The Road Beneath the Glacier

Tavi saw the medicine chest slide from the mule's pack before he heard the leather strap break. It struck the glacier, spun once, and vanished into a blue crack. By the time he reached the edge, the chest lay twelve feet below him on a shelf of ice.

Beyond the pass, six children were waiting for its antibiotics. Behind him, the weather had closed the road. His guide, Soren, tested the crack with a pole and shook his head. Meltwater had hollowed the shelf from underneath.

“We can lower you,” Tavi said.

“We can lower a rope,” Soren replied. “Not a person.”

They made a loop and tried to hook the chest's handle. The wind pushed the rope sideways. On the fifth attempt, the loop caught, but the handle tore free. Tavi held the small brass piece in his glove, furious at how little it weighed.

Soren unpacked the mule. Among the spare straps was a narrow wooden sled used to carry grain sacks. They lowered it edge first, turning it with the guide pole until it rested beside the chest. Tavi pushed; Soren hauled. The chest shifted an inch, then jammed against an ice ridge.

The shelf groaned. Soren pulled Tavi back just as a section broke away. The chest dropped farther into the crack and stopped on a second ledge. The sky above the pass darkened.

Tavi sat hard in the snow. He had promised the village nurse he would arrive by dusk. He had accepted the money she collected from people who could scarcely afford grain. He could not imagine reaching her door empty-handed.

Soren handed him the broken strap. A small metal seal remained attached: the regional clinic's mark. “What's inside the chest?”

“Eight medicine cases. Wrapped in felt.”

“Then we don't need the chest.”

Using the guide pole and the sled's iron runner, they broke the lid. Tavi lowered the rope with the brass handle tied across it like a hook. One by one, they lifted the felt bundles. The seventh caught; the eighth fell beyond sight. They left it.

They reached the village after midnight with seven cases and no grain sled. The nurse counted the medicine, then counted the two men standing in her doorway. Only after she had put water on to boil did she ask what happened.

Tavi began with the strap. Soren sat by the stove, thawing his fingers. Outside, snow covered their footprints on the road, and farther up the mountain it covered the crack as well.