Page 97 of Dead Mountain

“Are you all right?” Nora asked.

Corrie pointed. “You see this name?”

“Who’s Alex DeGregorio?”

“He was Matthew H. Tanner’s roommate—‘MHT,’ the initials engraved on the knife.”

“I’m not following.”

“I’m not following it myself. I’m not following it at all.” She grasped the journal, as if willing it to speak. “There were only nine on the expedition—at least, that’s what everybody always thought. But look, here, there’s a tenth name: Alex DeGregorio.”

She opened the journal, flipped through the pages. The handwriting changed from entry to entry, as different members of the expedition wrote their own additions. References to Alex DeGregorio were sprinkled throughout—there was no mistaking that he’d been on the expedition. But why had he kept it a secret all this time? Had he been too traumatized, or afraid perhaps of being the only survivor, thrust into the limelight? Or had he kept silent out of guilt—abandonment of his expedition mates, cowardice, committing an offense against them . . . or worse?

Impatiently, she skipped ahead, turning pages until she reached one dated October 31. Holding the book with trembling hands, Corrie began to read aloud.

Oct. 31, 10 am. Andy writing. Happy Halloween!! We’re getting an early start, hoping to beat the weather. Good luck with that! The plan is to camp early, batten down the hatches, break out the Everclear, mix us up some instant daiquiris, and have a little party. The weather outside may be frightful, but we’ll be snug in our tent! Okay, we’re off. Ciao!

Below that journal entry, Andy—that would be Andrew Marchenko—had drawn a group of stick figures hiking on a mountaintop with heavy packs. Corrie moved to the next entry.

4 pm. Amanda here—We decided to camp even earlier than planned. Alex was really insistent about it. The snow started falling around one and now it’s coming down like crazy, and the wind is picking up. Andy thinks we maybe went off our route a bit coming up Talaya Peak, but we found a good campsite in the wind shadow of the ridge, where the snow’s deep enough to hollow out a good cavity for protection. We set up the tent in record time, as the blizzard intensified. We’ll figure out where we are tomorrow when the snow clears. It’s blowing like a banshee, the tent’s rattling and snapping like crazy, but it’s staked down well and we’re cozy as can be . . .

This was followed by ordinary descriptions of firing up the stove, cooking dinner, and—for some reason—sharing a diligently copied recipe for Mrs. Van Gelder’s famous meatloaf. Corrie skipped over these entries.

6 pm. Amanda again—Alex talked us out of the daiquiri party. The storm is really howling and he said it would be a bad idea to get buzzed and maybe have a tough time handling some unexpected shit like the tent ripping. Or an avalanche. Luke, self-proclaimed avalanche guru, says there’s no chance of an avalanche because the slope’s too gentle and we’re close to the top of the ridge anyway. But Alex’s advice made sense. To make amends for laying down the law, he brewed up some amazing rainforest hot chocolate for all of us. Now we’re cooking dinner—Mountain House freeze dried chicken tetrazzini—yum! (Not.) I thought the storm was raging before, but now it’s really kicking ass.

That entry ended on the top half of a right-hand page, and the rest was left blank. Corrie flipped to the next page and was taken aback: the writing looked crabbed and agitated, wandering all over the page, with numerous crossings-out and words written over each other.

Thank God for the fire. Comforting. At least I’m alive.

The voices are fading. I think. At least they’re going deeper into my head. It’s like that cliché, the nightmare that never ends. It hit me so hard. I have a tough time even remembering what it was like to be free of the voices, those terrible images. Hallucinations, I guess.

I’m pretty sure it was Alex. The fucker’s probably dead now. The others too, or at least some of them. I don’t know. I wish I could remember. It’s like my memory is a shattered mirror, shards heaped up reflecting different things. No way to put them back together. No way to know what was real and what was not.

That son of a bitch. What was he thinking?

Calm down. WRITE.

Okay. I’m going to put what I know into the journal as best I can. I think my hands are frostbitten in addition to my toes because I’m warmer now but it’s really painful and hard to write. So it all began with the explosion. That happened around 6:30 p.m., half an hour or so after we all drank Alex’s cocoa. I was boiling water for the freeze-dried pouches when we heard the sound.

THE SOUND . . . !!!

53

SAM PULLER CHECKED his watch: almost two. The sun had long vanished behind a layer of dark clouds that had moved in from the east, and a dull pewter light lay over the mountains. The storm seemed to be approaching faster than expected. Figures.

“You worried about those FBI agents?” Jo called from the kitchen, washing her rollers in the sink.

“Damn right I am,” Puller replied. “I wonder what the heck they were looking for out there in the Knot?”

Jo came into the living room, drying her hands on a towel. “Quite the mystery.”

“Maybe it’s something to do with that lost gold mine they claim is hereabouts somewhere,” said Puller. “But that wouldn’t explain the hurry.”

Jo snorted. “Every mountain range in New Mexico supposedly has a lost gold mine. I just hope they know what they’re doing. The older one with the hazel eyes, she looked like she knew something about the mountains. The younger one—what was her name? She didn’t seem quite so experienced.”

“Agent Swanson,” said Sam Puller.

“Right. I knew it made me think of TV dinners.”

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