Read Bones on Ice: A Novella for Free Online

pants to get picked.”
    “Including you?”
    Blank look.
    “Were you hoping to be picked?”
    One bony shoulder lifted ever so slightly.
    “Like that was ever gonna happen.” Reynolds’s tone was harsh. I was definitely leaning toward the prick theory. “Right out the door, these guys loved Brighton. She was sure the gig was in the bag once she nailed the tallest mountain in the world.”
    “Bright convinced us we needed Everest to be serious contenders,” Steele agreed.
    “And now the field’s wide open.” Habit. My brain was already going to a dark place.
    Reynolds shook his head. “Elon’s their new golden boy. If he ever gets back from Russia.”
    Steele snorted. “Whatever. They can’t pick the dude who turned back before reaching the top.”
    “Elon didn’t summit Everest with you?”
    “No. And now he’s a finalist. Show’s a joke.”
    It was the most emotion I’d seen from Steele. A sore point?
    “So Brighton was your guide?”
    “Are you kidding?” Reynolds mashed a fry into ketchup, downed it. “None of us is qualified to be a guide. We’re Seven Summits people.”
    “The highest points on each of the seven continents.” I repeated my nugget of climbing knowledge. But something had bugged me since the subject had arisen with Blythe Hallis earlier. I’d gophered around in my freshman-year world geography memories. “Aren’t there only six? Africa, Antarctica, Australia, Eurasia, South America, and North America.”
    “Geologically, yes. Politically, no. Europe and Asia are considered separate, so you include Mont Blanc between France and Italy, and Elbrus, along Russia’s southern border with Asia. It’s actually eight, because you have to do two for the Oceanic continental mass. Kosciuszko is the highest point on the Australian mainland, but the Carstensz Pyramid of Papua New Guinea is technically taller.”
    Reynolds might be obnoxious, but he wasn’t dumb. I started to ask a question, but he cut me off.
    “The point is”—air jab with a fry—“that none of the Seven Summits are extreme mountaineering climbs. Even with the altitude challenges, Everest isn’t technical. We thought we were trained and in shape.”
    “We really thought we could do it,” Steele echoed.
    “So what happened?” I was growing less patient with their skirting and dodging.
    “Altitude.”
    “Go on.” Bunching and tossing my napkin onto my plate. Which was largely empty now.
    “We didn’t really know what we were getting into. None of us were eight-thousanders.”
    “Pretend I don’t read
Outside
magazine,” I said.
    “Eight-thousanders are the fourteen peaks in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges with summits in the death zone.”
    “Altitudes at which there isn’t sufficient oxygen to sustain human life.” There. I knew that, too. Tough on humans. Above eight thousand meters, oxyhemoglobin levels plummet.
    “We were all death zone virgins.” As Reynolds answered, Steele shrank even more, eyes down, face still as a moth on a branch. I gathered she hadn’t enjoyed her visit to the death zone. “Everything’s a bitch above eight thousand meters. Breathing, eating, pissing, sleeping. Ever hear of HAPE and HACE?”
    Reynolds used the acronyms for “high-altitude pulmonary edema” and “high-altitude cerebral edema.” In lay terms, fluid in the lungs or brain. Triggered by oxygen deprivation, HAPE and HACE are the primary causes of death related to high-altitude exposure.
    “Is that what killed Brighton?”
    “What am I, a doctor?” The retort carried some strong emotion. Anguish? Guilt?
    Flash of insight. “You weren’t with her when she died. Neither of you.”
    From Steele, a haunted stare. From Reynolds, a nervous thumb working sweat on his mug.
    I pushed my plate to one side. Sipped my drink. Let the silence stretch. Reynolds broke it first.
    “You don’t know what it’s like up there.”
    “Tell me.” Waving off the waitress who was heading our