by Richard Edde
“At ease men,” he said. “Stow your weapons.” Captain Stepan faced the man leading his group. “I am Captain Stepan of the National Police. You are Dr...”
“Dr. Olson. I am the scientific leader of a research team excavating at the base of these mountains. Am I glad to see you. Glad you speak English.”
“Glad to see us?” Stepan replied, ignoring the English comment.
“Two of our team are missing. My assistant, Dixie Zinn and--”
“When did this happen?” Stepan said. The whine of the chopper’s turbines were winding down, making conversation easier. “You mentioned two people are missing?”
“A monk from a nearby monastery was traveling with us.”
“When did this happen?” Stepan repeated.
“My assistant disappeared sometime last night. When we woke up this morning, she was gone. We searched all around our campsite but there was no sign of her. The monk disappeared several days ago. There were signs of a struggle at that camp. We were on our way back to our compound to notify the authorities.”
“Where was your last night’s campsite?”
“Only about a mile back up the trail.”
“I would like to look around. Can you show us? I can walk beside your horses.”
“Absolutely, Captain. Follow us and we will take you there. Why are you in these mountains, sir?”
“Actually, Doctor, it is for your and your group’s safety that we have flown all this way. I will explain on the way.”
***
Harry could not believe their good fortune at having the police land right in front of them. He led Stepan to the previous night’s campsite and showed the captain where the lean-to was located. The small frame structure looked eerie, abandoned and alone. Stepan strolled the area, looking for clues of her disappearance. The ground was barren of any sign that might shed light on what had happened to his assistant. Harry caught up with him some distance from the campsite, where he was squatting, peering off in the distance.
“She just up and disappeared as best as I can figure,” Harry said. “She and the monk both, but something happened to the monk ’cause there were signs of a struggle with him. And strange footprints led away from the site of the struggle. Jing here thinks it was a Yeti.”
“A Yeti?” Stepan said, eyes wide, alert. “Really? Have you all seen anything up here?”
“No, nothing. Just the large footprints where the monk disappeared. What are you doing way up here, Captain?”
Harry and Stepan walked back to the horses. The sun was up and the air was warming.
“We had a report of a group of Americans in this region looking for you and your team.”
Harry stopped short.
“Really? Why?”
“Had something to do with your excavation. Have you uncovered something important?”
“Not really. Just some old bones and a few teeth that we don’t know what they are. Might turn out to be important, might not. It’s too early to say right now. How do you know all this?”
“We have just come from there, Doctor. I talked to an abbot...Zhing, I believe. Apparently, these men are after whatever you have found and they will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. They must believe it is worth a lot of money. They have been to your compound and terrorized your team and foreman. After learning that you were headed to the Tenduk monastery, they followed and murdered a monk there.”
Foul-tasting bile formed in Harry’s mouth, along with a sudden knot in his stomach. “Are you kidding? Surely not. Which one?”
Li fell to his knees and Jing began sobbing.
“The older senior monk. Yang, I believe, was his name. When I first began this mission, Doctor, I didn’t know what to think. A lot of our INTERPOL alerts turn out to be false leads or outright mistakes. But after I spoke with your foreman and, from what I saw at the monastery, I do believe these men are out to do your team harm, possibly murder every one of you. I believe you and your team are in grave danger.”
Stunned, Harry was at a loss for words. Lama Yang had convinced Zhing to allow them access to the skull. He was a kind and gentle man. But, as Harry was about to ask Stepan what they should do, one of the captain’s men came running up and saluted.
“Sir, I found something back there,” the man said, pointing off in the direction of the ridge.
“Okay, Corporal, lead the way and show me.”
Harry followed the two men with Li and Jing close behind. When they reached a clearing in a field of low-lying brush Harry found several of the captain’s SWAT team members standing over a series of footprints in the sandy soil. Stepan studied them for a minute then turned to Harry. “Look at these, Doctor. Look familiar? You mentioned seeing footprints when the monk disappeared.”
Harry bent down in order to get a closer look. There were a series of human-looking footprints similar to what he had seen before. Large, humanoid prints. “Yes,” he said. “Exactly like the other day.”
“Any ideas, Doctor?”
“Originally, I thought an animal of some sort, maybe a bear or something like that. But they’re too large.”
“I think they look like they belong to a large human. You don’t?” Stepan said.
Before Harry could answer Jing stepped forward, her eyes flashing. “It’s like I said. It belongs to the Yeti. They live higher up but come to lower elevations in search of food. You may not believe, as I did not believe, but this is proof. They live.”
Captain Stepan stared at Jing for a moment then paced around the footprints, hands on his hips, thinking. “The bottom line is that we have two people missing. I need to report to my colonel and then we will see what is next. In all likelihood, he will want me to investigate these disappearances. Excuse me while I get to the radio and check in.”
Without waiting for Harry’s reply, Stepan walked over to the helicopter and climbed aboard. Harry marched about the tracks, casting periodic glances in their direction.
Li joined him. “Doctor, this is nasty business. Dixie was my friend. I can’t believe something has happened to her.”
“Neither can I, Li. But it has. I just hope and pray she is all right.”
“She used to laugh at my attempts at American slang. If I used a word in the wrong way, it made her laugh. Not at me personally, just the way I said it. Her laugh made me happy.”
“I know, Li. She makes me happy, too. And on top of that, the captain says there is a group out here wanting to do us harm, steal our relics. It’s getting to be too much.”
“But we don’t know if what we’ve uncovered so far is worth anything at all, Harry.”
“That’s it, though, isn’t it? You said it--so far. Who knows? Later, after we have finished with all the scientific study, they might be worth a lot.”
When the captain returned he smiled. “We will fly back to Tenduk, obtain some horses, and get on the trail. Dr. Olson, can you all wait here until we catch back up with you? We can then proceed together. I want to follow these tracks.”
Harry turned to Jing, who nodded. “Yes, we can do that,” he said.
“How long will it take us to get back here, do you think?”
“Three to four hours, probably. Depends on how long it takes you to find horses.”
“We’ll try to rent them, of course. Hopefully, that won’t take too long.”
Harry watched Stepan and his SWAT team board the helicopter and take to the sky. In a few seconds, the chopper was gone, leaving him, Li, and Jing in silence. Li pulled the saddles off their horses and hobbled them so they wouldn’t wander off while grazing.
Jing wanted tea so she set to making a fire.
Harry strolled down to where the tracks were located, trying hard to reconcile their meaning. Unable to fathom their origins, he returned to the campfire and retrieved his satellite phone. He knew the professor would be in bed but he needed to talk to him.
“Sorry to wake you, Professor,” Harry said when he had Kesler on the line. “Somethin
g terrible has happened and you need to know.”
Harry could hear Kesler fumbling with the phone then, in a sleepy voice, he answered. “Yes, Harry. What is it?”
Harry though his voice sounded far off, even frail. “It’s Dixie, she’s disappeared.” The words came with difficulty for him.
“Wh--what? She’s what?”
“Disappeared. When we woke this morning, she was gone. No trace of her leaving. It’s horrible. I can’t believe it.”
Kesler sounded more alert now, his voice stronger. “The police. Have you notified the police?”
“Well, actually, they have been here.”
Harry brought Kesler up to date with Stepan’s arrival and his reason for being there. He told him about the monk disappearing and the murder at the monastery. He told him about the Americans on their tail and their terrorizing the expedition compound. After a long discussion about the events of the previous days, Harry waited for Kesler to say something else but there was silence on the professor’s end.
Finally the man spoke. “I guess I need to inform Dixie’s parents. It’s going to be a shock. No one ever expects anything like this to happen on a scientific expedition. I will have to inform the university, as well. Do the police have any ideas as to what might have happened?”
Harry didn’t know how to answer Kesler’s question. He had his suspicions and Jing certainly thought she knew what had happened to Dixie and the monk. Should he relay those thoughts and fears to his boss? Dixie could have just wandered off and gotten lost. He decided to tell all he knew. “At both places where the monk and Dixie went missing, we found large, human-like footprints. Looked exactly like a human, but much bigger. Where the monk disappeared there were signs of a struggle. That’s about all any of us know for sure right now.”
“My God,” Kesler said. His voice sounded far off again. “You know, Harry, what they say lurks in those mountains and in the Himalayas, don’t you? I have been talking with a cryptozoologist and he thinks they could be real. Just because science hasn’t proven otherwise is no reason--”
“I know what they say,” Harry interjected, cutting Kesler short.
“Harry, listen to me. It would fit with the bones and teeth you found, don’t you see? Those bones were of a larger than human primate or hominid. You have seen footprints of a large hominid. What other possibilities could there be?”
“Professor.” Harry tried to sound calm, even though his pulse was going through the roof. “There are three possibilities, as I see it. One, we have uncovered a new species of hominid, one larger than humans or Neanderthals. Two, we have found a different branch of the Neanderthal line, one that survives to this day, and one that evolved much larger than its predecessors. And finally, there is the remote possibility that a creature like the Yeti exists and it has abducted Dixie and the monk. Personally, I favor the first possibility and discount the Yeti theory. However, the police are here and together we are going to follow the tracks we have found. I won’t leave this country without finding Dixie.”
When Harry finished there was a pause until Kesler spoke. “Harry, for God’s sake, be careful.”
“Don’t worry, Professor. You can count on it.”
***
Jing was sitting on the ground, leaning against her saddle, thinking of the events of the past few days. She was tormented by recent events. After completing her studies at the university, Jing considered herself an educated person, a person not given to believing folk tales and mountain legends. But, as a child of Mongolia, she had heard the tales of the Yeti most of her life and, although in adulthood she never gave them much credence, they lurked in the hidden recesses of her mind. In her subconscious. She realized that being a Westerner made Dr. Olson much more skeptical when it came to these stories. And him being a scientist added to his unwillingness to accept what she now considered fact. There were beasts in these mountains, wild men.
Harry, as everyone called him, seemed to Jing to be a nice guy but totally involved in his work. In the few days of knowing him, she admired the way he worked with his subordinates, a leader but treating everyone as equals with an easy sense of humor. She had noticed the way Dixie acted around him and looked at him. Women noticed these things and understood. The pair worked well together. Dixie seemed more inclined to believe in the existence of the Yeti than the doctor, Li, or the police captain, and Jing wondered why. Maybe she was not as ensconced in her profession as Harry. Or maybe it was a woman thing. Jing was amazed at the turnabout in her own thinking regarding the creature’s existence. It had happened overnight but, seeing the tracks coupled with the disappearance of Dixie and the monk, had convinced her. The beasts were no longer legends to her, no longer just tales heard by a frightened child. And the longer they stayed in these mountains, the more Dr. Olson would come to embrace the truth as she had. Eventually he would become the believer she was.
Chapter 20
On a windy ridge, overlooking a vast series of rolling hills interspersed with rocky ledges, Doyle stood with raised binoculars. Beside him were Gillum, Kurt, and Marley. The sun had passed its zenith, and it was on its downward arc, filling the valley below with elongated shadows. Their horses grazed methodically on the few parcels of grass sprouting on the ridge.
He pointed and passed the binoculars to Gillum. “There they are,” he said. “See them? They are perched right next to that rocky gorge off to your right.”
Gillum turned and began looking in the direction Doyle commanded. “There’s only three of them,” Gillum said. “I thought there were four.”
“Let me see,” Doyle said, jerking the binoculars away from his assistant.
After several minutes of looking, Gillum spoke. “Do you see a fourth person?”
“No, I don’t. There were four of them. The doctor, his female assistant, and two others. But there are only three of them there.”
As Doyle returned to the horses, he heard voices and a horse whinny right below them. He signaled for Gillum to be quiet and to move the horses into the brush nearby. Doyle crawled behind a rock then strained to locate the source of the voices. Peering around the boulder, he looked over the edge of the ridge and saw them--men on horseback. He scanned back to the first group who seemed to be waiting for someone or something. One man appeared to be talking on a phone. Back below him, Doyle watched the other group of men on horseback. They stopped, jumped off their mounts, and fanned out over the edge of the rocky gorge. Doyle watched the scene unfold at a distance below him where two men were talking.
Gillum and Marley crouched beside Doyle while Kurt remained with the horses.
“Who are they?” Gillum said softly.
“I have no idea,” Doyle said. “They are wearing black fatigues, see that?”
“Yeah. We could pick them off real easy from here boss,” Marley said. “Want me to get the rifles?”
“Don’t be a fool,” Doyle commanded in a sharp tone. He continued to study what was happening below. “We wait, for now.”
The men on the ridge below Doyle now mounted their animals and began plodding across the mountainside. They were heading toward the group ahead of them. Doyle put the binoculars down then, in a rush, bolted to where their horses were waiting.
“Mount up,” he said. “We’re following.”
***
Li took a mug of strong tea from Jing and sat beside her while Harry talked to the professor. He looked at her oval face and her dark eyes smiled back at him.
“So, Jing, you really think this creature is a Yeti?” he said.
“Like I said earlier, Li, at one time I thought it was all just rumor, wild tales. But, now, I have changed my mind, yes.”
“What changed it?”
“I think those footprints did it. Actually seeing the footprints made a huge difference for me. And of course, Dixie and the monk disappearing where the footprints were did a lot, as well.”
“What more can you tell me about these creatures, Jing?”
Harry
was still on the satellite phone, pacing back and forth.
“Li, I grew up hearing about these beasts. For many years, the legend of the Yeti remained confined to a remote area, where they worshiped it, inscribed it in scrolls, and represented it in an annual festival. The Yeti is vaguely mentioned in ancient writings, perhaps first by Alexander the Great. He would have liked to have one, but the native people told him that the creature was unable to breathe properly at lower altitudes. They told him they had human-like bodies and, because of their swiftness, could only be caught when they were ill or old.
“You know in the Altai foothills there are lush, overgrown valleys. My grandfather used to tell me that strange-looking animals roamed these valleys. They were covered with shaggy hair and had a long horse’s tail. When left to themselves they stayed in the forest and ate tree sprouts. But when they heard the noise of approaching hunters and the barking of dogs, they ran with incredible speed to hide in the mountain caves. They were masters at mountain climbing.”
“I, too, have heard such tales,” Li said. “But I never gave them much thought.”
“Yellow skin below matted hair, extremely robust body, cone-shaped head, and an oddly human stance--this is the common description of the Yeti. As with most strange beings, people have attempted to link it with a presumed extinct prehistoric animal and have succeeded in doing so. The similarities between the Yeti and what is known as the giant ape is almost uncanny. This ape, with proportions that coincide with those of the Yeti, was discovered in the unlikeliest of places--a jar full of teeth in a Chinese medicine shop. Later, a jawbone of this beast was found in a Mongolian cave. When compared with the jaw of a gorilla, the proportions of this monstrous creature were almost identical. Or so my grandfather said. I was a young child when I heard these tales, so they made quite an impression on me.”
“Wow,” said Li. “I had no idea. And I’m Mongolian like you.” He finished his tea and stood.