Read Online Snowblind by Daniel Arnold - Free Book Online

racing around, losing their heads. They get infected by thepeople and the mountains.” But what if I wanted to get infected? “I like to think that each extraneous motion adds a drop of fluid to the brain”—that’s him, still going, he talked real slow, like he was charming a snake—“the cerebral edema, you know. It’s not scientific, but I find it useful.”
    â€œYou look tense,” Hubert whispered. He had a moustache like two squirrel tails stapled to his lip. He spoke so softly I had to lean in to hear him. Even then I felt like I was trying to read his lips. “Sit down. Have tea.”
    I found out they had the best résumés of any of us. Broad Peak. Ama Dablam. Annapurna. Still, we were all B- and C-listers. None of us with sponsors or big names, except for Bill, and him only because of his money. None of us had done anything important that hadn’t been done before. So our reasons for climbing the mountain were strictly personal, and that, at least, seemed right to me at the time.
    Bill came back with the other four and convened a meeting. “Come here,” he said, “gather round.” As if he were trail boss, or maybe Moses—maybe he thought he was the burning bush, for all I know. He had methods. He had principles. Now that we were all together, he could get on with the business of extolling them. Have you ever seen Bill? He’s got this wavy hair that comes down low in the back, like he’s the wild man in the executive suit. His eyes open a little too wide. I don’t know whether he does that on purpose, but it gives you the feeling he’s seeing something you can’t. When he gets going, the veins stand out in his neck. He’s a big broad-shouldered dude. I bet high-heeled women and corporate soldiers get all fluttery around him.
    What was he saying? It was inspiring. It was invigorating. We were his lieutenants, his comrades. He had built the expedition like a machine, and each of us was a part with a job to do. He expected us to work hard, keep our heads down, do our part for the greater glory. The machine depended on each of us, and we depended on the machine. It was bizarre. Like Lenin lecturing in the boardroom. We were being collectivized by a capitalist. We were being sent to war. Once I had the gist of it, I stopped listening and watched the other faces. Frank and Hubert—that’s the lawyer and the doctor—looked attentive. Kind of like buzzards. They could have been watching theater with maybe the hope of a meal afterward. Three of the four I hadn’t met looked freakily rapt. They were receiving a message. Strong, shining faces ready for the campaign. March on, soldiers! The last of the four was also looking around, and we caught each other’s eye and shared a moment.
    Everyone else called him Stump because of his build—short, wide, and strong—but he introduced himself to me as Gregor, so I called him that. Later on, I asked him how it was that we were climbing in the middle of a corporate team-building exercise. One of the others, Alan, was a stockbroker! Another one—Luther—liked to talk about “bagging” the mountain as if he were going to stuff it and put it on his wall. Where were the bearded vagabonds? I had read the books. I knew who was responsible for setting the Himalayan standard. Hairy vegetarians and bleak, foul-mouthed Brits, and none of them had retirement accounts.
    â€œYou tell me,” Gregor said, “how an unsponsored hippie gets to the Himalaya today. Who pays the permit fee?” When he talked, herumbled. His voice came up out of his chest. “Where’s-ah-money-come-from?” Like that—no real spaces between words. He told me that if I was hoping for bearded desperadoes and poets, I should have tried hitchhiking on an expedition from the Czech Republic or Slovenia, not America. So what in the hell happened to us? I mean, we started