Season 20, Episode 7 Ain’t No Mountain High Enough… （Part One）
“Ain’t No Mountain High Enough… (Part One)”
I deserve worker’s comp for this,” Melange groaned, steadying herself on Shawn’s elbow as we traversed the ungroomed trail leading to the Tribulation.
The night before, she’d tripped on a set of unfinished steps at the resort, twisting her ankle.
Agonizingly swollen, her indigo bruise radiated under the tape the medics had wrapped around it.
I’d seen plenty of bad ankles throughout my football days, and Melange’s was not minor.
Nonetheless, she was hell-bent on competing.
We eventually reached an open clearing, Ecklund presiding at the foot of a jagged mountain path that shot straight into the low clouds. I instantly noticed how the mountain resembled the large painting that had greeted us at the penthouse in Shanghai.
“Welcome to the Huangshan mountains!” Ecklund declared.
“Home of the brand-new, world-class Marco Polo Lodge!” The assembled Marco Polo representatives thunderously applauded off camera before Ecklund proceeded.
“Today you’ll scale Bright Top, the stunning peak before us.
This will be your last Tribulation before we ascend to… HEAVEN!”
Down the line, PB cut me a knowing glance.
“In NEW ZEALAND!” Ecklund exclaimed. Everyone seemed sincerely impressed, but my smile was for a single reason. One destination standing between me and the kids.
“Before you punch your ticket to Paradise, there’s a mile-long trek to the pagoda puzzle waiting atop this peak,” Ecklund continued. “But! You’ll have to earn your way through those pearly gates, so from here on out… no more votes.”
Even PB gasped. The bedrock of Endeavor was the voting process.
I eyed Troy and Zara, firmly convinced they were just inventing new rules as they went along.
“Tomorrow the bottom two pairs will battle to determine who joins us in New Zealand. And moving forward, if you don’t win safety in the Tribulation, you’re automatically in the Trial,” Ecklund concluded.
I gripped Imogen’s shoulders, trying not to betray my excitement. The show was essentially fast-tracking us to the finale if Imogen and I could just dominate the Tribulations. “It can’t be so simple,” she murmured as we went to get mounted with our GoPro body cams.
“We’ll make sure it is,” I replied, filling with resolve.
Troy escorted Ecklund and the Marco Polo suits to the summit via gondola, but Zara would do the hard work following us on the trail. “Be careful,” she advised, outfitting me with a water pack. “The altitude might surprise you given the humidity.”
“You too. I mean, you’re making the same climb we are,” I replied, blown away that she actually smiled at me before walking off.
Imogen meanwhile was trying to convince Melange and Shawn to abstain, a camera team perched nearby. “Melange, you’re guaranteed last place on that ankle. Sit out and rest.”
Melange scoffed, readying her mane into a tight ponytail. “Imagine Fortune and Greta climbing this thing. He actually is a mountain, and she sneaks half a pack of cigarettes a day.”
“Even if I have to carry Melange, we’re not quitting,” Shawn agreed. He looked to me expectantly, and I knew I had to back him after our conversation the night before.
“If you think you’ve got this, who are we to disagree?” I inhaled, fully aware the camera team was there, but I refused to censor my impulse. No time like the present. I took Shawn’s hand in mine, squeezing it tightly, then kissed him lightly on the lips. “You’ll be amazing.”
The sound guy quickly started jotting in his notepad, but Imogen and Melange just eyed each other, suppressing smiles. Shawn blushed, briefly staring at me before he found the words. “Okay, then. We’ll see you on the other side of Heaven.”
Minutes later, as I sprinted into the cloud cover of Bright Top, Imogen was gamely setting our pace, the others all left behind.
The cool vapor of the clouds enveloped us as we ran, the moisture and altitude thick in my lungs, though I reminded myself I’d raced through far less ideal conditions than this.
When I still lived in Charlotte, I’d run daily at sunrise.
Virtually every morning was drenched in winter fog during the months before Mitch died.
It was just me, him, and Barnes alone in the house then.
While Jenny spouted her anxious platitudes from Philadelphia, Barnes was beside me for every morphine dose and pharmacy trip.
We occupied such different roles then, perhaps the only time in our relationship when he was domestic, cooking and cleaning between our hospital pilgrimages.
After the Season 2 Reunion, he’d traveled home with me to Charlotte for Christmas and never left.
With his portion of our winnings, he’d hired some consultants to lay the groundwork for his first congressional campaign, even though it was almost two years away.
Still, he never let their calls intrude, insisting nothing was more important than me and Mitch, clearly trying to do what he would have done for his own parents.
In those final days, I became strangely jealous of how Mitch seemed to have forgotten his whole life in the haze of pain and prescriptions.
No memory of my mother’s death, no memory of my accident, no memory of how any of us had failed.
I didn’t have that luxury. I couldn’t forget anything.
Except on those morning runs, when I was just an animal running ragged and breathless through the fog…
That was the closest I’d come to forgetting it all.
I was briefly blinded by the sun as we erupted from the clouds, the neighboring peaks of the Huangshans breaching alongside us like the spines of sea monsters.
Imogen and I arrived at the courtyard atop the summit soon after, where Troy and the Marco Polo execs stood watch near five tables.
Troy signaled us to our station, upon which a sack sat waiting.
I frantically emptied it… except a jigsaw puzzle of the pagoda wasn’t inside. Smooth, abstract golden shapes clattered to the table like an alien’s toolbox, a buffet of oblong curves and pointy edges. “Where’s the painting from the suite?!”
“Maybe we build the pagoda out of these?” Imogen asked. I cluelessly tried to mate two of the bizarre pieces, but it just looked like I was artificially inseminating miniature whales.
Camdon and Tati sprinted in next, quickly proving just as flummoxed. The puzzle would indeed be the great equalizer…
PB arrived right after, Greta trotting behind like a dying horse. So much for those cigarettes. Please, I prayed, let Shawn be seconds behind…
Anxiously, I reorganized all fifteen pieces on our table. “Okay, the long pointy bits are probably the pagoda’s eaves, so let’s separate those out?”
Imogen was testing my theory when Shawn finally staggered in, Melange riding on his back, both in demonstrable pain. He had indeed carried her up the mountain.
“Shawn, Melange, you’re not out of this!” I shouted.
Ecklund interceded, our petulant executioner: “No helping other teams, not even cheering! Everyone earns their own spot!”
Erika and a wheezing Fortune trudged up last with Zara following. The lead we’d had was obliterated, and it was anyone’s game for about five minutes, until Erika yelped excitedly… Pieces swirled, falling magically into place. She stepped back, revealing a tiered masterpiece.
“Erika and Fortune, last to first!” Ecklund cheered. “Now dismantle it. No hints.”
I glimpsed enough to understand the idea we were chasing—three shallow tiers stacked above a square pillar—then Erika began clapping to get my attention. “Luke, below—”
“No helping!” Ecklund chastised. Erika’s eyes met mine, stymied.
Did she mean the base? I’d seen four corners to what she’d constructed.
We had three natural corners, so I arranged them together, abstract curves and edges erupting out.
Imogen nodded, intuitively fusing the fourth corner by combining two pieces. We had the embers; now the fire.
It should have been easy after that. And it was for PB and Greta, who mounted the winners’ stand next. Only one more team would be safe, but Imogen and I still couldn’t get past that base. A little cavity in the center stared back, and none of our pieces would fill it.
A loud slam resonated. We whipped to PB stomping his foot, thrashing as if in a seizure. A perplexed Ecklund gazed at him. “Charley horse,” PB growled, eyes on me but nodding fervently at his feet. Below. Erika hadn’t meant the base. She’d meant the damn ground.
I dove under the table to discover a piece had somehow fallen from our workspace.
The strange shape resembled a teardrop, its round head sloping to a sharp point like a dagger, perfect for the hollow crevasse at our structure’s center.
As I stabbed the piece home, the horn sounded.
But not for us. Tatianna leapt joyfully into Camdon’s arms, their puzzle complete.
We’d lost, our unfinished pagoda mocking us. At the next table, Shawn’s heartbroken eyes found mine. It was official. We would face each other in the Trial, and the countdown to our separation had begun.