Authors: Jennifer Donnelly
"A good climber would turn back. You know that."
"No, you're wrong. A weak climber would turn back. A good climber would reach the summit."
"Summiting's only half the battle. We still have to descend."
"If you were with George Mallory right now instead of me, would you tell him to go down?"
Seamie looked away. He said nothing.
"No, you wouldn't. So why are you telling me?"
"Because--"
Willa cut him off. "Because I'm a woman."
"No, Willa, that's not why."
"Why, then? Tell me."
Seamie looked away. Because I care for you, he thought, and if anything ever happened to you it would kill me.
"I thought so," Willa said angrily. "Do me a favor, Seamie. Don't
patronize me. I get that from the rest of the world. I don't need it
from you."
Seamie's anger flared. "Go, then," he snapped. "After you."
He knew what he was doing. He was telling her to lead. To pull
herself up a seventy-degree slope using only crampons, axes, and brute
strength. To cut steps where needed into thick, hard ice. It was hard
work under normal circumstances. At nearly sixteen thousand feet, when
you were sick and your lungs could not draw enough oxygen, it was
crucifying.
"Get out of my way and I bloody well will," she said.
He readied his gear, then watched her attack the icefall. He could
hear her breathing. She was laboring to draw quick, deep breaths. She'd
learned the technique from Mallory on one of their Alps climbs. It
helped get more oxygen into the lungs. Within minutes of her start,
Seamie's anger was forgotten. He loved to watch her climb. She was
breathtaking, one of the most technically gifted climbers--male or
female--he'd ever seen. She seemed not so much to climb a face, but to
flow up it, her every movement fluid and sure. She seemed to know by
instinct where to place her hands, her feet. Holds he was certain were
too small, weren't. Others he was sure would give way, didn't. She lost
her footing once, slipping a good ten feet before she arrested her fall
with one of her axes--nearly giving him a heart attack in the bargain--
but even with the slip, she still made it up the icefall in under an
hour.
Looking at her, so strong and graceful, so damned determined to reach
the peak, he realized that he'd been wrong the other night, when she
asked him what made a great mountain climber. They'd both been wrong. It
wasn't skill or fearlessness, strength or arrogance. It was longing. A
great unquenchable yearning for that which was always just out of reach.
He saw it in her, that longing, that greatness. She would not be
denied.
Two minutes later she was hanging over the edge, smiling down at him.
"I'm on a col!" she shouted gleefully. "With a lovely huge boulder!
I've got a belay! Hold on!"
A few minutes later the rope that had been coiled over her shoulder
came flying down to him. He grabbed it, looped it around his waist, and
tied it with a bowline. He started up the icefall, distressed to see
drops of crimson on it. Her bleeding was worsening. They mustn't mess
around. He was very glad of the belay. It was a huge boon. Between the
rope and his crampons, he was up the icefall in minutes.
"There it is!" she said, pointing due south of where they stood. "Alden-Finnegan peak!"
"Looks solid," Seamie said excitedly. "And it's Finnegan-Alden peak, by the way."
Willa laughed. "We've some powdery snow to contend with. And a few
rocks, but most look well sunk in. We shouldn't have any movement. Let's
go."
It was only a short distance to the peak and straightforward. Half an
hour later they were only steps away. Seamie was in the lead. Three
yards from the top he stopped, looked at Willa, and stepped aside.
"No," she said. "Together."
She took his hand. He pulled her up alongside him and they took the
last few steps in unison, each placing a foot on the summit at the same
time. They were quiet for a moment, breathlessly taking it all in--Kibo
to the west, the ocean to the east, the hills and sweeping plains north
and south of them. And then Seamie let out a loud, long, echoing whoop.
Willa did, too. And suddenly they were jumping up and down in the snow
like children, shouting and laughing, giddy from adrenaline, exhaustion,
and too little oxygen. Willa threw her arms around him. He hugged her,
pulling her close, burying his face in her neck, and then it
happened--without planning to, without meaning to, he kissed her. He
tasted her mouth, the blood on her lips. He felt her twine her arms
around his neck and then she was kissing him back.
He broke away and looked at her, at her beautiful, weary face. He
took her face in his hands and kissed her again and again and then guilt
and despair broke through his happiness and overwhelmed him and he
pulled away again. "God, I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have
kissed you. Good Christ, what a cockup. I'm sorry."
Willa's face, so radiant only seconds ago, clouded. "Sorry? Why?"
He looked at her as if he hadn't heard her correctly. "Because of George."
Worry filled her eyes. "I don't understand, Seamie. Is there something between you and George?"
"Me and George? No, there damn well isn't! It's you and George!"
"You think that George and I... that we... that we're lovers?"
"Aren't you? The way you were with him in the pub in Cambridge... you kissed him good night."
"I kissed Albie good night, too."
"Albie's your brother."
"And George is my second brother. If I kissed him, it was just like
kissing Albie, believe me. Why didn't you ask me about George? Or ask
George about me? He would have told you. He has no time for girls, only
mountains. You daft man. Why didn't you say something in Cambridge?"
"Too jealous, I guess."
"I wanted you so. I would have kissed you on top of St. Botolph's."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I'd already done it in my garden!"
"That was five bloody years ago!"
"It would've been twice that I'd taken the lead. Just how forward is a
girl supposed to be? I thought you had someone else. I thought you
must."
"No, Wills."
"I wanted you every night of that damned boat ride. Every night at
the Mombasa Club. I wanted you to make love to me. When you didn't, I
thought it was because of another girl."
"There's no other girl, Wills. Never has been. Not since that night in your back garden. Under Orion."
He kissed her again, long and slow and deeply. Never in his life had
he felt like this, so happy, so complete. Insanely excited, yet calm and
content. On a mad impulse, he took her hands in his and said, "I love
you, Willa."
He thought she might laugh. Blush. Scold him. Tell him he was insane.
Instead she simply said, "I love you, too. Always have. Since forever."
She kissed him then and they took one long, last look at the view.
And took photographs, two of each of them, with the camera Seamie had
lugged up in his pack.
It was nearly one o'clock when they began their descent. The sun was
high and bright, but neither Seamie nor Willa, reeling from attaining
the summit, and from what had happened between them there, noticed. They
didn't notice that the black tops of rocks now peeked out on the short
stretch above the col--rocks that had been completely covered earlier.
They didn't notice the water trickling in drips off the edge of the col
and down the icefall. They didn't notice any of this until they were
back in the couloir and they realized the snow was dangerously soft.
Until Seamie lost his footing on loose rock and stopped himself sliding a
hundred feet only with a hard swing of his ice-axe.
Until ice that had embedded a rock wedged under a boulder on the
ridge above them suddenly crumbled in the afternoon heat, releasing both
rock and boulder, sending them smashing down the couloir.
Seamie didn't realize any of this until he heard the roar and looked
up in time to see the rock-slide bearing down on Willa. Until the
boulder clipped her shoulder, knocking her off the couloir. Until she
went hurtling past him, screaming, and was gone.
"Will be good harvest, no?" Wainaina, Sid's head field worker, said,
pinching off a hard red coffee berry from a lush, healthy bush.
"I think so, but I'm afraid to count my chickens."
Wainaina cocked her head. Her puzzled expression told him that she
didn't understand. Sid explained the saying's meaning to her in his poor
Kikuyu. She nodded and laughed and told him don't count his chickens,
then, but by all means, count his coffee beans. "The bushes should give a
ton," she said.
Sid snorted. "More like two, I should think."
Wainaina considered this figure. "Perhaps one and one half," she allowed.
She warned him that with a good harvest would come many demands. The
other workers were already counting up the goats they would earn. Some
would expect new fences built for their shambas, no less than twenty by
twenty. Wainaina wanted these things, too, and an iron griddle
besides--one just like the Msabu's cook had.
"Tell them they'll get their pens and their goats--and you'll get your griddle--if I get my two tons."
Wainaina nodded. Sid nodded, too. He knew this was just the opening
salvo in Wainaina's yearly battle to get all she could for herself and
her fellow workers. She had to have something to offer the other women,
something to motivate them to pick every ripe berry on every bush and
leave nothing behind. They would go back and forth, Sid and Wainaina,
with Sid demanding ever-increasing quantities of coffee and Wainaina
declaring his demands impossible, but making a few more of her own.
Another griddle. A length of cloth. Two chickens. A lantern. Sid thought
that Jevanjee and the rest of the Nairobi merchants could learn much
from her.
The sun had started to sink as they'd begun their discussion. When
they finished, Wainaina picked up an old tin pie pan and beat it with a
stick, signaling to her workers in fields near and far that it was time
to go home.
Sid bid her a good evening and headed for his own house. He was
tired. He and Wainaina and the others had spent the day hoeing and
weeding, making sure that nothing competed with the precious coffee
plants for water and nutrients. They would fuss over them continually
now until harvest time, doing everything in their power to ensure a good
crop. Sid would be dining alone tonight. Maggie had been invited to
supper at the Thompsons'. He had not. Lucy and her mother still weren't
speaking to him. Earlier in the day, he'd asked Alice to leave a plate
of something cold for him on his own table. He didn't like to eat at
Maggie's table when she was not home. As he approached his house, he saw
that it was lit up. Dusk was settling. Alice must have left the lantern
burning. A nice touch, he thought. Very welcoming. That Alice was a
good old girl.
As he got closer, he saw--to his great surprise--that a brown horse
was tethered on the far side of his house. It looked like Ellie,
Maggie's mare. Had Maggs arrived home early? And if so, why had she tied
Ellie here instead of putting her in the barn?
He saw then that the horse wasn't Ellie. Ellie was all brown. This
horse had a black muzzle and feet. He tried to place it, then realized
that the McGregors had a brown mare with black feet. He'd often seen the
missus riding out to the plains on it all by herself on a Sunday. He'd
hailed her once and asked her why.
"It's Sunday, Mr. Baxter. I'm going to church."
"Church? Where, ma'am?"
She'd made a sweeping gesture, one that encompassed the plains, the sky, and the hills.
"Right in front of you. Have you ever seen one finer?"
That was certainly Mrs. McGregor's mare. Sid hurried now, wondering
if something was wrong at their farm. He was tired from the long day and
not thinking straight. If he had been, he would have remembered that
India Lytton was staying with the McGregors while her daughter got her
strength back.
But he didn't remember. Not until he was in his doorway staring at
the woman seated at his table. Mrs. McGregor had brown hair. This woman
was blond. A few curls had sprung free of her careful twist. This woman
was beautiful, too. So damned beautiful. Six years on and she hadn't
changed. She was still slender and straight-backed, still lovely. He
felt his heart clench in his chest. Six years on, the pain of her
betrayal was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.
Her eyes were closed behind her eyeglasses. She'd been dozing. They
opened now. His footsteps had woken her. He was out of the door and down
the steps before she'd turned her head. But it was too late; she was
already on her feet.
"Mr. Baxter! Is that you?" she called from the doorway "Please don't go! I've waited here for hours for you."
Sid stopped, hands clenched at his side. He did not turn around.
"I'm sorry if I trespassed. Truly I am. I knocked on Mrs. Carr's door
first, then yours. I didn't mean to offend you. I only want to speak to
you. My daughter and I are leaving soon and she wanted to give you
this. Well, you can't see since you won't turn around, so I'll tell you
what it is. It's a photograph of her. She wanted to bring it herself,
but she couldn't. She's caught a cold, you see. Only a slight one, but
I'm worried that she's still delicate after what she went through so I
wouldn't let her come. I have left her at the McGregors', tucked up in
bed."
Sid made no reply. India advanced to the porch.
"Won't you please forgive me for intruding? It's just that I didn't
have anywhere else to wait for you. Couldn't we start again? I'll go
first. Hello, Mr. Baxter. How do you do?"
Sid turned around slowly, ever so slowly. He lifted his eyes to hers
and quietly said, "Not so well at the moment. And you, Mrs. Baxter?"
For a few seconds, India was senseless. She could not breathe. She
could not feel or hear. She could only see. Sid. Her Sid. Dead all these
years, now standing in front of her, silent tears on his cheeks.