Tranwestia

gements to fly in, but his dwindling resources pre- vented him from turning back. He had, by this time, mastered enough of the clicking Tibetan dialect to make himself understood and to the amazement and amusement of the local citizenry, he paid an out- rageous price for a yak, loaded it with supplies, and trekked off for the cleft between Annapurna and Dhaulagiri. For eight days, Turner trekked down the valley of the Kali Gandaki, then began to climb. the evening of the twelfth day, as he slept exhausted in the thin, cold night air, the lure of the valuable yak brought a club-wielding bandit to an appointment with Turner, A quick tap on the skull, a body drag- ged to the edge and rolled over--and the yak was led patiently away to finish its cycle of existence in another place.

On

The only thing that saved Turner from immediate death was the fact that he hadn't had a haircut in several months, consequently he was not completely unconscious when he was rolled off the trail. His body refused to answer any commands, however, and so Turner was completely relaxed when he landed in a cleft some fifteen feet below the trail.

In the morning, Turner was amazed to waken and find himself still alive, He managed to drag him- self painfully back to the trail where he slumped in exhaustion, his lungs screaming in the rarefied air. He lost conciousness, revived, fainted again, and woke once more to find that his body was point- ing up the trail and dragging itself along. He marveled at this, his brain totally remote and un- affected as the body alternately heaved itself along a few yards, then collapsed. Inside his head, a voice was saying "Gee, Turner old boy, you really are tough! Hurray--you made nearly fifty feet that time! Gonna try again? Sure, why not--hands sore? Bleeding? Can't feel a thing, old boy." The sun went down. After a while it came up, stayed a while staring at the grotesque figure now crawling, now hopping, now falling forward, then changing its

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