Northern Lights

a job. "All right then. Peter, let's get the generator going. Peach, get ahold of the fire department. Let's get a crew together and clear off the sidewalks as soon as it's light enough, so people can get around if they need to. Priorities are around the clinic and the station. When Otto gets here, tell him the Mackies are passed out on the pool table at The Lodge. Let's make sure they get home in one piece."
    He pulled on his parka as he worked down his mental checklist. "Let's see if we can get an ETA on when power's going to be back on. People are going to want to know. Phones, too. When I get back in, we'll work up an announcement, have the radio run it, about what we know when we know it. I want people to know we're here if they need help."
    And that, too, Nate discovered, felt good.
    "Peter?"
    "Right behind you, chief."
     
     
    JOURNAL ENTRY . February 18, 1988
     
    Nearly lost Han in a crevice today. It happened so fast. We're climbing, pumped up, a few hours from the summit. Cold, hungry, edgy, but pumped. Only a climber understands the juice of that combination. Darth's in the lead, the only way to keep him from pitching another shitfit, then Han, and I'm bringing up the flank.
    But I forgot yesterday. The days are starting to blur now, one cold, white door opening to the next cold, white door.
    I was lost in the rhythm of my own pounding head, in the spell of the climb, in the rise of white. We crawled and grunted our way up a rock pitch, moving well, aiming for heaven.
    I heard Darth shout, Rock! And the cannonball of the boulder he'd dislodged spat out from that long chimney, whizzing by Han's head. I had an instant to think, no, I don't want to go this way, smashed by some fist of God, sucker punched off the mountain. It missed me, as it had Han, by inches, flying by in a finger snap of time, and crashing, bringing a quick and jagged rain of other rocks with it.
    We cursed Darth, but then we curse one another over anything and everything now. Most of it in companionable good humor. It helps surge the adrenaline as we get higher, and the air's so thin that breathing is an exercise in pain and frustration.
    I knew Han was flagging, but we pushed on. Pushed on, driven by obsession and Darth's relentless insults.
    His eyes look mad behind his goggles. Mad and possessed. While I think of the mountain as a bitch when I'm driving into her belly with ax and frozen fingers, she's a bitch I love. I think for Darth she's a demon, and one he's hell-bent to conquer.
    We bedded down that night by tying ourselves into pitons with the black world beneath us and the black sky above.
    I watched the lights, a dazzle of liquid jade across that mirror of black.
    Again today Darth took the lead. Being first seems to be another obsession, and arguing wastes time. In any case, I was concerned enough about Han to see the value of taking the flank, keeping the weakest of us in the middle.
    So it was Darth's need to be first, and my position in the rear, that saved the life of one of our trio.
    We'd packed the rope away. I'd said already that it was too cold for rope, didn't I? Again, we were moving well, moving up in the bright sparkle of the short day with even our curses whipped away by the roar of the wind.
    Then I see Han stumble and start to slide. It was like the ground disappeared under him.
    A moment's carelessness, a patch of windslab snow, and he was tumbling toward me. I don't know, I swear, if I caught him or if he sprouted wings and flew. But our hands locked, and I slapped my ax into the ice, praying it would hold, praying the bitch wouldn't belch us both into the void. For eternity I was on my belly, holding his hands while he dangled over the edge of nothing. We're screaming, both of us, and I'm trying to dig in with my toes, but we're slipping, sliding. Another few seconds and it would've been let him go or both of us are gone.
    Then Darth's ice ax cleaved into the ground beside me—an inch from my shoulder, and the pistoning of my heart cranked up to jackhammer. He used it for purchase, and reached down to grab Han's arm. Some of the weight lifted from my screaming muscles, and I was able to dig in, belly back. Bellying back, the two of us, pulling Han up with the blood boiling in our ears and our hearts slamming in our chests.
    We rolled back from the edge, lay there on the snow, shaking under that cold, yellow sun. Shaking for what seemed hours, feet away from death and disaster.
    We can't laugh about it.