of him, he looked
enlivened rather than cold, and he’d get far more fun out of organisation here
than he would have done kicking around base camp in the mad world of swinging from
frantic, hard activity to waiting and killing time if we’d had the small
private expedition we’d planned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
are you feeling?” Shem said to me quietly enough not to attract client
attention. I smiled at her, going to grab our rucksacks. Tom was still by the
door. Silent; he goes into statue mode when he doesn’t want to talk and is
keeping several arms’ lengths between him and anyone else in the vicinity.
Fencing length. I realised it once, watching him standing talking to someone.
He chose a length that a few centuries back would have been a comfortable one
for his sword to meet someone else’s in the middle. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Great
thanks. A few days hanging around in high oxygen and I’d never know it
happened.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good.
I still want to check you over before you go up again.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Judging
by Tom’s hard look at me, he’d be insisting too. He’d done some fairly thorough
physicals on me while we were down in the valley, with a little more groping
than most doctors went in for, but a very nice bedside manner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our
tent was where we’d left it, although someone had re fixed the screws and
ropes. Probably Dorje; he kept a special eye on Tom. I think he’d noticed who
checked the screws and ropes on the tents in the early hours, or who checked on
the insulation of the clients’ tents, made sure the water supply ran clear and
the hose didn’t freeze up, jobs the Sherpa men just as quietly did themselves
for all of us. The wind was getting higher as we stripped off boots and jackets
and crawled into the tent. We rarely shut the flaps and zipped up during the
day, but I zipped it tight behind us to keep the warmth in and the dust and
snow being blasted off the glacier by the wind. For a moment we edged around
each other on our knees, sorting things out, putting things back in the tiny
space of the tent. Tom is actually ferociously tidy. Neither of us like
clutter, we tend to have the bare minimum anyway in terms of possessions other
than books, but Tom keeps any living space we’re using in rigid order. He can
organise equipment with precise detail no matter how complicated, it’s because
to him that’s interesting; interesting enough to grab his whole attention by
the balls and give him the focus he needs. With things he doesn’t care that
much about… he’s never said it, but I wonder if there aren’t many mundane
things he might find difficult to do if he didn’t discipline himself so
strongly to get on with it, sharply, efficiently and as if he’s doing it under
threat of death. He shaves like that. He dresses like that. We’re both
all-or-nothing kind of people with only two speed settings on our dials, like
the British Royal Green Jackets regiment. ‘Stop’ and ‘full speed ahead’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
collected him gently by the scruff of the neck and lifted him away from putting
our boots tidily, dropping him like a kitten on his stomach on the thickest
part of the mat and sleeping bags that protected him from the ice below. And
lay down beside him to prop myself on one elbow, the other arm heavily across
his lower back to keep him there. Not that he was doing a lot of moving; he was
glancing back at me with distinct apprehension and a lot of attention, which
was just what I was aiming for. While we were down in the valley we’d been
occupied most of the day with hiking – and the fast, hard stuff we both loved –
punctuated with finding somewhere very quiet and very out of the way at night
to spend our private hours very much involved in our other favourite activity.
We’d had the option of finding a tea house or lodge in the villages, the
shelter of a warmish room to sleep in, hot food and showers but we’d both
preferred to be in as wild and isolated a place as possible to be in the open
air together, largely sleeping only during the necessary breaks. Going for days
up here where it was not possible for much more than a chaste kiss or embrace,
we were both starved by the time we found somewhere private for a few hours. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As
a result, the best we managed was a strip wash in a stream somewhere around
Tengboche, and that had felt like deep luxury, we’d washed in many worse places
than a clear if icy mountain stream. But we’d had plenty of physical outlets of
the kind that drains Tom down, like a high blood race horse needs draining down
daily to stay sane. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’d
realised this early, in the very first days before we bolted together to Cairo.
Tom misses nothing. That was easily said; many men are sharp eyed and with
sharp memories, you meet plenty of them in any kind of military or police job
and I’d known a few in my time. In quite a different way, Tom wasn’t able to
miss stuff. We had casually been drinking coffee together somewhere in a
courtyard square, he had been scribbling at some job application for which he
had no pen and glared at me when I provided him with one from my pocket. His
black hair was wild, it was always wild, his shirt was clean but somehow looked
as if he’d slept in it, his jaw was as sharp as a knife, angled like his nose
and the straight line of his brow, and it looked like a wolf sat across the
table from me. Lean and edged and watching the world from the sides of his eyes
in the daylight. We’d first met at night; it was much more his element. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’d
glanced up at an odd sound across the square and he’d seen me look and muttered
without stopping scrawling rapidly on the form for a job he didn’t want and any
excuse he could find to keep me at arm’s length across the table, but not
actually going away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
the kid in the red sweatshirt with the plastic whistle.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Where?”
I looked around the square. He still didn’t look up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Four
tables to the left, 2 o clock. With the woman with the black hair and the denim
jacket and the kid in the buggy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was right. I swirled my coffee in my hand, which always made me think of
Philip’s tone of weary amusement, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Jacob, would you be kind enough to drink
that rather than play with it please?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
made you notice them?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
shrugged, still scrawling and sounding irritable because I was sitting here
talking and not taking the heavy hints and going away. He was on to a lost
cause with that plan. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They
were in the queue when you got the coffee.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d
been on the other side of the square, pretending that he wasn’t watching me.
Interested, I sat back in my chair and sipped Americano. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Who
else was in the queue then?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
listed them. Shortly, without looking up. No particular observations, but a
basic description of their face, the clothes, the colours. Where they were
sitting now. The faces of the three youngsters serving behind the coffee bar. A
lot of the coffee brands and prices listed on the notice board. It wasn’t
exact, he didn’t have perfect recall, he remembered bits, and it wasn’t with
Sherlock Holmes deductions – a man I’d always felt would have benefitted from
Watson spending a few weeks on the ranch and acquiring a good paddle. It was
just normal noticing in highly compacted amounts, like a zip file. Things he’d
seen and heard in the space of a minute or two of immersion in a situation
where I’d noticed the freckles on the nose of the boy who served me coffee and
perhaps a few hazy recollections of the man who stood in front of me in the
queue and most of the rest had passed me back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With
observation, I realised this happened to him all the time. It wasn’t a
superpower, he wasn’t aware particularly that he perceived things differently
to anyone else. But, if we walked through a market together, I would notice a
few stalls other than ones I bought things at, a few items, a few people. He in
the same space of time while walking would notice most of the stalls, details
of what was on them, prices he’d seen and heard as he walked by, details of
people who’d been around us, what their conversations had been about, what they
had been wearing. Multiple amounts of information would have flooded his brain
and registered itself there, more than into mine in the same space of time.
Once he told me wearily that it was like a jug of water being poured into his
head. All at once, whether he was ready or not, whether he was full or not;
here it came in a relentless flow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Think
of it like buses, Jake.” Mr Hauser had said to me years ago when he sat with me
to review the findings of the school report. “One city has one bus service.
Regulated, timed, the buses come and go to the schedule. This is like the bus
services from three cities all being sent to work in one city together. Buses
are arriving and leaving and whizzing around, groups of them are turning up
together, they’re all over the place.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom’s
bus service worked a different route to mine, but I understood it. Noisy, busy,
crowded, social, it could get overwhelming to him and I’d see him shut down.
Overload. He’d get too full and the whites of his eyes would start to show and
he’d struggle to contain it and his head would race until sleep wasn’t just
difficult, it was impossible which knocked the sensory overstimulation higher
still and he reached a sense of panic and the need to get away. Danger Will
Robinson, Danger. The only thing that worked when we hit that point was to be
completely alone somewhere outside, mostly in silence, preferably somewhere
high, help him physically get decompressed and wait it out. But he was like me
too in that if he was somewhere that grabbed his mind, somewhere interesting,
doing something interesting, actively demanding enough to keep his body drained
and organised. he was fine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Climbing
around here: that ticked all the boxes. On those days I could see his motor
running on high, he loved it. Laying around base camp resting? We both get the
concept of just Being, in open space somewhere wild. Tom is three parts wolf
and can lay for hours in the grass against me just looking at the world around
him, aware and resting, part of that peace if we’re alone in it. But base camp
isn’t peaceful and you’re never really alone. He would have found it hard going
anyway as time went on, although he’d been determined it would be fine. Which
meant grabbing his mind and keeping it somewhere interesting and focused and
strongly enough that he could concentrate on that and not on the whirling
cocktail being mixed in his head. I know my guy and his buttons, and I wanted
them good and pressed right now before he had time to start building up another
charge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When
I really want him to concentrate I usually put him face down beside me instead
of just laying beside me to rest. It’s a ritual he gets at the gut level that
really matters to Tom, it makes him feel contained without being trapped, and
it takes mental effort from him, which helps. He usually gets more and better
quality rest in those hours – and sometimes when things are rough, like just
now, I make him do it for hours, for one hell of a lot of his time – more than
he ever does at night, I think because it makes him stop his mind running.
Mental rest as much as physical. I never pushed him about sleep, he’d had
decades of people stressing him out about sleep and he got stressed enough
about it all by himself. Rest, yeah I’d see he rested. Properly. Sleep? We
weren’t flapping about that. If I got him de stressed enough then he slept,
when he wasn’t thinking about it or trying to; he’d slept a good half of the
night out in the valley at Tengboche. Right now though, being put down beside
me wasn’t enough by itself to pull his mind together, it wasn’t strong enough
to compete with everything else flooded in there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
ran my hand up his spine to the back of his head and ran my fingers lightly
through his hair. Combing. Stroking from the crown of his head to the nape of
his neck. The shiver was instant, it was almost a physical shake like a dog
trying to get water off its coat. Sex, yes. Any time. With enthusiasm, even if
it’s under a grouchy shell. That kind of touch makes a lot of sense to Tom.
Being petted? Uhm. Under protest. Largely. Unless it’s really dark and he’s
really upset and he’s mostly hoping neither of us are paying attention. Today
that was tough. I slowly lifted my hand to the crown of his head again,
stroking my fingers gently through his hair, stroking his scalp, and this time
he half rolled over to fend me off. I swatted him soundly. For a moment dark
blue eyes glared at me, intense and shocked and questioning. I put him right
back on his stomach and went back to stroking his hair. Not lightly enough to
be annoying, but gently. Soothingly, with all the care I could put into it. I
swear I could see minute squirming all over from head to foot like bits of him
were trying to inch away. I swatted him again. Hard; I never kidded about this
kind of thing. Shoulders hunched now. Outrage. His head was turned into his
arms, he was radiating protest. Another hard swat, and hastily, the protest
tuned down a bit and the shoulders dropped out of any obvious demonstration of
Sod Off. I went on stroking. Not a word. Relaxed, breathing, unhurried. He
picks that kind of thing up by osmosis too; Tom usually knows my mood before I
do. I had all his attention all right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was about ten minutes of him silently radiating of what he thought of this
before I saw the spikiness start to leave his shoulders. He lay flatter
somehow, as though his body let itself go against the ground next to me and
melted, and inch by inch his head relaxed forward, until he was breathing
softly. Limp. His face was slightly turned towards mine and his eyes were half
unfocused which he only ever does when he really lets go, looking at nothing in
particular. I leaned down to drop a quiet, firm kiss against the top of his
head and went on stroking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Angels and demons and deities, oh my. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d
been quiet since the hour we spent at Tengboche monastery, but not his
shut-down kind of quiet like a wolf frozen on the hill, stood still to avoid
being seen. Tom absorbs culture like he does languages; the amount he drinks in
from what’s going on around him translates almost immediately into him just
knowing bits and pieces wherever we are, and he’s as attuned to atmosphere and
the feel of a place as he is to any piece of fiction or poetry or historical
fact he’s absorbed. We’re both romanticists; put us in Cairo and we’re
breathing a whole lot of Howard Carter mixed up with Elizabeth Peters, Agatha
Christie, the known records of Seti the first and random bits of Exodus. Stick
us in Italy and we’ll be quoting EM Forster to each other alongside heads full
of Angelo, St Paul, Julius Caesar and Lindsey Davis, and half the time what one
of us starts quoting the other one will finish because we both soak ourselves
in the same books and poets and legends. Everest was a quest we’d been talking
about for years, something we’d always wanted to do, and this was a holy place
to the people who lived here. It was not just a mountain to physically get up,
it was a real and genuine quest. A pilgrimage in the sense that Tom had taught
me about of pilgrimage of old, with Chaucer among others, barefoot through the
streets and on knees through the stone steps of the cathedral. A challenge of
body, heart and mind in a sacred place. Tom would not miss one single nuance of
that at gut level, he feels all of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">While
we were in England – the one time we went there together – I went early one
morning to a cathedral. Not ‘his’ cathedral, just one of them. I went alone, I
knew he wouldn’t come with me; in the end that turned out to be something of a
mistake. Tom went out while I was gone and swam the harbour wall at Dover which
is one of the toughest wild water swimming challenges in Europe, not to mention
the need to play chicken with cruise ships and cross channel ferries. But in
that hour alone I walked through the stone arch and gateway into the cathedral
close, what was left of the shell of the abbey with its outer wall and houses
and outbuildings that had stood here centuries before. The green grass close in
the middle was immaculately manicured and several statues and memorials were in
the garden there. The grace and favour houses around the perimeter were built
on the foundations of much older abbey buildings, quiet and old and picturesque
houses that spoke of their age, occupied by quiet and mostly elderly people
closely attached to the church. The large house stood behind the railings with
extensive gardens, the Bishop’s ‘palace’, by the cathedral itself. Mighty and
peaceful and radiating its stolid atmosphere over the city with its ancient
stone. It had been the beating heart of the city for over a thousand years and
was in no hurry, time moved more slowly within those walls. Towering above
everything, it stood sheltered in a small, private enclave of those medieval
stone walls and the gates that were locked at night. The cloisters still stood
immaculate beyond the body of the church where once monks had worked and
walked. The small private chapels were occupied, the services and bells took
place among the tourists, and the walls and floors were lined with names,
dates, Latin inscriptions, the tombs and casts of knights, lords, ladies and
church leaders laying on top of them, their faces clear to see with their
names. The threadbare, greyed and spider thin Union Jack flags hung from the
walls with the faintest ghost of red, white and blue still distinguishable, the
British colours carried into battle by battalions several centuries ago,
carried by men on the battlefield and preserved here to honour those men whose
names lined plaques on the walls. The music, the ceremonies, the rituals and the
language, the living history of a thousand years. Tom had grown up in this. He
had been bred and grown in a sanctuary like this one, he’d been fed by words
like these and stones and history and beauty and the stories all around him
that were woven into every square foot of ground, and it was a part of his
bones. I could see him everywhere. I knew the feel of the place because I knew
him. When he haunted a city at night or went to climb a hill or be alone in a
forest in the dark – I thought this was some of what he was searching to feel.
The peaceful silence of this mighty place where memory and hope walked. Where
centuries of hush and people passing with their hearts and minds open had
soaked into the stone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This
place here in the Himalayas called to every inch of my Tom in the same way. An
open skied church, but a church of a kind all the same. A place where mundanity
lifted away and where the wildest of myths lived untouched, unsullied, alive in
nothing but faith to the people who lived here. The monastery had been the best
place I could think of where he’d find some real, tangible evidence of that
peace and focus to physically hold on to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“This place is Tartarus</i>.” He said after
a while, mostly mumbling it to the ground rather than directly to me in the
rough-end-of-Sussex accent he’s hung on to despite all his years out of
England. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
ruins at the bottom of the world. The prison of the Titans far below Olympus’s
slopes. Yes, I could see it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
place of the fallen angels.” Tom said after a moment more, while I reflected on
that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> The ruined grey rock, the complete lack of
life other than the moving, living Titan of ice and stone, the gloomy, storm
wracked lower shell of the crucible of the cosmos. The place where human life
was sustained only with great effort for short periods, beneath suddenly
turning weather, where a few mortals fought our way quietly up the slopes
towards the sun and the pinnacle, inching toward Olympus on our knees. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“And
there, all in their order, are the sources and ends of earth and misty
Tartarus… And this marvel is awful even to the deathless gods.”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
said, reflecting on a poem we both knew. “ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Are
you feeling particularly fallen then?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> He snorted, a faint laugh as he was currently
too relaxed to find the energy to do more. “Always.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
found the mail in his outbox that evening when I checked the weather on laptop
on my way past the communications tent. He wasn’t with me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.com">AdenD@horizon.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
Oh for God’s sake change the subject line occasionally <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">>> with
Paul yelling at the top of his voice with dramatic emphasis <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">... are you
serious?! How do you stand still in front of that? Jake wouldn’t dare, I’d
change my name and emigrate. The whole thought of it makes me want to go for a
long, long walk. Argh. In Inja’s sunny clime where I used to spend my time,
etcetera etcetera, and you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We’re still in
base camp. I made Jake take a few days rest to be sure he’d got over the
altitude sickness, and the weather turned and it’s been rough high up for the
last 24 hours. There are two teams at camp three right now, and according to
the radio they’ve dug in and not been able to move. It’s proving to be a
changeable year, with unpredictable weather slots. The trouble with that is
that as soon as there is a clear slot identified, a lot of teams will grab it
and try to go up together, and some of the teams are large and very slow
moving. The next plan we need to make is an expedition to camp 3, which will be
the longest expedition so far, and after that we’ll take a few rest days in
base camp and get ready for the final expedition to camp 4 and the summit attempt.
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">How we handle
stuff up here and in public. I’m not a lines or essays or corners sort of
person, I never have been. There aren’t that many corners in your average
jungle. There was a certain amount of thought on my part early on that I
probably should pull myself together and/or be made to do it, but Jake’s
useless at stressing about anything and just said it wasn’t for us. We live
pretty unmaterial lives too, so there isn’t much that can be withdrawn. I don’t
deal well with limited space, and it isn’t usually about issues that can wait,
so it is almost always physical. We’d most usually use a paddle, but we tried
out a few things for the times when discretion’s the better part of valour and
settled on some martinet thing Jake had as part of his Mounties kit for dusting
dress uniform, which is allegedly French traditional although I’ve told him it
looks downright kinky to me. It is practically silent and it hasn’t drawn
attention, and here most people are more interested in trying to sleep or get
warm than care what anyone else is doing in their tents, and while it’s
probably something that Gerry et al would frown on, we’ve worked on the
principle of what people don’t know won’t upset them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What’s the
significance of activating the frontal lobe? Regulation? If exercise does it,
we ought to be regulated to the nth degree up here but no one’s looking that
regulated to me. Possibly cold and low oxygen undoes the effect somewhat. The
household sounds under a tight regime right now, which I admit sounds quite
interesting. How is the train robbery investigation going? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Look after
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom</span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh my boy.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-10.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Continue on to Chapter 10</span></a></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</span></b></div>
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-2051038390415361492015-09-24T15:18:00.004-07:002015-09-28T00:16:13.481-07:00Everest - Chapter 8<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">8</span></i></b></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br />This chapter is dedicated to our dear friend Tom. Unfortunately just as we were posting last week’s installment, Thomas passed away surrounded by his family and messages of love from his many friends. He fought the good fight against cancer but couldn't battle the pneumonia that followed. His loved ones have said we could share this with you. Tom, whom many of you will know as one of the first members of the Falls Chance Discussion group, and who had been with us from the very start. <br /><br />Tom was an exceptional person. He was one of those that would have been welcomed with open arms at the ranch, and would very much have belonged there. Tom was an abused child who was put out of his home the day he graduated high school because he was gay. Instead of becoming embittered by his treatment, he went on to forge his own way in life and eventually found love and acceptance and everything he deserved, including his beloved long term partner with whom he was very happy. He found his way to our group and became friends with all of us, and family with some. If you ever get a chance, please do go back into the message history of the yahoo group or the barn on the forum, and read through some of the posts he made. As well as the many heartfelt and loving posts he made, he also bratted well with ChrisD and added a lot of fun and enthusiasm to this group and a good deal of encouragement to us keep writing. Tom also stepped up and volunteered his services and his time to help set up this Forum when Neo nuked up a year ago, and continued to give his time and effort as a moderator. We will always be very grateful for that. Our community of now over a thousand people, four novels and multiple novellas, would not be as it is today without Tom’s lively presence. <br /><br />In honor of Tom and the strength of character he had to overcome his hard start in life and only be kind and grateful to everyone he met, we'd like to challenge everyone to do five nice things for others during the next week. It could be donating money to a favorite charity, helping a neighbor with yardwork, complimenting someone you don't usually notice....just something to pass along the love that we remember from Tom out to others. You don't need to tell us about it, but knowing you participated would be nice. Cancer could silence Tom's voice, but we are all of us from our places all over the world a part of the community Tom loved, and we can carry Tom's spirit forever among us. <br /><br />And then....please treat yourself to a steak dinner and a piece of chocolate cake and think of Tom. Those are two conversations we'll always remember with a smile that Tom participated in. <br /><br />Rest in peace, friend. <br /><br />With our love, </i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a64d79; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br />R&R</i></span><b style="line-height: 12.2pt;"><i><span style="color: #b3a2c7; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-style-textfill-fill-alpha: 100.0%; mso-style-textfill-fill-color: #B3A2C7; mso-style-textfill-fill-colortransforms: "lumm=60000 lumo=40000"; mso-style-textfill-fill-themecolor: accent4; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themetint: 153;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a long, cold and horrible night. Tom drifted around the outside of the tent as much as was possible in the wind, trying to find some respite in the darkness under the blast of the cold and flurries of stinging snow and the whipping of canvas in between his frequent, obsessive glances between the tent flaps at Jake. His heart was still thundering, and somewhere in the early hours he brought up the coffee, stooped and retching over frosted, grey shale, alone. The communications tent was dark and icily cold, the equipment froze in the small hours of the morning and there was no one to talk to and nothing to say anyway. In the medical tent Shem dozed curled in a deckchair under a blanket and Jake slept on beneath the oxygen mask. Staying at a distance meant at least he wasn’t disturbing them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The other expedition compounds were stirring by 5.30am and it was getting light, Sherpas were starting to move around, kitting up, preparing breakfast and taking sleepy clients mugs of tea when Jake finally roused. Tom, standing in the half open flap of Shem’s tent stood long enough to hear his voice and know for absolute certain it was clear, and to hear Shem’s confirmation to Jake that his stats were back to normal, or as normal as any stats got around here; that he needed a couple of good rest days but he was fine, before he slipped away. A half way decent partner of course would have been there with him when he woke. Would be there with him now and being supportive, in fact would be unable to be anywhere else but with him, instead of having to remove himself as far as possible for fear of saying, doing or broadcasting things Jake really didn’t need to be burdened with this morning. But then it would come as no surprise to Jake; Tom had been letting him down in this way for years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He knew Jake would look for him, and he would go on looking until he found him. And forcing Jake to walk any distance or exert himself this morning was cruel; it was appallingly unfair. And yet the urge to get as far away as possible was still dominant. Strident. Too harsh to be ignored. Tom fought it down and somehow compromised with burying himself in the communications tent, trying to focus on the still mostly frozen equipment there. He heard the familiar boots on the shale outside, heard every step Jake made behind him and Jake’s hands rested on his shoulders, grasping them gently as Jake looked over his head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Until the sun’s been on it another hour, the only thing you could usefully do with that laptop is stick it in a gin and tonic.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom shrugged his shoulders away from his hands without looking up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How do you feel?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It didn’t get Jake’s hands successfully off him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Knackered, but fine. Shem said if we’d stayed up there last night I might well have moved on to a good case of altitude sickness but we came down early enough.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I could kill the bloody Australian team</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was as unreasonable a thought as it was an unkind one. That team would be devastated this morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve got you to thank for that.” Jake said more gently behind him. “It must have been a horrible night for you.” Argh. Tom hunched his shoulders hard enough this time to shake Jake’s hands off, almost physically shuddering at the wetness of that statement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh for God’s sake I’m a bloody grown up, I’m quite capable of understanding you didn’t do it on purpose. I am not some bloody bunny you need to pander to. Go and sleep, you need it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Go and sleep’. To rhyme with ‘piss off’.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was shocked by the arm that closed swiftly around his chest and hoisted him physically to his feet, and Tom lurched against that arm with all his strength as he realised what Jake was about to do. There was a confused, silent, harsh couple of seconds, then Jake got him turned around so Tom’s face was against his shoulder, wrapped that arm so tightly around him that it was impossible to move and scooped him up off the ground as if he weighed nothing at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It caused an immediate, devastating kind of implosion in Tom, a rush of so much ripped free in one go that was so unbearable that he wasn’t aware of anything for a moment except clinging to Jake so hard it hurt, and of Jake carrying him, his unhurried pace. And then that he sat down somewhere with his rough cheek against Tom’s equally rough face, his voice very quiet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know. I know. It was a hell of a night, it was horrible, I’m sorry.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From anyone but him it would have been utterly impossible to take. If anyone else but him had dared to try it, Tom would have knotted their legs behind their head. But if Tom was honest… Jake made it possible to take things from him that Tom knew he never would have been able to tolerate if he had to make the decision. Jake didn’t necessarily give him the option. And in Jake’s arms there was never a way out of feeling like this and of it all tearing free and discharging in one ugly go whether he was ready or not, because Jake got it. He heard everything. Not for the first time since he met Jake, shaking all over as his self control disintegrated, Tom found himself turning his jaw against Jake’s shoulder, unable to resist the impulse to bite, hard, to sink his teeth into what was, thank God, mostly fleece jacket but at least some of beneath that was Jake, skin and muscle and solid bone. It wasn’t through any desire to hurt. He never did understand it, although Jake didn’t move or react. He just went on holding Tom in that terribly safe prison, rocking slightly and slowly in the way no man ought to know how to do and which dragged up lines in Tom’s mind from a poem he hadn’t read in years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is…</span></i></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That really sucked.” Jake said in his ear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom’s jaw slowly relaxed, he felt the tension shudder out of him and instead leaned his forehead hard against Jake’s chest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.” Jake turned his head far enough to kiss what he could reach of Tom’s face. A brief brush of his lips and the heat of his breath and the unique taste and scent of him that was his alone, that only someone truly pathetic would have found as comforting as Tom did to the very core of his bones. “She is going to do this. She is going to push every single button we’ve got, there isn’t going to be any mercy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So toughen up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No. This is not about being hard enough.” Jake let him go and grabbed his face between both his hands. They were large enough to cradle Tom’s entire jaw, expert at doing it and very capable, and after hours where he’d glimpsed a future of never feeling Jake do this again, or seeing Jake’s ridiculously turquoise blue eyes look at him like this again, it was awful to feel and it made him shake harder. Jake didn’t let him twist away, holding Tom’s face very gently a bare few inches from his.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No one ever said ‘my strength is as of the strength of ten because I’m bloody harder than you are’.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If you’re looking for a pure heart you’ve got the wrong bastard following you around.” Tom said bitterly. Jake grinned, snatching another kiss that nipped softly at Tom’s lower lip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re kidding yourself. She isn’t going to make this easy for us, love. She’s going to set us the trials and they are going to be bitches to handle because that’s the whole point. That’s what we came here for. It’s not just whether we’re fit enough or we’ve got the tents in the right place and the weather holds, otherwise you’d be fine with taking any client who’s basically fit straight up there with us. You’re not because you know this. You don’t use a good time on a running machine as your qualification for hunting the grail. This is the stripping down process and we know it happens.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The preparation. Not straight forwardly physical. Not just about mental discipline. There were other parts of you that had to prepare too, parts you couldn’t shut off and leave comfortably out of it, no no-go areas, and right now Tom felt wretchedly ill prepared. Jake let him go, leaning his forehead against Tom’s, his breath warm against Tom’s face in the chill of the tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It sucked. And we handled it. And now we have to deal with it so if it happens again we’re better equipped.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Whenever they struggled with a physical challenge they’d consider it together. Break it down, analyse it. Plan to attack it, to work through it and break the barriers. Physical barriers were infinitely preferable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I thought you were going to die.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was impossible to explain to him. The sight of him, all his golden physical beauty, all his strength, his grace, his confidence… Broken, shaking and uncoordinated like a puppet on snapped strings, his always easy, beautiful voice slurred. It had hurt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My golden boy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a pathetic, private thought, hastily swallowed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Now I have warned thee of thy vain glory and of thy pride,” Tom said through his teeth to get the quote out at all. It was from a book he’d loved since he was nine, although it had taken him years to fully understand the pain and the chagrin of Lancelot, the greatest knight, the most skilled, the strongest of them all, that with all his athletic prowess and courage, he still did not have the quality required to find the Sangreal. Jake shook his head slightly against Tom’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No. Not pride.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ashamed of himself but considerably calmer, Tom folded his arms around Jake’s neck and hugged him with effort to put some serious comfort into it. Jake wasn’t showing it, but he had to be at least as tired, aching and sore as Tom was this morning, probably a lot worse, and he didn’t need drama, he needed a competent partner capable of meeting his needs and taking care of him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Shem said you were supposed to rest. Let’s eat and crash out, at least it’s quiet around here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What happened to your face?” Jake caught him before he could get up, tipping Tom’s face up again to look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Slipped against a ladder last night.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He saw what crossed Jake’s face. Only briefly, but it was there, and it was present in the softness of his voice, the care in his fingers near the bruise, and stupidly it helped. That he noticed and cared and looked like that about some stupid bruise really helped, Tom felt a rush of fury at himself for how much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did you hurt anything else?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, it’s fine, I-” Tom tried unsuccessfully to evade Jake’s hands unzipping his fleece, removing the multiple layers with far too much proficiency, turning his body in his hands and immediately finding the matching bruises on his shoulder and disappearing down his hip under his jeans. “It’s just a few bruises, that’s all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake ran his fingers very gently over the one on his hip and turned him back to even more lightly kiss the discoloured patch by his jaw, his lips feathering over the mark, and he snagged the laptop with one hand before he headed for their tent, keeping Tom very definitely in the other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When we are hiding a deeper fault, we tend to confess a lesser sin all the more vigorously…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom’s father had approved of the man who had said those words; they’d formed the basis of more than one sermon Tom had heard him give back in the dark ages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Laying beside Jake, who had read for about two minutes before he fell asleep once he’d seen them both undress and get into the warmth of their sleeping bags - alone, Tom wanted Jake to rest and knew his own difficulty in keeping still – Tom watched the prayer flags fluttering from the stupa. The puja had been the first such ceremony he had participated in for years, it was the stuff of years ago when it had been a part of everything, a natural part of daily life. Within the safety of the cathedral close, the walled and gated ancient and medieval walls and the grace and favour houses that had once been a part of the abbey, on the green lawn in the middle of the close with its statues, beneath the eyes of the saints and the carvings on the wall of the cathedral itself, he had been free to play and wander as a small child, in the one part of the city that was entirely safe. The heavy cathedral doors, each one twice the height of a man, stood open at all times and the cool gloom inside was lit by the pools of coloured light that streamed down from the stained glass windows, by the candles in their huge stands high above his head, and the wide stone walkways between the great carved stone pillars and the chiseled tombs and the written tablets on the walls and the old, ragged flags of long ago regiments, led to the quiet little chapels where sometimes services were held, and sometimes they were wholly empty places to sit in and breathe the quiet and the stillness of the stone. Past the racks of little candles with people’s prayers burning, up the wide stone steps with hollows worn away by feet and knees through centuries, deep enough for a little boy to sit in. To the cloisters, the square stone passage that ran around the hidden central garden with names carved into the stone flags of who lay beneath them, to the narrow stone steps down into the vaulted stone ceilings of the crypt. It was a world of bells, where the Hours were still marked as they had been in this building by the Benedictines a thousand years ago, where the lamps still burned on their heavy chains in the sacred places, where the same words were spoken at the altar, day and night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti</i>…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You read Latin.” Jake had said somewhere in Florence as they passed a tomb where Jake had tried to decipher the inscription and Tom had unthinkingly translated it aloud for him. In the dark that night on a quiet and rickety train bound for Naples, Tom had made a clumsy, inarticulate attempt to explain to him both the Latin and his need to escape Florence which was far too dangerously reminiscent a world of ancient stone, bells and statues. Jake had never once asked him to explain himself or where he came from; the swapping of history so normal to new lovers hadn’t been something he’d needed. He’d simply taken Tom as he was, wholly on trust, and for that trust Tom tried to tell him a little of what he could. And while he would have answered any questions Jake made of him, he was grateful too beyond words that Jake chose not to ask him for more. Few men were that generous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s the wrong sin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Once he had known them all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Not consciously; simply absorbed from the air around him where the words were as constant as the candles and the images on the walls and in the glass and flowed all day, every day. <i>Samael</i>, of mindfulness. <i>Azrael,</i> of stability. <i>Ramiel,</i> of trust. <i>Uriel</i>, of honesty. <i>Michael</i>…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The words were far too simple to express the meaning carried within each name. As a child he had loved those names. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He shook the thought off with an effort and tried the laptop again, desperate for some distraction. There were no further rants from Beau this morning – apparently she had accepted they were not abandoning Nepal for whatever she wanted to dig up. There was, to his rather flooding gladness, a mail from Dale. Short, to the point, in Dale’s extremely courteous tones, but his voice helped and it was audible even in the brief few lines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To: <u><span style="color: blue;">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</span></u><br />From: <u><span style="color: blue;">AdenD@horizon.com</span></u><br />Subject: Here is the news in English</span></b></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> My apologies for the delay in replying to your mail. I could at this point offer a number of excuses, but to be frank it’s been a rather crowded few days. You and Jake may like to know that Gerry is here. He took a plane out of Seattle one night when things all got a bit much, and Luath and Flynn met him at the Texas airport. He, Ash and Luath are currently staying with us. Gerry has some minor chronic gallstone concerns for which Ash explained they have booked surgery shortly in Seattle. We’re assured this is routine minor surgery, minimally invasive, and should result in Gerry being far more comfortable.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Sincerely</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake would want to know this. He was deeply attached to the men on that ranch of all ages, the letters he had regularly from Paul, from others in the group, brought him domestic news from homes they’d never visited, about friends and relatives they would never know, and yet Jake read them and replied to them wherever they happened to be, and he knew all about whose dog was limping and whose maiden aunt wasn’t on speaking terms with who. And he was very fond of Gerry. Tom glanced over at him, glanced at his watch to check the time in Wyoming and opened a new mail to reply, not disturbing him yet. He was ashamed enough that Jake’s first minutes of consciousness after his physical ordeal had been spent yet again sorting him out. He was also more than slightly ashamed of what had burst out of him to Shem in the middle of the night. Thankfully she was sleeping in this morning too, she’d been up most of the night with them, he hadn’t seen her and she’d confided in him as much as he had her – but it was information he would never ordinarily have spoken and in the cold light of day he wished he hadn’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For some reason it was much easier to type and think of the dark haired, quiet Englishman who would read this, who was reserved to the point of shyness and who looked at Flynn in a way that Tom entirely understood, because he saw Dale feel it too. Something sharp and unique and painfully… right. There were things he had said to Dale on the ranch in the summer that he had never shared with any other brat, or believed that they might be understood and matter to the other man in the same way they mattered to Jake and him. For some reason he didn’t understand he found himself speaking out again, the words coming out onto the screen in a rush in the same way they’d burst out last night to Shem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To: <u><span style="color: blue;">AdenD@horizon.com</span></u><br />From: <u><span style="color: blue;">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</span></u><br />Subject: Re: Here is the news in English</span></b></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I was glad of your email and any news that didn’t involve ice. We’ve had a bloody nasty few days. We went up to camp two as planned, made good time, no problems and were settling into our tents when an Australian team radioed down from camp three to say one of their team had fallen, and above camp one if they say someone’s ‘fallen’ they mean the climber was last seen plunging down several hundred feet of ice face. The ice might as well be granite, if you’ve bounced down several hundred vertical feet of it at high speed you’re not likely to get up again. The guy hadn’t clipped in to the safety line, he was probably in early stage hypoxia as it was the first time he’d been that high and no one was near enough to see he was in trouble, he lost his balance and was gone. We went out to take a look around and Jake found him. I’ve seen quite a few human remains in various states in my time, but this poor bastard was smashed, and I hope he was dead long before he came to a stop. There was a quick debate by radio with the Australian team about what they wanted to do, it’s not easy getting a body down from anywhere above base camp and a lot of risk for everyone involved in trying. The agreement was we left him where he was for his team to make a decision. Most bodies here are interred by being lowered into the nearest deep crevasse, it’s the best you can do. On the other hand, I’ve seen a certain amount of people up here not wanting to go anywhere near someone dead or dying, it’s too immediate a reality to deal with.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> We went back down to camp two and started to settle in again, and then Jake started sounding slurred and had a bad headache, all the signs of cerebral oedema, which scared the living hell out of me. I was livid with the Australian team that after climbing all day to our own carefully planned limits we’d had to go out to spend more energy at more altitude, and get stressed and upset which raises the risk from mountain sickness. Totally irrational, the poor bastard didn’t mean to fall and there was nothing his team could have done. It’s a constant balancing act up here between what you can safely plan to do, taking into account your own limits, and what you can then give beyond those limits for someone else who unexpectedly needs help or gets into trouble, without you putting yourself and your own team in danger. It was dark by this point, Jake absolutely refused to let me short rope him, and it’s not easy to have a row at altitude where there’s hardly any bloody oxygen. It took us over four hours in bad weather to walk down to base camp to the team doctor, who stuffed him full of fluids and painkillers and she and I sat most of the rest of the night in her tent watching Jake sleep until we were both convinced we didn’t need to descend any lower. I swear, we talked about this for weeks before we came out here, and it’s not like we haven’t been used to doing high chance things together for years, but up here I’m wary all the time for myself and you’d have to be insane not to be, but I’m even more scared for Jake while I’m watching him take all the same calculated risks I’m taking and its 24 hours a day, constant, taking those risks and escalating them. I don’t want to quit, but I don’t do great under stress either, so all in all it’s a joy to hear that there are still normal people out there doing normal things, and that other people are having a lousy time as well as me.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake stirred, and Tom found himself swiftly hiding the mail and pulling up Dale’s instead, turning the screen towards him as he rolled over and opened his eyes. He looked better. Tom assessed him quickly, colour to eyes to breathing, and he looked himself again, or at least himself after several weeks of base camp. None of them looked particularly great around here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s a mail from Dale. Gerry’s with them, he’s got gall bladder trouble.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What? Is he ok? How did he end up there?” Jake leaned up on one elbow to read, then crawled out of the sleeping bag and grabbed for his boots. “How on earth did he get past Ash and get on a plane? I’ll call Paul.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You only want in on the gossip.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake grinned at him and headed for the communications tent and the satellite phone at his usual, easy and long legged pace.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve got to hear this one. Makes a change talking stroppy brats instead of ice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They spent two rest days knocking around in the quiet of their more or less abandoned compound. Reading, cooking for themselves, and in Tom’s case trying with great effort for Jake’s sake if not his, to calm the hell down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He wasn’t usually this bad. He knew he reached boiling point fast, God knew it happened; but usually when it did, they moved on…. Or if he was honest, Jake diverted it probably before he really noticed it, and things simmered back down to normal. Here… it was constant, all the bloody time. Tom was painfully aware that Jake had invested several days in them getting him back together and the mountain had blown him apart again in less than 24 hours. It was an endless rollercoaster of the unexpected. And Jake was absolutely right; this was the way it was going to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As a runner, you studied your weaknesses. Your style. Your stride. Your stamina. You knew them, you faced them, you worked on them. He and Jake did it obsessively together, Tom knew Jake’s body as well as his own with the delight of loving someone who challenged you and pushed you to develop as an athlete and challenged you to push him the same way. This was the same. Climbing as far as they planned to, as high as they planned to go, did involve exactly what Jake called it: a stripping down process. You had to discipline yourself let go of everything else holding you back, analyse it; everything else that took your focus, your energy, until all that was left was meeting the challenge. For their clients what would pull their focus would be ordinary preoccupations like worrying about staying warm. Minding about eating foods they liked, or being physically comfortable, or getting enough rest. Showering. Being clean, having clean clothes. Coping for five minutes with the inside of their own head without piping music into their ears with their frigging iPods. The little things they couldn’t let go of. You had to care more about climbing the mountain than any of that, and if you didn’t eliminate your buttons, they were going to be pushed hour in and hour out and take up more headspace and energy than you had to spare. Tom didn’t care about much of any of that stuff on the best of days, and he knew damn well, it wasn’t going to clean clothes or iPod concerns that what got in his way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was right on top of him and had been ever since his night bolt up to camp one. Right on top of him, even by their standards, and that was very, very comforting; Tom wondered if Jake really knew how much or if he simply guessed and hoped. And at times Jake would suddenly without warning calmly do something ridiculous or outrageous – an incident with a tube of peanut butter was a particular example – that would first annoy him and then make him laugh, and they’d mess together around for a while and things would be better. And Tom would realise later that he’d slipped again into that too-quiet, dark space without realising it, but Jake had seen it. They read to each other a lot. Jake soaked himself in the cutting the heads off mackerel epic in the book box and read the best bits out to Tom, which with dissection between them of the hero’s character, main failings and need for a really good Top, made for some very entertaining hours and it was something they loved to do together. And Tom breathed. Slowly, deeply, making the thin oxygen work hard for him. And he consciously tried hard to work with Jake instead of against him in resting. And eating. And getting a bloody grip. Because he could do this, he was not going to be beaten by a head full of bloody nonsense and a body that wouldn’t unclench. Sleeping, if he was honest, had hit bloody nightmare point. Gone from difficult to nearly impossible, although as always when he hit this point Jake had him lay beside him for a good proportion of every day, and in the warmth of the sun and daylight which was often when it was easier to doze.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He didn’t see John in those two days. Shem seemed to keep an eye on him and Jake went to talk to him once or twice, but from his report John seemed perfectly happy and was content to hang out with the many other clients on other expeditions in neighbouring compounds and eat with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Somewhere on the second afternoon the Canadian expedition, which had a compound near to theirs, crowded around something for a while and chattered excitedly and then waved for help and Jake got up to see. Tom followed him, and it wasn’t too difficult to spot the outline of what was emerging from beneath the rock and ice of the glacier. The body part wasn’t identifiable but the coloured fabric of down suit was clear enough. The fabric might have been twenty years old. Moving to get out of Jake’s light and shifting a couple of boulders further out of his way, Tom crouched with him to look, the two of them more hardened to this from the archaeological expeditions and the ruined cities they’d spent years hanging around. It was a climber, or rather parts of a climber. The glacier moved and shifted and was comprised of slow leviathans of multi ton ice blocks frothing together like some giant slow motion ocean; a human body didn’t stay intact long inside that. It was probably someone who’d gone into a crevasse on the ice fall at some point and was now gradually emerging as the glacier made its way down the mountain. Quite possibly it was someone who’d been buried in a crevasse; lowering a body down into the ice was often the only means of burial further up the mountain if you were able to do much for them at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake waved to Shem, who was sitting in a deckchair outside her tent and reading, and she dug her hands into her pockets and trudged across the shale to join them, standing to take a rather wry look at the anomaly lying in the ice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“...Yeah. Jake, hate to admit it but I’m not that good.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake, leaning casually with one elbow propped on Tom’s shoulder, grinned at her and the Canadians who had been looking quite shaken, relaxed a little.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If we get him or her out, can you organise an evac?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Choppers came and went from the camp regularly, it was not going to be difficult to arrange an airlift to Kathmandu hospital who might be able to do some identification. The Sherpa team supporting the Canadian climbers were visibly upset and uncomfortable; one of the Canadians muttered something about a superstitious bunch and Tom resisted the urge to go and explain to him, plainly, that to the Sherpa their beliefs around death and signs in this sacred place were strong, and their rituals around death were gentle and respectful. To them this was being handled in an ugly and harshly utilitarian way, blinkered and devoid of any great feeling, and they saw this as a matter of the mountain and her witnessing presence instead of a simple matter of one climber.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was not going to be any more respectful leaving a partially exposed body to decay in the hot sun of the day, even if the Canadian team permitted it. Westerners tended to like their dead out of sight as fast as possible and people around here mostly avoided looking at or thinking about anything that reminded them of their own mortality or what they were in the process of risking here, otherwise most of them would have struggled to stay and do it. Grabbing an ice axe from someone who was standing stupidly with it like he was chopping ice for a sculpture, Tom went to the figure in the ice and knelt down near it, using the axe as gently and quietly as he could and still get the necessary force behind it, in silence, with the care he’d learned from several years of working with archaeologists, and began to release the climber from the mountain. He knew from the shadow that it was Jake who knelt down to do the same beside him. Before much longer a Sherpa man joined them, an unfamiliar one, but he worked quietly alongside them. It took almost an hour for the climber to gradually return from the glacier’s embrace to the light of day. When they finally and very gently lifted it clear, it was still impossible to be sure who or what the climber had been. Watching the body being wrapped in the bright blue plastic sheeting that wrapped everything around here as weather proofing, his hands chilled from the rocks he’d shifted, Tom stood in the cold and ugly desolation of the grey rock camp below the wild beauty of the mountains all around and above them, and found himself thinking again,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is Tartarus.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s a chopper coming out to get him.” Shem said, coming to stand with Tom and watch. “I was going to moan that Jake was supposed to be resting, and you look like it wouldn’t hurt you either, but I’m starting to catch on. This is resting to you two, isn’t it? Like resetting all the tents yesterday and climbing around on the ice wall this morning. Do either of you ever stop?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.” Tom said absently. He was watching Jake who was helping the Sherpa party. “We’re not going to wear ourselves out, we’re way above our energy margin.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’d know.” Shem scuffed one elderly boot at the shale, watching with rather sad eyes as the wrapped package was carried past. “Just save yourself enough for tomorrow morning, ok? The clients should be back tonight.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They got back just before dark, a cheerful and noisy party broke out in the mess tent shortly after and the compound went from being quiet and deserted to once more being a busy place full of people and the tinny electronics of music and the smell of coffee. They appeared to have had a thoroughly good time and enjoyed themselves, Bill and Spitz reported that the expedition had gone well, and from what Tom observed from his tent the mood was celebratory including John, who didn’t look much like a client who thought his expedition was over. Dorje, weathered and smiling widely came directly to Tom’s tent as soon as he arrived, a hand out to grip Tom’s. He said very little, but his welcome touched Tom in its sincerity. He shyly accepted Jake’s invitation and joined Pemba as their Sirdar, their senior climbing Sherpa guide, Tom and Jake, Bill, Spitz and Shem in the communications tent early the following morning while the clients slept late, dealing with delicate heads from the party and their summit climb on Lobuche. Bill laid out the list of names on the table between them all and picked up his coffee, cradling it in both hands. It was crisp this morning, their breath rising in front of them in the tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok, four potential climbers to consider for the climb to camp one. John. Bart. Max. And Mr. Phoenix Loudon.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He gave Tom a brief grin; he seemed to be sharing the inability to say the name without the full title appended.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“John I’m not happy about and I’m recommending strongly that you don’t take him any higher.” Shem said definitely. “I’ve advised him not to go up and he knows I’m saying this to you but I think he’s hoping he’s going to be able to talk you around. It isn’t anything he’s doing wrong or could fix, it isn’t even the diabetes, his body just isn’t handling altitude well.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re not taking anyone through the ice fall knowing that there’s a reasonable chance we’re going to have to manhandle back out again.” Tom said flatly. “Any doubts and there’s our answer.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I agree, we’re not putting our clients at risk, or any of us.” Jake sounded a good deal calmer than he did. “Shem, I’d take your advice anyway, but John didn’t manage to do more than the first few hours of the hike out to Lobuche, which has to be our qualifier. We’ll let John know he’s welcome to stay at base camp with the expedition and observe as long as he’d like, but he’s not coming with us to camp one.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill leaned over to the list and scrawled a firm line through John’s name.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right. Bart. Bart actually did well on Lobuche. Not fast, but he kept on going and he’s fitter than he was when he arrived, he’s got a good attitude, he and Max mostly climbed together. He’s got the idea of crampons, he’s done a reasonable job of learning everything we wanted him to learn with basic crampon and axe use, and he’s trained hard. He listens to advice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You think we should give him a go.” Jake summarized. Tom looked at him sharply. Bill, watching them both, shrugged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He and Max are as ready as they are going to be, they’ve got some sense and I think Lobuche showed them a lot of reality they took on board. With help I think they’d do the ice fall ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is the problem. Right here.” Tom said grimly. “I knew it would happen. It’s hard to say no to people you know and you like, you end up wanting to help them and feeling obliged. Of course they want to climb, they’ve paid thousands to be here. But they’re not climbers. They have no usable experience to fall back on, they have no knowledge of what to do if things go wrong, they would be completely dependent on someone else to tell them what to do and look after them at every step. If that person fell or was injured, if they were alone up there without a carer they would be helpless. I don’t think we should be enabling that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And I agree.” Spitz said shortly beside him. “Wholly. It is unethical, it is disrespectful to the mountain and irresponsible to others who climb. Bart may well enjoy the ice fall and never go beyond camp one just for the ‘experience’ of climbing, but he will be very slow and need much help and teaching, and a serious climber may very likely be stuck behind him, getting cold, wasting energy that would take him to the summit. It is like taking preschoolers on scooters to play among the cars on a highway so all may enjoy the road. This is not easy to say.” He added, looking at Bill. “Tom is right, it grows harder when they are men we know, and Bart and Max are likable, one would wish to help them. But he is also right that this is not a tourist play park. They bought their way here at high price because other expeditions would not have accepted them. I do not hold that against them Bill, they came in good faith and I understand this is difficult for you, but had we chosen to run this expedition from the start we would not have accepted responsibility for supporting any of these clients to make a serious attempt to climb.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That is a fact.” Jake sounded quite placid about it. “What do you think, Pemba? Dorje?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pemba did not look comfortable. The Sherpa men did not like discord and argument at all, particularly in this sacred place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re sorry for the arguing, we feel strongly about this,” Tom said firmly enough to signal to Spitz and Bill to tone it down. “It’s important to us to respect the mountain and to be responsible in how we care for the clients.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pemba nodded slowly, giving him a faint smile that appreciated the thought but still didn’t like the atmosphere. Dorje however spoke diffidently but directly, looking between Tom and Jake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Max and Bart work hard. They want very much to climb and season is still early, it is not so busy yet. If we were to go in the next day or two and later in morning we would not hold up other expeditions so much. We have good climbing Sherpas, we would take good care of them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“My point and Tom’s point is that while we have no doubt at all that you could short rope and tow a client up safely with you, it is not necessarily ethical to do so.” Spitz said rather gently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill took another swallow of coffee, reflecting. “The thing is though… we’ve set these people challenges, we’ve given them our expectations and qualifying criteria and Max and Bart have met them. We said we’d feel better about letting them try if they handled the Lobuche hike ok, and they have. We just have to take a deep breath now and get on with it. Bart’s developed his skills. Max probably knows the most about actual climbing than any of them, his fitness has sharpened up and a lot of his skills are coming back to him, he’s got some basic experience to fall back on. I say Max and Bart are go, with plenty of supervision and a tight turn-around time, and let’s see how they do. We said we’d let them climb as far as they were able.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What about Loudon?” Spitz said darkly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill gave him a slightly defensive look. “He’s not all bad. He met the criteria too, he’s the fastest of the three of them, I don’t see we can say no.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“His attitude is lousy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And he is unbearably rude.” Spitz informed him. “Not so much to us I mind, but he is rude to our Sherpa guides when they try to help or advise him, he was extremely so to Pemba on Lobuche, and he does much need their help whether or not he will admit it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That we’re not having.” Jake said matter of factly. “Pemba, I apologise that happened, I’ll deal with it this morning. We can make it very clear he’s getting to climb only if he promises to behave and I’ll have no problem sending him down to Kathmandu if we see it again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did you know he was blogging?” Spitz said reluctantly. Jake raised his eyebrows. Bill coughed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Er. Yes. Mummy is a rather famous New York journalist I understand – I’ve never heard of her, but apparently so – and she’s running his blog in her column. New York is getting blow by blow accounts of every move we make.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.” Tom said flatly. “We are not getting into making decisions based on what kind of negative publicity he might give us,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No we’re not, because we don’t care.” Jake agreed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t think it’s been that complimentary so far.” Bill said wryly. “Not that I’ve read it, but we had a couple of snotty comments on Lobuche that he was taking notes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Let him. We don’t care what publicity we get or who says what, reputation for a company like this is built on success and safety, not gossip.” Jake got up, leaning on Tom’s shoulder for a moment. “Spitz, I hear your and Tom’s concerns, I take them seriously, let’s vote on this. Those of us prepared to support Max and Bart, and Phoenix with a serious commitment to treating everyone else on this expedition with respect, to climbing to camp one?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bill raised his hand. So did Shem and Pemba. Dorje also after a moment raised his. Jake raised his own hand and looked to Tom and Spitz who did not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Carried.” Jake nodded to Bill. “Bill, Shem, Pemba, will you come and join me in the mess tent and we’ll call in the clients one at a time and talk them through our decision? Spitz, we will do this as carefully and as safely as we possibly can and I’ll gladly listen to any suggestions on how we can do this in a way you’re more comfortable with. Or I’m equally fine with you taking whatever support you want and you and Bill go do your camp two acclimatisation and I’ll worry about the clients’ first climb.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom heard the unsaid message in the hand on his shoulder. Pemba and Dorje left together, Shem followed them and Tom got up to go too. He heard Spitz behind him as he rose from the deckchair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And I am sorry too, Jake, but if we were here as we had planned, with nothing but our own focus and our own preparations to consider, Tom would not be struggling as he is and he would be safer, and that is a fact.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom spun back to him, livid and not able to keep it out of his voice. “How dare you? I am managing bloody fine, and what happened up at camp two could have happened to any of us.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You are not fine, and I can see it.” Spitz said it brusquely, and his face was grimly sympathetic. “I do not want to see you unable to do this climb because of a commercial expedition you would never have associated with without being so obligated.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom took a sharp breath to answer and Jake stepped directly in his way. He was smiling, and it was his usual, relaxed, lazy smile but with his eyes extremely steady. It was the kind of smile an angel might give you, the one that reminded you angels were a pure force for good and kittens and little bunnies, but they were packing a fiery sword and a double 07 licence. It wasn’t a ‘stop’ or ‘back off’ signal; Jake never gave a damn what Tom said to whom. Tom had seen him sit placidly by while he tore shreds off a particularly rude and annoying archaeologist on one expedition they’d guided together. It wasn’t other people getting upset that he minded about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom took another slower breath, spun on his heel and walked away as Jake was asking, shoving roughly through the tent flaps and turning away from the client tents and the social bit of their compound as fast as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I have to bloody calm down</i>!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Exactly how was another matter. He’d always been like this. As long as he remembered, it had always been there. Jake understood it; Jake had always called him three parts wolf. Needing quiet, needing darkness, needing wild places away from people. The social stuff had always been hard. He pushed the thought away, walking fast over the rough ground towards their tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>That was then; focus on now. Only now matters.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">An awful, awful part of him wanted simply to grab his rucksack, roll up his sleeping bag and head down into the valley. Get away. Now. He got as far as crouching in front of his rucksack and gripped it, trying to make himself breathe slowly. Deep enough to release that run instinct. It didn’t work. It never did. Tom ducked his head, hearing quiet footfall behind him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Are we going?” Jake leaned past him to pick up his own rucksack. Tom shook his head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You can’t, you’re needed here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Want to argue that one out?” Jake invited.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The impulses were many. To kick the rucksack flying, to shout at him, to yes, argue, knowing exactly what it would lead to – Tom bit down on all of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Any minute now you’re going to say all the Top stuff about I can’t handle this, it’s not good for me, we’re getting out of here and we’ll board a plane for Fiji,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’d hate Fiji.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m not giving up on this! I’m not just holding it together for you - I would anyway, but I want to do this too. I’ve always wanted to do this too. We had one scare, one, we handled it and it was fine, we knew this might happen, I am not going to quit.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I wouldn’t ask you to.” Jake sat unhurriedly down on the ground sheet beside him, propping his elbows on his knees to look at the mountains above them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And don’t you dare feel bad that we got involved with the client expedition because that was my choice too, if I hadn’t been bothered about them being safe you’d have been fine with us buggering off to the far end of base camp and doing our own thing just like we planned. If I’d asked you to do that you would, and I asked you to sort out the clients. I’m the one who won’t leave them, not you. So it’s my choice.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok?” Tom gave him a savage, sideways glare. “It’s not bloody ok is it? Because I can’t be in this state. All the time you’re having to work flat out on keeping me together, Jake, it’s not good for you and it’s destroying your enjoyment of this, it’s pulling your focus, it’s pulling Spitz’s, it’s stressing both of you which makes the risks for both of you higher-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I agree, you need some help to let this go.” Jake dug in his rucksack beside him and Tom’s stomach flipped as he pulled out the martinet and quite simply patted his knee. “So let’s do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom felt his mouth dropping open, something in his head gasping about <i>What?!</i> And <i>This is not how this goes!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We did this a few days ago!” he managed after a few seconds. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We did.” Jake agreed equably. “And it helped, and now we need to do it again. Over here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a really unnecessary kind of firmness to the last two words. Tom found himself moving, rather slowly, acutely aware that while their tent faced away from the compound and anything or anyone else but open miles of plateau beyond the camp, they were still shielded only by canvas. It was bloody difficult too to comfortably get over Jake’s knee when he was sitting on the ground, despite all the practice they’d been putting in lately. Not that Jake seemed to be in any way inconvenienced by it, and Jake didn’t give him time to figure it out; he simply pulled Tom directly across his lap. Tom braced himself on his elbows and felt Jake shift in a way that expertly tipped his backside higher and into a more vulnerable position and he felt Jake’s hands at the waistband of his pants, stripping them briskly too far downwards which Tom hated, since it was bad enough when they were just too far out of reach to be any damn good. Right down and it just felt –<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He felt the light trace of the martinet strands across his skin a second before they flicked down in a brisk, sound snap and sting lit up brightly across his entire butt, animating a sharp, involuntary jerk in his legs and shoulders, and they just went on flicking. Unhurriedly, very effectively and the bloody thing spread out as it struck so the coverage was everywhere. He was using it lightly and there was barely any sound at all beyond the slight flicking snap of it landing, and yet the quiet of it was out of all proportion to how those strands stung. Mouth sealed tightly shut, Tom grimaced and twisted slightly and jumped at each sharp snap, and Jake just did not bloody stop. And the martinet being applied to already stinging skin did not improve it any, his butt was heating up and apparently getting steadily more sensitive with every thwack. Temper starting to slip, Tom braced his shoulders harder and gripped at the ground mat beneath them, aware that he was fighting back in a very reprehensible way and that a whole lot of attitude he hadn’t even been aware of before was starting to yank against its chain in a very unwise way, and then Jake, without spanking the least bit harder, just moved the brunt of the spanking firmly about two inches lower.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With his hand, that was always bad enough. With a paddle, it was dire. With the bloody martinet – the ends of those strands nipping and stinging there were hellish and they spread out and got damn everywhere, and Jake was angling it…. it was a shock, and it was impossible not to squirm without dignity or keep himself from yelping from the first stroke there, and once his self control snapped he felt his chest release like a cork yanked out of it. It felt like forever that he was gasping and squeaking and helplessly wriggling around under Jake’s arm while that bloody thing worked on his butt and all he could think about – all – was the sting. The sensation blocked out everything else, nothing else mattered, and the tension, the nastiness, sarkiness and temper, everything that was about the fierce, nasty ‘I’ thoughts, all of it slid away out of reach like water draining away and he felt himself let go, yield the field wholeheartedly on any terms Jake wanted, and accept fast what he knew at the heart of things; that none of the crap he’d been clinging to mattered a damn anyway. Just a whole world of here and now and <i>yes, I get it, I do, really, just stop, please stop now!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was wet eyed from sting more than emotion, very breathless and feeling wholly wrung out and limp with the release of tension and emotion when Jake dropped the martinet back in his rucksack, and his hand rested across Tom’s flaming backside, rubbing gently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do you feel like behaving yourself yet?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It never failed to make Tom laugh, even if it was the most pathetic and miserable attempt at a laugh that was possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Come here.” Jake pulled him up from his lap and hugged him, closely, squashingly hard, and Tom turned his face into Jake’s neck and held onto him with a sense of security he hadn’t felt since they were down in the valley a few days ago. Released and settled and connected again with a sense of proportion back, and it was so insane that he could find that over Jake’s knee when he couldn’t do it for himself, when everything else they’d tried had helped but not enough. The relief from losing that nagging, biting sense of stress was overwhelming. The dragon cast off from his shoulders.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do that every day and that should probably hold you.” Jake said in his ear. That was too squirming a thought to consider properly, whether or not Jake was serious. They sat there together for some time, Tom rather shamefacedly but definitely hanging onto him, and Jake didn’t seem in any hurry to go back to clients or meetings or anything else he should be doing. When Tom finally sat up to straighten his clothes and wipe the last marks off his face, Jake ran a gentle hand over his head and turned Tom’s face to his, looking at him closely. Whatever he was looking for he seemed to find it. He nodded slowly and ran his thumb over Tom’s lips, leaning over to kiss him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Lie down. Stay put, wait for me. I’m going to sort the clients out and then I’ll be back.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He pulled over one of his fleeces from the corner of the tent, balled it up into a pillow and waited until Tom lay down with it. Jake watched him settle before he got up and walked briskly towards the mess tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake wouldn’t explain afterwards what happened with Phoenix, or with John. He just refused to discuss it and no one else came near their tent that evening. Tom suspected Jake had probably engineered that too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Around 3.30am Tom heard the Sherpa moving around and unzipping their tent to take a look saw lights on in client tents and in the mess tent before Jake’s hand snaked out and caught his, pulling him back down. Tom zipped the tent closed and dropped back into Jake’s arms. He hadn’t slept much but he had actually slept, for the first time in a couple of days. He also hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else but here tonight rather than wander, and he’d done an embarrassing amount of hanging on while Jake slept and hopefully didn’t notice too much of the soppiness in progress.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re heading up to the ice fall at 4.30.” Jake said in his ear. “Bill’s leading them, the climbing Sherpa are going with them. I said we’d follow them up about 7am and play sheep dog.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Did you give them a turn around time? What if Mr Sparrow Loudon won’t pay attention to it?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Let. It. Go.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With a still tender backside, Tom made himself stop that line of thought before it got started, smothering the faint swell of anxiety that threaded itself through his guts. Not only about the clients; about their last experience of the ice fall in the dark. He squeaked involuntarily as Jake’s hand inserted itself under his clothes and squeezed somewhere extremely personal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Stop it, or we’re having spam for breakfast.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They dressed for the ice fall about 6.30am. It was getting light by then and almost everyone planning to go up the mountain this morning had gone. Only a couple of Sherpa were on their way up to crampon point, heavily loaded with gear for a higher camp when Tom looked out from their tent, and across base camp there were only a few rising smoke columns. The Sherpas with each team burned juniper as an offering for safety that day if they had any climbers from their team on the mountain; you could get an approximate idea of how many people were up there by looking at the number of smoking fires. Jake, pausing without his jacket on, knelt up on the sleeping bag to look with him, then held out a hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right. Let’s have a chat before we go.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?” Tom glanced back to him and then realised and felt his stomach roll over. “Jake-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“For a start, I want to see how your butt’s doing.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s fine thank you.” Tom edged warily towards him and Jake turned him over his knee, settling him before he pulled Tom’s pants out of the way and ran a hand gently over the now white skin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No marks.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I told you. There never is; you’re too damn good at it.” Tom had a try at getting up and Jake’s hand rested on his back keeping him where he was. “Jake…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> This time it came out rather pathetically close to a whine. He heard Jake’s smile in his voice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “How are you doing this morning? Because I was quite serious about what I said last night.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You know how Flynn defines ‘fine’ as an answer?” Jake asked him conversationally. “He says it usually translates as an anagram: Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. So which one do you want to go for?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom couldn’t swallow the snort of laughter despite his position, and despite twisting to try to turn over into a less dangerous position he still couldn’t escape Jake’s arm holding him right where he was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“None. I’m calm, I’ll be a good boy. No neurotic breakdowns today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, whose definition of ‘good’ is that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake sounded amused and Tom glanced back over his shoulder to see his face, quivering in spite of himself under Jake’s hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mine?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok, let’s keep that at the front of your mind for the next few hours.” Jake’s hand lifted and landed extremely smartly in the first of six very sound and what felt like very loud swats, only six but they stole his breath out of his lungs and felt as if they set light where they landed. Afterwards, when he had a moment to think about anything but what the hell Jake was going to do, Tom for one horrible moment remembered how loud those swats had sounded – gunshots, there was no way to disguise that sound – but then a certain amount of cracks and banging and thumping went on in base camp in the morning. The cracks from the glacier starting to warm up, people thumping ice off tents and boots, banging washed and now frozen and frosted clothes on rocks to soften them out of their rigid shape, and their compound was largely empty of people this morning; no one gave them a second glance when they left their tent. Those swats were still heating Tom very effectively half an hour later as they passed crampon point and began the climb up through the Khumbu ice fall. And the infuriating thing was that it still bloody worked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Less than an hour into the labyrinth, on the top of a steep climb up a serac face they found Pemba and Bill with Bart, who was sitting on the ice and looking exhausted, breathing hard, and drinking from the thermos Pemba had carried. Jake glanced at his watch and crouched down beside them, giving Bart a cheerful nod and smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey. How’s it going?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s wild.” Bart’s nod at the ice walls around them encompassed a great deal. “But man it’s harder than I was expecting. Way harder than Lobuche. I do about four steps and stop for a rest, my heart’s pounding.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">His sentences were coming out in fragments between his breathing, and he was coughing at intervals. The Khumbu cough; no few of them had it, and Bart’s fitness might have improved but supremely fit and able people struggled here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, that’s what it’s like the first time.” Jake said gently. “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And the ladders…” Bart glanced down at the one he’d just ascended and Tom saw his shudder, the man looked stunned and rather shocked. “I didn’t think I had a problem with heights but this scares the bejeezus out of me. I didn’t expect it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake glanced at Pemba who was waiting patiently beside him. “Bart, you’re not yet half way through and the deadline for turn around isn’t far off. You’re going to need to turn back. We need everyone clear out of here before midday.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bart nodded without raising his head. “That’s fine.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll go down with them as far as crampon point.” Bill dug his own thermos out of his rucksack and poured steaming tea into the cup, knocking it back quickly. In marked contrast to Bart he looked fresh and energised, he was a damn good climber and a fast one and of all of them he knew this territory best. “Dorje’s climbing with Max and Spitz is with Phoenix up ahead since he went out of base camp like a bullet out of a gun. See you in a while.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They left Bart still coughing with Pemba and Bill, and the man reached gladly for the rope Bill clipped him on to, with no hesitation to go down. Climbing here was far more mental than physical; when your body hurt and was exhausted all you had left was concentration and heart, and if you mentally checked out you needed to get off the mountain fast. Bart seemed in no doubt what he needed to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The next climber they overtook not far above where Bart had foundered was a vision in a pink climbing suit, sat panting and looking cuter and sourer than a Persian kitten being fed gooseberries, and Tom felt a brief and very uncharitable flicker of satisfaction that was too nasty to tolerate. He concentrated instead on the lingering heat and tenderness underneath his pants which dragged his mind up out of the gutter. Spitz was standing some feet away from Mr Loudon and smoking, looking equally fed up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey Phoenix.” Jake said cheerfully as they reached him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Too hot, going too fast, ego does not fit between the seracs.” Spitz said succinctly to Tom in Spanish, adding in English to Phoenix, “I said this morning that you would be too hot in a down suit. You will not need that below camp two.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Phoenix gave him a poisonous look through designer sunglasses and turned a large eyed bunny stare on Jake that was so disingenuous that Tom nearly snorted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’d be fine but I twisted my ankle a little in base camp last night and it’s slowing me up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Spitz grunted in a tone of expressive cynicism, dark eyebrows snapped together above his far more battered and practical sunglasses. Phoenix ignored him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If you’d give me a hand I’d be fine. I’m not heavy and then I’ll have the altitude training I need to get on this trip.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yeah, great idea, let’s push and pull you to camp one. Or get a Sherpa to carry you up and another one to peel you a damn grape. Let’s see if we can find you a high altitude Ken.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Stop it.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Tom turned away to get a grip on himself, avoiding Spitz’s eye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wrong sin. It’s not arrogance and shock you don’t know it all; It’s bloody anger, isn’t it? Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malic…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The words lined up and rolled out in his mind from years ago, words he’d known all his life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Bitterness and evil speaking, yeah that’s me</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was quite a shock, quite distressing to realise and Tom stared at the blank walls of blue ice around them blindly for a moment, aware he was clinging to the sensation of his butt, the physical memory of the moments this morning when he’d felt together, anchored to Jake and clear headed, and known the world was in its right place. Jake’s voice behind him was calm to Phoenix but cheerfully detached; he was the wrong person to try the flirty kitten act on, and it had been done by far prettier men in far better outfits than a pink snow suit. Boys in Singapore in g-strings had tried this with real professional expertise and got nowhere to their frustration; flirts bored the hell out of Jake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If you’re tired and struggling, best thing you can do is go down and get Shem to check that ankle, you don’t want to be carrying an injury up here. We, none of us, want to be lingering in the ice fall any longer than we absolutely have to. I want to get you moving.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I will see him down.” Spitz said darkly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake gave him a cheerful smile, getting up. “It’s fine, we will and you can continue your climb. If you wouldn’t mind going on, you could make sure Dorje and Max are ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was probably a sensible decision; it would ensure Spitz didn’t reach the point of shoving the Pink Peril into a crevasse somewhere. Spitz nodded shortly, pitched his cigarette butt off the trail and carried on up the rope he was clipped to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They didn’t have to do a whole lot of chatting to Mr. Pelican Loudon, which Tom was grateful for. For a start, the little brat didn’t have the breath to talk once he was up and moving, and he was moving very slowly even with Jake below him encouraging him over the ladder walkways and down the ropes, and Tom above him with a watchful eye and a hand to steady the ropes. He actually wasn’t that incompetent. He was light and flexible and he’d probably learned the most from their teaching over the last ten days, but pacing himself was something he stubbornly refused to learn. And he kept on flashing the eyes at Jake. Apparently Jake’s firm word with him the other day had impressed on him the need to keep Jake on side. And quite possibly he had realised something that Tom knew very well; that Jake was extremely hot in an alarming kind of way when his voice got quiet and his eyes started getting penetrating.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They got him down to crampon point slowly but without event, and from there Phoenix hopped and clung to Jake’s shoulder and generally made a fuss with a great deal of wincing and grimacing until Tom lost patience, took his other arm and he and Jake more or less carried him as far as Shem’s tent. No doubt his blog post tonight would be full of Wounded Soldier. Tom had made only one attempt to find the blog; it had been subverted in seconds by Jake who had leaned over from his book and shut the laptop.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Phoenix was being supplied with tea by the kitchen boy and having his ankle examined by Shem and explaining his plight to a depressed looking Bart and a fed up looking John who had come to see what the problem was when Tom left him. The last ones home just before 11am were Bill, Dorje, Spitz and Max, who had made it two thirds of the way through the ice fall at Max’s pace before Bill turned the group around at 9.30am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So that’s none of them who met our criteria to climb any higher.” Jake commented when he came to join Tom and crash out in their tent. Sleep wasn’t something they were likely to try for hours yet, but climbing at the higher altitudes made the physical exertion hit you twice as hard and your body ended up tired. Just lying down and lying still became something you were keen to do for a while. Jake got his boots off and rolled over on his back beside Tom. It was hot in the tent by noon around here. The thermometer soared daily between -20 through the night to often 30 during the day; you went from tshirts and struggling to cool down to your breath freezing on the roof of the tent during the night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tartarus.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The lost world of the fallen angels, the gateway of stone, ice and fire where every man was punished according to his sin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s anger. All the time, about bloody everything. About the clients, particularly Loudon, about the changes and things suddenly coming up, about the noise, the music, the messing around, about the danger to Jake because how bloody dare anything hurt him…? All the smart mouthing, all the snapping, I’ve done it most of my bloody life. Spitting and seething behind a sarky tone and a bad attitude.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I can’t even get a damn sentence out without swearing. That is what I have to do something about. Somehow. Your average bad tempered bastard doesn’t get sent much on the holy pilgrimages or sacred quests in the books.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> To: <u><span style="color: blue;">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</span></u> <br /> From: <span style="color: blue;"><u>AdenD@horizon.com</u></span><br /> Subject: Well just to cheer you up</span></b><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b></b><b> </b> Tom:</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I was very glad to have more news of you. That sounds a terrifying experience. The others were relieved Jake rang about Gerry and they’d heard for themselves that he was all right. In your position, had I needed to get Flynn or one of the others out of a situation such as you’re describing, I can only imagine how it might feel. I do not cope well under stress either, as you may have noticed over the summer. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">You said it was nice to hear that other people were having a lousy time as well as you and that it helped. I am not at all sure this is something you want to know, it’s not the easiest thing to explain either, but if it helps for you to have shared misery then here goes. It’s not only Gerry who has been involved in the drama going on around here. I said it had been a crowded few days, in part through Gerry’s arrival, but I’ve been aware for a few weeks I was in the process of coming apart. I have no real understanding of how to explain it.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I get anxious. That is difficult to admit even in an email, it is still a new thing to realise that there’s a name for it and I ought to do something about it; I’m too used to thinking tapping and lining things up and running for hours is just what you do in the stress of the business world instead of thinking about what it is and why it is. I love Paul, I have always loved Paul, and have always been aware too that I can feel particularly anxious around him on a ‘bad’ day, although no idea as to why. You were there on the day poor Paul tried to reassure me in the middle of a freak out and got the full force of an Aden panic attack in the face, I wondered at the time if you understood it better than I did. You explained so much to me in the summer, you put words to so many crucial things I felt but didn’t know how to understand or explain to myself. I am most grateful for that. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The anxiety went wholly out of control a few days ago when I cut my hand on a horse trough. Such a simple thing, just a minor cut, but I remember you too telling me that the first time you got sick after you met Jake you wanted to run. Oh I understand that. They will know, they will not ignore it, they will not gloss over it or let you do so, and that is so, so hard to take. And yet the kind of hard that the only thing that truly helps is to have no choice, because you want it as much as you are afraid of it. Paul does the same as you do. He puts words to it. And it is nearly impossible to take, and it’s as wonderful as it is terrifying and horrible, and I find myself clinging to him some of the time and then wanting to distance us as much as I possibly can at other times, and being truly horrible to him in the attempt.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I have an unpleasant feeling I am making no kind of sense in trying to explain this. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have always used a mask of professionalism, intellect, detachment to avoid connecting in ways to people that are too personal. Too trusting or too risky. It’s something that I didn’t consciously realise I did until I came to the ranch, and that Flynn and the others taught me to recognise, and that mask is still a defence over letting myself connect to them wholly as I want to, or dealing with any feeling or situation that triggers the anxiety about losing control. I wish I understood it more, but I don’t. It has become apparent that there are a number of things I need to work through regarding my mother, which sounds so pathetically irresponsible in black and white, surely my problems are just that, mine, to deal with and resolve without blaming other people for them, but unfortunately those problems are inextricably bound with thoughts and memories that I’ve always preferred not to face.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This has triggered nightmares. I was so stressed during a conversation with Paul the other day I threw up and he said to me, that’s a lot of stress. It was a mere conversation; just on a matter that was too hard. But to enter a relationship like the ones we have, means nothing is too hard and there is nowhere out of bounds, it means finding and identifying these road blocks and then trying to find the courage to let them be taken down because that is what I want to happen. Even on the days and in the moments where I’d fight it to the death, I know that is what I want to happen. I wish I understood more about how, and it is so difficult to ask. I know that is all I have to do, to explain and to ask, but it is the hardest thing to let yourself do. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn instructs me to tell you ‘hello’ – this is an American thing, I believe he means that he sends his regards to you – and to get off the computer. I apologise if this is far too much to share, if it alarms you or you simply don’t want to be bothered. Please don’t feel I expect any reply or answers or advice from you. I just have experience that you understand much of this very well and it helps just to say these things to someone who may not think I am currently out of my tree. Best wishes to Jake.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Dale</span><br />
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<b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-9.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Continue on to Chapter 9</span></a></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</span></b></div>
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-8787181263081915402015-09-24T15:16:00.001-07:002015-09-27T21:11:38.108-07:00Everest - Chapter 7<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<span lang="EN-GB">They were neither of them precious about sweat or dirt. Knocking around the places they did blotted out the whole finicky stuff about having a shower and brushing your teeth first. Some would find that unromantic, but it was something they both shared in; the intoxication of <i>real</i> and <i>now</i> and <i>here</i> which today came with dust and sweat and layers of thermal clothing, and it was rather like the scars on Jake’s body that Tom knew with fingers and tongue as much as from sight. The deep one on his thigh and the two parallel ones on his shoulder, the several others he had a peculiar and fierce kind of pride in because they marked him out as Tom’s, the body he knew as well as his own, its capacities, its history. Jake was as eager as he was, and there was never the slightest need to hold back or be careful of Jake; the man was never less than viscerally keen at the best of times, whether it was after hours of hard hiking – which to be honest was enough of a turn on to both of them in an insane kind of a way that it didn’t do much to drain that kind of energy – or whether it was three o clock in the morning. Jake was the heavier and stronger of the two of them by a good margin and Tom could feel the reservoirs of energy in every inch of him. Any time he put his hands on Jake he could always feel it, like a radiating force traversing under the golden tan of his skin, always as restless and as ardent to break free as Tom’s, although in a far more cheerful kind of a way. Tom loved feeling that burst free in him. Loved knowing that Jake had no need to hold back, could let all that tidal wave of energy go in entirety without wondering whether Tom could take it, because they were as every bit as bad as each other. It took shamefully little time, they just aided and abetted each other to get <i>on</i> with it, <i>now</i>, and Jake collapsed heavily on top of him afterwards which felt wonderful, both of them panting for the few moments it took to regain their breath. After which, as they often did, they just did it all over again. And again. And then again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">It was a while before they slowed down enough to be ready to think about something else. They were laying on their abandoned clothes which cushioned bare skin somewhat from the scrubby ground but Tom didn’t care about the scratches or the sunburn. For the first time in days he felt like he could think again. There was a sense of <i>good</i>. Stability. Jake put out a hand to pick up the bottle of sun lotion he’d grabbed out of his pack a while ago for other purposes, and without delicacy sprayed a lot of it down Tom’s front. It was cold, Tom yelped and Jake leaned over to kiss him, not particularly apologetically, while his hand wandered and spread lotion.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“Licence my roving hands and let them go<br /> </i><i>Before, behind, between, above, below….”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He murmured it against Tom’s mouth, his voice deep and as caressing as his hands, and Tom grabbed his head in both hands to kiss him again, a lot more thoroughly. When they came up for air, Jake slid lotion somewhere unmentionable which made Tom squeak without very much dignity, and paused above him to look him direct in the eye, his face a few inches from Tom’s. His aqua blue eyes were alive, glinting with amusement as much as affection, then he lay back and felt for Tom’s hand, holding it firmly and lacing his larger fingers through Tom’s. The white vastness of the mountains filled the skyline. The spin from the top of Everest was a white trail out against the blue of the sky, like a trailing flag. It summoned up something deep in Tom’s guts that hadn’t been there for some days, and threaded itself through the sated sense of peace that was making every inch of him too heavy to move. A wisp of excitement.</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Spending the night in the open out here at this altitude, at this time of year was probably not sane. Even inside a tea lodge it was probably going to hit around minus 5 tonight. But one hot, naked guy in your sleeping bag tended to do a whole lot more in terms of heating you up than fleece did and that kind of challenge was what made both their systems start humming.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB">Tom had fully expected another wakeful night, his butt was tender enough that he was keen to lay on his front or side and they were by necessity mushed together within the narrow confines of the bag. In fact he only realised when he stirred that he’d fallen asleep – and that he’d been deeply asleep for at least a couple of hours. It was pitch dark when he stirred enough to lift his head from Jake’s shoulder and look through the narrow gap of sleeping bag hood they’d pulled up to avoid frost bitten faces. Stars were brilliant in the sky above them, it was bitingly cold and the valley was silent. </span><span lang="EN-GB">Jake pulled him over and his arms tightened around Tom, he felt far too awake and Tom twisted to try and see his face.</span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Are you getting any sleep?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“When you're lying awake with a dismal headache And repose is taboo'd by anxiety,</i><i>I conceive you may use any language you choose To indulge in, without impropriety;”</i></span></blockquote>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake said indistinctly, chewing on his ear. Tom grinned in spite of himself, muttering the next lines with him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB"><i>“For your brain is on fire, the bed-clothes conspire</i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><i> Of usual slumber to plunder you:</i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><i> First your counter-pane goes, and uncovers your toes,</i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><i> And your sheet slips demurely from under you.”</i></span></span></blockquote>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m sleeping fine thanks.” Jake said in his ear, doing something not at all conducive to sleeping and far too athletic for a sleeping bag. Tom came to his assistance and they managed anyway. A little snow fell very lightly a short while later, no more than a dusting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">The sun was rising when Tom stirred again and fumbled for the zip, intending to get up, dress and get a fire going. He was shocked at Jake’s hand shifting from its resting place on his hip and landing firmly on an already tender place. Jake could barely have raised his hand more than a couple of inches within the sleeping bag but that did not stop it being a sound enough swat that Tom’s breath caught and he stopped moving. Jake’s eyes were still closed. Aware of what that meant with mixed feelings, and not keen to invite another swat, Tom lay back inch by inch with caution, watching the sun rise slowly higher in a blue sky over the mountain. The temperature rose fast with the coming of the sun; when Jake eventually leaned over him to unzip the bag and got up to stretch, stark naked against the mountain back drop, it was warm enough to not miss clothes at all. Cautiously Tom started to get up, eyes on Jake who was kneeling in front of the dead ashes of last night’s fire to rake them out and start again. Jake lifted his head and looked at him. It was a calm, friendly look. Tom felt his stomach tighten in response. Carefully he sat back down again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">It took Jake a few minutes to lay and light the fire with competent hands. He brushed them off when he was done, standing up and holding out a hand. Tom went to him and Jake pulled him over, wrapping his arms around Tom’s waist to nuzzle his neck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“You are getting out of hand, my boy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom’s stomach tightened still further in response, an involuntary clench that willing or not shot from throat to groin and took as firm a grasp on him as Jake’s arms were currently doing. Jake nipped his ear gently.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Go ahead.”</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom did the necessary, an eye on Jake who was cutting potatoes and vegetables into the skillet and throwing in some of the contents of a paper bag. The smell of frying made Tom’s stomach growl as much as the sight of Jake naked this morning was making it very hard to take his eyes off him. He dug in his rucksack long enough to find some of the wet wipes they were using as one of the only sources of moisture out here where water was firstly for drinking, and did the best he could in terms of a wash.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake had pulled the sleeping bag near enough to the fire to sit on and when he was done, Tom sat down beside him, watching him stir what looked and smelled wonderfully like aloo jeera or something in that vicinity – the scent of cumin was strong, onions, coriander and spinach were mixed in with the potatoes in flashed of bright green alongside more of the round chillies Jake had thrown in the pan yesterday. Jake lifted the skillet off the fire, stuck a fork in the mixture and sat down beside him, putting the pan on the ground between them. It was fantastic. Here, shoulder to shoulder with him, in the fresh warmth of the morning with the mountains spread on the horizon in front of them and the open, silent valley all around them, it tasted like heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ll cook for ourselves in the camp from here on like we planned to.” Jake said equably, lounging back on one elbow. “Or we can beg to share in whatever the cook makes for the Sherpas.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“We don’t have to make things harder just because I’m a finicky sod-” Tom began, and Jake steered a forkful of aloo into his mouth, stifling the rest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“You eating matters.”<br /></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“I was eating.”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />“Yeah, but I’m funny about you force feeding yourself.” Jake fed him another forkful and took one for himself. “The clients can eat pizza or whatever the hell they want, I don’t care.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes you do.”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake leaned over to kiss him, firmly. “I’ll handle the clients.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />“Look, you can’t just give Bill your orders, he’s not me. He might not want to take responsibility for that lot on Lobuche by himself and I wouldn’t blame him-” Tom began in frustration, and stopped, fast, as Jake put the skillet out of the way, licked aloo off his fingers and took Tom straight over his lap in one easy pull. Tom squirmed there, shocked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Jacob, for God’s sake -”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake’s hand rested on his back, holding him exactly where he was although his voice was comfortably conversational.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“We're leaving Bill to run the Lobuche expedition.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok, ok!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom, sweating, yelped and jumped at the one good sound swat that landed across his upturned behind. Jake knew exactly where to place them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Sure?” Jake invited.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Positive!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake helped him up to resume his place and retrieved the skillet. Tom sat down quickly, aware that very unusually for him that swat had nearly brought tears to his eyes. Jake said nothing, merely lounged back on his elbow again, legs stretched out, but his hand found the small of Tom’s back and rubbed there gently as they went on eating. When they were done, Jake tossed the skillet out of the way in one easy, accurate chuck and lay back to reach in his rucksack for a book, propping himself on one elbow on his side. He reached for Tom once he was settled, pulling Tom down to lay in front of him in a way that meant his body shielded the sun from Tom’s face and the ground was padded by the sleeping bag.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">How do you get into serious trouble out on a trail in the middle of nowhere?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Well exactly like this. Jake was never bothered if they were in a jungle, on a raft or hanging out at the top of the world. Jake was Jake was Jake wherever they happened to be at the time, and he didn’t care. Doing anything at all other than resting right now would get him spanked, Jake wouldn’t warn and he wouldn’t hesitate, and this morning that was not something Tom was keen to invite. That one swat had reawoken all the tenderness from yesterday evening’s paddling – Tom felt his face heat at the memory of it. Tenderness rather than soreness; Jake wasn’t nearly tough enough with him, but then Jake was not… pilotable. Jake was a problem solver. Tom knew exactly what Jake had been doing the past few days: taking their priority problems one at a time and fixing them. The expedition was safe. Properly and responsibly equipped. The clients were cared for. Harry was sorted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">And guess who’s next on the list?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake had taken every single one of his concerns and knocked each one down in turn so that now it <i>was</i> perfectly safe for them to lay up here together and be planning to send the clients off with someone else and think about their own climb. Their own plans. Everything else could be let go. Tom rolled onto his back and tipped his head against Jake, looking up at dark blue sky overhead. He had absolutely no idea what Jake was planning, whether they were staying down here tonight or going back up to base camp, and that was the whole point Jake was making: he might as well quit stressing. Annoyingly, being well fed, well rested and very well…… other things… it worked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">He dozed on and off while Jake read, and in between he lay and watched the mind-blowing view beyond them. The spindrift off the mountain top. Somewhere around noon, Jake laid down his book and stretched.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Think we can make it to base camp by dark?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom reckoned it up in his head, looking at the trail below them and his legs already itching at the thought of it. It would be a hard hike and would need to be a pacey one to make it by that deadline: it was a challenge they would both enjoy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">They dressed, packed up and Tom buried the last remnants of the fire, making it safe. Jake was fastening the straps of his rucksack, pulling them tight with practiced yanks, and Tom, watching his familiar hands make the familiar moves, saw him unzip the side pocket, take the small, rounded paddle out and his stomach attempted a sharp exit through his mouth. Jake straightened up with the paddle in his hand and caught his eye, beckoning with one finger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">He didn’t look in the least stern. Tom made himself stabilise unsteady knees and go to him, and Jake took a seat on his rucksack, took his arm gently in a competent grasp and turned Tom over his knee. Tom couldn’t help himself twisting as Jake slid his pants down out of the way, feeling abruptly extremely bare and very vulnerable, his breath catching in his throat, and that paddle snapped briskly down across his backside. Six, sound whacks, each one crossing both cheeks. Tom jerked at every single one, unable to help it, and yelped at the last three. Jake drew his pants back up, keeping Tom over his knee while he tucked Tom’s t shirt back in, then he simply stood up, bulldozing Tom to his feet, dropped the paddle back into the open pocket of his pack and kissed Tom’s cheek.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Cheer up.”<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom, who had been trying to swallow away the stinging in his eyes and the tightness in his throat and to gather his breath enough to say something of what he should to apologise for falling apart and that stupid solo climb, for making Jake have to drag him down into this valley to straighten him out, found himself gaping instead like a stranded goldfish and what came out was a near shriek of outrage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Jacob!</i>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake shrugged his pack on, did up the harness and tossed Tom’s pack across to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“You are a bloody <i>awful</i> Top!” Tom, still trying to catch his breath from a mixture of sharp smart, shock and indignation, swung his pack over his shoulders and followed Jake who merely grinned at him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Well you’re never going to get a normal one to go up that mountain with you, are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They reached base camp as twilight was creeping in. Jake paused to glance at his watch as they walked down to the far end of the camp where their compound was.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s not bad.”<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s what you said when we did the fan dance in Powys and you still insisted on running it twice more until you came up with a time you liked.” Tom accused. Jake shrugged, shouldering his rucksack off as they reached their tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re only just starting here, still acclimatising, we’re going to get better times than this over the next few weeks.”<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">For want of anything better to do, Tom opened the crate of books that stood at the back of their tent and rummaged through the contents. Running Pen y Van, the mountain in the Brecon Beacons of Wales, had been a boyhood ambition of Jake’s, ever since he’d first read about the British SAS training there, and qualifying for the training by completing the run, with a heavy pack, within a set time frame. They’d made the time frame on several occasions, in between sleeping out on the wilds of the Beacons and the Black Hills nearby, by waterfalls and sheep covered rolling mountains, old forgotten grey ruins of abbeys and quiet but excellent pubs, and an elderly Welsh village filled with second hand bookshops like literary warehouses or cemeteries where they had spent days sitting reading on dusty floors among piles of ancient battered books. They had made a few visits to Britain, mostly to London which was where Beau called her occasional team meetings, but that had been their only real exploration of it together, with a strong avoidance of setting foot anywhere in Sussex.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">The crate of books here had been more or less the entire English section of a small second hand bookshop in Kathmandu and was refreshingly eclectic from battered Victorian volumes of travel guides, biographies and poetry to several extremely trashy looking novels of the espionage, planes and presidents kind, or of the women chopping heads off mackerel in deep misery in Newcastle kind. Jake loved those, the peculiar plots and the bastard misogynistic heroes kept him entertained for hours. There was also a very battered 1930s copy of Swallows and Amazons; Tom picked that up with a jolt of recognition and pleasure for a book he’d loved as a child. It was the stuff of British childhoods, a staple, and it made him think of Dale, and wonder if that was something he’d shared in. Jake’s childhood adventure stories had been very different to the ones available in England in the 1970s; they had re read them with each other as they found the particularly special books they remembered, and Tom didn’t think Jake had seen this one before. He lay down to flick through it, half an eye on the sky where the sun was sinking rapidly now, the temperature starting to drop like a stone as the light went. The camp was noisy compared to the valley; radios, music and voices were constant, the trudge of boots as people moved around, the smells of coffee, cooking and the faint background of open toilets that was starting to fade as it got colder and the toilet contents froze, and lights were starting to come on in some of the compounds in the distance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake found Bill drinking coffee and reading in a deck chair outside his tent and he looked up and grinned at the sight of Jake.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Aha, the wanderers return! How’s Tom? Less whites of the eyes showing? I wasn’t surprised, he can’t usually be that social with <i>us</i>, never mind with strangers like he’s been doing. He works too hard.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake took the deckchair beside him, not commenting and not needing to; Bill knew Tom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">If there was anyone in his vicinity louder or pushier than Tom – which wasn’t difficult – who was making demands for attention or support, Tom silently deferred to them. The only thing that helped was to remove him from that person’s vicinity. Among themselves it didn’t arise; Spitz and Bill were independent, confident and competent men who neither wanted nor needed any kind of looking after.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“We had an idea. We’d like you to lead an expedition up Lobuche east peak, take the clients up there. They can do some ice camping, practice crampon work, rope work, that’s a summit all of them can achieve, and it’ll do some good work on experience and acclimatization if any of them pass our criteria for climbing with us here.”<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“……That’s brilliance.” Bill reflected on it for a moment with growing approval. “Yes, great idea, I’d feel a hell of a lot better about trying camp one with them if they’ve got that experience. What do you think at their pace? Five day hike?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake looked at him, one eyebrow slightly lifted and Bill nodded slowly. Wryly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah. I know. We need to push them.”<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“A lot of climbers here are going to be handling over 15 hours climbing a day on the mountain.” Jake said reflectively. “Summit day gets nearer 20 at client pace. They’re going to need the experience of climbing that long and hard, as much as I’d like this to be fun for them as well, because if they can’t do it, if they can’t show us strong crampon work and how to use an ice axe at the end of it we’re not taking them into the ice fall.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“One day’s hike out to Lobuche base camp, one to advance base camp, one to summit and back down to base camp, and one to hike back here.” Bill cocked an eyebrow at Jake who nodded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s what Tom and I thought. Take everyone with you. Cook and cook tent, Shem, the Sherpa teams, the climbing Sherpas can get to know their clients and do some relationship building. Tom and I’ll get camps 1 and 2 established so we lose no time.”<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“And Tom gets a sanity break.” Bill added. “Bloody good plan, I’ll talk to Spitz, see if he wants to come along, and we’ll start out in the morning, sooner the better if we don’t want to get behind schedule. Dorje took most of the Sherpas up to camp one today with a whole lot of kit, you should have a good start. How far down the valley did you go?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Down below Dingboche, the start of the forest.”<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“And your time back up here?” Bill tipped his head back to see Jake’s face as Jake got up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Six hours twenty one minutes.”<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Bill grinned. “Marked, I’ll work on beating that when we’re done with Lobuche. We need a chart somewhere. I’ll stick one up in the communications tent.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Hard and fit and as keen on a physical challenge as Jake and Tom, Bill was quite likely to be able to match that pace if not improve on it; one of the things they enjoyed on team expeditions was the challenge among themselves, other athletes who pushed you further, worked you harder, improved your technique and game plans. Jake ambled towards the mess tent, a leisurely pace that kind of hid the length of his legs and his stride, and Bill thought for a moment, then got up, zipped his parka against the increasing evening chill and dug his hands in his pockets, walking briskly through the collection of tents towards the one at a discreet but definite distance from the others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom was sitting in the doorway of the tent, elbow on one knee, a book open on the other knee cupped in his hand. He and Jake read avidly; Bill had seen one or both of them countless times whenever they had time to spare, and their backpacks invariably carried several books they swapped impartially between themselves. Dark hair scattered in the breeze and from the sweat of a hard, fast hike up from the valley – and the stretch from Gorak Shep was hard going, that time had been earned at every step, the average hiker might make it in ten hours and the average serious climber in seven or eight – Tom looked still scruffier and more dishevelled than usual, even by the standards of most of the people hanging around basecamp. Tom always looked as if his clothes didn’t quite fit or had been borrowed from someone else, he was always quiet, always elusive, brief with his eye contact when he spoke to you and he was rarely still unless he was doing something that held all his interest. Even standing, he was usually shifting on the spot or finding something to do with his hands. In particular he didn’t sleep. Bill had seen him ghosting around too many times in the dark of night to think of it as anything other than just Tom’s way, but sometimes he reached the point where his eyes were getting so darkly shadowed he began to look like Geefs’ Lucifer. Tom glanced up, hearing his approach, and he looked better than he had two days ago when Bill had seen him last. Before he had time to get up or find something social to say – which he never found easy – Bill squatted in front of him to bring their heads to the same height, speaking matter of factly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Brilliant idea, I’m not happy either with them trying for camp one without a hell of a lot more practice and a higher level of fitness and I think a lot of them are going to find Lobuche a reality check. No, I don’t have the slightest problem leading it, Jake knew I wouldn’t. I’m army; I like to do, and I owe you and Jake so bloody much right now for bailing Harry that I’m glad to do anything I can. And Jake knows that too. You and Jake did your valley acclimatising, Spitz and I’ll get ours doing the hike with the clients, we’ll make our camp two climb when we get back as you’ll have the camps established, so this is all working out in the right direction. It’s just more of a team approach than we planned, that’s all. So relax.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From: <a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To: <a href="mailto:AdenD@Horizon.com">AdenD@Horizon.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Subject: Trains</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ve spoken to several people
from the Union Pacific Railroad and their heritage dept. They had stock going
through Three Traders in 1928 and the Silver Bullet was one of their engines.
Stats enclosed from the guy’s mail about her horsepower, speed and on average
what he thought she’d have pulled. She was a compound locomotive as you
thought, long distance over heavy ground, weight varying between 40-45 tons on
an average run, loading and unloading as she travelled. They had a record of
the robbery in 1928 at Three Traders when she failed to climb Dead Man’s Hill
after they slowed down – no mention of why in the records, I’d guess that the
driver didn’t want to tell the company he stopped because he saw a ghost on the
track. The driver reversed the train back into Three Traders Station to make
another run at the hill. The station master checked the train over again before
he let her go and he found a freight compartment door open on the side facing
away from the platform, which hadn’t been open when he signaled the train to
leave the station ten minutes earlier. The compartment was empty, no one was in
sight, and as you thought, it was a dark, wet night. There’s a mention in the
records that even with the station master’s lanterns they couldn’t see much
more than a few feet in front of them. The Cheyenne police were in town and
checked all through the train and carriages, they searched the station and the
town was searched again in the morning, all the barns, stores, cellars and the
mining camp. There was no sign of the cargo that was taken. The freight that
was stolen was only listed as ‘local store merchandise’ in crates, taken on
board at Three Traders, to be unloaded at Idaho Falls, and no mention of what
it actually was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s the extent of their
records, although interestingly, there’s no record of the Silver Bullet being
decommissioned. They don’t know where she is or what happened to her. Keep me
posted if you find out any more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now need to go do something
useful. I’m going to have Jake arrested under the trades description act. What
kind of Top keeps nagging you to go play on the internet and the satellite
phone? First trek to camp 2 tomorrow, we’ll be gone three days. I’ll check in
when we get back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">T.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">According to Spitz – who was Tom’s only source of info since Jake made it clear he was restricted to their tent and the open plateau beyond it that evening - the announcement of the Lobuche trip caused a buzz of excitement amongst the clients that evening and into the following morning. The Sherpa rapidly gathered up the kit needed into large packs they appeared to have no difficulty at all in managing, there was no shortage of tents and supplies available and remarkably, several of the Sherpa spoke to relatives on one of the yak trains that came and went from the camp on a daily basis making deliveries and collections for at least one of the many expeditions, and loaned a couple of yaks who carried most of the stoves, cooking supplies and food supplies. There was never any fuss or conflict about anything the Sherpa did together and it wasn’t easy to spot the apparent leaders, they simply worked together in a way that few westerners did.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">The exception was Mr Phoenix Loudon who complained vocally and heatedly that this was a waste of time and energy when Bill announced the plan in the mess tent at dinner. But when it was explained in detail that this was both acclimatisation work and their practice run at ice camping and a summit attempt, and Bart, who was suffering Mr Loudon with less and less patience, pointed out equally loudly that several of the other client expeditions here that he’d been visiting with had very similar treks as part of their early preparation itinerary – and more importantly as Jake and Bill emphasised, this was the key test by which they and the other expedition leaders would make the selection criteria as to who was fit and ready to attempt the ice fall and the climb to camp one – Mr Loudon apparently shut up and the clients spent the evening packing and preparing. They were still asleep in the early hours of the morning when Jake and Tom dressed, gathered their kit and head lamps and headed out together to the ice fall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">They were almost the first into the fall; the others were from a German expedition which was moving efficiently ahead of them. The trip down into the valley, the hours spent in the rich oxygen and the acclimatising work of the hard hike in the thin air had helped remarkably; a training tactic known as ‘active rest’. Tom was aware it was taking him less effort to move, and climbing with Jake, working actively with Jake like this on the challenge of a rough landscape, something they did in tandem from years of close practice, was one of the deepest pleasures Tom know. To be doing it here, this morning, in the darkness amidst the majesty of the serracks and the hush of the very early morning in the ice, while he and Jake navigated obstacle to obstacle together in comfortable, efficient silence like the figures of a dance with their attention on nothing but handling the ropes, the ice and each other, it was like moving through a place of enchantment. Some living wonder, in the sense of the seven wonders of the world and all the Boys’ Own stories come to life. In the sense of dragons and crystal caves, things so above most human experience that it was hard to believe it was true. It was breath stealing, muscle wrenching, mind and gut drilling fun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">They were faster today through the darkness of the ice fall where all the serious climbers moved in silence. Every step took them up higher into that whiter, colder, sharper and more isolated world that left the others behind, and there was joy too in knowing that it would be several days before he and Jake had to return back down to them and the coffee and pop music world of base camp. For the next couple of days it would be him and Jake alone on the mountain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">They climbed the last overhang and walked up into camp one before daylight. It was the first spot from which the Western Cwm was revealed and became visible: the next part of the route to the top. It was unseen from anywhere below this point on the planet; a sight granted only to those who earned it by surviving the ice fall. The favour the mountain granted you for overcoming her first trial. Their Sherpa had carried out a good deal of work here yesterday: two more of their tents now stood beside the one Tom and Jake had rigged, in a small group among the rapidly growing numbers of others from the other expeditions. All very well secured and stabilised into the ground to withstand what could easily be harsh weather at any time. One night’s storm could easily devastate an expedition’s carefully prepared tents and leave nothing but rags flapping in the wind. When Tom opened the flaps to look inside the nearest, the tents were supplied too: the ground lined, gas canisters, the small portable high altitude cooking stoves they used, a box of the self heating food packs all the expeditions lived from. Ready as a respite or supply centre for any one of their expedition. Tom had watched Dorje work often enough to know every item in the tent would have been meticulously checked that it was properly functional. He was slightly surprised at the tug on his harness, not a rough one but it lifted him directly to his feet and put him back behind Jake’s shoulder. So brief, so discreetly done that no one watching would have thought anything of it, but Tom knew all right, and his face heated and his gut squeezed under his snow suit, his attention helplessly yanked right back to Jake in a very visceral and complicated way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">You’re getting out of hand, my boy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">There was plenty of meaning in that mildly said little phrase that simultaneously chilled the blood, caused helpless squirming internally if you could control it externally and heated other very inconvenient parts of anatomy to thermonuclear reactive levels, until Tom couldn’t have figured out whether he loved it or hated it. There were times when Jake made it bloody difficult to stand up straight or think, never mind climb, and from the smile Jake shot him as he led the way to check the rest of the tents, he wasn’t repentant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">The light came up as they reached the foot of the Western Cwm beyond camp one. This was the last section of the route that was familiar from their trek up Lhotse last year and they were fitter now than they had been then. This was a shorter climb and a technically easier stretch than the ice fall, but for the crevasses many of which were nearly invisible under thin snow bridges and others of which were covered with the roped together ladders. The fixed line they clipped their harness on to as they climbed, like all the ropes that by now would be set all the way to the summit on the necessary stretches of the climb, had been set by the Sherpa expert advance team as they were every year. Gone were the days when each expedition had to negotiate with others and between them set their own ropes, and it saved a lot of work as a trustworthy fixed line was crucial on this stretch. The other big problem with the Western Cwm was a lot more simply the heat. It was open, exposed ground, the whole Cwm was a u shaped valley with Everest on the left, Lhotse dead ahead and Nuptse on the right. And all those walls of ice reflected sunlight straight down onto the Cwm. It could reach 100f without difficulty here at midday, one of the very good reasons that he and Jake had reached this point at not yet nine am, and when you were oxygen deprived in a way that weakened every muscle, climbing with your legs burning, your chest burning, when it took determination to keep putting one foot in front of the other uphill into the ice, being hotter than all hell really didn’t help. By the time they were half way up, Tom had stripped down to his t shirt, his fleece jacket tied around his waist, and was moving ahead of Jake with a sharp eye on Jake’s pace behind him. There was no two ways about it; this hurt. It was part of the battle that came with any serious physical challenge and part of the addiction Tom had had since he was a kid, the knowledge that to set out to achieve higher, harder, further, meant accepting the pain when it came, using it, going beyond it and focusing on the objective of keeping going, making a hard, sharp laser of his objective and having the will to gain it that was stronger than anything else. Jake got it the same way he did; they were both possessed by the same demon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">The last half hour was the hardest, this was the highest they had yet gone and the thinnest air they had experienced yet this season. They were both breathing hard and walking on shaking legs by the time they finally reached camp 2 at the base of Everest itself. This was the Advance Base Camp, usually known as ABC – camp one was mostly a transition stage, a need in the early stages of acclimatising for most who had to get their body to experience and become familiar with functioning with such low oxygen. But after climbers had reached camp two at least once and gone further, higher, forced their body to become more used to the altitude, they usually skipped camp one and moved straight between base camp and ABC.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">There were more tents here than down in camp one and the camp was much more strongly established. The big communications tents and mess tents had been set up here by expeditions as well as the small sleep tents, more were in the process of being set up, and there was more debris too, old oxygen tanks half frozen into the ice floor, although the Sherpa often made good money carrying trash down the mountain with a price given to them for every barrel filled. Having climbed for six hours, Tom scanned the area with Jake and they located an area on the edge of the camp, dumped their rucksacks and then came the two hours more endurance training of chiselling out ice for a flat base, setting up the tent and screwing it into the ice and setting it deep enough that the winds and weather wouldn’t easily shred it. It was hard work. The even thinner air up here made Tom breathless just by moving around just as days ago any moving around at base camp had been hard work before he adjusted, and the heavy physical work was a challenge. By the time it was done and the mats were laid down, sleeping bags were laid out, and a pan filled with snow was melting on the stove to make a drink to replace some of the fluids they’d lost out on the Cwm in sweat, they both sat down, took off their crampons and boots to crawl inside and Jake collapsed full length on the sleeping bags. Tom dropped next to him and let himself pant, working on catching his breath, and Jake fumbled a hand out, got his glove off, took Tom’s glove off and wound his fingers through Tom’s. When Tom glanced across at him, he smiled. His warm, electric grin that lit up his eyes, and that Tom had seen and loved like this on the top of Pen y Van, in jungles and in ruined cities; his battle smile.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">They were finishing the second round of high carb hot chocolate – it took so long to melt the snow over the thinness of the flame the gas created in the thin oxygen that making a drink from start to ready to drink was a marathon – when they heard voices shouting nearby and Jake rolled up onto his knees to see out of the tent flaps. Tom, propping up on one elbow to listen, heard the German voices getting increasingly urgent and leaned past Jake to grab his boots. There was a cluster of men gathered around one of the big tents not far from theirs looking anxious, someone at a rickety camping table just inside the doorway was talking into a radio and Tom, whose German was better than Jake’s, muttered a swift translation aside to him as they approached the group.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Someone’s fallen, they’re trying to work out where.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“On the Cwm?” Jake said in the same undertone. Tom shook his head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Higher, must be camp 3. It’s not one of their team, an open distress call went out on the radio.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Are they wanting a search party?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">There were a lot of answers to that, the first of which was that this was their first time this season at this altitude, the highest climb they’d done so far and a higher, further climb right now was a bad idea. But there were going to be limited people up here able to do this, particularly this early in the season with only a few expeditions in the camp; limited people who’d be experienced, competent climbers used to the mountain and fit enough, who weren’t either clients or supervising clients. And some poor sod was lying injured somewhere. Tom quietly addressed the nearest German who glanced at him and then Jake and nodded. Several other men from the party began to talk amongst themselves and Tom, walking swiftly with Jake to their tent to grab ropes and gloves, grimaced as he overheard.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“The poor bastard wasn’t clipped into the line. He’s going to have gone hundreds of feet.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">So it was going to be bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">It turned out that pretty much everyone who was in ABC had gotten there today, most of them were very tired and most of them were clients of expeditions who’d done all they could in just climbing up here and were struggling to cope with their first experience of such thin air. It was only the serious climbers – one guide from one expedition, an independent climber from another - and three climbing Sherpa who happened to be in camp with their expedition who kitted up and came out with them to search. None of them were fresh; like Tom and Jake they’d already done a hard day’s climbing and they were setting out again already tired and trying to adapt to the drop in oxygen at this height. There was limited wisdom in that. The Lhotse face, on which three quarters of the way up camp 3 was chiselled into the ice, was a 5000 feet solid wall of ice and while he and Jake had never yet climbed it, up near camp three itself Tom knew from reputation that it was extremely steep. Someone falling without being clipped onto the line would come down it like a rolling boulder. An up rope and a down rope marked the two routes for climbers as they reached the foot of the face and there were a few people climbing on the up line. Moving here involved kicking your crampons deep into the ice for a grip, and Jake, touching Tom’s arm as they left the camp, drew him back to look at the terrain to either side of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“He could have come down anywhere, this is going to be a needle in a haystack job. Be careful.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">The Sherpa men climbed the most confidently as they struck out to the sides and nooks around the bottom of the face, moving at a speed Tom envied. The most tired he’d been since the day they got here, legs hurting, chest hurting and breathless in the thin atmosphere it was a challenge to climb at all, never mind a challenging terrain, and he and Jake roped themselves together as a precaution, taking it slowly but carefully and mostly in turn around one of the sections that needed searching. The man was probably dead; Tom was well aware of it. The Lhotse face might as well be concrete and if you fell you fell straight down it, bouncing as you went – it would smash bones, a brutal, terrible destruction of the fragile human form, but if there was any chance the man was alive they had to try to locate him. ABC could just about be reached by chopper if the pilot was willing and extremely brave – at this altitude in the thin air the chopper blades barely had enough air to bite to keep it flying and there had been accidents. Otherwise, any climber who could not stand and walk on his own feet was in a terrible position. Transferring an immobile body through the ice fall was almost impossible, it cost too much oxygen and energy to move yourself, never mind a heavy and awkward load safely down a maze of vertical ladders and roped together horizontal ones with no handholds; it was not only lethal for the patient but for the climbers trying to handle him. Tom knew of the party of elite mountaineers who had come one season solely to retrieve the body of one of their countrymen from the mountain, not much higher than this. After several days the entire group had barely succeeded in moving the body more than twenty feet between them and had to abandon the attempt and leave the body in situ. A simple broken ankle could kill you up here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">For almost two hours they searched and the sun was now direct overhead, they were both sweating and breathing hard, and moving considerably more slowly. Tom was bracing the rope while Jake maneuvered around an outcropping of rock, hanging on with one hand to dig his ice axe in deeper, and then abruptly Jake paused and looked back to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“I see him. Wait.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">He moved further around to a more stable surface and took the rope, and Tom made his way around after him. The body had come to rest in a small cupped ledge of rock emerging from the ice and grey shale, and it was less a recognisable human body than a heap in coloured down fabric. One blue boot was visible at an angle that no human leg should be at. Jake crouched beside him and with some effort located the head and then the throat, moving the body very carefully, and felt for a pulse. It was pointless; Tom, coming to crouch beside him, could see enough of the head to know and to hope this poor sod had been dead long before he reached this spot. This was very far from being the first body he and Jake had encountered, Tom had not been indifferent to any one of them, but this one…. This one was coldly, horribly shocking. Jake sat back on his heels for a moment and Tom looked in silence at the expression in his face. Then leaned past him to unclip the man’s rucksack and slide it over his arms, and used the harness to lash it over the man’s face. It was about the best gesture of respect that could be made; at least the most personal part of him was not visible to be gawked at by any climber who saw him, and protected from the elements. Jake pulled the radio from his harness and opened a channel, putting the message out in English as the main language spoken on the radios and accessed by the most teams.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“This is Tom and Jake from the Mountain Eagles expedition. We’ve found the downed Australian climber. He’s dead I’m afraid; from the shape he’s in he must have been killed more or less instantly. If anyone from his team is listening, is there anything you want us to do or retrieve? He’s going to be very difficult to move from the position he’s in.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">There was a burst of static on the radio, several voices, one of which was the German manning the communications tent at camp two who acknowledged the message, then a moment later an Australian voice sounding very grim and to Tom’s ears near to tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Give me a minute mate, need to talk to the others.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">They sat there with the man in silence for another ten minutes before the radio finally crackled again and this time a different Australian voice spoke. “Mountain Eagles? Thanks. We’re talking about it, we’ll figure out what we’re going to do, but it’s going to take us a while. Leave him where he is right now, if you can give us the position?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> Jake described it succinctly, put the radio away and got up, holding out a hand to Tom. Tom got up silently, moving past him as Jake took up a secure position to brace the rope and hold it for Tom to make the climb back around the outcropping and over the ice. He stood squarely between Tom and that crumpled form behind on the ice while Tom did it; it didn’t make the man much easier to walk away from. It took them over an hour to get back down to camp two, less because of distance than being too damn tired now to move with any speed, and it was slow and heavy going. The wind was getting up and the sky was a heavy grey, it was late afternoon and already darkness wasn’t far away. It was a relief to finally reach their tent and for the first time that day Tom was cold. His fingers were numbing in his gloves and his feet and legs starting to cramp. It was hard to unfasten his crampons and without comment Jake knelt beside him and did it for him, then pulled Tom’s gloves off to examine his fingers. They were white, painful but no worse and Jake pulled the tent flap aside for him to crawl inside, starting work on his own boots. Once he joined Tom inside the tent and they had both shed their snowy outer clothing he sealed the flap after them, dropped down on his back on the sleeping bag and lit the stove and then pulled Tom down into his arms, finding Tom’s hands and tucking them deep under his own clothes to get them against his skin. He was warm, warmer than Tom was and as Jake wound his leg through Tom’s, holding him from head to foot enclosed against him, Tom felt himself start to shiver hard as his body began to gather some warmth and energy to sort itself out. The cold was, if he was honest, more than physical. Jake dug one handed in his rucksack, found a chocolate bar and took a bite before he put it down to Tom’s mouth. Tom accepted a bite and chewed for a moment, faintly nauseous and eating more out of duty than desire, but the sugar started to hit him and that helped too. They lay there for a while, catching their breath, then Jake found Tom’s mouth and kissed him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“We better work on a drink and getting something to eat, and after that we’re turning in. I’m done for the night.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Laying in a sleeping bag against Jake and doing nothing else today sounded unbelievably good. Jake unwound them with some effort and crawled over to the tent entrance to collect some of the pile of fresh snow they’d put next to the entrance earlier today when they set up. Clean snow to melt for drinking; it was easier to spend a little energy stockpiling than walking out of a warm tent to find it once it began to get dark and bitterly cold up here. The wind was starting to bash the sides of the tent; the sky beyond Jake’s head was turning a deep, nasty grey. The light was going fast, and the temperature was plummeting. The draught into the tent was bitter while Jake had the flap open. Not the sharp, fresh cold that Tom had been used to for the days they’d been in base camp and through the day’s climb, but something harsher. The weather forecast had been good enough when they checked it yesterday evening, as they did every day, but the forecasts around here were guidelines only. This was a mountain that made its own rules. Jake put the snow pan on the stove to melt and came to sit down again with Tom, and Tom looked penetratingly at his face, his stomach chilling as he saw the tightness around his eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“You’ve got a headache.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Only been bad since I sat up a minute ago,” Jake said easily. “Probably need to eat something other than candy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Yeah, that’s the Tom don’t panic tone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Tom rolled over to find one of the MREs, the self heating packs of food they’d brought up with them. Rubbish, but plain, ordinary rubbish; meatballs and pasta, high carb, and he dug the small sachet of water out, dumped the water into the chemical heating pack to activate it and put the pack to one side to heat. Jake was a big guy, he burned calories faster, he expended more energy moving around, his body had to make oxygen travel further and do more, and this had been a far longer, harder day than they’d planned for their first time at this altitude, or ever would have planned intentionally. The risks added up fast.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Take some dex. Lie down.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“I’m fine.” Jake reached over for his hand. “Let me eat and get warm and I’ll be ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> Tom pulled until Jake lay down beside him on the sleeping bag and Jake wrapped an arm around him. They lay still for a few minutes, Jake with his eyes closed, and his colour wasn’t good. Tom with an eye on the stove which was painfully slow in making any difference to the snow in the tin. The MRE was hot when he put a hand out to it and sat up, finding a spoon in his pack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> “Jake.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Jake opened his eyes and sat up, a little slowly, accepting the spoonful of pasta Tom passed him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“What is it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Tom glanced up sharply, hearing something in his voice that was wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Pasta. Say that again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Say what again?” Jake heard it too this time; it was more distinct. Slurring. As if he was drunk, except Tom had never seen Jake drunk. It was a hideous sound, Tom was watching Jake’s eyes and saw him realise it at the same moment Tom leaned over to grab their kit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“We’re going down.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">He found the box of Diamox in his pack. The syringes were faster acting than the pills, and he took one of the pre loaded syringes out, pushing Jake down onto his side and Jake turned over to let Tom reach his hip and pull his clothes far enough apart to find a patch of skin. He shot the dex deep into Jake’s hip and checked the time as he disposed of the syringe. The dex was fast acting, it should buy them time even if Jake was showing signs of what Tom was horribly afraid he was showing. An immediate descent of 600-1200 feet was what would make the difference and from here that meant getting down to base camp. Right now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">It was pitch dark outside by the time that they were dressed and left the tent, the wind was blasting and hard to stand still against and bitterly cold, and having checked Jake’s crampons, boots and harness himself, Tom dug for a rope in his pack. Jake had been moving slowly, his eyes were tight with pain which was clearly worsening although he didn’t complain, and his usually easy co ordination was visibly off. He was groggy and having trouble balancing, it was terrifying to see, but Jake still came to life and took the rope Tom was preparing before Tom could attach it to his harness. It was called short roping; a weaker or injured climber walked ahead of you, roped to your harness so you could break any fall, slow it, control it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“No.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Jacob-“<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“No.” Jake coiled the rope, putting it away, and he set out before Tom could grab it. Tom strode after him towards the other end of the camp and the beginning of the route down to camp one, switching his head lamp on as Jake did the same, and the ice began to be illuminated whitely a few steps in front of them, just enough to see where they were going.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“It’s the only bloody sensible way we have to do this, don’t you dare say to me-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“No.” Jake said it quite serenely. He always did sound as if he was so utterly convinced that saying no was the end of things that he had no emotional investment in it; it was just a done deal. On any other day but this, when it was pitch dark in high winds on the side of a bloody mountain of ice at dangerously sub-zero temperatures where he couldn’t walk a straight line, Tom would have rolled his eyes and gone with it, but right now he grabbed for Jake’s harness to stop him, furious and determined that this time, this once, he was going to win. Jake took his hand, squeezed it, but put it down, carrying on walking. Slowly, but steadily into the biting wind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> “I’m too heavy for you. If I fall I’m not pulling you with me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“If you fall I’m bloody coming after you anyway so you might as well!” Tom spat at the back of his head. Jake glanced back at him. His scarf covered his face, a vital protection to face and lungs up here where breathing air this cold made your throat dry out and bleed, but Tom saw the smile in his eyes and the affection in it. And Jake clipped onto the line and started down the Cwm. Swearing out loud, Tom followed him as closely as possible. It was bloody difficult to have a row with Jake at any time – you might as well try to have a row with a tree or a barn – but with this little breath, in this cold it was near impossible. And heads ducked against the weather, they walked together out of the scatter of lights among the tents in the camp, towards the total blackness of the trail down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Tom’s attention seemed to narrow in the darkness to nothing but every step Jake took ahead of him with the clank of his harness and the crunch of his crampon, the line Jake clipped onto to ensure that he did clip on to it properly and securely, to watching him move and seeing the faintest slip or misstep before it could happen, and his heart was thundering in his chest and his throat the entire time. There was one slide not far out of camp two, Tom saw Jake’s foot lose its grip and grabbed his harness, sliding down beside him, hacking his ice axe into the ground and rolling his full body weight on top of it to steady them both, but Jake rolled over, front pointed his crampons deep into the ice and flung his own ice axe out an instant later and arrested the slide with him. His instincts were good. Even groggy, Jake was sharp and well trained and they’d practiced on this ground exactly to be sure they could do this even semi asphyxiated and not thinking. It helped to be reminded of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">It was still a long, slow slog down the Cwm against the sand-blasting wind that stung the eyes and hurt the throat even breathing through the face protector. They walked like ghosts in the dark, unnoticed through the few lit tents of camp one and then came the worst part, the descent through the ice fall. It wasn’t the best time of day to be in it; the ice fall became unstable during the heat of the day and froze again during the temperature plunge overnight. Night had not gone on long enough yet to render it safe enough for Tom’s liking. It was a struggle to see in the darkness where each foothold was, to see the ladders over every drop and crevasse, to see anything but pitch black below the rungs, and all the time were the soft creaks and groans of the glacier moving, interspersed with occasional loud cracks somewhere in the distance as a serac moved, or the whoosh of snow as a bank somewhere gave way. You could only hope the bank you were climbing on stayed stable for the minutes you were on it; it was necessary to get through the icefall as fast as possible if you planned on surviving it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Tom’s fingers were numb with cold now inside his gloves and his feet weren’t much better. Somewhere on a ladder, backing himself slowly over the edge of an overhang to find the ladder rungs with his foot his crampon skidded and for an awful moment he fell sideways, brutally hard against the ladder and the ice, his jaw and shoulder taking the worst of the blow. The line he was clipped onto held him for the few seconds of desperate scrabbling for a grip and for a few seconds more he clung to the ladder, heart thundering. His jaw burned, his side was on fire and the breath was knocked out of him. Below him, Jake climbed slowly on down to the ground, moving stiffly like an automaton. He hadn’t seen or noticed, he was oblivious, and that was so utterly unlike him it was terrifying. Here, in the darkness of this labyrinth, for an instant Tom had never felt so alone in his life. Somehow he gathered himself, found the rung of the ladder beneath his crampon and forced himself to climb on down, aware he was shaking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> The release that swept him as they walked out of the fall and reached crampon point was so strong it made him gag, a wave of nausea and dizziness as his body let go some of the tension. They sat there to take off their crampons, Jake moving stiffly and slowly with robotic deliberation, and Tom gripped Jake’s harness, manhandling him fast through the maze of rocks down the hill towards base camp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">The lights there were very welcome. The boulder graveyard that contained the city of tents was like a formula one pit stop or a loading depot; even at night the bustle and the noise went on. They were a small outfit compared to the rest and everyone else from their expedition had gone with the clients to Lobuche including Shem, but there was the permanently staffed, stone built Himalayan Rescue clinic in the camp; they would help, although it meant walking the entire camp to find them in the dark. Except as Tom reached his and Jake’s tent he saw lights on in their communications tent and in Shem’s tent next to it, and hope abruptly flared. He steered Jake with him, horribly aware that Jake’s co ordination was bad now; he was reeling slightly, moving increasingly slowly, and it was taking more of Tom’s strength to keep him upright. He yanked open the communications tent seal with one hand and to his flooding relief, Shem glanced up. Wrapped in several sweaters under her jacket, her legs tucked under her, she was sitting alone on one of the camp chairs with the satellite phone and she got straight up at the sight of them, speaking calmly but rapidly to the phone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Em, I’ve got to go. Love you, goodnight.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Tom took most of Jake’s weight as Shem came to take Jake’s other arm, not sure he’d ever been so glad to see any woman in all his life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Looks like altitude sickness, we were up at camp two when the headache hit and things got worse very fast. He started slurring his words, his balance is off.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“He can still hear you.” Jake said indistinctly. Tom guided Jake’s much larger body by his harness through the flaps of Shem’s red dome tent and down onto the large camp bed she was using as a table. Jake rolled onto his back, letting Tom unzip and get him out of his snowy jacket although Tom could feel him helping as much as he was able. His face was tight with pain and his eyes were blank and rolled up to the ceiling of the tent; he wasn’t as conscious as he thought he was and it was coldly terrifying to see.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“I gave him a shot of dex up there, it was just over four hours ago.” he said shortly to Shem, who leaned past him to untangle the line of an oxygen mask and turned the cylinder on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> “Good. Jake, how are you feeling?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Better the further down we got. My head’s still thumping but it’s eased off a lot,”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Yeah, you’re mostly lying through your teeth for my benefit and it’s not working, so shut up.” Tom told him sharply. Jake fumbled out for his hand, found it and gripped it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“It is better than it was.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">His voice was clearer. Jake shut his eyes as Shem put the oxygen mask over his face, turning his head away from the light of the lamp she brought over to the bed and Tom recognised the blood oxygen monitor she put on Jake’s finger.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“You’re low, Jake, but not horribly. Mid seventies right now, you two were high eighties when I checked a few days back.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">High eighties was a pretty good oxygen reading for around here. Show an oxygen reading like that in a US hospital at sea level and you’d see a medical team panic on the spot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“I’ll take him lower now if we need to go lower.” Tom began. He had made many – many - plans in the darkness of that hellish climb down tonight as to how he’d get Jake over the long, rocky and difficult hike down the glacier into the valley, sure it would come to that. Shem gave him a quick look, shaking her hair out of her eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Was he slurring worse than this at camp two?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“… Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Then he’s improving. Let’s let him rest, watch him and give him an hour on the oxygen and see how he’s doing. If he needs to go lower then I’ll come with you, but you’ve descended over a thousand feet and he was doing fine at base camp before. There’s hot water in the thermos there, get yourself and Jake a drink, you look frozen. And he’s dehydrated even if you’re not.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">It was hard to do anything so mundane. Shem gave Jake a shot of painkillers which seemed to help. Jake choked several cups of the warm rather than hot coffee Tom made and after that he appeared to doze off. Shem poured herself a coffee, sat down in a deckchair near enough to see the oxygen monitor reading and put a couple of blankets over Jake, giving Tom a rather wry look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> “Tom, stop pacing and sit down. He’s all right. If I think he isn’t I’ll tell you. Was he ok on the way up this morning?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“He was fine.” Tom made himself stop with an effort and awkwardly perched on the edge of a crate, which was mostly what Shem had scattered around as shelves, seats and tables. “We got up to camp two and he was fine. One of the Australian climbers fell, they needed a search party and there weren’t many people to go out so we went with them, two hours climbing around looking.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“When he was already knackered.” Shem sounded comprehending. “Was the Australian found?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“He’s dead. Didn’t you hear on the radio if you’ve been here?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Shem shook her head. “I came back with John this afternoon. He had a severe hypo on the hike out this morning, his sugars have been all over the place the last few days and I’m not happy about how he’s handling the altitude. He and I had a long talk with Bill and we agreed it wasn’t a great idea to keep going.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“He’s dropping out?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“He hasn’t said so, but I hope he’s realising he’s physically not ready for this because I’m going to advise strongly against him going any higher.” Shem rolled her eyes at him over the edge of her coffee mug. “And then there were three.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“We didn’t plan this.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“So I heard. Quietly from Bill, don’t worry, it’s not common gossip. You don’t need to be this prickly, I know you and Jake did a decent thing getting this expedition on to solid ground.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">More like a wicked thing, letting people without the faintest idea of what they’re doing mess around with this place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">After that awful climb down in the dark, still shaking a little from it, that was a thought with real fear behind it. Tom didn’t answer. Shem sipped coffee, taking another look at the oxygen monitor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> “Deleted any more emails from your Beau friend?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Whoever they are, they really want to talk to you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> It was a cheerful comment rather than prying, and Tom appreciated it. The mug of awful coffee between his hands was starting to thaw his fingers and his numbed feet were starting to prickle as sensation came back, his stomach was in knots and roiling from the sight of Jake’s face on the bed under the oxygen mask and the intrusive, dominating images kept flashing to mind of Jake staggering, Jake actually staggering, and moving down the ropes in the dark like an automaton, all his loose and easy grace and his physical competence gone. He ached all over to the extent it was hard to identify any one place that hurt and he was so physically tired he felt almost drunk on it. He found the words abruptly happening by themselves, as if it was someone else’s voice he was hearing, as if he was someone wholly separate, watching his body talk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“She leads archaeological expeditions. Have you heard of the Abeausante team? They found the Urubamba tomb-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Yes, I saw it in the papers, the huge gold sun statues?” Shem said with interest. “That’s who keeps mailing you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“We’ve done some guiding work with her. She’s recruiting for a new expedition.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">They’d been in the Urubamba tomb with her on the day those statutes were discovered, but that was a private experience. One of the many and mind blowing ones he’d had with Jake in wild and peculiar places. It was hard to get his eyes off Jake’s face, he was watching every breath, every faint rise of his chest. Shem nodded slowly, eyebrows raised high.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“She’s persistent.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">That was generally why Beau found things that no one else did. She applied that ruthless determination to pretty much everything. It would have driven Tom mad except that Jake was serenely firm with her and Bill was quite outrightly firm with her, and Spitz swore in Spanish at her and stalked off when she got too difficult.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Mind you, I can talk.” Shem said mildly, tucking her feet back underneath her. “I get plenty of calls from home myself.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Em. Her frequent, furtive conversations. Tom got up again. It was too hard to sit still and wait like this. Shem watched him pace with more sympathy than Tom could take right now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Tom, try and sit down and get some rest. You did all the right things. You brought him straight down and you two have been getting well acclimatised.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“So what’s left to do? Pray?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Shem refilled his coffee mug and leaned over to push it into his hand. “Are you good at that?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Tom snorted bitterly, drinking while he walked. “I’m the kid of a cleric, I know it well.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> “What, a vicar? Rector? Whichever one is right for the UK, I don’t remember?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Both are right.” Tom said shortly. “And no. He’s a Bishop.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">With the cathedral, the ‘palace’, the robes, the garden parties, the whole nine yards. There was a long silence, in which Tom went on pacing, bracing himself for the inevitable question. Shem didn’t ask it, leaning instead to check the oximetry monitor on Jake’s finger and then rest her own fingers over his wrist to find his pulse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“That’s improving fast. I don’t think you’ll be needing to go further down tonight.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Oh thank God.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> The minor prayer slipped out in his head before he consciously recognised it. The programming still held true. Shem stretched her legs out before her with her battered climbing boots and crossed her ankles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“You can ask.” Tom said eventually. Shem glanced at him over her mug. She was knocking back coffee with the fast pace of a true caffeine addict.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“I thought we didn’t ask questions much in this community. For good reason. A lot of us have skeletons in the cupboard.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">She was right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> “They don’t know about Jake.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Do they know about you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Oh they worked that one out years ago. It doesn’t go down well. Mostly we have this system where I stay out of the country and they don’t have to worry.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">She grimaced but thankfully didn’t comment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“Sorry to pull you away from your call.” Tom said more lightly after a moment. Shem shook her head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“No problem. Em calls pretty much daily.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Shem took another swallow of coffee. “No, Em’s my daughter. Emily. We’re about four hours ahead of South Africa here, she likes to call around her bedtime. She’s five. A bit overexcited I’m on the end of a satellite phone every day; she’s used to me being out of touch for more or less the whole season. She lives in South Africa with her Daddy. Who isn’t really on speaking terms with me, there’s only so many rows you can have after every spring packing up and coming out to Nepal. I couldn’t afford to climb myself. As a doctor, I get my living expenses paid to be here if I sign on with an expedition.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“You’ve summited here?” Tom asked, surprised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“I got as far as camp 3 on a rescue mission last year.” Shem gave him a faintly guilty glance. “This is my sixth season in seven years. Jake said once the main climbs are done on this expedition, I’m welcome to take kit and Sherpa support from any of them who are willing to come with me and he’ll cover my costs to make a summit attempt myself. That’s the biggest carrot I’ve ever seen.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“You must miss her.” Tom said lamely. It was the kind of thing Jake would say, who was good at kind things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">“… Not enough.” Shem shrugged a little, looking into her coffee. “Ned loves the whole bath time and story thing and his job and taking her to nursery and picking her up at the end of the day… that’s enough for him, he lives for it. He’s a lovely man, he’s a very good dad and she’s better off with him and his mom. I… have to be here. It’s a junkie buzz. The place, the climbing, the people, the medical stuff is hot - this is who I am. Not ‘Emily’s mommy’.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;">Tom absorbed that in silence. In fact of the two of them, Jake had it a good deal harder as far as childhoods went. He’d had an employed household staff, boarding school staff and Philip, and that had been pretty much it, but Jake had the knack of liking people and being liked in return. He made friends easily and he’d found plenty of people to be attached to in that group of all ages, many of whom he was still in contact with. Their relationship with Beau went back to the fact that she’d been at school with Jake for a couple of years and apparently run the school climbing club with him for a year or two and done as much climbing as he had in the canyons and mountains around the state. Except Jake climbed for the sheer hell of climbing, the love of the challenge and the landscape and the sky and the day. Beau climbed with her mind wholly on who used this mountain when, at what time and why.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"> It was too hard to sit. Tom found himself on his feet once more, pacing the far end of the tent and watching Jake’s face beneath the oxygen mask, the steady rise and fall of his chest.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-8.html">Continue on to Chapter 8</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.4px;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger</b></span></div>
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tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-79698344523421212352015-09-24T15:13:00.003-07:002015-09-27T20:54:59.101-07:00Everest - Chapter 6<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>6</b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">“Do you seriously think David was involved in robbing a train?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">He heard Jake’s snort in the darkness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“The guy was a pirate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“But that’s mostly a joke, isn’t it?” Tom glanced over at the dark outline of Jake’s profile beside him, not really wanting to talk but the subject held sufficient fascination that the words were dragged out of him, much the way that Dale’s mail had put its hooks into him despite his mood. They’d only stopped their research, come back to their tent and gone to bed when the equipment in the communications tent started to freeze. Even in clothes and in a high tog sleeping bag it was still hard to get warm tonight and their breath was misting above them. “He couldn’t have been. Treaties were signed internationally about privateering, decades before the early 1900s. I remember reading something about it.”<br /><br />“Officially.” Jake linked his hands behind his head. He would have read the same kind of things himself, he was as voracious a bookworm as Tom was on any kind of subject, he had a memory that grabbed on to detail of all kinds and he had lost himself in some of the richest, wildest libraries the planet had to offer. Some of them he’d taken Tom to and they’d soaked themselves in together on the floor of dusty, wooden rooms surrounded by heavy bound books that were too large and heavy to hold in your hands and needed gloves to touch and turn the pages. “Off the record there were still sanctioned ships very quietly going out to harass in strategic bits of the world and mess with foreign trade routes in diplomatic and military interests, much on the same rules. They could get away with things the Navy couldn’t and the government could just deny all knowledge. Empire days. I’d be willing to bet from what I’ve heard that it was on the same terms it always was: plundering, no harm or damage; whatever the privateers took they kept and all crew took a share. Goods, not cash. Those candlesticks I found probably came from a cabin somewhere. Flynn came across some old heavy jewellery once, Victorian stuff.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">But didn’t you ever ask Philip about this? What did he know?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom swallowed back the impulse to ask, still wanting the answers but not the information that would have to come with it. They rarely mentioned that name between themselves. Other than knowing that Philip was Jake’s Godfather, had set up the ranch with David, and that Jake had lived there for several years and regarded it as home, that was pretty much all in terms of specific details. Tom actively avoided knowing much more than that and had done for years, but he’d seen the warmth in Jake’s face when he looked at those newspaper photographs and he’d found David’s face in the picture without difficulty. Dale would probably know all this stuff in detail and have actively researched it, he belonged to that house like he’d been born there. He got it. Not easily, but he fought and fought to get there, and that Kiwi maniac of his would help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">The thought of Flynn in that way always sent a mild shiver through Tom. He’d had a thing for ‘assertive’ men as far back as he remembered discovering the male sex with all its attractions. If you had those instincts you’d have to be dead to not have them start flashing on red alert around Flynn, who walked around radiating it. It was in his eyes, it was in his voice, just the same way it was inbuilt into Jake’s hard drive. Dale had the brain to appreciate that, as well as the gut instincts. Jake thought of Flynn as the nearest thing he had to a brother, Tom knew it. They had more in common than there looked on the surface, which was why Tom found himself liking Flynn a little more than was comfortable because he was so like Jake and so much a part of Jake, even if Jake didn’t do the growling or the glares or the barked orders. There were times when Tom would have been very prepared to indulge him if he’d wanted to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">I need bromide. Or a roll in the snow.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom turned over as quietly as possible not to disturb Jake, who had gone quiet and was hopefully managing to get some sleep. His own head was too uncomfortably full and busy to settle himself, as tense and irritable as his body was.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">I always thought I presented Flynn with a challenge.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">The challenge Dale presented wouldn’t be nearly as bad as Dale thought it was, and Flynn wouldn’t think it was a problem. Nor would it equate to half the trials Tom knew he’d put Jake through, day in and day out over the last few years. And thinking about it was getting him more stirred up than calmed down, which also didn’t help. The phosphorus drummer boy was an old smugglers’ tale that Tom linked without effort to a Sussex village, knowing the story as well as Dale did. Probably better, since he’d grown up around that district and knew the castle in question and the harbours and narrow cobbled streets well. And that wasn’t a comfortable thought either. It linked in far too tightly tonight with the puja ceremony and the primal grip of emotion he’d felt standing under the mountain, and brought it back once again in a wash of hotly unpleasant sensation that clenched his gut and throat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">A whole lot of bad associations, you’re stock piling them. Shut up and get some sleep.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom had heard his mother say: “You were terribly hard work as a baby, you just <i>never</i> slept.” All his life he’d been a natural night owl, born contrary as if his body clock was set to the reverse of everyone else’s. His mind seemed to wake up at night, in the stillness, his energy swelled and restlessness gripped his mind and his body until being still was unbearable and being inside was suffocating. All his life it had been time he’d spent outside, reading, climbing, exploring – he’d been in persistent trouble about it at his prep school for the first month or two until he’d got sufficiently good at not being caught. In fact both his prep and public school had done an outstanding job of training him in skills they’d never intended to teach him at all. Scaling walls. Moving quietly, staying in the shadows. Lying convincingly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">There was a soft sound outside, some way off. The soft crunch of boots on the shale. Unable to keep still any longer and moving just as he’d learned at prep school to avoid disturbing sleeping people, particularly the sleeping person who was usually all too aware of where he was and what he was doing, Tom slid out of his sleeping bag, grabbed his boots and jacket and went to look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">It was a Sherpa party from one of the other expeditions; Tom couldn’t see which. They were heavily loaded and making their way towards the ice fall, beginning a climb probably to camp two or three to set up the tents and lay in the provisions their climbers would need to find ready for them. Many of the best commercial expeditions advertised proudly that their clients had nothing to do at all but get themselves up the mountain, carrying no more than water and a few candy bars. Everything else would be taken up the mountain and provided for them, a tent and sleeping bag to fall into when they reached camp, food, water, their clothes and belongings, an individual Sherpa escort taking care of them who would also carry for them whatever they needed that day. It was exactly what their clients would need and what they would have to provide if any of them were fit to climb above base camp at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">There was space out here. Bitterly cold space, but room to breathe. Quiet. Stillness. The faint lights in the distance of the Sherpas disappearing into the ice fall looked like marsh lights. Will o’ the wisps dancing on the snow. Tom watched them for a few minutes, the itching, tormenting restlessness strengthening moment by moment. By the time his hands grabbed up a coiled rope, his crampons, harness, ice axe and a head lamp, he was past the point of being able to argue with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"> The ice fall was shadowy and blue in the light of his headlamp, and it was not silent. There were no human voices. No human within sight – the Sherpa party was a long way ahead now. But the ice groaned softly beneath him. Creaked and rumbled as the living glacier made its glacially slow movement and inch by inch through the day the ice serracs made their slow progress towards rearing higher or toppling and falling. It was a world of blue and white up here. The grey stone rubble of base camp was left behind. The sharp grey pinnacles of rock rose up out of the snow beside and above him where the mountain itself stood, but there was not one rock or pebble inside the massive popcorn machine of ice he was navigating. Nothing but white ice and snow leading steeply up ahead of him in a high bank, the beginning of 3000 vertical feet to climb.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">His crampons crunched softly as he walked the first, increasingly steep paths between the smaller boulders, an eye to the sharp drops and hollows that were deep black against the blue white of the snow on either side of the path. The path itself led sharply around corners, squeezed between narrow gaps, wound over bottomless crevasses where you had to step half a foot or more of empty air to cross, always moving sharply uphill. A kind of insane adventure playground of paths and tunnels, slopes and drops. The fixed line came into view as it began to get seriously steep, the ‘safety rope’ that ran the length of much of the climb through the ice fall, and the Sherpa ice doctors would set fixed lines much of the way through the entire climb up the mountain. If you were clipped on and lost your footing or fell, the line at least prevented you immediately disappearing into a crevasse or 500 feet down a sheet face of ice without time to do anything about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">There was a crazy moment of looking at the line and wondering if he was going to use it. Then some grain of sense kicked in and Tom clipped his carabiner onto the line, attaching his harness before he moved on, beginning to settle to the steady, familiar and deeply comforting burn in his chest and legs of <i>hard</i> physical work and the peace of being wholly, entirely alone. It was otherworldly in the dark. Moonless, but not pitch black by any means. In the very far distance once, he heard a deep, long rumble as on some far off foothill an avalanche fell. The first real challenge came in a short and almost vertical wall of ice, the side of a serrac with the fixed line running up it, and it was good to dig in with ice axe and crampons and fight it, mount and defeat it in a few strong, purposeful moves that brought him to the top, and to the first of the ladders across a yawning crevasse. Ropes ran on either side of the ladders to hold – loose ropes, although they were fixed in with ice screws – but at least they gave the impression of you holding onto something. In the dark the crevasse was nothing but black. Just a deep well of shadows, like something out of the book of revelations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">The ladder creaked and clinked beneath his crampons as he walked it, making a slow and steady pace across it with his feet placed carefully. Vertical ladders were placed against the side of upright walls of ice; over one spot three long ladders, lashed together end to end to cover one of the widest of the crevasses, bent and bowed as Tom walked over them. One trial after another as the path wound up and up through this river of fractured leviathans, rolling forever in slow motion down Everest’s side.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">He lost all track of time and gladly let it go. There was nothing in the world but the silence, the space, the sense of time having slowed down and his mind focused to a point as his body adapted and took on each test the mountain sent him. Challenge accepted. Overcome. Onto the next. Concrete and manageable. He was walking with the aid of his ice axe up a very long, winding and steep bank that was costing him all the breath he had in the thinning air when he first saw the glimmer of light flash across the ice below and glanced back. The lone figure was moving rapidly and efficiently some way down the ice fall behind him. In the dark, the colour of his suit was indistinguishable from the shadows but Tom knew the movements well enough to not need any other information and it was like a bucket of cold water dashed over him. To his shame, the first thought that lanced through his mind was <i>Jake, how bloody dare you! Have you any idea how dangerous this is?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">The outrage curdled with shame and confusion, and the knowledge that the burning shake in his legs and his lungs was still horribly satisfying. He’d done this a few times. Slipped away alone to quietly do something slightly… extreme. Swimming the harbour wall at Dover was the one that came first to mind. Climbing the waterfall at the ranch was another. He waited, guiltily wanting to climb back down to spot the climber who was swiftly making progress towards him, hating seeing him move without someone near to handle a rope if need be, except he was fairly sure that was not going to help. It took perhaps fifteen minutes for Jake to reach him, a fifteen minutes in which Tom got increasingly cold, since standing still was not a great idea. It was approaching four am when Jake came up the slope and glanced at his watch, clicking off the timer with all the satisfaction they normally would have felt together for completing a climb within a decent time window.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Not bad. How much of a start did you have?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">There were moments when Tom had to really fight the urge to hit him. Jake paid no attention to his clenched fists and put a hand on his shoulder, turning him towards the rope in a calm gesture to go on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Climbing with Jake at his back raised a storm of very mixed emotions that was a long way from the icy detachment of the last few hours. Tom led the hard climb up the now smooth, long and steep bank of ice until they saw the red flag fluttering on a thin post marking the spot, and the flat plateau beyond it with a few new tents already set up and dotted around in small groups near a few ruins and rags of tents from previous seasons. Jake walked ahead of him to stand with his hands on his hips, catching his breath while he surveyed the area, then indicated a likely patch on what looked like fairly level ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“There?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">He was carrying a pack. Tom watched him swing it down and open it and was unsurprised by the tent and equipment inside. It was an hour’s hard work between the two of them in the dark to hack out a platform as flat as possible in the ice, and in the thin air Jake was coughing again and they were both out of breath by the time they had the tent pitched. The thermapad was high quality stuff, they’d tested it thoroughly up here in the autumn, and it lined the floor of the tent to stop the ice chill striking up through it. Tom leaned through the flap to unroll the down sleeping bag and spread it flat. Jake shed his crampons and outer boots to avoid puncturing the pad, crawled inside and unzipped his jacket, and from deeper down the back pack pulled out a small gas canister, a small titanium burner and a tin. Tom took the tin, going silently to fill it with clean snow. It wasn’t always easy getting a burner to light up here but Jake had managed it by the time he got back, Jake put the snow to melt over the burner and pulled out his water bottle from deep inside his clothes, unscrewing the lid to take a look.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Frozen. How’s yours?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Frozen solid too. Tom shed his boots more slowly and crawled into the tent, moving to sit on the far end of the sleeping bag, unsure of what to say or what to do now the work had stopped. Had he climbed all the way to this point alone – he had the fitness, the strength and the reserves to make the climb back to base camp, not exactly easily but without much difficulty. But without bringing food, water, making any preparations to shelter and hole up here if the weather had turned during the climb, he’d taken a more than stupid risk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake, sitting melting snow over the burner, put out a hand without looking, snagged him by the collar and dragged him bodily across the distance, putting an arm around him and tugging him close enough to kiss his cold face and then his mouth just as he normally would. He had to be frustrated. He <i>had</i> to be. Any normal Top would either at this moment be sustaining an icy silence, issuing grim orders to face the nearest corner, or embarking on a lecture guaranteed to blast your ears off. Any normal man would be either sulking, shouting or be intimidated by the grimness and silence Tom knew he was capable of intimidating most men with. Not calmly melting ice and cuddling as if they had planned to get up in the middle of the night and make a completely unscheduled climb. But that was Jake. In a way it felt like being cheated of something he’d worked hard to earn. And yet Tom was aware his hands were shaking, his stomach was churning and he felt cold to the bone, and it had nothing whatever to do with the ice beneath the tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">It seemed to take hours to melt the snow over the thin flame. Jake made hot chocolate from the sachets he pulled from his back pack, along with a pack of processed cheese, a pot of peanut butter and crackers and a handful of chocolate bars, scooped a large amount of peanut butter onto a cracker and took a healthy bite from it and put the rest into Tom’s hand. He hadn’t realised until he tasted it how cold he was. They drank the hot chocolate between them directly from the tin in the same silence, far too comfortable a silence. What the hell did you say? Sorry? What did that mean anyway? It was too petty a word, too easy and entirely pointless and it was insulting to Jake to even try.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">It was still dark when they finished eating and the burner had warmed the tent. Jake put the burner out, zipped the tent fully closed and shed his down pants and jacket, pulling Tom over to strip him of the same, and he scooped them both into the sleeping bag, zipping it up around them with Tom on his chest. He held on pretty firmly. With his back against the zipped seam which made it very clear there was no chance of moving or getting out without his cooperation and Tom didn’t blame him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"> They left the tent standing and the sleeping bag and burner zipped inside when they headed back down to base camp shortly after seven am. It was the beginnings of establishing the shelter and base at this camp that they would establish at every camp eventually. A safe shelter, refuge and resources at every stage on the mountain. They’d had only a couple of hours rest, the window for safety in the ice fall was mostly taken as between three am and noon, and it had been past five when they settled. It took less time to descend than it had to climb; it would become faster each time they passed through it now as they gained familiarity with it and began to recognise the landmarks and as their acclimatisation improved. It was not long after ten when they walked back into base camp in bright sunshine, and Jake led the way directly to their tent, stripping off his wool hat and sunglasses, laying his gear down in the shelter to the side of it and crouching to unzip the tent and grab the two rucksacks there. They were packed. Well filled. Tom noted that with a bolt of alarm that grew as Jake zipped the tent back up, slung one rucksack over his shoulder, jigging on the balls of his feet to get it balanced before he pulled it up over his other shoulder and clipped the harness.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Tom stood at bay where he was, glaring at him with all the means he had to express <i>What exactly the bloody hell do you think you’re doing</i> without verbalising anything that would entertain the plenty of people around them. Jake just swung the second rucksack over his shoulder, turned and started walking with the sun glinting off his fair hair. Directly out of camp without a word to anybody, away from the tents towards the Khumbu trail. Carrying Tom’s pack with him. He knew Tom would follow. Eventually. Jake would be fine with it if that was in a minute or two or an hour or two. Even a few hours. He’d just go, secure in the knowledge that sooner or later Tom would join him. Eventually Tom swore and went after him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">There were clients. There were people here dependent and damn useless, they both knew it, and he was walking away. Just walking away. What was worse, Tom knew if Jake had decided they were leaving, there would be no changing his mind. It took him some minutes to catch up and when he did, Tom wrenched at the second pack to get it away from him. It was bad enough he’d pushed Jake to this without forcing him to exhaust himself too with the double weight. Jake let him take it, Tom swung it up and buckled it on and too angry to speak, overtook him and kept on walking.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">The bareness of the landscape below base camp made it like walking on the moon. There was nothing. Nothing but grey rock as far as the eye could see, just shale and dust although they were still walking down the same glacier they had ascended during the night. Wherever you looked was barren and grey rocky desert. Within twenty minutes base camp was long out of sight. Here and there the landscape was fractured, ruptured as the kilometre wide glacier moved, forcing up new and bare sections of white ice, not yet exposed long enough to be coated in grey dust. They’d crossed deserts in Egypt; Tom had seen this kind of vast bareness before but somehow the sun-baked open expanses of rock and rough sand were more hospitable than this was. This looked like the gateway to Tartarus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">That was probably the most unhelpful thought he’d had yet and he’d had plenty in the last few days. Even after years of experience, there were still times Tom found he’d fallen into the trap of seriously believing <i>he won’t know</i>. He was stalking ahead of Jake which he had absolutely no right to do. Brat in disgrace. Brat in total disgrace, he had no business leading anything. He was pushing their pace too, pushing it hard and he knew Jake was letting him. It was something of a grim satisfaction to know how much faster they could move now, days into their acclimation, than they could those days ago when they first walked up here. They were fitter, harder, the oxygen processing more effectively, the proof that their time up here had achieved something.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">And I dragged him up and down to Camp One this morning, the highest he’s gone yet. He should be resting, not hiking a whole lot more because I lost the plot.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Certify me a complete and utter bastard.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">They burned through the tiny village of Gorak Shep and on down the path through the bare, cold desert until the first tin roofs of Lobuche came into view, and still Jake didn’t call a halt as Tom expected. He was getting seriously alarmed by mid afternoon when they were on the trail that led down to Dingboche and the landscape gradually began to come to life again. Juniper bushes began to appear in amongst the bare rocks down here where the oxygen levels were thicker, plateaus and brush began to take the place of desert, walls and the occasional Sherpa farm, the first reminders of the rich valley rainforest that lay below. It was there that finally Jake took his arm and turned him off the path. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">They went high. They always went high. Just half a kilometre ago there would have been nowhere they could have gone in the desert for miles without still being in plain view of any passing tourist or climber, and there were a lot of them on the trail today, looking rather enviously at their speed as they passed. Now there was cover. Bushes. Green. They’d come down off the desert shelf and were emerging into the valley where the land around them was gradually softening and becoming more rolling, the views wider and gentler and the colours softening into greens and golds and browns instead of stark, dead grey. They climbed sharply up the steep mountainside from the path and a good half mile above the trail and then away from it, into the wilderness and behind cover of the roll of the hills and the thick juniper bushes where they were completely hidden from the trail now far below and a long way off, or anyone else in this lonely valley, Jake shrugged off his pack. They’d long since shed their gloves and down jackets in the growing heat of the day, Jake sat down on the scrubby earth, unzipped his fleece and leaned back on his elbows to survey the open rolling vista of misty green and brown hillsides beneath the white angles of the mountains in the distance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">There was something about seeing green again. It was a moment before Tom realised he was standing gawping at it like his brains had leaked out of his boots. Then he unclipped his harness, dropped his pack and somewhat hesitantly sat down beside Jake. The oxygen down here felt deliciously thick. A faint headache he’d got so used to he’d stopped noticing it had faded away. It was warm here under the sun to the point of being hot too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">They sat there for a few moments in silence, just breathing the richer air. Then Jake leaned over, took his arm in a gentle grasp and brought him to his feet. Without thinking, Tom came around to stand in front of him and his stomach lurched hard as Jake far too calmly found the elasticated waist of his down pants, released the cord and pulled them straight down. His underwear went part and parcel with them, abruptly he was bare from waist to knees and before he had time to take that in, Jake took his arm again, drew him in one mild pull far enough down to reach his waist and turned him directly across his knee, laying him there without effort and in an all too well practiced position. His one arm rested across the small of Tom’s back. Stomach twisting, palms starting to sweat, Tom felt Jake’s palm rub briefly and far too kindly across his now extremely bare and upturned butt, and then Jake’s hand lifted and swatted firmly and directly across one cheek.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">It wasn’t possible to hide the slight jerk of reaction at the smart. Laying across his lap with a very intimate view of scrubby earth, Tom pulled himself hurriedly up on his elbows which was what Jake expected, and which meant he was paying full attention to what was going on rather than detaching himself from it. It also had the unfortunate effect of curving his spine and hips which raised his backside slightly higher over Jake’s knee and Jake simply went on unhurriedly and firmly spanking first one cheek and then the other in a steady rhythm, working inch by inch from the top of his thighs up to the fullest part of his butt and then down again in a very uncomfortably thorough way. He was good at this. Tom suspected Jake could have dished out one hell of a spanking if he’d wanted to; he had been stupid enough and desperate enough to be in this position with several men in his earlier life long before he met Jake, a couple of whom had had a close relationship with black leather and a few of whom applied their palm or whatever implement they were using with as much strength as possible and very little sensitivity or timing. He’d had a reputation with them as a dead-end kid. Nothing got a flinch or a sound or any kind of acknowledgement, it must have been rather like operating on a dead fish, and he’d walked away from whatever they could dish out with his backside purple and his interest as freeze dried as his emotions. Some of them had been decent and well intentioned men. A few had been men he’d respected. Some had been tedious idiots. One had stopped after a few minutes and told him gently and far too kindly to put his clothes on and come and have a cup of tea and talk. That had been the one Tom had escaped from the fastest and remembered with the most discomfort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was taller than any of them, he had solid muscle in his shoulders and arms from nonstop hard physical activity, Tom was very well aware of the power he could exert if he chose to. But he didn’t. And yet he was far too good at Tom. Wincing and twitching in spite of himself as his butt was now stinging all over and the swats were being methodically applied to already well swatted ground, Tom twisted his arms tighter together to ensure he did nothing so contemptible as failing to keep them out of the way and resisted the urge to grab hold of scrubby grass which was just pathetic, and reminded himself that this stung, and that was all. Hotly, yes; everywhere, yes; uncomfortably, very definitely, but … not nearly enough to affect his ability to breathe or to think perfectly clearly, or to be anything but wholly present in every damn conceivable way. Tom found himself grabbing onto the grass anyway and his legs starting to independently flex and straighten as Jake began to re-cover his ground for the fourth time around, feeling his throat tighten and the words burst out in a tone he hated, harsh and bitterly sarcastic.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“I <i>don’</i>t sleep. You know that. So don’t forget to point out that I should get a grip, acquire some self discipline and try because that’s what normal people do when they’ve got half a brain. And yes of course it was a bloody stupid thing to do, it was deranged, and did you know I actually considered not using the fixed line? That ought to be grounds for divorce. And I hated seeing you there alone, I could have thumped you for doing something so stupidly dangerous as being there alone and that makes me every kind of bloody hypocrite. If you wanted to climb that damn mountain you should have found someone sane to do it with. You know I can always be relied on to screw it up and find some way of taking up all your time. That’s what I do, isn’t it?”<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake didn’t point anything out. But he paused for a moment and Tom felt him reach over and unzip a pocket of his rucksack and couldn’t help glancing back in sheer apprehension. It was the small, rounded maple wood paddle that Jake took out, worn and weathered probably more from five years of rough travel than from its regular contact with Tom’s backside, and Tom couldn’t help the pathetically whiny groan that slipped out at the sight of it because he’d done it now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake didn’t use that paddle any harder than his hand, but the first brisk swat of it on his backside reminded Tom sharply that the damn thing <i>stung</i>. It stung and his butt was rapidly becoming so tender that a firm smack anywhere at all with that thin paddle made his hips jerk and shift and his eyes were beginning to sting and dampen, and he was struggling not to hold his breath and hoping this was the end, they had to be nearly at the end. And still Jake didn’t stop. The hand resting on his hip moved and slid up to his shoulders and rubbed, a gentle, comprehending and deeply sympathetic touch which made Tom’s eyes start to burn painfully and his breath catch for the first time, but Jake just went on patiently applying that paddle on its steady circuit. Another round and Tom was horribly and shamefully near to throwing a hand back to rub or distract him or break his rhythm or something in desperation, because this was just going on. And on. And on. It was moving into the territory of one of the longest spankings in their history, and that was an appalling and overwhelming realisation… worse still because it was fully justified in being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">He wasn’t a stranger to tears alone with Jake in events like these – most often silently and after it ended. However tears were running of their own accord and he was gulping wetly and no longer able to keep still when Jake finally laid the paddle down. And then Jake simply went back to using his hand. His palm was gentler than the paddle, and somehow that made it even worse. It was that which finally and forcibly yanked free the knot in his chest and throat, he was a mess, a limp and blubbering mess by the time Jake turned him around on his lap and seated him directly on the ground on his now blazing butt with his back against his chest, wrapping both arms gently around him. Fenced in with Jake’s knees on either side and Jake’s shaggy face nuzzling at the back of his neck, unable to do anything dignified like retire to a safe distance or a corner or another continent, Tom folded his arms tightly over the top of Jake’s, dropped his head on them to at least conceal some of the mess and continued his fall apart without being able to stop. Jake was the only man who had ever made him feel small enough to be held like this; something easily managed and containable instead of gangly, awkward and unsurmountable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Their record for sitting like this was about four hours; Tom had timed him. It had been on a hill above a Peruvian city that had gone undisturbed by man for five hundred years. Jake never gave a damn about time, he just casually expected it to work around him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“I <i>am</i> sorry,” Tom began incoherently at some point into their arms and Jake nudged his head up and kissed what he could reach of his face. It was a possessive, deeply reassuring kiss and Tom twisted around and got to his knees to get his arms around Jake’s neck. Jake hugged him back, strongly. The fact he hadn’t actually yet done anything about Tom’s down trousers still being at half-mast as he usually would have done was not altogether reassuring. Particularly as Jake’s hand slid down his back and rubbed the sorest spots gently which drew Tom’s attention right back to them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“How tired are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Jake</i>. You can’t do that. I just abandoned you in the middle of the damn night and climbed the bloody ice fall alone, I couldn’t have done anything more stupid if I’d bloody tried.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Plenty of climbers have done the ice fall alone.” Jake pointed out mildly. Tom tipped his head against Jake’s shoulder in frustration, near to laughing with his face still wet with tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“If you did it I’d kill you.”<br /><br />“I know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake turned his head to kiss him, then leaned over to scoop a sleeping bag out of his rucksack and unroll it one handed, and he shifted Tom across to it with one arm, putting him flat without effort and in a way that made it very clear who was master of this conversation. Tom rolled onto his side to get his weight off his flaming butt, not quite sure whether or not adjusting his clothes was something he’d get away with. Although the cold breeze right now was quite welcome. No lectures, and there wouldn’t be. No demands of promises, no expectation of apologies; that was Jake all over. Who got without comment that it was something Tom would never do in his sane mind, and the length of that tanning had nothing whatever to do with severity of punishment or balancing any kind of book.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Somewhere between too emotionally wrung out to feel much except a deep, exhausted sense of calm and painfully intense emotion for the man currently collecting enough dead and broken juniper branches and dry scrub, Tom watched him find a safe patch of sheltered rock and start a fire. Unpacking one of the rucksacks, Jake dumped oil in a skillet and cut a lot of potato into it, pushed that around long enough for it to start to brown, then sat comfortably down beside it and threw in a couple of handfuls of vegetables he must have taken from the mess tent. He was as perfectly at home here as he was in any landscape, he always looked a direct part of it. It took a long time to say it, even knowing how much Jake was owed it, and Tom said it very stiffly to be able to say it at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“….I don’t do religious…. Services. Not well.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake nodded slowly, processing as he continued to push around the browning potatoes. It meant he was listening closely. He knew this stuff. About the cathedral, the robes and the pageantry and the choir processions, the pilgrims’ hollowed out step that Tom remembered acutely with his hands, a touch memory formed so long ago that he still remembered what it was like to sit within that hollow and be cupped completely by it. With the sound of plain song coming from the nave beyond the stone pillars. It took something of a shudder to shake the image off, but the sharp smart of his backside and Jake was dominating everything at the moment and in this wrung out calm it was hard to get worked up about anything much.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Not doing them isn’t going to present much of a problem.” Jake said reflectively. Tom shook his head, watching Jake break eggs into the pan and add a whole lot of cheese.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“This time it would have done. It’s not our mountain to barge up on.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Their last climb in the Autumn had been independent and without any Sherpa support or involvement, and therefore no puja had taken place. This was their first direct involvement with the ceremony Tom had been aware of at a distance and watched other expeditions participate in; the direct experience had been very different.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake gave the skillet a firm shake and another scrub around with the spoon, then brought the skillet across and sprawled on the ground beside Tom, putting it down between them. Tom took the spoon with less keenness than the acceptance of a hell of a lot of calories lost in the last 12 hours and a duty to do something about it. The heavy, starchy, bland food the Americans appeared to thrive on – Jake had actually managed to produce pizza imported in from somewhere which had gone down a bomb in the mess tent- was anything but tempting. His first cautious taste made his eyes widen and his mouth drop open involuntarily in surprise. He took another, larger scoop and this time closed his eyes, tipping his head back in bliss. It was <i>hot</i>. Damned ridiculously, palate-searingly spicy, the kind of fabulous burn-your-throat-out heat that reminded you why humans ever bothered eating in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh God, that’s fantastic.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“The cook had handfuls of them. The Sherpa guys don’t like what we and the clients are eating so he’s been cooking separately for them. He said this is locally grown, they put it in most things.” Jake put a hand over Tom’s and steered the spoon in his own direction, talking with his mouth full. “Coriander and round chilli.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">He loved spice too, another crazed soul addicted to the sensation of his throat catching fire. Unable to help himself, Tom butted his head roughly against Jake’s shoulder, which didn’t shift him an inch, and leaned hard against him while they ate, sharing both the skillet and the spoon. When they were done, Jake tossed the empty skillet out of reach and lay back on the sleeping bag, settling his shoulders into it with a grunt of comfort and pulling Tom down into his arms. He did it a whole lot too strongly for arguing to be even a possibility and without much choice in the matter, Tom let go the last of the tension and turned his head into Jake’s shoulder, draped over his chest and one leg. Jake’s hand slid slowly down his back and rubbed his still bare backside, both soothing and reminding of its heat and soreness. He was making one heck of a point; that wasn’t lost on Tom either. It was subduing in a strange sort of way that wasn’t at all depressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“What are we going to do about the ice fall?” Tom said eventually, mumbled enough into his shoulder that he had at least the hope that Jake wouldn’t hear it. Jake didn’t answer. His hand was still trailing over Tom’s back, as if he was cataloguing bone by bone. Tom sighed and did his best to find Jake’s ribs with his elbow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“You heard me; stop acting innocent. What the hell are we going to do, Jacob? We can’t take them in there. You’ve seen them climb. Or try to. I won’t do it; it’s beyond irresponsible, it’s heading for grounds for manslaughter.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok, then let’s run a training trip to Lobuche, east peak.” Jake said comfortably. “They can acclimatise while they do it, it gets them the extra altitude and it’s a good nursery slope for crampon experience and rope work.”<br /><br />It was brilliance. So much so that it was a moment before Tom pulled himself together enough to reply. The east peak of Lobuche was a hiking peak; nothing worse than a steep walk. Total novices were regularly taken up there by commercial expeditions in the summer months in the Khumbu valley, and it wasn’t that unusual for a commercial expedition on Everest to take clients there for exactly the reasons Jake was suggesting: altitude experience and acclimatisation without having to make the high challenge and high risk climb multiple times through the ice fall, and safe nursery slopes for equipment practice and fitness training. Jake’s arm tightened around him, his voice was quiet against Tom’s hair.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">“They’ll get the chance there of getting to the top of a mountain, a lot of good experience and a serious fitness test, not to mention trying out snow camping. Anyone who makes the distance and handles it well, and then passes the equipment and fitness course when they get back, is going to be a lot better trained to cope with the ice fall.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">And rationally very few of them stood a real chance of getting to that point; anyone who did would have made serious progress and deserve serious consideration of trying a higher challenge. It would work. And for those who failed – they would still have climbed a mountain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;">Jake abruptly rolled over, turning Tom with him so that he put Tom directly down on his back on the sleeping bag and braced over the top of him, stooping to find his mouth in a way that blocked out any further coherent thought. Then he slid downwards, and Tom grabbed for him with both hands, and after that things got confused and rough, and highly enthusiastic, and the rest of his clothes were lost in the scrum.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-7.html">Continue to Chapter 7</a></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
</div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-84714392356167681882015-09-24T15:09:00.003-07:002015-09-27T20:48:22.811-07:00Everest - Chapter 5<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">5</span></i></b><b style="font-style: italic;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was downright hot in the morning. Officially a
rest day, the clients lay in deckchairs in front of their tents with
sunglasses, sunscreen, books and laptops and iPods. If they hadn’t invested in
top of the range equipment including internet connection for the communications
tent, Tom seriously wondered what some of them would have done with themselves
and how they coped during power cuts.
Apparently the signals up here were surprisingly good. Mr Phoenix Louden
was wearing his pink snowsuit again, with the only possible excuse that he
thought he looked hot in it, which Tom found ironic since the man was certainly
going to get hot and probably end up dehydrated. However the mirrored
sunglasses below his expensively cut and fashionably dishevelled fair hair
completed the look and complimented the way he strolled around the compound
flashing butt and long thighs and deeply increased Tom’s desire to find a snow
bank and insert him head down into it. Or grab a rope and his crampons and hike
away as far in the other direction as he could get. The man was firing puppy
signals in all directions, anyone who was missing them was either starting a
brain oedema or was dead. He was getting a lot of attention from the other
camps too, both male and female. Several of the older women on the Australian
team were visiting the mess tent a lot to drink coffee and smile at him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lawrence’s tent was still zipped up. He hadn’t come
to breakfast and whatever it was they were going to do with him was going to
have to be done this morning; there was no more time for making plans. Tom
glanced at it a few times, half wanting to check on him and well aware that he
wasn’t the right person to do it. Tact and diplomacy was Jake’s department, or
Bill’s, and the poor sod needed someone with social graces. Harry’s tent was
equally zipped closed. Tom would have checked on him without hesitation, Harry
was used to him. It had been hard enough leaving him in the communications tent
staring into space last night; it was not exactly their place to interfere,
Bill would have been the one who could have most easily intervened, but the
atmosphere between the brothers was less strained right now than non-existent.
Bill, who was a brisk, efficient and positive man, was simply ignoring Harry.
It had been some of what Tom had been communicating to Jake yesterday, <i>we should do something</i>. Which Jake would
translate without difficulty being used to him and his more cowardly tendencies
as <i>I think <u>you</u> should do something</i>.
Jake’s explanation that it wasn’t for them to do had been tactful and gently
put, and Tom at gut level still didn’t agree with it. In his experience there
was no one better qualified to do anything that needed doing and he’d never yet
seen Jake make a situation worse instead of better. But he was relieved to see
the side of Harry’s tent move and shake as Harry moved around inside: that was
a hopeful sign that he’d got himself together enough to go to bed last night. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Keeping his hands as much as his mind occupied, Tom
ran the quick checks that all the tents were still stable and the water hose
still intact and was piping fresh run off from the snow down to them, and
ducked into the communications tent to check for email. It was something he
found himself doing a bit furtively, aware some part of him didn’t want to be
seen going into the tent although he couldn’t have explained why. Dale’s mail
this morning was a rather surprisingly long one and Tom read it with his
eyebrows raising steeply. He was still reading when Jake’s hands leaned on his
shoulders, making him jump. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Any ranting yet from Beau?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I didn’t look. This is Dale, they’ve had a tree
blow up.” Tom sat back to let him see. </span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“<i>What?</i>” Jake stooped to read the
screen with him, and whistled softly as he reached the end. “That has to be a
David cache, I’ve found one or two, but nothing that exploded.”</div>
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He was fascinated. Tom both knew and loved his
expression that meant Jake right now was fighting an immediate impulse to find
a phone or a plane and go and look for himself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What did you find?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
“A couple of candlesticks.” Jake indicated size with his hands. “Big, heavy.
Regency stuff if I had to guess. And a set of charts in a leather case. Not sea
charts, I had no idea what they were.”</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
“You put them back.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not mine to move.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“But what would he have stuffed that had buttons on it? It had to be soaked in
phosphorus, not just dabbed with the stuff to get that strong a reaction. Thank
God Flynn wasn’t any closer.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’ll be surprised
if Dale doesn’t figure it out. He won’t quit until he does. If we could figure
out how to get phosphorous up here by yak I’d suggest we got some and ran some
experiments while we’re hanging around with nothing better to do. I doubt Flynn
will let Dale do much.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Being a half way decent Top, yes.” Tom gave him a
dig in the ribs to make him move over so he could print the email out. Jake
grinned and leaned over his shoulder as Tom hit the inbox link.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale’s still in the early stages of brathood, he
needs someone sensible.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And I don’t?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re experienced enough to cope.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hardened, cynical, yes; no damn good at it
certainly, but experienced…..? Tom swallowed down a very sharp answer which
would not have been helpful. Jake used a single finger to select and delete
unread the several mails from Beau, most of which lacked a subject line. That
probably reflected the speed at which they were written as much as her temper
at the time; Tom could well imagine both. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“She’ll only re send them.” He pointed out. Jake
shrugged, emptying their trash file as well so the mails were wholly
irretrievable if anybody weakened. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
“Fine, if it makes her feel better. And if she wants to turn up here to talk
about it, great. We could use another pair of hands.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And Beau would be furious, and she’d make them well aware of it, but she’d
certainly be competent. Tom reached to turn the computer off and Jake blocked
his hand, taking a seat on the table beside him. </div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Why don’t you answer Dale now while we’ve got
nothing better to do?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom gave him an exasperated look and Jake grinned
and reached for one of the files on the table, picking it up to flick through. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re in no rush. Talk to the cowboys.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah you’re just hoping I’ll find out more about
the exploding buttons because you’re dying to know.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>A cynic is a
man who knows the value of everything</i>.” Jake crossed his ankles lazily,
turning a page. Tom, in the process of retrieving a glib answer to snap back,
found the first thought in his mind another quote from the same poet: a man who
had written oh so acutely, <i>Never love
anyone who treats you as if you’re ordinary</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Without looking, he put a hand roughly behind him to
find Jake’s, winding his fingers through Jake’s and gripping them tightly for a
moment as he began to type with his free hand. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<a href="mailto:AdenD@Horizon.com">AdenD@Horizon.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject: Exploding Banks <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Look, exploding banks
are <i>not</i> in the bunny contract, on the
grounds of being nasty, untidy and probably flammable. Evacuate the area
immediately and do not do anything sensible like investigate further. Except
I’m sure I’m probably too late. Do you have an identification of the buttons
yet? How much phosphorus is needed on
cloth to cause that kind of a fire and detonation? Are you really talking about
splashes? Jacob comments that there is no phosphorus available to obtain by yak
train or we’d do some experiments and help you out. It would make a change from
unpacking equipment and trying to teach the tourists to use crampons. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’ll see your chronic
alcoholic and raise you the Pink Peril, who fancies himself in a down suit and
wanders around in it at base camp at risk of overheating. I’m resisting the
urge to tackle him and sit on his chest, repeating slowly and clearly ‘this is
a sub-tropical area’. It’s a ridiculous mixture between boiling hot and
freezing cold here. The ground is ice, we’re camped on a bloody glacier, I
watched the cook deep freeze chicken legs yesterday by burying the crate of
them in the ground, but once the sun’s full on us it’s scorching hot. We’re all
going to leave with piles and sunburn. Everyone walks around in hats and
sunglasses and a particularly hard look this season seems to be to have white
streaks and splodges of sun barrier on your face like you’ve escaped from a
Comanche war council. Sorry. The politicking around here is driving me insane. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">T<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll take Lawrence down.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom paused in mid send, twisting around in his
chair. Harry had his hands dug deep in his pockets, his collar was up around
his face and mostly hid his mouth like his hat mostly hid his eyes, but he
sounded more together than he had last night. Jake, still lounging against the
table, did nothing more than give him a calm, appreciative nod. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a classic Jake strategy, most people fell
straight for it and Tom watched Harry hit the wall of bewilderment at getting
so little reaction, not know how to respond and then start to explain and talk
a lot more than he probably would have done. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m packed and so is he. I’ll take him down and get
him on the plane at Lukla and head back here. If I run the walking tours back
to Lukla as and when people need it at least I can do something useful.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was apparent he’d thought about this a lot.
Watching him, Tom saw the difference, the purpose back in the line of his
shoulders, he still looked withdrawn and grim and he wasn’t meeting their eyes
but any of them, Harry included, could do the Khumbu valley trek on autopilot,
and the walk down would do him a lot of good, particularly with a client to
nurse along and talk to. Tom’s chest released with relief, he hadn’t realised
until that moment how tightly he had been holding himself, and Jake didn’t
react any more than if Bill or Spitz or any of them had done exactly what
needed doing: a normal action from a competent friend. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thanks Harry, that’s a great help. Take whatever
you need from the supplies and cook tent and pick up whatever else you need
from the market.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
His tone helped. Harry nodded, clearly relieved to grab a working role and hide
in it, and as he headed out presumably to round up Lawrence and start on the
trek out, Tom glanced at Jake wondering how much he’d steered for Harry to step
up like this. Jake could move in subtle ways. He’d meant what he said last
night; he’d said it plenty of times in many ways and Tom loved him for it. What
it always boiled down to was <i>run, if you
need to. Just tell me and I will always understand</i>. But Jake probably knew
too that having his full permission to do it, having it as an open, accepted
and above-board option, it was easier to hold on for another day. And another.
Not to mention that if he did bolt it would be less than twenty four hours
before Jake joined him, without excuse or apology and deaf to arguments. Harry
had sacrificed his chance at the mountain and it was right that it should be
him among them that should do so, actions had consequences and no one else
deserved to lose their chance over his mistakes – but it was still hard to see
happen.</div>
</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Are you convinced he’s safe alone?” he said
slightly roughly to Jake. Jake nodded slowly, lowering his voice to the same
low murmur Tom was using that didn’t travel beyond their ears. </span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“I think so. He’s got Lawrence with him, the walk will help and he’s not having
to sit here watching us when there isn’t much he can do.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sitting stuck with a major mistake was certainly one
of the hardest things to do in Tom’s experience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Their Sherpa team, Pemba and Dorje and the several
others who had joined the expedition, had this morning finished the building of
the stupa by the entrance to their compound, the <i>ihapso</i> altar. These men who had been born at altitude in this wild
land, who had grown to manhood digging in the fields up here, hard physical
work at high altitudes, knew this mountain well. Her name in their tongue was
Sargamatha. The mother of the sky, and they treated her with the deepest of
respect.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The newly hired Sherpa had slotted into the work so
easily and so calmly that it was as if they had been there from the start. By
Tom’s observations they were quite a closely knit group of deeply competent
men, who could be found checking and testing equipment and examining the client
kits minutely. The reputation of a Sherpa guide up here depended on the
wellbeing and safety of his client, with no accidents on his record, for if a
client was sick or hurt on his watch it was remembered, and the payment for
being chosen for annual expedition work, particularly guiding, was serious
wealth in the terms of the Sherpa communities. But there was a professional
pride alongside their real and Tom thought sometimes rather paternal care for
these foreigners, the tourists, who were so much less fit and hardy and
experienced, and who needed such care. It took time to get to know them, much
as it took time to establish trust with locals in other communities in other
countries where Tom had worked where he and Jake could be the only strangers
within miles. They were several of them quite shy men who merely nodded, smiled
and got on fast with whatever they were doing. Others were more outgoing but
preferred the company of their own group and men who spoke their own language.
They had set up their own tent and in the evenings gathered there together much
as they shared sleeping space together. Wrinkled, stocky Pemba was the oldest
and one of the most skilled, and he drew Tom’s respect as in a group of Sherpa
men who were in themselves serious mountaineers and athletes, he stood out as
physically as fit and hard as nails. He walked effortlessly and tirelessly
about the camp as he worked, hefting loads larger than Tom knew he could even
lift easily at this altitude. Dorje was the only one of them who really talked
socially, and while he seemed welcomed by the rest of the Sherpa group, he had
continued to sleep in his own pitched tent much as he had joined an expedition
alone and away from the company of others. He seemed to be something of an
unusually independent or solitary soul in his culture. He approached Tom
quietly as Tom walked back towards his tent, giving him a quick smile.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom, we will make puja this afternoon. Will you
tell client?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, I’ll get Jake to announce it at lunch. What
time do you want us? Have you got a lama coming?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.” Dorje gave him a rather shy, sideways smile.
“When little boy grow up in valley here they know lama in village and learn
from him, and see monastery beautiful in Tengboche and want to be monk.
Sometimes try for years but do not stay in monastery. Come back to world. But
can do puja.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You?” Tom asked him, touched. Having read for years
in biographies of the childhood fantasy of many little girls raised Catholic in
Ireland, taught by nuns and surrounded by the church in their community, to
become a nun, it was easy to understand. Moreover it was easy to see in Dorje
as soon as Tom knew what it was. A gentleness to him that was tangible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Me.” Dorje agreed softly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom looked with him towards the new stupa standing
alone below the brightly coloured prayer flags hung by the Sherpas in strings
above the tents which rattled and fluttered in the wind and were sharp against
the bright white of the snow and the mountain and the navy blue of the sky. All
the colours were sharp here, the fluorescent greens and blues and reds of the
snow jackets and tents and barrels the yaks carried. And here, in this
atmosphere of logoed coffee and satellite phones and communications tents with
high technology, the Sherpa would bless the expedition and pay homage to the
mountain itself that lay under them and around them and lay above them as it
had for time unrecorded, with the same words their people had used for
centuries. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This must mean nothing to you.” Tom said rather
clumsily, but aware it was exactly what was most bothering him and had been
since they first arrived in camp to see Harry and his crisis. “All this –
stuff. People arriving with their tents from other countries, the electronics,
all the nonsense, it must seem so stupid.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Dorje didn’t try, as a Westerner most likely would have done, to smooth things
over or to say something socially comfortable. Instead he said after a moment
of thought, “Once I hear a good Sherpa say <span style="color: #191919;">if we drove
cars along the Khumbu valley, would we still feel the steepness of our mountains?
Would we still hear the waterfalls coming down our cliffs? Would we stop and
say a prayer when we passed a <i>mani</i>
stone?”</span></div>
</span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Indeed. Because the hike here was in itself a slow
and sensory path to the mountain itself which gave you the time to hear it, see
it, feel it as you walked each step yourself, the time to know what you came
here to do. Conscious living. It was a belief Tom had encountered in other
cultures he and Jake had worked within. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We believe that what is within you …. is the same
as what flows from you,” Dorje said more slowly, searching for the right words
in English to translate what he was thinking. He dug his gloved hands in his
pockets, watching the prayer flags flutter. “If water tank is polluted then all
taps can release nothing but polluted water. If body is polluted – spirit, soul
– then all the taps - see, hear, say, feel, think – will be polluted too. If
body and spirit are full of good things, good thoughts, good feelings, then all
senses will give out good and call out to good things. Things in the world are
pollutant sometimes. Too fast, all noise, all rush, too much in head.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Chaos.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Yes. If thoughts are chaos and rush and feeling are chaos and rush, then
person will see chaos, hear chaos, spread chaos and call chaos in to them. With
music in ears and phones and computers not the time to see. Not the time to
feel, or be. Not <i>lungta</i>.”</div>
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And by the Sherpa belief, in no state to make what
in their culture was a holy pilgrimage to a sacred place. In Iran Tom had heard
Islamic men talking of their hajj made to Mecca, the physical acting out of the
core principles of their faith. In Egypt, where the acting out of faith through
ceremony was the stuff of every painting on a tomb wall and every ancient
sculpted statue. In Peru, he had seen the Catholic culture that saw their
approach to the sacred in no dissimilar way on their holy days. In England’s
cultural history, the cathedrals of his childhood where he’d sat and rubbed
with his hands where the stone steps were worn away by centuries of pilgrims
climbing them on their knees, hearing the same services in the distance and the
same words spoken. It was never particularly comfortable making that
connection, those memories were something he’d for years been used to blocking out
as much as possible and it was always strange somewhere open and free and good
to find that there was still the connection, still a resonating memory of core
belief that went back through time to all cultures. This was a spiritual
preparation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He knew it. It was something both he and Jake felt
and understood and they’d moved through many cities where faith walked the
streets along with the people in ways that were no longer felt in many western
cultures. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<pre style="text-align: left;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></pre>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">He
that outlives this day and comes safe home</span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB">….
<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a vigil they were keeping on these slopes,
for good purpose. </span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> The clients
were curious and enthusiastic about attending the puja that afternoon. One or
two puja ceremonies had already been held in neighbouring compounds and the
trace smell of juniper smoke was becoming a familiar one. It was custom to
bring anything sharp in their possession to the ceremony. Harnesses, crampons,
their climbing boots, their ice picks. A pile of equipment began to gather
around the square, grey stone stupa that rose three or four feet into the air,
the Sherpas did a quiet sweep of the camp and gathered anything forgotten into
the collection. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What’s this about?” Max asked jovially as they
began to collect around the stupa. “Bless this rope and let’s pray it doesn’t
break?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re going to ask the mountain’s permission for
us to climb.” Jake, sounding perfectly comfortable about it, came to sit cross
legged on the blankets the Sherpas had spread on the ground directly before the
stupa and the clients began to gather around him. “Partly for safe passage, and
partly they ask forgiveness in advance for the hurt we’ll do to the mountain
with anything sharp we dig in to her.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The clients as a group were rather quieter than they
had been at breakfast. Lawrence had made his goodbyes quickly and he and Harry
had started out on their trek by mid morning. It had brought it home to a few
people that this was not exactly a game; the clients who had met up in
Kathmandu and walked up together through the Khumbu valley as a group were used
to thinking of each other as a social group now, something they would do
together, and to see one of them leave and acknowledge he could not withstand
the challenge ahead had come as a shock to them. Tom, sitting cross legged on
the ground at the back of and the side of their clustered group, found himself
looking from one face to the next as they sat together, because that was
exactly what this ceremony was. The fastening of the group, the team that would
be climbing together, and while it was not the team Tom had expected to be here
with, the facts were that here they were, for better or worse. Bill, barrel
chested and cheerful, his elbows propped on his raised knees and gesturing
actively with his hands as he talked to Jake who sat hatless and gloveless next
to him with the collar of his jacket zipped to his chin against the wind and
his fair hair blowing in all directions. Max, broad and good natured on Jake’s
other side, listening and laughing at whatever Bill was talking about. Bart,
beside him, who was the oldest of the group and who probably had more idea than
most of what was going on, and who had struck up quite a friendship with Max.
Spitz, next to him, longer and much darker, his eyes on the statues set up
before the stupa. John on his other side, who had read all about it and was
thrilled to be seeing it in real action, and Mr Loudon next to him still in his
shocking pink suit with his mirror shades pushed up on the top of his head,
sitting on the blanketed ground after a couple of comments about cold rock and
didn’t they have deckchairs, watching the Sherpas preparing with the look he
always had when he was asked to pay attention to anything the Sherpas were
doing. It made Tom’s teeth clench and he looked away. Shem. At the other end of
the line and like him, slightly to the side and back from it. She’d joined them
without question and just settled with the group as she did at mealtimes or in
any group meetings, an efficient part of the team just as from what Tom saw and
heard, she dealt efficiently with any injuries brought into her tent. So far
she’d stitched up a Sherpa’s hand and had a look at an older Sherpa man from
the German expedition who was a Porter with what looked like a chronic
curvature of the spine. Dorje, seated in the middle of the line. Pemba. The
kitchen boy, who was too shy to share his name aloud. The several other new
Sherpa men who Tom was getting slowly to know by name as well as face. Phurba. Pasang. Another Pemba. Another
Pasang, and Lobsang. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The ceremony impressed the clients, even Phoenix,
and while at first they were gathered in a rather party mood like tourists
about to be shown a local dance display, they were all of them gradually drawn
in by the spirituality they were witnessing. No few people from other camps
drifted over and gathered to stand behind them and watch and listen and camera
lights flashed occasionally. Dorje sat in the centre of the front line, sitting
in front of the dishes he had prepared, an upturned crate with a blanket over
it in front of him with a book laying on top. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A picture of the Dali Lama was placed on the stupa
and a fire was lit. Juniper branches were added to the fire pit, the green
strand leaves bright against the wood and the small bright orange flames, and
within a few minutes the white smoke rose in a stream and fragrance of the it
was strong in the air as Phurba next to him held the pages of the book open
against the wind with the help of stones resting on the pages while Dorje sang
the rapid chanting prayers alone in long phrases with only rare pauses for
breath, tracing along the line of text with his finger, at times accompanying
his singing with a soft clap of his hands, or taking rice or flour from the
dishes in front of him to throw gently up into the sky, or the man seated next
to him rang one of the two old metal bells he held, the crisp jangling sounding
loud in the clear air. It was the sound of that lone young male voice and the
chime of the bell that drew Tom in deepest and grasped him as the group gradually
became very still and quiet. Pemba and the other Sherpa men rose and offerings
were laid on the stupa and on the stone platforms covered with a blanket before
it where several small statuettes stood. Then lively moments followed in this
not exactly solemn occasion; rice was tossed into the sky with vigour by every
Sherpa man, so was barley flour, after which it was shaken and sprinkled over
every member of the group and smeared on each person’s cheeks in turn by Pemba,
smiling, the smear of flour already marking his dark, weathered face on each
side where one of his companions had placed it. The rice wine was also freely
sprinkled. Bread and rice wine was passed around the group for every member to
take a drink, and the Sherpa men guided everyone to their feet, stood with
their arms around each other in a long line and sang the chants in their
language, dancing on the spot in a kind of rhythmic and synchronised jogging
step. There was a warmth and a liveliness to their manner in doing this, but
all the same the seriousness and the respectfulness of what they did was
tangible. It was being done from the heart, and their conviction reached
everyone. At the climax of the ceremony one of them climbed up onto the stupa
and roped new prayer flag strings to the central pole, laying them out one in
each of the four directions of the wind, more bright colours and fluttering
that sent prayers out on the wind to the mountain, and the Sherpa turned to
shake hands with each other, guiding the westerners to do the same. At their
urging Tom, like everyone else, shook hands with everyone within his reach,
muttering the words that the Sherpa repeated, to be careful on this journey
they made together. He found himself grasping Shem’s hand in the middle of it,
she had been crouching throughout, listening with her arms wrapped around her
worn down pants, chin on her knees and strands from her plait blowing loose,
looking directly at the fire as the chants went on. It was clear this was not
her first experience of a puja, she knew what to do and she was not surprised
by it, but Tom saw in her face as she grasped his hand that she too took this
seriously and she knew what it meant. Bill, with his warm grin behind his
moustache and the flour smears standing out on his face, gripped Tom’s hand
with his other hand clasped over the top, a good head shorter than Tom but with
a lot of vigour. Spitz, who had listened in silence through the ceremony as Tom
had seen him attend through other ceremonies and rituals they had witnessed,
with his dark eyes sober and one hand at the neck of his shirt where Tom knew
he wore a small and worn silver crucifix. He grasped Tom’s hand and what he
murmured was in Spanish, but the tone gave away what he meant, Tom thought it
came most likely from a Latin Mass. And Jake. Who smiled, his eyes alight, and
held out a hand. Shaking hands with him – it wasn’t something Tom ever
remembered doing, it was a totally foreign form of touch between the two of
them who spent a lot of their time in close physical contact and it was odd to
stand and look straight at him with the formal distance between them. Jake’s
hand was warm and strong when he took it, and it gripped his privately, firmly,
longer than anyone else had done, for a moment his eyes met Tom’s, the unique bright
aqua blue with the cracked glass patterns of his iris that made it look like
someone had stirred a hand through a phosphorescent sea, warm, alive because he
was loving this. To him it was pure electricity and this was the last and final
rite of preparation on a list of preparations that went back years that they
had to complete before the climb began. With the puja complete, they could
enter the mountain now. He was beautiful. He looked tanned and weather beaten
and so vibrantly <i>alive</i> in that
moment, and looking at him Tom felt a bolt rip right through him of sheer and
cold terror. Utter, abject terror. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were photographs taken too. In the melee of
gathering everyone together, Tom slipped away from the group and disappeared
behind the tents and out towards the open ground beyond the camp. Everyone did
it, he’d seen plenty of those before-climb pictures and he couldn’t stand it.
Ordered lines of grinning people in their jackets and scarves in base camp, and
after the worst accidents and disasters those photographs appeared in books
with lists of names where you looked at each face of someone who thought they
were there for a few weeks to climb and fulfil a dream and had been knocking
around this same camp doing the same things you were doing, had thought they
were making mementos and hadn’t realised that they were making their obituary.
It was getting dark and the wind was getting higher, the sky was turning to a
dark midnight blue above them, his breath misted strongly in front of him in
white steam where he stopped, some way from the scattered brightly colour
tents, alone in the lunar landscape of grey before him and the mountain behind
him. He was cold to the bone from sitting on the ground, his hands were like
ice but they were still sweating and his back was wet with it. For a moment Tom
stood there with his head tipped back, staring up at the sky, the vastness of
the blue, his knees still shaking with that wash of terror that had hit him by
the stupa. He was nauseous with it, for a moment it was hard to move or breathe
it was so vast. And then he made himself turn around and look up the mountain.
It reared up before him, black as the shadows spread across it in the falling
dark, starkly beautiful and deadly, and while he’d lived on this plateau in its
shadow for some days now it had never held the realness or the immediacy it
held in this moment. Hall lay up there. Fischer. Sharp. Tasker. Mallory.
Irving. The names from the stories. Gifted climbers, serious mountaineers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It took a long time to control his breathing. Hands
dug deep in his pockets, he fought with the nausea and the waves passing
through him until he could move again. Then he began to walk, steadily, hard
cardio challenge in the low air, pacing along the grey shale on the safe even ground.
His face stung with the cold and the wind in the open air and that helped too.
Leaving the camp behind him he walked out along the plateau where there was
nothing at all but the sound of the wind and the relief of being utterly alone,
unseen. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a party that night. Lots of teams
celebrated the puja in this way and by dark there were several fires lit in
their compound and other teams’ and thudding music was filling the cold night
air and overcoming the wind. The solar power batteries and the generator were
too damn effective, there was no trouble running laptops, tvs and music 24
hours a day. Jake and Bill must have planned for this; army men knew how to
throw parties, and their clients were mixed in with clients from the other
expeditions, carrying cans of drink, getting rowdier and probably drunker by
the hour. Tom took refuge in the communications tent which was as far away from
it as possible, and found Shem there finishing a conversation on the satellite
phone which she seemed to hurry to a close as Tom came in and took a seat in
front of the laptop to fire it up. Her voice had taken on a kind of furtive
edge, he heard her tone drop. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah. I promise. Ok. Night Em. Love you too,”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">She put the phone down, but sat there for a moment
more in silence before she got up and her voice was back to normal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey Tom. Not a party fan?”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“No.” Tom said briefly.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No, me either. Been here, done this a few too many
times. This is my sixth season, the bug kind of gets you, doesn’t it?” She
glanced at the screen and Tom heard her voice change at the sight of their
inbox. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Wow. Whoever Beau is, they really want to talk to
you.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Friend of ours.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re not opening them?” Shem watched him delete
the lot. “Ok, that’s assertive. You look cold, are you ok?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was rude, but it worked. Shem hesitated a moment
more, then said with more ease than most people managed when they were spoken
to like that, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I think I’ll go hang out in my tent, put some ear
plugs in and wait to start treating the sprained ankles and hangovers. Night
Tom.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake came in as she went out, Tom heard his voice
outside wishing her good night, and then his footfall on the shale and Jake’s
hands cupping his shoulders. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Anything interesting?”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Tom tipped his head back to give him a flat look. Jake crossed his eyes at him.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Come And Be Sociable. Get Off The Internet. Nah,
it’s boring. Any more from Dale?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.” Tom said shortly. “You’re only salivating to
know about that jacket.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“And you’re not?” Jake pulled a chair up to join him
and read Dale’s newest mail, lounging back in it which effectively dwarfed it.
Very few chairs looked sensible once Jake sat in them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.com">AdenD@horizon.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
Large Historical Mess<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My sympathies regarding the Pink
Peril. Mason is engaged in battle with Jasper over the stables. It’s now ten
minutes to ten pm and Jasper is still sitting on the porch waiting. I have no
idea how long this is going to go on for, but no one else appears to be
particularly worried about it. I always thought I presented Flynn with a
challenge. I’m reassured that I conformed with things that others don’t! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I enclose an attachment of the
paperwork needed for tax and to set up book keeping arrangements, and I draw
your attention to page 2, paragraphs 4, 5 and 7b codicil 4. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How is the crampon tuition going?
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We may have unintentionally
caused a problem with the historical research. The buttons are from a 17<sup>th</sup>
Infantry British Regiment coat, the Royal Leicestershires, from the War of
Independence. We’ve got various theories for how this got to Three Traders, but
the evidence (see enclosed, notes, timeline and the copy of the newspaper
articles, Jake may find the picture interesting) suggests that it may have been
coated with phosphorus for a man to play ghost in the dark in bad weather to
stop the train in order for it to be robbed. The picture in the newspaper
appears to contain David as a local grouped around the robbed train, the jacket
is on our land, the coated phosphorus army jacket is an old British smuggler’s
trick if you’ve heard the stories. Flynn’s first response was that it may be
that David was actually involved in the robbery. If so, that’s not information
that I would have liked Paul to hear, or would want other members of the family
to hear, particularly those that knew him. I’d like to find out what the trains
through Three Traders heading west would have been carrying. The mine was no
longer producing gold by 1928, just coal. I’m supposing that most cargo would
have been shop good from the eastern cities going out to the small west towns
like Three Traders. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a moment’s silence while Jake digested
that and laughter and the thud of music came from outside the tent. Then Jake
said cheerfully, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Who do you think we ring to find out more about
this train?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-6.html">Continue onto Chapter 6</a></b></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
</div>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-14936870929675534602015-09-24T15:04:00.006-07:002015-09-27T20:42:09.881-07:00Everest - Chapter 4<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: right;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">4 </span></i></b><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Sherpa were working on a square heap of stones
at the far end of their compound on the highest point of ground. The Sherpa
belonging to every expedition were doing it within their own group of tents,
these little altars were springing up everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
“<i>Ihapso</i> altar.” John said
knowledgeably when Max and Bart stopped to look at the growing heap. “They’ll
hold a puja before they climb. They bless the ice axes, that kind of thing.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Which of your books
did you get that out of? <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom, finishing the last few lines of his email to
Dale, gave John a rather irritated glance through the flaps of the
communications tent. Harry, slumped in the deck chair at the other end of the
table in front of another lap top, had his hands dug deep in his pockets and was
looking increasingly awful. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<a href="mailto:AdenD@Horizon.com">AdenD@Horizon.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
Re: Re: Large Financial Mess <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Good morning Aden. (D). Thanks
for the paperwork. Jake’s comment was to the effect of if you think it’s water
tight then it’s probably going to be declared a drought disaster area. He
continues to think he’s funny, it’s the altitude. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I didn’t expect to have access to
email up here, only the big expeditions do but as you’ve gathered we are now
part of a big expedition. There is a letter on its way to you which was written
before I discovered technology has taken over base camp. Some of our clients
are going to need surgical detachment from their iPods before climbing.
Apparently they think a shout from another climber or an avalanche will signal
itself over Abba’s Greatest Hits. Thank you for your letter. It was kind. I
appreciated it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We’re at base camp, acclimatising
and setting up. Equipment is arriving in hordes, things happen surprisingly
fast through the local network. We’re planning the initial expedition to set up
camp one in the next few days, and give the clients a few more days to
acclimatise. They don’t mind. Walk out of our compound and it’s like being in a
mall, Starbucks coffee and big tv screens and logos everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Again thanks<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">T<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aden (D). The guy was so diffident it was almost
funny, but he’d done a damn good job on the papers. And there was another email
in the box with an ominous name attached to it. Tom opened it, had a look, then
shut the programme and got up to file the print out of Dale’s work, passing by
Harry to get to the crate in which they were keeping the important stuff. This
was second nature to him and to Jake, although usually they’d spend a couple of
days organising the papers and then finding somewhere safe to put them before
they left on expedition. Hotels, banks, there were always places willing to be
a temporary safe place for the urgent stuff. Harry was sitting in front of a
running screen saver, his chin sunk behind his scarf, eyes unseeing. Tom gave
him a rather grim look as he searched through the crate. The satellite phone
rang behind him and when Harry ignored it Tom leaned past him over the table to
grab the handset, listened to the name asked for and nodded. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Give me a minute to find her.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was a man’s voice on the other end of the phone, South African, pleasant.
Tom jogged across the grey shale to the red battered medic tent and found Shem
reading in a deckchair behind it.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Phone for you.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Thanks.” Shem brought her book with her and matched his pace back to the
communications tent. She was fit, he hadn’t seen her breathless yet although
she kept her own tent ropes managed and he’d seen her dig out a spot to stack
her numerous medical supplies crates with a lot of efficiency. She pulled out a
deckchair and sat down at the camping table that supported their technology
gear, picking up the phone.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hello? Hey, Em!” her voice lightened, her face
changed, mostly lightening like her voice had. “How are you?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom found the right folder, shoved the paper inside
and locked the crate. Harry, a few feet from Shem, still hadn’t looked up or
moved. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was checking through the last of the crates of
oxygen cylinders with Dorje and several others of their Sherpa support team who
had set up their own tents together around the equipment crates and store
tents. They were meticulous about this, Tom had watched them check equipment
before, patiently piece by piece, with expertise. The climbing jobs up here
were the best paid in the Khumbu valley, they were sought after and the
reputation of a climbing Sherpa rested on safe clients and no accidents, but
there was a professional and a personal pride among them too. They were
unsensational guys, efficient and cheerful. Jake glanced up, caught Tom’s eye
and finished checking the cylinder he was examining before he put it back into
the crate and got up. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ve got a good set. Spitz’s contact was
efficient.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“And how much did that cost?” Tom said darkly. Jake grinned, raising his
eyebrows as they walked away towards their tent.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“A really obscene amount.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
He stopped at a good distance from any eavesdroppers, doing nothing more than
wait, and Tom squatted down, running a hand over the snow. About an inch had
fallen overnight, but loose and powdery it barely covered the icy gravel.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Harry’s cracking. We’re going to have to get him
out of here, he’s going down by the hour.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And this was not a good place for someone to have a breakdown. Jake put his
hands on his hips, surveying the valley behind them. Having placed their
compound at the very far end of base camp, their tent was the last one before
the open ground began. They were probably the furthest out from the start of
the ice fall, but to the side of the other expeditions rather than below them
where there was the risk of pollution from the run off of their latrines, and
there was nothing more than a roughly assembled ice and stone wall behind them
that acted as a windbreak with an open view beyond it.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Bill’s struggling to get his head around it. I
sounded him out last night and he’s still too angry to be thinking much else
but wanting Harry to get a grip and get on with it.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“He can’t. If someone doesn’t get Harry moving soon, he’s not going to be up to
the walk back to Lukla anyway.” Tom looked up at Jake. “Unless we fly him out.
He can’t do this. He’s no good here, he’s not going to be any good, he’s just
another thing to worry about and work around.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
They were used to making the hard decisions quickly and cleanly; unfit and
unstable people risked expeditions, but Jake nodded more slowly than he would
usually.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re not in the position to be the only ones
making that decision.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“We have to be or none of this is safe.”</div>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ve got this in hand.” Jake said it far too
gently. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh don’t talk to me like I’m freaking out.” Tom
shoved irritably to his feet and Jake snagged his hand, turning him back
without effort and reeling him in until they were face to face and Jake linked
his hands in the small of Tom’s back, holding him where he was. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ve got this, and I’ve got you. The equipment is
here. We’re on schedule. We’ll manage Harry.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Then get rid of him, or I will.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“How?” Jake not only refused to let go, but pulled Tom closer, holding him
without effort. Tom twisted, not managing to free himself or get an elbow near
Jake’s stomach since Jake held him far too tightly, used to that tactic and
hadn’t fallen for it in years. “Where is he going to go?”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t care. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a vicious, mean little thought, and unable to
get out of Jake’s arms Tom set his teeth and jaw hard against Jake’s shoulder
through the fleece of his jacket. They were both getting shaggy around the
face, shaving was not easy here and they’d stopped bothering, they were going
to be sporting beards before they left this place. Jake’s teeth closed briefly
and gently on his earlobe in return. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do I need to take you down into the valley and sort
you out?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If they’d been here as originally planned, they
would have done. They had done when they’d been here in this camp climbing
Lhotse last autumn. Spitz, Bill and Harry were perfectly ok with them
disappearing for a day or two, they were independent climbers and together as
friends and back up with no more obligation than that. Right now……….. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The sensation of being trapped was getting strong. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I can handle being bloody celibate in a sacred
bloody place like a normal bloody person,” Tom said shortly. “I’m not that
pathetic and I’m raising sensible concerns. Get off.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake let him go and Tom stalked away from him,
grabbing up a couple of coiled ropes and an ice axe and his crampons as he
passed their tent. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The hike helped. It then took a little over an hour
with Spitz to rig ladders on the slopes they had chosen and set up as a nursery
training ground for the clients. No crevasses were here, the ladders were just
laid on the snow but Tom built several snow banks to give the experience of
walking across a moving, bowing ladder off the ground, and several of the
ladders were tied together to echo the length of those across the ice fall.
Spitz wasn’t a loquacious man, he saw a job and got on with it and for that
reason he and Tom had always gotten along rather well on their various shared
expeditions over the years. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They were completing the last ladder when Jake,
Bill, Dorje and Pemba arrived with the clients on this the hardest stage of
their hike. Shem was with them too, she was walking with John who was lagging
at the rear of rather a slow procession. It was led, naturally, by Mr Phoenix
Aleutian Loudon, who at least wasn’t wearing his Barbie snow suit but was
sporting a pair of mirror shades and an offensively green hat, and whose inane
chatter could be heard bouncing off the mountains for several hundred feet. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There were enough of them to give the clients
individual tuition and support, and with no need to get directly involved Tom
crouched where he was at the top of the course to observe their progress,
monitoring each one sharply. Under instruction, one by one they clipped onto
the rope at the bottom of the course just as they would in the ice fall,
although their course was safe and covered perhaps three quarters of a mile in
distance at the most, but involved getting up some quite steep stretches. On
top of the hour’s hike from the camp out to this spot, most of them were
already tired. And after that, it was a case of watching them make their way up
the slopes and navigate the ladders. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a knack to walking steel ladders in the
steel points of crampons. The trouble was, no one’s feet being the same size,
your knack wasn’t a knack of the slightest use to anyone else, and you couldn’t
teach it. They spent some time figuring out how to place their feet and
traverse the rungs even just laid flat on the ground. John and Bart seemed to
figure this out ok, they were talking together while they did it and there was
an occasional grin or laugh that said while this was hard work they were still
in a good frame of mind and upbeat about doing it. Max was finding it harder.
Jake was working with him, moving at about a tenth of the pace he would have
used to cover this ground if he was alone, patiently talking Max step by step
along. Phoenix, by far the lightest and youngest of the group, figured out the
ladders fairly easily and skipped up the first few like a squirrel. After
which, Tom saw with some satisfaction, he sat down in the snow coughing hard,
and Bill, who was supervising him, waited alongside him and talked to him
tolerantly about pacing. That left Lawrence. With Dorje, who had his usual
calm, cheerful expression Tom was beginning to know as his game face, his
movements economic and untiring and his eyes rather sharply on the man who took
a few paces, paused, adjusted his pack, looked up at the sky, readjusted his
harness.. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was something about it that was familiar and
Tom watched him stumble across the first two ladders and shake his head at
Dorje’s suggestion that he went around and crossed them again for the practice.
Instead he began to address the first slope. It was perhaps a hundred yards,
one of the steeper slopes, and most of their clients slowed considerably on it.
Putting a hand down to control the speed, Tom sat on the snow and glissaded down
far enough to watch him and hear what was being said, pausing above them where
Dorje glanced up to catch his eye before he turned back to Lawrence. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It is always hard the first times. If you push
yourself you will get through it.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“I don’t know it’s the right thing to push, I don’t know I’ll have the energy
to get back.” Lawrence paused, one hand on his knee, taking a few breaths. He
was panting, carrying his pack heavily, and Dorje put out a hand to unclip his
harness and take it from him, slinging it onto his own back. His own pack was
much heavier; he like Tom and all the other serious climbers here, was carrying
the supplies the clients wouldn’t have the strength or stamina to handle but
might need.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“One foot in front of the other, up to the top of
this slope. It is not far.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Lawrence pulled himself together and took another heavy step up the slope, then
another even slower, and paused again, panting.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t know if I can. I’m trying but nothing’s
happening, I keep coughing.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Everyone cough.” Dorje began and Tom shook his head, signalling to Dorje who
raised his eyebrows but fell silent. Tom glissaded further down to join them
and Lawrence gave him a rather bleak look.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey. It’s not going well.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Sorry to hear that.” It was a phrase of Jake’s, who had something nice and
graceful to say to most people in most situations and Tom borrowed from his
scripts regularly, but it wasn’t hard to say it to Lawrence who was sweating
and looking tired and more than that, dispirited. It was the expression that
Tom recognised and which drew his sympathy, because it was a sign of common
sense he hadn’t anticipated. Lawrence took another few, slow steps and Tom and
Dorje moved with him, digging their crampons into the snow and ice. And stood
while Lawrence readjusted his harness again, took his glasses off and took his
woollen hat off, tipping his head back to the sky while he panted. Above them,
Bart was laughing as he tried traversing the first of the ladders that stood
off the ground and bowed under his weight. Pemba, experienced, was standing too
far back to let him grab for support; there would be nothing to grab in the ice
fall where the ladders crossed crevasses that you couldn’t see the bottom of.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Some way up ahead, John sat heavily down on the
slope and Shem crouched beside him, helping him search through his pack.
Leaving Dorje with Lawrence, Tom climbed up to them and Shem glanced up,
unwrapping a bar of chocolate and breaking it into small pieces to put into
John’s mouth. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s having a bit of a hypo. Hard to tell how much,
his fingers are a bit cold and we can’t get one to bleed.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not usually a problem I have.” John gave Tom a
rather shaky smile, chewing chocolate. “I’m burning through carbs quicker than
I expected.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I still don’t think you’re eating enough.” Shem
told him. “I think you’re going to need to keep snacking a lot more often, but
that’s what these practice runs are for.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lawrence had sat down below them. Dorje looked up at
Tom and shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“He looks tired.” Shem said with sympathy, following
Tom’s gaze. “We’re fine here if you want to go sort him out.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lawrence shook his head as soon as Tom got into
hearing range, looking up at him with the kind of trust Tom hated seeing on the
faces of any expedition clients because it usually meant they felt like they
knew nothing and were relieved you were there to do the thinking for them. It
wasn’t a safe state of mind anywhere less safe than a country park or a leisure
centre. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m done.” He said rather pathetically as Tom sat
down beside him. “I’m knackered, I can’t do this. My chest just isn’t letting
me, I can’t stop coughing and it’s wearing me out. If I could get my breath I’d
be fine, but the cough’s just dragging me down all the time.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Tom nodded, not debating any of it.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right. You’re listening to your body, that’s good
sense. Go on down to the flat and rest, Dorje can you go with him?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Dorje nodded, but as Lawrence thankfully turned and
began to walk heavily down the slope, he murmured mostly under his breath, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“All cough, all have to push to acclimatise, have to
be positive attitude-”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s psyching himself out.” Tom saw Dorje’s frown
at the unfamiliar word and re thought it. “Knows he’s not safe. Can’t do it.
He’s right, he can’t.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Dorje nodded, a little reluctantly, and Tom touched his shoulder.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Live clients are what we want. All good climbers
know when to quit.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a topic in the mess tent that evening while
most of their expedition ate spaghetti together. John, with his sources from
numerous books, talked for some time about the importance of knowing when to
turn back, that conquering the mountain involved going both up and coming down
again, they sought Bill and Jake’s opinion and Bill calmly pointed out that he
had chosen to turn back at camp three on his last climb knowing it was the
safest thing to do. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s what gets called Summit Fever,” John added,
“The fixation on getting to the top at all costs, long past knowing your limits
and what you’re capable of, and that’s when you get yourself higher than you
can get down from. No energy to turn around and come back.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If you have no real commitment you shouldn’t be
climbing anyway.” Phoenix pointed out. He was leaning on the end of the table,
fiddling with one hand with the iPod he’d insisted on wearing all through this
morning’s climb and his personal laptop was open on the table in front of him.
To Tom’s eye it looked suspiciously like some kind of blog post he was writing.
“This takes actual strength of will, it is about endurance, mental and physical
endurance, more than it is about technical skills and knowing how to use an ice
axe on piddly nursery exercises.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
That was a dig at Spitz, who had spent some time this morning teaching him
better use of his, and Spitz slanted a rather dark eyed gaze at him that made
Jake put a hand on his arm quite quickly. </div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s some truth in that.” Bill agreed placidly
but fast enough to divert Spitz. “But you won’t find a serious climber who
doesn’t admire a guy who can say definitely when he knows he needs to quit or
turn back. You won’t lose respect around here from anyone with sense if you
need to.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
From Phoenix’s violet eyed look in Bill’s direction he wasn’t sold on the idea,
but Tom knew a flashed glance from under the eyelashes when he saw it and Bill
automatically gave Phoenix a faint smile back in response. The conversation
wasn’t making Lawrence feel a lot better to judge by his face and shortly he
got up and left, heading to the privacy of his own tent. All their clients had
their own tents; in this close little community the thin shell of your own tent
was the only space you had to be alone in.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom, who had been eating at the doorway of the tent,
more out than in, moved to make space for him and walked slowly with his bowl
of spaghetti towards the communications tent. Harry was still sitting there.
Still with his hands in his pockets, still blank faced, still with his chin
tucked down inside his collar. Someone – probably the kitchen boy, a youngster
who seemed to know where food or fluid was needed and regarded it as a personal
challenge to get it there – had put a bowl of spaghetti in front of him but it
was untouched, and had cooled to the point that even in the sharp cold of the
evening it wasn’t steaming any more. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Spitz followed him, glanced at Harry and sat down in
front of the other laptop which was open and running. Tom watched him call up
his email address and growl at the sight of one of his unopened mail. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There is one from Beau.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Yes, we’ve got one.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What does she want?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
“The usual.” Tom forced down another mouthful of cooling spaghetti, watching
Spitz sort rapidly through the mails which were probably from the range of men
in several countries with whom he had various romantic entanglements. Jake
thought it was probably the dark, heavy lashed eyes. Tom thought it was more
the charm of a man with a lot of energy and a love of romanticism, but Spitz
seemed to enjoy it. He opened Beau’s mail last and read it, producing an
emphatic ‘<i>pah</i>’ of disgust which Tom
couldn’t have replicated with English sounds.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
“What’s that?” Jake inquired, ambling past Tom. He was carrying a mug of hot
chocolate with a negligent grasp around the top, and he leaned a hand on the
table to look over Spitz’s shoulder. “Ah.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“We’ve got one from her too.” Tom said shortly. Jake nodded, skimming the
lines, which were typical of Beau.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Getting digging permit for Cambodia. Drop
everything. Meet London 2 days. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Beau<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Spitz muttered something in Spanish. Jake leaned
past him to reach the keyboard, tapping a brief message in reply. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
No.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Love<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake, Tom, Bill and Spitz. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He hit send as cheerfully as he’d typed it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Our inboxes will now explode.” Spitz predicted
darkly. Jake grinned, sipping hot chocolate. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Let them. She’s got a heck of a hike if she wants
an argument.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do you think that will stop her?” Spitz closed the
original mail and sat back in his deck chair. “I came in here to hide from that
Phoenix individual before I smack his big mouth into a new shape.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Think Lawrence would agree with you.” Bill came into the tent rubbing his
hands briskly to warm them. “I just talked to him. He’s done, he says the
cough’s more than he can handle and he’s planning to go home.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a moment’s silence. Jake helped himself to
a strand of Tom’s spaghetti, tipping his head back to drop it into his mouth.
Tom shook his head, elbowing him in the ribs, and Spitz grinned. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s a sensible decision.” Bill added. “I think
he’s realising he’s out of his depth and he just wants to get the hell out of
here. This evening he’s admitted he’s cold, he’s uncomfortable, he feels lousy
and I’ve got every sympathy.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“We’ll refund him a good chunk of what he’s paid.” Jake took another strand of
spaghetti. “We can’t let the poor guy just walk away either. One of us is going
to need to see him safe back to civilisation.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Without feeling he was slinking away in disgrace either. Although it would be
an eight to ten day turn around for someone to walk down with him to Lukla
where he could take the plane to Kathmandu, and it would be something one of
them had to do. Through the first few climbs as well which would mean missing a
lot of the acclimatisation work, and it would put a serious hole in one of
their ambitions. There was a moment of deeply uncomfortable silence, then Jake
said mildly,</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s something we can think about overnight and
make a decision in the morning.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was bloody cold once night really got started.
Tom walked around the camp for a while, moving softly on the gravel not to
disturb anyone. The Sherpa were getting used to him, no one looked to see who
it was, and the clients appeared to be settled and asleep, or at least trying
to sleep. There were no lights left on in their compound, although the Spanish
expedition on the far side of the camp appeared to be having some kind of party
and music was playing from their big mess tent and lights were still on. It was
a while before he could go back to his own tent where Jake was in his sleeping
bag. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He wasn’t asleep. Tom knew it from his breathing. He
wouldn’t say anything but he wouldn’t sleep with an ear out and his mind on
whether Tom would sit or lie down outside and fall asleep outside as he often
did when things were crowded, except here there was a good risk of freezing to
death. For that reason Tom kept the night owling to the bare minimum he could
stand. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He crawled as quietly as possible into the doorway
and zipped it behind him before he saw down to take his boots off and undress.
Not by much, and as they went higher up the mountain they’d take less and less
clothes off to sleep. He had managed to crawl into his sleeping bag when he
felt Jake’s hand find his hair and then feel down in the dark to his hand. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah.” Tom lay back, watching his breath steam
slightly above his face. The tent was pitch dark and his hands and feet were
cold, it took a few minutes to start to warm up inside the high tog bag. </span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“Tommy. If you want to walk Lawrence up to Lukla, that’s ok. If that’s what you
need to do, then it’s fine, do it.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom looked across at him sharply, despite the fact
he couldn’t actually see him in the dark. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>What?</i>” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was so gently said. So easily, as if it was no
struggle for him to say it at all, and for a moment Tom had no breath to reply
with. Then he grabbed Jake’s hand with all his strength and hung onto it while
he shouldered his way out of the bag and crawled over, dropping more or less on
top of him to find his head, his face, and kiss him very hard. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>No</i>. No it
is <i>not</i> ok. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.
I’m a bitch and you shouldn’t let me talk to you like that, you shouldn’t allow
it. I wouldn’t leave you here. No matter what the hell happens I’m not leaving
you, we came up here together. I might bitch until you wish I’d sod off but I’m
never leaving you.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s not leaving, it’s taking space if you need it
and I’m fine with that.” Jake’s arms wrapped around him crushingly and
comfortingly tight in return. “I want you to have that space if you need it.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“I don’t need it.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get in here, you’re going to freeze.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
It was a relatively tight fit to get both of them in one sleeping bag but it
was something they put in a fair amount of practice at, and thankfully they
were both of them long rather than broad in build.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know you can’t just chuck Harry out, I don’t want
you to.” Tom said as they settled. “I suppose the right thing to do is walk him
up to Lukla with Lawrence and stick him on the plane, he knows Kathmandu. If
he’s ok to be wandering around there alone, I hate he’s got himself into this
state. Ship him out to the bloody ranch, mail him to Flynn or something,
they’ll scare him straight back into sanity.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
He felt Jake’s snort of laughter. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-5.html">Continue on to Chapter 5</a></b></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger</b></span></div>
</div>
</div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-22916685776526500432015-09-24T07:30:00.002-07:002015-09-27T20:35:55.209-07:00Everest - Chapter 3<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: right;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">3 </span></i><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Our time window here is going to be
short.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake, sitting with his hands dug in this
pockets on one of the multiple and luridly coloured plastic barrels that were
currently stacked in their compound like giant kids’ building blocks, looked around
the small circle of five clients seated in deckchairs on the frozen grey shale
in their thick down jackets, woolly hats and sunglasses, their faces streaked
with sun block. Bill and Spitz were crouching on the ice shale, listening in
silence. While Jake’s voice was gentle, there was a specificity to it that Tom
had heard him use to other clients of theirs in similar meetings on multiple
Peruvian expeditions. And those had been experienced archaeologists and
anthropologists with some idea of what they were getting into. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The weather generally clears for climbs to
begin around the first week in May, and the final climbs will take place around
the beginning of the third week. We’re talking about a brief time period when
the mountain might let us up without weather that’s going to blast us off.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“People do climb year round though?” One of
the clients asked. He was a thick set, heavy guy who was a banker from
somewhere in the Midwestern states, who’d obviously done a lot of reading and
tended to like to make it clear to the other clients he knew it all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Elite professional climbers and Sherpas
climb more or less year round.” Jake agreed. His fair hair was in his eyes, it
needed trimming and he looked cheerfully ragged around the jaw and in need of a
shave unlike their currently still fairly well groomed clients. “That’s not us. We, and almost all the 200
plus climbers currently in base camp will be going up in that two to three week
weather window, and we’re all going to be timing it carefully, partly around
the weather and partly to make sure not too many people are using the same bit
of the route on the same day. As we get clearer information about weather
windows we’ll start negotiating times with the other teams around us. The
weather is going to be the crucial part.” He paused again to let that sink in,
looking around the five clients, including Mr Phoenix Loudon, who was today a
vision in electric blue, and seemed to have brought a ridiculous amount of
clothing with him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ll hope it’s going to work with us. We
need to be prepared that it may not. Bill’s expedition a few years ago got to
camp 3 and no higher because of the weather turning bad on them. There will be
limits to the time that we can sit in camps higher up the mountain and wait for
the weather to clear. It’s not just about having enough supplies up there,
enough food and fuel, it’s also the altitude. Higher up, your body is burning
its resources to survive, it’ll be managing without enough oxygen to work
properly, you’re going to struggle to digest or to sleep. There’ll be a limit
to how long you can take it before you’ve used up the energy and health you
need to be able to climb. We’re always looking at having enough in reserve to
be able to get safely down.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Why
talk to them about issues that none of them are going to have to actually
contend with?</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> Tom thought, looking around the
circle of faces. <i>None of this lot are
going much above camp one, if we even get their skills high enough to consider
taking them that far.<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And
what happens then? If one of them refuses to accept a ‘no’ if we say they can’t
go further? If we end up having to tell all five they came here for nothing and
aren’t going up at all? <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a conversation he’d had with Jake,
Bill and Spitz more than once, and Jake, while he agreed, had calmly reiterated
that the clients would be treated as if they were all potential summiters, and
at least they could that have that experience and be included in it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">But they’re
not fit enough. They’re not prepared, they have no experience, they have no
idea what they’ve got themselves into. Most of them are shocked by the cold at
night and they’re struggling already with coughs and chapped lips. They’re
struggling to learn to use crampons. This was an awful thing Harry did, and I
don’t know how long we can protect him from the clients realising it. </span></i><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is the <i>take it seriously</i> speech.” Phoenix commented, crossing his legs.
Which were irritatingly shapely, even through his thick down trousers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake nodded, giving him a smile. “It is. If
we turn you around, it may be to make sure that you’ve got enough reserves left
to get back to somewhere safe, and it’s why the rule is cast iron for every
member of this expedition. If one of the guides tells you it’s time to turn
around, there’s no arguments. It isn’t something we’ll tell you to do lightly,
but if we do, it isn’t negotiable.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What about the time limits?” Phoenix
asked. “What will they be at each stage?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The first stage, through the Ice Fall, you
should be able to do in under four hours from base camp to camp one.” Jake said
calmly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Isn’t four hours a little unreasonable?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even through sunglasses, Tom could see
Phoenix’s eyes and the way he used them. ‘Flirt’ wasn’t a good description, but
it was near. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Is there going to be grace period? Like
half an hour? And some individualisation? I mean, given my own time I can do
what I need to do, and surely it’s better that I feel confident and take my
time and do it properly rather than rush because of some arbitrary plan?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom gave him a steady look from behind
Jake. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is the same plan every commercial
expedition here will have,” Jake said patiently. “And every serious independent
climber will time themselves and stick to those limits.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Phoenix shrugged a casual shoulder. “Well I
find it’s better for me to do my own thing and make my own judgements-”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“You cannot saunter up Everest in your own time.”
Tom cut Phoenix off without delicacy. “This
isn’t Mount bloody Scott. Organised expeditions set strict time limits at the
low camps for a good reason. At higher levels, moving that slowly, you’re going
to get yourself killed, not to mention risk the life of any poor sod who
happens to be stuck behind you, or any bunch of idiots soft hearted enough to
try to help you at night in lousy conditions because you took too long and got
into difficulties. It’s not just a speed test – and there <i>is</i> a window each day of when it’s safe to climb, when you’ve got
daylight and it’s less dangerously cold, when everything’s still frozen hard
and is stable – it’s a fitness test too. We need to know who’s got the speed
and the stamina, people die on this mountain. Professionals and Sherpas who
know exactly what they’re doing and have been doing it for years <i>die</i> on this mountain. If you can’t do it
within the set time at the low levels, then you’re not fit enough or strong
enough or acclimated enough to risk going any higher. That’s the discipline
basic to any serious climber.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was rather a stunned silence when he finished.
Spitz caught his eye and gave him a dry nod of approval. Tom found himself
looking rather grimly from face to face, more concerned than angry. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was Max; a retired and wealthy racing horse
owner with a distinctly large middle and a deep throated chuckle who probably
worried Tom the most as he was cheerful and friendly and by far the least fit
of the group, here to realise a romanticised ambition. He’d struggled with the
walk down to base camp and was finding it hard going to move his big frame
around in the thin atmosphere, although he was good natured and not given to
grousing. There was Lawrence, a man of no career and a large trust fund as far
as Tom could see, who enjoyed sailing his yacht with his wife and had gone on a
large number of exotic expeditions he enjoyed telling the others about in the
mess tent in the evenings, but while he was trim and well into his forties with
extremely expensive gear that was the very best of the best, the gear was brand
new, he had little to no climbing experience and his fitness was in terms of
sessions in a private gym. That didn’t stand you in much stead up here and it
was coming as a rude surprise to him. There was Bart, who messed around in the
art world and was a genuinely nice guy who had done some serious climbing in
his youth, about twenty five years ago, and was essentially having a midlife
crisis that had driven him to make this wild gesture towards recaptured youth
and fitness and living for today or some such nonsense which he talked about a
great deal to anyone who happened to be around. He really had more or less
decided a few months ago out of the blue to go and climb Everest, and while he
did have some technical experience and some knowledge of what he was getting
into, it wasn’t well practiced and his fitness was a serious concern. There was John, the banker, who had done
plenty of reading, whose self confidence was apparently boundless, who thought
of himself as quite the athlete with his five mile jogs around New York city
streets on the weekends and his squash tournaments, and believed he was
thoroughly prepared. And there was Mr Phoenix Aleutian Loudon. Their little
Pal. The youngest of the clients by about two decades, with no experience of any
kind, an amazing wardrobe, an amazing ego and a big mouth. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That was probably not charitable. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What they had in common was all being extremely
wealthy holiday adventurists, and enthusiastic, at least in principle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> “We’re going
to do some training hikes and practice the crampon work and using ice ladders
before we make plans about starting towards camp one.” Jake said gently as
though nothing had happened. Phoenix was still staring at Tom, who looked right
back, eyes unwavering. Phoenix broke the gaze first, deliberately turning his
attention back to Jake. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Some more simple things,” Jake went on. “Eat as
much as you can, and work on eating well. You’re going to be losing a huge
amount of calories and energy just being awake at this altitude. The only way
you’ll have energy to climb safely is if you eat properly and regularly, and
accept that a lot of the time at this altitude, you’re not going to feel like
it or want to. You still need to make yourself do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No kidding. Tom shifted slightly where he stood, a
little embarrassed although no one but Jake would know it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Everyone should keep chocolate and energy bars on
them and in their tents, the cook’s got boxes of them.” Jake went on. “Carry
them, and use them, you’re inevitably going to lose some weight up here but the
less you lose the better. While we’re in base camp – rest. Sit or lie and read.
Listen to music. Relax. We’ll have regular rest days in between climbing days,
and you need to make the most of them by preserving all the energy you can, and
letting your body acclimatize. You also need to get into the habit now of
drinking plenty, and that means a lot more than you’d think of as plenty at
home. You’ll dehydrate fast up here breathing air this cold and thin; that saps
energy. If you’re dehydrated your body will struggle to stay warm and to use
what oxygen it’s getting, and you’re more likely to get kidney and bladder
infections that’ll make you too sick to climb. The higher we go, the more
important drinking gets. Get in the habit now of checking your urine.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Several clients flinched and Phoenix winced and said a loud and highly high
schoolish “Ew!” that made Tom long to throw something at him. Jake took no
notice.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Standard practice up here. The darker it is, the
more you need to drink. If it’s brown, you’ve got a problem and you need to
take in fluids until it clears. Which brings me to another point, I’d like to
introduce you to Shem Carroll who will be acting as our expedition doctor.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Shem, a woman in her mid forties with a brown and
weather beaten face and her long, dark hair in a plait over her shoulder, hands
dug deep in the pockets of a battered purple anorak, nodded to the group and
smiled. She was a South African national with a strong accent, and her medical
training had been put to use in medical stations in Mozambique, Uganda and
Zimbabwe. When the doctors at the clinic for altitude sickness near Tengboche
had been contacted to ask if they knew of a medic who might join the Mountain
Eagles expedition, they had immediately suggested Shem, who they appeared to be
fond of, who was camping near the monastery and lending a hand to the clinic
and anyone else who happened to need it, and who would welcome an expedition to
join at base camp itself. She was an efficient camper and hiker, independent
and as strong as she was lean and wiry. Tom had seen her set up her own tent,
cheerfully brushing aside any offered help, and while the supplies she had
brought with her from the clinic were basic, they were well organised and real
essentials. Unlike some of the other expeditions’ doctors who had come to this
country for the first time with crates of all kinds of medical supplies that
spoke more of anxiety and panic about what they might have to handle than of any
real experience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“My tent’s the red one,” Shem said in her thick
accent, nodding at the scarred red dome that was big enough to accommodate
several people standing up. “Come and see me any time, everyone welcome. I’m
going to ask all of you to meet with me this morning and let me get an idea of
your medical history, height, weight, information that might be important for
me to have to hand for you if you need help while you’re here. Jake’s warned
you about urine infections. I’ll warn you about HACE. High Altitude Cerebral Edema,
also known as mountain sickness. Too little oxygen, swelling of the brain
inside the skull, it happens often up here every year, you’ll have heard of it,
and it’s a killer. It creeps up fast, people can die in the matter of a few
hours so be alert for it. If you get a bad headache, if you’re breathless, if
you’re throwing up, if you can’t sleep, you need to let me and one of the
guides know. If you see any of the team looking or acting confused and that
includes the guides and the Sherpas, don’t assume they’re ok: double check on
them and let me and one of the guides know. That person may have gotten hypoxic
and be too confused to realise they’re in trouble. The only treatment that
really helps HACE is immediate descent, no matter whether it’s day or night.
Ideally you take the person straight down 500-1000 feet at least, to the last
elevation at which they were sleeping ok and feeling well, and it can mean
leaving base camp and going back down into the valley where the oxygen is thick
enough for you to recover.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“What about dexamethasone?” Phoenix asked. “We can
take that, can’t we, if we need it?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Shem gave him a brisk nod. “Yes, we’ve got dex. You’ll carry it when
you’re climbing in preloaded syringes, and before you climb I’ll show you all
how to use the syringe if you have to, but dex is emergency medical treatment,
not a climbing aid. A shot of dex will buy someone a little time when they’re
collapsing, when it’s combined with oxygen and with getting down the mountain.
It isn’t a fix. Above camp three where you’ll be using canned oxygen, the
oxygen won’t be a fix either. Oxygen and dex will not make you feel like you’re
walking around at sea level, it’s just going to take a little of the edge off
hypoxia. The rules to follow are that if you feel unwell at altitude, it’s HACE
until proven otherwise, and never go higher if you’ve got any symptoms. You
will get worse.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ll follow the tradition of ‘climb high, sleep
low’ to work on avoiding this.” Jake agreed. “You’ll see almost all the
expeditions follow the same pattern we will, the aim is to acclimatise ourselves
while spending the minimum possible number of nights at high altitude where
your strength is going to be sapped, and we’ll take some rest days at base camp
between each trip. Our first proper expedition up the mountain will be to climb
to camp one and back down to base camp on the same day. The second expedition,
we’ll climb to camp one and sleep the night there, the next day hike on to camp
two and then come back down to base camp to sleep. Third expedition, we’ll
climb base camp to camp two, sleep there overnight, hike on to camp three but
come back down to camp two to sleep, then climb back down to base camp again.
The fourth expedition will be to climb from base camp to camp two and sleep
there overnight, climb up to camp three on the next day and sleep there, then
the next day climb up to camp four but descend back down to camp two to sleep
before we come back down to base camp. At that point we’ll pick our weather
date to climb up through all the four camps with an attempt on climbing to the
summit from camp four. Because of the avalanche risk at camp one, we’re going
to aim to be there as little as possible, we’ll use it as a way station more
than an established camp. That’s why camp two is known as advanced base camp
around here. ABC.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The clients were silent. Even those that had read
plenty about climbing here were starting to see a little more reality than
perhaps was comfortable for them. Not without sympathy, Jake looked around the
circle once more, voice gentle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I know some of you are shocked by how tired and
unwell you’re feeling right now. It’s normal at this altitude. This is what we
expect and it’s the same for all of us. In a few days you’ll start to adjust
and that’s why these rest days are important. Take it easy, eat and drink all
you can, relax and give yourselves time.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Jake was feeling as unwell as any of them, although you had to know him to see
it. Arms still folded, Tom watched him get up with expert eyes, intensely aware
of him moving more slowly than he usually did, as if he was stiff, and that he
often stifled a cough as he talked. The Khumbu cough it was called; the lining
and membrane of your throat and respiratory tract dried out here and was
endlessly irritated by breathing freezing air. The coughing was painful and
tiring and broke your sleep, and Jake, while he was lean and wiry rather than
heavily built, was the tallest man here and that equated to his oxygen and
circulation having to work harder than the rest of them. He needed rest and
calm; to be doing nothing more than laying around reading as he would have been
doing had it just been the five of them working to their original plans. Not to
be actively busy caring for a set of no-hopers who were upset when they
couldn’t get warm at night and panicked at the copious nose bleeds and sores on
fingers and lips that were starting to appear, and wanted a visible leader to
be chatting to and referring to all day. Bill was doing his best to share the
load and he was the other one of them good at the social stuff, but Jake was
the one people naturally warmed to. It always was. And base camp was the point
your health started crashing; it was only going to get harder as you went
higher, and at the end of the day that was a lot of what you were gambling;
that your body could hold out long enough to get up and down again.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And stress didn’t help. Stress radically increased
your chances of mountain sickness. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Unable to watch any more, Tom turned and walked away
behind the tents, wanting to get away from the sound of the voices. The last
few days had been nonstop bustle of unpacking, setting up, chiselling out ice
platforms as stable bases for tents, and there was still plenty to do. The camp
had transformed over the last few days, and the speed with which the locals did
business could have taught a few things to the comfortable western world.
Larger, more stable and better insulated tents had arrived and the clients now occupied
one each of the red blisters, which had been erected in a group in the shelter
of the large new mess tent they had put up to replace the battered one that
Harry and partner had initially provided. The cooking equipment inside had been
updated and was considerably more expensive, and a middle aged and cheerful
Sherpa man with one foot missing at the ankle and his stump wrapped thickly and
jammed into a boot, had appeared with a yak train one morning along with a teenaged
boy who appeared to be the son of someone else at base camp, and the two of
them had taken over the meal preparations. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The man was a good cook, and he kept the mess tent
warm and enjoyed the company of people coming and going; the clients were
appreciating that and the mess tent had immediately become the social centre of
their compound where people sat around with mugs of hot chocolate and coffee
and chatted when they weren’t actually eating. The appearance was now of a well
organised dude climb expedition. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Several more Sherpa men had arrived and after
talking to other Sherpa men in base camp, came to Jake and explained they were
here to work as porters and would guide if wanted to. They were fascinating
people to talk to; no few of them had climbed the mountain before, a couple had
summited, and the loads they calmly toted up here where most people wheezed for
breath even just walking to the toilet, were jaw dropping. The oldest and most
experienced of them was a man by the name of Pemba, who might have been in his
mid forties although the Sherpa men with their generally weather-beaten faces
and astounding physical fitness were extremely hard to place in terms of age.
Pemba appeared to be the leader of the group, had obviously worked with
climbing expeditions before, and the other men had calmly and cheerfully began
to unpack and assemble equipment under his direction. They were an upbeat
group. Calm and confident, mostly keeping to themselves in a group although
they were friendly enough to anyone who spoke to them, and efficient in
everything they did. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They had gone yesterday with Tom, Jake and Spitz to
set ropes on a lower slope in the foothills that lay a couple of miles walk
from base camp; safe places to practice stamina and ice climbing, crampon work
and hiking at altitude. They’d set ladders too; not necessary ones but like the
ladders they’d been working with at base camp, just a means for the clients to
become experienced in using them with crampons on their boots and while
handling ropes. A climber in the Ice Fall would be using ladders for real over
and over again, the last count rumoured for this year was a total of seventy
eight constructed by the Sherpa ice doctors who laid the trail annually. They
led for a hard climb that took you 2000 feet up the mountain over a long,
convoluted route; ladders to climb up and down and many laid flat to walk over
wide crevasses where all you could see below you was a blue ice canyon with no
bottom. Which you walked over wearing crampons, the metal spikes balancing on
metal rungs. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What the hell
are we going to say to them when the verdict has to be for all of them, no, you
go no further? What are we going to do with them while we head off up the
mountain? <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom ducked into the communications tent, taking no
notice of Harry who was hunched as usual over the elderly laptop at the far end
on a camping table. He’d barely left the tent since they day they arrived, and
he barely spoke to any of them either, not that Tom cared much right now. On
the new camping tables was the new equipment set up and humming; fax machine,
two brand new laptops, a printer, the satellite phone equipment, various other
pieces of shiny black plastic with flashing lights that Tom didn’t recognise at
all since technology usually played very little part in their lives, but the
clients were enjoying being able to get to and send emails, print them off and
share them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the new email account he’d set up less with
tongue in cheek than with suppressed bitterness, there was a new mail from Dale
and Tom sat down in a deck chair to scan through it quickly. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<a href="mailto:AdenD@horizon.com">AdenD@horizon.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<a href="mailto:LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com">LameducksRus@Mountaineagles.com</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<b><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
Re: Large Financial Mess<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paperwork enclosed. It’s as water
tight as I can make it without involving a legal team. If you need book keeping
work for this I’d be glad to do it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How are things going? As far as I
can work out, you should have reached base camp by now? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul et al send good wishes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Aden. (D) <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom suppressed a rather twisted grin at the
signature. He knew the hands that fell on his shoulders and sat back to let
Jake read over his head, hearing Jake’s snort of amusement. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes well if Dale thinks he’s made something water
tight, it’s probably the equivalent of declaring a drought disaster area. I
doubt he’s left one single drop anywhere.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“I’ll print a copy off and file it.”</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Later.” Jake gripped the shoulders of his fleece, pulling
him up out of the chair. Harry didn’t look up at either of them, staring at his
laptop as if they weren’t there. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“I was about to reply;” Tom informed him, “You reply
to mails, it’s the nice thing to do, particularly when some poor bugger with no
idea of what’s going on just spent a few hours of his time saving our necks-”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">By this point Jake had pushed him through the flaps
of the communication tent which made continuing to argue fairly pointless. The
sun was warming up outside. Spitz was sitting chatting with Max and John outside
their tents. Bill and Dorje were checking ice screws on the mess tent. On the
glacier here, the ground moved every day and the tents needed constant re
adjustment. And it was hard not to drag his feet as going anywhere with Jake
was not something Tom wanted to do at all this morning, not that he would have
admitted it or done anything so bunnyish as to show it. Worse, Jake was heading
purposefully for Shem’s red tent where Shem herself was unpacking a crate of the
brand new oxygen bottles set aside for her medical purposes and glanced up at
them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
“We thought we’d check in with you now if you’ve got time?” Jake said with
criminal misuse of the term ‘we’. Shem put down the canister and waved them
through the open flaps of her tent.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Great, come on in, be my guest. You’re the first on
my list.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s us. Keen and ready.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Ha.</i></div>
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The tent was Spartan rather than neat or homely, and
Shem herself looked like a proper climber; that was to say she looked like a
hobo who’d come to base camp direct from three days hanging around the back of
a supermarket for stale bread. Her clothes were weathered, her boots were
battered and comfortably well worn, and her plait was careless and ends of hair
curled free from it as she worked her way around first Jake’s and then Tom’s
chest and back with her stethoscope. Tom stared into the middle distance and
ignored it and her until she tugged it free from her ears and smiled at him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“All good. You two have some pretty efficient blood
oxygen readings for the altitude, you’re well prepared for this.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yeah. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
“Jake was telling me you’ve spent a few years working at altitude on and off.”</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<i><div style="text-align: left;">
<i>He gossips like that.</i></div>
<o:p></o:p></i></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And where Tom had focused on chiselling out ice
platforms and roping tents to ice screws, Jake had been doing his usual thing
of quickly and easily getting to know people, particularly the new people
around them. He had a natural gift for liking people and being liked and it
didn’t get in the way of him doing just as much of the physical labour. Tom
shouldered back into his various layers of thermal tops which was what helped
balance the ridiculous contrast of heat and cold out here, and behind him Jake
filled the social gap easily the way he often did for them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mostly Peru, we’ve got the hang of it over the
years.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So two totally boring medical histories and clean
bill for you both, no problems, I shan’t have to worry about you.” Shem stooped
over her files to write a note, tossing her plait back over her shoulder.
“Other than that cough, Jake. Not that it’s going to be unusual up here, but if
it doesn’t settle in the next day or two I’ll give you a bronchodilator.
Someone your height needs an eye keeping on them.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<i><div style="text-align: left;">
<i>Yes, I know.</i> Keeping the glower off
his face with an effort, Tom zipped his jacket up to the chin and watched Jake
skim through the paperwork she passed to them. <i> </i></div>
</i></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Your next of kin all there? Everything I need to
know?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-GB">Flynn
O’Sullivan, Falls Chance Ranch</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"> was listed with the number
written beside it. That was about all the necessary detail. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s pretty much it, we don’t lead complicated
lives.” Jake propped an elbow companionably on Tom’s shoulder. “What you see is
what you get.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“The clients are a bit of a different ball game.”
Shem capped her pen and sat down on one of the folding deckchairs that stood
behind the plastic garden table serving as her desk. “Max came to see me last
night when he wasn’t feeling so good? He’s finding acclimatizing rough going. His
blood oxygen level’s a bit lower than I’m happy with, and his blood pressure’s
high. I’m not sure a doctor would have passed him fit to join this expedition
but I understand the clients didn’t have to pass a medical?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake gave her a friendly look, Tom didn’t answer in
any way, and Shem nodded after a moment. To Tom’s knowledge no one had
specifically explained to her why an expedition doctor had been sought so late
into the setting up process but she hadn’t seemed surprised by it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, I get the picture. We’ll see how Max does on
the low slopes. And you knew John’s a type one diabetic?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom swore. It was mostly under his breath and Shem
gave him a slightly wry smile. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll keep a good eye on him. If he was an
experienced climber and used to managing himself then I’d worry less, but this
is his first time at this altitude or trying an eight thousander and it won’t
be easy for him to keep himself stable. Especially if he gets any gastric
issues.”</span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Which was very likely for all of them at some point; it was more or less
inevitable up here. </div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“This isn’t so unusual for commercial climbers, you
know that? I’ve seen it before, it’s no worse than a lot of other expeditions
have handled up here.” Shem said, filing her paperwork in a battered ledger on
a plastic shelf. “I wouldn’t say it was
good, but it’s not a disaster.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was more comprehension in her voice than was
comfortable. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The flaps of their tent were pinned back at this
time of day, less to let the air in than to let some sun and warmth in. The
tent was also turned to face away from the chaos so at least at the front of it
they had some privacy. Jake paused in front of the tent to ditch his boots and
Tom squatted down to watch him do it, with the urge strong to walk away and do
one of the many things that needed doing, and knowing if he did Jake would ask
where he was going and why, and he’d commit himself to a conversation he didn’t
plan on having. Jake put a hand back without looking, caught his and yanked,
and Tom crashed down beside him on the thick layers of mats and sleeping bags
that protected from the ice floor below them. There were usually two ways
they’d handle a morning like this one and anywhere but here, Tom would have had
some means of initiating it. One involved going and doing something extremely
physical. Not a good idea on a rest day; Tom was well aware he’d already been
as active as was sensible, if not a bit more, and while it had been in some
grim way satisfying to fight against the breathlessness, his heart was racing
and his chest was burning. The other way….. just wasn’t possible in a tent, in
a crowded camp, on sacred ground. And sleep wasn’t easy up here where the air
was thin. Never easy for Tom at night at the best of times, he’d laid awake and
read a lot of the night and walked softly around where was safe for the rest of
it, bundled up against the cold and very aware of the risks of wandering out
here in the dark. At the higher camps it wasn’t going to be possible, and it
was one of the parts he dreaded the most. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake rummaged one handed in the crate of books he’d
insisted they brought, grabbed a couple of the books and dropped them on the sleeping
bags in front of him, and put a hand on Tom’s hip, tapping with a decisiveness
Tom knew well. It was the turn over and sleep indicator, something Jake often
did in quiet moments during a day when they were free, as Tom tended to sleep
in daylight cat naps more than he did through the night. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This morning he had to be kidding. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was hard not to reflexively explode at the sheer
audacity of the suggestion. Tom lunged to get to his feet, infuriated beyond
bearing, and found Jake’s hand locked calmly but utterly immovably on the back
of his pants. Without looking over, Jake opened a book with his free hand,
settled more comfortably on his side, and turned Tom over onto his stomach
against him without effort, holding him right there. He was big. After a youth
and adulthood where Tom had been very used to being one of the tallest men
around, Jake was bigger than he was and was shameless about using it to get his
way when he chose to. And he could pull this kind of crap without showing the
faintest sign of needing to work at it. Or even pay much attention to it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Flat on your stomach on an ice sheet and a pile of
sleeping bags was not the best place to stage a battle, but for a moment of
absolute fury Tom found himself gripping the ground through those sheets, teeth
clenched, seriously thinking about it. There was a quiet scrape as Jake turned
a page. There was a whole lot of snarling just about staying behind his teeth
about <i>how dare you? How dare you pull
this here, in <u>this</u> place, in the middle of this bloody <u>chaos</u>, how
dare you?</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And something a hell of a lot deeper, darker and
stronger that was a sheer visceral reaction to that hand on his back, holding
him down against the length of Jake’s body, and if he was honest….. it really wasn’t
all bad. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He was panting. He hadn’t even noticed until he
realised he could hear himself. Any attempt to stir – even to try with the
faintest of muscle movement to test the grasp of that hand on his back, and
Jake put him right back where he was with a strength that wasn’t faint at all.
There were about three of those very slight isometric experiments. A delicate testing
of very marginally shifting his position didn’t fool Jake in the slightest and had
precisely the same result. The proper Scarlett O’Hara response at this point
was to flop down and surrender; Tom knew it well and braced his head on his
arm, teeth tight, shoulders tight, not one inch of muscle anywhere down the
entire length of his body anything like surrendered. As well as being very
ready to bite a chunk out of Jake’s down pants – and not in a fun way – he was
shocked. This kind of demonstration on Jake’s part was ….not unknown at all,
although it was relatively rare; but for some reason Tom hadn’t expected him to
be so ready to do it here. Not in amongst organising all of this. Not with people
only a few yards away and clients to look after. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: left;">
It was a few minutes while he lay, still but stiff from head to foot in a way
that should make damn clear to Jake what he was thinking, before Jake’s hand
released the grip from the back of his pants and instead slid up beneath his
fleece and sweater. Tom wrenched sharply on his side to stop him, and Jake’s
hand promptly returned to the grip on the back of his pants, putting him back
down on his stomach. And he turned another page. Once Tom was still, he simply
tried again.</div>
<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And he would do this. If need be, he would do it over
and over again for bloody hours without losing patience, Jake was like a tank
in getting his way, he just cheerfully never quit. Tom lay still this time,
swearing silently at the hand that found its way to his bare back and the
fingertips that ran lightly and slowly up and down in a way that felt like it
burned. It ought to be illegal to be touched that gently by someone who knew
perfectly well you were fantasising about snapping his hand off at the wrist.
Or tearing his clothes off and doing a number of athletically unmentionable
things which should not be done here under any circumstances. Another angry
wrench sideways when that hand explored too sensitive a place got him put right
back where he was, and a moment later those relentless fingertips returned to
drifting lightly in exactly the same spot around his shoulder blades and the
edges of his ribs, tracing delicate lines that did not exactly tickle but were
only just in the shadow of bearable and absolutely not possible to ignore in
the way that deeper pressure would have been. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You could fight this if you were stubborn enough,
and for a long time Tom did, rigidly not giving way to it, which made it
considerably harder to stand. Which he knew Jake knew as well as he did. Or you
could allow yourself to accept it, which would involve relaxing and admitting
to yourself that you were enjoying it because you’d thrown your lot in with
some pushy bastard who knew your body as well as you did. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was more than a chapter into his book when Tom
finally let his shoulders unclench and drop, less a surrender than an extremely
sullen taking of a break. Jake didn’t look over, and his hand continued to
drift. The urge to spill a whole lot of venom had waned, it felt like too much
effort and the moment had passed, and Tom turned his head on his arm to watch
Jake with some minor resentment for that too. Jake’s head was resting on his
hand, he looked serenely comfortable, and the silver St George’s medal he never
took off was hanging a little from his throat at the open neck of his fleece
top. Golden skin that was tanned and windblown brown, golden hair against it
along the line of his wrist and jaw, and the bright coral pink of his knuckles
where the blood showed through his skin. A ridiculously bright colour like
papaya, something tropical that went with hot climes and aquamarine seas and
skies that was specific to him and something Tom had never seen the same in
another man. At times he found himself looking for it in Jake’s skin, the distinctive
familiarity of it. Pressed together like this, he was warm for the first time
since he’d got out of his sleeping bag this morning, the steady ache behind his
eyes had eased, and his lungs no longer burned with overuse and not enough air.
With the fading out of the steady background discomfort, a lot of other things
had faded down too. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sod. <o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was amazing how often it was with that thought on
his mind that it was easiest to fall asleep. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-4.html"><b>Continue on to Chapter 4</b></a></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</span></b></div>
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</div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-88412992320053989092015-09-24T07:27:00.002-07:002015-09-28T01:25:02.033-07:00Everest - Chapter 16<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">16</span></i></b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake grabbed up the radio, keying the switch. “Shem?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shem’s voice sounded agitated. “Phoenix said yesterday he was staying another night at camp one, he was fine, staying with the Canadian team. Pemba and Lobsang radioed down to say they can’t find him, he’s not in camp one.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Anyone</i> spoken to or seen Phoenix Loudon from the Mountain Eagles team?” Jake said sharply on the open channel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Oh my God. No, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Yes, it bloody could.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If he was with another team today that team may well be crashed out asleep and have the radio off.” Tom said shortly to Jake, knowing he wasn’t convincing either of them. “If he has managed to con someone to help him up to camp two then he’s probably crashed out in his tent blogging, or he’s asleep, or partying somewhere and hasn’t heard the radio, Jake, we are done, we’ve gone as far as we can today, it’s not safe. Someone else is going to have to do the heroics.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If there’s any chance it might be him I’m going to have to go.” Jake said grimly. Tom Looked at him, and Jake looked right back, grabbing his crampons. “It’s going down and it’s not dark yet. I can’t leave that stupid child on a rope down there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">No, neither of them could. Swearing, Tom grabbed the radio from him as Jake grabbed his kit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This is Tom and Jake with Mountain Eagles, we’re at camp three. We’re going down to look.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake didn’t try to make him stay, which was just as well as Tom would have refused point blank. It was stupid. It was a seriously stupid, risky, possibly lethal decision to climb further today, and yet they had no choice. Every fear Tom had had since bloody Duckface Loudon set foot on the mountain was coming true; they had no option now but to do something dangerous beyond rationality that they never, never would have planned to do unless forced to by some prat of a helpless, pointless client. The only saving grace was that to do it together meant each of them had someone trusted to watch them, to partner them on the ropes, someone they knew and trusted so implicitly it was like having a second body, that was the only safety net they had. Putting his kit back on and forcing his body to function was one of the most physically demanding things Tom had ever done in his life, including several marathons, wild water swims and mountain ascents. ‘Tired’ didn’t begin to describe it, and that increased the danger tenfold of hypoxia, of frost bite. And yet they reached the rope, clipped on and climbed in silence together. Descending the Lhotse face, exhausted and numbed, was one of the least fun things Tom had ever done. It was so, so easy to make a mistake when tired, it was lethal; so easy to hurry instead of be careful, to put a foot wrong on this wall of ice, so easy to lose concentration and let your mind drift. But down was so much quicker than up, and even at camp three the oxygen was thicker, Jake was moving fast and smoothly and after a while Tom felt his head clear and it seemed easier to breathe and move even with his legs on fire and his body aching. Twilight was coming and it was fast getting colder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">About fifteen minutes below camp three, on the steepest stretch of the Lhotse face, the climber came into view, hanging limply from the ropes in his harness, and Tom swore passionately as he saw him. The climber was in a pink suit. He was damn lucky the ropes had held him; somehow all their nagging and teaching and crampon tuition had stuck and he’d managed to front point his crampons deep into the ice, and that had probably saved his life. The fixed line wasn’t meant to hold weight, just to give you time, but Loudon was a lightweight in every damn sense. Jake pulled a canister of oxygen from his rucksack as they reached him, stabilised themselves on the rope and got hold of him, calling him sharply. His violet eyes were open but they were vague, unresponsive. He looked so young all of a sudden. Limp, his face slack, his lips were looking badly cracked and he was very cold. Conscious but too cold, dehydrated and tired to function. He was in the state where unable to move, with nothing left to help himself, he would simply hang here in a stupor that would gradually become the coma of hypothermia and end in death. Tom twisted him around like a puppet on a string to get hold of Phoenix’s back pack and dug through Phoenix’s belongings. There was almost nothing there. No food. No thermos. This infant had no idea of how to look after himself, no grip on mountaineering, no idea of the dangers he was playing with. The naivety was shocking. They had no hot fluids with them, they’d left what they had with Dorje, and they’d had no time to melt snow or to get themselves warmed and hydrated at camp three and Tom was feeling the own effects of severe cold setting in to his hands and his numbing feet and face not helped by exhaustion, his own dehydration heralded by the aching in his kidneys, the dryness of his mouth. Jake strapped the oxygen mask on Loudon and cranked it up on high.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We haven’t got time to wait for him to liven up, it’s going to be dark and freezing cold out here in half an hour. I’ll lower him down, you get down ahead of us to a stable place and I’ll let him down to you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was not a safe thing to do. <i>At all</i>. They were both exhausted, dizzy with fatigue and too damn tired for this, but guides had died out here. World famous climbers who could have survived had died of hypoxia, cold and exhaustion, sitting beside clients because they couldn’t move them or help them, and would not leave them to die alone. The Captain always went down with the ship. Trying anything at all was infinitely better than Jake sitting down here beside Phoenix to hold his hand and die with him. Either way, Loudon might very well cost them three lives today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There were not that many stable places around here but as Phoenix was lowered down the steep ice face he slid rapidly and smoothly, and at each ledge and break in the slope, Tom was able to anchor in and help to stop his descent, take his weight off the rope and let Jake make his way down safely to the next clear spot. They worked on the lowering for a while as Tom controlled his fall and to Tom’s relief Phoenix was showing distinct signs of reviving, he was starting to help himself clumsily and to grip the rope and take his some of his own weight. Below them, in distant sight, two climbers were steadily making their way towards them with the light, easy pace of the Sherpa and it felt like the coming of the cavalry. As they reached them, Pemba pushed back his scarf to show his weathered face and smile. It was Lobsang beside him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They were carrying hot tea – truly hot tea and right now, exhausted, hurting all over and so tired it was hard to stand up, it tasted like the food of the gods. Pausing where they were on the ropes, Pemba fed a cupful to Phoenix who was not talking, not coherent, but had reached the point of standing and walking with someone hanging on to his harness and Tom was beginning to think of the ladders on the Cwm and the Bergschrund crevasse and start to plan how they were going to manoeuvre him over, when there was an abrupt rumble from above and Tom grabbed Phoenix, forcing him in close against the ice wall and covering his head as Jake above them flattened himself and ducked. The fist sized grey rocks were the ones that fell down the face all the time, they were a constant hazard here, and Tom saw a handful of them whizz harmlessly over their heads, crashing down into the base of the Lhotse face above camp two. He saw the last one coming, rolling down the ice, and this one was closer to the face than the others. It bounced about ten feet above Jake, Tom saw it fly out and shouted, he remembered afterwards that wordless scream to Jake, and Jake twisted hard, tearing his head out of the path of it. It caught his arm instead, just below the shoulder, with a thud that was abrupt and loud and sickening, like a pumpkin being smashed, and for a second Jake was thrown off the face. He dug his ice axe and his crampons in a second later, the fixed line held him and Tom scrambled up the face at the greatest speed he’d ever managed, grabbing him and steadying him until he had his balance once more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was as white as a sheet. For some minutes he made no sound, he shut his eyes and he clasped his hand hard over his opposite shoulder, stooped over on his knees on the ice. The sky was greying rapidly overhead, it was as if the clouds were scudding behind his head against the now shadowed ice. Tom gripped the nape of Jake’s neck hard. Jake wasn’t moving. He was hardly breathing, the breath must have been knocked out of him with the force of the impact.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom?” Pemba said urgently. Shaking all over, Tom looked down at him and Lobsang and the reeling, limp form of Loudon between the two of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“……get him down, I’ll help Jake.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He had to shout it to make himself heard over the rising wind. Pemba hesitated, but Lobsang took Phoenix’s rope and began to lower him down. It was getting harder to see, the wind was rising and snow was starting to blow around them. Tom reached up and activated his own headlamp and then Jake’s, still gripping him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake? Say something for God’s sake!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“My arm’s broken.” Jake said it through his teeth without opening his eyes. His hand moved slowly, with care, then he nodded. “Yeah. Upper arm.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There was no way of taking his jacket off to look, even if it wouldn’t mean risking his arm freezing in this wind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “Anywhere else?” Tom demanded. Jake shook his head slowly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Don’t think so.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">His left arm. The loss of use of a hand or foot was a killer up here. Sick to his stomach, Tom dug in his kit and fumbled out a rope.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll short rope you, get you down to camp two. We can get Shem up in the morning.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A gust of wind blasted suddenly, spraying snow over them both. It was shockingly strong and bitterly, bitterly cold. The light was going fast now, it was dimmer minute by minute. He could no longer see Lobsang, Pemba and Loudon below them. Jake shook his head slowly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Going to need to stabilise it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“At camp two.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s through the skin. I’m losing blood, I can feel it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Oh dear God.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom felt his guts turn to water, the wind struck right through his suit and froze him to the bone in one breath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Arterial? Jake!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No. No, nothing’s spurting, it’s slow.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Exhausted, cold, severely dehydrated, weak from having barely eaten in the last forty eight hours – it was a recipe for utter disaster. They were both drunk with exhaustion, they had both pushed today far beyond their capacity, taken their bodies to a limit that a few hours ago had seemed exhilarating in its extremity. Now Tom saw with awful clarity the price it was about to exact. In this state, shock and blood loss would finish Jake swiftly and efficiently, render him too weak to move within minutes, and it would be right here in the dark on the lethal wall of the Lhotse face with the temperature plummeting and the wind rising every minute. Thinking of him trying to make his way one handed, stumbling with shock and hypothermia over the ladders stretched over the Bergschrund crevasse – Tom grabbed his good arm, attaching a rope to Jake’s harness between the two of them. Camp two was easily an hour away in turning weather over complex obstacles, and Jake didn’t have an hour. When he became too weak to move… if he was out here on the Face he would never move again. But camp three above them was much nearer. There were no ladders and crevasses to cross and there was oxygen stored in their tents. Shelter. Stoves. Water. Rest. A chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a decision made at maniac speed, fumbling at his harness with hands so stiff and cold he could hardly tie the knots.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake, we’ve got to go back up. It’s a hard climb, we’re going to have to move it like hell but it’s nearer and I can get you warm and on oxygen until we can get help. Move, come on. Climb.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">What help exactly?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">At camp three, at that elevation, they might as well be on the moon. It was buying Jake nothing more than the next hour, that was as far as Tom knew he could plan right now, but the next hour was more than enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was going into shock. It was in his movements, it was in the slowness and mechanicalness of his body, the cast of his face and the drugged look in his eyes. He would never have let Tom rope him if he’d been fully aware and Tom knew it, but he climbed silently behind Tom and Tom pulled him as fast as he was able to, throwing his heart and every ounce of strength he had into attacking that steep ice slope from hell at maniac speed. On this mountain that still wasn’t very fast. His chest was on fire, he was coughing and every inch of him was burning, tears were running from his eyes at the sheer pain in his legs and yet he hauled on and knew Jake moved with him. The hours and days and weeks of practice together paid off in that awful trek, the years of learning each other’s stride and breathing patterns, they did it on autopilot and Jake hacked his crampons in at each step, bracing them both with a giant strength that had to be draining from him fast, keeping pace. Losing blood, weakening by the moment and in pain Tom didn’t dare imagine, he had no idea how Jake kept on going, but he did. He never stopped, he never slowed. The wind was blasting directly down on them as camp three came into sight in the distance. Snow was swirling, it was getting harder to see by the minute and Tom had never been so cold or exhausted in his life. He was sobbing under his breath with sheer pain by the time he left the fixed ropes and grabbed Jake’s good arm. Jake reeled as Tom unclipped him from the line, and Tom dragged him by brute force, stumbling along the face in search of their tent and holding onto him with iron force. If they lost their balance here, if they let the wind sweep them, it would mean a several thousand foot fall straight down the Face. It was hard to see, it was hard to find anything and the mountain here was nearly sheer. It was the most terribly dangerous moment of the entire day full of dangers, it would have been so easy for either of them to have slipped and taken the other with them straight down the face, but somehow Tom held him and dragged him and there at last was their tent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake sagged heavily to his knees when Tom let him go to wrench the zip open in the lambasting wind and snow and manhandled him through the entrance. Jake more or less sprawled face first across the floor of it and Tom saw him roll slowly onto his back. He could have nothing left after that terrible climb. He didn’t make a sound and his face was hidden behind his goggles and his frozen, frost covered scarf. He didn’t move again. Tom yanked the tent skin zip closed to shield him from the storm and crawled around the outer skirt of the tent against the wind, head ducked to keep the blast from knocking him down the face while he checked the pegs. They’d fixed the ice screws in deep and most of them were holding. Tom doggedly re fixed the ropes, staying low to avoid the wind blasting him right over, aware he could no longer feel his face at all. It wasn’t possible to see anything of the other tents, not even a glimpse of colour or shape in the snow that was hammering like a sandblaster. They might have been the only people left on the mountain. There was no identifying the sky, no seeing anything above or below or in any direction, there was just grey, blasting grey, the darkness and the tent in front of him under his gloves. The wind was deafening now. The noise wasn’t that much lessened inside the tent. Tom crawled slowly inside and managed to get the flap sealed behind him, fumbling at it with hands that barely worked. And then it took all his strength not to just drop on the floor beside Jake. Everything was numb. Everything was too much effort to move, even breathing took too much effort, and even that didn’t hurt any more. With mechanical knowledge he knew that this exhaustion, this stress was making it deathly likely his body would begin to close down, preserve what it could for his central organs, slam shut the capillaries in his hands and feet and sacrifice them in a struggle for survival. Severe frost bite, dead fingers, dead toes would follow fast. Tom knelt up and somehow got both pairs of gloves off his fingers. They were white. Not dead white he didn’t think, and they weren’t frozen yet, just very cold and stiff. So stiff that even when he got the neck of Jake’s suit open to feel how cold he was, he couldn’t actually feel anything, but Jake’s skin had the same pinched white. His eyes were closed, he was breathing, but it was very faint. Tom peeled the goggles and scarf back from his face and fumbled for one of the oxygen cylinders at the back of the tent. He couldn’t find one with anything in. He turned them over with numbed, shaking hands for a long time trying to read the valves and finally managed to twist a valve and feel the low flow on his hand. He manhandled Jake out of his rucksack as carefully as he was able, and Jake was heavy, unresisting, his eyes didn’t open while Tom somehow got the sleeping bag unfolded and Jake into it, by dint of pulling and shoving and wrestling it inch by inch with numbed hands while jarring Jake as little as possible, until at last he got the hood over Jake’s head, and fixed the oxygen mask to his face. It confirmed what he knew. Jake was deeply unconscious. If he’d had any glimmering of awareness left at all, being moved would have been agony for him, but he’d held on with everything he had left until they reached the tent and now…. He was limply unresisting, no longer there. Tom took a deep breath and forced himself try and open Jake’s suit and have the guts to look at the arm and evaluate how bad.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The fracture made him gag. In what dim light his headlamp gave, he could see white bone through the skin, plenty of blood was in Jake’s sleeve but it was bleeding sluggishly, surprisingly little. There was nothing to be gained by messing with the fracture. Trying to wash it, putting pressure on it, all of it would just add trouble. It was likely to stay cleanest inside the shelter of his suit and Tom zipped it back up. The only relieving thought was that this cold, Jake’s circulation would be slowed, blood vessels contracted, and hopefully he wouldn’t be bleeding much internally. Tom managed to get his own back pack off, dug through it and found his Dex case with the pre loaded ampoules. It had been terrifying a couple of weeks back at camp 2 giving Jake a shot of this. He couldn’t feel anything now. Jake didn’t stir as Tom managed to get enough of his suit aside to find skin and push the needle in, and then cover him as best he could. And then he collapsed. Flat on his back beside Jake, with barely the strength left to keep pulling air into his lungs. It wasn’t left in him to try and get himself into a sleeping bag or protect himself from the cold. Too much energy was gone. Drained. There was nothing left. The wind’s roar was battering and rocking the tent, this tiny little capsule, just a thin layer of cloth enclosing them on the side of a rock on the highest place on the planet. It was only their weight pinning it down. Tom watched the sides being hammered as if they were under attack from iron bars. There was no such thing as ‘just snowflakes’ up here. The mountain had turned on them. The magic and beauty of dawn this morning had transformed from a Siren into a Fury. This was violence beyond all imagining.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They were both dangerously dehydrated. Both exhausted, both semi asphyxiated. Jake was unconscious, deep in shock and badly weakened by exhaustion and blood loss and bleeding out all the time, and as Tom had handled him he had realised something else that Jake must have been struggling with on the hard climb back up here: blasted with the storm cold on top of shock, he was severely hypothermic as his body began to shut down. His skin was icy cold. White. Tom fumbled for Jake’s radio on his harness as the nearest one and tried it. Static blasted at him. The weather was obviously destroying any radio signals. He tried a few channels but there were no voices out there and no one responded to his calls. So there was no contacting camp, no telling anyone where they were. No one would be able to climb in these conditions anyway. On the steep slope of camp three the other tents around them might as well be on Mars… scrambling around to them would be suicidal. And there was nothing they could do anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the facts added up, Tom shut his throat on the now gathering knowledge, grim and terrible, that whatever he did at this point, Jake was in his last few hours. Their bodies had already been balanced to the knife edge of survival when they climbed down from camp four some hours ago. The shock and injury had tipped Jake hard over the edge of what the human body could tolerate; his kidneys would now be well into the process of packing up, his organs were starting to fail, he was succumbing to hypothermia, weakened past withstanding it. He was going to die, right here in this sleeping bag, in this tent. His breathing was already so shallow and spaced out that it was hard to feel. This tent would collapse and be buried in the snow, covering both of them, and next season there would be two bodies frozen here together wrapped in the canvas. This tent was going to be their tomb and grave. For a man who should have passed like a warrior worthy of all the gods, sent out onto a river in a boat set afire, laid beneath a carved stone in some great cathedral, this tiny piece of flimsy high tech canvas was so wrong it was an insult.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He lay watching the tent shiver, hard against Jake, numbed outwardly, internally so bitterly overwhelmed with impotence and rage and grief that it was even harder to breathe. He hadn’t the strength or the power to fight back, there was no fight left in him. Nothing left to do. Nothing at all but be with him. And bit by bit he knew, even the grief would slip away. He’d feel nothing, he’d enter the passive detachment of severe hypothermia as he began his slide down into unconsciousness, and that alone made him hang onto that emotion and that rage with everything he had. He clung to it. He <i>bathed</i> in it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He wasn’t sure when he first heard the rustling of the bag. It was under his leg; as the tent flap whipped back and forward against him the plastic rustled, and it niggled at him, a very soft but penetrating sound so normal, so petty that it insulted them. Normality, irritation, plastic had no business interrupting this. Until finally he forced up the will and the energy to move and put a hand down, partly to fasten the tent flap tighter, partly to make that irritating little rustle stop like swatting a fly. It was a print out in a plastic bag. As he felt it, he recognised what it was and Tom’s heart lurched at the sight of it as he pulled it out from under him. Someone must have passed their tent at some point before the weather turned and shoved through what passed for the mail delivery out here, knowing that they had expected to pass through camp three tomorrow on their way down. With clumsy and semi frozen fingers Tom desperately tore at the bag where he lay on his back against Jake, recognising Dale’s email address with a wash of emotion so strong that even though it was hard to make his fingers work, he stuck at it, frantically wanting the paper in his hands, to hear real words up here in the loneliest and most terrible place on earth. It was like a hand abruptly held out, someone to feel and clutch and hang on to when a moment ago he’d been alone at the end of the universe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was hard to read at first. His eyes kept sliding off the print with his urgency, his starved brain struggling to process, but the more he read the more he concentrated, and from somewhere, as the words went on, came tears. Hot. Scalding hot tears that hurt his eyes and turned to ice in seconds on his eyelashes. Laying there, he read. And read. And read it through again and again, and all the time the tears kept running. Weakly; he was too damn dehydrated to even cry properly. But it was like being thawed from the inside out. He had no idea how long he lay there with those pages, clutching to the voice of a man thousands of miles away, on a sun warmed canyon top underneath the same sky they were laying under on this snow hammered rock at the top of the world, but it raised a flood of emotion within him, powerful, too great even for the cold to blot out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘You taught me last summer about how powerful it is for things to be put into words and released out loud, how deep it goes to hear something spoken directly. You told me even if I know it, even if I’ve heard it plenty of times, I still need in those hard moments to not evade the direct experience of letting him say it out loud and how it will feel to hear it. You were right. It takes the guts to consciously, intentionally relinquish my control. To trust him, to let go entirely and not cling on to guarding myself.<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I keep finding out new layers of how deep this advice has taken me and how much I value its wisdom. It’s been about realising the energy it takes every day just to hold on to it all, the deepest and the worst, the most pathetic fears, the most petty little losses that are the ones that make me sweat to think of. The desperation of that control, which is, in essence, fear. Sometimes it’s been about finding the courage to let myself acknowledge those losses to someone, make them real in words and admit out loud that they’re there. Let myself grieve them without judgement or trying to justify them so I can let them go and free myself for so much more important things, to not be distracted all day every day by the effort of heaving them around with me, to be so afraid that I have to clutch them with me in everything. And I see the same in others, this need to make these things heard by someone, for their story to be told. It’s never the big things, it’s the little things that mattered the most to them.’<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The irony of it was painful. Advice he’d given, from the heart, knowing it was a truth and one he’d never fully pulled up the courage to follow himself, despite being loved by a man who would do everything in his power to make it easy, who would always understand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Who had encouraged him, gently, for years, with more patience than any other man could have shown, not to be distracted by the effort of heaving that junk along, of having it there, cluttering up every moment…<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, he owed Jake that, here and now at the end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake, unconscious on the ground beside him, hadn’t stirred since they reached the tent. He wouldn’t rouse again. This was the long slide down into coma and the end, and he was already well on that path. Tom held on to the papers, not able to look at him and see that whiteness in his face, but finding his voice. Rough and harsh from swallowing ice and blasting frozen air, coughing and rupturing his throat for hours, it sounded nothing like himself. His lips were frozen and swollen, numbed, but this was the last chance, the very last moment he would ever have to find his courage, and he said it out loud to Jake, who was everything, and who lay there beside him, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, slipping away beyond paltry matters, trivial fears, such little human concerns.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jacob? The… St George’s medal I gave you. The one I got in the market in Peru. I… told you… I said he was the patron Saint of boy scouts, the flip stuff I always say, I never had the guts to tell you. He’s the patron Saint of Heroes. That’s why I wanted you to have it. You are the real and proper meaning of hero from the myths, the chivalry traditions, all of it. I studied them for years before I met you and I know, it was men like you that they wrote the poems about, every story that ever really mattered. More than that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It took a deep breath to say it, the deepest thing at the very heart of him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…St George… The Knight. He’s… he’s the earthly manifestation of St Michael. The Archangel Michael. I had… I had a thing for him, St Michael, ever since I was a kid. His window – his window in the cathedral, I used to sit for hours and watch it, the picture of him, his face … it was beautiful. I knew everything about him, every word, every story, his chapel in the cathedral…. it was the one I lit candles in, it was the one I always went to… there were carvings there of him slaying the dragon, his statue at the altar, he was the one I always called on…. The Archangel of chivalry. The …. The warrior and the dragon slayer, the protector and the bringer of justice, the both sides of the sword … he was the only one who could ever contain Lucifer, take him down and win, the angel who believes and grants every soul, no matter how unworthy, one more chance… it’s <i>everything</i>. Everything I’ve ever known in you. You’re my Michael.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>My golden boy</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With the warm ocean blue eyes and the straight smile when he meant something the most, and the height and width of a warrior, the bedrock strength of will and integrity that rooted you and anyone else in his vicinity, with the easy humour of someone with infinite… infinite mercy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It was so hard to tell you anything at all. I don’t know why. It’s ridiculous now. So stupid. Such a waste…. But the worst thing? The very worst thing to me......” it took huge effort to let it reach his numbed, swollen lips. “…I have never been able to love you the way you deserve to be loved. The way I want you to be loved, the way you should be loved. I’m so sorry for that. I don’t have that capacity left, it’s damaged. It was gone before I ever met you and knew I minded. I’m broken, Jake. Whatever I do, however I try, however much I want to be the one who can, I am never going to be able to give you that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d never consciously let himself think it before. Not even to let it get into words in his head, it was too shattering for that. And to say it out loud made it rush up out of him, silent and harsh, painful, tearless sobs as there was no body fluids left. He turned over towards Jake, pressed against him and sobbed, but it wasn’t with bitterness any more. With grief, immense grief, with rage, but not bitterness. There was no one to hear. No one up here who would ever know. With the papers clutched in his hand, with Dale’s words on the print out and that understanding voice within him of another man on the planet who got this, there was a tremendous release in it and he felt it, each harsh and juddering sob letting something go of something heavy and tight that if he let himself sob, went out of him in fractured pieces. He had no idea how long he lay there sobbing and feeling it leave him, with a kind of stupid relief to it, it seemed to go on forever. But eventually it died down and instead he felt freer. Drained, but more peaceful. And where numb hopelessness had been…. there was now a glimmer of something else. He hadn’t cared before. Now he felt around clumsily for the Dex where he’d dropped it, fumbled with it for some time before he managed to free another pre-loaded syringe and with what force he could summon up, stuck the hypodermic hard through his down suit to reach his hip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The fact he didn’t feel it at all wasn’t reassuring. He had to check he’d actually penetrated the suit and reached his own skin, but within a few moments he felt his head clear slightly and it got easier to breathe as the Dex hit his brain. Tom lay still for a moment more, just breathing, thinking again of the man in the pasture at Jake’s home. The place Jake called home, where there were other men who loved him, and again, it was like a hand reaching down to tightly grip his. Dale had the nerve Tom knew he lacked, but Dale was calling on the same instincts they both shared at the very deepest levels of who they were. What it was to love your man like this, to be able and willing to do for him what you’d never have the courage to do for yourself. It fought back the numbness. It dragged up emotion that came from the very deepest part of him. Memory. Life. Something deeper beyond and more than this desolate place. Tom shut his eyes, gathered himself, and rolled over, forcing himself up onto his hands and knees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was an immense effort not to just drop down again, close his eyes and let go. It took everything he had, but the stove was where they’d left it, within reach. The lighter struggled to work, but after several false starts with stiff fingers the flame lit, and there were two unused canisters of gas. Tom set it where it wouldn’t get knocked over or blown out as the tent was hammered around, and undid the tent flap, forcing himself to move and scoop deep snow into the saucepan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The flame burned painfully slowly up here where there was so little oxygen, but it was a thread of warmth. It took forever for the snow to melt, and while it did, Tom dragged stuff out of his rucksack until he found chocolate. It was frozen into ice, stiff and cold, but held near the stove flame for a while it softened enough to snap. Tom bolted several mouthfuls of it, chewing slowly enough to be sure that he bit chocolate and not his own cold numbed tongue or cheek, and the sugar was like another hit of Dex. When the water was eventually warm he brewed heavily sugared tea, syrupy, revolting but strong, and lifted Jake’s head, splashing enough into his mouth to wet it. Even if he didn’t swallow, it would still warm him. For several minutes he just ran warm fluid into Jake’s mouth, aware it dribbled straight out again, but finally Jake’s mouth and the cords of his throat moved. He swallowed weakly, and when Tom trickled a little more, he swallowed more easily. Drop by drop Tom got the syrupy stuff down him, filled a mug with what was left and gulped himself, slowly enough not to throw it straight back up. Then he filled the pan with snow and began all over again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He managed to do it once more, with strength that came from the sugar and the warm liquid. To get some down Jake and some down himself, to eat more of the chocolate, and then to put some of the semi chewed, semi liquid chocolate from his own mouth into Jake’s mouth and rub it on his gums, a disgusting process that might at least force some more sugar and calories into him. He didn’t have the strength left for anything else. He crawled inside Jake’s sleeping bag with him and wrapped himself as much around Jake as he could without disturbing the shattered arm. It would have been better to have undressed but he doubted his ability to get his down suit or boots off or to ever get them back on again if he did. And there was nothing to do then except let go to the dark, and pray.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-17.html">Continue on to Chapter 17</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-10149356384739444842015-09-24T07:24:00.000-07:002015-09-28T01:28:28.420-07:00Everest - Chapter 17<div style="text-align: right;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>17</i></span></b></div>
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<b><i><u><span style="color: blue;">Excerpt from The Manhattan Times: 4th May: Lost On Everest?<o:p></o:p></span></u></i></b></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">Concern is growing for the Mountain Eagles expedition, last heard from on the summit of Everest at 7am in Nepal. Madeleine Loudon, reporter for this paper and mother of Phoenix Loudon, the high profile explorer and climber with the expedition whose blog has been closely followed worldwide by many including a number of high profile celebrities, is too distressed this evening to say much in her interviews, but reports that Phoenix’s planned phone call to her from the summit was not placed, and that the only news on the team is a rumour from a foreign team’s radio transmissions picked up some hours ago which may indicate that the team ran into serious trouble during their descent. A storm is now covering the mountain and preventing all communications, even the base camp has gone dark, and weather stations comment that conditions up high tonight are likely to be extreme.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From: <u><span style="color: blue;">Darcy</span></u><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:<u><span style="color: blue;"> <a href="mailto:J.B.C.Weld@aol.com">J.B.C.Weld@aol.com</a></span></u><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">4th May 9.42pm<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">James, I don’t know what to do or who to call. It’s all over the Manhattan Times website and starting to come up on the national news, that stupid cow is having hysterics in tv studios and going on and on about her son being dead and giving no other information, I’m petrified someone’s going to see it and call Luath and the others. There’s no news on the blog other than several hundred comments from sobbing fans. I don’t know what to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake stood naked on the smooth, round grey boulder in front of the light turquoise blue water. The light was streaming down in front of him through the break in the cavern roof above the water, leaving half the blueness in shadow and the other half in bright streaming sunlight. The plants that hung down from that break in the rock above was a mix of feathery ferns and a few vines, all bright, fresh green, some of them hanging so low that they nearly brushed the water. They had stripped off their jungle steam soaked and sweat stained clothes to wash them out hours ago and had not bothered with clothing since – there was no need in the warm shade of the cave where fresh ozone lifted off the cool water that flowed slowly against the rock. It was the coolest they’d been in days. The sound of the waterfall on the other side of that rock was a steady, soft thunder. It had taken them some hours to climb it and penetrate that falling wall of water to discover this small, hidden paradise where it was apparent no human had stepped in decades, if not centuries. They were days away from the trail. Days from civilisation, days from another human soul with nowhere particular they had to be and nothing particular they had to do, and it was like discovering some enchanted Jules Verne myth come to life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Replete on the fresh fish that swam in the deeper stretches of the sunlit river beyond the cave, Tom lay on the sand of the shallow cove near the dying embers of their small fire and watched him. Wet haired, as they had spent the past few hours lazing in the water as well as not lazing at all on the beach, golden skin against the ancient grey stone, he looked like some piece of Greek warrior art, all lines and curves like the model for a Hellenistic sculptor creating statues of Zeus or Poseidon. All smooth lines, long muscles, squared curves that made Tom’s stomach tighten and his hands and teeth itch to touch again and made him consider if he was really as tired as he thought he was. In one smooth, powerful lunge that came out of nowhere, Jake abruptly dived into the water. Tom watched his long body swim under the clear blueness in several slow, powerful strokes, crossing the pool for some way before he broke surface and took a breath, shaking water and wet hair off his face. He turned to face Tom, quite deliberately meeting Tom’s eyes to make it clear he knew that Tom was looking, and his expression was not at all innocent, making clear that Tom was not the only one doing the looking. He had the most beautiful smile. A wickedly indolent, inviting smile that made Tom helplessly start to return it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh behold thou art fair my love,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">behold thou art fair….<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our bed is green,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">the beams of our house are cedar<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">and are rafters are fir….<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom found himself murmuring it under his breath as he rolled slowly to his feet, walking towards the water’s edge, towards him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He stirred to bitter cold and darkness, thousands of miles from the warmth of that cave and half dreams of what had been one of the best days of his life and one of the most beautiful places he’d seen on this earth with Jake, and for a moment nothing was very real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d draped himself over Jake, legs, arms, more or less on top of him to spread all the warmth he could, and his face was turned into Jake’s neck but the hand – the hand on his hair was moving… Tom jerked away and pulled his head back, snapping fully awake in a second, and Jake’s eyes were open. Full of pain, exhaustion, but they were clear, they were lucid and him, and terrible relief shook Tom to the bone. He dropped back on Jake’s chest, clutching him, for a moment too thankful for sense or consideration for the broken arm, and felt Jake’s fingers knot in his hair, an exhausted but hard kiss in return against his face. Then sense rushed back and Tom rolled away from his injured side, grabbing for Jake’s hands. His fingers were white, pinched looking and as cold as Tom’s own were but no worse. Tom didn’t dare take either off their boots. Up here the risk was high of feet swelling fast, particularly frost nipped or frost bitten feet, swelling too much to put boots back on again and ever walk anywhere more in this frozen labyrinth. Jake clumsily turned Tom’s own hands over to check and Tom pulled gently away from him, reaching for the stove and his crampons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was desperately cold outside, pitch dark and with loose snow blasting like grit against him and blocking all visibility while he hacked at the ground for ice shards for water. The wind did its best to batter him off balance with a several thousand feet drop below and it took everything he had to grip on to her face and move, teeth gritted, snarling silently with his whole heart at her with more energy than he’d felt in days, like a blistering inferno from the depths of his being.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>He is mine. Fuck off, back away, get the hell away from us, you won’t have him.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The sound of the tent flapping was like giant wings beating behind him, the threat display of some giant raptor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He dragged a bag of shards back into the tent. Jake managed to sit up while he melted some and it took the painfully, painfully long time to heat to drinkable tea. But Jake drank it and Tom bolted some himself, put more on to melt and Jake stretched out an arm to him. Tom crawled across to him and Jake drew him down with that one good arm and hugged him, weakly but pulling Tom’s head into his body so Tom half lay against him. For a long time they just lay there together while the water melted again. Then Tom hauled himself up to make soup this time, something with calories, and dragged the radios off their harnesses. There was static on every channel. Jake took one from him with his good hand and tried too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Wind.” Tom said eventually, and was startled at the hoarseness of his voice. Yesterday’s struggle down to the tents had scorched the inside of his throat and probably lower with icy air and particles. “No one’s come up looking for us, it must be worse lower down. The wind’s still blasting.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As if Jake couldn’t see the quaking, rocking walls of their canvas shelter. The howl of the wind still sounded like huge wings were beating endlessly above the tent. He’d know too there was no more oxygen left. If there was, they’d have been using it. They had two options, neither of them good. One, to go out into the storm, try to get down to camp two into a higher level of oxygen, which meant taking a badly injured man out to climb one-armed in weather conditions harsh enough to kill fit, able climbers. Two, to stay put under shelter and wait for better weather, while both of them, and Jake in particular, got weaker and more oxygen starved by the hour and less and less likely to be able to make the climb down. Neither option was good. No rescue was coming in this weather, and Tom was bleakly aware that any climber unable to walk under his own power was extremely difficult to offer any kind of rescue to even in the best conditions. Up here they might as well be on the moon. If Jake reached the point of not being able to walk or climb, that was it. Game over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We stay a few more hours.” Jake said after a while, quite calmly. “Get as warm as we can. Rehydrate all we can. We’ve got plenty of food. The weather might clear. Then we’ll go down.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The weather might also worsen, and Jake was weakening all the time at this altitude. Jake found and gripped his hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Pass me the food packs.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They heated a few things. It was hard to get more than a few mouthfuls in without risking vomiting it straight back up, the body saying loudly <i>are you kidding me?,</i> but every calorie, every warm item taken in, every drop of liquid was going to help. After which Jake made him slide with him into the sleeping bag and they lay together listening to the storm rage around them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Two hours. Three hours. The storm hammered on outside. Four hours. The sky was still a bleak grey and it was like a twilight that never ended. It was actually seven am.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom melted more shards. The gas canister was running out and they had only one left. He was coughing so hard now that at times he was tasting blood in his mouth as vessels in his throat ruptured and his chest felt on fire. A few times in the midst of a coughing fit he was aware of Jake’s hand on his back, weak but rubbing, trying to help. Jake was stifling his own coughing as much as he could; the slightest stir he made shook the fractured mess of his side. He was a horrible colour. A kind of grey white, even his lips. Trying to force his numbed brain into gear, Tom found the first aid kit stuffed into the side pocket of the tent and without touching the injured upper arm, eased a sling under Jake’s elbow, tying it around his neck to support the arm in the curled position Jake held it in. A second sling tied the elbow to his body, as tightly as Tom could manage with stiff fingers, then a length of heavy elasticated bandage tied the shoulder very tightly to his side, wrapping from shoulder around his ribs, well above the fracture, and he saw the relief in Jake’s eyes, the tension lighten slightly as the arm was stabilised and he no longer had to support the weight. He fed Jake painkillers, the strongest they had, mashing them into a little water so they formed a paste and Jake washed the paste around his mouth rather than trying to swallow them whole with water and risk throwing them up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Five hours. Six hours. Up at camp four Bill and Spitz would be sitting tight, waiting for a break in the weather to get down out of the death zone. Thinking that by now he and Jake were probably relaxing at base camp, well below the weather. Down at camp two, if Lobsang and Pemba had managed to get Phoenix to his tent and had realised they hadn’t followed them down to camp, they probably thought they had fallen or were stuck on the ropes on the Lhotse face. Tom could only hope no one had risked their lives searching for them. God alone knew what had happened to Dorje. Some numb part of him wondered occasionally how the hell the day had gone so terribly, horribly wrong, but it was a distant thought and not a useful one when survival through the next few hours was the priority.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Seven hours. Slightly past ten am, the wind started to drop. Within twenty minutes the awful sound like wings beating overhead and the hammering at the sides of the tent had become only occasional gusts, and when Tom risked opening the tent flaps, the sky was still a heavy grey but it was clearing, the clouds were scudding fast but they were higher, thinner. A number of other unoccupied tents were gone. Just gone. Blasted away. They’d been beyond lucky that theirs had held, and even so it was half buried under snow. A lot more snow lay on the ground, soft snow layered on solid ice; that was lethal. No grip to the surface, a surface that slid and gave way under you. On days like this, the ice fall became impassable until the snow had frozen again, no one sane would go through it. But camp two was lower than here, there was more oxygen, it was nearer to base camp, nearer to help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom dressed, got into his harness and helped Jake out of the sleeping bag and into his gear. He was heavy, struggling to move, and it was hard labour for both of them that took a long, slow and effortful time and burned up more of what was left of their very depleted energy. A thermos took what hot water they had left; more or less everything else Tom left behind. His energy needed to be focused on Jake. Dale’s email he stuffed inside his down suit before he zipped it up, the sheets in their plastic package against his chest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake was slow on the ice and Tom’s biggest fear was of him falling on the injured arm. He hung on to Jake’s harness as well as the rope between them as they left the tent and made their slow way across to the fixed ropes, and Tom clipped him on, jumar, sling and carabiner. It was easiest for him to slide himself – for Jake to sit and let Tom lower him down the ice, control his slide that way, and then rappel down after him. For some time they did this in silence together, Jake controlling the slide with his right hand and his legs, his injured arm turned up away from the ice. In small sections, lower and lower. It seemed to take hours and it took frenzied concentration and grim, fierce determination and all the effort Tom had left in him. There was no one else on the ropes this morning, no one mad enough to stir from their camps or shelter wherever they were bunked down on the mountain. The sky was still grey, the wind was still blowing, but nothing like the battering conditions of a few hours ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They were approaching the bottom of the Lhotse Face making their slow, painful progress, when Tom saw the movement of people below them. Initially his first response was fury. <i>Get out of the way. Don’t you dare to slow him up.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then he saw the flash of black climbing suit and the red and yellow wool hat and relief was so strong his legs buckled, and he sat down on the ice for a moment, hanging onto the ropes. Dorje. It was Dorje below them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There were a few climbers in the party. Dorje reached Jake first, Tom saw Dorje clip a rope onto Jake’s harness and then another pair of hands other than Tom’s were on him, stabilising him, and the relief of that additional security was so shattering, Tom nearly sobbed with it. Pemba’s lined face looked up at him and nodded with a wide smile and wet eyes as he passed, climbing around Tom. He took Jake’s good side and the short rope from Dorje, connecting it to his own harness. Lobsang was beside him with another rope coiled on his harness, and behind him were two men that Tom recognised from the Australian team although he didn’t know their names. They stopped to talk with Jake, Pemba had pulled out a thermos and put a cup of steaming tea into Jake’s hand. Dorje climbed past them, coming to join Tom and taking another thermos out from his pack. A stocky, weather beaten, dark skinned angel, who grinned at him with very white teeth and poured a cup of something that shot white steam above it, stooping down to hand it to him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I knew. I knew you would find shelter, I knew.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cup in one hand, rope in the other, Tom put an arm around his neck and hugged him, tears sharply stinging his eyes. Dorje hugged him back, a strong, close hug that added to the warmth from the tea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You drink, Tom. Get warm, we get Jake down Cwm. Shem at camp one waiting.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“His arm’s smashed, he’s never going to get through the ice fall.” Tom blurted out his next biggest fear and Dorje nodded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We talk of that, we manage now. We manage good. Camp one first, we fast.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">They moved fast, hustling Jake gently but at a speed Tom knew they needed to beat the effects of shock, cold and the oxygen Jake was lacking. The two Australian guys were relaxed, effective climbers who worked with Pemba and Lobsang to lower Jake down every stretch where it was possible, and to steady him over the stretches where Jake needed to walk by himself. Tom paced them closely, watching his every move, and Dorje climbed at his shoulder; occasionally Tom became aware of Dorje’s hand gripping his harness as they negotiated a tricky bit and realised he was stumbling himself like a drunk and barely noticing where he put his hands or feet. The endless coughing fits were a bloody nuisance, most of the rest of the climb down was something of a blur. Ceaseless, endless blundering down ladders and ropes and the calls of the Australian and Sherpa guys to each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The tents of camp one finally came into view around 2pm, and Jake walked into the camp under his own steam, surrounded by the team that had brought him down. Shem was standing outside one of their tents, her hood up over her woollen hat, her hair blowing from under it and looking as though she’d been watching out for them for some time. She had several bags of kit open on the snow beside her. Someone helped Jake sit down on a crate, Tom lurched slowly to a halt behind him, and looked up at the nearest face. One of the Australians who climbed down with them and handled the ropes for Jake, a man with red hair and freckles who gave him a cheerful nod.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well done mate.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thank you,” Tom said with probably more feeling than one man normally ever expressed to another, and saw the man’s eyes abruptly blur and his brief nod upward.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah well your mate over there is the guy who found my best mate when he fell below camp three. You looked out for him when you were bloody knackered, I heard your mate ended up with HACE because of it. When I heard it was you two in trouble it seemed the least I could do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom held out a hand to him and the man gripped it, yanked Tom over and gave him a painfully hard, brief hug, and then he and his team mate walked away towards their own tents. Tom never saw them again or knew their names.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom,” Shem called from where she was opening Jake’s suit to look at the fracture. “Sit down. Get some tea down you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What-” Tom turned to find Dorje, something stirring in his mind other than Jake for a moment and afraid to ask. “How long did you stay with Loic?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He climb down with me to camp four.” Dorje said calmly. “I left him with Bill and with Spitz to look for you this morning when storm drop and radio work and Pemba say you not at camp two.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s alive?” Tom demanded. Dorje smiled, nodding.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He alive. Cold and frostbite but alive. He come down with Bill, they climb down today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was alive. And Dorje had climbed alone from camp four down to camp two to meet Pemba and Lobsang and then climbed back up the Cwm to find them and bring them down. It was a feat of strength and endurance that Tom understood and had no words for, suspecting too that Dorje’s version of ‘storm dropped’ and his were probably very different things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Phoenix is fine too.” Shem said shortly, not looking up from Jake. “Pemba brought him right down to base camp when the weather started to change and got him the hell off the mountain. It was only exhaustion. Once we got him stuffed in a sleeping bag, warm and hydrated he was fine, he’s back in base camp.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom came to stand behind Jake, watching her look briefly at the fracture, then as he had done, let the sleeve and suit cover it again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We need to get you out to Kathmandu and the hospital. Hands?” She checked Jake’s hands, looked over at Tom’s, nodded shortly. “Yeah. You’re frost nipped, you’re going to peel like hell, there and your faces, but it doesn’t look like major damage thank God.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Strap my arm down at the shoulder and elbow and I can use the hand.” Jake said matter of factly to her. “I want to move and go now while I’m still up on adrenaline. And no drugs, I need a clear head.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was about the worst thing he could do to that fracture, but in practical terms he was right and Tom was exhausted enough to be pragmatic with no hesitation. The most dangerous part of the entire labyrinth still lay ahead of them. If the damage to the fracture ended up costing him an arm they’d manage. It was better than costing him his life. Shem didn’t answer, but she began to work on the slings again, and Tom turned away, pulling the radio off his harness. After hours and hours of static he wasn’t expecting much, but this time when he keyed it, there was no blast of interference.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Max? Base camp? Anybody?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom!” Max’s voice was immediate and sounded shocked. “Tom thank God!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re at camp one with Shem and the others, we’re ok. Have you heard from Bill and Spitz?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah, they’re on their way down with Loic. They’re tired and cold but they’re ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What are conditions like in the ice fall?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nasty, a lot of snow, but the Sherpas say it’s passable with care.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shem glanced up and held out a hand for the radio. Tom surrendered it to her and she took it, still working on Jake with the other hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Max, use the sat phone and the number I left you. Tell them I’ve got a badly injured climber with a compound fracture, he needs airlifting out to Kathmandu immediately. We’re starting down to base camp now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Got it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There were a crowd of people all around them, but Jake looked up and it was Tom’s eyes he searched for. He was very white under his dark tan, in fact he looked terrible. Gaunt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Black rings around his eyes, his lips cracked and blackened in places where they’d bled and dried. He looked like utter hell, but he still smiled. His mad smile, the one Tom loved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Come on then. Let’s do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From: <a href="mailto:J.B.C.Weld@aol.com"><u><span style="color: blue;">J.B.C.Weld@aol.com</span></u></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To: <u><span style="color: blue;">Flynn</span></u><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">5th May 05.23am<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Flynn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I received Paul’s forwarded email from Jake’s expedition yesterday that they had summited and returned to the upper camps successfully. However I need to alert you to the fact that there have been rumours in the media overnight that the expedition may have run into difficulties late yesterday afternoon. These are entirely unconfirmed rumours, Niall has contacted the American Embassy in Nepal who confirm that base camp and the entire area around the mountain has been under challenging weather since this time and that no telephone or internet contact have been or are as yet possible. The news report appears to have been gleaned from someone on the internet overhearing a radio channel from another expedition shortly before all communication channels were closed by the weather, so it may very well be that they have misunderstood what they heard, or that this is incorrect or sensationalised information.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I wished to prepare you for distressed or anxious communications from the wider family should this piece of irresponsible journalism reach them. Currently only Darcy has been aware of this and has promised me not to share the information with anyone else. As soon as the embassy has been able to make contact with the expedition and ascertain whether we have cause for concern, I will inform you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">James<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There seemed to be quite a party of them going down through the Ice Fall but Tom noticed very little. He had roped himself directly to Jake with Pemba and Dorje roped on either side of them. If one of them went off a ladder or down a face, the other three stood some chance between them of breaking that fall, and a few times he saw Shem sticking close to them, moving steadily and with experience, her eyes always on them both and her weathered face expressionless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From the deep, sudden and bottomless cracks in the ice you could step over in one stride to the ones crossed by ladders and the abrupt steep climb downs of sheer faces, Tom walked with him, within grabbing distance of his harness, his hand on the rope between them. Jake walked for the most part with the same steadiness and certainty with which he always placed his feet, and with the same calmness with which he’d crossed the Bergschrund crevasse alone. There were too many stretches here where a climber who couldn’t walk alone and unaided over those long, roped together ladders that wouldn’t take more than one man at a time, could not cross at all. He went down ladders with his one good arm grasping and using his other hand when needed, making his way slowly but steadily down rung by rung. When he crossed the bending, quaking metal ladders over the wide crevasses he ran the ropes on each side through his good hand and his strapped down stiff hand. The pain must have been indescribable but he never showed it, he was not even stooped with it. In some stupid, masochistic way that only athletes ever really got, there was still some mad part of them both that gloried in this extreme challenge purely for its extremity. Like craving the extreme pain and sensation of spicy food, the runners high when your lungs were nearly bursting and your legs giving out, the moment where you almost couldn’t but your heart rose in that magic moment higher than your physical capabilities and you still did… it was insane and stupid and it was an addiction. Tom was silent the entire climb down, lost in fierce concentration with him. The stretches where Jake would have needed to climb down a rope on a sheer face, Dorje and Tom stood at the top and lowered him while Jake walked down step by step on his crampons, his one hand controlling the pace down the rope. The loose snow everywhere made it look like an untouched world in here this morning – even more otherworldly than usual, a blue and white world where the silver ladders and coloured ropes seemed rudely intrusive. The snow was deep enough on the ice that it was not unlike trying to walk on a skating rink. She was not relinquishing them easily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Afterwards Tom remembered very little about it. There were no other climbers but them due to the bad conditions; it made the Ice Fall ghostly with its endless creaks and groans and sharp cracks of the moving ice as they climbed through her guts. He was numb with focus, all he was really aware of was every step Jake made and the accuracy of it. They did it together, pacing each other in the same way they ran together; without words but signalling all the time to control pace, to pick it up, to lengthen stride, to change style…. The same way they’d bottle danced, eye to eye in perfect time together balanced on the ridge pole of the garage roof back on the ranch last year. It was a stupid memory, a completely irrelevant one but for some reason it kept on coming back. One foot after the other, down and down, dancing with the mountain and every challenge she lay in their path, because this was about endurance more than skill now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It took nearly two hours to get him to crampon point, where Jake sat slowly and stiffly down on a rock and Tom knelt down in front of him to take Jake’s crampons off his boots for the last time, looking back at the ice fall with many, pressing reasons he wanted to be on his knees at this moment. They would never walk through that gateway again. They’d slipped in and slipped back out; seen her stir but not, thank God, to fully waken; lived to walk out of her grasp. Away from her. Any feelings he had about that appeared to have been frozen somewhere on her heights and been left there among the skeletons of other questers. It took effort to turn away from her, rise to his feet and help Jake up after him. To unfasten the ropes that connected them and linked them in turn to Dorje, to Pemba. Jake leaned his good arm on Tom’s shoulders for support as they walked down into base camp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It seemed unnaturally huge, crowded and littered after days up on the mountain. They walked for what seemed like miles through the tents, past the stupas and their smoking fires that spoke of other climbers above on the mountain, through the smell of coffee and the noise of music and voices and people in deckchairs outside their tents, the distance through to their compound at the far end of the camp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A sleek, black chopper was there. On the plateau beyond their tent, its blades still, two men in flight suits and heavy jackets waiting with Bart and a small figure with fair hair in a pink down suit. Tom stepped away from Jake, his stride quickened, he heard<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shem’s voice raise in alarm,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom –“<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And then that blond, pretty face turned towards him, the violet eyes with the long lashes, the mouth opened – Tom moved with a speed he hadn’t known he had left in him, his shoulder lunged back and the blow smashed Loudon in the jaw with all the strength he had left, knocking him down on the ground. Hands grasped him immediately, many hands, there was shouting, Loudon on the ground looked at him in utter shock, blood on his lip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom.” A voice said in his ear and long arms were around him with more certainty and a lot more determination than the rest, dragging him back, turning him away from the crowd around Loudon. “Tom, let it go now, get Jake out of here. Just get him out of here, that’s all that matters.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a familiar woman’s voice. The arms were very long with large hands and extremely narrow fingers. Tom looked down at them, and then back at her. Tall, bony, six foot of her with her ice blond short hair blown in the wind, her ice blue eyes serious in her hard boned face like an eagle, her English accent. Beau.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Beau.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He stared at her, and she let him go, turned him around to grip his shoulder, shaking him a little.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get him out. I’ll see to this, I’ve got it, I’ll help Bill. We’ll handle the rest.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">She could. She really could. She was an expedition leader by trade, she and Jake and Bill always ran everything the Abeausante team ever did together, and nothing got in Beau’s way. Not officials, not permits, nothing. They could walk away without hesitation if she was here, even with Bill and Spitz still on the mountain and clients in the tents. Beau ignored his open mouth, swung up a rucksack and pushed it into his arms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I ransacked your tent. Passports, wallets, you’ve got cash in there. It’s ok Tom. Go.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He saw her pass him and hug Jake, abnormally gently for her, kissing his cheek. The helicopter blades started overhead, blasting them with snow and dust, the thrumming sound of beating wings overhead. Shem and Pemba helped Jake into the hands of the chopper flight team, who steadied him to climb the last few feet into the cabin. Lost, disoriented, stomach twisting, Tom grabbed Shem, felt the tightness of her hug. Pemba. Small, powerful, who said nothing but hugged him back as strongly. Bart and Max, the two older American men who said things that he didn’t hear but hugged him back, their warmth saying more. Dorje. Tom kissed his cheek hard, feeling Dorje’s arms wrap comfort around him that there were no words for. It was hardest to step away from him, just to leave him and clamber into the belly of the chopper where Jake was sitting, and the door slammed and instantly the chopper lifted, sharply, straight up off the plateau and away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom gripped Jake’s cold hand through the flight. Watched the medic put a cannula into Jake, pushing several syringes of unidentified medication through it before he attached a bag of fluids. The fluids were running fast, and they were warmed, Tom saw them being taken from some closed container. The medics in the Khumbu were used to extracting half frozen internationals from their mountain. The noise of the blades was too loud to allow for talking. Much of the time Jake sat with his eyes closed, his fingers wrapped around Tom’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">On the roof pad of the hospital in Kathmandu they were met by a small crowd of medics and Jake was helped down into waiting hands and Tom trailed them, standing uncomprehendingly at the back of a room watching a group of people talking rapidly in a muddle of Nepali and English depending on whether they were speaking to each other or to Jake. Jake was cut out of his battered yellow climbing suit and the rest of his clothes down to his shorts, and it was only then that Tom saw the horrific bruising across his chest and down his side. Black and purple, the mark of the rock. It was unbelievable his arm had taken enough of the impact to spare his ribs. His arm was an unholy mess. When they took off his boots, his toes were white, pinched white, but no black. Thank God, there was no black. Tom watched them move Jake’s feet into basins of tepid water and work on defrosting them, Jake was abnormally quiet and still, his eyes were closed and Tom thought he was sinking back into the semi-conscious state he’d been in last night, helped along by the drugs they were pumping into him and the collapse of the adrenaline rush that had kept him going through this morning. There were x-rays, machines and tubes, and then finally the bed itself carrying Jake swept past him in a crowd of people towards an operating theatre somewhere in the bowels of the hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom faded back into the hallway, unseen. Everything was so bright. Sharp. Loud and crowded and hard edged. He was shaking all over. When he found a door that led into an empty stairwell, his knees gave way on the top step and for a while he sat there numbly, arms folded tightly across his chest, hands clutching at the thick down of his climbing suit. He didn’t know how long he sat there, stifling the frequent coughing fits that racked him. Only that eventually something came upon him. Some feeling, some urge that drew him to look up, and then despite his efforts to ignore it, it nagged gently at the back of his mind that it was time to get up now. Time to move. It took effort to make his knees work, to walk and look. Eventually he found a payphone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He had no idea of the time there. None at all. He hadn’t known he even knew the number, just somehow his hand dialled by itself with shaking fingers and he waited, hearing the ring thousands of miles away on another continent, and when a voice answered, he managed to force his raw throat to make a noise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale. Is… is Dale there.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was Paul. Belatedly he recognised the voice that had answered the phone, he heard a few seconds’ silence and then the rapid sound of doors, footsteps and Paul’s voice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes, yes he is hon, one moment - Dale, it’s Tom.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom’s stomach clenched tightly; he nearly hung up. He so nearly hung up, the receiver felt huge and cold in his hand. And then Dale’s soft, British voice came out of the phone and surrounded him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom, it’s me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… Help.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It came out so quietly. Not coherent but controlledly, like a careful secret being released.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Please.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes. Where are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was such a calm tone, so sensible that Tom found himself answering fairly sanely in much the same way. “Kathmandu hospital. Jake’s hurt – arm smashed. He’s in surgery.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Will he need a medical evacuation to the States?” Dale sounded perfectly composed about this as well; he might as well have asked if Jake might like sugar in his coffee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom ran a trembling hand through his hair. “… I don’t know. I don’t know. He was walking but – they were thawing his feet, I don’t know if he’s got frost bite. He’s stable, he’s ok,” he added belatedly, aware he was terrifying the nearest family Jake had; these people loved him, he’d seen it time and time again, it was appalling of him to do this to them. “He’s ok. Just the arm, and he was exhausted and shocked… he’s ok. He’s going to be ok.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Give me your number and stay there, I’ll call you back as soon as I have information.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom leaned on the wall, reading the number out aloud, and Dale repeated it back to him before the line went dead. Tom stood there, watching the phone, vaguely aware of the noise of people and voices and other lives being led around him and none of it really piercing the bubble of him and the phone on a dull painted wall. He had no idea how long it was before it rang and he caught it up. Dale sounded crisply organised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Medevac are talking to the hospital now. As soon as the hospital clear Jake to fly, they’ll organise transfer to the airport. If they want facility to facility transfer is Jackson hospital your preferred choice or is there somewhere else better?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Do you want to come to us, or would you rather not?</i> Tom closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the cold concrete of the wall, too overwhelmingly grateful to hesitate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jackson. Please.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right, I’ll confirm that. You had all of this in place, Tom. You and Jake set the emergency plan up well and the wheels are in motion. It’s organised, it’s going to be there and ready.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom heard the phone change hands and a New Zealand voice, quiet and blunt, took over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom, it’s Flynn. Where are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom looked around him, aware he wasn’t really very sure, but something about the voice was steadying and he found himself answering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The hospital – a hallway, somewhere-”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good. Now listen to me. I want you to find yourself something to eat. Real food, not salt and grease. A drink, something hot. Have you got cash on you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good. How much longer will Jake be?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I don’t know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Food, drink, find out where his room is and wait there for him. Understood?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He didn’t often find himself saying it, but it came out automatically to a man who knew him, knew Jake and their relationship, and expected it. “Yes sir.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good.” It was brief, short and extremely warm, the same tone Jake knew the secret of that went down to his bones. “We’ll sort this out, Tom. Go on now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“… thanks.” Tom put the phone down slowly. And then searched the signage on the walls around him and went in search of a canteen. No one seemed in the least surprised to see someone in climbing gear blundering around the halls; it probably happened here a lot during climbing season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He drank coffee and ate some kind of curry on rice – he was hungry, he hadn’t realised until he started to eat, but within a few mouthfuls his stomach protested that it hadn’t been digesting anything in days and this was a shock. And he gave up and drank the coffee. It took a lot longer to find someone who knew where Jake would be taken and to locate a very clean, well-equipped ward, and there, very pale against the dark green bedding, Jake was laying asleep, propped up on the bed at the end by the window.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">His arm was bandaged. A Sherpani nurse with immaculate English talked to Tom gently about the plate used to re assemble his upper arm but that there had not been the crushing they had feared and often saw with such injuries, that he had no frost bite, that he was strong and they were pleased with how well he had come through the surgery. That he had been lucky. She brought a chair, and Tom sat silently against the side of the bed and watched him breathe.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-18.html">Continue to Chapter 18</a></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015 </b></span></div>
</div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-27678336100800882962015-09-24T07:19:00.005-07:002015-09-28T01:37:56.198-07:00Everest - Chapter 18<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: right;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">18 </span><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>From:
</b><a href="mailto:J.B.C.Weld@aol.com"><b><span style="color: blue;">J.B.C.Weld@aol.com</span></b></a><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<u><span style="color: blue;">Flynn</span></u> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">5th
May 11.42am <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dear Flynn <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">We have received
an update. Unfortunately it appears that there may have been some truth in the
rumour. Reports are apparently somewhat confused from base camp as the
telephone lines are still patchy and filled with static, but the Embassy say
they have confirmed with Jacob’s expedition that everyone is alive. However
they are currently coming down the mountain with two injured climbers, and this
is likely to take some hours. It is not fully clear which two, but Jacob’s name
has been mentioned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Embassy is
continuing to try to gather further information. I will not circulate this more
widely until I have confirmed information. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">James <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt 0.5in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<u><span style="color: blue;">Paul</span></u> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>To:
</b><a href="mailto:J.B.C.Weld@aol.com"><b><span style="color: blue;">J.B.C.Weld@aol.com</span></b></a><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">5th
May 15.32pm <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">James, we’ve
heard from them, Tom telephoned to the ranch a few minutes ago. Jake has a
broken arm. Tom says he was exhausted and very cold but they are both all right
and in Kathmandu where Jake is in surgery having his arm operated on. Dale
tells me Kathmandu hospital inevitably deals constantly with some of the most serious
altitude and frostbite injuries on the planet and has a lot of experience and
expertise with this, and he and Flynn are sorting out a medical evacuation with
their insurers to get them back here once Jake is ready to travel. I’m still in
a state of thank God they’re off the mountain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.3in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because this is
Tom and because if they want to stay here they’re going to need a few days’
serious rest, I’m going to ask Gerry, Bear and everyone else not to come
rushing over here at least for a week or so and to try to be calm about this,
and I’d appreciate it if you could spread the same message. Not stepping on
Tom’s toes is going to be very, very important. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Love to you and
Niall and thank you so much for chasing the Embassy all night. I’ll let you
know as soon as we hear anything more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
hospital kept Jake for twenty four hours. There were conversations about
thrombosis on flights, anti-coagulants, other stuff in both languages that went
over Tom’s head. Usually able to process the basics in whatever language they
happened to be needing at the time, right now he continued to feel as though he
was watching this from under water, or some deep anaesthetic that took away all
emotion. Jake never stopped for long at anything unless they lay somewhere
together and he had a book, and even then Tom was used to his stirring and
changing position. Here on the heavy drugs they’d given him, he slept most of
the time. To see him this limp, this silent – it was hideous. He was gaunt. It
was actually worse now he was clean and no longer dressed in the bulk of
climbing gear, Tom’s eyes kept returning again and again to the worst spots.
The bones that were visible in his face and at his collarbones, his golden hair
lank and dark against white hospital linen. The blond beard. The blackness
around his eyes was worse today, the cracking of his lips worse and the blood
spots there were blackened too. His nose and forehead were starting to peel skin
where the windburn and frost nipping had damaged the skin, and his fingertips
were red and slightly blistered. Tom’s own weren’t much better. Neither of them
spoke much at all, only when it was absolutely essential about utter
mundanities, like what time it was and to pour Jake another glass of water from
the jug beside his bed, or for Jake the kind of pointless coaxing such as <i>are you ok? Or: Get a cup of tea. And: go
and eat, I’ll be fine.</i> Tom did it all, mostly to stop him having to say it
or worry. There was a kind of unreality of being ripped so abruptly from the
familiarity of the mountain’s starkness to the hum and bustle of civilisation.
Both of them were hoarse and not managing much above a whisper on cold burned
lungs. Tom still coughed, constantly and quietly and the fierce aching of his
ribs echoed the pain in his legs. It took effort not to limp or let Jake see
him limp. A lot of the time Tom sat against the bed with his hand under Jake’s
not to put any weight on him, but his fingers against Jake’s larger ones. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was the assault of the helicopter flight out to the airport. The hospital
seemed mildly impressed at a med evac being organised at such short notice and
with such efficiency; it appeared to be rare in their experience. The sun shone
brightly on the airport tarmac but the day felt bitingly cold to Tom. He was
still wearing his battered and crampon-ripped down suit and Jake was in
hospital scrubs, and Tom’s last look across towards the white mountains of the
Himalayas was from the steps of a jarringly modern and shiny small plane where
a medical team with North American accents, one of whom had come to meet them
at the hospital and travelled on the chopper with them and with whom Jake was
being sociably polite as Tom was not capable, helped Jake across to the bed,
laid him down, covered him up, strapped him in, messed with his IV, surrounded
him with equipment and wired him up to it. And then the plane took off and turned
away from Nepal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
were armchair type things that were odd in a plane. Tom paced by them for hours
at the far end of the cabin, staring out of the window while sea went by below
them. As soon as the plane took off, Jake slipped back under the heavy painkillers
the hospital had insisted he take to cushion the flight. The monitors he was
connected to were level and calm, the medics were relaxed, he got the
impression this was all precautionary rather than urgent. There were several
stops to refuel. There was food on board; the medics kept offering him bizarre
things like stroganoff. At some point Jake roused enough to manage something
approximating a smile at him and to choke down some yoghurt one of the
paramedics persuaded him to, and Jake tried to talk for a while with <i>his this is going to be fine tone</i>,
harassing gently until Tom choked down a roll and a mug of coffee, but within
half an hour the drugs overtook Jake again and he sank back into sleep. And it
went on. And on. Through the dark, through the first hours of dawn. They
appeared to have been spending their lives in that cabin when the plane came in
for the third refuelling stop at thin, grey sunrise on yet another tarmac full
of planes and yet another anonymous airport. The air crew came and went, and
then he heard a British accent speak to someone beyond the open door and Dale
stepped into the cabin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
stared at him, a blank stare, because it was just too unreal that he should be
here. He was immaculate. Alert and crisply dressed in a formal jacket over
jeans, clean shaven despite the hour of the morning, dark hair straight; he
might as well have been wearing a suit in this stuffy cabin cluttered with
medical junk. But his eyes – his eyes were so concerned and so comprehending
that Tom found himself on his feet. Those eyes put into words what he couldn’t
feel and should feel, it was like being handed a script. He had no idea what to
do, none at all, he couldn’t find his voice at all but he managed to get a hand
out and Dale gripped it. Firmly, strongly. His hand felt very warm. A larger
man was behind him. Flynn. Taller, dark fair hair tousled, and he had an
expression to his face that Tom knew well because it was so often there in
Jake’s; it was deeply and reassuringly familiar. Flynn was not as tall as Jake-
he was a couple of inches shorter than Tom himself – but he carried a sense of
presence with him that was powerful the way Jake’s was, his confidence and his
surety was like Jake’s, and Flynn straight came past Dale and put a hand out to
grasp the back of Tom’s neck, a warm, powerful grasp, and Tom found himself
pulled against a solid shoulder and wrapped inside warm arms in a hard,
crushing, inescapable hug that held immense comfort. And Flynn did not politely
let go either. Tom felt his knees start to shake in response. It caught
everything that Dale had elicited and pulled hard, and Tom found himself
holding his breath hard, trying to keep the wave of awful stuff locked down
inside him. He kept it in. Just. Flynn cupped the back of his neck when he
finally let go, looking hard at Tom’s face in the same way Jake did, the
searching stare that looked for are you all right? And then Flynn stepped past
him and Tom saw him very gently put his hand over Jake’s good one. Tom cleared
his throat, trying to speak clearly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
looks worse than he is. They’ve got him doped right up – painkillers, shock-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Exhaustion.
He’d had literally nothing left, there had been a few hours at camp three where
Tom had fully expected him to slip away, and yet Jake had revived himself and
made it down the mountain. He’d climbed through the ice fall with all the
strength of powerful will Tom knew in him, done it cheerfully, and he’d burned
out anything he had left, and then he’d handled the assault of the surgery. This
awful endless sleep – it was terrifying, Tom had to keep justifying it in his
own mind to keep panic at bay. Flynn didn’t answer and he didn’t speak to Jake
but he glanced at his watch and nodded hello to the medics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“All
right. We should be heading out in a few minutes. Dale, talk with the flight
crew. Tom, let’s sit down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was politely phrased but it was said most definitely as a statement and not a
question, and Tom saw one of the medics’ expression in response. They had been
gently suggesting that in a number of ways in the hours they’d been in this
cabin, trying to interrupt his pacing of the far end of the cabin where he was
out of their way and not likely to disturb Jake. It hadn’t got them very far.
Flynn took the seat next to the window, flatly tapping the seat next to him in
a now kind of way. Tom sat down slowly, stiffly, watching Dale walk down to the
front cabin with a certainty that spoke of utter familiarity with planes, crews
and directing them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“….Flight
crew?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“As
to where we go. There was some discussion about whether Jake needed to be at
Jackson Hospital, or if the medical team here thought he was well enough, we
could go straight to the ranch since we can provide a landing strip. There’s no
point taking him to Jackson if in a few hours they discharge him and we’ve got
to put him through a couple of hours more travel in the car. From what the team
were telling us through the Med Evac central, he’s been stable and doing well
the whole time, no sign of any complications.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
medics here had been making reports? It was slightly alarming to realise that
he hadn’t noticed. They’d talked to him a few times, he hadn’t really been
listening; he couldn’t remember anything they’d said. Flynn gave him an
experienced look and put a hand down to recline his seat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Lay
back, close your eyes.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah
I don’t do bunny.” Tom said dully, ignoring the seat movement. Hunched forward
with his elbows on his knees he could see through the window, a cloudy, gloomy
day. He still had no idea where they were. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Neither
do I.” Flynn paused for a moment to look straight at him from uncomfortably
near to, abruptly between Tom and the window. His eyes were extremely steady
and his tone was not subtle. “And while Jake’s not able to look after you I’m
responsible. I get that it’s been a hideous few days and you’re so
over-stimulated right now you can’t think, I can see you’re in pain and you’re
worrying about Jake, and you’re tired-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
always tired.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
know that’s hard.” And he spoke very quietly. Like he knew as Jake did that the
very low volume helped. It was what Jake would do. Put the seat back, insist,
except Jake would say nothing, just fence him in with one leg braced against
the seat in front, pull a book out and read, like he was putting up a wall
between Tom and the rest of the world. “But the first thing you need is rest,
and that will help. Lay back now, close your eyes. We’ve got a good four hours
flight ahead of us.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Slowly,
Tom unfolded himself and lay back in the seat. Dale came back to sit on his
other side, his always soft voice low like Flynn’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re
happy to take us to the ranch. Emmett and Jackson hospital know what’s
happening.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom.”
Flynn said firmly. Tom closed his eyes. A moment later he felt a jacket spread
over him, and despite the thickness of the down suit that had withstood the
summit itself, the additional warmth was penetrating and very welcome. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
didn’t sleep. He was coughing too often to manage even to doze. But Flynn and
Dale were both quiet, unspeaking and still, and each of them was a man who had
a tangible presence when they were in a room. Combined together, they seemed to
spread some kind of calmness and hush through the entire cabin. Jake slept on,
even the paramedics were quiet and Tom felt some of the agitation fade a
little. When the plane began to bank, he opened his eyes and looked down. The
land below was green, green as the eye could see with snow-capped mountains on
the horizon. Infant mountains compared to the ones that he’d seen day and night
for weeks. Dale caught his eye and gave him a slight, understanding look,
following his gaze. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thank
you for your email.” Tom said to him. It came out as a hoarse whisper, not
intentionally. He caught the slightly bemused look Dale gave him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
got to read it?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.
On the way down at camp three.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
couldn’t think past that right now, that was all he could manage. Tom let Flynn
bring his seat back to the upright position as the plane came into land, and by
the grass landing strip below they were rapidly descending to he saw a jeep
waiting with Jasper standing leaning against it, his arms folded on his chest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
said something professionally graceful to the medics and the plane crew; Tom
was grateful for that. He was beyond offering anything that made any sense at
all. Jake stirred as the plane landed and Tom saw his eyes open and search the
cabin immediately until they found Tom’s. Tom shouldered his way straight past
Flynn to reach him. Jake managed a smile, but his eyes said a whole lot more.
He was glad to see Dale and Flynn, and Tom thought there was relief there too;
he also had enough coherence to thank the medics himself in his usual way.
There were a whole lot of medical instructions from the team doctor that
sounded like some old Charlie Brown cartoon – <i>blah blah blah</i> – while Tom silently willed him to shut up and let
them get out, and then Flynn stood back for Tom to support Jake on his slow but
steady way as he walked down the plane steps, out of the stuffy heat of the
cabin into fresh, cool breeze. What time it was Tom had no idea; day and night
appeared to have lost all meaning. Jake reached over and hugged Jasper as they
reached the jeep, smiling, saying something about grass instead of snow. Tom
couldn’t process it. He went around the far side of the jeep to steady Jake as
he slid into the back seat, sitting next to him to try and brace him as much as
possible, aware that Flynn was doing the same on Jake’s other side. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper
drove slowly and very gently over the rough grass; he was as careful as he
possibly could be but Jake was still white to Tom’s eye by the time Jasper drew
up at the front door. Tom had been braced for an excited crowd of Falls Ranch
people and dreading it: there were so many people belonging to this household,
they seemed to come and go in herds. However only Paul was there in the
doorway, and only he came to meet them as Flynn and Tom between them helped
Jake ease to his feet. As soon as he was up, Jake walked away on his own, put
his good arm around Paul’s neck and kissed his cheek, looking and sounding a
whole lot more upbeat than he should, and Tom knew he was trying not to panic
them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“In
one piece. I promised.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“More
or less.” Paul returned the kiss, Tom could see his effort in return not to
grasp Jake, very careful of the strapped up arm. It was like participating in
some mad comedy of manners, everyone thinking things that would never be said.
For a moment it reminded Tom horribly of his mother and one of the garden
parties he’d hated and loathed as a child. Then to his shock Paul burst out
sharply, “<i>Look</i> at you with a beard
Jacob Winthrop- Oh my God you’re emaciated! You look terrible, you both do! Are
these scrubs? They sent you home in scrubs?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re
home, let’s take it from there,” Flynn said from behind Tom, and his voice
sounded very steady. “Jake’s doing ok, the medics were fine with releasing
him.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Every
other item of clothing we own,” Jake told him candidly, reaching to take Tom’s
hand and hold it firmly, “Is filthy and up a mountain in Nepal. I planned for
us both to be cleaned up and looking a lot better than this before you saw us,
but the choice got away from me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul
shook his head, pushing Jake very gently past him and collecting Tom with the
other hand, gathering him in to smile at him although his eyes were anxious.
Tom didn’t have the wherewithal to resist if he’d wanted to. He could see
reflected straight back at him the confirmation that Jake truly did look as
awful as Tom thought: Paul was shaken, although he was trying not to show it.
“I can’t get over either of you with beards, you look like pirates. Tom, hello
sweetheart, I’m so pleased to see you. Come in, you get him inside before he
freezes.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
led the way into the family room to one of the several deep, dark leather
armchairs, gingerly sinking down into it and tipping his head back with a sigh
of relief. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh
that is <i>good</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Did
they feed you anything on the plane?” Paul took the rucksack from Tom, standing
it in the hallway. Jake shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Neither
of us felt much like eating. But then we stopped eating at camp three on our
way up – it seems like about a year ago, I think it was about five days ago –
and we never really got started again.” Jake reached out with his good hand,
caught Tom’s again and squeezed it. “You look so cold. I was lucky, the
hospital had to get me cleaned up to go into surgery. You’ve had no chance,
have you? We left base camp with just about what we stood up in, straight to
the hospital. Don’t worry about being polite, go and get in the shower love,
you must be desperate.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom,
you don’t <i>need</i> to be polite, you two
live here.” Paul said very definitely. “You do whatever you want. Kitchen
bathroom or either of the upstairs bathrooms, shower, bath, whichever you’d
rather, help yourself.” Paul turned to find Dale who’d followed them in silence
and was standing quietly, face expressionless. “Dale, go get him towels and clean
clothes, something warm. Tom, soak as long as you want, there’s no shortage of
hot water.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
was watching and when Tom didn’t move, put a hand on his shoulder, tapping
firmly. “Tom, it’s all right. Go with Dale, and I’ll watch Jake.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
will as well.” Jake gave Tom a smile that was the nearest to his real one that
Tom had seen in several days, although he spoke very gently. “I’m fine here.
Make yourself comfortable.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
were other people to help take responsibility now. People who could be trusted
to look after Jake and not to come between them while doing it. In fact in all
the time they’d spent on the ranch, asking for space had never been something
Tom had had to do by word or gesture. they’d always been amazingly tolerant.
Amazingly tactful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
nodded, firmly enough to be convincing, heading upstairs in Dale’s wake. He’d
always found this house large enough to be daunting. It was thickly carpeted
from the stairs upwards which was surprising in a ranch and several doors stood
open, showing bedrooms where bright patchwork bedspreads were visible on wooden
bedsteads. There seemed to be no one else around, but it was still very much
foreign territory; this was a lived-in home belonging to people that mattered,
rather than neutral territory like a tent or a hotel. It was all alarmingly
clean too when he felt filthy to the bone and barely fit to touch anything. And
as if he was looking at it all from a very long way off, down some long tunnel.
Dale opened a door on the landing and took out a stack of cream towels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
is the nearest one.” He opened the door into a large tiled bathroom with a bath
and a glass shower cabinet. “Help yourself to whatever you want in the
cupboards and cabinets, it’s general stock not anyone’s in particular.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thanks.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
might have been a conversation between strangers. Tom couldn’t have managed any
more at this moment. Thankfully Dale was always contained, he rarely gave
direct eye contact either and he was discreet enough to get the hint and leave.
Tom resisted the urge to lock the door and lean against it. He unfastened the
down suit slowly, aware this was the last time he’d ever take it off. It was
fit only for throwing out; torn in several places where he or Jake had caught
crampons as they scrambled down from camp three, battered, stained, sweat
soaked. The face in the mirror above the sink was heavily bearded, the hair
wild, like some thin and gangly mountain man with black bruises around his
eyes. It didn’t look like his. And he couldn’t bring himself to undress any
further. He jumped at the quiet tap on the door and the voice on the landing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom?
It’s Paul. I brought some tea up, may I come in?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">How did you answer that? Was it
allowable to say no? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
Yeah,” Tom managed. Paul opened the door and came to put the tea down in his
reach on the windowsill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
thought you could use this, I keep hearing you cough. Your throat sounds as
terrible as Jake’s does. He fell asleep in the chair just now, more or less in
mid-sentence, Flynn said you mentioned he’d been very doped up. Is there
anything you need me to do for him or get for him?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have no idea, I didn’t hear much of
what the medics said. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>What kind of useless man didn’t pay
attention when a doctor was talking about their partner</i>? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul
had shaken out a couple of towels and put them in reach of the shower, and he
paused, giving Tom a very direct look. Then he put them down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right.
I know I’m not your favourite person but Dale gives me that look all the time.
What’s the matter sweetheart? No, please don’t tell me nothing. Need me to get
Jake?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That
was way, way too acute. Tom shook his head sharply. Paul nodded slowly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok.
Then can I help?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.
Thanks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
look terrified.” Paul kept on looking as Tom’s face started to burn. “I’d have
thought you were desperate to get out of that suit... have you taken that off
since you came off the mountain? Tom, are you hurt?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
shook his head slowly, disjointedly, aware that the shaking was moving slowly
from his knees and hands upward into his chest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
I don’t know.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
don’t you know?” Paul said very gently. He was trying to figure it out, his
horribly kind eyes were searching and they saw far too much. “Breathe honey.
It’s going to be ok. Take a breath.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
took a breath automatically, and pulled at another of the fastenings of his
down suit, trying to loosen anything tight around his chest as it was feeling
increasingly like a clamp around him. He was surprised for a second at the
plastic covered paper sheets that fluttered to the bathroom floor and stood
looking down at them as Paul did. Paul had the tact to say nothing and not to
try to pick them up, he just waited with that terribly, terribly kind concern
on his face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
stooped to pick up the papers. The email that had been written in this house by
a man who was also in this house, and holding it, his chest released in one
rush, like a dam breaking. He put the papers down on the sink and abruptly
walked past Paul onto the landing before he could change his mind. It was
beyond wrong to wake Jake now; it was unkind, selfish – and yet he headed
downstairs, seeing Jake stir in the chair and lift his head at the sound of
him. He woke as though he knew Tom’s footfall, as if even this drugged it still
reached him. He turned to look, and then his fogged eyes cleared fast, going
straight to the laid back focus Tom recognised. The kind of focus he had when
he was bottle dancing on a rooftop, looking like he was just messing around
while not missing one single step. He even got up out of the chair easily like
he’d just been lazing there to read instead of stunned with drugs and broken
bones, and Tom knew that was for his benefit too. Hating himself for doing it,
Tom took his good arm gently, taking him towards the kitchen out of earshot of
Flynn on the couch opposite who was watching, Paul coming down the stairs
behind them... he felt Jake catch on within a couple of paces. Jake controlled
their speed, making Tom slow down, and he stepped ahead of Tom, opening the
door off the kitchen into the bathroom to guide Tom in ahead of him. He closed
the door behind them and then, only when they were alone, he reached directly
for Tom’s face. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?
What’s wrong?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Having
got this far, it was here that his nerve failed him. Tom gripped his shirt
front and the shaking began to get worse, and Jake pulled him close, hugging
him tightly one armed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
ok. It’s ok. Just tell me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
sounded ridiculously calm when Tom knew that neither of them were feeling calm
at all. The effort to hold it together and not to shake him or jar his arm was
horrible. Jake was injured, ill, dealing with all he could take; he didn’t need
this too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.
We talked about this.” Jake said in his ear. “You need to tell me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
I can’t undress.” Tom blurted it out, turning scarlet even as he admitted it.
His legs were shaking. The terror was fast getting out of control now he’d let
it escape, told it to him. “Jake I can’t, I don’t-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
don’t what?” Jake pulled him gently back far enough to see his face, searching
it closely, and Tom saw him put the pieces together, his eyes went abruptly
intense. “Who checked you over at the hospital? Tom? Who had a look at you? <i>Did</i> anyone look at you? Tom, answer me.
Did anyone check you over?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
shook his head jerkily. Jake didn’t respond for a second or two, although
nothing showed in his face. Then he nodded, guiding him into a chair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok.
That’s ok, sit down, let’s have a look.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
tried to stoop to help and Tom heard his stifled hiss of pain and grabbed to
stop him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake
don’t, it’s fine, I’ll be fine-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
do it.” Jake ran a hand over his hair, rubbed his neck, his voice very calm.
“I’m here, you can do this.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
felt for his hand and hung on to it for a moment, too afraid to try. Jake gave
him that moment, the two of them pressed together in that immaculately clean
bathroom. Then squeezed his hand with large, warm, familiar fingers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Come
on. I was fine, you’re going to be fine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
stooped down and forced himself to unknot the mess of the laces of his climbing
boots. He had not removed them since they left the tent at camp four to set out
for the summit. That evening – the time spent rescuing Phoenix, the climb back
up to camp three, stabilising the tent in the storm, laying beside Jake outside
of a sleeping bag and not getting himself warm or hydrated, just being too
cold, too exhausted, too stressed, scared out of his mind – there were things
about that time that Jake did not know about, things Tom never intended him to
know about, and all of it together meant there was every chance he knew exactly
what he was going to see under those boots. He’d seen pictures of severe
frostbite. Seen it first hand on other people once or twice. The frozen flesh
went black as it died slowly over the months following the frost bite. What was
the phrase the medical profession used…. January’s frost bite was July’s
amputation? The damage would gradually turn to pure, ebony black over the
weeks, beginning from the tips of the toes and creeping up the foot towards the
ankle. Toes could fracture when the flesh froze, literally snap off, the dead
flesh past feeling anything. Black dead tissue and bone never revived, once it
had died off it had to be amputated before the rest of the body became
poisoned. It was not unusual for survivors of Everest to lose toes, parts of
the foot, sometimes the foot itself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
fear was overwhelming. To face a future that would not involve running,
climbing, exploring, freedom, to face Jake with a body damaged and deformed –
it was unbearable. It produced an animal terror that swelled in him, rivalling
anything he’d felt on the mountain in the past few days. And yet somehow he
went on doggedly unknotting those laces with trembling, clumsy hands, aware
that Jake was rubbing his back, standing directly against him and murmuring all
the time he did it. Everything hurt so much it was impossible to isolate it, to
really know if it was in his feet, had reached his toes. He managed to tear one
boot off, and then the other, dropping them on the floor, and then peel off the
heavy socks that were ruined beyond ever being worn again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Beside
him he was aware that Jake sat down very quickly on the sink with a sound as if
he’d swallowed a yelp. Tom didn’t dare to look. There was a tap at the door,
Paul’s voice, hesitant but anxious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake?
Please can I help?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Can
you call Emmett?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a moment, then Paul opened the door quietly, phone to his ear. He was calm,
his extreme calmness helped, and he held the phone out to Jake who took it,
putting it between his shoulder and ear to free his hand to grip Tom’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Emmett,
it’s Jake at Falls Chance, Tom’s got some frost bite, both feet-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul
quietly crouched between them, reaching to very gently take one of Tom’s feet
in his hands, then the other, touching with sensitivity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
warm.” He said with experience a few seconds later. “They’re fully thawed. Tom,
are they numb? You don’t know, do you? Everything hurts so much you don’t know
any more, ok. Ok honey. Jake, I see second degree, two toes affected on the
left, three on the right.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh
that helped. Encouraged, Tom made himself look down, still fully expecting to
see ink black, the colour of dead tissue. He braced himself for it. He breathed
out in one sharp gush at the sight of first one foot, then the other. There was
definitely a little dusky blueness at the very tips of two toes, small patches
like bruises, but all five of them were swollen, hugely blistered with almost
the entire length of each toe grotesquely sausaged in a clear blister that was
swelling almost visibly, reddened and peeling. Living, vigorously protesting
tissue, not dead tissue. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Paul
thinks second degree and I agree with him,” Jake relayed into the phone, “Two
toes affected on one foot and three on the other, clear blistering – yes he’s
warm. Are you sure? I’ll get him straight to Jackson now if - ok. Ok, thanks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
handed the phone to Paul, turning back to catch Tom’s hand again and hold it,
winding his fingers through as if he was afraid of Tom slipping away, although
his voice was easy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
says to soak you in a warm bath, not a hot one. Give you painkillers, if you
don’t feel it now you will in a while, and don’t walk on those feet. He’s about
an hour away, he’ll be here as soon as he can. Paul, do you have ibuprofen?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes,
I’ll get it.” Paul disappeared towards the kitchen. In the doorway Flynn had
been listening to all this with his arms folded and his face absolutely
expressionless. Now he unfolded his arms, came in and picked Tom up from the
chair just as Jake would have done before Tom had time to realise what he was
going to do. Just scooped him up as if he weighed nothing, and carried him
upstairs, holding Tom close against his chest and turning slightly to ensure no
part of him was knocked against the wall or banisters. He did it so gently.
Almost shockingly gently. It wasn’t awful. There was almost a relief to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
felt very like Jake for some reason and Tom wasn’t sure why. Jake followed them
slowly; Flynn moved very unhurriedly all the way to let Jake keep pace beside
him, taking Tom back into the bathroom on the landing and lowering him down on
the chair beside the bath, letting him go so gradually that there was no jolt
or worsening of pain. He kept a hand on Tom’s shoulder while he leaned to turn
the taps on, checking the temperature with his hand, and then he disappeared,
pulling the door to behind him and leaving them alone. The fact he didn’t say
anything, didn’t look, just went and left them alone, made Tom appreciate him
all the more. Jake put a hand briefly under the taps to double check, then
fumbled with the fastenings to Tom’s down suit, helping him strip it down as
best he could with one hand. Then abruptly he stopped and put the hand up to
cup Tom’s face instead, his thumb running over Tom’s cheekbone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Why</i> didn’t you say?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was no way to answer. Jake answered it for him, with pain in his face that
turned Tom’s guts inside out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Because
you were scared out of your mind for me, you had no chance to think about
anything else and I wasn’t together enough to know. I’m so sorry. I never
dreamt they hadn’t made sure you were ok, I should have checked. I should have
made sure, I should have known you couldn’t say it to strangers…” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
hadn’t even been conscious enough to know what day it was. He was only awake
now because he was fighting the medication with everything he had, and he
shouldn’t be doing it. He should be able to rest now, he needed peace, not more
drama and worry, and yet the relief that he knew, that it was in his hands now
- Tom shook his head mutely, unable to look at him, tears starting to run
despite anything he could do about it. Jake sighed hard, put a hand behind his
head and pulled Tom’s head close against his for a moment, his voice hoarse and
soft against Tom’s ear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
all right. It’s all right, everything’s going to be all right. We’re going to
get through this. You’re shocked to hell, you’ve been so strong-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His
voice cracked. It was an awful, awful sound and Tom looked up in horror,
distraught that there were tears on Jake’s face too. Jake pushed his hair back
off his face, taking a deep breath to try and calm himself, then pulled the
down suit off as best he could without letting Tom stand up, fumbled him one
handed out of the layers of clothes beneath with Tom’s help and searched him.
Searched him all over, every scrape, graze and bruise with a concern that was
horrible, before he helped him into the bath. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
hurt. Tom had been longing for weeks for this moment of being able to get
fully, properly clean again but the water against his feet and fingertips hurt
like fire and it took all the courage he had left not to show it. Paul must
have brought the painkillers up although Tom didn’t remember seeing him. Just
Jake passing him the tablets and a glass of water, watching him swallow them
and sitting beside the bath with a hand on him, helping while he tried to wash
– scrub – from hair down to feet with fingers that felt swollen and burned.
Jake’s hand was no better, the water must have stung and burned him too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
were clothes. Old ones of Jake’s that must have been stored somewhere in this
house for years; they hung soft and loose on Tom. Jake helped him dress one
handed, he couldn’t do that much but he didn’t seem able to let go. He was
still in the scrubs and wearing hospital socks when he called out onto the
landing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Paul,
which room do you want us in?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
didn’t know which you’d rather.” Paul came upstairs rather quickly as though
he’d been sitting half way up and waiting. “Tom, there are the attic rooms
which are further away and more private, but they’re small and there’s the
stairs to think about, I really don’t want either of you having to handle an
extra flight of stairs right now…. I made up your room in the bunkhouse but if
you go out there I need one of us to sleep over there with you in case you need
anything, at least for tonight. Dale will gladly if he’s going to be the
easiest one of us to cope with-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
are <i>not</i> going out to the bunkhouse.”
Jake interrupted him very definitely. He looked at Tom and his voice softened
fractionally but not by much. “We are staying here with a phone in reach, a car
if we end up needing Jackson Hospital and where I’ve got some chance of keeping
you warm and safe through tonight. This floor is fine, Paul, just tell us which
one.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Gerry’s
room is the warmest and I changed the linen the day after they went out to
Seattle.” Paul looked up as Flynn tapped at the door. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake,
Emmett’s here. Where are you sleeping?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Gerry’s
room, thanks.” Jake kept a hand on Tom’s shoulder as Flynn came to lift him,
carrying him down the hallway to a very small room on the left, with steep
eaves, exposed dark wood beams and barely room for more than the large double
bedstead and the dresser beside it. The low, large window looked directly out
over the corral of horses and the wide green pastures rolling away in the
distance. Flynn put him down on the bed and reached for the folded gold and
cream quilt at the foot, pulling it up over him. It was then that Tom, sitting
stiffly upright under it since it was vulnerable enough to be even sitting on a
bed right now in front of this audience, realised belatedly he was shivering. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
had seen Emmett a few times at this house, the last time when Riley and Dale
had just come out of Three Traders mine. He made a marked difference to the
medics in Kathmandu and the paramedics on the aircraft. Scruffy, in his army
fatigue jacket and black socks since apparently even medics got made to take
their shoes off in this house, he gave Tom a brief smile and no further eye
contact, going over him with gentle, unhurried and straight to the point hands.
He reminded Tom sharply of Shem. It was painfully hard to think of her and the
camp. They’d been ripped out of it so abruptly, it was still all going on over
there without them – he couldn’t stop shaking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mostly
first degree, some second degree….you’re right.” Emmett glanced up at Tom. “You
won’t lose toes. You’ve got a painful few months ahead while this heals, you’re
both going to end up on first name terms with the Jackson physical therapy
department, but I’ve seen frostbite that gets ugly and this isn’t it. Let’s see
the hands. Yeah, you’re ok. Cover up again and let’s get you some stronger pain
relief, Tom. I’ll drain the fluid out of those blisters and get them covered
and dressed. Jake, I saw a whole lot of very detailed notes about you from Med
Evac. How are you feeling?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Much
too doped.” Jake said brusquely. He sat on the far side of the bed and Tom
found he was gripping Jake’s hand far too hard, Jake’s knuckles were white with
it. Emmet pulled the quilt right up over Tom’s shoulders, opened his bag and
began to unpack it, looking to Paul. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Can
I have some hot water, soap, a couple of towels and a hot, sweet drink for Tom
please? And he could use a couple of hot water bottles in this bed.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Coming
right up.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul
left them alone, Tom heard his footsteps on the landing fade out of sight. With
him gone, Jake moved his hand for a moment to Tom’s shoulder, gentle but
steering him firmly, insisting until he lay down. As soon as he did, Jake took
his hand again, gripping it firmly. Emmett set a syringe, Tom barely felt the
shot in amongst the clamour of everything else that hurt, only that gradually
it did not exactly stop hurting – merely that he became separated from it, from
all sensation, from all emotion, his mind detached and calm as if he was an
observer. His body relaxed and became content not to move a muscle, and the
room began to become soft edged and hazy. The bed was ridiculously soft, he was
becoming slowly warmer under the thick quilt. Emmett was still gently and
slowly draining the fluid out of each mighty blister with a hypodermic and
withdrawing quite disgusting amounts when he ceased to remember any more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<br /><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-19.html" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Continue to Chapter 19</b></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
</span>tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-86712684138041516902015-09-24T07:15:00.000-07:002015-09-28T01:41:58.037-07:00Everest - Chapter 19<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: right;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">19 </span></i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">Excerpt from <u>The
Manhattan Times:</u> ‘On Top of the World, Ma!’ <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;">[The first dramatic photograph of Phoenix Loudon, the triumphant
Himalayan adventurer, standing on the summit of Everest only hours before the
team ran into severe trouble in a storm.] </span><span style="color: #0070c0;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Slightly
after two am Dale stirred out of an uneasy sleep and turned over to find the
other side of the bed still empty. He’d stayed well out of the way since he’d
seen Tom’s shut, expressionless face and the desperate eyes in the bathroom yesterday;
seen and understood it painfully well. He’d headed directly for Paul, cornering
him in the kitchen since Jake was asleep, and Paul had heard his very
inarticulate request that someone qualified needed to be with Tom right now,
and Paul gone up to the bathroom at once. Dale had been in the family room with
Jake and Flynn when Tom appeared like a ghost and towed Jake into the kitchen,
and Flynn had followed while Dale faded into the background and out of sight as
much as was possible, knowing how agonising Tom would find an audience watching
him come apart. Particularly a brat audience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper,
Luath and Riley had gone together yesterday morning with Mason who was on his
first night of his scheduled lone camp out. That had been luck rather than
intentional: Mason was aware of the travellers in crisis and on their way back
from Kathmandu, and had joined in the discussions around making arrangements,
but they’d reassured him that there was no need for his camp out to be delayed
or affected, and Jasper had made very sure he spent the time with Mason through
that day to help him prepare, and for the camp out to be very much controlled
and about Mason rather than affected by what was going on in Kathmandu. The
only difference was that it didn’t normally take three of them to supervise a
client on camp out, but they’d all been aware of how Tom would find returning
to a crowd in the house. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Mason
would be believing right now that he was entirely alone in his wild, isolated
spot where they had left him with his boundaries clearly marked out and nothing
more than a basic bedroll, iodine tablets and trail rations. They would do
nothing to disabuse him of this unless he was in trouble or danger. But at
their camp, near to a vantage point on a plateau some way above Mason’s and
well out of his sight, they would be keeping a very discreet eye on him. And so
the house was quiet. Paul wanted it as quiet as possible, Dale knew he was
surprised Tom had agreed to stay in the house at all and was concerned it was
going to be too much for him. He was radiating the concern like a force field
although he wasn’t saying much. Flynn wasn’t saying anything at all. He was
just there. Abrupt and right there, every moment, in the way that Dale
associated with what Riley called ‘circling the wagons’. He’d been like that
all the way through the flight out to New York and reaching home hadn’t changed
it. Paul was no better. At least one of them was keeping him with them and
under their eye all the time they weren’t directly doing something for Tom and
Jake, because, typically for them, they were worried about him too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
had no reason to be. Crisis was one of the few things Dale knew he could do
competently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
slid out of bed, grabbing a pair of shorts and a sweater on his way, and padded
very quietly up the hallway and around the corner. Riley’s room was empty
tonight, his door stood open. But across the hallway from his door, against the
wall beside the closed door of Gerry’s room, Flynn was where Dale had expected
to find him. Sitting in the dark with his elbows propped on his knees, hands
loosely linked together in front of him, his head tipped back. Not invading
anyone’s space, silent and unobtrusive but there, ready. You had to love a man
who would spend his night like this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
glanced over as he heard Dale. His face didn’t change but he turned up a hand,
opening it. Dale took it and sat down beside him, his shoulder against Flynn’s
for warmth, and turned his cheek against Flynn’s shoulder, keeping his voice so
low there was no risk of disturbing anyone else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
are they?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They
haven’t needed anything so far.” Flynn’s voice was even softer, a deep rumble. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was planning to make sure. He’d been like this ever since the phone call came
in from Kathmandu, and Dale had some idea of the courage it had taken Tom to
place that call. They both looked terrible. Unutterably terrible. It had upset
Paul a lot more than he was showing, and Dale had seen Flynn clock that too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Head
against his shoulder, holding Flynn’s hand between both of his, Dale sat there
in the dark and wondered what they were going to do about it. Flynn turned his
head to nudge Dale with his chin. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Go
get your pillow and the quilt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <i>I do not
need the –</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That
was not going to go down well, and disturbing the two in their room was
unthinkable. Dale got up and went to retrieve the requested articles, bringing
Flynn back a sweater as well. Flynn took the sweater, put the pillow in his lap
and tapped it, waiting until Dale lay down against him, then covering him with
the quilt. Dale settled with him, with a fair idea that Flynn’s intention was
to wait until he fell asleep, then carry him back to bed and go on sitting in
this hallway alone. It was not going to work. Dale had waited out many more
stressful nights than this and had schooled his body to sleep only when he was
ready and not before. It was one hell of a lot harder when made to lie down and
get comfortable, against Flynn’s warmth, feeling his breathing and with Flynn’s
hand resting on his hair – but certainly not impossible when there were things
to be figured out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~
~ ~ ~ ~ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
was stepping out of the shower when he heard Riley’s footfall run up the stairs
and Riley’s cheerful voice singing one of his various pieces of nonsense with
which he killed time while he was washing or dressing and there was no one to
talk to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m
not a pheasant plucker <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m
a pheasant plucker’s son <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">And
I’m sitting plucking pheasants <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">til
the pheasant plucker comes…. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Grabbing
a towel, Flynn opened the door to stop him, and heard the sharp, low growl come
from the far end of the hall. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Riley,
stop that racket.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a few seconds of shocked silence. Flynn had never heard that tone from Jake
before in all his time on the ranch and Riley certainly hadn’t. Toweling off
rapidly and heading out on to the landing he was in time to hear Riley’s very
soft, “Sorry,” and Riley headed past Flynn fast towards the bathroom, flashing
Flynn a quick apologetic look with eyes that were soft with understanding.
Jake, still in those hospital scrubs, was standing at the far end of the
landing looking about nine feet tall, eyes blazing. He’d clearly wanted to say
a whole lot more and was restraining himself with an effort. Flynn let Riley
past, closed the bathroom door quietly behind him and wrapped the towel around
his waist. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Are
you ok?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Barefoot
with one sleeve of the scrubs hanging empty, Jake never usually looked anything
like this large. Or pale. The vague look about his eyes had cleared and there
was a whole lot of tension there instead. So he’d burned off most of the
painkillers in his system and hadn’t replaced them. It took him a minute to
control himself before he nodded curtly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
sorry.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Riley’s
heard a lot worse than that. How’s Tom?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Asleep.”
Jake was still blocking the hallway like a large crowd of one. He was not doing
it consciously but everything about his body warned off. Flynn took his good
arm and drew him, pulling when Jake resisted, into his and Dale’s room, where
he opened the dresser and found clean clothes, starting to dress. Jake sat down
on the immaculately made bed. It was more because he was too exhausted to stand
up any longer than any sign of relaxation; his whole body was still tuned to the
hallway. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Has
Tom woken at all?” Flynn asked him, shouldering into a shirt. Jake shook his
head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.
Emmett said he’d sedated him pretty good. Wanted to cushion the pain once the
shock started to wear off, and keep him still. He thinks from the bruising
Tom’s probably separated a rib through coughing.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
said it almost tonelessly. Flynn buttoned jeans, watching him acutely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
are you feeling?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
fine, it’s just a broken arm.” He got up abruptly, restlessly, and Flynn put
out a hand to stop him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
need to eat, you both do. Come down, tell me what you need and I’ll bring a
tray up.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll
come down when he wakes.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
won’t want to leave him then either.” Flynn held on to his good shoulder,
waiting until Jake looked at him, understanding the rigidity in his face.
“You’ve got a few hours to put together all the strength you can.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
had no<i> idea</i> no one had thought to
check him over.” Jake said shortly. “No idea. It’s ridiculous, I should have
made sure,” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
weren’t able to, they wouldn’t have let you travel at all without taking the
medication and I saw you on the plane yesterday, you were barely aware of what
was going on.” Flynn held on to his shoulder, “Come on Jake. You are both ok.
Battered, bruised, but nothing permanent and you’ve got a houseful of people
here to help, so calm down. Get something to eat, get yourself together, get
yourself ready to stabilise him because he’s going to need you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
got up slowly and Flynn walked with him, not touching but close enough to be
ready to grab and steady him as Jake made his way slowly downstairs. Breakfast
was on the table, Paul had Dale on his lap, dark, immaculately dressed even in
jeans and a navy sweater. It looked like they’d been sharing a mug of tea
between them and Jake saw Dale quickly glance up, flush and move as if he’d
been caught doing something shocking, shifting across to a chair of his own.
Paul passed the mug across to him and gave Jake a quick smile, trying to make
it welcome rather than concern. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good
morning. How are you doing?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
needs some supplies upstairs for him and Tom.” Flynn pulled a chair out at the
table. “Jake, sit down and tell me what you want. Riley came upstairs like a
herd of elephants, I’m guessing Jas sent him home for breakfast?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.
Mason spent a lot of the night sitting looking at the river from what they saw.
He’s lit a fire, set up a shelter, seems to be doing fine. Jake; he and Luath
and Riley thought it would be easier on you and Tom if they went out with Mason
for a few days, Mason’s doing his lone camp out, so you and Tom get some peace
and quiet.” Paul put one plate in front of Jake and took another one, spooning
on some scrambled eggs, mushrooms and sausage and adding a slice of toast
before he passed it to Dale who looked somehow quieter and more shuttered than
Jake remembered him. Paul put a hand on Dale’s head as he let go of the plate
and Dale picked up a fork at the unspoken message. “Now I’ve got oatmeal, I can
do eggs any way you like and the toast should be gentle enough for you and Tom
to stomach? What would you like?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom’s
still asleep.” Jake accepted the glass of orange juice Flynn poured him. “I
won’t stay to eat, I don’t want to leave him alone.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Then
let me know what he feels like when he wakes and I’ll make it fresh; reheated
oatmeal is disgusting.” Paul got up to collect a tray, took Jake’s empty plate
and loaded it with eggs and toast. “Flynn, take a pot of tea upstairs for them,
and the rest of that juice. Do you need those hot water bottles re filling?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
room’s warm thanks. Bit surprisingly warm.” Jake absently gulped orange juice
since he happened to be holding it. “We’re not used to it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
added the loaded plate to the tray he’d assembled and Jake walked with him out
of the kitchen towards the stairs. Paul leaned on the table for a moment,
looking at the empty doorway where they’d gone, then reached over and touched
Dale’s face, making Dale look up at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You,
eat. Three of you walking around looking like skeletons is more than I can
take, and<i> you</i> I can do something
about. And don’t sit there with that nobody’s-home expression, we’re all shaken
up and it’s ok, it’s not a secret. We can talk about it. Did you get any
sleep?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
did not enter into the details of it taking only about fifteen minutes before
Flynn won that round hands down: he did not remember falling asleep, only
waking up in bed this morning. It was only a moment before Flynn came back and
took his seat, digging into the dish of sausages. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
got him to take at least some of his medication, but he won’t touch the
painkillers. Won’t risk being anything less than alert. Tom looks like he’s
right out to me, Jake said Emmett sedated him to try to keep him still.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
the next thing on my list, how the hell are we going to keep Jake still?” Paul
sat down beside Dale, nudging his hand until Dale started to eat. “I’ve never
yet seen Jake able to do sitting around even in the worst weather. I don’t know
Tom well enough to be sure but if he keeps up with Jake 24/7 I think we can
probably assume he’s going to be about the same.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’ll
cross the bridges as we come to them.” Flynn said quietly. “He’s a better
colour and I think he’s steadier on his feet this morning.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
came into the kitchen, grimaced at Flynn and stooped over his shoulders to give
him a quick, apologetic hug as he passed him to sit down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
really sorry about that, I thought they’d be awake, they’re usually up at dawn.
How are they? Other than Jake being mad at me?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
not you he’s mad at.” Flynn said succinctly. “Don’t worry about it halfpint.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
said Tom’s still asleep.” Paul said calmly. “Probably will be for a while yet,
Emmett’s due back this morning to have another look at them. Like I told you,
we had a scare that Tom had some frostbite to his feet, Jake was a bit shaken
up by it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah,
it’s not like I don’t understand.” Riley grabbed a couple of pieces of toast
from the pile and sat down to butter them. “I just haven’t seen Jake do that
before, I didn’t know he could. Full blown lion on the landing stuff. Who’s that?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
leaned back with him to see the van pulling into the yard and Riley got up,
heading out onto the porch with his toast in one hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mail.
Must be a parcel or something.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
heard him talking to someone outside, then two sets of footsteps up the porch
and an apologetic looking man took his cap off in the doorway, holding up an
envelope. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mr
Winthrop Forbes?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
won’t let me sign for it on his behalf.” Riley said behind him. “Legal
something.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
got a broken arm and he’s only been back in the country a few hours on a med
evac flight,” Paul began. Riley shook his head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah,
done all that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
sorry,” The man said apologetically, “If he’s here I have to serve him
directly.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Serve? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Recognising
the term and what it was likely to mean, Dale rose quietly to his feet and
jogged upstairs. The door to Gerry’s room was closed and Dale tapped discreetly
and very softly before he opened it. He couldn’t see much of Tom other than a
shape under the blankets. Jake was sitting on the side of the bed between Tom
and the door and his look wasn’t promising at the interruption, but Dale had
seen plenty of harder stares than that from far less pleasant men than Jake,
and Jake picked up on cues fast. There was no need to speak; he rose at the
sight of Dale’s indication and followed Dale slowly and stiffly downstairs into
the kitchen. The man gave him an apologetic nod. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Mr
Jacob Winthrop Forbes?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.”
Jake accepted the clipboard, signed and handed it back, taking the envelope.
The man gave him another nod and went back out to his van. Jake stood in the
middle of them, towering over them all, ripping the envelope open, unfolding
the single sheet inside, and he read it with his face absolutely
expressionless. Then he laid it down on the table and put a hand on it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right.
Paul, may I use the phone please?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Here.”
Not asking questions since this was clearly a crisis, Paul pulled it out of the
cupboard and handed it across to him. “It’s all right, I’ll go keep an ear out
for Tom and I’ll call you if he stirs.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
nodded something short in the way of thanks, dialed and went to lean against
the kitchen doorway, looking out into the yard. Flynn leaned both hands on the
table, listening. Dale, rapidly and quite immorally absorbing the content of
the letter by reading it upside down, heard Jake’s tone sounding radically
unlike itself, grim and extremely curt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
is for Emerson from Jacob Forbes, I want an immediate call back at this
number.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
hit the cut off button on the phone and looked around for a clock. “What’s the
damn time?” “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A
little past seven.” Flynn nodded at the letter. “What’s happening?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jake
kicked a chair out at the table and sat down. “The mother of the client that
nearly got us killed is suing the expedition and Tom in particular for
assault.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Since
Jake didn’t appear to mind them knowing, Dale turned the letter around and read
it while Jake found a number in Paul’s telephone and address book and dialed.
It seemed to take a few moments for the call to connect and then Jake sat up
sharply, holding the phone to his ear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Max?
It’s Jake. I need Beau or Bill, right now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was another few moments while Dale digested the implications within the legal
terminology on the paper, then Jake said curtly, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Beau,
what the hell is going on? Yes I’m fine, we’re both fine, what’s going on?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
line was loud enough for Dale to make out most of the first few words, and then
Jake clicked it over to speaker phone and put the phone down on the table
between them. The voice was female, cultured and abruptly English. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Don’t
tell me you’re fine, Forbes; I last saw you being stuffed into a chopper! Do
either of you two know how to use a phone?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
got stateside last night, we’ve been here less than eight hours and Loudon’s
mother just served me with legal papers. She’s suing Tom, as a guide of my
expedition, for assault.” Jake said levelly. “So what the hell is going on over
there, Beau?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“She’s
done <i>what</i>?” Beau’s clipped voice
sharpened. “I saw Tom thump him. It was one good one on the jaw. Split his lip
and knocked him down, but it wasn’t anything like Tom’s full weight behind it
and Loudon knew damn well he’d nearly killed the both of you. No one left him
in any doubt of that when we knew you and Tom were missing on the mountain.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
glanced up to catch Flynn’s eye across the kitchen, eyebrows raised. Flynn,
hips against the kitchen counter and his arms folded, looked grim. Dale was
sitting like a statue, his attention was on the phone and on Jake and Riley
knew the lack of expression in his face and the focus in his eyes. Missing
nothing, thinking of pretty much everything. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Whoa,
stop.” Jake ran a hand over his eyes, leaning on the table. “When did Tom hit
him? I didn’t see any of this.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes
you did, you were standing right there, you were just too out of it to know.
You were being loaded on to the chopper and Loudon was rubber necking. He
wasn’t trying to apologise or even talk to Tom, he was gawping. I pulled Tom
off him.” Beau said grimly. “Not that I think Tom would have done anything more
to him, it was reflexive, not pre meditated. Tom looked as bad as you did and
he was as hypoxic as hell. I told Loudon that too. Tom only did what the rest
of us would have loved to do.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Where
is Phoenix now?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh
‘Phoenix’ is it? You’re too damn patient by half. I stuffed Mr Bastard Twat Loudon
on a chopper and flew him and his gear and his pink romper suit to Kathmandu
the morning after we flew you out. He got dumped at Kathmandu airport and we
didn’t care what the hell he did after that. Bill read him the agreement he’d
signed with you which said any more screwing about and he was out of the
expedition on the spot.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
going to need a copy of that agreement faxed here, and his original contract.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
can do that.” An American male voice said in the background. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Bart’s
doing that now.” Beau confirmed. “Loudon didn’t argue. Shem was just about
keeping her hands off his throat from the moment she realised you were missing,
and he knew it. Bill had to send Spitz out of the compound before he wrung
Loudon’s neck, Loudon knew he wasn’t popular. I thought he was scared. What
were you thinking letting a drone like that get up the mountain in the first
place, Forbes? You know the type if Bill and Spitz don’t. He’s got ‘bloody
liability’ written all over him, and once you knew the media were involved –
why the hell didn’t you throw him out? How did Tom allow it?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
a good question, and because I convinced him.” Jake said bitterly. “I was
stupid. When did you get into base camp? Tom and I knew nothing about what happened
to Loudon from the moment we got him off the ropes and I got in the way of a
rock. We last saw Pemba and Lobsang getting him down towards camp two.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Beau
didn’t answer for a few seconds. Dale glanced at Flynn, wondering if he’d heard
the faint hesitation in the woman’s voice that suggested she was as disturbed
by Jake’s tone as Dale was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
hiked up to base camp the day you summited, I was in the communications tent
when you radioed in that you and Tom had come down off the summit to camp
three. I was hoping once you’d got the summit out of your system I’d get some
sense out of you lot about heading out to Cambodia instead of ‘stuff off, we’re
playing with our mountain’.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Beau,
forget about Cambodia.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
wait ‘til you see the maps and you’ll-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Loudon.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes
all right, all right. They saw the rock hit you. Pemba said Tom told them to
get Loudon down to camp two and he’d help you, and then a few minutes later the
visibility was bad enough they couldn’t see you anymore. No one on the mountain
could see a damn thing. They got Loudon down to camp two, he walked under his
own steam once they got him up and going, and Shem climbed up and met them
there, stuffed him in a sleeping bag and got him warm. Pemba went straight back
out again to try to look for you but he couldn’t get more than a few yards out
of camp in the storm and he came back in tears. We thought you were stranded
out on the Lhotse Face and we had a collective nervous breakdown.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
climbed back up to camp three. It was about our only option.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah,
I heard about that. Smashed arm and a storm coming in, and you two go back up?
That’s serious athletic stuff even by your standards.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">From
Beau’s slightly admiring tone she would have been ready and willing to join
them and make the attempt herself under the same conditions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom
did it all, not me.” Jake’s tone was expressionless. “He short roped me up
there, he got me warm and out of shock or I’d have died up there. How did
Loudon get stranded out on the Lhotse Face in the first place? The last I heard
he was at camp one with the Canadians, I thought he was safe there.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh
I got <i>that</i> story out of the Canadian
team myself once Shem told me who to ask.” Beau said dryly. “He flirted enough
with them that a couple of them helped him up to camp two, no one knew. At camp
one he was in their tents most of the time and he told Pemba in no uncertain
terms to leave him alone. Shem knew he was being difficult but didn’t want to
disturb you and Bill with it when you needed to stay focused on your climb. She
thought he’d just screw around there for a few days until you all came back
down and then come down with you. She and Pemba had no idea he’d even left camp
one until they realised the Canadian team were gone too. From what I was told, the
Canadian women he climbed with were thoroughly pissed off with him by the time
he made it to camp two, they realised he didn’t know the first thing about
climbing and just wanted them to get him up there, and they refused to help him
any further. It looks like he went out alone towards camp three the following
day, late morning after everyone else had set out, climbed slower than hell in
his own little Loudon world and no one by then had any idea where he was or
what he was doing. By the time he foundered there was no one else in sight of
that stretch. We never got out of him exactly what he was planning.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Who
is this Loudon git?” Riley demanded behind him. Jake saw Flynn move from the
counter he’d been leaning against and hook an arm around Riley’s waist, pulling
Riley back against him and muttering something into his ear. Riley looked angry
but he shut up and he didn’t fight Flynn off either. Across the table Dale was
discreetly writing a brisk, short list in his neat handwriting, his face
dispassionate and his eyes gone to ice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Was
he hoping if he made it to camp three I’d have to let him make a summit attempt
with Shem?” Jake said blankly. “He couldn’t have still thought he had a
chance?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No
idea.” Beau sounded bluntly certain. “We didn’t get much sense out of him but I
don’t think it was summit fever. When Pemba had to come back and say he
couldn’t reach the Lhotse Face and we thought you and Tom were stranded out
there – the radio was down by then, I didn’t hear it, but Pemba told me Shem
tore strips off Loudon, she told him exactly what he’d done. And Bill and Spitz
got down to base camp only a couple of hours after you came in, I stopped Spitz
from strangling him but Bill did a lot of bellowing, he was livid. Loudon
didn’t have much to say about anything. I can witness and so can Shem: Loudon
didn’t have anything but a bloody lip to show from Tom-“ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a chorus of several male voices in the background calling something, and
Shem amended, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok,
we can all bloody witness it, although everyone’s equally willing to swear they
never saw anything at all and let it be Loudon’s word against all ours.
Seriously Forbes. If he hadn’t already had chapped and split lips from the cold
it wouldn’t have bled. He was eating fine that evening and the following
morning in the mess tent and we all saw it. No visible injury about two minutes
after the punch, no teeth loose, no damage. Tom could barely still stand up. He
might have meant to but he didn’t whack him that hard.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“As
soon as it reaches office hours here Phoenix is going to be served with every
counter claim I can lay my hands on,” Jake said with certainty. “Starting with
breach of contract. And if he wants to stand up in a court and try arguing with
me I’m going to be thrilled.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake,”
Paul’s voice called down the stairs. Jake got up at once. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Get
those documents across to me <i>now</i>
Beau, I’ll call later.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake,
what the-” Beau started and Jake abruptly ended the call, leaving the phone on
the table. Dale heard him take the stairs two at a time, but the footfall was
uneven, effortful and slow: most unJake-like. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
the<i> hell</i> went on up there?” Riley
demanded. He was still standing in Flynn’s arms, still looking furious.
“Whoever Tom hit it sounds like he didn’t hit them near hard enough.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul
hadn’t gone into our room. I appreciated that. He was on the landing far back
enough that he could see and hear Tom through the half open door, but if Tom
had woken he wouldn’t have known Paul was there. The tact of that was
classically Paul. So was the compassionate look he shot me and the low murmur
that didn’t disturb sleeping men; Paul was an expert in that too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Sorry
to pull you away from the call. He’s only just starting to stir but I don’t
think it’s going to be long. Let me know when he’s ready to eat something.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His
eyes were gentle. He got that I needed to be here before stir became wake. <i>Thanks</i> was an inadequate word this
morning. He hugged me back closely when I put an arm around his neck and kissed
his cheek, careful of my strapped down arm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake.
Whatever’s going on, you don’t need to be running around either, particularly
without painkillers. Please settle down.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes
sir.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
knew the tone. It was the one I used to use to Philip that made Philip sigh,
and Paul crossed his eyes at me but let me go.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Just
be sensible then?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh
I was being sensible. It was well past time I tried. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
was still asleep but Paul was right; it was a lighter sleep than half an hour
ago. I’d been deeply relieved that Emmett had given him medication strong
enough to keep him out this long. Paul and Emmett had propped the end of the
bed up on several bricks to raise his legs and tied several pillows together
last night and stuffed them down at the end of the bed on either side to hold
the covers well up off his feet so the weight wouldn’t add to his pain, but
frostbite is agonising stuff once it thaws out and I knew the shin splints we’d
been managing all the way up the mountain had to be bad. Emmett had muttered
something to me after Tom had zoned out on morphine about the bruising around
his side, probably from all the coughing. We’d known it wasn’t that uncommon
for people to crack or separate a rib that way at the higher camps and Emmett
thought Tom had probably at least torn cartilage there: pain was going to be a
serious issue once he was awake enough to feel it and I was dreading it. But it
was the unholy mess that was his feet that I couldn’t get off my mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
stirred again, not waking but shifting position. The Velcro contraption around
my upper arm and elbow was largely supported by the sling across my chest. It
was awkward but with care I managed to lay down beside him without it getting
between us, sliding an arm around him and relaxing as much as I could. For a
while he dozed against me, and then I felt him draw a deep, slow breath, he
turned his head to find me and opened his eyes. He has such beautiful eyes.
Subtle under the dark straight brows and dark lashes, like a secret hidden
inside a fortress. His hair was too long and was hanging over his forehead, it
had dried bedraggled from the bath last night and he shook his head to shake it
back, wincing slightly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hey.”
He sounded as groggy as he looked. I kissed his forehead. His eyes. Each
temple. His mouth. Gently, he was barely awake, but he closed his eyes again
and leaned against me for a moment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
time is it?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Around
breakfast time. How do you feel?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Foggy.
Could use the bathroom.” He pushed me off, or tried to, which told me an
alarming amount about how weak he was; it was an effort not to let anything
show in my face. He lifted the covers back and looked without expression at his
feet. Emmett had left them unwrapped, mostly because as I could see now, the
blisters had just re filled again and his toes were grossly swollen. He was
going to need a bone scan. Had this been picked up when he came off the
mountain it would have been done immediately to see any frozen spots of bone;
sometimes frostbite looked worse than it was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d been left to walk around that
hospital, alone, for hours, on semi frozen feet, too shocked and shaken up to
think straight… <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
sometimes it didn’t show up for a few months how bad the deep damage was. Since
the tissue was fully thawed and the injury several days old, Emmett had told me
to wait; that he’d book the scan in a few days at Jackson Hospital when things
had progressed far enough that a physical therapist needed to be involved; that
there was no longer any benefit to knowing right now if there was bone damage;
that he wasn’t expecting to find dying bone. I knew he couldn’t be sure, but it
would make no difference to either treatment or outcome now whether we got the
scan done today or next week. To try to do it now would only subject Tom to
being moved around, stressed, exhausted even further when what he needed most
was rest. I still couldn’t shake the want to know, right now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No
walking on those.” I said, starting to get up, and got a very Tom look, even
through the drugs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Then
we’ve got a problem, because you’re not lifting me with that arm. I’ll be fine,
it’s carpet.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Flynn?”
I called down the landing. Tom flushed; I could see the outrage and more than
that, even through the effects of a lot of morphine, I could see the alarm. I
looked at him, bracing my good hand on the doorframe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
Is Going To Happen Without Stressing. Got it?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
really got it. His colour got even darker, the look I got was damn nearly
imploring. I don’t usually look at him like that, or use that tone. Or rather I
hadn’t before we got most of the way up that mountain. I came back to him and
put my hand against his cheek for a moment, desperately aware after the
nightmare I’d put him through of the past few days he was now trapped in this
bed, injured, immobilised and surrounded and in this house which has always
intimidated the hell out of him; he was intensely vulnerable in every way when
he was least ready to handle it and I was desperately, desperately sorry about
it. But this was extreme, and Tom feeling vulnerable usually triggers the
bolts. If I let that happen right now, a bolt would have potentially very, very
damaging consequences. He shouldn’t be walking at all on these injuries, never
mind hiking the rough land, rivers and rocks of the ranch as he would if he got
stressed enough. Then I folded the covers right back, not letting any of that
touch my face or voice, radiating that this was all going to be Fine. Even if I
felt like a lying bastard for doing it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
must have had an ear out for us. He appeared quickly, said nothing at all and
like yesterday he gave Tom no time to think, he just gathered him up with a lot
of care and carried him down the landing. The bunkhouse would be harder than
this. I’d thought that through up down and sideways during the night to work
out if it was an option, if he’d be better off out there. It was not as warm
out there as the house which usually didn’t bother either of us but it bothered
me like hell right now. And the bedrooms there were upstairs, but the bathroom
downstairs, which again would be no problem if I had both arms. During the
night I’d given serious consideration to whether I could manage him one armed,
but on stairs… I wasn’t prepared to take that risk with him. So we needed to be
here in the house, we needed the help and I was going to have to get him
through it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
heeled a chair into reach in the bathroom between the toilet and the sink, put
Tom down on it, and left him in peace, closing the door after him. We could
hear him coughing; the sound went right through me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve
got this,” Flynn said in an undertone to me while we waited on the landing,
“Paul’s waiting to hear what he’ll eat and you’ll know better than we do.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No
kidding that he needed the calories, or that Flynn was trying to do something
practical with me other than have me hovering. And stressing. Paul was doing
something to a dough when I went into the kitchen, and he brushed off his hands
when he saw me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
is he?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Early
to say.” I grabbed a tray from the pantry and dug in the dish for eggs. Nothing
moved in this house, it was all its familiar places where it always was and I
could put my hand straight on it. That was something I really needed this
morning. “Do you keep hot sauce?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes…?”
Paul leaned past me to reach it down from the shelf. “He likes hot food? For
breakfast? How hot?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
haven’t found the limit yet.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
no one ever told me this?” Paul took the eggs from me, getting out a skillet
and chattering gently enough that I realised how fragmented I had to be
looking. “Riley’ll be thrilled. I don’t make that much really spicy stuff since
he’s the only one who’ll eat it. Three of you it’s worth cooking for.” He broke
eggs into the skillet and handed me the hot sauce. “How much?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
raised his eyebrows at the amount I dumped in, but just went on scrambling
eggs. I got a grip on myself, grabbed a couple of the rolls from the basket in
the pantry and put them in the oven to warm, put the kettle on and made a pot
of tea, and poured a large glass of orange juice. Paul took the carton from me,
got a second glass down and filled it and put it on the tray. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>You</i> need to get all the calories down
that you can too. Emmett called, he’ll be by in about half an hour.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
put the eggs in a dish, loaded up the tray and carried it upstairs. Tom was
back in bed, sitting up rigidly as if a poker was down his back, but he’d let
Flynn help him under the covers. Flynn had opened the window, probably at Tom’s
request, and was spreading an additional blanket over the bed since the breeze
coming into the room was fresh. Paul put the tray down on the dresser, smiled
at Tom and would have disappeared again but for Tom’s slightly exasperated, <i>“Look,”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul
paused. Flynn glanced up. Tom looked for my eyes first and I thought they were
blindly distressed. It was horrible to see. I felt horrible for doing this to
him. I sat down beside him on the bed and took his hand. He wound his fingers
tightly through mine, which he usually wouldn’t do in front of witnesses, but
he kept his voice steady. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
an antisocial bastard. I know I’ve never given you the best impression, but I’m
damn grateful. I won’t explode or freak out or-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
live with Jasper, we did live with Jake and I lived with David,” Paul
interrupted gently, “We understand and you don’t have to be grateful for
anything. We just don’t want to make it harder for you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Then
just please, treat me like I’m normal and I’ll try to be?” I heard the plea in
that undertone if they didn’t; it ate at me like acid. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
are normal.” I said to him very firmly. “We are fine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
sat down on the windowsill. “I know Jake’s diagnosed. Are you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well
that was Flynn. Straight down to the bone, no waiting, and no warning that he
was coming. I’d learned to fence at school; Flynn would have been lethal with a
foil. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
No.” Tom said after a slight pause. “Which he finds very funny as he says I’m
worse than he is.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
tried to return something like a smile. “I only got diagnosed because Philip
suspected it, and he chased it through school for me. It wasn’t a well-known
thing at the time.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
you deal with more of the sensory type issues than Jake does.” Flynn said to
Tom. His eyes had gone very dark and his voice was gentle the way it went when
he was talking to a very freaked out brat. “Crowding, noise, people. It all
gets a bit much when you’re under pressure.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
Yes.” Tom sounded startled. Flynn nodded. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right.
It’s nothing personal, just how things can get for you. You’ve seen Dale have a
lot of trouble with the same thing at times, he confides in you, so you know
this is what normal looks like for us too. We get it. So when you feel like a
chat or being sociable then great. When you don’t, you don’t need to worry that
anyone’s looking twice or judging, and we’ll know you’re not judging us
either.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
could see Tom processing that, and he was processing rather than being
desperate for Flynn to shut up and leave. He looked at me again before he
spoke, not for help, just for reassurance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
How is Dale? He said things had been hard the last few weeks.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
fragile.” Paul handed Tom the dish of eggs in an oddly offhand way for Paul, at
arms-length and without eye contact, and he went to sit beside Flynn on the
windowsill which I could see gave Tom as much space as they could manage in
this little room. “We’re keeping him pretty close, he’s not ready to be working
yet.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
took a forkful of the eggs without much interest, mostly to be polite, but I
saw him pause as the heat hit his throat and then he gave Paul a small smile. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
That’s good.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul
returned the smile, getting up. “Jake knows how you like it. Make Jake eat.
Dale and I will be here all day so just shout if you need anything.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In
the kitchen, as soon as they were alone Riley grabbed for the letter and read
it through again, bringing it to where Dale could read over his shoulder. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Who
the hell <i>is</i> this Loudon bastard
anyway? What do you know about the legal crap of all this? How much trouble are
they in?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was there in Riley’s absolute faith that he would know. Dale put the plate with
the uneaten half of his breakfast on the counter, reflecting at speed for the
seventh time through the rapid, thorough summarisation he’d made, with
everything he could recall from years of working with countless legal teams on
matters that mattered far less than this one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
need the internet.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Well
<i>I</i> don’t have any rules about that,
and you’re with me so let’s go.” Riley said flatly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
office was cold. The heat from the house didn’t penetrate up here much and
Riley switched on the small wall heater and booted up the computer. Silently
they were both working together to let Riley do the deed itself although Dale
reflected they were probably equally aware that Flynn wouldn’t buy that as an
excuse for a moment. Once he had a browser open he turned the screen to Dale,
sat on the desk where he could watch and Dale searched rapidly for the specific
answers to the several questions and hypotheses he had in mind. Riley watched
in silence through the first few screens he read which were full of technical
legalities, then blinked as a blog opened. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>That’s</i> Loudon?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was a bright coloured blog, headed with a picture of a smiling, blond young man
in a blue wind suit, hatless and without goggles, standing in front of an
amazing, icy vista that had to be the summit of Everest. Prayer flags fluttered
in the background. Riley leaned closer for a moment, looking fixedly at the
picture and Dale knew what he was thinking; Tom and Jake had been standing on
this spot only a few days ago. If there were pictures of them there, they had
yet to mention it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
on the summit?” Riley demanded. “<i>How</i>
can he have got on the summit? Jake said he never got near it and that Beau
woman said she shoved him on a chopper and threw him out the morning after Jake
and Tom were flown to Kathmandu!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
blog entry below was triumphant and included several pictures of helicopters
and airports. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;">Big party in Kathmandu
last night, champagne everywhere. Maybe you saw us live on the evening news?
We’re making a video broadcast with Good Morning Britain in the UK and the
Today Programme for the US tomorrow morning. Was sad to say goodbye to everyone
at base camp and head out, the end of our adventure together and there were a
few tears and lots of hugs all around. But good to get decent food again and a
decent wifi signal! </span><span style="color: #0070c0;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No
mention anywhere of Tom,” Dale said, scanning it rapidly, and going to the
previous entry. “This one…” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">6th May <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">It’s done. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">I left at about 9.30pm on
the 3rd May after I signed off here, said goodnight to base camp over the radio
and climbed up, and I summited at 7am. When I radioed down to base camp, no one
could say anything much more than whooping and cheering. By then, although I
didn’t know it, the radios were starting to get dodgy as the weather began to
change, so no broadcast from the summit sadly as we’d hoped. I didn’t stay on
the summit long, a long journey ahead, so I grooved on down the Hillary step
and nearly fell over some poor stranded climber laying there. There were a
couple of other guys with him, trying to revive him. The best I could do was
give them what was left of my oxygen for him to use. Quite a big sacrifice to
make above 8000 feet, but what can you do when someone’s in need like that? So
I hustled down fast without oxygen. Can a first time climber make it above camp
four without oxygen? Absolutely they can if they’re fit enough and know what
they’re doing. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">Since I was going well and
the weather was starting to break I buzzed all the way down to camp three
before I struck in for the night. That’s where I was when everyone was
panicking, there was no signal, no radios, nothing! Just the storm and wow what
a storm it was. I holed up and stayed warm and made the rest of the way down
when the weather improved the next day. Conditions in the ice fall were fairly
hairy but passable. Base camp threw a party when I got in, we had a wild night
and in the morning I packed up, the helicopter came in, and I was outta there. <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">Arrived in Kathmandu this
morning! Party time! <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="color: blue; font-family: inherit;">Rock on! <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Eye
skimming on down over the entries below, Dale felt his stomach jump and seize
in a way he had not been prepared for, sending shock waves right through him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;">We’re both in high places
tonight and preparing ourselves to be worthy…. Ex Amino </span><span style="color: #0070c0;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Amino?? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
all happy happy happy. This is absolute fricking fiction by what Jake’s
saying!” Riley said in outrage beside him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was still focusing on the 6<sup>th</sup> May post; the post below would mean
nothing to him unless Dale explained and right now… Dale pulled himself
together with an effort, refusing to be shaken but with what had been a half
formulated plan setting like granite with grim, hard, cold determination in a
way he’d never felt before about any ANZ matter in his life. Explaining was not
going to be a priority. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
never got to camp three, they had to rescue him!” Riley scanned on down the
blog entries. “And there’s no mention of Tom anywhere, this prat’s suing him,
you’d think he’d mention the incident!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“His
mother, apparently, is suing.” Dale corrected automatically, not really
listening. “Not him.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah
and that’s not weird at all.” Riley said acidly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake
and Tom summited on the 4<sup>th</sup> May around 7am.” Dale scanned the entry
again. “From what Jake said on the phone – they rescued this gentleman off the
ropes somewhere between camp two and three on the Lhotse Face.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“’Gentleman’?”
Riley eyed him and somehow got slightly quieter. “There’s no mention of that
either. Ok, what are you thinking, you look…” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
took command of his face and voice, covering it without effort now the
adrenaline was up and flowing. “I’m thinking that Jake and Beau’s version
wholly negates this image being possible. Among other things wrong with it” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
faked?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Quite
possibly.” Dale looked again at the photograph with its several details that
didn’t fit. Then pasted the page url swiftly into an email, sending it to an
address from memory with a line of text that was short and to the point. When
he was done, Riley turned the keyboard towards himself, opening their group
email address and typing fast. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">To:
<span style="color: blue;"><u>Darcy, Gerry, Bear, Wade, Niall, Lito</u>,
</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">From:
<u><span style="color: blue;">Riley</span></u> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Subject:
WTAF <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Does
anyone know anything about some wankbadger called Phoenix Loudon who’s suing
Tom for assault at Everest base camp? The jackass’s put all over the internet
that he summited with what Dale thinks is a faked picture – Tom and Jake rescued
him below camp 3 and that’s how Jake got hurt, Jake said he nearly got them
killed, he never got near the summit! <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Well
that ought to cause no end of complications. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A
door shut somewhere on the landing, Dale glanced towards it and Riley sent the
mail, shutting the computer down fast. They both listened until footfall was
gone on the stairs, then Riley dropped a hand on Dale’s arm, and they followed,
appearing in the kitchen together as if they’d been nowhere in particular all
the time. Flynn was pulling his boots on by the door. Paul was collecting the
breakfast dishes in the sink and he looked back over his shoulder and beckoned
to Dale. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Nice
try. Sit down and finish your breakfast please.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
not hungry, thank you.” Dale came to take the dishcloth to help him, and Paul
took it out of his hand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
know, I’m angry too. But you don’t have the calories to spare right now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh
back off him for one frigging day.” Riley said sharply. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley, at this moment in time that is
not helpful. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
cast him a faintly warning look but Paul put the plates and cloth down and
turned to give him one of his eyebrows raised what was that? Stares. Riley
headed to collect his jacket and boots, not looking up until Flynn, blocking
the kitchen doorway, swatted him. Riley jumped and glared at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What’s
the mood about?” Flynn demanded. Riley gave him a withering look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
about you take a wild guess?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No
one’s guessing and no one’s using that tone in my kitchen.” Paul informed him.
“Come here.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve
got stuff to do.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Right,
yes you have. You’re going to go sit on the stairs until I tell you to move.”
Paul took Riley’s jacket from him. “Flynn, you go, love. And Dale, sit down. We
are not having any dramas here, we’re fine and we’re going to handle this.
Dale, where are you going?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
paused in the kitchen doorway, surprised, and Riley gave him a half amused,
half exasperated look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It
was me he said to sit on the stairs, not you. Pay attention.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Riley,
stairs. Now.” Paul pulled a chair out for Dale. Flynn in the doorway
transferred his gaze from Dale – he had not missed that, Dale saw his
expression – and gave Riley an unpromising look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Sure
you don’t need any help in here?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Paul
shook his head. “I’ve got it, go ahead. We’re fine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
won’t be long.” Flynn gave Dale another look which Dale tried to return as
reassuringly as possible, and shut the door quietly behind him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Once
he was gone, Paul gave Riley an extremely straight look across the table. “He
was up all night and he needs a break this morning. So if you want a show down
you can have one with me and get it over with before he comes back, I’m all
set.” He leaned over to the drawer, pulled a wooden spoon out of the drawer and
plonked it on the table, aware that Riley’s highly grouchy expression promptly
cleared to one of shock. “I’m as angry about this suing stuff as you are, but
you are not making today any harder for anyone. So what’s it going to be?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
You’re getting <i>way</i> too good at this,”
Riley grumbled, going. Left alone with Dale, Paul looked down at him for a
moment, surveying grey eyes that were perfectly calm and as they often were,
entirely unreadable. Then he sat down beside Dale and put an arm around his
neck, pulling him over to give him a hug. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
sucks, doesn’t it? And you look like I feel. Are you ok sweetheart?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
didn’t reply and after a moment Paul let him go, giving him an enquiring look. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok,
I’ll start. No, of course I’m not ok Paul, don’t be ridiculous. I’m running
through about the eighty third crunch of the data I’ve got together so far from
that letter.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale’s
stomach which had jumped slightly in spite of himself unclenched again, and
Paul raised an eyebrow at him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
are we going to do about that? Have you got any plans? Because Jake is probably
going to welcome any input you can offer and I certainly am.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh
it was hard to do. And it was only with intense love for him that Dale could
feel nothing else and give him enough of a look in the eye – just enough, a
calculated, coldly planned enough – to know that Paul, too trusting and open
hearted Paul would believe him just like Paul needed to right now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re
going to have to wait for his lawyer to reply and assemble the paperwork before
we can make plans. I can make a few suggestions and I’ll write them down for
Jake, but today is going to be a waiting game.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Which
was all to the good. And the suggestions he intended to make to Jake’s lawyer
would prevent anything actually happening for at least a further twenty four
hours. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
waiting is not a good way to spend a day.” Paul touched his face and got up. “I
know you don’t feel like eating but I need you to, so if you’d find a milkshake
or oatmeal or something else easier to get down than the rest of your breakfast
I can do that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Toast.”
Dale spared enough thought to come up with an answer that would satisfy Paul
and Paul nodded, getting up and collecting the wooden spoon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good.
You toast some bread, I’ll go talk with Mr Hamilton. I’ll be right back and we
are going to get through today intact.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes,
they most certainly were. All of them. No matter what had to be done in the
process. Dale listened long enough to know Paul was fully engaged with Riley.
Then he got up and very quietly and very rapidly opened the safe, abstracted
the couple of articles he wanted, pocketed them and went to make toast. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley,
sprawled back over the stairs with his elbows hooked on one step and his long
jeaned legs draped down several others, was not looking pleased with life on
the stairs. Sitting like that in what was a variation on a corner would have
got him instantly into very hot water with Flynn. Paul paused at the foot of
them, holding up the spoon and Riley fairly swiftly got into a far less
belligerent position. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Are
we going to need this?” Paul invited. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
shook his head, unwillingly but promptly. “No.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good.”
Paul put the spoon down and sat beside him on the stairs as Riley shifted to
make room for him. “Want to talk about it instead of snarl at me?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’ve
barely been home a day. Jake looks like death warmed over and he’s half crazy
about Tom being this sick, I’ve never seen him look like he did this morning.
They’re not in any state to deal with this…” Riley paused, gesturing with both
hands as words failed him. <i>“… idiot,</i>
who’s making stuff up according to Jake!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
you’re furious. So am I.” Paul said wryly. “So is Flynn. We’ll see how Jas
feels about it when Flynn’s had a chance to tell him, but I’m sure he’ll agree.
I don’t think Dale’s furious, I think he’s gone straight to working out how to
tell the lawyers to bury this woman and her son, but the bottom line is it has
to be Jake and Tom’s choice on what they want to do. And they need time to
recover, process and talk it through with their lawyer, so we need to stay calm
and wait. Particularly for Tom. He’s being brave enough being in the house with
us, I don’t want him to feel we’re pushing him and Jake to do anything, or that
we’re taking over.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
understood that; waiting was not something he found easy to do when someone he
loved was threatened, but dynamics between people and horses were something he
got acutely and his glance at Paul was expressive. Paul ran his fingers through
chestnut hair, straightening it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
Dale needs things to be as normal as possible. He’s just starting to feel more
together but he’s still hair triggered and we don’t want him hitting crisis
mode and feeling he’s got to be the strong one around here. So go take some
supplies up to Luath and Jasper for me, and let Jas know I want you to stay up
there with him tonight,” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yeah
get rid of me!” Riley said hotly. Paul gave him a pointed look and after a
moment Riley gave him a slightly apologetic sideways one in return. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
sorry.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’ll
worry less out there, and if I could I’d send Dale out there to join you, you’d
both be a lot better off.” Paul wrapped an arm around Riley’s knee, pulling him
closer. “But I need Dale where I can keep a good eye on him, and Tom may want
him. So go and forget about this for a while until there’s something we can do
about it and you’ll have a much better day with Jas than you would here.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jasper
was always extremely good with Riley when he was angry with something, and a
night spent out in the wilds with him would lift Riley’s spirits better than
any reassuring they could do. Riley didn’t move for a moment, glowering down into
the family room, then he grouchily twisted around and returned Paul’s hug. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Sorry.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
ok. Take the saddle bag over the porch rail, there should be enough in there to
keep all three of you going through tonight, and I’ll see you in the morning.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
kissed his cheek roughly, got up and headed out. Paul saw the brief, equally
rough hug he gave Dale on his way out of the door. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">We
shared the eggs. Neither of us could stomach much; a few mouthfuls and we still
felt like we’d had a three course meal, but the fresh bread tasted like heaven
to me, something I associated strongly with this house. Neither of us spoke
once we were alone, mostly because I could see Tom lose the show of resilience
he’d made in front of Flynn and Paul. He was so tense it hurt to watch him, I
could see the pain in his hands, in his shoulders and neck, in his jaw. Tom’s
pain threshold is set on high, I knew this set, rigid concentration from
watching him run, from watching him climb, and this was bad. He was coughing so
often it was hard for him to eat and he was fighting it as every time it shook
the displaced and bruised ribs which must have hurt him like hell. And all I
could do, futilely, was not shake the bed and worsen the pain for him, not
distract him from trying to eat what he could or make him talk and worsen the
coughing, and wish to God Emmett would just get his ass here now before I lost
my mind. Just as we were finishing I heard a car in the yard and got up to
look. Emmett’s truck, finally. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thank
God Emmett isn’t much for chatter. Without anything more useful I could do I
held Tom’s hand while Emmett said pretty much nothing, just sat on the edge of
the bed and in rapid succession gave him a couple of shots which said to me he
could see the strain in Tom’s face as well as I could. Although pain relief was
only one of the many things he’d told me last night he was treating while the
tissue was this damaged. He was loading Tom up with blood thinners, anti
inflammatories and antibiotics in heavy doses and had told me he’d be doing it
every few hours for a day or two yet. He’d brought a couple of bags of IV
fluids too and rapidly set a cannula in Tom’s hand, connecting it all up and
hanging the bag from a pole he unfolded and set up beside the bed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
gave the shots time to take effect before he touched Tom again, and spent a few
minutes poking at my fingers in the sling and finding pulses in various places
before he drained the blisters misshaping Tom’s long and usually slender feet.
By which time I could see Tom’s body had gone limp again, his head dropped back
against the pillows, his eyes vague, his pupils blown. Watching was not easy.
By the time Emmett was done, Tom was asleep and Emmett covered him, making very
sure the covers were raised up on the pillow foot cradle and not resting on his
feet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
doing better than last night.” He told me laconically, but then I’d never seen
Emmett get excited about anything. “Not so much swelling, no infection. There’s
morphine in the drip; that should manage the pain more consistently. Let him
rest, get him to soak in the bath for half an hour or so this afternoon,
particularly his hands and feet, and both of you drink all you can; he’s
chronically dehydrated and you don’t look a lot better. I’ll drop in again on
my way home this evening, change the IV bag and give him a top up on those
meds. With what I’ve given him and plan on giving him he’s going to mostly
sleep through the next twenty four hours, so you might as well take your own
meds, all of them, and crash out too.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Paul?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Emmett
shook his head, unabashed. “Flynn caught me in the yard. If he hadn’t told on
you I’d have still seen it from your colour. Tom’s doing ok, Jake. Get to bed.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve
broken plenty of bones in my time.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not
when you were in this physical state you haven’t.” Emmett packed the last bits
away in his bag and paused in the doorway to have another look at Tom. “I know
how this household works. I promise you he won’t wake up until at early
afternoon at the very least. You can let go for a few hours, he won’t know.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d
been the doctor in this area for some years; I’d known Emmett since before I’d
met Tom. And he was right; Emmett had been coming to this household for years,
he’d never blinked about it being a household full of gay men – actually our
neighbours in general had never seemed to have the slightest problem with that
in all the time I’d known this house, and they must have realised – and he knew
almost all the couples in the family. He was a particular friend of Ash’s, they
often fished together in the weirder, wilder stretches of river that ran from
the bust up, ramshackle old cabin in the woods that Emmett and his dog
occupied. I’d wondered about his sexuality more than once. But more than that,
he knew some of us in this household were emotionally high frequency men who
could be slightly high maintenance once in a while, and others of us tended to
loom and develop severe separation issues when our other halves were in need of
his services. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">With
Tom asleep, and I checked on this with some care, I took a moment to head
downstairs, grabbed the phone from Paul and gave some very explicit and
probably profane instructions to Emerson. There was a pad with notes written on
it laid by the phone: I suspected it was Dale’s handwriting, they were short,
explicit and very much to the point and I read the lot to Emerson down the
phone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
woke around mid afternoon, long enough for that bath. He wasn’t talking about
pain unless I pressed him; he was barely talking at all, I felt like I was
hovering around him like some particularly useless kind of ghost, but the
strain in his face and shoulders seemed better on the IV and eased a bit
further in the hot water. Paul brought up soup, something that smelled of lime
and ginger and although it was a clear broth the taste of it was hot and fresh
with floating green rings of chillies. I recognised the base of Paul’s own chicken
broth but he’d done things to this one I hadn’t seen him do before, I was
pathetically grateful as it’s the kind of flavours Tom would always choose
given the chance and he finished the mugful without trying. It was the most I’d
seen him take of anything since we left base camp for the summit. When Flynn
and I got him and his drip back to bed, I grabbed the nearest book from one of
the family room bookcases, which held a lot of my various favourite stuff I’d
read as a teen, and since his vision was blurred by the morphine I lay with him
and read it aloud. I still have no idea what it was; I don’t remember a word of
it as I was mostly trying to keep still, but he dozed on and off while he
listened and I tried not to touch him or jar him. Emmett came by early evening
and gave him another set of shots, and within twenty minutes Tom was knocked
out again and according to Emmett likely to stay so through the night. I was
glad of it. When the drugs hit his system the tension left his face altogether.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
sat on the window seat where my fidgeting couldn’t disturb him and tried to
read as it got dark. It didn’t work, I wasn’t taking in much of what my eyes
were passing over, I was mostly watching Tom. Sometime around 1am I gave up on
my current book and slipped as quietly as possible up the landing. Paul’s
little study was nearest and packed with books, I knew he wouldn’t mind me
borrowing a couple. I was skimming the shelves by the moonlight through the
window when a gentle clink of glass made me glance around. Flynn was leaning
against the doorpost, an old and dusty bottle in one hand and two glasses
upside down and held by the stems in the other. He raised the bottle at me and
lifted an eyebrow with it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-20.html"><b>Continue on to Chapter 20</b></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
tarabeth1210http://www.blogger.com/profile/14902928357845152351noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2400899063935338927.post-40845906263303388722015-09-24T07:11:00.004-07:002015-09-28T01:45:05.882-07:00Everest - Chapter 20<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: right;">
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">20 </span></i><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>I can’t leave Tom</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
anxiety that arose even at the thought was near to choking me and that in
itself made me stop and reflect just how off balance I was. In fact when I
thought about it, it was alarming how much. Flynn, still propping up the
doorpost, nodded at the hallway. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
just left Paul. He’s got his door open and an ear out.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rationally,
Tom wasn’t going to wake. Flynn was right. It was way past time to stop and get
it together. I followed him up to the tiny office at the top of the stairs just
outside Paul’s office, where we could shut the door and put the light on. It
was warm up there, I saw Flynn frown and cross the room and put a hand on the
wall heater and then turn it down, but it was stark as it had always been, not
a lot more than the computer, fax machine, desk and I saw now as well as the
chair behind the desk another wooden frame armchair had been added on the other
side of it. Probably to remind Dale if he was working up here that he might at
any moment have company. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
took the chair behind the desk and poured two generous glasses of slightly
amber fluid from the uncorked bottle, pushing one over to me. I recognised the
scent of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“David’s
bootleg stuff?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
is from the new haul Dale and Riley found, to do with the train Dale’s been
researching.” Flynn leaned back in his chair, propping one knee against the
side of the desk as I took the armchair across from him. “Remind me to tell you
that story when you’ve got an hour.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom
made some enquiries for him.” It had taken his mind off immediate stresses at
the time; I’d been grateful to Dale for distracting him. I took a sip of the
moonshine which burned the sinuses but in a surprisingly good way. Some kind of
fruit lingered at the back of this; it had always tasted to me like a hybrid
between sloe gin in a particularly sweet year, and some kind of fruit schnapps.
Tom would like this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
is he?” Flynn asked quietly. He was lounging with his glass between his hands
but his eyes were very steady. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“In
a lot of pain.” I took another harder swallow of moonshine. “Emmett’s put a
drip up to try and manage it more evenly.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How’s
your pain?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
only a break, it’s fixed.” I took another gulp and Flynn leaned forward to
refill my glass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
had surgery a few days ago; even you need rest. And if you were able to sleep
you’d be sleeping when he does, so are you going to tell me about it?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’d
see that. Of course he’d see that. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
did this to him.” I said to the desk. Flynn looked at me over his glass and his
braced knee. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
did this.” I said again, and it came out easier the second time, particularly
with another swallow of David’s white lightning. “This was my fault. I screwed
up, Flynn. Worse than I ever screwed up in my life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh
where to start. I tipped my head back, looking at the plaster board ceiling.
This is the one artificial room in the ranch, the single one that is anonymous,
devoid of personality and might be anywhere, in any building. I always thought
it reflected the general view of the family towards it; a kind of functional
necessity and nothing more. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Bad
decision after bad decision. I should have thrown Phoenix out the first time he
put a foot wrong. Tom knew. His instincts were right about Phoenix from the
start. Phoenix is young. Oh, he’s twenty three, I don’t mean like that, but
emotionally…. maybe somewhere in his teens? He’s – well. Bi, I suspect. Or
undecided, confused, he’s certainly not exactly straight. Not bright, making a
whole lot of stupid decisions with not much idea of what he’s doing or what the
consequences are likely to be, vulnerable in all the wrong ways…. It hit all
the buttons. I gave him chance after chance until he managed to get us in the
mess Tom predicted.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re
one of Philip’s boys.” Flynn said softly and succinctly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was acute. I glanced up at him and he was looking at me with his dark eyes
steady. “You know I’d probably have done the same? We probably all would.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.”
I said with conviction, because I knew Flynn and I’d seen him for years. With
Riley, with other family brats, most recently with Dale, and I knew how Flynn
worked. “<i>You</i> wouldn’t when you’ve got
your brat with you in one of the most dangerous situations on the planet.”
Flynn shook his head slowly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Was
it that simple? I know you too.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
took another, long swallow of the hooch. I needed it to get this out. “When we
got to base camp, one of our team – Bill’s brother – had set up a scam. Dead
loss clients that no other expedition would touch for basic safety reasons,
people with a lot of money but no sense or experience. There were no guides in
the expedition other than the brother and partner, no support, hardly any kit,
nothing. They planned on running unfit clients through the ice fall and letting
them fail, realise they weren’t up to the climb and head home within a few
days, leaving a very low cost expedition with a whole lot of dollars. But the
partner had a fall just before we arrived, so when we walked in Harry had the
whole expedition on his shoulders.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“This
was when you bought him out?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom
and I talked about the options. But to be there in base camp with those clients
in that awful situation there, knowing we knew the risks to those people and
they had no idea–“ I shook my head, knowing it as much as I’d known it on the
day. “It would have driven Tom mad. He couldn’t have done it. Neither could I,
but Tom wouldn’t have handled it. So we had to find a way to make it work that
we could live with, or we were going to have to leave. So we bought the
expedition out, we set it up properly and as soon as it was up and running I
handed the management of it over to Bill, and Tom and I did our own thing as
much as I could manage. The stress got to him for a while but we got through.
He was … I thought doing pretty good, a whole lot of stuff was starting to come
up like I told you in the emails, and like you said, it’s a strong action not a
sign of falling apart. I thought it was good. But Phoenix was always pushing
and pushing in the background. Whatever the expedition did, there he was making
waves, and it was gradually escalating, he kept failing but he wouldn’t quit on
another try at climbing. And another try. Every time he failed the criteria to
go any higher he’d argue it and work on getting one more chance. And I always
gave it to him. <i>Stupidly.</i> I always
talked to him and reasoned, drew the line again and let him have another try
instead of getting rid.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Because
you believe in a basically good person.” Flynn said with comprehension. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Something
like that. I was ashamed of it at this moment in time. If ever there had been a
time for a rock solid <i>no</i> and the
determination to withstand and manage the fall out no matter what, without
giving in … <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
this went on,” I said as lightly as I could, “And on, until even Tom got to the
point of voting for Phoenix to try yet again, I think because he’d given up to
the inevitability that I always would. So Phoenix came up with us on our way up
to the summit attempt. We knew he wouldn’t get far. He was the most decently
fit in the bunch of the clients; if you wanted someone to play tennis with he’d
be ideal… but not the stamina or the climbing skills. Fitness is not enough up
there. He gave up just above camp one and we escorted him back down to the
camp, left him there with two of our Sherpa guides to look after him and help
him back to base camp, and I thought that was it. He was safe and he was out of
our hair, and he’d got to climb as far as he could, we’d done everything we
could to give him a fair chance and to realise for himself he hadn’t got what
it takes. So we went on up and we made our summit attempt and on the way down…
on the way down, just off the summit, we found a Swiss kid. Loic. Amazing
climber, world renowned, we’d heard of him. He was making a solo ascent and
he’d collapsed, he’d been up there alone all night, no oxygen left and not
responsive, comatose, but still alive. He was huddled in under a ledge, we
hadn’t even seen him on our way up. You can’t assist someone up there but
leaving someone who’s still alive – I’ve had to make awful decisions before, I
was with the police- but in practical terms up there, there’s <i>nothing</i> you can do. We were running out
of oxygen by the minute.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But
Tom would never be able to let that go.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
wouldn’t be able to let that go.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But
it was Tom you were worried about.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
nodded slowly. Flynn nodded agreement, taking another sip of his drink. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Riley
would be the same. And Paul.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
were climbing with a Sherpa friend. Dorje. Most experienced on the mountain of
the lot of us, he gave the guy his own oxygen mask and tank. We got him into
the sun, tried giving him fluids but we were running out of oxygen and we had
to move on. Dorje said he was going to stay another hour, give him a fighting
chance to revive. So I gave Dorje my oxygen. He’d sacrificed his own to Loic,
he was making a big sacrifice for this guy, and it was the best compromise I
could think of to make. We were leaving him there but we knew he’d be safe,
he’d have enough oxygen to stay that hour and still get down ok, and at least
then we’d done every possible thing we could together for Loic. We hadn’t just
walked away from him. Tom wasn’t happy with me climbing without oxygen but we
were headed down, we were moving fast, we did ok. The others stopped at camp
four for the night, Tom and I went all the way down to the camp three to be
safe since the oxygen level is higher there. And we got to our tent and thought
we’d done it. We were exhausted. I’ve never been that tired in my life and I
was hypoxic. Probably more than I realised. We’d been there resting about an
hour when the radio call came in that the weather was changing and some climber
was stranded on the ropes between camp two and three, and then as the
conversation went on we realised it was probably Phoenix. No one else was in
the area. No one was able to go out and help, no one’s got the capacity there
to launch rescue missions easily if at all.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But
you were responsible for your client.” Flynn finished. “And a particularly
vulnerable client. That was the choice.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Not
much of a choice. I swirled my glass, watching the moonshine move. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We
were exhausted. In no shape to climb further. Tom wouldn’t have stayed there
alone and let me go even if I’d been willing to leave him. But I couldn’t sit
there and just let the kid die. So we
got up and went down there and got him, between us got him moving down towards
camp two where we met a couple of our expedition Sherpa guides on their way up
to help, and that was where the rock fell and smashed my arm, just as the storm
hit. The Sherpas managed to get Phoenix down. Tom turned us around and got me
back up to camp three to get me under shelter, it was nearer. He short roped me
up. I remember getting to the tent. I think I probably passed out there and I
was out for hours.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
that ate the hell out of me. It was an effort to say it at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom
was alone through the storm all night. The radios were down, I was out cold, he
was completely on his own. He got the tent roped down. He got me warm, he got
fluid into me, he was the one that kept going out into the storm to get more
ice for drinking water and to re set the ropes to keep the tent up… that was
how he got frost bitten. Exhausted, cold, no time to get warm because he was
trying to keep me alive. Stressed out of his mind which makes frostbite far
more likely – and when he got me to a hospital… <i>Why</i> didn’t anyone check him over? I know why. Of course I know why.
I know Tom. He was avoiding people, staying in the background. Or pacing around
with that come near me and die scowl. He was doing that on the plane whenever I
was together enough to notice and make him stop.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not
everyone’s going to see through that and get the signals that he’s actually
scared out of his mind and wants pushing.” Flynn said gently. “You know we’ve
got one the same. Paul says the scarier Dale looks with us the more vulnerable
he’s feeling, and he needs you to take over. But if you don’t know what you’re
looking at – I’ve seen Dale scare the hell out people without realising he’s
doing it. It’s unintentional. It’s the survival skill set, they do what makes
people back off out of their comfort zone, what pushes away the threat, and
they do it because it’s always worked for them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If
someone pushed Tom without knowing what they were doing…” I bolted more of my
drink, swallowing hard on it. “He’d run. You wouldn’t get near him. Tom doesn’t
lash out. He doesn’t. Hitting out at Phoenix – it was the last straw when he’d
got absolutely nothing left; that was all. I wasn’t even conscious enough to be
there for him through <i>that</i>.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
listened silently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Impulse.”
I said eventually, bleakly. “Still just plain impulse, like shooting the hole
through the study ceiling.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
a part of you. To be fair, it often works in your favour. And if you’d thought
through – if you thought it through now, all angles of it, with Tom,” Flynn
said softly, “Hypoxic or not, would you still give Dorje your oxygen? I can’t
imagine you would have wanted anyone else to do it, you would never have
allowed Tom to do it, and someone had to for you two to be able to move on. And
would you really decide to leave Phoenix to die on those ropes? Would you?
Because I think if you hadn’t gone down to him, Tom would have. And if you’d
had to make Tom stop, stay there in camp three with you and let Phoenix take
his chances on the ropes – without it being an immediate, clear-cut, life or death
choice – that kind of thing can seriously damage a relationship. But you still
had options, so you rolled the dice again. Both of you. And you kept on
playing. You tried climbing further down. You worked out how sick Phoenix was
and what you could do about it. You used up your energy reserves as a
calculated risk, and you made a plan of what you could feasibly do next. It was
never as straightforward as a yes or no. I think that’s part of what people
like you two take with you when you take on a challenge like Everest, and why
you do things few other people could do. It was how Tom got you back up to camp
three after the rock hit you, wasn’t it? You both think on your feet, taking
the options and chances, weighing them up, going with the best of them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
should have put Tom first.” I said heavily. “Every time. Ahead of Phoenix, ahead
of the Swiss climber, ahead of a whole lot of impulse and heroism. We were in a
lethal situation up there, I <i>should</i>
have made it simple every single time: what was best for Tom. I don’t
understand how or where I ever lost sight of that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
didn’t. It just wasn’t ever as simple as ‘Tom lives and Phoenix dies’. Was it?”
Flynn topped up his glass and leaned over to re fill mine. I seemed to be
getting through it fast. “That would have been easy. You had a hundred shades
of grey to figure out from the moment you got to base camp. What kept Tom calm
and able to live with himself and the situation without having to give up and
walk away from the mountain. What compromises could you find for him. Tom’s
independent capacity, his strength, his knowledge and experience as a climber
and a partner you trust and know you can rely on, compared to Phoenix’s
weakness, inexperience and being a responsibility to you both. Phoenix backed
you two into a corner in the worst possible moment. You chose between exploring
what you two could manage under the circumstances – and you might have decided
at any time on the way that you’d reached the point of having to stop, take
care of yourselves and leave him - or sitting tight and leaving Phoenix to the
mountain. He would have died, wouldn’t he? On those ropes, in the storm, no one
else would have found him and got him down in time. You have to let Phoenix
carry his responsibility for putting you in that god-awful situation in the
first place.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
Tom I care about.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
Tom you’re half crazy with anxiety about.” Flynn corrected me. “Mostly because
you’re thinking of that night he was with you unconscious on the mountain on
his own, and the hours he spent in that hospital on his own, and you can’t
stand that thought or how powerless you feel that it happened. That was not
your fault.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If
I’d died in that tent at camp three,” I said tonelessly since it was the only
way I could say it at all, “And there was every reason I should have, I was out
of oxygen, out of any energy left, in shock, bleeding, hypothermic – Tom would
have stayed there in that tent until he was gone too. And I know that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.
You don’t.” Flynn said bluntly. “I know you know Tom. I know he thinks in black
and white and yes, he’s got a will of iron, of course he has with the
challenges you two go looking for. But you <i>don’t</i>
know what he would have done when that became an actual reality and neither
does he. You don’t know what would have happened when the storm broke and the
others from your expedition found him. You don’t know what Dale or I or Paul
might have been able to say to him by radio if it came to it. None of us know.
And it didn’t happen. I know you’re beating yourself up about every risk you
ever took with yourself that by proxy risked him too, because you’re stuck on
that moment in that tent. This is guilt talking. You had reason for every
single thing you did. Everything. It was the best choice in the moment that you
could make for both of you, and you’re doubting it because of guilt.” Flynn put
his glass down and sat up, leaning on the table to look at me. “You're drowning
in it. And it's no good for you and no good for Tom, this isn’t what he needs.
If it was Tom feeling this way, you'd do something to shift him out of it.
Spank him. Refocus him. Move him beyond it, because you’d know that’s what he
needed to do. It’s one of the reasons for discipline we all use and we all
know; we don’t get trapped in it, we don’t bury it or ignore it, we deal with
it, we let it go and we move on because it’s done. We can’t change it. Now is
what matters. You have Tom to think of. He’s vulnerable now. He needs you now,
all of you, like he’s never needed you before and you have not got the time or
the luxury to get stuck. You’re the one that knows how to self motivate. You’re
the one who can, and sometimes it’s a bastard to do. But he needs you right now
to be who you are for him and hold the world together, and like you tell him,
you <i>will</i> get through this. You have
to believe it. Because if you doubt it, he will see it and he will doubt too.
So get your bloody act together.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was the only person who could have said that and meant it, and yet still said
it with gentleness. It was more or less too the gist of what we both knew
Philip would have said, minus the swearing. <i>You
have a responsibility here.</i> But this was what motivated him and me. And
Philip. There were things we could find in ourselves and do for the people we
loved that we wouldn’t do for ourselves. And he was right. It was that night in
the tent that was stalking me the most. In all ways that mattered, I had left
him. To face that night alone. To be alone in that hospital, injured and half
out of his mind with stress and shock and exhaustion. Me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
there it was. Yes. Me. I was making this all about me and what I felt and what
I was upset about; that was not helping Tom in the slightest; my focus was in
the wrong place entirely. And now I could see it I recoiled from it. Flynn was
right. This was not a self indulgence I had time for. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
drained the glass, put it down and sat up, and Flynn gave me a short nod. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good.
Now show me this Loudon kid’s blog. Who is he?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
wasn’t hard to find the blog; Google had it as a top hit. The smiling blond
face was all too familiar. It took me a second to process the picture of him
with the banner headline, and then a wave of familiar exasperated frustration
ripped through me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>“What?</i> That picture’s faked! Good God,
he’s photo shopped it or something, and he’s claiming he <i>summited-?”</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
hear a lot of biography is mostly fictional.” Flynn skimmed through a few
posts, I was reading over his shoulder and choked as I found a few details. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>He</i> gave his oxygen to Loic? And <i>he</i> summited alone with everyone in base
camp cheering? And<i> he</i> moved the guy
who died at camp four? He was listening in to us over his radio, everything he
heard he’s used!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was so childish it was breath taking. Laughable, if not slightly pathetic. Tom
would be outraged about this. And then I skimmed down the next post and sat up
sharply, so angry my throat closed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;">We’re both in high places
tonight and preparing ourselves to be worthy. </span><span style="color: #0070c0;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Flynn
was watching me, waiting for an explanation and I let my breath go in a long,
slow hiss. I’d never been this angry in my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That
was Tom’s letter to Dale.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And
it had been a deeply personal, trusting, open hearted gesture, a vulnerable
piece of his heart and soul. Which had been heedlessly appropriated for a blog,
just grabbed as some pretty piece of prose and used to gain attention, flashed
to the world. If I’d known Phoenix was doing this… if I’d had the slightest
clue… “<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tom
<i>never</i> knows about this part.” I said
flatly. “And I would try if you can to avoid Dale finding out about it, I would
hate for either of them to ever know they were used in this way. I had no idea.
If I had…” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If
I had, I would not have been responsible for what I might have done, but
Madeleine Loudon would be suing me on her son’s behalf for far more detailed
personal assault. Flynn nodded comprehension. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We’re
safe with Dale, he and Ri don’t use the computer without permission. I’ll lock
this room tonight and make sure we keep it a bit more strictly supervised.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was skimming down through the posts and paused, looking at a set of pictures.
All of Phoenix. In his tent. Outside the mess tent. In the toilet ice cubicle.
All of them must have been taken by him using his cell phone. Self portraits,
all of that same cheerfully smiling face. Always alone. It gave the impression
no one else had been in that camp but him, although he referred often enough to
us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: blue;">Was sad to say goodbye to
everyone at base camp and head out… there were a few tears and lots of hugs all
around. </span><span style="color: #0070c0;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Total
balls. He’d been stuffed on a helicopter and run out of camp in utter disgrace,
by Beau since no one else was on speaking terms with him. The entire camp had
been furious with him. Was this wishful thinking? Re writing reality? Did he
actually just not care in the context of the blog about anything but presenting
the picture he intended to? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
really wasn’t sure I credited him with that kind of intellectual capacity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">I grooved on down the
Hillary step… </span></i></b><b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If
he’d been listening to any of us on the radio as we spoke down to base camp –
really listening – he had to have taken in more than that. He had to have
gotten the idea that every step up there was hard won, fought for. He had to
have heard what we were feeling and the agony it was to walk on and leave Loic
with Dorje when at the time we thought Dorje would be able to do no more than
be there with him when he died. Had to have heard Spitz’s tears. The flippancy
was shocking. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
do you think of the kid?” I asked Flynn. Flynn shrugged, eyes on the screen as
he read another few lines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’d
like to meet the puppet master.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s
nobody there. Look at him. The haircut, the look at me clothes and the look at
me name… even the writing style. It’s a processed identity.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
looked at him blankly. Flynn leaned on the desk to consider for a moment, still
reading. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
mean that when we take a client in here, we give them generic clothes and we
put their own clothes away for this exact reason. No hair gels, no blow driers.
No jewellery. No created front or image to hide behind, we want to know who
they are. Not who they dress up as. Someone’s manufactured this guy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
Some of the others on the team told us his mother was a minor celebrity, not
really known, and this was her publicist working on exposure for her and
Phoenix together. He climbed Everest, she wrote her articles about it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Then
I suppose it might be the publicist creating the image he wants to sell. Might
be Phoenix himself. I’d like to know a lot more about the mother and their
relationship. But someone’s manufactured him. I can see why you refer to him as
a kid, other than that he’s aping the whole boy band stock image and hanging on
to teenager-hood with both hands. Kidult. The Walter Mitty stuff in the blog,
whatever he sees around him he just appropriates and uses as his. No
boundaries.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
doesn’t really recognise any kind of boundaries. I know the type.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Beau
had said as much; she and I had both spent years hanging out at the Great
American Boarding School and avoided that particular ilk of students; we’d both
hated them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
went to school with plenty of them. Rich, spoiled, over parented, over attended
to. If they ever ran into any consequences for anything parents were on the
phone or at the school straight away to raise hell that anyone would criticise
their kid who was too delicate for that, had to be kept happy, never did
anything they didn’t want to, permanently bored… they bored me stupid. But he
didn’t follow the kind of – pattern – I expected. He tried a bit of emotional
blackmail once or twice. Pouting. Bursting into tears at me. But I ignored it
and he quit. Not serious looking for the upper hand past what he immediately
wanted, no real ambition to win, he doesn’t do power play. I don’t think he
knows how. He’s just surprised that you aren’t doing what he expects. He’s
actually fairly easy to stop and turn around. Compare him to Gerry when you’ve
got to wrench the wheel around on what he’s doing, Tom, Bear, Riley… Phoenix is
a breeze. It’s all nuisance low level stuff. <i>Kids</i> stuff. I kept expecting escalation but it never really
happened. He does pretty good charming and manipulation of people to get them
to do what he wants, like he did with the women from the Canada expedition, but
he’s not clever enough to keep it up for long or make it complicated past
getting his goal, he doesn’t even get as far as predicting what they’ll think
or do when they realise they’ve been fooled. When you stomp on it, you get a
bit of a pout and sulk and then he forgets all about it and carries on as
normal and expects you to do the same. Doesn’t seem to realise why everyone’s still
angry a few hours later.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Which
suggests it’s not really his script.” Flynn sat back, considering. “I can see
why you were sympathetic towards him.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
do you mean it’s not <i>his</i> script?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It
sounds like maybe learned rather than intentional behaviour and he doesn’t
really get how it works so he isn’t good at it.” Flynn said briefly. “It takes
someone emotionally overinvolved – or dominant or not willing to relinquish
power to grow this in a kid.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
mother?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Possibly.
Her name seems to be everywhere on his blog links, although he doesn’t mention
her much as a person or a presence.” Flynn followed one of the many links and
raised his eyebrows at the woman with fair hair and violet eyes that appeared
in the picture at the top of the page. “Yeah. This is one of her social media
pages. Skim that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
took the mouse from him and skimmed. And found myself seeing something
immediately that became more and more apparent the more I read. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> “… This is all about her. Well, the entries
are <i>about</i> him but…” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
not what he’s doing or what they’re talking about together, it’s about how she
feels about it.” Flynn finished for me. “What she’s doing, what she’s thinking,
how it affects her. She’s working hard on presenting this maternal role and all
the loyalty and suffering and sacrifice she wants to talk about on her part –
the mom of the adventurer - but he’s mentioned only in how she relates to him.
His actions are only mentioned in how they affect her. These two are very
tangled up together. Did he have a phone in the camp?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes.
And a laptop. Internet connection. He was blogging daily.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
possibly talking with her daily, possibly even more? So what you would have
been saying may have been changed by whatever she was saying or steering him towards
that day. You say he shouldn’t really have been on Everest. Was it an ambition
or dream of his?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
not sure ‘dream’ was the message I ever got from him.” I said, considering it.
“He came with all the flashy kit and the demands but there wasn’t really –
ambition. Drive. Not much interest in the place itself or the people. Or even
any idea of what he was going to do; the other clients had read books,
trained….he set off to camp three without taking oxygen, fluids, anything with
him, he’d got no real idea even after weeks of being up there with us.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
his motivation was whatever happened as a result of the blog or his mother’s
publicity. There wasn’t a direct motivation for him on the mountain – so he
fakes the blog entries and borrows information and fakes the photographs, like
a kid cheating on his homework. He may have been encouraged to, or even helped
to.” Flynn thought for a moment, considering the pictures again. “It’s clear
she’s getting a whole lot of attention through what he’s doing. Lots of
admiration, lots of talking about her being a wonderful mother, all the stress
on her, how she’s supporting him…. from this site it’s clear she’s not hesitant
about the chat shows and interviews and photographs. I could be really cynical
and say I wonder if Everest was his idea at all or if he was sent.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
didn’t seem to mind, he was quite happy to be there.” I said, reflecting on it.
“And it’s not a comfortable place to hang around unless you want to be there.
Not that he hadn’t brought a hell of a lot of home comforts but even so.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
think there’s something going on in the dynamic between him and her.” Flynn
began to shut the computer down. “I’d be interested to know more of what it is,
but I can make a few guesses. The first of which is that I suspect you couldn’t
have ‘helped’ Phoenix any more than you did.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
looked at him, surprised he’d say that. Flynn shrugged, picking up his glass to
finish the last inch left of the moonshine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"You
did what I would have done. You saw him as a vulnerable, bi or possibly gay
kid. You got the behaviour, you understood it, you saw past it. You're Philip's
guy as much as I am. But. We see this with clients. God knows I'm not Philip,
maybe he could do it if anyone could, but we've never yet managed to find a way
to work it out with a client who has someone in their life who’s invested in
keeping them dysfunctional. We screen carefully in our intakes because of it. A
wife, a partner, an associate - behaviour is all about meeting needs. If that
person is in the habit of meeting their needs through our client they'll
sabotage any change we can help our client make. They need our client to stay
dysfunctional to maintain their own stability and will fight like hell for it.
I suspect you weren't just dealing with Phoenix on the mountain, you were probably
much of the time dealing with mom by proxy. You were talking to him, setting
boundaries he’d agree to, and she’d then talk with him, restructure it in his
mind and give him different orders. If I had Phoenix here like we do with
clients, cut off the iPod, the computer, his adoring fans validating him on his
blog every day, got him out of the My Identity clothes, no hair gel, no props,
cut off all contact with mom…. maybe we'd see who he was. If he knows. But my
money would be on mom not being able to stay off the ranch. And resisting him
making any choices about making changes in his life. Or putting up any
boundaries with her.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
wouldn’t take a client in that situation?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“If
the client was aware it was happening, unhappy with it and actively wanting
support to break away, yes, definitely. And then it would be hard. But someone
not even aware of the dynamic they’re in?” Flynn shook his head. “If we took in
a client and I realised gradually that they were in this kind of dysfunctional
relationship then I’d help them work on their boundaries, their self image. But
I’d have to prepare them that it would probably change that relationship, it
may well get ugly and it may end the relationship altogether. They’re going to
need to be strong enough to withstand a whole lot of pressure and anger from
the other person to go back to the way they were comfortable with. And I’d be
prepared myself that the client may very probably leave the ranch and end up
going right back to it. It isn’t fast or easy to come to the realisation of
being a sock puppet in someone else’s drama. It’s taken Dale thirty years, and
he walked away from direct contact mostly when he was seven.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But
you thought something similar was going on with Tom.” I leaned back in my
chair, the moonshine had cast a slow warmth through me and I felt my shoulders
start to unknot for the first time in what felt like days. I was interested
more than I was alarmed now; to work on a shared viewpoint like this was very
stabilising. Flynn nodded slowly, filling his glass a little more and leaning
across the table to pour the dregs into mine. Somehow we’d killed an entire
bottle between us in the last hour. “I’ll tell you a story… edited and adapted
from a psychologist and a book I find useful. How well do you know your fairy
tales?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
Grimm’s stuff? Yes?” Tom and I were both avid readers of the old blood and
roots stuff, those stories were old enough in themselves but summarised
thinking and myths and stories that were centuries old when the Grimm brothers were
writing it down. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ok.
Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty. Rapunzel. Let’s take those three. Start with
Cinderella. The adult figure has constant demands but no matter how hard they
work, the kid can never do anything right, is never allowed any recognition or
positive experiences, not so much the bottom of the pecking order than the
pariah, but they’re not actually rejected because the family don’t want rid of
them. The kid is wanted to be there being part of this game, because it’s
important to the family. This kid’s given role is to run around trying to do
right while constantly being in the wrong as far as the adult is concerned. The
adult likes it that way.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Possibly,
yes. The scapegoat kid. The kid’s inner self manages by trying to please, burying
all the anger, internalising that yes, they’re never going to be liked or
wanted for themselves, they have less rights than everyone else, they’re not
entitled to resist ill treatment or abuse by others so somehow they must
deserve it, they are just inherently bad. But they never quite give up hope of
one day managing to do enough to be allowed to go to the ball, because it’s
held over their heads constantly by that adult: if you did it right, if you
pleased me enough I’d treat you well, so it’s your fault when I don’t.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That
was shockingly painfully acute, I could see a lot of that in Tom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Sleeping
Beauty.” Flynn paused for a moment, looking past me at the switched on heater.
“The wicked witch – let’s call that an adult parental figure – wants the child
‘dead’ for no real, justifiable reason that ever really comes into the story.
The adult isn’t getting enough special recognition or feels threatened by the
child so it just does. But the forces of good – let’s call that the child –
protects and hides the inner self from the adult by putting it to sleep and
then surrounding it by an impenetrable forest of thorns. That’s probably the
one nearest to Dale’s experience. And then you have Rapunzel. The golden child.
So prized and so needed by the adult that the kid is locked up in a tower, out
of sight or reach of anyone else, the adult spends hours grooming the child to
be the way they like them – the long golden hair – with no independence, no
relationships with anyone but the adult. No loved so much as objectified and
owned. In the story, when the child is found to have established a relationship
with someone other than the adult, the adult attempts to murder them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’m
starting to wonder why we ever read these stories to children.” I said bleakly.
Flynn grunted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Most
of them are like this. For Rapunzel, the kid is apparently adored, but gets
taken over inside and out and gets used as an extension of the adult. The inner
self is not supposed to have any life or will of its own. Think about it. All
three stories: the adults are projecting themselves onto the kids like they
were blank screens. For Cinderella, the adult projects onto her everything in
their life that they resent and are unhappy with. For Sleeping Beauty it’s the
huge threat of their existence competing unacceptably with the adult whose
needs are more special, higher ranked. For Rapunzel it’s all the adult’s
grandiosity: the child is a mirror, too wonderful and special for the world or
anyone else but that all powerful, all providing adult. All three damage the
child’s sense of self, just in different ways. They internalise the projection
without realising.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
could see that too. It was ringing a number of bells. “And you think Phoenix
might have mom wanting to climb his hair?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
a possibility.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It
puts it into focus.” In fact the more I thought about it the more it made
sense. “I could believe his mother was pulling strings. It would explain some
of the illogic of what was going on. And why he seemed so lost if we didn’t
play to his script. He didn’t know how to play on his own without mom sitting
there giving instructions.” I reflected a little further, in the comfortable
silence of the office, with no one else in earshot but Flynn. “Tom was starting
to think this through. About his parents, how they treated him, whether or not
it was – quite how he remembered it, as all his fault.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Which
is good.” Flynn said gently when I didn’t go on. “That questioning what he
remembers is good. It’s a long process. The logical, academic understanding is
easy, we get a lot of clients who’d love to do that part and leave it there.
The hard bit, where the real work is and the real progress, is experiencing
those feelings and developing some insight into them at the same time. Starting
to recognise choices instead of being driven by the programme, willing or not.
Override button. And kids get two choices when parents project their crap onto
them. Comply or fight back. Tom went the fight route. That takes one hell of a
lot of courage.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes.
I drained the last of my glass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’s
not short of that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was fully apparent Flynn was going to be gone for some time, if not most of the
night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
dressed as quietly as possible, pausing for a moment to listen before he left
his room. Flynn had taken his station for the second night on the landing at
about midnight and around one am Dale had woken from a doze and stood quietly
by the door to watch Flynn take a bottle and two glasses through the doorway
that led to Paul’s study and known, with a deep rush of love for him, what he
was doing. And a moment later he’d heard Flynn and Jake’s footfall go softly up
to the study. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Which
gave ample and most convenient opportunity for the more mundane things to be
sorted out without Flynn having to trouble himself with those too. This was
Flynn’s forte, the people right here. The other stuff was Dale’s. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
slipped quietly down the main stairs and paused for a moment in the dark family
room by the ticking clock. The pictures stood on the mantel by the fire and on
the book shelves, his own face was among them and for a moment Dale looked at
them, each face in each image. He was very aware of the study behind him. There
was a strong feeling that should he go to that dark doorway, should he go
inside – there would be someone there, and it was a good feeling. A reassuring
one. He had no time to check. He let himself out into the yard, closed the
kitchen door very softly behind him and pulled his jacket on there. Hammer
whinnied to him from the corral, and as Dale jogged soundlessly towards him the
huge cob came to the gate hopefully, shoving his head into Dale’s chest as Dale
unlatched the gate. A rope head collar was always kept on the gate post for
emergencies. Dale took that, slipped it over Hammer’s head and used the gate to
mount him bare backed rather than unlock the stable and take the time to tack
him up properly. Not that Hammer was hard to ride bare backed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This
was probably going to be the height of lunacy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
walked Hammer towards Mustang Hill, getting well away from the house before he
let Hammer build up to the canter the big gelding was keen for, clearly excited
by the attention and the freedom in the darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
had not previously visited the location of Mason’s camp site or the watch point
where Jasper, Luath and Riley were camping tonight. However from Riley’s
descriptions and a detailed internal map of the ranch, he had an approximate
location grid figured out to a hit or miss he thought of approximately eight
hundred feet. Half way up Mustang Hill he tethered Hammer softly to a tree,
left him there and walked along the dark path uphill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They
would have chosen a location in which they had a clear overlooking view of
Mason’s camp while remaining unseen. That required high ground and cover. Which
meant Mason more than likely was on the bank below the steepest section of the
hill which dropped in a cliff down towards the river bank. That was the
location Dale would have chosen with the criteria in mind, and he was half way
along the ridge path when he smelled wood smoke and knew he was close. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was approaching 1.30am. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
located the three sleeping figures on the ground from some way off, and well
behind the tree line he crouched down as Jasper had taught him, feeling around
until he found a couple of elderly pinecones in the brush. It was not difficult
to ascertain Riley’s figure from the other two: he pitched the first pinecone
lightly and with accuracy to strike the top of Riley’s head, and Riley jerked,
snorted and lifted his head. Dale tossed the other one more gently, saw Riley
put out a hand and catch it and look directly through the trees to him. There
was a whole mix of emotions there – delight, surprise, interest as Riley
realised had this been anything other than illicit Dale would have woken Jasper
– and then Riley sat up and crawled very quietly towards Jasper’s bedroll, lean
down to grasp his shoulder and speak quietly to him. And a moment later he got
up, pulled his boots and jacket on and walked down the hill to where they would
have picketed the horses to keep them from alerting Mason to their presence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
got up and slipped quietly back into the woods, moving as softly as he knew how
and retrieved Hammer, leading him down the dark path to the pasture below. He
saw Snickers trotting out of the dark some way to his left and led Hammer to a
boulder, using it as a mounting block. As they met, Riley jerked his head
towards the house and spoke rather softly and sounding slightly abashed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
Jas says to tell you he’ll discuss this with you tomorrow. I was going to tell
him I had a headache and was headed home, but I didn’t get a word out.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
paused, shocked, and then came a second wave of relief and abiding affection
that he didn’t intend to interfere, and that was so typical of Jasper. The calm
trust in it. And it strengthened his determination even further, although
another voice added a memo at the back of his mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">If I’d have thought this through further
I’d have woken and told him, not just Riley. Still good at the technical stuff
and ridiculously blind about the social stuff. Next time. No time for that now.
<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
are you doing?” Riley turned Snickers down the sloping pasture. “Is it bad
enough in the house you need company? I thought Flynn would be gone all night
listening out for Jake and Tom-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He
is, he didn’t see me go.” Dale said briefly, nudging Hammer into a brisk trot
down towards the house. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
what are we going home for?” Riley protested. “If we’re going to hang out in
the middle of the night let’s do something fun? Ghost hunt? ‘What’ hunt? Head
out to Three Traders? …. You’ve got a plan, haven’t you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
leaned down from Hammer to open the gate into the yard as they reached it, and
Riley followed him. He’d also been riding Snickers bare back and he took the
head collar off, turning Snickers into the corral and stepping back to let
Hammer follow. Dale hung the collar on the gate post, latched the gate securely
enough that Snickers couldn’t chew it open, and took Riley’s arm, guiding him
through the shadows of the yard towards the barn. The dogs watched them
curiously from their beds under the porch, without bothering to get up as Dale
unlocked the door quietly with the keys he’d abstracted from their hook on the
way out, and took one of the items he’d acquired from the house safe out of his
pocket, closing the barn door softly behind them. Riley sat down on the nearest
ledge of closely stacked hay bales to watch him curiously. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What’s
that?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
saw his wandering torch beam and put a hand out to warn him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Turn
that off, it’ll be seen through the windows. It’s a satellite phone.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’ve
got a satellite phone?!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ve
worked in all kinds of locations with unreliable signals and now I live in one
too. Flynn knows. It’s part of the technology set I keep in the safe.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rarely
used but kept there, maintained for work emergencies. Which this counted as,
whether Flynn would agree or not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“So
what the hell are you doing with it?” Riley watched him with fascination while
Dale rapidly dialed on the chunky handset, entering several series of numbers.
He heard the ringing sound on the other end of the line, then Ash’s voice, a
little foggy but calm. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hello?”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Ash,
it’s Dale Aden. Everything’s all right, I am sorry to disturb you but I need to
speak urgently to Gerry.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was a shocked silence on the other end of the line. Riley, beside him, looked
equally shocked. Then there was a sleepy exchange of voices in the background,
then the line clicked and Niall’s voice, sounding fully alert in the way of men
used to being telephoned at peculiar hours of the night, said calmly, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Judge
Carey.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Niall,
this is Dale Aden.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gerry’s
voice cut in on the other line at the same time: “Dale. I love you, but you
really have to stop these middle of the night – <i>Niall?</i> Is that you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hello?”
another sleepy voice said and Gerry’s voice no longer sounded sleepy at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Darcy?</i> What’s going on?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">“Gerry?” <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Another,
more irascible voice started to laugh in the background. “Yeah, ok. This is
worth waking up for.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good
morning Wade.” Niall said very calmly. “Dale, what are you doing?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That’s
what I want to know?” Riley agreed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Calling
a meeting, and I strongly suggest we get on with it as fast as possible.” Dale
said crisply enough to shut them all up. “Riley is here with me, Niall, Gerry,
Darcy, Wade-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Don’t
try Bear,” Gerry said hurriedly. “I think they’re away on a fishing trip
anyway, but he’s in enough trouble. He’s very, <i>very</i> grounded after the whole Madeleine Loudon column thing and
forging my name, Theo didn’t take that well at all.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“None
of them took it well.” Wade said dryly. “Trust me.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“They’re
not answering their phone.” Dale did something to the phone and a distant sound
on the line shut off. “First I need to know if this constitutes enough of us
present to make a proper, quorate decision?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Darling
we never worried about all that rubbish, we just did it anyway.” Gerry advised
him. “What do you need? Ashley get <i>off</i>,
this is serious. It’s brat meeting stuff.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale,
hurry up,” Riley warned. He was listening with interest, calm, and with an
amused kind of focus that Dale could have hugged him for; not much shocked
Riley. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Brat
meeting.” Dale distinctly heard Niall say in the background in response to a
distant voice, and then the quiet click of a door closing before he said more
clearly, “Go on Dale. We saw Riley’s email. Loudon’s blog and twitter feed is
exploding, we’ve been texting each other all evening. Gerry and Darcy both
posted that the expedition is querying whether the summit picture is a fake.
Two names who say that they actually were on the expedition joined in and
stated the picture has to be fake as they know Loudon never went near the
summit, several other members of other international expeditions have got
involved and are agreeing while calling Loudon a whole lot of names-” “ - Which
Loudon’s fans are not taking well at all, it’s a blood bath on there right
now.” Darcy added. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Which
only confirmed the need for speed. Dale interrupted both without compunction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Madeleine
Loudon is initiating legal action against Jake’s company. She has had papers
served to him here and she is suing Tom for assault on her son.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Tom
<i>assaulted</i> him?” Gerry said, sounding
much cheered. “Oh good, I’m so happy one of us has. Did he do much damage?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>She</i> is suing?” Wade demanded. “What is
he? Six?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Jake
has instructed his lawyers to lay counter claims, as Loudon endangered his and
Tom’s life and was the indirect cause of both their injuries-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Hang
on, Tom’s injured too?” Gerry demanded. “Why has no one mentioned this?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Frost
bite.” Riley said darkly. “Tom was so shaken up by Jake’s surgery and the
flight out, he didn’t realise until he was home and started to undress. Paul’s
seen it, he says it’s horrible. Tom’s on a morphine drip the pain’s so bad.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
was extremely upset about it; it was in his face and his voice and his body,
and Dale had not realised until this moment how much. He filed that detail
precisely away in an already carefully catalogued account as Gerry burst out,
sounding equally alarmed, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Oh
my God, poor Tom! What we heard about their flight back sounded horrible
enough, if that had been Ash I’d have been out of my mind!” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You
two may not be aware, but Madeleine Loudon is all over the tv and the papers,
the story about Loudon’s victorious summit is spreading in the national press,”
Niall said evenly, “Once the press get wind of the debate on whether it’s a
pack of lies a lot more papers will get excited and pick up the story. I know
Madeleine Loudon’s type well, I’ve seen her now in several tv news interviews.
I suspect she will have no problem at all with negative publicity or her son
being proved in the press to be a liar. She is interested in exposure of any
kind, as much as possible. Notoriety creates celebrity very effectively. She is
likely to make any attempts at legal action as drawn out and public as she
possibly can, with maximum exposure, and newspapers may be willing to bankroll
her to do so to keep the story rolling if it is popular.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“But
it’s going to be bastard to get into court,” Wade argued with decades of police
career behind him. “It’s a civil case at worst and she’ll struggle to even get
it that far. Multiple jurisdictions involved, the alleged assault happened in
another country, actual witnesses so far online are overwhelmingly anti Loudon,
it’s going to be nothing more than Tom’s word against this idiot’s.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“However
a lawyer can be paid and instructed to write and do more or less anything by a
client outside of court.” Niall pointed out. “Particularly a client he or she
has little control over. Once it actually reaches court things it will be
immediately impeded by the practical issues such as trying to sue on her son’s
behalf- I assume she’s interpreting it as damage to her personal property
having heard her speak about her son - but she can throw letters and claims and
statements around as much as she likes without much restriction on what they
say. They don’t have to be legal or factual, just being printed on a lawyer’s
headed paper gives it apparent surface validity and weight. And I’ll be amazed
if she doesn’t share all of them openly with any journalist willing to present
her with a platform.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gerry
hissed, a surprisingly angry sound down the line. “She won’t, because I will
personally scratch her eyes out. <i>Argh.</i>
The media would love it, the blog has all kinds of big name followers now. The
story could run for months like that while it waits to actually get into a
court room -” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“By
which time Jake and Tom will have been dragged through the public eye anyway
and called every conceivable name.” Wade said viciously. “Yes. Trial by media.
Even if the actual court part gets thrown out five minutes into a hearing and
Jake wins the counter suit hands down, she’s still got what she wanted. Chat
shows and magazine articles, reality tv bullshit… I don’t think she’s realised
who Jake is yet or that would be all over her column, but once she does that
will make it all the juicier as far as the media is concerned. She won’t give a
crap what happens to Jake and Tom in the process, they’ll be collateral
damage.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“That
can’t happen. Can it?” Riley looked horrified. It was precisely the expression
Dale had anticipated and been utterly determined there would be no reason for.
And Riley turned directly to him to ask, rather than the meeting. Trusting he
would know, that he would have the right answer. He’d expected it, but to
actually see it, to see that expression on Riley’s face- it cemented every
thought he’d had since the legal papers arrived on the ranch, bedded it into
solid granite. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Across
the barn from them, seated in the dark on a high perch of stacked hay bales,
another man was also watching him. A man with wild hair and penetrating eyes,
elbows on his knees and the shadowy lines of an old cloth knee length coat
around his elbows on his knees above his riding boots. It was no surprise at
all that he should be there. Dale shook his head, cutting across the voices on
the telephone directly to answer both of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No.
We will not be playing her game. She will play mine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was an abrupt silence on the line. Slightly surprised by it, Dale glanced at
Riley who nodded slow confirmation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“…
Yeah, that sounded scarier than fuck.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This
was no time for worrying about minor details. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“The
company is registered here.” Dale said to him as well as the others, rapidly
reeling off the conclusion he’d drawn hours ago when the tipping point on this
matter had been reached and the need for action had become inevitable. “Once the story begins to grow, the media
will inevitably come here, to Jake and Tom and to the ranch. Accounting for the
woman’s actions so far, every possible outcome I can plot leads to that route.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was another silence, and this one was shocked for a different reason. Then
Niall said grimly, “Yes. I concur. And once the media discover that Jake and
Tom live in a group home of gay cowboys…?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Gerry,
<i>don’t</i> scream.” Darcy ordered very
sharply. There was a kind of stifled gulp from Gerry’s end of the line. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
can stop this, at source, now.” Dale said bluntly before they could waste any
more time. “I can be in New York by morning and I can end this. There will be
no further threats to Jake or Tom personally, no media will approach the ranch,
and any legal challenges will be abandoned.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
the hell are you going to do?” Riley demanded. He looked somewhere between
horrified and fascinated. Dale dismissed the question with a shake of his head.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It
must be done now, tonight, without wasting further time or allowing the story
to grow. I want to take a plane out, I will fix this and I will be back in
Wyoming by this evening. <i>If</i> this is
acceptable to you all, and this is the appropriate way according to the
traditions of this meeting.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was another silence, then Gerry’s sharp, “Yes, go on!” was lost in Wade’s
voice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“It’s
in the very best traditions. Go. You go on son, go do it. Who are you taking?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“No
one, I’m going alone.” Dale said flatly. “This needs to be a professional hit.
Fast, silent, with as few people noticing as possible.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Fuck</i> that.” Riley said flatly, putting
his hand out to pull the phone away from Dale’s ear. “If you go I go. I’m not
letting you jet off out of here alone.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The
expression on his face was one that Dale knew. There was a second of faint
surprise that Riley would not only want to but be so determined, echoed a
moment later by Wade’s emphatic, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Dale,
cut the crap. We’re none of us going to sit around on our asses while you do
this alone, that’s not how it works. Niall, you’re the best qualified-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“How
soon can you two get a flight?” Niall interrupted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Now.
I-” Dale glanced at Riley. “- We - will be in New York by around approximately
eight to eight ten am New York time dependent on air conditions.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
gave him a sharp nod of agreement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I’ll
see what flights I can -” Niall began and Gerry cut in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Not
needed, relax. Dale’s got a knack at pulling planes out of the sky at will,
it’s a talent of his.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
looked hard at Dale, who nodded, somewhat reluctantly. “…I can arrange for you
to be at JFK by eight thirty. Go to Capital Region and someone will be there to
meet you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Where
are you two now?” Niall asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“In
the barn.” Riley said pointedly, still looking at Dale although he released the
phone. “It’s the proper place to hold brat meetings.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
who knows you’re there? You’re talking about this with our guys well aware
you’re calling, so I assumed your guys knew about it as well?” “Nope, he
ditched them.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A
clamour of sounds and voices broke out on the line which Dale cut into, losing
patience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“<i>Look</i>. We have Jake and Tom here severely
injured, neither capable of looking after themselves, with the ranch still to
be run and a client to be cared for. The others have their hands more than
adequately full, they are already doing everything they can and there is no<i> time</i> for this. I do not intend that
anyone will be any further distressed by this matter.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Across
the barn, David gave him a very brief, curt nod that held full agreement. There
was another silence and for a second Dale was aware of the paradox of the men
in their various homes across the states, participating in this private
meeting, who had known David so well, who had held meetings in exactly this way
with him so many times – and that was crucial tonight - who had no idea of his
presence here as they spoke. Who would probably suspect Dale had a few screws
loose if he mentioned it. While he, Dale, who barely knew David at all, was the
one here needing to take his agreement into account. Then Niall spoke, quite
gently. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“All
right. You two get yourselves to JFK, I will meet you there. Dale, I won’t get
in your way. But Wade’s right, this is a family matter and that means we don’t
just send you out there on your own. We take responsibility too.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good
hunting.” Wade said gruffly, entangled with Gerry’s, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“For
God’s sake you all be careful. And if you get the chance to get your hands on
this witch bitchqueen….” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“He’ll
tell her you said hello.” Darcy said curtly. “Go do it, Dale. Good luck.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
cut the call with his thumb, got up and brushed hay off his jeans, mentally
switching gear to the next operational stage. “Let’s go.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">David,
up on the hay bales, was gone. There was nothing more up there now than
shadows. Riley was up and moving ahead of him. “Better roll the jeep as far as
we can before we start the engine-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">A
man, a tall, lean and quite corporeal one, was leaning against the porch rails
in the darkness, his breath steaming slightly before him, arms folded, waiting
for them. Riley came to an abrupt stop with a yelp of shock and Dale crashed
into his back. Jasper came quietly across the yard to meet them, jacketed as
the night was crisp with a frost forming on the grass, but hatless and with his
long hair loose over his shoulders as it often was at night when he was hunting.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
was outcome of the meeting?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
looked blankly at him. Dale stepped around him, phone in hand, actually not in
the least surprised that Jasper should know. It was both a dependable
supposition and a highly logical one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“For
me to go to New York, now, on behalf of the ranch, and stop this business with
the Loudons before it gets any further. I can do it and be back by this
evening, the agreement was that Riley should come with me, and Niall will meet
us at JFK.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Jasper nodded slowly, apparently not surprised
by that either. Taller than Dale, in the darkness the lines of his face were
all triangles, even more pronounced than usual. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“And
are you asking me or telling me?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Interesting
question. Dale paused and reflected for a moment, wanting to be sure he was
quite honest in his answer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“...
With respect, both. Since I am acting on behalf of a quorate brat meeting. This
matter is <i>not</i> going to cause harm
here, I won’t allow it.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
sounded like he was barely breathing. Then Jasper gave Dale a calm nod. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
assumed the plane up on the landing strip was yours?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’ve
got a plane up there?” Riley demanded. Dale locked the barn and passed the keys
to Jasper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Yes,
since about six pm this evening.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Do
you need any help?” Jasper asked him. Dale shook his head, putting an arm
swiftly around Jasper’s neck to kiss his cheek with heartfelt appreciation.
Jasper hugged him in return, strongly, a quick and powerful pressure of all of
him that surrounded Dale for a few seconds, and Dale felt the light but quite
definite contact of Jasper’s hand on his butt as Jasper. The briefest of pats
but it held his attention all right, all of it, in a way unique to this house
and these men. And Jasper was perfectly calm. Not reproachful, not at all
concerned. They might have told him they were going to repair a fence and he’d
have accepted it in this same normally purposeful way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
hugged him too as they left the yard, leaving him standing watching by the
gate. Dale broke into a rapid, steady jog over the grass, seeing Riley fall
into step and pace him easily. As they left, he saw the other figure now over
by the corral, leaning on the fence rail beside the shadowy outlines of the
horses. He raised one hand to touch two fingers to his forehead and flip them
out as Dale met his eyes, a salute that held the same ironic amusement Dale
felt at all this, as well as grim approval. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">~ ~ ~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was about a ten minute run together through empty, silent and frosty pasture up
to the landing strip. The small jet standing in isolation in the dark with its
lights on began its engines at the sight of them. It was only then that some
part of Riley truly began to believe this was going to happen. He followed Dale
up the steps, watching him nod briefly to the woman who met them at the door in
a way that would have had Paul demanding he came back and tried an actual
hello. The steward did not seem at all surprised and smiled at Riley although
it was Dale she followed into the cabin, the door already closing up behind
them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Good
morning Mr Aden. We have a course plotted for New York, we can leave
immediately. Our estimated arrival time at JFK is approximately eight am
Eastern Time.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Thank
you, I need an additional flight scheduled immediately, a plane to Capital
Region to collect two passengers under the name of Judge Carey, flight plan to
JFK, return flight to be determined later today. I will need to meet them at
JFK no later than eight thirty am this morning.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was the kind of tone Riley heard him use on the phone sometimes; not at all the
Dale that he lived with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<i><span style="font-family: inherit;">Unless he’s really, seriously mad about
something and then he doesn’t do shouting, ranting, slamming doors mad. He does
quiet, Clark Kent pulling off the glasses and leaping tall buildings kind of
mad. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
followed him with affection, understanding it and tonight deeply appreciating
it. The cabin was remarkably like a particularly expensive office. Leather
recliners were on either side of a large, polished wood table, what looked like
a drinks cabinet stood to one side and the woman was already heading at speed
towards a door marked ‘air crew’. “Yes sir. I’ll make the arrangements now.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
took one of the recliners, indicating to Riley to take the seat next to him,
and Riley sat down with his eye brows steeply raised as the engines began to
gun in earnest and the plane began to roll forward, still getting his head
around the idea that they were here. They were in a jet, headed out to New
York. Then he grinned and buckled his seat belt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Have
you any idea how dead we’re going to be when Flynn hears about this?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
nodded slowly, considering. “I’m estimating odds of approximately 1/98.3.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re
making that up.” Riley accused. Dale raised an eyebrow as the plane lifted up
off the pasture, climbing rapidly into the night sky and leaving the ranch
below. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“I
can give you a detailed overview?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley
dug an elbow in his ribs. Dale gave him a grin that held probably more humour
and definitely more mischief than should properly be expected from someone
chartering planes in the middle of the night, and signalled the steward, who
rapidly provided him with a laptop, phone, and pile of printout from a fax on a
nearby shelf. Riley watched him start up the computer and flick through the fax
with growing interest, and Dale glanced up at him again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Sorry,
I’m going to need quiet while I do this. You might want a book, or a movie or
something, I can-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“You’re
starting the circus act.” Riley made himself comfortable in the leather
recliner, tucking his feet up under him. “I came to help. Play with your
monkeys and get them in a row.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
took him at his word. It was kind of fascinating to watch. Dale disappeared
into the kind of high speed, intense work mode Riley had seen him use at home
on occasion, data started to fly under his fingers on laptop pages in streams
that made no sense whatsoever, faxes began to arrive in reams and Riley
listened in silence to the calls and rapid discussions to multiple people that
were taking place, using jargon and shorthand that made it difficult to
comprehend what was being discussed, even after a childhood spent hanging
around these kind of meetings. He was so damn<i> fast</i>. And intense. Dale could type at ridiculous speed and talk
calmly and quietly to a phone at the same time; he appeared to Riley’s eye to
be doing at least three things at once. He had no idea what Dale was working
on. But it was extremely hot, here tonight in the dark, with the United States
rolling away far beneath them and that memory of the secret night meeting in the
barn by conference call. A fricking conference call. But in the barn, because
that was where such meetings had always been held. All so very Dale. Several of
the calls he made were not in English; Riley decoded one as being German but
the rest were anybody’s guess and he just listened to the sound of Dale’s voice
streaming out the sounds and phrases. It was only when the woman brought them
juice and pastries about an hour later that Dale paused long enough to look up
and Riley leaned over to look properly at his screen now it could be done
without disturbing him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What
are you doing?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Cutting
off Madeleine Loudon’s life support.” Dale indicated to the steward. “May I
have a second laptop please.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
might have said the word ‘please’: it was still to Riley’s ear a command and
not a request. The steward immediately provided one and Dale flicked it on,
found the webpage he wanted and turned it to Riley. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Can
you list every mention of Jake, Tom, the expedition and the reported sequence
of events?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was Loudon’s blog. And yes, he was right; this needed to be done by a family
member, not a stranger. Riley grabbed for a pen and pad of paper from the rack
by the table and paused, finger on the mouse as he looked at the photograph
they had seen yesterday morning. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Starting
with this picture on the summit?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Without
looking Dale put his hand on and raised one of a number of print outs the
steward had brought him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Image
forensics report. Loudon’s face photo-shopped onto the body of a French climber
who summited four years ago.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">He
had an image forensics report. God only knew what else he had in the neat
spread of papers on the table. Riley nodded slowly, not saying several things
that came to mind right now, or doing anything distracting like punching the
air and cheering, because if he’d had at any point the slightest doubt that
this was going to be a win – a straight <i>win</i>
– that doubt was now long gone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Does
the French climber know?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dale
drained his orange juice and went on working. “Not yet. I hope he never will
do.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><a href="http://randrsilverbullet.blogspot.com/2015/09/everest-chapter-21.html">Continue on to Chapter 21</a></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Copyright Rolf and Ranger 2015</b></span></div>
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