Yeti

by Richard Edde

  Crawling on his belly and using his legs to propel himself forward, he inched along. His lungs burned. With each cough, pain seared his breathing passages. His face was caked in a thin layer of mud. Every now and then, the group’s progress was halted by something unseen and Harry took the time to wipe his face and nose with the bandana. Then he would begin creeping along, once again, hoping--no, praying--for survival.

  A deep rumble passed over them. The shaft quaked. Behind Harry, the wall of the tunnel gave way and collapsed with a roar, spewing a cloud of dust over everyone.

  Another rumble.

  Then another.

  Then quiet.

  Harry peered through the thick dust behind, sensing a catastrophe.

  The SWAT team was gone.

  Where they had been was a mass of rocks and boulders. The air was thick with dust making visibility in the low light next to impossible. He aimed his light behind him but saw nothing but rock. The shaft had collapsed on the SWAT team.

  He heard shouts up ahead but could not make out the words.

  Li twisted in the narrow confines and shot a terrified glance at Harry. “Oh my God!” he said.

  “What’s the shouting ahead?” Harry said.

  “The Captain wants to know what happened. What should I say?”

  Harry forced down an urge to vomit. “Tell him there has been a cave-in. The SWAT team is lost. There is no way to get them out.”

  Harry heard Dixie and Jing begin to cry. Li shouted Harry’s message ahead and the group began to move forward once again.

  ***

  Eastwood could hardly contain himself. What a stroke of good luck! The SWAT team had perished. In spite of his current situation, that single fact made his predicament less worrisome and his future a little brighter. The odds were decidedly improving in his favor, making his and Doyle’s escape more probable. Although the dust and cramped conditions made breathing difficult, he relaxed a little, knowing that things were looking up. If they could find a way out of this miserable mountain, he and Doyle now stood a much better chance of escaping--only the doctor and the police captain stood in their way. Once out of the cave, it would be an easy matter to overpower them, seize their weapons, and head for home. Boarding the train might present a problem without clean clothes, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. His Hawker was waiting in Beijing. He managed a small smile. The grit in his mouth wasn’t as disagreeable as he pushed forward on his hands and knees in the dark.

  Things were definitely looking up.

  ***

  Dixie was near panic and sobbing. Her tears mixed with the dust caked on her face, turning the mess into a dried mud facial. It was difficult to move her mouth with the dried mud and the dust choked her and made it hard to breathe. It was surreal being in this place. Almost like a dream. No, a nightmare. She knew she was going to die.

  When the Yeti grabbed her and carried her off, she had put up a fight, but the creature’s strength easily overpowered her. Its hot, fetid breath, smelling like rotten garbage, overwhelmed her senses. Its eyes, piercing, red, glowed were like embers in a dying campfire. Most of all, she remembered its fangs, long and pointed, stained yellow and brown.

  At first, she waited in fear for it to sink those long canines into her neck and was surprised when the Yeti carried her to a cave and deposited her in a small room. It then tied her to the wall, using crudely fashioned straps made of dried vines. The monster knew what it was doing, acted almost human. There she had hung until rescued by Harry.

  During her three-day imprisonment, Dixie was in a state of exhaustion, as she silently watched the Yeti come and go. Was it a hallucination that they seemed to be an extended family? One male creature seemed dominant over the others and appeared to be their leader, while a smaller female was never far from the leader’s side. In her tortured mind, Dixie thought the other Yeti completed the family, although what the exact nature of the unit was she couldn’t say. Had it even been real? She was beginning to doubt her memory of that time. But they did seem to be some sort of primate unit, for they knew each other and worked together. They grunted some sort of language that only they understood and, surprisingly, seemed to have affection for each other. At one time, Dixie thought she saw the male caress his mate.

  The Yeti came and went, never paying her much attention. They seemed content to have her confined and helpless, giving her no food or water. As the hours dragged on, she became weaker and it was as if she was in a dream, looking down on her body. But then, one of the hairy beasts would amble into the little room, shove its ugly face into hers, and snarl, its hot breath smelling of rancid meat. But not once did one of them harm her. It was as if they were studying her, like in the movie Planet of the Apes.

  Or, maybe, she was just a piece of Yeti art, stuck on the wall for them to enjoy.

  Nearing collapse, she lost her fear of being eaten alive and accepted her predicament. Dixie remembered the moment she realized she was not going to survive because Harry had no idea where she was. Never very religious but spiritual in her own way, she felt that there was some sort of soul’s existence after death, although exactly what it was, she couldn’t say. But she knew it would be a good existence--of that she had no doubt. So she wasn’t afraid of dying, exactly, but dying without knowing Harry saddened her. She so much wanted what had begun to form between them to have a chance to grow and blossom. There was no one like Harry and she longed for him, as she grew weaker and weaker. She needed his comforting look and soft, reassuring words. As she passed from consciousness into a dream state, she saw the two of them together, happy.

  By the second day of her imprisonment, the Yeti hardly noticed her as they came and went. Sometimes the large male would saunter up to her, stare for a moment or two, then turn and leave. Rarely did he snarl anymore. None of the Yeti touched her, except one of the young females did feel her breasts as if they were something she had not seen.

  By the third day, Dixie was having frank hallucinations. Dehydrated and weak, she was near total collapse, and she had only short lucid periods interspersed with unconsciousness. At one point there were bug-eyed snakes spewing from the cracks between the rocks and their tongues flicked at her, as they hissed. When a tongue touched her, it burned and left a mark. It was the one hallucination she could recall.

  She did not remember Harry cutting her down from the wall. Trudging along in this dank, dark, miserable underground shaft full of inhospitable dust, she refused to believe that he rescued her only for her to die now of suffocation and thirst. It wouldn’t be fair if her life was to end this way. She had so much to live for. So much to give someone.

  ***

  Harry continued to inch his way forward, close behind Li. The walls of the shaft felt as if they were closing around him, squeezing the breath out of his lungs, crushing him into a small mass of skin and bones. The crawlspace continued snaking its way through the dark bowels of the mountain like the river that flowed through the Mongolian steppe. Periodically, Stepan had to clear rubble or large rocks that hindered their progress. The work required tremendous effort and during those periods of rest, Harry was able to catch his breath. His lungs felt as if he had inhaled a gallon of dust. When he coughed, his airways burned. On top of everything, his stomach ached and churned, causing waves of pain to ripple through his weakened body. The cave-in had shocked him into weighing his own mortality and the scorecard did not look promising. Everyone was coughing but, to his relief, Dixie’s and Jing’s crying had subsided.

  As he wormed his way through the dark crack in the mountain, Harry realized his death was imminent. There was no way they were going to be able to get out of this horror alive, and that thought sent a shiver through his pain-racked brain. He’d never counted on anything like this, never thought he would end up swallowed by a mountain cave-in. A coughing spasm overcame him and he spat out a bolus of dust-filled mucus.

  Damn.

  Then--

  A shout from up ahead.

 
A sudden rush of cool air.

  “What’s that?” Harry called out.

  More shouting.

  “There’s light,” Li said over his shoulder.

  Shuffling behind Li, Harry could make out a small shaft of light coming from beyond the group ahead of him. Inching forward, he saw what the shouting was about--a hole, a glorious hole. And beyond it Harry could see blue sky.

  They had made it.

  One by one, they scrambled out of the small rock shaft and into bright, cool sunlight. Slowly, each stood, stretched, and filled their lungs with the fresh air.

  Stepan patted Harry on the shoulder. “You all right?” he asked.

  “Yeah, fine,” Harry said.

  “Is it too late for them? My men, I mean. Are they dead?”

  “Crushed, I’m positive. I’m sorry.”

  “They were good men, all of them. They cared about the law and Mongolia.”

  Stepan went to check on the others and Harry found Dixie. When their eyes met, she ran and threw herself into his arms.

  “Oh, Harry. I thought I would never see you again.”

  “I can’t believe how good you look, Dixie,” he said.

  “Are you kidding? I look horrible.”

  “You don’t understand,” Harry said, smiling. “You look fantastic.”

  Chapter 29

  Harry fell to the ground exhausted. Sucking in deep gulps of the sweet smell of loamy earth, he lay on his back and marveled at their miraculous escape from a prison of darkness, rock, and dust. Dixie lay beside him, crying softly, but now her tears seemed to be of joy at being alive. Doyle and Eastwood were sprawled next to each other while Captain Stepan sat with his head in his hands.

  Harry was wasted, mentally and physically. His bones ached, his head pounded, and his mouth cried for water. Visions of the Yeti danced in his mind, their menacing advance, the gunfire that killed several of them, the knowledge that more of them were still alive somewhere in the cave. Struggling to focus his thoughts, he realized that the encounter, horrible as it had been, was of great scientific significance. Who were these creatures and how did they fit into the pattern of primate and hominid development? They were obviously more developed than present day primates, as they appeared to have advanced language and cognitive abilities. But they were larger, had more body hair, and had different facial construction than what scientists believed Neanderthals were like.

  Anthropologists did not think in terms of an evolutionary tree, per se, but more along the lines of a bush with many branches, springing from a common ancestor. And the clear implication of this bushy family tree was that there is no single central tendency in hominid evolution. Rather, new variations on the hominid potential were continually thrown out to compete in the ecological arena, until one species finally emerged that somehow contrived to eliminate the competition--an unprecedented event in all hominid history.

  Current thinking placed the earliest possible fossil hominids in Africa between about seven and four million years old. They formed a peculiar group, united mainly by the fact that they moved upright when on the ground. Bipedalism was definitively established over four million years ago among the Australopiths who had ape-sized brains, projecting faces, and small bodies that retained excellent climbing capabilities.

  So, Harry wondered, could these Yeti be a heretofore undiscovered branch of that evolutionary bush? Living in isolation for centuries in the high Himalayan and Altai Mountains could account for their peculiar development similar to the way species of wildlife developed on the Galapagos Islands. Isolation such as that did strange things to species’ development over time.

  When one population of a species became isolated from the rest of the species, that population formed its own distinct gene pool. Over time, by means of natural selection, the gene pool of this isolated population produced mutations and acquired new traits that other groups of the same species did not develop. Eventually, over a very long period of time, so many mutations built up that the two populations of this species became so different and incompatible with each other that they were unable to interbreed. At this point, the two groups had become two distinct species.

  Tired as he was, the scientist in Harry attempted to put these thoughts into clearer perspective. In reality, evolutionary biology did not imply linear progression. Modern species did not morph into other modern species, and evolution was not the outcome of some mystical force. Modern evolutionary theory had three basic concepts. One, modern species existing today had descended from pre-existing ancestral species. Two, during this process, single evolutionary lineage had repeatedly split into multiple lineages. And three, the primary force driving evolutionary change was a mechanism that Darwin labeled natural selection.

  As a consequence, any pair of existing species, such as humans and chimps, shared a common ancestor that existed sometime in the past. Modern day evolutionary theory did not claim that we evolved from chimps, rather that we shared a common ancestor with chimps. The process of evolution led to a branching pattern of relationships among organisms, not a linear progression. A bush, not a ladder.

  Great as these principles were, they did not help explain the exact why of these Yeti. Why now? Why here?

  Maybe the more appropriate scientific question was how. How did these creatures come to be here? How did they fit into the evolutionary bush? Maybe the why questions were best left to the philosophers and theologians.

  ***

  Stepan’s hand on Harry’s shoulder woke him. It was late afternoon and shadows were forming over the small meadow next to where the group had exited the cave.

  “They’re gone, Harry,” the captain said with scowl on his face.

  “Who is gone?” Harry asked, stumbling to his feet and brushing the dust off his clothes.

  “Eastwood and his man.”

  “Doyle? When?”

  “Must have disappeared when we were napping. An hour ago, maybe longer.”

  “The horses?”

  “They took two, of course.”

  “Where could they have gone?” Harry was now awake. He reached down and shook Dixie’s arm.

  “Away from here. Off this mountain, I am sure of that. They need to get out of the country so they’ll be heading back to Ulaanbaatar. They are wanted by INTERPOL. I figure they arrived in Mongolia by private jet or the railroad.”

  When Harry and the group had stumbled out of the cave, a short distance from the original entrance opening they found their horses grazing peacefully at a stream nearby. Filling their canteens with the sweet, cold water and drinking their fill revived them only to be lulled into sleep by their exhaustion. To find Eastwood and Doyle gone distressed Harry. The men were killers.

  “They could be heading to our research site,” Harry said as Dixie joined the pair.

  Jing and Li were sitting on the ground looking at them.

  “What for?” said Stepan.

  “Oh, God,” Dixie interjected. “We left all our computers, notes, and findings back there.”

  “But there’s really nothing of any great value,” Harry said.

  “What about the bones and teeth? Now that we have seen the Yeti wouldn’t that make them a highly valuable prize?”

  “I am sure they now know about the skull at the monastery,” Jing said, now standing next to Dixie, who nodded her agreement.

  “A couple of our weapons are missing,” Stepan said.

  “They will kill anyone who stands in their way, innocent site workers or not.”

  Awake and alert, Dixie wrung her hands. “We need to get back there as soon as we can.”

  “Hold on,” said Harry. “How would we stop them if we found them? Most of our weapons were lost in the cave-in.”

  Stepan pulled his pistol from its holster. “I have my trusty Russian OT-33 Pernach machine pistol. Not much, but it’s something.”

  “I doubt it’s more than what they’re packing,” Li said, smiling at his use of American slang.

  “Ca
ptain, what about radioing Ulaanbaatar for help?” Harry asked. “You had your radio when we entered the cave.”

  “No luck, Harry. It got lost in the scramble and cave-ins. Sorry. So it seems we are on our own for the present.”

  “Maybe I could make it back to the monastery while you all go on ahead,” Jing suggested. “If I get there, I can call the police and get some help out here.”

  Harry smiled at Jing, her sharp facial features softened by the waning sunlight. “Unless, Eastwood and Doyle decided to head for the monastery, then it could be dangerous.”

  “No,” Li interjected. “If they are smart, they are going to get out of the country, pronto.”

  “What do you think, Captain? Send Jing to the monastery? If Li is right about the two, it would get her out of the line of fire. Dixie could go with her.”

  “Not on your life, Harry,” Dixie said forcefully. “I’m going with you, period.”

  Stepan laughed. “I’m glad that’s settled, Harry. Okay, Jing will take a horse and make her way to the monastery. When you get there, call the National Police and talk to Colonel Bronislav. I will give you the phone number. The rest of us will head to the research site. Maybe we can overtake them before they get there, if that’s where they are heading. What happens when we find them, we can talk about along the way.”

  ***

  Doyle bent over the shallow stream refilling his and Eastwood’s canteens while his boss sat on a rock and surveyed the valley below them. They had pushed themselves hard for a few hours after mounting two horses and leaving the sleeping party behind. Now, in the fading evening light, Doyle handed Eastwood his canteen and the men climbed back in the saddle. Making their way along a narrow trail into the basin below, they rode in silence with Doyle listening to the plodding hoofs and the horses’ raspy breathing. The valley was devoid of any lights and, as the twilight deepened into purple hues, he switched on his headlight and searched the brush alongside them.