The Best American Mystery Stories 2013

Crossing by Andre Kocsis

FROM The New Orphic Review

I’D BEEN WATCHING the bear from across the valley for almost fifteen minutes. I first saw him just above the last of the stunted jack pines, galloping along a snowy bench and heading for the steeps. The slope above him was corrugated by a series of narrow couloirs, and I kept the binoculars on him, wondering what he would do. He hesitated not a moment, choosing a steep, tight channel in the dark rock. The increase in incline did not perturb him; he continued motoring up at a good clip. That couloir was steep-at least forty degrees. I knew. I had skied it a few weeks before.

Where was he going? There was no food up there. And why was he not holed up in a cave, anyhow? It was March-too early for him to come out.

Sometimes bears wake up, go out to explore for a while, and then go back to sleep, but this guy looked like he was on a mission.

An eagle circled far above, soaring on thermals, king of the blue sky.

When I looked back, the bear had reached the top of the couloir, and then he disappeared over the ridge. For a moment I considered putting on my skis and trying to pick up his trail, just to see what he was up to. It would have been a lot easier if I had had a dog. Well, not easier. The bear’s tracks would be easy enough to follow. But a man needs a companion to go adventuring.

Someday.

Right now it was too complicated to take care of a dog. I was up at the cabin less than half the time, and Nelson wasn’t fit for humans, let alone a dog. The town was totally overrun by fat, pale tourists.

When I first moved there, in 1975, it was still a funky little place, but a third of a century has elapsed since, and a lot of things change in that much time.

On the other hand, some things don’t change. The U.S. is at war again. It took just one generation to forget the lessons of Vietnam.

Ironic, that Pinto had done me a favor by ratting me out to the cops for selling him that dope. He was trying to save his own hide, but in California I still have a warrant for my arrest. I suppose I would have left anyway, when I got my draft notice.

The only thing I regret now is that I couldn’t go back to see my dad before he died last year. He was eighty-one, and he had not visited me since before Mom died, six years ago.

I put the glasses down on the rock where I’d been sitting and went into the cabin, crouching to avoid hitting my head on the low doorframe. Calling it a cabin was generous. It was no more than a shack. I had dragged every log a couple of kilometers up from the tree line.

I still wonder whether the effort had been worthwhile. The cabin is on Crown land. I had camouflaged the roof to avoid detection from the air, but if any rangers wandered up into the alpine, they’d burn the unauthorized structure.

I was going to turn fifty-six soon. It was time I had a place of my own, but I could not imagine living anywhere except in the alpine. I wanted to buy some land, but my savings were not enough. Guiding was not exactly making me rich, and spending so much time chilling at the cabin pushed millionaire status further out of reach.

I picked up the little plastic baggie holding my dope and papers. It felt light. Moving back to the door, I held it up to the shaft of light and noted that the contents had definitely diminished since arriving a couple of weeks before.

Time to get a new supply. Time to go back to Nelson. Maybe even get some work.

Owen was an Englishman in his late thirties who ran a “collectibles” store on one of the side streets of Nelson. He sold comic books, hockey cards, vinyl records-anything he could buy for pennies and sell for big bucks. It was unclear whether selling dope supplemented the huge profits he made on the collectibles or whether the collectibles just served as a front.

“Hey, Sierra, you’re just in time,” he said as I entered the dusty, poorly lit store.

“Hi, Owen. Just in time for what?”

“A couple of blokes came in this morning. They’re looking for a guide.”

My clientele used to consist mainly of backcountry skiers, hunters, or fishers who wanted to spend a week in the wilderness, but in the last few years Owen had opened up a whole new market for me. The border to the U.S. is quite mountainous in this area, making it ideal for undetected transport of B.C. bud into Montana. Dope runners paid better than skiers, even after the hefty commission that Owen took. (I always suspected that he also took a percentage from the clients.)

“How do I get in touch?”

“They’re coming back tomorrow. I was going to use Calvin, because I never know how to find you.”

“I’m here now.”

“So you are, buddy, so you are.” He smiled at me, revealing the narrow gap between his two front teeth. Owen had dark, curly hair and a broad, friendly face that stood him well with the ladies. He had come to Nelson to get away from his third wife. She was still in England, working the divorce courts to squeeze more money out of Owen.

“What’s been happening?”

“Same old, same old. Bush is threatening Iran to get people’s minds off the fact that he ruined the U.S. economy. Hey, there is a meeting tonight to plan a demonstration. Are you coming?”

“I’m busy,” I lied.

“You’re constantly ceasing to amaze me, Sierra. This country gives you asylum from those warmongers and then you just turn your back on the people that saved your ass.”

“Save it for someone who cares. I haven’t had a toke in twenty-four hours, and I’m ready to go postal. Can you front me a baggie? I’ll pay you as soon as your clients show up.”

Owen went into the back for a couple of minutes. The store had a relaxing gloom, and I surveyed the racks of comics and cards, all encased in plastic. Junk. But people were willing to pay for it.

Owen came back and laid a fat baggie on the counter. I immediately rolled a joint, and we passed it back and forth.

“Tell me, Sierra, have you ever done anything to fight the imperialism of your country?”

“It’s not my country, and not my business.”

“Okay, have it your way, but have you ever done anything?”

“Yeah, actually, I was part of a major conspiracy to stop the Vietnam War.”

Owen perked up at this. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah. There was a group of us in Berkeley. We were dangerous radicals. One time we got a bunch of identical shoeboxes, like about fifty of them. Then we took a banana, put it in a box, and sent it by first-class mail to Lyndon Johnson.”

“When did you live in Berkeley?”

“After high school.”

“You told me you were climbing in Yosemite after high school.”

“Sometimes I’d stay in Berkeley for a couple of months.”

“Oh.” Owen looked at me skeptically. “So you sent a banana to the president of the United States. And that was supposed to stop the war?”

“No, no, there was more to it. The next day we took another identical box and put a banana in it and sent that to LBJ, also by first-class mail.”

Owen took a deep drag on my joint and handed back to me a much-diminished version.

“We did this for over a month,” I continued.

“Wow! That’s perseverance.”

“You don’t get it. After doing this every day, we suddenly just stopped.”

“So?”

I took a drag on what was left of the joint, extinguished it, and put the roach into the baggie.

“That just drove them crazy,” I explained.

“Sierra, you deluded, long-haired midget, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Well, the U.S. eventually pulled out of Vietnam, didn’t it?”

When I showed up at Owen’s store the next day, he started in on me again.

“Some people mentioned you last night. They’re wondering if you support the war in Iraq.”

“War is a delusion.”

“What? The U.S. killing people in Iraq is no delusion.”

“I’m saying that anyone who truly believes that a problem can be solved by war is deluding himself.”

Owen stared at me for a second. “I don’t know about that. I mean, sometimes you have to go to war. What if we hadn’t stopped Hitler? Were we deluded about that?”

“The delusion started with Hitler. He thought that by eliminating the Jews he’d solve Germany’s problems.”

“He didn’t believe that at all. The Jews were a convenient scapegoat.”

“Maybe for cynical leaders war is not a delusion. They may have a personal agenda that’s served by war, but for the common man, the one who has to put his life on the line, it’s a delusion. The average American soldier had more in common with the average German soldier than either of them had in common with their commanders and national leaders. They just wanted to live their lives, have enough to eat, keep their families safe. Only the leaders had ideological agendas that they valued more than the lives of their country’s citizens. That’s the tragedy of the twentieth century-ideologies that were so important that no sacrifice was too great. It would have been different if the leaders had been asked to be on the frontlines.”

“Sure, but you have to take a stand against evil…”

“Any individual who sacrifices himself for a cause is deluded.”

Owen shook his head. “So you’re a pacifist?”

“Not at all. I favor individual violence. If you attack me, I will kill you. But I will not do that for an idea.”

Owen stared at me for some moments. He shook his head again. After a long silence, he said, “You can probably bump up your rate on these people.”

“Yeah? How much?”

“Double.”

I didn’t have time to digest the implications, because just then the door opened, and two men were silhouetted against the strong sunlight from outside. The dust in the store defined shafts of light which seemed to come from their outlines. They closed the door behind them, and the gloom in the shop was restored, the grimy glass in the door effectively blocking the sun.

Introductions were made. George was above average in height, with regular features and a dark complexion. Though he was clean-shaven, black stubble darkened his strong jawline.

Thanh was short, about my height, and Vietnamese. He looked strong, packing lots of muscle on a small frame. He spoke without accent, but George had an inflection I couldn’t quite identify.

They did not argue with the daily rate I proposed, but there was an issue with payment.

“You’ll be paid when we meet our friends on the other side,” George said.

“Sorry,” I said. “I get paid up front.”

George stared at me, and for a moment I felt fear. There was a ruthlessness in his gaze, something that told me that this was a man who was used to being obeyed.

“Your standard arrangement assumes half the daily rate you’re charging us,” he said. I was starting to get a bad feeling.

“Maybe you need another guide, someone who’ll work for less.”

Thanh, who had not said a word, exchanged a glance with George and then said, “We can pay half up front, half on the other side.” It was hard to tell who called the shots. Many of the grow ops were run by Vietnamese, so it was likely that George was just a front. His aggressive manner was compensating for lack of real authority.

There would be six of them, and I would have to carry most of the food, tents, and communal gear, since they would be burdened with “personal baggage.” Another glitch developed when they insisted that I should provide transportation to the trailhead. There was no way that seven people and all the gear would fit into my beat-up Toyota. To my surprise, Owen came to the rescue.

“If we can leave early enough so that I can get back to open the store by eleven, I’ll drive you in my van.”

We arrived at the trailhead around eight in the morning. It was a clear day, and the mountains to the south shone in their pristine majesty, but the usual feeling of anticipation that I experienced when heading into the backcountry was tempered by the businesslike atmosphere of our expedition. Before driving off in his van, Owen pulled me aside.

“Be careful, Sierra,” he said once more, as we stood on the gravel shoulder of the road, away from the others.

“Jesus, Owen, don’t tell me you’re developing a conscience.”

“Fine. Fuck yourself, then.”

“You fuck yourself, too, Owen.” I smiled at him, he smiled back, and then he disappeared, trailing a cloud of blue-gray exhaust. Needs a ring job, I thought, and then I walked back to my new best friends.

In addition to George and Thanh, there was a burly Russian in his midforties, Yuri, and Omar, probably from the Middle East, around forty years old. The other two also looked to be from the Middle East; they were Bob, a big man, around fifty, with a scar running diagonally from his right temple across his cheekbone, and Gord, who looked soft, and much younger, no more than thirty. Their accents contradicted their names, and I decided that “Bob” wouldn’t mind if, at least in my own mind, I called him Scarface.

Their ski equipment looked new and serviceable, but their packs looked like they had been picked up at an army surplus store. They were sturdy green canvas with heavy straps; not ideal for a strenuous trip in the mountains.

Since I carried our communal gear, my pack was heavy; it took a while for my muscles to adjust as we started up the steep trail. However, I quickly realized that my pace was not going to be a problem. A couple of my companions had trouble putting the skins on their skis, and Gord was in poor physical shape and had limited skiing experience. I had counted on making the crossing in three days but packed supplies for an extra day. I started to wonder whether that margin would be sufficient.

We trudged up an abandoned logging road for the first hour, and then I cut off onto an old prospectors’ trail that led more directly to the alpine. Large cedars shut off the sky, and we made our way slowly in the silent gloom. I was in the lead, and my charges struggled in single file behind me. Periodically I’d hear someone stumble or curse as their ski became entangled in some underbrush. It was my policy to ignore minor problems. Anyone who ventures into the backcountry should put up with a reasonable amount of discomfort and frustration. Learning is motivated by the desire to avoid exactly such problems.

By noon the trees were getting smaller and patches of sunlight dappled the snow. I had been stopping every hour, encouraging the group to hydrate as well as to layer down to lighter clothing. Even though it was quite cold, the effort of laboring uphill with heavy packs caused the body to overheat.

Because the trail was so narrow, these stops did not allow me to observe anyone in the party except George, who followed right behind me, and Yuri, who was behind him. They appeared to be handling the pace reasonably well, though Yuri’s clothing was drenched from sweat. He had ignored my suggestion to layer down.

Around one o’clock we left the tree line behind us, and we were treated to the alpine in its full magnificence. The terrain sloped off to our right, and the steep apron of Mount Veringer rose to our left. The vista ahead revealed a series of flat snowfields intersected by deep gullies, and beyond the plateau, the snow-clad peaks this side of the U.S. border.

I called a halt, and my exhausted troops gathered while I set up my small stove and made lunch. As I waited for water to boil, I tried to assess their condition.

Yuri had changed into some dry clothes, Scarface appeared to be actually enjoying the outing, and Thanh and Omar looked tired but okay. Gord, legs splayed wide, was sitting in the snow, his back against his pack, his eyes closed, his face of a deathly pallor. George was squatting on his heels next to him, speaking in low tones right into his ear. I went over, and George looked up at me in a hostile manner.

“I can take some of his load,” I suggested.

“No! He’ll be okay,” George said roughly, staring at me.

Fine, I thought, I don’t want to touch your fucking dope. I stood for a moment, looking down at Gord. He was panting rapidly. We were only half as high as we would eventually get, and already he was having trouble with the altitude.

“Is lunch ready?” George demanded.

I walked back to the stove.

Gord continued to sit with his eyes closed while the rest ate. He refused any food, and a couple of times he made dry retching sounds. George had a swift conversation with Yuri, and the Russian took something out of his pack and then went over to Gord with a bottle of water. I saw Gord swallow something, and within fifteen minutes he made a miraculous recovery. We set out again.

I kept the group going until sunset, to make up for our slow pace, and thus we managed to cross most of the plateau.

With help from Scarface and Thanh, I made some snow platforms for the kitchen and started melting snow to make hot tea to revive the troops. Gord was again wilting, but the others seemed in reasonable condition.

After everyone was warmed up with tea, I set up the two tents. George and Yuri hauled Gord into their tent and put him into his sleeping bag while I prepared dinner. I threw my bag into the other tent, which was occupied by Thanh, Omar, and Scarface. George insisted that all the packs be piled just outside his tent; he and Yuri made seats for themselves, with their backs resting against the pile. George was using his headlamp to read, every once in a while glancing up to observe our progress in the kitchen. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but I detected hostility in his look.

Yuri had taken off his toque, and I noticed that he had brown hair that started low on his forehead. The hair had been cropped short, but it was very thick, and his hat had flattened it on his head. This, along with his pointed nose, gave him a distinct resemblance to a porcupine I had once known. Yuri had picked up a tree branch somewhere along the way. He now took out a vicious-looking knife and set to whittling a series of perfectly formed toothpicks. As the evening progressed, I noticed that when George was not looking, Yuri would furtively reach into his pack and take a large swig from a flask.

The sky was spangled with a profusion of stars, and our open-air kitchen was humming with activity. Thanh, it turned out, was quite the cook.

“I worked in a restaurant,” he said. “That’s the only job an honors degree in philosophy prepared me for.”

“I keep hearing about doctors who come to Canada and end up driving a cab.”

“I got my degree here.”

“So you were quite young when your family came to Canada?”

Thanh did not answer. I noticed that George was glowering at him.

It took George fifteen minutes to rouse Gord so that he could come out and have some dinner. Despite having his sleeping bag wrapped around him, Gord was shivering, and to me it looked like he had a serious fever. Yuri gave him several pills to swallow with the little food that he could gulp down.

I cleaned up the kitchen while everyone went to bed, except George, who continued to read, and Yuri, who continued to turn out his perfect toothpicks. I figured that by the end of the trip he would have enough for a large tray of hors d’oeuvres. As I headed for my sleeping bag, I heard Yuri say something to George. I recognized the word talk in Russian, as well as Thanh’s name. George quickly came over as I was preparing to enter the tent that held Thanh, Omar, and Scarface. He grabbed my shoulder. I’m somewhat vertically challenged, and as he brought his face close to mine, I had to look up to meet his glare. There was a crazy ferocity in his dark eyes, and something told me that it would take little to set him off.

“You can’t sleep in there,” he said, as he squeezed my left shoulder with what I thought was unnecessary force.

“You want me in your tent, George?” I smiled in what I thought was a seductive fashion. His expression indicated that the implied proposal did not appeal to him.

“We only have two tents, George,” I said as I removed his hand from my shoulder.

“That’s your problem,” he said, and he walked back to his perch next to Yuri.

It took me less than half an hour to dig a snug snow cave. I lined it with a tarp, laid my sleeping bag inside that, put my underclothes in the bottom of my bag, and crawled in. After a few minutes I was warm, and as I lay on my stomach, I stared out the small opening of my shelter. I could see a slice of the peaks that lay to the south. They were washed in diamond moonlight, with a backdrop of velvet black sky punctured by a sprinkling of stars.

I had to revise my opinion; George was definitely in charge of this expedition. The drug industry was taking on an international flavor. Perhaps the bags were not full of B.C. bud but a more valuable cargo from the Middle East. Maybe I should have asked for a higher fee. I wondered if Owen knew.

Yuri definitely looked like Russian mafia. Where did they figure in all this? And if indeed the drugs had originated in the Middle East, why bring them in via Canada?

It seemed that my meager knowledge of Russian could prove useful in the next few days.

I wondered what Lana was doing at that moment. I hadn’t thought about her in months.

Though she had escaped her Doukhobor community in the interior of B.C. when she was eighteen, Svetlana had not shed her love of Tolstoy. She taught me some Russian so that I could share her appreciation for the master, in his original language.

Lana was twenty-two and had almost finished her nursing degree when I met her in Nelson. She was petite, and her red hair reached to her waist. Her dress and her quiet manner still spoke of her rustic origins, but there was a willfulness, a rebellious defiance toward convention, a core of craggy determination that underlay her gentle exterior. By the time I realized the strength of her resolutions, it was too late.

She gave me six years, six years punctuated by my long absences for several first ascents in the Andes and for a couple of expeditions to the Himalayas, six years when she never really knew whether I’d come home in a body bag.

By that time she was twenty-eight and I was thirty-four. In retrospect, I could see that she was right, that it was time to make a decision. But I was looking at the peaks and did not notice that my companion was slipping from my side.

When I came back from that first Everest expedition, she had removed all her belongings from the ramshackle house that her presence had transformed into a home. I should have gone after her. But I didn’t. I was convinced that she would be back.

I went on the second Everest trip and again failed to summit. When I came back, Lana had gone to work in the hospital in Trail. Later I heard a rumor that she got married, but didn’t believe it. I was convinced that the door was still open. By this time I had developed something of a reputation as a climber, and I used that to tear a swath through the impressionable young women of Nelson.

I was thirty-seven when I returned from my last trip to Everest. I had a broken collarbone and was emaciated from two months at high altitude. While I was recovering, I drove down to Rossland. I spotted Lana entering a grocery store, holding the hand of a toddler. I was about to approach her when she was joined by a tall, good-looking guy who had an infant with red hair in a back carrier. I heard the clerk address him as Dr. Whitmore.

I walked out of the store and drove back to Nelson at well above the speed limit.

The next day I started breakfast before the sun rose, and we were on the trail at dawn. Long purple shadows were cast by our figures as we trudged across the snow, and cold pink light licked at the peaks ahead.

My clients shivered as they warmed up from their exertion, but seemed like they were in working condition. Even Gord moved at a steady pace, though he appeared to be something of a zombie. During breakfast Yuri had given him some pills again.

By midmorning we were making the first of our steeper ascents. Even I found it difficult. My pack was much too heavy, my back was starting to spasm, and my legs were burning. Maybe I was getting too old for this shit. But I thought about the piece of land I’d buy, somewhere up in the mountains, and the house I’d build.

My companions were all starting to show signs of strain. Surprisingly, Gord shuffled on much as before, his eyes glazed and with a fixed stare ahead. Yuri was panting, and sweat poured off his face.

The slope was too steep to attack directly; our skins would not hold at that angle, and I had to serpentine back and forth. This served its purpose but forced us to make sharp turns every ten minutes. As long as we were going straight, not much skill was required to handle the skis, but turns, many of which were almost one hundred and eighty degrees, required experience, strength, and balance. Especially with heavy packs and in steep terrain, it was easy to fall over. Getting up required removing the pack, and even thus unburdened, it took a great deal of effort to get vertical with one’s tangled skis stuck in the deep snow. Each such incident was exhausting, and my companions quickly learned that it was best not to fall over. Omar, unfortunately, fell regularly, and his legs were trembling after a couple of hours. I called for a short rest stop and advised everyone to hydrate and eat as much as they could from the snacks I had prepared in the morning. Yuri appeared not to need the encouragement to hydrate, as he took long swigs from his bottomless flask. I wondered how much of his pack was composed of refills for that little silver container.

We continued on our uphill track through the rest of the morning, and we were now getting high enough so that the view was magnificent. Behind us, the flat snowfields we had crossed the previous day; ahead, a series of peaks etched in cobalt blue. Unfortunately, along with the view came the effects of less oxygen, and now even George and Scarface were visibly panting. Thanh had pain etched on his face, and though he didn’t complain, he winced with every step.

When we stopped for lunch, the others collapsed onto their packs while I cooked. I noticed that Thanh took off his boots and was examining his shins. Yuri, who seemed to be the medic, was called over for a consultation, and I joined him while I waited for water to boil.

“It’s just a little bruised,” Yuri said.

Both of Thanh’s shins were bright red and puffy, and on his right leg lesions were starting to appear.

“Shin bang,” I said.

“What?” Yuri looked at me with hostility. His eyes were bloodshot, and he stank of booze.

“Shin bang,” I repeated. “If we don’t take care of it, Thanh won’t be able to walk by tomorrow.”

“What do you suggest, genius?” Yuri challenged. His bristly hair reminded me of that of a porcupine.

“I think we’ll have to amputate,” I said. When I saw the expression on Thanh’s face, I realized that my attempt at humor was inappropriate.

“Just kidding. The problem is that your boot is bruising your shin, and-”

“I told you, it’s just a bruise,” Yuri interrupted. By this time George was also standing over Thanh as he sat on his pack, with his bare feet and legs raised to keep them out of the snow.

“Yes, but we have to cushion it, otherwise Thanh won’t even be able to put on his boots.”

I went to my pack, took out my sleeping pad, and cut two strips from the end. I put some gauze dressing around Thanh’s lower leg and used duct tape to fix the foam from my sleeping pad against his shins.

“You’ll have to keep the top buckles on your boots really loose, but that foam should help,” I said. Thanh looked doubtful.

We continued our climb for several hours, oxygen getting thinner with every step. The sky, which had been a brilliant cerulean blue, was starting to take on a hazy cast. I observed that on the high sawtoothed ridge ahead of us, major cornices had formed from the action of the wind. Plumes of snow continued to be whipped off the high points along the sharp crest. I pulled my parka a little tighter around my neck and trudged on, breaking trail in the snow, which was becoming deeper as we ascended.

We finally arrived at a bench, and I called a halt. My companions collapsed onto their packs. I went over to see how Thanh was faring.

“It’s better,” he said, though there was still pain etched on his thin face. His high cheekbones looked white, the skin stretched taut.

Gord looked like a zombie, staring into the distance. Yuri, who made sure that he always sat behind George, took the occasional swig from his flask. George seemed tired, but that was normal.

Scarface’s pack was off to the side, but he wasn’t sitting on it. I looked around and saw him standing about thirty meters away, with his back to us. At first I thought he was just being unusually modest in relieving himself, but he stood there several minutes, quite still, looking down at the snow in front of him. I walked over and stood next to him.

In the snow directly at his feet, there was a small patch of red with a few tufts of dun fur around it, and some black pellets. Aside from our footprints, there were no tracks leading to this scene of violence.

“What the fuck is it?” I said, more to myself.

Scarface turned to me; the thin scar across his cheek and temple was particularly noticeable against the deep tan of his face.

“Rabbit,” he said.

I looked around. “There are no rabbits this high. How did he get here? There’re no tracks.”

“Eagle,” Scarface said, pointing.

And indeed there was a faint impression where the feathers of one wing had brushed the snow. The raptor had probably snatched the hare below the tree line but had not completely killed it. Its struggles had forced him to drop it for an instant, while he got a better grip; he then continued on his way to his high aerie.

What terror that hare must have felt, gripped by powerful talons, its struggles futile. Then the instant of hope as the eagle dropped it, immediately dashed as the raptor took hold again. No wonder he shit himself. It was like the Angel of Death plummeting from the sky and snatching us from the life we take so much for granted.

It was a sorry-looking bunch that pulled into camp that night, but at least I was satisfied that we had a chance of getting across the border before we ran out of food. We camped at a col above a long, steep descent to the glacier below. I would have preferred to camp further down, but I was concerned about the group’s ability to negotiate that difficult stretch. There were a couple of cliff bands along the way, and a stumble while skiing down could result in a disastrous plunge. It would be safer to do this when my charges were well rested.

The tents were set up, I made dinner with help from Thanh and Scarface, and Yuri kept drinking and making toothpicks. A typical evening in the mountains.

“How are your shins?” I asked Thanh after everyone had settled down.

“Better,” he said.

“Let me take a look,” I said.

He sat down on his pack, and I unwrapped the gauze dressing. There was some oozing of clear fluid on his right shin, but the other dressing was dry. I replaced the stained dressing with new gauze, making sure that it was quite loose, to allow a scab to form.

“Make sure we tape back the foam before we start in the morning.”

“Thanks, Sierra.”

“You’ll be fine. You come from tough people.”

“You think so?” He raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“I visited the Cuchi Tunnels, Thanh. I have some idea.”

“You were in Vietnam?”

“I went there in 1995. I saw the War Atrocities Museum.”

The muscles in Thanh’s jaw bulged and his face hardened, but he said nothing.

“The world should know what the Americans did. They talk about what the Germans did or what happened in Rwanda, but no one speaks of the war crimes in Vietnam.”

“There are some things that can’t be recorded in a museum,” Thanh said, and he stood up and walked to his tent.

During the night I dreamed that I was back on Everest. I tried to climb, but my legs would not move, and my lungs burned, screaming for oxygen. I woke with sweat streaming down my face.

I lay in the blackness of my snow cave, trying to get calm, but I still felt like I was suffocating. And I was hot, as if I had a fever. I groped for my headlamp under my pack, and when I switched it on, I immediately understood that I was actually suffocating. The opening to my cave was completely blocked by snow.

It took a surprising amount of effort to punch through the snow and allow some air to flow into my burrow. With the fresh air came a blast of snow and a high-pitched whine, as if a million banshees were screaming to gain entrance.

I pulled on my clothes and crawled out, to witness a scene of chaos. The wind was howling, and the snow was so thick I could barely see the few meters to where the two tents had been. In fact, I could not see the tents.

But it quickly became clear why. Thanh’s tent was in tatters. He, Scarface, and Omar were desperately trying to hold on to their sleeping bags and belongings as the raging storm tried to sweep them off the col.

There was more left of George’s tent, mostly because Gord was still inside it, deep in drug-induced slumber, apparently oblivious to the howling chaos around him.

The ear-splitting din and swirling snow made communication almost impossible, but I finally organized them to dig individual snow caves, using what was left of the tents to line them. George seemed more concerned about the packs than his partners, and I had to dig a larger cave in which to store their cargo. George made sure that his cave was right next to the precious burden.

Gord was housed in the same burrow with Yuri. He had slept through the whole ordeal.

Finally my charges were all settled, and with the storm still keeping up its infernal racket, I crawled back into my sleeping bag. I felt exhausted, with my whole body aching, but I couldn’t fall asleep. I knew I had made several serious mistakes that had jeopardized the safety of my clients. This was no recreational outing but a drug-smuggling operation, but that did not mitigate my responsibility as a guide. First, I should have been more aware of the signs that a storm was coming, despite the fact that when we had left, the forecast had called for the persistence of the ridge of high pressure whose benign influence we had been enjoying. Second, I should never have camped on the col. It was too exposed. The choice had been forced on me, by trying to make maximum distance so that we would not run out of food yet delaying the hazardous descent while my crew was exhausted. But these were excuses. I had fucked up. To top it all off, the wind and snowfall accumulation would dramatically increase the avalanche hazard for the rest of the trip. While we enjoyed the calm weather, the snowpack had been relatively stable.

When I emerged from my lair next morning, the wind had abated somewhat, but large flakes were still pouring from the sky, and visibility was minimal. As the little group huddled in what was left of the kitchen area, I suggested that we wait out the storm.

“We have to get across the border,” George said. “Arrangements have been made.”

“Arrangements will have to be changed,” I insisted. “You can’t navigate in this visibility, and there’s high avalanche danger.”

The others seemed convinced by my logic, but George was not giving up.

“We can navigate by GPS. How long will the avalanche danger last?”

I had to admit that it could take days for conditions to settle down, but made it clear that I was not willing to jeopardize the group’s safety just to meet some artificial deadline.

“If we don’t meet our deadline, you won’t be paid.”

“If we all get killed, there’ll be nobody to pay me.”

He did not reply but stalked off toward the cave where the packs were stored. I hesitated for a few moments, as the others muttered among themselves, and then went after George to see if I could reason with him. He was on hands and knees, crawling out of the burrow backward, and I slowed when I saw that there was something black in his right hand. I froze when I realized it was a gun. George got to his feet, facing away from me, wiped the snow from the flat gun, and put it inside his jacket. Before he could see me, I quickly made my way back to the kitchen and squatted down in the same place where I had been when George left.

Just as he came within earshot, I announced, “Okay, I think the storm is settling a bit. Everyone get ready. We’re leaving in half an hour.” I stood up and went back to my cave to pack.

I’ve often wondered what causes us to compound an initial mistake with progressively greater stupidity. I had put my group in jeopardy by camping on the col, and despite the fact that I knew how dangerous it was, I had been intimidated into attempting the descent in essentially whiteout conditions. Though visibility was zero, all the indications for disaster would have been quite obvious even to a blind man.

Since most of our travel to this point had involved climbing, I did not have a clear idea of how well my group was able to ski downhill. The first part of the descent from the col was relatively gentle. Even with the large packs, George, Scarface, and Yuri were enjoying themselves, making large swooping turns in the fresh powder. Thanh and Omar were skiing adequately, though the heavy packs and the fact that they couldn’t see ahead of them made them stiff and awkward.

Predictably, Gord was an utter disaster. The dosage of whatever drug they were pumping into him had obviously been reduced, in anticipation that the descent would not require as much energy as climbing. However, the man was at best a weak intermediate skier, and with the difficult conditions, this was simply not adequate. In the first hour he fell three times. Since I was leading the group, the first time I did not realize this until word had been passed up the line. I directed the others to take a rest while I climbed back up to where Gord was still floundering in the deep snow. He had exhausted himself trying to get up with his pack still on and was now lying on his side, half buried. I took off his pack, pulled him out, found one of his skis, which was buried in the snow, found his poles, supported him while he tried to put his skis back on, and then carried his pack down to where the others were waiting. I watched Gord ski down, and even without a pack he was struggling. I kept yelling at him to get forward on his skis, but after a split second he’d be leaning back again and the skis would start to run out of control. He’d then make a sharp turn to slow down. In powder, this is disastrous, and inevitably he’d fall over sideways. Without the pack, he’d manage to get up, but each time he was more exhausted. The ski to the others was short, but by the time we reached them, Gord’s legs were trembling. I decided to wait until he recovered, and made some hot tea while we waited. In the meantime, I pondered what kind of insanity had prompted George to include this novice in his group.

I also wondered why Gord’s pack was so hard. It felt more like metal containers than compressed dope.

When we set off again, I gave George my GPS and charged him with staying on the route that I had planned. I stayed next to Gord and tried to coach him. He fell a few more times, but his stance was improving, and because I helped him to get up each time, this was no longer taking such a toll on his energy. As well, I noticed that Yuri had laced Gord’s tea with more pharmaceutical assistance.

In this way, we managed to drop about a third of the way down. The visibility was improving, with much smaller snowflakes, and the wind had almost stopped. I could see George and the others ahead of us and was able to ascertain that he was not straying off course. I was actually starting to believe that we could make it down to the glacier below. Crossing the glacier had its challenges, but at least it was flat. Then there was one more modest ridge to cross, and we would be across the border.

We stopped for a short lunch. Food was getting low anyway.

I instructed the group to put their skins back on.

“What the fuck for?” George asked. “We’re going downhill.”

“There are some rocky parts ahead of us. It’s easier to control your speed with skins.”

“That’s because you don’t know how to ski,” George said.

“Look, George, are you here for the turns or to get across the border?”

He glared at me but didn’t reply. I saw a quick smile flit across Thanh’s usually impassive face.

With the skins on, we could no longer just swoop down the slopes. We had to zigzag to make the descent gradual, and this slowed our progress dramatically.

Despite this, there were a couple of places where we had to make a traverse on a narrow ledge with a steep slope below us. I generally stuck with Gord and coaxed him through these spots. I kept telling him to look ahead, but somehow he could not resist occasionally glancing down the steep drop beside him. Sometimes his legs would begin to tremble, and then I would tell him to stop, breathe deeply, and would not allow him to go on until his legs were steady.

We were now descending through a light mist, but it had stopped snowing, and visibility had improved to the point that on occasion I could actually see the glacier below. Unfortunately, at our pace we wouldn’t be able to reach it before dark, but at least I could find a more sheltered spot, in case the wind picked up. I decided to keep moving as long as possible, despite the fact that even the stronger members of our party were starting to show signs of fatigue. I called for a quick stop to allow everyone to hydrate and gulp down some food, and then we pressed on.

Gord was starting to handle the difficult parts better. Given a couple of years in the backcountry, he would probably become a competent mountaineer.

We were crossing a part that was fairly steep. I had asked the others to wait while I went ahead and packed down a firm, if narrow, traverse into the side of the steep slope. There was a cliff band above us, so there was little danger of avalanche from that direction. By cutting the snowpack with my skis, I was testing to see whether the slope below us was likely to go. If it did go, I had little hope of getting rescued by my companions. The one quick transceiver exercise we had done indicated that it would take them far too long to find and dig me out.

The slope did not slide, and I went back and instructed the group to cross one at a time and wait for me at a protected spot ahead.

They navigated the traverse, and I could see them waiting ahead. Only Gord and I were left. I had to allow him to cross by himself, because the traverse was too narrow for two.

“Keep your weight on your downhill ski,” I said. He nodded, and started across. He was doing well until he came to the middle. At this spot the slope above was so steep that Gord could reach out with his left hand and almost touch the slope above him. I suppose the temptation to steady himself was too much, and he leaned in toward the mountain. Before I could warn him, his skis slid out from under him, and he started to rag-doll down the slope to his right, which was equally steep.

An experienced mountaineer would have been able to self-arrest, but Gord was anything but experienced. He kept going, flipping head over heels. While terrifying, the damage would not be severe, since the snow was soft. But as a sudden breeze blew apart the curtain of mist, I suddenly realized that there was another rock band far below us. The slope was relatively gentle there, but Gord was heading straight for it at high speed. The small figure hit the rocks and came to a stop. He did not move.

I quickly stripped off my skins and skied down at full speed. Kicking off my skis and dropping my pack, I ran out into the rocks.

Gord was unconscious, but there was no sign that he had hit his head. The pack had also protected his spine. However, his right pant leg was soaked with blood. I cut away his pants and nearly vomited. The broken end of a bone was protruding through the skin of his thigh.

I put a tourniquet on his thigh, because the blood was pulsing out of the wound. Then I used his poles, which had been clutched in his hands, to fashion a splint.

By this time the others had arrived. I don’t know how they had come down the steep slope. In retrospect, I was amazed that we had not triggered an avalanche in the process.

We made camp on a flat spot nearby. While the rest retired to their individual snow caves, Yuri and George conferred in Russian about Gord. I noticed that Yuri referred to him as “professor,” and I finally understood why they’d bring along someone so inexperienced. They needed him to process the drugs they carried.

I was trying to make dinner from the sparse supplies we had left. Gord was laid out on the flat platform we had dug for the kitchen. Though he was unconscious, he moaned occasionally, and his breathing seemed shallow. We had to get him to a hospital soon, or he would lose his leg. Worse, he could die from shock and infection.

Yuri injected him, and Gord’s breathing became more regular, and he seemed to go into a deep sleep. George told Yuri to give him another injection, setting off a rapid discussion that I couldn’t follow. Yuri injected Gord again.

It took me a long time to melt the snow required to make our evening meal. We had food enough for one more day, and at best we still had two days of travel ahead of us, possibly three. The liquid would allow me to stretch the supplies.

As I went about making dinner, I tried not to think about the events of the day. I had fucked up in so many ways on this trip! If my examiners had witnessed this disaster, they would have immediately yanked my guide’s ticket for incompetence. Fortunately for me, the illicit nature of the job ruled out making a report, but that didn’t change the fact that, in my own heart, I knew.

Gord had been placed into Yuri’s snow cave and appeared to be sleeping peacefully. The rest of the group gathered quietly in the kitchen to consume dinner, and eventually the big Russian joined them. When he walked past me, my nose indicated that happy hour had already started.

To my astonishment, Omar spoke to him in Russian, and then Thanh joined the conversation. I finally realized that this was a Russian mob operation after all. Probably George, Gord, Scarface, and Omar were Uzbeks or something. Where Thanh fit in was puzzling, but he spoke Russian, so he was definitely part of the organization.

While my mind was occupied with trying to sort this out, the bursts of Russian became an unintelligible background noise, and thus I was surprised when Yuri suddenly jumped on Omar, bringing him to the ground, and started to pummel his face with his big fist. After a moment of shocked hesitation, I tried to pull the big Russian off, but it wasn’t until Thanh helped me that we were able to stop Yuri from totally demolishing Omar’s face. Even the two of us had difficulty restraining the bastard-he kept trying to break loose to get at Omar again, all the while screaming what I recognized as curses that called into question the sexual practices of Omar’s mother. It took George to finally resolve the conflict. He simply pulled the gun that I had seen once before, issued a terse command in a low, guttural voice, and Yuri slunk off to his cave. The remains of his dinner lay spilled in the snow, so I suspect he supplemented his meal from his flask.

Omar sat on the snow, blood dripping between his fingers as he held his face. Thanh and I convinced him to let us inspect the damage; his right eye was swollen shut, a front tooth had been knocked out, and blood was streaming from his nose and mouth. As far as I could tell, his nose wasn’t broken. I fixed him up as best I could. By this time it was dark, and everyone drifted off to their caves to sleep, except for Thanh, who stayed behind to clean up and help with preparing food for the next day.

“Where did you learn Russian?” I asked him.

He looked at me, and for a moment I thought I had made a mistake. “University,” he finally said.

It seemed that getting information from Thanh was hopeless, and we finished our task in silence. I was about to go to my cave, but to my surprise, Thanh sat down on one of the seats we had carved out of the snow. He pulled something from his pocket. His headlamp revealed that it was five cigarettes inside a plastic bag. He carefully took one out, found a lighter, and lit it. There was evident pleasure in his features as he inhaled deeply.

“Why did you visit Vietnam?” he asked, looking at me through the tendrils of smoke drifting out of his nostrils.

“I was climbing in Asia, and I had always wanted to see the country. I heard about what the Americans did…”

His face turned hard, and he inhaled deeply. Then he turned off his headlamp, so I could no longer make out his features. His voice had a haunting quality, disembodied, as if a specter from the past had replaced the material presence that he had presented to my eyes a few moments before.

“You don’t know what the Americans did. Nobody really understands.”

I was standing near him. I had switched off my headlamp earlier, and I waited in silence, not moving, not even breathing. The dark night congealed around us, except for the orange glow from the tip of Thanh’s cigarette. Time stood still.

“I loved my sister. She was ten years older, like a second mother. The American soldiers came to my father’s restaurant, and she served them food.”

There was a long silence. The cigarette glowed bright, faded, glowed bright again.

“I tried to pull him off her, but I was small, only four years old. He smelled like rotten milk. I didn’t understand until I was much older what the soldier did. When my father found out, he went to the colonel. They offered him money, and my mother said to take it. Two weeks later my sister walked into the river.” The orange tip of the cigarette described an arc in the blackness and was extinguished. I heard his footsteps crunching in the snow as he headed for his cave.

I stood there, motionless, for a long time.

I woke the next morning and lay snuggled in my warm sleeping bag. I could hear that the wind had picked up during the night; the storm had regained some of its fury. I turned over on my stomach and saw the weak gray light of dawn filtered by swirling snow. I could barely make out Yuri’s bulky form as he crawled out of his cave and lumbered toward the cave occupied by George.

The memory of the events of the previous day shot through me as if I had just grabbed a high-voltage cable. We had to get Gord to a hospital right away. At best we were two days from civilization, considering that we would have to carry him in some kind of toboggan. We were running out of food, and the storm would make travel almost impossible. My incompetence had created this crisis.

I shot out of my cave, and was just pulling on my jacket when I saw that Yuri and George were dragging Gord out of Yuri’s cave. I rushed over and immediately saw that Gord was dead.

“Froze,” George said. Though Gord’s face was as white as alabaster, I could still see traces of dried foam at the corners of his lips. Only once before in my life, during my druggie days in Berkeley, had I seen a face like that.

“I’ll make a toboggan,” I said.

“What for?” George asked.

“How else are we going to carry him?”

George and Yuri exchanged glances, and suddenly I realized how naive I had been. What did I expect? That they would take Gord to the U.S. authorities for an autopsy?

The realization that I was party to murder hit me with the force of a ten-ton truck. I stood frozen, while George and Yuri dragged the body off into the swirling snow.

I’m ashamed to say that I went back to my snow cave, took off my jacket and boots, and crawled back into the warmth of my sleeping bag. I fell asleep immediately.

When I woke again, I felt like I had been drugged. My limbs were leaden, and I had lost the desire to ever move again. I lay there for what seemed like a long time, my head pulled into the cocoon of my sleeping bag, my eyes squeezed shut. I kept hoping it had all been a bad dream, but the howling of the wind outside pulled me back to the inescapable reality of total failure, of my culpability.

When I emerged, the full force of the storm hit me. I had to lean forward to move toward the kitchen, and I couldn’t see more than a couple of meters as fat flakes were whipped into my face.

As I got closer, I saw that the whole group was gathered in the kitchen, with their packs in a circle. Were these people totally insane? There was no way we could move in such a storm. I trudged toward the group, and I could hear snatches of loud conversation above the wind but could not make out any words. I noticed that Gord’s pack was in the middle of the circle, and they were dividing up the contents among the other packs. George was just removing something; it looked like a blue metal canister. I stopped. Why would they have the drugs in metal containers? George carried the small canister as if it were quite heavy, in fact as if it were solid metal.

They had their backs to me and, with the wind howling, did not notice my approach. I quickly retreated to my cave, crawled in, and lay there thinking for a long time. Being an incompetent guide was one thing; there’s no excuse for being profoundly stupid.

I had drifted off to sleep again, and awoke to George yelling at me to wake up. He had stuck his head into my little cave and was shaking my shoulder with a grip that was unnecessarily rough.

When I emerged, the group was assembled in the kitchen, ready to move. It was snowing, but the wind had died down. There was a small pile of personal gear-sleeping bags and clothes-which George told me to put into my pack.

I tried to talk them out of moving with such poor visibility.

“What do you suggest,” George asked, “that we sit here and starve to death?”

We made slow progress for the remainder of the day. The packs were heavier, the terrain steep, and what had happened to Gord made everyone cautious. I noticed that even Scarface, who was clearly the most experienced in the mountains, was not as fluid in his motions.

Fat flakes of snow floated down steadily, creating a many-layered arras in front of us. But we managed to descend most of the way as it started to get dark. The curtain of snow had thinned out, and as we stood on a ridge, I saw the vast flat expanse of a glacier below us. Beyond that, I knew, was one more range, and then the U.S. border. With any luck, our ordeal would be over in two days.

I woke the next morning to find that a dense fog had settled onto the landscape. The view of the glacier from the previous evening had been replaced by a claustrophobia-inducing closeness.

We had to make do with a sparse breakfast, and I could not hide from the others that beyond that evening, we would be running on empty. Yuri was particularly vocal in his complaints, and he no longer hid his drinking.

Because of the fog, it took us much longer than I had anticipated to descend to the glacier. Dusk caused the mist to congeal around us; we were now on the glacier, but still had most of it to cross.

The setting of the invisible sun was marked only by a gradual attenuation of the already meager light. I dropped my pack, and the others came up behind me and unloaded their burdens as well. George, who had been at the back of the line, saw us standing there and said, “It’s not time to stop yet.”

“It’s getting dark. I can’t see where we’re going,” I pointed out.

“We have GPS. We gotta keep moving.”

“Go ahead, George. You can lead the way.”

“How much longer to the border?”

“At this rate, two more days.” This raised a chorus of groans.

“Two more days, two more days. You always say two more days. Are we even going in the right direction?” George asked.

“You have the GPS. You tell me.”

“We’re out of food,” Yuri put in.

I turned to him. “Going ahead in the dark is suicide. The glacier is full of crevasses. Better to go slow and get there alive.”

I used up the last of our food to make a thin, confused stew that night. Yuri supplemented his portion with his inexhaustible supply of vodka. He sat there, whittling on some wood that he had picked up the day before. His drinking had never created any signs of inebriation in the past, but tonight the strokes of his knife became more and more savage, and an insane expression gradually suffused his face.

I was cleaning up the dishes and had my back to the group, but listened to the conversation, trying to pick out words from Russian that would at least indicate the general topic of the discussion. Omar drifted over to help me; his face was still a mess from the beating Yuri had administered.

“What kind of name is Sierra, anyway?” he asked at one point.

“I changed it when I came to Canada. My original name is James.”

“You’re not Canadian?”

“Nah. I’m a draft dodger.”

“From the States?” I turned to look at him. He seemed quite agitated.

“From the States?” he repeated.

“Well, yeah.”

“You’re American!”

“I’ve been here thirty-seven years. I’m a Canadian citizen.”

Omar stared at me from the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut and then walked back to the others, who were still conversing in Russian. I was about to head off to sleep when I was confronted by George, Omar, and Thanh.

George started. “You’re American.”

“No, I’m a Canadian citizen. What the fuck’s the difference, anyway?”

Their angry expressions told me that there was a difference.

“I came here a long time ago so I wouldn’t be drafted.”

“But you’re American,” George insisted.

I decided to change tack. “Look, I have a warrant for my arrest in the U.S. for selling dope, in addition to being a draft dodger. That’s why I can only take you a short way past the border. But I’ll get you and your cargo there. I don’t care that you’re carrying drugs. I used to be a dealer myself.” I had never before exaggerated my involvement with drugs.

The three of them exchanged glances. Whatever it was that they were going to do next, it didn’t happen, because suddenly there was a burst of loud Russian from behind them. Yuri was half standing, knife in one hand, wood in the other, roaring at Scarface. I could make out only one word of his tirade-Taliban. The insane expression on Yuri’s face was terrifying, even from where I stood. His face was a deep red, glistening with sweat, and his eyes were tiny brown spots. His bristly hair stood on end like threatening porcupine’s quills.

Scarface was sitting, impassive, except that the scar was like a white lightning bolt against the livid color that suffused the rest of his face.

Though he was in a posture to spring on Scarface with the knife, it was unclear whether Yuri actually intended to do so. Nevertheless, in a motion that my eyes could barely follow, Scarface reached inside his parka, pulled out a black gun, and shot Yuri square in the forehead. The bullet went out the back of his skull with a spurt of blood, and Yuri, still in a squat, tumbled over backward.

For a moment it was as if I were in a wax museum that was displaying a tableau frozen in time. Only the crimson stain seeping from Yuri’s head into the snow got larger. Scarface sat rigidly pointing his gun to where Yuri had been, and my three interrogators, half turned toward him, looked like statues with their torsos awkwardly twisted.

Then everyone exploded into action. George confirmed that Yuri was dead, kicking the knife in his hand away from the body, and then started shouting at Scarface, who stood with his right arm hanging limply but still clutching the gun.

They ignored me while they stripped Yuri’s body. His skin was as white as the snow around him, but I noticed a large reddish area on his back, as if he had a sunburn. Omar and Thanh burned the bloodstained clothes while Scarface and George dragged the naked body off somewhere into the darkness. The red stain in the snow was covered up, and by the time those two returned, the camp looked entirely normal. Scarface sat down and rapidly disassembled and cleaned his gun and put it back together. This was a man who knew his weapon.

Suddenly I was the one who felt out of his depth, as a military atmosphere suffused the camp. George issued terse orders, and the others carried them out without question. They soon turned their attention to me. My ankles and wrists were tied, and George decided that he liked my company after all, because he crawled into my cave with his sleeping bag next to mine. He had a rope tied to his wrist, the other end of which was looped around my throat. I awoke several times during the night to the sensation that I was suffocating; whenever George turned over, the loop would tighten around my neck, and I’d be forced to turn with him. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep. I guess Lana was right-I have issues about getting close.

When George and I did our synchronized crawl out of the snow cave the next morning, we were greeted by fog that was, if anything, more dense than the day before. This was surprising. It was rare for conditions to stay stable for such an extended period, because weather systems in the mountains tend to evolve rapidly. True, we were on the glacier, which forms an extended flat area and is more conducive to allowing a stable system.

Not that I could even tell that we were on the glacier. I could barely make out the openings to the snow caves where the others were sleeping, just five meters from me.

Our remaining provisions consisted of some coffee and a tiny bag of oatmeal, and George let me off my leash only long enough so that I could melt snow and prepare this travesty of a breakfast.

As I went about my tasks, I pondered my situation. I thought seriously about just making a break and leaving them. Surviving without my pack would have been difficult, but not impossible. In any case, I had little doubt that George would dispose of me once I led them across the border.

However, even if I abandoned the group, there was a chance that they would survive to carry out their mission. Scarface clearly had mountaineering skills. I had to chuckle at my dilemma. Owen and the other self-righteous activists always said that we all have to choose sides at some point. Circumstances sometimes force us to make surprising choices.

As I ruminated on this, my foot came in contact with something hard that was wedged into the crack under a block of snow that I was using as a makeshift counter. I bent down. In the dim light of dawn I saw the dark handle of Yuri’s knife that George had kicked away from that inert body. Looking around to make sure no one observed me, I tucked the knife inside my parka.

Later, the process of dividing up the contents of Yuri’s pack took place. George tied me up again, leaving me inside my snow cave, but even in the mist it was pretty obvious that it wasn’t drugs they were transporting. As I peered out the opening, I could make out another blue metal canister, and something square that must have been a piece of electronics inside a layer of cushioning.

Soon we were under way again. Even under less bizarre circumstances it would have been advisable to rope ourselves together. If any of us fell into a crevasse, the others would prevent him from falling too far.

The storm a few days previously had dumped a large amount of snow over the area. This meant that the crevasses were difficult to detect. Over the winter, a snow bridge often forms over a crack in the ice. As long as it’s cold, these snow bridges are strong enough to support a person crossing them. In spring, the bridges melt, revealing the gaping openings in the deep ice of the glacier. The most dangerous time is in between. The snow hides the traps but is not strong enough to support someone crossing over them.

We trudged along almost in lockstep, one long rope looped through the climbing harnesses that we all wore. I was in the lead, with George behind me, followed by Omar, Thanh, and then Scarface at the back.

Progress was slow, because of the poor visibility. Scarface had the GPS, and he occasionally shouted to me if I wandered too far from the correct heading. His voice sounded as if it came from another world, muffled by the fog. I could see no more than a couple of meters ahead, and when I looked back, I could see George, but Omar was a dark blur, and my eyes could not penetrate to see Thanh or Scarface.

George called for frequent stops. Their packs were obscenely heavy, having increased 50 percent as their numbers dropped. Mine, in contrast, got lighter as we used up all our food, since they were unwilling to trust me with their lethal cargo.

In the dull rhythm of putting one ski in front of the other, I had lots of time to consider exactly what these men were carrying. The red marks on Yuri’s back looked like radiation burns to my inexperienced eye.

We stopped again after a while, sitting in a circle, sipping from our water bottles. There was some discussion in Russian, which may have concerned sharing the load with me. The only decision made was to put Scarface immediately behind me, thus leaving Thanh at the end. There was a fair amount of loose snow from the storm, and breaking trail made the going harder. The farther back in the line one was, the more packed the trail.

“How much longer until we get out of this fog?” George asked.

“It looks like it’s settled onto the glacier for good. Once we start climbing, we’ll probably get above it.”

“How long?”

“Maybe seven kilometers. Depends on how fast we go.”

He scowled, and then gave the order to move.

About a half-hour later, as my right ski slid forward, I thought I heard a soft crunch in the snow under me. My numbed brain took a moment to decipher the meaning of this sound, but my body kept its rhythm, one ski ahead of the other, and an instant later I heard a louder crack behind me. Instinctively, I threw myself to the ground, kicked off my skis, and dug my heels into the snow; at the same time, both of my hands grabbed the rope connecting me to the others. There was a violent yank on the rope, only a little of which I was able to absorb with my arms. I was being pulled back, my heels making deep grooves in the packed snow as I slid toward a wide black opening. On the other side of the gap I could make out Thanh, in much the same situation. We continued to skid, from opposite sides, toward the edge of the crevasse, pulled by the weight of the three men dangling on our rope.

For a moment the mist thinned, and I could clearly see the horror in Thanh’s eyes as I swiftly pulled out Yuri’s knife and cut the rope. Thanh struggled, but even for the two of us the weight had been too much. Thanh’s face had a look of reproach as he disappeared over the lip of the crevasse.

I scrambled farther away from the edge, taking my skis with me. I dug a trench parallel to the opening, tied another rope to my skis, and then buried them to form an anchor. Using the rope as a belay, I crawled on my stomach until I could look over the lip.

The crevasse was very deep, and the walls were almost vertical. Not even Joe Simpson could climb out of it. I could barely see Thanh lying face-down deep below, on a narrow ledge. He looked to be unconscious, and there was a red smear near his face. I couldn’t even see the others.

I crawled back to my pack, dug out the skis, put them on, and started trudging toward the border. I could sneak into some small town, pick up a few supplies, and then head back to Nelson.

The rhythm of my motion provided a hypnotic background to the thoughts swirling around in my head. I had deliberately killed four people, yet I felt no guilt. For one thing, Thanh and I could not have held the other three, so the alternative was that all five of us would die.

But I had to admit that even if there had been a way to save the others, I would not have done it. Like Oetzi, their bodies, along with their lethal cargo, would be spit out by the glacier in a few thousand years. I wondered if any humans would be left to find them.

As a kid, during the Cold War, I had lived with the constant threat of nuclear war. It had been averted, and we believed we had emerged into a new era of tranquility, where we would not have to be thinking about death from an outside, impersonal force. But we were wrong.

Terrorism became the new boogeyman. It made me think of Orwell’s 1984; our government always finds some outside threat, so that we stay docile.

I’m tired of being held hostage to someone else’s fanatical ideas, whether it’s some desperate character in the Middle East or some religious zealot in Washington. I’d rather face any danger in the wilderness than be hostage to their insanity.

I thought about what had held those six disparate men together. After all, Yuri and Scarface had most likely fought on opposite sides in Afghanistan. And how did Thanh fit in?

There was only one logical explanation. Their blind hatred of the U.S. was the bond that could overwhelm even their own natural antipathy toward each other.

I wondered what Owen would say now about my lack of political commitment.

Sometimes we’re forced to take sides, even if it’s just for a few split seconds. But that doesn’t obligate me to buy into the rest of the bullshit.

As soon as I get back to Nelson, I’m heading for high ground. If I’m lucky, I’ll have a few years before the serious shit begins.