UBER in the Himalayas: a young blond English teacher on vacation from Ohio meets a tall dark-haired stranger who has a desperate past.  Sound familiar yet?  You betcha....

No copyright infringement intended.  Just want to take my turn at detailing the archetype.  Disclaimers [or consider them promises]: Nothing hard core but definitely love between adult women; some violence as or if it becomes necessary.  Hope this isn't offensive or illegal where you're from.  If it is, stranger, best pass by.

Copyright 2000 by GlasOwl. All rights reserved.

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by

Jeri O'Donnell had found a place in the rocks above the campsite from which she could scan the trail below.  She didn't want to take a chance that Louise Bolingbrook would be arriving followed by British agents again.  The UN Assistant Secretary had sworn that she'd been followed without her knowledge when she and Jeri met a few days before, but Jeri wasn't altogether sure she believed the woman.  On the one hand, Bolingbrook had an international reputation for her work in human rights, and she really did want more information on the Tibetan situation, information that Jeri had.  On the other hand, Bolingbrook believed Jeri had been part of an IRA operation at Strabane Post Office in Northern Ireland where Bolingbrook's nephew had been killed along with other British soldiers and Ulster constabulary.

There was no way up to the campsite except by foot, and Jeri bet only a goat could arrive other than by the trail.  From her vantagepoint, she hoped to be able to see who won out, Bolingbrook, the UN official, or Bolingbrook, the English aunt.  Jeri was betting on the UN official, a professional who must have dealt with people who had far more unsavory reputations than Jeri's.

The surrounding mountains dropped steeply into the valleys below.  India's monsoon rains stopped on the other side of this ridge which was covered by thick jungle, but on this side, the terrain was bare and harsh.  The spare and evocative beauty was a kind that Jeri usually appreciated.  But not today.  Today she was having difficulty keeping her eyes and mind off the young blond woman in the camp below.  Kelly Corcoran had awakened a little earlier and was sitting by her sleeping bag, drinking a mug of tea that Tashi had fixed for her.

Jeri and Kelly had arrived at the campsite just before dark the evening before.  Tashi, the Nepalese guide, had a warm meal waiting for them.  Nuru, Tashi's nephew, greeted Kelly as if she were an old friend.  He had no English, but his smiles needed no translation.  After their long day of climbing and walking, both women had fallen asleep soon after eating.  As the dawn stars began to fade, Jeri had awakened to find Kelly's sleeping bag very close to Jeri's own. The sight of the blond head so close and so trusting sent a rush of emotion sweeping through her like a cresting wave.  Jeri started to reach for Kelly when a series of memories intruded. Careful not to disturb the younger woman, Jeri slipped out of her own sleeping bag and went up into the rocks to wait for dawn.

Truth to tell, she was afraid to be with Kelly and it went against her whole nature to admit that fear.  She was no stranger to loving women, but that had been in another world and time, before she joined the Provos.  After that, she had used sex as a way to settle her nerves and not bothered much about the gender of her partners.  But sex as distraction hadn't lasted. Sex roused the desire to love and no one even came near to touching the hunger and anguish in her soul; sex only roused the pain of wanting the impossible.  Jeri had decided it was best to let longing slumber, to tiptoe around the edges of desire.

Until she had walked out of the fog and found this American tourist at the roadside only a few days ago, Jeri never expected to be happy again.  Didn't expect to be and didn't want to be. Happiness belonged on the other side of a bomb blast and would be a worse sin than the crimes she already carried.  The word itself sounded like a sacrilege, like some superficial and deliberate ignorance of the true conditions of life.  Then Kelly Corcoran had appeared, offering her happiness in the form of a  love that most people only dreamed of, a love that offered a promise of becoming whole at last.

Jeri tossed a pebble down into the campsite and waved when Kelly looked up.  The quick smile from the young woman as she waved back clutched at Jeri's heart.  You didn't come to leave me, you came to get me, Kelly had said when Jeri had tried to do the reasonable thing and send the other woman away.  Jeri remembered how the truth of Kelly's words had ripped into a level of herself she'd thought empty, closed and vacated.

She watched Kelly climb up the rocks.  She looked like such a tourist.  The composition teacher from Ohio was wearing the latest thing in tourist gear: khaki cargo pants, a cranberry shirt, a khaki vest with a collar that could unroll into a windbreaker hood, all in the latest of thin but rugged material.  Even so, Jeri noted that Kelly chose her footing carefully, made sure of one foot before shifting her weight to the next step.  She wasn't an experienced mountaineer, but she was cautious and her instincts were very good.  Jeri had trained a few other novices in a variety of survival lessons and none of them had been better than Kelly, at least not when they started.

Kelly looked up from only a few feet away and a grin of pure affection lit up her face; Jeri smiled back, aware that this instant was one she was going to tuck away to cherish.

"You woke up pretty early," Kelly said as she joined Jeri in the nest-like area of the rocks. She slid easily into Jeri's arms as if the move were an old habit and held her in a long hug.

"Mmm." Kelly sighed.  "Just making sure you aren't a dream.  What's happening up here?"

"I'm about as real as it gets, Kell."  Jeri brushed a kiss into blond hair that smelled like coconut and rainwater.  "I want you to check for anyone in the area.  I'm expecting Bolingbrook today.  Here."  She handed Kelly the field glasses.

Only the slightest frown showed Kelly's disappointment at having to leave Jeri's embrace.  She took the glasses and examined them.

"What does Lady UN want, Jeri?"

"The report I gave her is a comprehensive document of about four decades of persecution.  It covers torture, religious oppression, ecological destruction.  It's a huge piece of work and it's personal.  The writer has seen everything he documents."

Kelly nodded.  "Then what's she going back for?"

Jeri sighed.  "Kids.  There are hints -- nothing definite --that kids are being tortured on a systematic scale, and that it's official policy and not an accident.  I read the article but I didn't see that but Bolingbrook did.  She's good.  That's why she wants to go back and talk to the author."

"I know.  I heard her speak once where I went to school.  Northwestern in Illinois.  Did you know she was in a Japanese internment camp when she was young?  With her mother.  She came close to starving."

"No, I didn't know."  Jeri filed the information away; it was information that changed how she thought of the UN official.  "Thanks."

Kelly nodded, raised the glasses and began scanning the trail below.  Jeri watched, checking Kelly's technique.  It was good.  She worked short sections, thoroughly covering an area before moving on.

"Careful now," Jeri said.

Kelly moved the glasses aside and lifted a quizzical eyebrow toward Jeri.

"If you go too much further in that direction, the sunlight will glint off the glass.  There's only one trail up here, but I still don't like giving anything away for free that we don't have to."

Kelly's eyes narrowed as she realized that Jeri was measuring her.  "This is a test?"

"Yeah, and if you pass you get to hike all the way to Tibet and back, you lucky girl.  I wouldn't exactly call it a test.  I want to check your skill level so we both know what your limits are.  I want to rely on you, but I don't want to give you what you can't handle. Okay?"

"Sure.  Is there a way I can look in this direction without reflecting the sun?"

"That's my girl.  Here, like this."

Kelly went back to scanning.  Jeri watched, not entirely unaware of her enjoyment in looking at Kelly's trim figure.  The hands holding the glasses were slim fingered and confident; her mouth was parted slightly as she breathed the thin mountain air.  The rolled top of the vest was tucked to her chin but the shirt gapped a bit and Jeri could see the delicate pale skin in the hollow space of Kelly's collarbone.  Below that was the beginning of a slant toward her breast.

"I think . . . " Kelly had taken the glasses away from her eyes and Jeri, caught staring, had the grace to blush.  A certain look of determination that Jeri was getting to know settled on Kelly's face as she put aside the glasses and moved toward Jeri.

It was a long kiss.  Jeri shifted her weight and leaned back against a tall rock so she could hold Kelly more comfortably.  A tender kiss, riding the surface of passion like a small boat on a swelling sea.  As the kiss ended, they rested against each other, savoring the taste, the smell, the feel of closeness.

"I think I saw Bolingbrook," Kelly whispered, her head beneath Jeri's chin.

Jeri sighed, gently disengaged.  "Show me."

They moved back to the edge of their lookout.  Jeri pointed the glasses in the direction that Kelly indicated.  She saw nothing for a few seconds and then a movement drew her attention. Two figures were laboring up the trail.  Bolingbrook had informed Jeri that she would be accompanied on this journey by a colleague.  The Englishwoman and her companion, a middle-aged man who looked like he might be from India originally, were just nearing the top of the scree slope that ended about a third of the way up from the valley.  Both of them appeared far more determined than in good shape for the climb.

"I'd say she has an hour, hour and a half maybe, before she gets here," Jeri said.  "Did you eat yet?"

"No, but Tashi was fixing something when I left."

"I'll go down and get us some breakfast and tea.  You keep an eye on Bolingbrook."  Kelly looked startled.  "It's okay.   You'll do fine.  I scanned all around and I really don't think anyone's with her, but I don't put anything past those Brit agents you met either.  Just keep looking for any kind of movement behind Bolingbrook.  I'd bet money they will try to follow her, so I want to be ready to leave soon after she gets here.  Once we cross that ridge up there, we can lose anyone in the jungle on the other side, but this side has only one real trail and I'm sure they know that.  And Kelly, one more thing."

Jeri paused for Kelly's full attention.  "I want you to wear Nuru's coat and scarf around Bolingbrook.  We'll get you some local clothes of your own later on."

"But why, Jeri?  I don't think clothes will fool her, and I don't care what she thinks."

"I suppose she'll probably figure it out, but remember, we never give anything away for free. It's a good rule.  You'd be surprised how a minor oversight can turn major."  More than one painful memory sent echoes across Jeri's expression.  "Maybe they won't guess, or maybe they don't have a picture of you yet, but I'm betting they took one the other day, they're thorough.  But even if they didn't, it won't be long until the Brits figure out that where you are, I'm going to be near."

Despite the seriousness of Jeri's words, Kelly couldn't help smiling; implicit in the warning was a promise.  "You better believe you are.  All right, I'll wear any damned thing you want, this is your world -- but see you never question any of my grammar decisions, okay?  I have extensive expertise in participles and gerunds."

It was fun to make Jeri laugh.  So happy she wished she knew how to yodel, Kelly watched Jeri descend the rocks toward camp.  Even recognizing the irony in her  situation couldn't dampen Kelly's feeling that she was the luckiest woman in the world.  Jeri's dark beauty would make heads turn anywhere, a standard textbook beauty you might say; but, in addition, her intelligence, her dignity, her emotional struggles had sculpted her until beauty was the least of what made her attractive.  And this amazing woman loved her.

Absurd to think that they were going to attempt a life together under these conditions.  Yet that's what people always did, had always done since they were hominids eons ago, surrounded on the savannahs by huge predators: they made a life with one another and took joy where and when it was to be found.  Kelly resisted an impulse to turn the glasses toward camp and look at Jeri.  People who took safety for granted could indulge themselves, but if she was going to become competent and useful in this new world, Kelly was going to have to cultivate discipline.

"Do you wish you'd had some idea AIDS was on the horizon?" Kelly had asked George.  The epidemic had already killed Russell and was taking George by inches.  It was one of those evenings spent sitting together on George's balcony, evenings whose memory Kelly cherished like photos in an album.

"Known the candy store would be closing soon?"  George used the metaphor that had come into fashion for describing the late Seventies and early Eighties when the gay world spread across the cities of America with the energy of a summer beach party.  He measured his reply. Speaking at all took a lot of effort.  "You know, I've never really missed disco, and I do believe that AIDS is God's righteous punishment for disco.  But seriously, you're asking would I have lived differently, right?  If I'd known, of course I would have, but the point is you never know.  So you have to live like you have all the time in the world -- and love like you only have the moment."

Could she do that now? Kelly wondered.  She reached into her pocket and felt the plum-shaped crystal there.  It would be a guide, Meg from California had said.  Kelly held it tightly, taking it for a talisman, a hope.  She wasn't a fool, she could feel Jeri's hesitation, her reluctance to make love.  In another time and place, they might have time to work through that, but here it was possible they had only the next few hours.  Yet even so, Kelly was determined to respect Jeri's reluctance.  The heart has its own reasons and seasons, she believed that.  She would try to act as if they had all the time in the world.  But, by the mountain gods of the Himalayas, by the world spirit that could make crystal, she intended to make it clear -- whenever she got the chance -- that she had no hesitations at all.

Deliberately, Kelly turned her attention back to scanning the slope below.  To her surprise, she was finding that she liked the Himalayas, particularly the region they were in presently. It surprised her because she had been born and raised in green farm country, land that was dressed up, so to speak.  She had discovered during one trip west with some college friends that the desert lands had a compelling beauty of their own.  This arid section where she was now, unlike the cloud jungle she had encountered at first in Nepal, was like the American southwest multiplied and intensified.  An immensity of space was created and framed by towering peaks, mountains whose bones were apparent as they struggled upward.  Kelly had little knowledge of the region's spiritual belief, but she thought she understood some of it intuitively.  One went to the high places to look for gods, up where the earth touched sky and the winds swept down out of heaven.

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Kelly almost felt sorry for Louise Bolingbrook when the English woman reached the campsite. The UN official looked drawn and exhausted, but she still managed to hold herself up on the dignity that must have been injected into her spine when she was a child, one of the last generation raised to command an empire.  With automatic graciousness, she took the mug of tea that Jeri offered, and barely bothered to glance around at the rest of the people there. Certainly, she didn't really see one more figure wrapped in a headscarf and wearing a long, loose, wool coat that had long ago lost any describable color.  Kelly had pulled a pair of large pants in nearly the same condition as the coat over her own to finish the disguise.  She thought that Bolingbrook would probably simply ignore her, but she wasn't too sure about the English woman's companion.  He looked around the camp sharply, and Kelly turned her back to him.

"I'm sorry to rush you," Jeri was saying to the UN official, "but I want to be up and over that ridge as quickly as possible.  Will you need more than a half hour's rest?"

"That will do well enough."  Bolingbrook seemed to have settled on a remote politeness as her favored mode for relating to Jeri.  "This is Joseph.  He's a friend and a colleague."  Without any further ceremony, she found a comfortable place on the ground and, leaning against a rock, closed her eyes.

Jeri gestured Kelly and Nuru aside.  Nuru nodded as she spoke quickly to him.  Then she spoke to Kelly in English.  "I want you two to start climbing now.  Tashi will stay with me.  Pay attention to Nuru, Kelly, he'll show you when to stop and wait for us.  If you notice anything, point it out to him and he'll let me know, okay?"

"Sure."

"Take care of yourself."

Kelly permitted herself a smile and a long look at the tall, dark-haired woman.  "Yeah.  You too."  She saw Jeri reach to touch her and then check the gesture, settling instead for a grin.

Kelly followed Nuru up the steep slope.  She tried to use the way of walking that Jeri had demonstrated during their climb the day before.  Mostly she remembered that shorter steps were better than longer ones.  Long strides used up more calories than short ones, and up here, calories were about oxygen and oxygen was scarce.

"It's not like climbing steps," Jeri had said.  "That's how flatland people think of going up and down.  Use short, sliding steps and don't let your legs use up all your body's oxygen."

Kelly thought she was doing all right, but Nuru was so graceful that he looked like he was water flowing uphill.  Consciously, she relaxed her throat so that the airflow with its thin oxygen was unimpeded.  Oxygen was food at these altitudes.

They climbed steadily.  Every so often Nuru would glance back at her and smile, encouragement and approval.  Just below the rocky ridgeline, he signed to her that they should stop and keep a lookout back the way they had come.  Kelly found a reasonably comfortable spot and settled in.  Looking back down the slope, she could see that their companions had begun their own climb.

To be this high was exhilarating beyond belief.  The foot of the mountain was two or three miles below.  Farther maybe, Kelly wasn't sure.  The next time she was anywhere near a tourist center, she had to get a book that would tell her about where she was.  She'd relied on Billy's memories of Nepal rather than on any research of her own and now she wished she had more than the one very general guidebook on the country in her pack.  She reached into her pocket and squeezed the plum crystal for reassurance.  The gesture was getting to be a habit.

A vulture hung in the air below.  It was too far away for her to tell if it was the griffon or the lammergeier.  Himalayan people still used vultures for what they called 'sky burials' which meant placing a dead person out for the birds.  Kelly's sensibilities shrank from the idea, but a portion of her mind also accepted it as a fitting end, a way of relating to the place one had in the natural scheme of things, the natual cycle of life.  Billy had tried to explain about the place sky burials had in a Tantric belief system but Kelly had been too preoccupied to learn much.  At the time, she'd never expected to be anywhere so near Mt. Everest.

The hovering bird looked very odd the more she looked.  Kelly took her glasses and trained them downward.  It was hard to find the speck in all that distance, but when she did, she realized it wasn't a vulture.  It was a helicopter.

How likely was it that a helicopter was in this area just by coincidence?  Kelly had no idea. Helicopters flew tourists in and out of some accessible places.  She'd seen advertisements for renting them in the Katmandu airport.  She had no idea if this helicopter was civilian or military.  Come to think of it, she didn't even know if Nepal had a military.  But Nepal was in one of the world's most potentially unstable areas, placed as it was on the old trade routes between China and India and with Pakistan nearby.

Kelly called softly for Nuru.  When he came, she pointed to the 'bird' and handed him the glasses.   He couldn't find the speck for a long minute or two, but when he did, Kelly could see him stiffen.  He studied the sight and then handed the glasses back to Kelly, frowning. Through a series of gestures, Kelly told Nuru to go and warn Jeri and Tashi while she stayed where she was.  Nuru nodded and slipped out of his pack.  As she watched the young Nepali descend the mountainside, Kelly hoped she had made the right decision.

She had no intention of staying exactly where she was.  Carefully, she began looking for the best way to climb the short distance up to the pass.  Wispy tendrils of cloud were drifting over the edge, looking like dancers in the wind.  Cloud.  That meant fog.  There was likely to be fog on the other side.  Kelly checked the position of her companions, and then of the helicopter.  She had time to go look.  Then she scrambled up to the ridge.

The fierce wind made Kelly bend forward as she topped the ridge.  The pass was a saddle of weather-scoured rock with pools of ice-rimmed water here and there.  Some huge boulders sat like natural Buddhas, serene and solid, but these were the only cover.  On the far side of the pass, however, lay a white cloud, shifting and heaving like an ocean surface.  It was from this cloud that the wind tore tatters of white to dance across the rocky ridge.

Kelly turned back.  The helicopter was alarmingly closer and there was no sight of her companions.  She thought furiously but could come up with no better idea than that she should wait.

"If I had a rocket launcher " spun through her mind, over and over, as she waited just below the ridge and out of the wind.

Then Jeri was there, a pack on her back along with the rifle she had been wearing when Kelly first saw her.  It seemed quaint and useless in relation to the helicopter.  Close behind Jeri came the English woman and her companion along with Nuru and Tashi.  Nuru had taken Bolingbrook's pack.

Kelly looked behind the group.  The helicopter was close but the winds were making it difficult for the big machine to maneuver.  It swayed and circled in unstable loops.

The helicopter radiated danger, but just the sight of the tall woman beside her, blue eyes narrowed in concentration, gave Kelly a sense of calm, of being safe.   Against any contrary evidence, she felt Jeri had the situation in hand.

"Help Bolingbrook," Jeri said.  "The helicopter's a transport.  There are sure to be soldiers in it, but it won't be able to land here."

Kelly nodded and hurried to the English woman.  A task, any task, relieved some of her fear. Louise Bolingbrook was gasping for air and she would have been on the ground if it hadn't been for her companion.  The middle-aged man was having his own difficulty breathing, but he still managed to support the English woman.  He nodded briefly but gratefully as Kelly took Bolingbrook's other arm and the three of them struggled to the top of the ridge together.

Kelly saw a dusting of rock and pebbles spray just to the side of her outside foot and then she realized that someone had just shot a bullet at her.  It would have been a sobering and frightening fact if she hadn't been concentrating so hard.  As it was, she registered the fact and kept going.

They made it to the top of the ridge.  For achingly long seconds, the wind threatened to blow them backwards until, bending into it, they began to inch forward.  The fog bank was closer and taller and the wind seemed to have increased in strength in the short time since Kelly had been to the pass.  Suddenly, above the rush of wind, Kelly heard the man on the other side of Bolingbrook cry out, and as she looked, he collapsed on the scoured stone surface of the ridge.

"Joseph!"  Bolingbrook pulled herself free of Kelly's grasp and bent over the man.  Kelly saw her face change from exhaustion to fright.

"Take her.  Go."  Joseph shouted to Kelly above the wind.  "I'll be all right."

The man gestured for them to leave.  Kelly thought he had stumbled and fallen from exhaustion until she saw the blood on his pants leg.  He had been shot.

"No!" Bolingbrook cried out.

"You must, Louise.  I'll be fine."

Kelly tugged at Bolingbrook's arm until, reluctantly, the older woman rose and leaned on her as they both fought against the wind.  It wasn't far to cross the ridge but each step was a struggle.  Suddenly, Jeri appeared at Bolingbrook's side, taking Joseph's place.

The wind disappeared almost the instant they entered the misty realm of the fog.  Tashi and Nuru were there, waiting for them.

"Joseph Hassani has been shot," Bolingbrook angrily informed Jeri.  "I won't go on without him.  He's a friend as well as a colleague."

Kelly had no idea what was being weighed against what in Jeri's mind but she could see the woman thinking furiously.  At last Jeri nodded.

"I'll make sure your friend is okay and then I'll catch up with you," she said.  "Go on with my people for now."

Jeri spoke briefly to Tashi and gave him the rifle, slipping it off her shoulder along with her pack.  As she left, Tashi rose, gesturing  for the group to follow him.  Kelly brought up the rear of the little procession.  She thought it possible that Bolingbrook hadn't recognized her yet, hadn't really looked at her as they crossed the ridge, and she was mindful of Jeri's rule not to give anything away.  Louise Bolingbrook was walking on her own but staring sightlessly in front of her; clearly the woman was close to the end of her reserves.

Jeri found Bolingbrook's companion lying where he had fallen, his eyes closed.  He must have heard her approach, though, because he opened his eyes and looked at her as she got close. Jeri gestured that she would be right back and proceeded warily to the edge of the ridge.  For a moment, she thought that the helicopter had gone, but then she saw that it had found a place to land several hundred yards down the slope.  She doubted that they were going to put up a serious pursuit, but anything was possible with people who put out this much effort into catching one woman.  Or perhaps she was underestimating her worth to them.

They hadn't seen her, she was sure of that.  She made her way back to Hassani.  He was in obvious pain, and shock was his gravest danger, especially as he lay in the cold wind.  She couldn't tell how bad his wound was, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

"If I help you, do you think we can get to that boulder? I'd like you to be out of the wind." She shouted into his ear.

He nodded rather than attempting the effort of speaking.  Jeri got his arm around her and lifted him.  It was slow going but at least the wind was behind them.  Once they made the shelter of the truck-sized rock, Jeri helped Hassani into a comfortable position.  He was shivering although the jacket he wore was down-filled.  Jeri took off her long coat and wrapped it around him.  The sharp wind immediately felt like it was pelting her with icy darts.  Once again she went to the edge of the ridge and looked down.

The helicopter was still there but it looked about ready to take off.  Several men in military gear were getting on rather than off.  Jeri bent over, found a good-sized stone and threw as hard as she could.  She got lucky.  The last man boarding whipped around as if he'd been shot. She couldn't understand what he shouted but she thought she could probably guess that it wasn't about the nobility of her parentage.

"They're on their way up," she said to Hassani when she got back to him.  "Do you have papers?"

The lines of fatigue shifted into a slight smile.  "Oh, yes.  Rest assured, my dear, someone besides me is going to be very unhappy over this incident.  Now hurry off.  And, please, take good care of Louise."

Jeri nodded and smiled and left.  From a distance, she waited until she saw a figure in military fatigues emerge on the far side of the ridge.  Then she slipped behind a boulder and into the fog bank.

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There was very little sound as Kelly followed the others down through the fog.  Soon she became aware that they were descending a trail that led through some kind of dense growth. Bamboo.  They were going through a stand of bamboo.

A long forgotten memory leapt into Kelly's mind.  She was six or seven and George had a new fishing rod.  A birthday gift.  She'd been so disappointed that she couldn't join him on the day that he planned to try it out in the stock pond on the family dairy farm.  And then, he'd awakened her in the pre-dawn dark and told her to get dressed.  He had a surprise for her when they went outside, her very own new bamboo fishing pole.  George had bought it for her himself.

Such scenes, fallen into the corners of memory, would emerge now and then like surprise gifts to be added to the more familiar collection of mental pictures.

Look, George, Kelly thought.  A whole field of fishing poles.  Oh.  And somebody just shot at me.

The fog bank  ended like a wall and the group proceeded along the trail at an oblique downhill angle for close to two hours.  Thick growth made for slow going, and Tashi led them at a moderate pace.  Kelly watched Louise Bolingbrook for signs of exhaustion but the woman appeared to have gotten a second wind.  Or her third, considering that she had been climbing for most of the day.  Kelly's original admiration for the woman returned.

About two hours after they began their descent, Tashi called a halt.  They had arrived in a rocky clearing of sorts, although the jungle sent leafy creepers over much of the ground. Tashi pointed to a nearby cliff.  About a hundred feet above the ground, an opening to a cave was visible.

Tashi and Nuru let Kelly help with evening preparations, directing her with gestures.  Kelly kept her back to Bolingbrook and she kept on the coat and scarf.  The English woman was sitting with her eyes closed and it was likely a herd of yak might have rumbled by without Bolingbrook's notice.  Still, Kelly felt easier when Tashi sent her in search of firewood.  By the time she had gathered an armful of wood, the Nepalese men had a small fire going on the ledge in front of the cave and had brewed a thick, milky tea.

Kelly sipped hers gratefully.  She tried not to worry about Jeri, but the thought kept occurring to her that she was alone in the jungle with complete strangers.  Not for the first time she was aware of the enormous consequences of the decisions she had made in the past few days.  As if her mind refused to accept how drastically she had derailed herself and meant to distract her, she kept finding herself writing mental postcards to her parents in Ohio.  "Dear Mom and Dad -- don't worry if you don't hear from me for a while, but I'm taking a side tour to Tibet . . ." or "Hi folks, this is an amazing country.  Just as you get used to one landscape, it changes completely . . ."

Kelly's  worry about Jeri was hovering near the red zone when Kelly saw the familiar shape emerge from the jungle below.  As Kelly watched the tall woman stride through the broad-leafed vines, her doubts receded; she was where she belonged.

Jeri nodded to Kelly in greeting as she went past, but in keeping with Kelly's disguise, Jeri spoke to Tashi first and then went to Bolingbrook.

"Joseph?" The Englishwoman asked.

"He'll be okay, I believe."  Briefly Jeri described his condition and repeated his acerbic comment about someone soon regretting the shooting incident.

Bolingbrook merely nodded.  "Thank you, Miss O'Donnell."  Her short comment seemed to arise more from fatigue than hostility.

Soon after a meal of lentils and rice, the Englishwoman retired into the cave where her sleeping bag had been unrolled.  It wasn't until then that Jeri joined Kelly on the ledge at the edge of the firelight.  The sun had set and a clear, moonless sky presented a lavish display of stars.  As Jeri sat down beside her, Kelly leaned against the woman in easy affection, and she felt the flutter of lips touching her hair and then a cheek laid against her head.  An arm went around her shoulders.

"How are you?" Jeri asked.

"Fine.  Tashi's a great cook, but it's a good thing I got all that walking in because his stew is really rich."

"That's the yak butter."

"Ick.  I'm not sure I really wanted to know that.  Jeri, nobody ever shot at me before." Kelly felt her companion stiffen.

"I'm sorry, Kell.  It comes with the territory, but it's a shock any way you look at it."

"Yeah.  Of course, it would have been worse if I'd been hit."  Rewarded by a slight chuckle, Kelly took a chance.  "Can we sleep together tonight?"

There was a silence as if the person next to her had gone away.  At this point, any silence was too long.  Kelly took a deep breath.  "Okay, I meant that the way you think, but let me change it.  Can we just sleep close together?"

The arm around Kelly's shoulder tightened.  "Yes, I'd like that.  Kelly, I'm sorry . . ."

"Sh-h-h.  I'm here for the long haul.  Can you talk about what's going on?"

"Not really.  I'm not sure.  But I'll think about it."

"Okay.  Think about this, too."  Kelly turned her face toward Jeri and was rewarded by a kiss. Jeri lay awake long after Kelly fell asleep, listening to her breathe.  She wanted to wake the young woman, wanted to roll over and kiss her awake.  She knew exactly how Kelly would react, how easily her arms would open, how she would respond still half asleep as if she were continuing something begun in a dream.  Jeri ached to touch the body that lay next to her, and it didn't help knowing that her touch would be welcome, and more than welcome.

But just as had happened earlier when they kissed, when she had felt desire rising, calling her to enter the dark land, the faces would be sure to intervene.  Some had names and some didn't.  The darkness of desire that summoned her was no empty darkness but a place haunted by the dead.

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They walked to Tibet.  The trails they followed were old, old as trade between northern Asia and the Indian subcontinent.  Occasionally they ran into other people whose business lay here in the highlands: yak and goat herders, merchants, smugglers, pilgrims and refugees.  As day followed day, Kelly found herself growing ever stronger.  The rhythm of the journey suited her and the beauty of the landscape delighted her.  They rose early, breakfasted on whatever Tashi fixed, and invariably it was delicious.  He was teaching Kelly the techniques of outdoor cooking.

They walked through the mornings.  Midmorning, they took a break and a light meal, usually chapatis, and another break again in the early afternoon.  Late in the afternoons, they would stop and set up camp for the night.  They crossed high meadows and rocky plains and climbed narrow trails that clung to the sides of steep slopes.  Now and then, they came to a village where they bargained for supplies and enjoyed a night under a roof if one was available.  Jeri was able to purchase a coat at one such village.  Kelly, too, got a coat of her own and returned Nuru's.

The pace was brisk but not difficult.  Kelly thought Louise Bolingbrook was also finding the journey invigorating, but she was careful to keep her distance from the UN official.  In the evenings, Jeri and the English woman discussed Tibet.  They continued to politely address one another as "Miss O'Donnell" and "Mrs. Bolingbrook," but occasionally Kelly thought she could detect something approaching -- not warmth -- but less hostility in their interactions.

After Bolingbrook wrapped herself in her sleeping bag, Jeri and Kelly would spread theirs together at the edge of the campsite and lay together, talking quietly, exchanging stories of their lives.  For the most part, they were stories that skated lightly on the surface, ignoring the shapes that hovered in the depths.

"Can you tell me who translated this report?" the English woman asked, holding up several sheets of paper.  She spent most of her evenings going over and over the copy of the handwritten manuscript she had brought with her.

"Detsen Phurba," Jeri answered.  "The author.  He wrote it in English himself.  He went to Oxford, actually."

"Is that so?  I thought I detected something of the style."  Bolingbrook sounded less than enthusiastic.  "I was Cambridge myself."

There was a longish silence broken only by the crackling of the yak dung fire.  They had crossed a high meadow that day, and the dung was an extra they'd collected as they walked. Tashi assured Jeri that they were lucky to find it.

"I believe you also went to Oxford, Miss O'Donnell?"

It was all Kelly could do to keep from exclaiming aloud.  Jeri went to  Oxford?  Obviously there was much of each woman's past that still remained unknown to the other.

"Where did you go to school, Miss Corcoran?"

Kelly had grown so used to being invisible around the English woman that it took her a moment to realize she was being addressed.  When she did, she looked up in surprise.

"Oh, come now, let's put this little charade to rest."  There was a certain satisfaction in Bolingbrook's voice.  She was actually enjoying Kelly's startled surprise.  "You hardly look Nepalese."

"Northwestern," Kelly said.  Her voice cracked somewhat from lack of use.  "In Chicago. Illinois."  She couldn't keep the question back and asked Jeri, "You went to Oxford?"

"Your companion, my dear, was a Rhodes Scholar."

Jeri frowned.  "That was a long time ago.  Another life."

Louise Bolingbrook folded the report and gathered her pack together.  As she rose, she said, "Unfortunately, it wasn't.  It has been my experience that although lives may be complicated, they are still all of a piece.  Good night."  She nodded to include Kelly.

Kelly always looked forward throughout the day to the evening time for talking and affectionate if not passionate closeness, but this night it was as if a wall had grown around Jeri.  She was quiet to the point of being cold and after several attempts to get through her brooding silence, Kelly simply let matters be, tucked up in her sleeping bag, and went to sleep.

She had no idea how much time had passed, but Kelly was wakened from a sound sleep by an odd noise.  She woke confused as to where she was, thinking for an instant that she was back in George's apartment and some crisis had arisen.  Then she realized that the noise was coming from Jeri and that the sounds were something between a moan and a sob.

"Hush," she said soothingly, moving over to comfort her companion.  She reached out to touch Jeri and felt how the woman was shaking, still caught in her nightmare.  In the light from a nearly full moon Kelly could see that Jeri's face was contorted by pain.

Kelly moved closer and began murmuring to Jeri, wordless sounds of comfort in hopes of soothing her while she held her close.  Suddenly Jeri's eyes were open.  She stared at Kelly and Kelly thought she might still be asleep.  Still staring, Jeri pulled Kelly to her until their mouths met.

There was nothing calm about this kiss.  It was wild and harsh and demanding.  Kelly thought to protest but instead she struggled to answer, struggled to stay with Jeri.  It was like trying to stay above water in a stormy sea, and it was all Kelly could do to hold her own. Jeri's need was so intense that it seemed to be without reference to Kelly at all.  Kelly was still unsure whether or not Jeri was awake.  Jeri didn't stop with a kiss this time.  She kicked out of her own sleeping bag and urged Kelly out of hers.  Freed from the thick down bag, she pressed Kelly to her and her hands slid under the woolen shirt that Kelly slept in.

Kelly had looked forward to this moment with impatient anticipation, imagining how it would feel to have Jeri's hands on her bare skin, to have Jeri's mouth moving down her throat, and sliding toward her breast.  The reality was nothing like what she had expected.  The hands that gripped her were hard and tight, holding her as if she might want to get away.  The mouth that Kelly had come to think of as soft and yielding was open wide, clumsy and feverish, and Kelly felt teeth, as if she was about to be eaten by someone starving.  And in spite of everything, Kelly found herself respond, lifted on the rising crest of her own craving to meet Jeri on this plane of terrifying urgency.

It was as if two fiery comets were colliding in a planetless space, whirling round and round and attempting to merge without exploding.  Emotions were fuel and passion was a dark furnace propelling them away from one another even as they sought desperately to come together.

"Jeri, it's me, Kelly," she found herself saying, repeating.  It wasn't the excess of passion that urged Kelly to stop, it was the fear that she felt beneath the passion driving both of them toward a dangerous extinction.

Jeri stopped.  Just stopped, and became limp in Kelly's arms.

"Oh, god, I'm sorry," she whispered and her shoulders shook. Kelly held her until at last the cold of the night diminished the heat that had driven them out of their sleeping bags.  Without quite letting go of Jeri, Kelly gathered their clothing and got them both back into something warm.  Then she arranged a single sleeping bag so that it held both of them.

"Who's Fiona?" she asked, saying the name that Jeri had moaned several times.  "Sh-h, it's okay, just talk to me now.  Tell me."

And Jeri did.

Fiona was a cousin.  Jerry had lots of cousins in Ireland.  When Jeri was in grade school at St. Mike's in Boston, she learned she had a cousin named Fiona about her own age who lived in Derry.  One of the nuns encouraged all the kids with Irish relatives to select one for a pen pal.  She liked the name, liked its echoes of legend and fantasy.  After she and her cousin began exchanging letters, Jeri learned that, in Ulster, a Celtic name spoke of a family commitment to nationalism.  Jeri's father, Eamon, had left Derry about two steps ahead of being arrested for attitude if nothing else, so Irish nationalism was something Jeri knew about.

Jeri grew up like any other Irish kid from Southie.  She learned her way around the streets early and it was only dumb luck that she avoided the traps that caught most other kids: the drugs, the violence -- and pregnancy for the girls.  Dumb luck and maybe it was being gay. Being gay taught her that things weren't always taught true; and it made her think first and act more slowly.  It didn't much interfere with her quick temper that was both a protection and a problem.  She got mad far faster than she got scared, and she acquired a reputation as someone it was best to leave alone.

Natural athleticism and intelligence got her from St. Mike's to Boston Latin School where she was weaned from the streets.  She could run like a cheetah and track focused her energy.  She liked learning and when it came time to graduate, she had a scholarship to Boston University. She went into pre-law with a solid minor in languages.  When she won the Rhodes Scholarship, Jeri didn't even consider that Oxford was in the same England that was Ireland's oppressor. In fact, she saw one of the benefits of going to England as the chance to meet her Irish cousin at last.

They didn't meet right away.  They talked often on the phone, making plans for the spring holidays.  Jeri studied.  Oxford was the gift of a lifetime and she intended to use it.  By now, she had the habit of schooling, and she was discovering that she was ambitious.  As the spring holidays drew near, though, she found herself daydreaming about a green island she knew only from stories and songs.

Fiona was beautiful.  She was dark like all of Jeri's family, with the particularly pale Irish skin that looks like creamy milk.  And she had a willowy, elfin slightness that made her seem capable of disappearing into fairyland at any second.  Jeri fell madly in love with her.  It wasn't merely Fiona's looks, but also her devilishly wry humor, honed bright and sharp, that charmed her American cousin.

Fiona had a boyfriend, Devlin Mulroney, and Jeri rented a car for the three of them to go driving along the coast.  It was a perfect holiday.  They sang songs and told stories.  They stayed at inns with charming names, and alone in her own room, Jeri made up lyric verses inspired by her cousin's dark eyes and bright laugh.  All too soon, the holidays drew to a close.  Devlin suggested they return to Derry through Armagh, and it was there that they were stopped at a roadblock.

Jeri wasn't afraid of guns.  Southie was full of them.  Her temper needed a force stronger than some nervous young British soldiers to quell her tongue. They looked like the kids who played soccer in the fields near Oxford.  Fiona and Devlin both tried to lower the tension with a joke or two, but the soldiers were nervous and Jeri was too disgusted by this break in what had been a perfect holiday and the air crackled with anger and fear.

The constable going through the car found explosives hidden in the doorframe.

Jeri, still angry, felt her temper turn against Fiona and Devlin as she realized in an instant how they had used her.

Fiona saw the look as Jeri added up this and that small occurrence from the trip.  "Jeri love --" she began, and reached toward her cousin.

A nervous soldier fired.  One burst of automatic fire, then again as Devlin bent toward Fiona. Just that quickly they were both dead.

Jeri went to prison for three years.

"It took that long for Uncle Seamus and his lawyers to prove I'd had nothing to do with the smuggling.  But by then it was too late.  Some of the women inside were Provos and that's where I joined."

"Provos?" Kelly asked.

"IRA.  Provisional IRA.  Among other things they had a discipline that kept us strong even though we were rarely let outdoors.  I learned a lot.  Gaelic, weapons theory, Irish history, kicks and punches."

Kelly heard the distance coming back into Jeri's story and realized that she was hearing how a very young woman had coped with the shock of betrayal and death and the derailment of her own life.  She had thrown herself into a discipline that left little room for reflection.

"I love you," Kelly said.  She was holding Jeri as she had all through the long story.

"I got her killed, Kelly.  If I'd only controlled my temper, she might still be alive."

'If only' the words underlay too many lives like submerged rocks, waiting to turn the days and years into wrack and ruin.  Kelly gently kissed the head that lay so close.  "I love you," she whispered again.

At last they made love.  Gently, slowly, Kelly coaxed Jeri into joining her.  When they reached the now familiar point at which Jeri usually drew away, Kelly refused to stop. Instead she whispered softly and kept her hands circling in long caressing motions, understanding something now of how Jeri's distress paced her arousal.  With patient insistence, Kelly urged her forward.  When at last Jeri moaned in release, Kelly was not surprised to hear the deep, shaking sobs that followed.  Nor was she upset when, soon, the woman whose depths she had only begun to discover fell into an exhausted sleep.

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Kelly awakened to see Jeri sitting up, staring fiercely toward the increasing light of dawn, but still in the same sleeping bag as Kelly.  She put her hand on Jeri's back and the woman turned to her with no hesitation.

"I have to go away for a bit, Kell.  I have to think."

"Okay.  Are you angry with me?"

"Angry with you?  Oh, Jesus no.  You're like a part of me -- I know that sounds egotistic, but still -- it's like I couldn't be myself until you were with me.  But . . . but right now, I feel way too much.  I'm not sure I want to be myself.  Do you understand?  I have to go find a way through.  I promise I won't be far.  Or long.  Kelly, did I hurt you last night?  Tell me the truth."  There was anguish behind the question.

"No.  I wasn't hurt.  Just don't forget to come back."

"Never.  I . . . I won't forget, ever.  She pulled Kelly to her in a fierce hug and then slid out of the down bag.

Tashi was already up and heating tea over a fire.  He cleared his throat when he saw Jeri and gestured for her to join him.  Impatiently, she sat down while he poured the usual rich tea into a mug.

"You must be careful at night, Jeri-la," he began, speaking in his dialect.

Jeri raised an eyebrow and waited.  She truly was in no mood to be discussing cultural sensitivities.

Tashi ignored the frown and continued.  "At night, there are namshe, souls of the dead, looking for a way back into life.  When they hear or feel two people together they come, driven by desire and envy, and they look for the gate back into life.  Perhaps they come to where, for one reason or another, there is no gate.  Where they exist is a fearful place, we call it the bardo, a place of terrifying illusions.  The namshe can become very desperate in their fear."

Tashi stirred his tea a moment.  "I tell you these stories of ours, and then perhaps you will not be so likely to take all that you may feel as belonging to you alone."

Jeri nodded.  They must have made quite a stir last night.  "Thank you, Tash.  I will think about what you have told me."

"Take this, too, if you stop out there to make prayers."  He handed her several pieces of juniper bark.

Kelly noted the speculative looks turned toward her when she went for breakfast.  Even Nuru seemed curious.  He kept giving Kelly sidelong glances when she joined Tashi at the morning fire.  Tashi looked up and smiled a little, and then had the grace to go on about his business which, more and more, was teaching Kelly the art of cooking outdoor meals.  When Louise Bolingbrook came for her mug of tea, she gave Kelly a long calculating stare.  Kelly returned the gaze, and although it was difficult not to look away, she managed it.  Bolingbrook took her tea mug, nodded, and left.

Jeri climbed until she was far above the trail the others would take and when she came to a place that leveled out, she jogged.  It took a lot of oxygen to jog at these heights, and soon she was forced to stop.

Fiona.  She'd put Fiona somewhere safe years ago.  Bolingbrook took her out.  Damn the woman. Damn the bloody English woman and her assumptions that a life was all of a piece.  One minute Jeri'd been driving along a lane in Armagh with a cousin she adored and nothing on her mind but regret at having to end vacation to go back to school.  The world had stretched ahead along that road, as calm and peaceful as the Irish countryside she was passing through.  As deceptively calm and peaceful.  In the next minutes, she became betrayer and betrayed, destroyer and victim.  Would the English soldiers have looked so hard if she hadn't been so angry, so assured of her own innocence that she goaded them into taking the car apart?  If Fiona had only told her, trusted her, she would have kept her mouth shut.  And why had she turned her damned Southie anger on Fiona?

Jeri held her arms round herself and rocked back and forth, moaning.  Nothing for it now but to remember it all again, torturing herself with each moment when some choice of hers might have made the difference between life and death.  But it always turned out the same.  Fiona died and she went to prison.  She screamed then, her cries echoing in the vastness of the rocky heights.

There were good women in the prison, women who helped her to understand that she could take Fiona's place.  If the life she'd been intending to live had become forever out of reach, then she could move into the life that was forever ended.  It was fitting.  It gave her purpose. . . it put her to sleep until a bomb blast jolted her awake.

Jeri remembered the juniper bark.  Tashi had given her a piece of his own generous understanding when he gave her the bark.  She lit it and savored the sweet smell.  Lighting it was a prayer.

Into her blasted, ruined wreck of a life had come Kelly.  She remembered how, in the night, Kelly had taken her on a journey much longer than merely from the first stirring of passion to its release.  Kelly had accompanied her into the darkness and companioned her past the demons that gnashed and gnawed at her spirit.  Kelly had entered the labyrinth of her soul as if she had always known the way.

What had she done to deserve someone like Kelly?  Someone whose emotional courage was as strong as a clear bright flame.

Nothing.  It wasn't about deserving.  She ought to know that by now.  One didn't find, in the end, gods who weighed and measured.  In the end, one found souls who accepted the totality and complexity of their lives, who strove to stay awake; or one found souls who cried out against their time and the manner of events, souls that sought safety and surety, and bartered all for a form of slumber.

Once, Jeri had climbed into the high places of Ireland and learned there that she needed to walk away from a life that wasn't hers.  What had been an ending then now appeared a beginning here in this high place; and here she was being shown a way back to her own life.

" …I found myself in dark woods," she said aloud, " …the right road lost."

Not lost.  Not yet.  She had thought herself willing to accept the burden of her sorrows and her sins but, perversely, it was the burden of her joy that was going to be harder to shoulder.

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Kelly was asleep when she felt someone slide into the sleeping bag with her.  "Is that you?" she murmured, opening her arms without opening her eyes.

A deep chuckle and a whisper: "You'd better hope it is."

"Mmm.  You smell nice, like grass and juniper smoke."

"You smell good, too.  Like tea and yak butter."

"Aw jeez.  Did you have to say that?"

To be continued... in Part 3

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