Rodney and Darla at 16,892 feet

I haven’t had a drink in six years,” said Jugmet Singh. “But tonight I’m a very happy man. I’ll have a glass with you in honor of saving my mule from the river.”

I hoped we weren’t to be the cause of his falling off the wagon as I looked out the door of the kitchen tent, where Rani grazed with Gudi, Bachar and the male Choto on a patch of grass. Now we had the passes to look forward to. We were beginning to realize just how wild and remote a place we had found, where you could walk for days without encountering another human being or a village. We were glad for the rock cairns made by the French party to show us the way. Getting lost might not be on the itinerary this time, though it was clear that we could add at least an hour to Chabloz’s estimates for each day’s trek.

“Sometimes I wish we were studying elephants,” said Rodney. “You can drive right up to an elephant, and spend the whole day watching it.”

It was a long way to our next camp, partway up Padung La, on a spring-fed grassy knoll. Rani lay near our tent while the other mules grazed upslope. Jugmet Singh coaxed her to her feet, to go join the herd, and I realized why her ribs were showing: she must often prefer to lay and rest instead of eating.

There was time for a bath at the spring. Clean hair never felt so good. The temperature dropped overnight and it was hard to get up in the morning, despite the steaming tea that Dorjay brought to our tent. I was stuffing the sleeping bag into the sack when I heard Jugmet Singh’s voice, too fast and too loud. Then I heard Rinchen say wolf, and my heart dropped down to my toes. I hoped against hope that the mules had simply run away, but I knew better. The truth was, Rani lay dead up behind the knoll. Sometime in the night a wolf had charged the mules and got them running. It had easily picked the weakest one and chased her down.

Jugmet Singh’s mute grief settled on our camp like a net, catching us all. After a while, when it seemed that his tears had run dry, Rodney and I went to him with words of sympathy, no translation needed. He nodded, unable to look at us as he worked at the halter of one of the still-skittish mules.

Suddenly Rani’s death frightened me.

As usual, Rodney and I left the others to finish packing while we got a head start on the ascent of Padung La. When we crested the knoll we could see, a hundred yards below the trail, the brown hump of Rani’s body. I waited while Rodney went down to have a look. He took some photos and came back up.

“The wolf didn’t eat much,” he said. “No wonder people here hate them so.” But as we worked our way up the trail we followed the tracks of a snow leopard coming down, and I could hear the lifting of his spirits in his voice, “No doubt the cat will scavenge the carcass, so at least there won’t be so much wasted meat.”

I said little, conserving my meager, melancholy breath, sucking on lemon drops, stopping to admire the papery purple blossoms of the wild delphinium named for Kashmir, while Rodney got farther and farther ahead. We would give Jugmet Singh extra money towards the price of a new mule, though Rani wasn’t worth more than a third of what a healthy mule would cost. He could make a living with three mules, despite the drop in tourism that had cut his trek earnings in half. But still I walked as if in the shadow of Rani’s fate. Asthma-denial had gotten me this far; that and the forward momentum of belligerence. But as my companions passed me one-by-one I gave in and pulled out my new inhaler. With a hit of Albuterol at work in my lungs I no longer had to stop every six feet to hyperventilate. I made it slowly but steadily, in first gear all the way, to the top of the pass. Rodney was waiting with his altimeter: 16,892 feet. I searched out a smooth, palm-sized rock of white quartz and added it to the summit chorten, in honor of my doctor.

Copyright copy; 2003 Snow Leopard Conservancy
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