Yeti

by Richard Edde

  Dixie sat on the bed, her heart racing. The room was getting stuffy. “I do care, Harry, very much. More than I can say, actually. I had a friend in college who had parents much like yours. A father who drank too much and a mother who supported the family. She couldn’t decide if she loved or hated the man. It caused her much stress and grief. So I feel I know a little of what you must feel. And I hurt for you.”

  Harry rose from the desk and sat on the bed next to Dixie. She looked deep into his steel-blue eyes, seeing strength and compassion. She fought an urge to put her arms around him, draw him close, and touch his cheek as he had hers. He seemed vulnerable, something she had not experienced before. He was showing a human side to his methodical, professional demeanor and it touched her heart.

  “You don’t know the half of it, Dixie. I’m not at all what I seem. You should know--”

  “You shouldn’t feel it necessary to confide in me, Harry. Your business is your business but I do care for you.”

  “I did something about a year ago. It was stupid and foolish and, in doing so, I hurt the man I admire the most.”

  “The professor?” Dixie said.

  Harry nodded. “It was because I wanted to make a name for myself. It was so stupid.” He seemed to struggle to find the right words. Dixie’s heart pounded as he continued. “I forged some data on a paper I wrote for a journal. I changed it so it would fit a theory I proposed in the article. The professor caught it and confronted me. I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to do but admit what I had done. It was the darkest day of my life, for the look on his face has all but destroyed our relationship. Not a day goes by that I don’t regret my actions but I can’t undo it. Fortunately, the professor corrected my mistake in a letter to the journal and took responsibility. Christ, he’s my father. I love the man. But I have let him down immensely--more than that, I hurt him, Dixie. It’s hard to look at myself in the mirror anymore.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t know what to say to be of comfort. Just know I care about you,” she said. “I think it’s natural to feel guilt over it.”

  Dixie’s mind was in a whirl with this revelation from her professor. She hadn’t expected it, not forging data in a journal article.

  “I’ve tried to understand why I did what I did. I guess I just wanted a shortcut to fame and fortune. It was so stupid.”

  “Harry,” Dixie said, her voice faltering. “I--”

  “Now, you’ll be thinking differently of your professor. Probably want to work under someone else. I wouldn’t blame you.”

  “No one but those involved in the academic life, Harry, understands the tremendous pressure to make discoveries and publish them. I’m sure Dr. Kesler understands the motivation behind what you did. He seems caring enough.”

  “The fact remains I all but have destroyed his confidence in me, I am sure of it. He’s the only father I ever had. I--”

  Without thinking, she placed her hand on his. She startled herself in doing so. Then she did the unthinkable--she took him into her arms and they gazed at each other for a long, silent moment. He brought his lips to hers and kissed her. Dixie felt her spirit melt into his and, for a brief few seconds, they were kindred souls suspended in space and time.

  When they parted, Harry shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I’m not.”

  “But I’m your professor. And now you know my secret. I’m sorry.”

  Dixie laughed. “Harry, we’re not in high school and I’m a full-grown woman. I loved the way you kissed me.”

  “Well,” he said, letting go of her, a weak smile on his face. “We’ll just have to do it again sometime.”

  Chapter 15

  Breakfast at the monastery was a simple affair of oatmeal with honey, unleavened biscuits, and strong tea. The small dining hall was quiet, as the twenty monks with somber faces ate in relative silence. Sunlight streamed in two large windows, filling the room with a brilliant golden warmth. Morning prayers and chanting were over and they were readying themselves for the day’s work that lay ahead. Harry, Dixie, Li, and Jing sat by themselves at a table and endured the stares of the monks.

  Harry smiled at Dixie and thought of the previous evening. After leaving his assistant and returning to his room, he had lain on his cot, savoring the taste of her lips. At first, he found it hard to believe that he had kissed his graduate assistant, an act that normally would spell the end of the student working under him. It had never happened before. What was happening? What was he feeling? His emotions were a jumbled mess--a high he had never experienced, along with a low, and a realization that their relationship was different now. She had smiled at him, an indication that the kiss meant something important to her. In spite of the possible complications it might pose, Harry couldn’t get Dixie out of his thoughts. Even this morning at breakfast, he smelled a faint fragrance from her hair. He had confided to her his monumental mistake that, under any other departmental chairman, would have spelled the end of his academic career. He considered resigning but felt indebted to Kesler and was working to restore the man’s confidence in him. Sleep had been difficult in coming but, finally, as a gray dawn filtered through his window, he drifted off for an hour before being awakened by the morning bell. As they finished their breakfast, abbot Bo Zhing approached their table.

  “Namasta,” he said, clasping his hands and bowing slightly.

  “Namasta,” said Harry. “Good morning, abbot Zhing.”

  “I wish to apologize, Doctor, for my rudeness last evening. After speaking with Lama Yang, I realize your curiosity in our skull is purely scientific. Please forgive me for thinking of our monastery’s reputation. It was just that I did not wish to politicize our custody of the Yeti skull and have to deal with a deluge of unwelcome inquiries.”

  “I quite understand,” Harry said, finishing his mug of tea.

  “Thank you so much, Doctor. Lama Yang has led our small conclave here at Tenduk for forty years and his opinions are highly regarded by us all. It is his feeling that you and your colleagues can be trusted.”

  Dixie, Li, and Jing nodded their agreement.

  “Of course you can,” Dixie added.

  “Well then, if you all will follow me, we shall go to the catacombs where the skull is kept.”

  With that, Zhing ambled out of the dining hall and led the group to another smaller room whose walls were decorated with faded murals of the Buddha in various poses. The abbot lit a kerosene lamp that sat on a carved mahogany table next to a locked door that was much shorter than the one through which they entered. Zhing fumbled under his robe and retrieved a large key ring containing numerous keys. Finding one, he unlocked the door and opened it into a dark passageway.

  “I will lead,” Zhing said, “and light the way. Please be careful and watch the steps. They are narrow and can be slippery.”

  Zhing disappeared and began a descent down a series of stone steps that curved in a counter-clockwise spiral. Harry followed with Dixie and Jing behind him. Li brought up the rear. The only light was from Zhing’s lamp and it cast flickering shadows against the stone and timber walls of the staircase. The air was cool and damp and smelled of loam and moist earth.

  Down they descended. The walls glistened and, in several places, water dripped from the stones overhead. In the pale yellow light, Harry noticed that some of the stones had a dull green moss covering them while others were covered with an orange lichen. He estimated fifty steps before Zhing stepped into a wide passageway that angled sharply to their left. There, Zhing hung the lamp on a peg in the wall and lit another kerosene lamp. Its light illuminated the tunnel enough for Harry to make out that they had stopped in front of another heavy oaken door. Once he unlocked and opened the door, the abbot led the group along a dark hallway, his swaying lantern shooting shafts of light over its rock walls. The air was dank and heavy.

  Where are we going? Harry wondered as the group stumbled down the passageway in single file. His lungs burned from the heavy, langui
d air. We must be a hundred feet underground.

  Zhing stopped in front of a metal door secured with a padlock. The abbot unlocked the door and carried his lamp over its threshold. The door creaked as he pulled it open. The group was greeted by the odor of old parchment, leather, and dust.

  “This is our antiquities room,” he said, “where we store certain items we wish to keep from public view. The constant temperature and low humidity seems to help keep the items in good condition.”

  “What sort of items?” Li said.

  “Artifacts of our history--illuminated manuscripts from the Khan Dynasty and statues from the Mergids when they were defeated by Genghis Khan. And, of course, the Yeti skull. We don’t use this room much anymore, as you can tell.”

  The room was musty. A pungent odor of dust and mildew singed Harry’s nostrils upon entering. Sturdy wooden cabinets, whose shelves contained books and various items, lined the room’s walls. Zhing led them to a dark corner and stood in front of a waist-high metal box. Using a key from a separate key ring, he unlocked the box, opened the top, reached in, and pulled out a frayed canvas bag.

  “Here it is, Doctor. Here is what you wanted to see. Please handle it with care.”

  He handed the bag to Harry, who took it in both hands and retrieved the skull.

  ***

  Kesler sat across the desk from police sergeant Stu Walcott and toyed with his handkerchief while the detective questioned him. Walcott was a large man with a bulbous nose from his years of weekend beer drinking. The smoke from his cigarette irritated Kesler’s nostrils and eyes and he thought he noticed a mustard stain on the man’s wrinkled white shirt.

  Located west of Mission Bay on Bryant Street, the San Francisco Hall of Justice housed the San Francisco Police Department. Kesler had made the trip from his office at Cal Pacific University after calling Sergeant Walcott. From the sergeant’s window, he could barely make out the clock tower of the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero.

  “So, Dr. Kesler, let me get this straight. Two men abducted you, threatened you, and forced you to tell them the whereabouts of your colleague in Mongolia who is doing archeological research there. Is that it?” Walcott blew smoke into the air above Kesler’s head.

  The professor shifted in his chair and wiped his chin with the handkerchief. The question sounded more like a rebuff than a request for information. “That’s correct, Sergeant.”

  “And this happened over a week ago?”

  “Yes.”

  Walcott’s eyes narrowed as a frown formed on his face. “Why are just now getting around to reporting it?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I am worried about my colleagues doing research in Mongolia.”

  “What did these men look like?”

  The sergeant retrieved a pad from a desk drawer and began taking notes as Kesler spoke.

  “I don’t know. It was dark and they blindfolded me.” Kesler squirmed in his chair and continued to stroke his handkerchief.

  “Come now, Doctor. That doesn’t give me much to go on. Surely you can do better.”

  “One of the men had a scarred face. Like a burn or...”

  “A bad case of acne, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” Kesler said. “That could be it. He was a big man.”

  “So a big man with scars on his face kidnapped you. That’s not much to go on, either. Nothing, really.”

  Kesler explained who Harry was and why he was in Mongolia. He suggested a reason why they would want Harry and what he had found. He explained about the teeth and bones and the DNA analysis. The sergeant frowned, all during his explanation, as if he didn’t follow most of it. He wrote on the pad through the entire discourse.

  When he was finished, Kesler threw up his hands. “I’m sorry. It all sounds so silly now that I talk about it. I don’t know what I was thinking. I hoped you could help. And I’m sorry for not coning to you sooner.”

  “Not much we can do, really, at this point. It would have helped if you had reported this right after it happened. Now, however--”

  “Sergeant, I understand. At the time I was just too shook up to think straight.”

  “Well, what’s done is done. Any inkling where they took you?”

  “No. But possibly south of the city. I thought I heard planes taking off.”

  “Big planes? Like airliners?”

  “Yes,” Kesler said. “I was in an empty room, like in an abandoned warehouse, but I have no idea where.”

  The detective snubbed out his cigarette. “Doctor, I can do this. I know Mongolia has recently joined INTERPOL. Let me contact the INTERPOL office in Paris and see if they can forward this information to the Mongolian authorities. We can at least do that and then see what happens or what turns up. Beyond that, at this point, there’s not much more I can do.”

  “Thank you very much, Sergeant Walcott.”

  “You’re welcome, Dr. Kesler.”

  On the drive back to Cal Pacific, Kesler wondered if anything would come of the visit with Walcott. Embarrassed by the detective’s questions, he now realized how stupid it was for not going to the police right away, but he felt he couldn’t risk it. Could INTERPOL do anything? He would have to wait and see. All he knew about the agency was that they helped countries with international crimes. But it wasn’t a known fact that the kidnappers were even in Mongolia. The threat to Harry and the team might be nonexistent. Kesler could be worrying needlessly. Trust in Walcott was his only option for the present. The man seemed to know what he was doing. Kesler was still aching from all the rough handling the men had given him. Hopefully, his delay would not cost Harry or Dixie their lives.

  ***

  Doyle and his men climbed onto their horses and headed into the Altai Mountains. He did not know what was so special about the bones the research team had excavated but, from his association with Eastwood, he knew that those sort of relics could be worth big money. He also knew leaving the expedition workers behind unharmed was a risk, as they might contact Dr. Olson or the authorities, but Eastwood wanted this operation done without collateral bloodshed. The murder of their guide could be explained as a necessary casualty. So he was begrudgingly doing as he was told. Eastwood’s decision could prove their undoing with the one killing already on their hands but he wasn’t the boss.

  Without their guide, Gang, they would have to make their way to Tenduk alone in strange territory but he and Gillum studied the map and thought they could find their way. He ordered Kurt and Marley to check on Gang’s body, and the two men returned assuring him Gang would never be found.

  Doyle didn’t know how far behind the research team members they were--could be a day or possibly as much as three. If Dr. Olson was staying at the monastery then perhaps they had a chance of overtaking them. The doctor must have the bones with him for no one gave them up at the digging site and they didn’t find them during their search of the compound.

  Kurt and Marley had pressured Doyle to do away with the entire research team, an unthinkable act in Doyle’s mind. He wasn’t opposed to violence, as disposing of Gang testified, but needless mass murder was abhorrent to him. It was against all rules of civilized warfare and those rules were in place for a reason. If someone deserved killing...well, that was one thing, but to blast away indiscriminately at innocents, was another--and out of bounds. Doyle hoped those two could keep a lid on their emotions and not let things get out of hand. They were professionals but if they decided to act on their own, against Eastwood’s orders, the entire mission would fall apart.

  The sun burned the mist off the mountains, foretelling a warm, cloudless day. As the Altai came into sharp relief against the brilliant azure sky, the group assembled their gear and filled their water bottles. Once mounted, the four men guided their horses over a rocky trail and along a deep crevasse with a fast-moving stream at its bottom. Ahead, the mountains loomed large and foreboding causing Doyle to momentarily doubt the sanity of their raison d’être. When they returned to the States, he was going to demand a pa
y raise from Eastwood.

  ***

  The skull which Harry held in his hand was a brown, weathered object, larger than a modern human skull. It was a low, flat, elongated skull that featured a prominent brow ridge and a projecting mid-face. Fascinated, he turned it over in his hands a few times while he examined it, eyes narrowed in concentration. It seemed overall larger than a typical Neanderthal skull.

  He handed it to Dixie, who took it with eager hands and let out a low whistle. After studying it for a few moments, she passed the skull to Li.

  “What do you make of it, Harry?” she asked.

  “It has features of a Neanderthal but seems too large. Let’s measure it.”

  “It has a protruding chin which is definitely not Neanderthal,” Dixie said as Harry took the skull from Li. She removed a tape measure from her pocket and handed it to Harry.

  “Also, notice there are no ridges in the occipital bone, either,” he said. He wrapped the tape measure around the skull both lengthwise as well as crosswise. Doing the math in his head, he calculated the cranial volume.

  “Twenty-one hundred cubic centimeters,” Harry announced, “far too large for a Neanderthal. Or human for that matter.”

  Zhing moved in closer and looked over Li’s shoulder. The lantern’s flickering light caused their shadows to undulate on the floor and walls of the tiny room.

  “Where was this found?” Dixie asked Zhing, returning the tape measure to her pocket.

  “Not far from here, higher up the mountain. The story is that many, many years ago a man was riding on a yak near mountain Almasyn Ulan which is three days’ ride from the monastery. There, in a ravine, he saw something in the fog laying between two trees. Moving ahead and nearer to it, the man came to a corpse of a human-like animal, very big and covered by hair. In spite of being terrified, the man approached and examined it closely. The animal lay on one side. One hand, a leg and head were raised. The corpse was extremely similar to human, but it wasn’t Mongolian, Russian, or Chinese. The old man understood that the creature in front of him was not human.