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wanted this to take fifteen minutes, tops. Longer than that, and they'd
have to loosen the tourniquet. Things could start going wrong when that
happened.
He found the big artery and fished enough into the open to clamp it with a
hemostat.
Below the clamp, he sewed the artery tightly shut with suture, then cut the
artery to the lower leg.
'Fifteen minutes,' Carlos said.
The words startled Abe. He hadn't realized how silent the tent was.
'But I just began,' he protested.
They loosened the tourniquet and there was some blood, but not as much as Abe
had feared. 'Let's keep going,' he said. 'Pump it tight again.'
Next he sliced the hamstrings, parting the meat from its white
tendons. 'Thirty minutes,' Carlos sang out. Abe exhaled. He was going too
slowly.
'You're doing fine, Doc,' Stump told him. Frost coated the inner wall of the
tent, but sweat was gleaming on Stump's face.
Abe took a deep breath and bent to the task again and again. He cut through
vessels and nerves, only stopping long enough to cauterize the ends with
heated knife blades.
The smell overpowered several people. Abe didn't know who they were,
only that they left. He could feel the cold air rush in each time someone
went out or came in. He could hear the night wind suck and slap at the tent
canvas.
A blast of cold air blew in. 'Gus?'
Abe lifted his head. It was Daniel, eyes enormous in the kerosene light. A
moment later J.J. wrestled in through the door, bested again. 'I tried to stop
him,' he said.
'For God's sake, get him out,' Jorgens said.
'Gus?' Daniel cried.
Her leg was cinched to the roof like an elk carcass. Most of the
tissue had been debribed. The bone was white and bare. The sight unhinged
J.J. He just stood there.
'Get him out, damn it,' Jorgens yelled again.
'Daniel,' came a woman's voice. It was Kelly, blind in the corner.
Daniel was weeping.
'Daniel,' she said. 'Come with me now. Take my hand.' She was reaching from
the shadows. 'Lead me out.'
It worked. Daniel took her hand and they left.
Abe returned to the leg. Three hours passed. When he cut the final ligament,
Gus's thigh slapped onto the table. The lower leg dangled overhead
while Abe raced to finish. At midnight they laid her back in the chamber
and pumped it full of air. For another hour afterward, five of them sat around
like tornado victims, speechless.
'Poor Gus,' someone finally pronounced. It was Jorgens. 'She's
climbed her last
mountain.'
On the next afternoon, beneath another boiling white sun, they heard the sound
of an engine gunning through the snow. 'The trucks,' someone shouted,
and everyone poured into the blinding light to see their rescuers. The old
herder's two yaks stood nearby, grazing on the last of some dried grass
scattered on top of the snow.
In the far distance a vehicle was cutting straight toward them from the north.
All they could make out was the glare of its windshield between two brilliant
roostertails of slush, a ship of pure light.
'Home! We're going home!' It could have been anyone's voice. It was
everyone's sentiment.
They gathered to watch the vehicle approach. Even Li emerged from his tent to
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join in their excited babble. This was the first Abe had seen him since their
retreat from the face.
'Wait a minute,' J.J. said, shading his eyes with a piece of
cardboard. 'That's no truck. It's a Land Cruiser.'
'Makes sense,' Stump reasoned. 'You send in your icebreaker first.
It's got four-wheel drive and good mobility. The rest will come behind.'
'Come to papa,' Robby shouted at the Land Cruiser.
'Mr. Burns,' Jorgens said to Abe. 'Would you please ready your patient for
transport.
Gus goes first.' For a moment, anyway, some of the timber returned to his
bearing.
'I'll see to it that Mr. Li agrees.'
Li was glassing the distance with a pair of binoculars, too busy to answer.
Jorgens went right on laying the groundwork. 'With the Gamow bag on the
back floor, that will leave room for two. Burns goes, obviously. And it's
either Kelly with her eyes or Corder or...'
Abe was standing close enough to hear when Thomas muttered, 'What the hell.'
Abe glanced at him, but the man was staring off into the north intently.
Slowly, as if disbelieving his own eyes, Li lowered the binoculars.
His smile had faded.
'Pete,' Stump said. Sober looks were suddenly epidemic. Abe wondered what
was wrong.
'I'm going out with Gus,' Daniel was insisting. 'We'll make room for Kelly.
But I go with Gus.' There were no two ways about it.
'I don't think so,' Stump said.
'It's okay,' Jorgens said to Stump. 'Corder should go with her.'
'No,' Stump said.
Jorgens stopped.
'We're not going anywhere.'
Engine whining, the Land Cruiser closed on them. It hit a wet drift with an
explosion of diamonds and the vehicle slung left, then right. The
spray of slush reached for them, sparkling in the sun. The yaks spooked
and bounded into the snow, but were too famished to run very far.
The Land Cruiser breasted another drift. Thirty feet from the front of
the mess tent, it braked.
'Tell those guys to keep the engine running,' Daniel said. 'Let's load Gus
on.'
No one moved. Daniel plucked at Abe's sweater. 'Come on, Abe. Let's move. We
can make Shekar by dark.'
The engine cut off. Abe's heart sank.
'Tell that driver to fire it up. We're taking Gus out of here.'
Daniel walked between them as between statuary. The climbers were
motionless and silent.
He was the only one among them who had not seen this same Land Cruiser before.
He did not recognize the three soldiers who now emerged.
'What are you guys waiting for? Stump, give me a hand.'
The soldier's pea-green uniforms were filthy. They looked ravenous and tired.
The two younger soldiers seemed very happy to be here again. The officer did
not.
Taking the initiative, Li approached them. He highstepped through the snow. Li
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