* * *
THE
CHASING HISTORY'S
MONSTERS
crew, Levi and Annja brought their food back to their stall. The
topic of conversation was the other twenty or so guests of the caravanserai.
"Seriously," Annja said, "that's something about the developing world
you really find out when you spend enough time there—often the most
villainous-looking people turn out to be the sweetest, most honest, generous
people you could ever hope to meet in your life."
"And you think those guys are like that?" Trish asked, looking
skeptical.
"Well…no," Annja said, assessing the other guests and going on her
gut feeling rather than judging by appearance alone.
"I'm going to keep my hands clamped firmly on anything I don't want to
lose," Jason said grimly.
"If I did that I might look as if I was
inviting
attention, if you
know what I mean," Trish said.
"Are you still worried?" Hamid asked. He was showing a distressing
tendency to loom up suddenly next to private conversations. Of course, Annja
realized it was possible the man was just lonely. "Do not be afraid. If
anyone molests you, just cry out and the Gypsies will come and hit them over
the head and throw them out in the snow," he said.
"Good to know," Jason said.
They finished eating their food. Annja had definitely had worse. Then again,
she spent a lot of her time in some fairly severe parts of the world.
Shortly after eating they all decided they were ready to turn in. Jason, Tommy
and Levi had decided to share the cell at the back of the stall where they'd
been hanging out. Trish headed up the stairs. Annja stayed down to do some
stretching in a shadowed area of the big courtyard where she hoped she wouldn't
attract unwanted attention. The other occupants stayed within the scope of
their own lamps—kerosene lanterns or battery-powered—and nobody seemed to
notice her.
When she finished her workout she headed for the stairs at the corner of the
yard. A voice suddenly called out. "Yo, Annja. Hold up."
She stopped and turned. A familiar bald-headed silhouette strode toward her at
what had become an equally familiar thrusting gait.
"It seems like you've been avoiding me," Baron said. "What's up
with that?"
"Avoiding you? I've been a bit busy to pay much attention to social
interplay. I figured it was the same with you."
He laughed softly, with his jaws wide like a wolf. "Fair enough. Well
played. But I think it's time we remedied that situation. Come up to my room
with me. Relax a little. Let's get to know each other."
"I'm actually going to turn in now, Mr. Baron. In my own room. I'm in
desperate need of a good night's sleep."
He stood for a moment with his hands in the pockets of his khaki trousers.
"If I won't take no for an answer, hypothetically, would you call the
Gypsy Brothers to come hit me over the head?"
"What makes you think I'd need the Gypsy Brothers for that?" Annja
said. "Good night, Mr. Baron," she said firmly. She turned her back
on him and walked away.
* * *
BY NOON THE NEXT DAY, with the
caravanserai already many rump-tendering and lower-back-knotting hours behind
the swaying two-humped camels, the expedition had transferred themselves and
their gear back to a collection of vehicles even more motley than the last.
Evidently the Turkish army's zone of control had been successfully crossed. How
Baron—or Hamid—knew that, Annja wasn't sure. She decided to sit on her
curiosity. She didn't feel at all eager to talk to either man more than was
strictly necessary, right now.
But once again she had to acknowledge their competence at what they did. Twice
that day they'd encountered roadblocks by unmistakable
peshmerga
. In
both cases Hamid got the party through with minimal dramatics, even if that
didn't keep Annja's pulse from spiking both times.
And then in the late afternoon they rolled over a saddle between two jagged
hills, ancient drifts of black lava now fanged and pitted, to see the mighty
mountain thrust up into the sky before them, its snow-clad flanks shining
silver and rose in the light of the declining sun.
"Tell me again,"
Jason Pennigrew called out over the howl of the wind, "why anybody thought
it was a good idea to climb this damned mountain in the winter?"
"Language, Mr. Pennigrew," Josh Fairlie called back down over his
shoulder.
They staggered through snow, both shin-deep on their bulky boots and blowing
hard into their goggled faces, angling up the southwestern face of the great
cinder cone. From the days before Ararat's being designated a restricted
military zone by the Turkish army, the mountain had been a fairly popular climb
for serious mountaineers. Some fairly well-established routes had been mapped.
But this expedition used none of them. The explanation was the terse word
security
,
offered by Leif Baron.
"Christ's name, put a sock in it," Wilfork hissed at Jason and Josh
from behind Annja. "You want to bring the whole bloody mountain down
around our ears?"
Fairlie turned away. Annja thought his cheeks burned pink beneath his goggles.
It might have been from the frigid wind. For some reason he had no response to
the New Zealander's blasphemy.
While there turned out to be no such thing as an extinct volcano, as geologists
had long believed, Ararat had been dormant a long time in human terms,
suggesting it might be likely to stay that way and behave itself while being climbed.
Or alternatively, it was long overdue to blow up like the Death Star. Annja
reckoned it was a half full, half empty scenario.
Fortunately she had more immediate considerations pressing on her. Being a
cinder cone, Ararat had a fairly gentle, consistent slope, at least in its
lower reaches. After five thousand feet or so the way became increasingly
difficult. Or so Baron had assured them during their planning session in a
little isolated building near the mountain's base, the size and shape of a boxcar
and made of adobe, with a satellite dish on the roof, from which they'd
launched their assault on the peak.
And then there were the glaciers. Especially the one on the west and northwest
sides, at the edge of which, a little less than a mile and a half from the
summit, the Anomaly lay like a half-submerged log.
But even on a clear path winding up the slope to the south the footing was
tricky. Snow fresh-fallen on earlier layers of snow and ice provided uncertain
footing at the best of times. Sometimes it also hid serious stumbling blocks or
gaps. And the wind kept trying to push the climbers off the path, to send them
rolling back down the long white slope.
Plus Levi and Annja, it seemed, were Team Awkward on this climb. Annja had done
some climbing but wasn't truly trained or skilled at it. Levi had no experience
whatsoever. It turned out the Young Wolves had all studied mountaineering
techniques at the Rehoboam Christian Leadership Academy, possibly with an eye
toward this very climb—although Annja had no doubt it was used also to foster
more mundane survival and leadership skills as well. Charlie Bostitch, for all
his unwieldiness, had apparently successfully completed the same course and
knew what he was doing. So had Baron, of course, who'd also had mountain
warfare training as a SEAL—which seemed bizarre to Annja, but she knew these
days even marines got it, too. The
Chasing History's Monsters
team,
unused as they may have been to combat zones, clearly were all experienced
climbers. Annja had to give credit to Doug Morrell for choosing a trained crew
for the job. Even Wilfork, as he said, "Did a spot of mountaineering in my
misspent youth."
At midmorning they paused for a break at a relatively level spot. Jason took a
panoramic shot of the surrounding landscape. Conveniently the snow had stopped
falling.
The sun broke through the seemingly perpetual cloud cover to drop a beam of
golden radiance on the neat black cone of the four-thousand-foot Little Ararat
not far from the main peak to the southeast. To the north rose the Pontic Mountains. The Eastern Taurus range trailed away to the south.
Like many volcanoes Ararat was its own lord and master. It rose from the midst
of a rising plain, largely lava shield. Around it lay terrain rumpled like a
sheet on an unmade bed. Most of the landscape was covered in snow.
"It's really beautiful up here," Trish said, looking around in awe.
"Do not be fooled," Hamid said darkly. "For once the Turks do
not lie. They call it the Mountain of Pain."
"That's reassuring," Jason said. "What do the Kurds call
it?"
"Fiery Mountain," Hamid replied.
Wilfork sat, breathing heavily on his pack. "We're up a bloody volcano,
are we?"
"Yes," Annja said. "It's a stratovolcano. Built up of many
layers of activity."
"
Activity
. What a charming euphemism. I presume that means bloody
great belching and fuming and emitting of molten lava?"
"Pretty much. But don't worry. It's been dormant for millennia. Well,
unless you count an earthquake in 1840."
"Smashing," the journalist said. "So it might be due for another
bloody great blast."
"Don't sweat that, Mr. Wilfork," Larry Taitt said. "The Lord
won't let that happen to us."
"He knows we're doing His work," ex-marine Zach Thompson said
ominously. "He's keeping a tight watch on us."
"No doubt," Wilfork said, rolling his eyes.
Hamid thrust an arm toward the north dramatically. "That way lies Armenia. On a clear day you can see its capital of Yerevan."
Tommy turned his camera that way. "I don't know," he said, blinking
his free eye. "Looks pretty hazy up that way. Like smog or
something."
"It is smog," said Baron, who was tramping tirelessly up the line
checking gear and making sure everybody was holding up. He seemed totally
relaxed and in his element. "Not many clear days up that way. That's the
big city for you."
Hamid swept his arm around to the west. "There lies a part of Azerbaijan, cut off from the rest of the country by Armenia. And there, farther south, is Iran. And south of us—Iraq. And all of it belongs by right to the Kurds."
"I guess you'd get some argument from the Iranians and the
Azerbaijanis," Jason said. He was filming the climbing party as Tommy shot
the scenery. "Like you do from the Turks. But I guess the U.S. has you guys set up pretty good in northern Iraq, huh?"
Hamid's fierce brows knotted. "The Americans allow us to administer the
north for them, so long as we help them fight in the south. But they prevent us
from cleansing our land of the Arabs and Turcoman interlopers."
"Hey, if it were up to me, you'd have free rein to wipe the towel-heads
off the map," Baron said. "The Arabs are just scum. You can have the
Turcomans, too, for all I care."
"But your government stands aside and lets its allies the Turks shell and
bomb our people in the north!" Hamid said angrily.
Baron shook his head. It glinted in the afternoon sunlight that managed to make
it through the cloud layer. "Hey, big guy. Ease off. You're preaching to
the choir here. But I don't make policy."
"I thought in your country, all Americans could make policy, through this
democracy you try so hard to make everyone obey."
"A surprising number of Yanks suffer under that delusion, too,"
Wilfork said. Annja noted that his comment won him black looks both from the
Young Wolves and the
Chasing History's Monsters
crew.
Frowning, Baron said, "Enough slacking off. Time to climb."
* * *
HAVING APPROACHED FROM the
west—the Turkish side—they worked their way around the mountain's flank to the
eastern side. And up. The slope on this side, with the smaller satellite cone
on their right, was more gradual. They could gain a fair amount of altitude
without any scaly vertical climbs with ropes and crampons.
Of course that meant the sun set early behind the mountain's bulk. As a blue
twilight descended on them, while yellow-gray light still fell across the
broken land to the east, they pitched their tents on a broad, level patch of
ground. The quiet, red-haired Eli Holden passed out food. With his stalk neck
and not much by way of a chin he tended to remind Annja of a carrot, although a
carrot with jug-handle ears. His murky green eyes were neutral as stones
passing over her as he handed her her meal pack.
"He's a real ball of fire," Jason said as Eli passed on.
"Bummer," Tommy said. "I got the chicken fajitas. Anybody want
to trade?"
"No," a chorus of voices said. The chicken fajitas were legendarily
bad.
They gathered into a circle. The tents gave some shelter from the wind, which
had thankfully begun to die away as the sun set in the greater world beyond
Ararat's bulk. Bostitch had insisted on taking full tents along, even though
he'd warned them they might find themselves needing to pass at least one night
hanging from a sheer precipice by bivouac bags. But he said, and Baron backed
him, that they'd need as warm and comfortable a sleep as they could get every
night on the great mountain.
There was no need for Annja or the
Chasing History's Monsters
crew to
worry about the excess weight in their packs. The Young Wolves all toted
massive packs and the bulk of the gear, without complaint and apparently with
little deleterious effect. Annja could hardly complain about a burden she
wasn't, after all, being asked to bear.
And for all their weird notions, and for that matter the bone-crazy notion that
underlaid this whole expedition, her employers seemed to have a firm grip on
the essential things of this world. At least as far as the expedition went.
"It was always tough, growing up in the old man's shadow," Charlie
was saying. Earlier he'd been strutting around like a bantam rooster, which he
certainly didn't resemble in any other particular, cheeks glowing with pink
patches of health. Now that bloom was gone, leaving gray cheeks that sagged.
"I could never measure up. No matter what I did."
"I hear you," Baron said. "It was the same way with me. Nothing
was good enough for my father. If I didn't do just what he said, just when he
said it—" he made an openhanded sweeping gesture across the front of his
body "—boom!"
Slowly Charlie nodded over his self-heated tray of food. "Yeah. Yeah, I
know just what you mean. My dad was the same way. High expectations, iron
discipline."
Given your notorious lifestyle, how well did that turn out? Annja wondered. She
didn't feel it was her place to say so. She took no pleasure in picking at
other people's psychological scabs. She noticed that the three New Yorkers were
staring at the two expedition chiefs in wide-eyed horror.
"You dudes were like, seriously abused as kids, man," Tommy said.
"No, no, nothing like that," Baron said quickly. "We're not
whining about it."
"Spare the rod and spoil the child," Charlie said.
"Kids need discipline," Baron agreed.
Trish set down her half-eaten MRE on the rocky soil, slapped her hands on her
thighs and stood. "I can't believe you're justifying your own abuse like
that. There ought to be some kind of law!"
"I hear you," Jason said.
"The state should just take over care of all abused children," Trish
said. "Maybe they should take an extra-close look at Protestant
fundamentalist families."
Josh gave her a narrow look. "How about unbelieving households, where
their mortal souls are in peril?"
Trish turned to Annja. "How can you just sit there and not say
anything?"
"It's not my business. I don't have any kids, or intend to for a while
yet. So it's not really something I feel competent to have an opinion on, at
this stage." She took another bite, chewed, winced a little at the flavor.
The lasagna tasted a little…used.
"Anyway, if you think taking kids away from their families and putting
them in orphanages is such a great idea, you should trying growing up in
one," she said quietly.
"Why do you always take their side?" Trish said.
"I'm not taking sides. I'd really prefer there not be any sides. Can't it
just be all of us against the mountain and the elements?"
"Coward!" Trish said and turned and marched off to her tent.
"My old man always said the Bible gave the father dominion over household
as it gave Man dominion over the beasts," someone said.
Despite Annja's having spent the last few days cheek-to-cheek with pretty much
the whole group she almost didn't recognize the voice. It was low, just above a
whisper.
Fred Mallory was the olive-skinned bodybuilder with his black hair cut high and
tight like a marine's. As far as Annja knew he'd never served in the military,
although passing through Baron's rigorous course of instruction, that might not
make much functional difference. She didn't remember hearing him say anything
at all.
"He used to use this big heavy old belt. He'd use the buckle end. If we
cried out he'd just hit us harder. He said…a Bible-believing man had the right
to do anything he wanted with what God give him. He made us serve him…all kinds
of ways."
The wind had died down. The silence seemed to echo. The faces of his Rehoboam Academy cohorts were no less horrified as they stared at him.
"Dude," Tommy said. "Dude."
"That's a whole lot of information," Josh Fairlie said. "Maybe
too much sharing, you know."
"It was God's will!" The young man's muscles all seemed to be swelling
to the point of bursting. Veins stood out on his forehead and the sides of his
neck. Annja worried he was about to give himself a stroke.
"We had to obey it, or we'd be damned," he said.
"Face it, Fred," Josh said, rearing back a bit. "Your father was
wrong and that's all there is to it."
"You can't talk that way about my daddy!"
"I'm just saying you should face facts. It's part of being a leader. And a
Christian. Facing up to unpleasant realities with the Lord's help and asking
the Lord for strength to deal with them."
"He's right," Zach Thompson said.
Fred shot to his feet like a piston and stamped away into the night. Josh shook
his head. "Poor guy needs to pray for the strength to hear truth."
"I don't know," Jeb said. "I think he's right."
"The Bible says honor your father," Zeb said.
"St. Paul says the father's the boss in the household," Jeb said.
Jason scowled at the twins. "Okay, now you're starting to get into scary
territory, too."
"Just shut up about that," Baron said, standing up more deliberately
than the last two to do so. "Now see what you jokers have done. I'm gonna
have to go talk Fred off the ledge."
"Fred always was a bit tightly wrapped," Zach said.