Yeti

by Richard Edde

  “The Yeti have been part of the Altai culture for centuries, Li. It is a fact that I don’t think Dr. Olson truly comprehends or appreciates. Or wants to.”

  Li smiled at her. “Is there a man in your life, Jing?”

  “No. I haven’t had the time or the inclination, Li, teaching school in the mountains. Most all the young people have left for the cities, the good looking ones, anyway.” They both laughed and Jing’s eyes sparkled. “How about you?” she said.

  “I have a girlfriend in Ulaanbaatar,” Li said. “She works in a tourist office. I hope we can get married after I am finished with the expedition.”

  “I hope nothing else happens,” Jing said.

  ***

  After hanging up with Kesler, Harry joined Li and Jing and took the mug of tea she handed him. It was nearing the middle of the afternoon, so Stepan and his SWAT team should be returning at any moment. As soon as they arrived, Harry wanted to be on their way, so he paced about, waiting. Together, the three of them chatted about Dixie.

  “She was a good team member,” Li said. “Never shirked a task.”

  “I liked her a lot,” Jing added. “She was always happy, always smiling.”

  “Yeah, as if she knew something that the rest of us didn’t,” Harry said. “I could always count on her.”

  Li fumbled with his parka zipper and looked at Harry. “Do you think she could have gotten up to use the bathroom and wandered off?” Li said.

  “We searched all around here and found nothing.”

  “But we didn’t find those footprints until the SWAT team arrived,” Jing said.

  “I don’t think it’s merely a coincidence,” Harry said, “that she goes missing at the place we find those strange footprints. But I can’t explain it.”

  “You guys refuse to believe, don’t you?” Jing said. “Soon, everyone will know what I know.” She looked down at her boots and didn’t say anything further.

  There was a rustling in the brush to the west of them and Stepan and his men appeared, riding horses. Harry jumped up and greeted the SWAT leader. Li offered the new arrivals each a mug of tea. After downing their drinks, the team remounted and Harry took a place alongside Stepan at the head of the column. Li and Jing followed, with the rest of the captain’s men bringing up the rear.

  The group followed the tracks left in the soft ground along the ridgeline, which then turned abruptly into the brush and disappeared. The captain had his men fan out into a wide arc until one of the men located a series of broken limbs on the low-growing vegetation. Beyond the mangled brush, the tracks reappeared. Harry swallowed hard and continued following them.

  The trek was not easy, for the tracks did not follow a straight line but went in a seemingly random path, circling first in one direction then another. Harry rode alongside Stepan, rarely exchanging words as the two men kept a close eye on the tracks.

  Harry was puzzled. Puzzled and uneasy. Dixie’s disappearance had turned his world upside down, casting his new-found relationship into uncertainty. He was beside himself with worry. Thoughts of never finding her, or finding her dead, now crowded most other thoughts from his mind and he found it difficult to concentrate on the task at hand. In addition, where were these tracks leading? Every now and then, they would come across signs of a struggle--many tracks with the ground torn up. If Dixie had been abducted, could these areas be where she decided to fight? Why were the tracks meandering all over the place? He thought back to their time in the monastery when he kissed her and wondered if his disclosure had destroyed any chance of them being together. She had become more than a graduate assistant, for his feelings went far beyond that of a boss for a valued worker, one for whom he cared. He had crossed the Rubicon, crossed that imaginary line no professor should cross with a student, and the realization of the fact both thrilled and unnerved him.

  The tracks ended at a shallow stream that surged down the mountain from high above them. Low-growing junipers and other shrubs were interspersed along the water’s edge with bare areas of sand and boulders.

  Stepan eased his horse across the creek, scouted the far side, then returned. He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, dismounting.

  Harry slid out of his saddle and paced the edge of the stream, searching for footprints.

  “Sergeant,” Stepan said, “you and another man ride up and downstream and see if the tracks leave the water. We’ll wait here while you do so. Holler if you find something.”

  Two men rode in opposite directions in the stream’s middle, leaving the rest of the group at water’s edge.

  “What do you make of all this wandering around, Captain?” Harry said.

  “I have no idea,” Stepan said. “Where these tracks are leading is a mystery at the moment.”

  “There were signs of a scuffle at certain points. Even you commented on them.”

  “Could have been a scuffle,” the captain said. “Could have been something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Can’t say right now.”

  “Captain!”

  The shout came from upstream so Harry and Stepan remounted their horses and rode to where a SWAT team member was pointing. Deep footprints in the mud led away from the stream. Harry spurred his horse up the shallow bank and onto a narrow trail that continued into the mountains. The sandy trail wove around a cobbled rocky outcrop, reaching ever higher into the Altai. The afternoon light was fading into a magenta gloom, causing the temperature to drop by several degrees. The trail was cut on a gentle slope at right angles to the stream.

  Hours later, they reached a broad grassy embankment as the sun dipped behind the peaks, casting the landscape in purple shadows.

  Harry was thankful Stepan stopped the trek for the night and ordered his men to make a simple bivouac. Jing set up her stove while Harry and Li once again created their lean-to.

  After a quick and simple meal, Harry and Li chatted, while Jing reclined in her sleeping bag.

  “We have to find her,” Li said. “I really care for her.”

  “We will,” Harry said. “I believe we will. I hope it’s just a matter of time.”

  “How did she come to work with you, Harry?”

  “She showed up at Cal Pacific one day, saying she wished to begin graduate work in paleoanthropology. She had good grades from college so I became her major professor, meaning I directed her studies and suggested her dissertation research project.”

  “Is she a good student?”

  “The best,” Harry said. “No one has worked harder than Dixie. Plus, she has a good mind for understanding difficult concepts.”

  “She has always been helpful to me,” Li said. “Always has a smile. That’s what I remember. Her smile.”

  “I know,” Harry said and crawled into his sleeping bag. Lying in the dark, he thought of Dixie’s kiss, the way her soft lips felt against his. We have to find her. We just have to find her.

  ***

  Kurt was pissed and he told Marley so. Having to make do with a cold camp and cold rations made him irritable and short-tempered. The ground was cold, the breeze was colder, and there was no whiskey or women. Sitting in the dark, waiting for his boss to decide something, rattled his brain, made him jumpy.

  “I don’t mind telling you, Marley,” he said, “this jerking around in the middle of nowhere is getting on my nerves. We’re just spinning our wheels. It’s time for action, don’t you think?”

  Marley glanced around, making sure Doyle wasn’t close by, before answering. “Can’t do much about it right now, Kurt,” he said. “Doyle is in charge and we take our orders from him. That’s how we get paid.”

  “That can change, you know.”

  “I’m not going to change it, are you?”

  Kurt gnawed at a piece of jerky then took a drink of water.

  Marley continued. “You going to walk up to Doyle and tell him you know better how to run this operation? Go ahead. He’s sitting right over there. Or don’t you have the balls?”
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br />   “The doctor is only about a mile away. We could get over there tonight and kill them all before Doyle knew what had happened. Then we take the relics and return home. It’s simple.”

  “Except that ain’t what Doyle or the boss wants,” Marley said. “Killing our guide then the monk has changed some of the strategy, to be sure, but I’m in no mood for a confrontation with Doyle. I, for one, value my head.”

  “You gotta admit him shooting that monk was a surprise. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Our leader losing his cool.”

  “Knock it off, will ya?” Marley snarled. “Just knock it off.”

  “This rotten country is giving me the creeps and the sooner I get out of here the better,” Kurt said. “This wait-and-see game we’re playing is making me jumpy as hell.”

  “Kurt, this may come as a surprise to you, but I’m here to do the boss’s bidding--for however long it takes. Understand? I suggest you calm down and do the same.”

  Kurt returned to his saddle, which lay on the ground, and reclined against it. All right, maybe I’ll wait a few more days and see what develops.

  Chapter 21

  Doyle and company were camped on a ledge next to a formidable rock outcropping. From their hidden perch, they could barely make out the light of a campfire far up the mountainside. They had been following at a safe distance, to prevent their discovery by the police and research team. Momentarily losing them at a small stream, Kurt had picked up their tracks farther up the trail, and Doyle had ordered his group to hang back until the research group was out of sight.

  Now that neither party was on the move, Doyle could relax and place a call to Eastwood.

  The man demanded frequent updates on their progress, an order that Doyle considered especially unprofessional. Updates in the military were unheard of. One was briefed on a mission, one left on the mission, and one was either killed or returned for debriefing. There was none of this Call me at the next stop sort of thing.

  Eastwood sounded like he had been asleep. “It’s three o’clock in the damned morning,” he growled. “Where the hell did you think I’d be?”

  “Sorry sir,” Doyle said, trying to sound contrite. “But you wanted me to call.”

  “So, anything new?”

  “We now have them under surveillance. The National Police have joined them. Looks like a SWAT team, from what I can see.”

  The satellite phone crackled. “Makes your job a little harder,” Eastwood said.

  “Look, boss, this has become real tricky. Are you sure you still want to go through with your original plan? We’re going to have to kill police. It will make getting out of the country nearly impossible. I suggest we reevaluate the situation. After killing our guide, I had to shoot a monk, so everything has changed.”

  “You killed a monk?” Eastwood’s tone was incredulous.

  “This has become more complicated than at the beginning. And they are not returning to their research compound. It appears they are following some strange tracks going higher up the mountain.”

  “What kind of tracks?”

  “I dunno. Looks like a giant human of some sort. At any rate, now they have the police with them for some reason.”

  “I want you to keep following them,” Eastwood said. “Just don’t let them know you’re there. Maybe the circumstances on the ground there will change and allow you to move in.”

  “Move in and do what? They outnumber us. It will mean a firefight.”

  “They might split up. Who knows what might happen?” Eastwood now sounded irritated.

  “All right, boss. Will do.”

  After hanging up, Doyle finished his dinner of water and jerky. He disagreed with Eastwood’s long distance assessment of their situation. Nothing good could come from having the National Police SWAT team in the vicinity. Not just in the vicinity but now as members of the scientific team they were following. He would much rather pull his men back to the research compound and simply wait for Dr. Olson’s return. Their stock of food and water was not infinite and eventually they would have to turn back to replenish their supplies. It made good sense to Doyle to return through Tenduck where they could restock, then simply wait at the digging site until a more advantageous time for a confrontation presented itself. Presently, numbers were not on their side. If it came to a show of force, they were outnumbered and most likely outgunned.

  Gillum sat beside him. “What did Eastwood have to say?”

  “Keep following at a safe distance. Keep surveilling. That’s it.”

  “In a battle, we’ll lose.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “He doesn’t understand the situation here. The man is obsessed.”

  Gillum frowned and shook his head. “We have food for only three more days.”

  “I know,” Doyle said. “And, at that time, we’ll turn back. Not before.”

  The pair sat in silence for a while, eating, then Gillum spoke again. “I overheard Kurt complaining to Marley. He’s getting antsy with an itchy trigger finger. I hope he’s able to keep his cool.”

  “So do I,” Doyle said.

  “If he decides to go off on his own, what will you do?”

  Doyle sighed out a long breath. “I hope it doesn’t come to that, my friend. But I need you to watch my back.”

  Gillum smiled. “That’s what you pay me for, isn’t it?”

  ***

  The early morning sunlight cast soft shadows over the campsite as Harry readied the horses for the continuing search for Dixie. Not hungry, he had gulped a mug of Jing’s strong tea and set to work. The SWAT team was busy with their own chores. Captain Stepan sat on a narrow ledge studying a map. A somber mood hung over the entire group, for it was going to be another long day in the saddle. Harry was conflicted. He longed to be back at the digging site, but he was fascinated by the possibilities offered by the footprints. But with Dixie missing, a sour feeling settled in the pit of his stomach, while a premonition that this search would not turn out good hung like a somber pall over the entire team. The thought of not finding her, or worse, finding her dead body, was driving him to near panic and he struggled to drive those thoughts from his mind. His career would be over, for he doubted he could carry on without her. But erasing the dark thoughts was impossible. He watched Stepan fold his map and approach him.

  “Another day, Doctor,” he said, smiling. His uniform was wrinkled and dirty from days in the saddle and he looked drawn and haggard. “I’m getting too old for such excursions.”

  “My thoughts, exactly, Captain,” Harry said. “Maybe today we will find her.”

  “Here’s hoping. If we don’t, I will call for more help and get a larger search party out here. This has gone from a murder investigation to a missing person search as well. The fact that Miss Zinn is an American puts additional pressure on our department.”

  Harry swung into the high-backed Mongolian saddle and kicked his horse into a walk. Stepan moved alongside him and the pair hastened up the narrow trail. The crisp air was noticeably thinner at this altitude and the temperatures cooler, in spite of a brilliant sun overhead that illuminated the Altai peaks in an orange alpine glow. Harry focused his gaze on the footprints ahead. With each turn of a switchback, his guilt over Dixie’s disappearance increased. He was the expedition leader and, as such, was her supervisor, making him and him alone responsible for the safety of the team. When he returned to the university, he was sure there would be a reckoning--even if she were unharmed.

  It was when they were at the edge of a deep gorge, that Harry spotted the cave. A massive rock promontory located a good distance from the gorge contained a black cavity at its base. Harry signaled to Stepan and the group headed toward it, horses at a trot. As they neared the cave, Harry noticed its opening was large enough to accommodate a large truck, wide at the base, narrower at its top, and a good ten feet tall. At the cave’s entrance, the
group slid off their horses and stretched their legs.

  “Sergeant, search the ground around here for more footprints. Sing out if you find any.” the man barked at the SWAT team, who began scouring the area around the cave. After a five-minute search, the sergeant shook his head.

  “What do you think, Captain,” Harry asked as Stepan walked to his side and peered into the black emptiness of the cave.

  The captain looked into the dark cave, as if trying to fathom its depths. “We’ll get our lights and go in. Your assistant and the monk could be in there.” Stepan turned and yelled another order to his sergeant, who began organizing the men and unloading the animals.

  Li and Jing stood beside Harry and watched while the SWAT team members moved their equipment to the mouth of the cave. Stepan adjusted the headlight he had donned then checked his Russian OT-33 Pernach machine pistol. Its magazine held twenty-seven rounds and could fire them at a rate of nine hundred per minute. The rest of the team was armed with Bizon submachine guns and AK-12 assault rifles. Harry let out a low whistle.

  “Not going to back away from anything,” Li said to Harry as they watched the men beside them.

  “I just hope they don’t panic and shoot Dixie, if she’s in there,” Harry said.

  The two scientists continued to watch as Stepan and his men strapped on their weapons. Harry’s pulse quickened to a pounding beat and his mouth felt as dry as cotton. What they were about to do was a far cry from digging for hominids. He felt strange, almost as if separated from his body. He was somewhere else looking down on the scene, disbelieving what was about to happen. If there was something in the cave, whatever it was might have Dixie and the monk and, most likely, would not give them up without a fight.

  “I think we’re ready,” Stepan said, approaching Harry, his shadow dancing over the rocky ground.

  “What’s your plan?” Harry said.