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James. “I tried to talk her into coming down with us but she’d have none of it. She was determined to summit. And absolutely certain it wouldn’t take her past time.”
    “We should’ve made them turn around,” Steele said.
    “Them?”
    “She and the woman she stopped to help,” Reynolds said.
    “You couldn’t
make
Bright do anything.” James, now doing scornful.
    Something didn’t ring true. “If Brighton was so focused on summiting, why did she stop to offer help at Hillary Step?”
    “It was weird.” Steele’s voice trailed off.
    “Weird?” I prompted.
    “Bright always had to be first.”
    “Maybe she did have HAPE or HACE.” Reynolds didn’t sound convinced. “It’s like being drunk. Causes you to make bad decisions.”
    “It might have been fine, but for the storm,” Steele said.
    “There was a storm?” Were these guys for real, or feeding me the plot from
Into Thin Air
?
    “Squall.” James corrected. “It came up fast and slowed everything down.”
    “We were half-frozen by the time we got to camp,” Steele said. “My oxygen regulator was choked with ice. Cash was hallucinating and nearly wandered off the side of the mountain.” Disgusted exhale from Reynolds. “We passed out in separate tents. It was after dark when Elon realized Bright hadn’t come back.”
    Again, the feeling their story didn’t track. “Nap time over, everyone’s ready to share mountaintop selfies, and no one notices your ringleader’s not there?”
    “We had no idea she was in trouble.” Steele was vehement. Too vehement? “She didn’t radio. After passing her below the summit we never heard from her again. It made no sense.”
    “Another guide alerted our Sherpa.,” Reynolds picked up the thread. “Said the second late climber came down in bad shape, had to be escorted to Camp One and airlifted out. Damon wanted to go up after Bright, but it was impossible. We were exhausted, it was dark, and—full honesty—we lacked the skills to get the job done.”
    “We couldn’t raise her on the radio. It was horrible.” Steele was either genuinely devastated or an Emmy-class actress.
    “Nature one, humans zero.” James pantomimed marking a score sheet. “The next day, a Taiwanese group found her body in an alcove on the South Summit, about a hundred and fifty meters below the top. A couple of Sherpas tried to dislodge her but she was frozen in place. Not barely alive frozen, like Beck Weathers or David Sharp. Dead frozen.”
    Seeing my look, Reynolds explained the reference. “Sharp was a climber who got frozen to the ground while still breathing and had to be left. His body’s now a trail marker, of sorts. Weathers, they genuinely thought was dead when they left him behind, but he somehow wandered into camp the next morning. They were able to get him off the mountain.”
    “Most of him. He left behind a nose, an arm, and most of his toes,” James said. “But I saw the before pics. He wasn’t so great-looking to begin with.”
    Jesus flipping Christ
.
    James rolled on, matter-of-fact. “Brighton was dead. There was nothing we could do. It was descend or die. Everyone knew the risks going in.”
    “What do you think happened to Brighton?”
Not barely alive frozen. Dead frozen
.
    James shrugged. “She was either too exhausted or too disoriented to work the ropes down Hillary Step. She sat down to rest and froze in place. It happens.” He paused. “She might have made it overnight if the temperature hadn’t taken a nosedive. But it was just too fucking cold and she had too little oxygen.”
    Steele chimed in. “The other climber told the Sherpas that Bright insisted she descend Hillary Step first. Claimed she waited at the bottom but Bright never showed. Said she didn’t have the strength or oxygen to go back up, so she headed to camp to find help.”
    “What was the other climber’s name?”
    Ten seconds of nothing.
    “She was Italian, I think.” Steele looked to Reynolds.
    “No.