The Pass (Wattys 2019)

Chapter Sixteen

Nika sighed as she plopped down on her backpack, thankful for the break. They'd been hiking for hours, and according to Peter, they were getting close to the abandoned labor camp that the Dyatlov group had stayed at five years ago. It was around noon, the sun high in the sky, and they were stopping to eat their breakfast: oats and granola. All of them were sitting around on their packs, their bags of food in hand. All of them were ravenous, but all of them did their best to ration themselves; better to go hungry for then than to starve later.

And, of course, they talked.

"How's everybody doing?" Nika asked as they sat. "Is everyone feeling okay?"

"Tired, but a-okay, Comrade Orlova," Peter said with a thumbs-up. He looked around at everybody else. "I think everyone here could use a morale boost."

"My morale is just fine," Rufina said flatly.

Yuri and Arisha grunted their agreement.

"Maybe we should sing a song," Peter suggested. "I know one." He took a deep breath before singing in a loud, obnoxious voice: "Oooooooohhhhhhhhh, so full, so full is my crate-"

"Stop that!" Arisha groaned as Peter continued to sing a horrible rendition of Korobeiniki. She looked to Nika. "Nika, how do you get him to stop?"

"You don't." Nika felt kind of annoyed, but she was still smiling. And so was everyone else.

That was when she noticed it: the look on Yuri's face. He was smiling, sure, but he looked sad. He had a distant look on his face. She hadn't known him for very long, but she knew what that look meant: he was remembering something from the last expedition.

"What is it?" Rufina asked. It looked like she could see it, too.

"Reminds me of Georgiy," Yuri said.

Everyone grew quiet. Even Peter stopped his singing.

Yuri chuckled to himself. "I remember... he just about got arrested last time in a train station. He was playing his mandolin and holding out his cap, and he got arrested for it. He wasn't supposed to be bothering passengers like that."

He didn't say it, but Nika could hear it, and so could everyone else. That silent question: what if Georgiy had been arrested? Would he still be alive? There were a few instances from the other group journals of times those hikers might have survived, had things gone a little differently. There was that incident with a bus where four of them were almost left behind, the incident at the police station, Yuri falling ill. So many chances that could've changed history, could've meant life or death for the Dyatlov hikers. Now, though, they would never know. All they knew was that nine people lost their lives in the very mountains they were climbing in five years ago. And that four others were lost just a few weeks ago.

It made one wonder: what decisions had they already made that might've sealed their fate? What domino affects had already been put in place?

Nika stood up and put on her pack. "Come on: let's get going."

***

Nika kept an eye on Yuri the rest of the day, worried about him. She could tell that the trip was draining on him and Rufina emotionally, already: whenever she caught glances of the two of them, they had a sad, distant look in their eyes. Rufina was a little better at hiding it: she still smiled and joked with the others, but in those quiet moments where nobody was talking about anything, it was clear what was on her mind. Yuri, though... Nika saw it in him every second of every day. She was getting worried about him. He looked distant, almost in pain most of the time, and he hardly responded to things beyond grunts.