Peak by Roland Smith

him know we're here?"
    Sun-jo shook his head. "He'll be along when he's ready."
    Waiting again, but I didn't mind. I spent the time trying to figure out how to gracefully bow out of a return trip to the hotel on the death motorcycle.
    "Here he comes," Sun-jo said.
    I expected Zopa to be a frail old holy man. And the monk striding toward us was old, but he was anything but frail. His arm and calf muscles (what I could see of them beneath the hem of his orange robe) were well defined and powerful.
    You'd expect a Buddhist monk to have a spiritual presence, but whatever spirituality Zopa had was overwhelmed by his physical presence. When he reached us he put his palms together and bowed. I followed Sun-jo's lead by getting to my feet and returning the bow.
    Zopa looked me over, frowning at the scabs on my face and ear.
    "Climbing accident," Sun-jo explained.
    Zopa pointed at my bandaged fingers.
    "Split nails," I explained nervously. "They're almost healed."
    "You look like your father," Zopa said. Actually, I looked more like my mother, but I wasn't about to disagree with him.
    "How did you get here?"
    "Motorcycle," Sun-jo said.
    Zopa shook his head in disgust. "When you go back take a taxi." He reached into a fold in his robe and came out with a roll of rupees as big as his fist.
    I didn't think Buddhist monks were even supposed to look at money.
    He peeled off half an inch of bills and handed them to Sun-jo.
    "What about my motorcycle?" Sun-jo asked.
    "If you are lucky," Zopa said, "someone will steal it. Wait for me at the hotel."
    The monk turned and walked away. I was relieved about the taxi, but that didn't explain why we had come all the way down to the Indrayani temple. When I asked Sun-jo about it he just shrugged and said that Zopa had his own way of doing things.
    Mysterious ways, as it turned out, because when we got back to the hotel, Zopa was already waiting for us in the lobby. I didn't recognize him at first because the orange robe had been replaced by regular street clothes and an expensive-looking pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses made him look like some kind of celebrity, which I suppose he was to the trekkers and climbers gathered around him. It had taken us ten minutes tops to catch a taxi outside of the temple. We drove straight to the hotel, and traffic wasn't any worse than it had been on the motorcycle on the way to the temple. And yet, there was Zopa chatting with the hotel staff and guests as if he had been there all afternoon.
    I looked at Sun-jo, expecting him to be as shocked as I was. He wasn't.
    "Zopa does things like that," he said.
    "How?"
    Another shrug, which I learned later was everyone's answer to questions about Zopa.
    "You'll get used to it," Sun-jo added, then went over and greeted the vacationing monk.
    Now, you're probably wondering why I didn't ask Zopa myself. Believe me I was tempted, but I didn't think he would tell me. Or worse, he might give me some reasonable explanation. It's sort of like asking a magician to tell you how he does a trick. Or asking a tagger how he got those seventeen freight cars painted in a single night. It's all about the mystery. Sometimes it's better not to ask.
    Up in the room, Zopa sorted through the gear, putting it in different piles while Sun-jo and I watched. Once in a while he would stop and have me try something on saying, "Fits," or "Doesn't fit."When he was finished there were three piles.
    He pointed to one of the piles. "We will take this and trade for things that fit."
    My boots, blue snowsuit, and several other items of clothing were in a separate pile with some other stuff. I pointed out that none of the things in that pile fit, either.
    "I have another use for it," Zopa said.
    I didn't know what that could be, but I didn't pursue it. Instead I pointed to the trade pile, which had several hundred dollars' worth of pitons, cams, ropes, and other expensive equipment.
    "This gear is brand-new," I said.
    "You won't need it to get up