The Yeti

by Mike Miller

  With a grin of joy and hubris first transmitted to his supporters, Chiksai then scanned the rest of the scraggly survivors for any other plunder. He motioned to the rifles of two other soldiers, and the packs of another two. Each man only hesitated for the slightest moment before dutifully surrendering their possessions. Some even presented their items with a bowed head and supplicated stooping as if volunteering offerings at a sacred ceremony.

  Snider bristled at the humiliating hijacking of his supplies by former allies, now betrayed for the second time this trip following the initial robbery by Baxter and Conrad. “Why, you…” was all he managed from gritted teeth and snarling moustache before common sense forced him to calm in the face of overwhelming opposition.

  One of the soldiers audaciously pleaded, “But please, sirs, we ain’t eaten in over a day already on this campaign, what with all the constant marching.” His request still fell upon deaf ears.

  The thieves were finalising their haul of the British soldiers’ goods to assimilate into their own gear when a shrill scream was heard, arresting everyone’s attention.

  From down the path which lead back to the ferocious beast’s slaughter, another cry was heard, this one sharper and closer. It was the sharp wail of a voice irrationally possessed by terror. The cry grew in intensity as it echoed off the mountains. The rocks echoed the alarming sentiment in a chorus of pain. The wailing seemed to encircle the confused men, as the noise blossomed into a deeper rumble.

  Rounding the corner of stone that obscured the beginnings of the trail, Janice emerged at a medium clip. Her frail body rambled along with broken discombobulation as if the joints were at the wrong places. Her agape mouth was the undeniable source of the screeching. With eyes closed and her head woozily rocking back and forth, she resembled a crying infant learning to walk as she stumbled along, barely upright on her feet.

  From somewhere off in the distant slopes and valleys of the mountain range, a rumbling grew. The louder noise commanded their attention, and they all turned to spy the source of the sound. On a faraway slope a tiny trickle of powder blossomed into a wide wave. The spectacle was awesome, as an entire blanket of snow peeled away from the face of a mountain like it was shedding a layer of skin. A white mist soon shrouded the event like the aftermath of a large artillery explosion. Even after witnessing the bizarre demon that had just decimated his forces, Snider admired the phenomenon of the avalanche.

  Even after the face of the peak had melted off the side and quieted, the woman continued her wail as she now waded through the stunned and humbled men of the regiment. Each man was quite eager to escape her path, gentlemanly stepping aside to let the crazed woman pass. The grating wail had outlasted the mountain’s own bombastic phenomenon to remain the sole offender to everyone’s ears.

  “Damn you,” Snider said, eager to unleash his stifled hostility upon the lady. He raised a hand back to strike the woman who might as well have been on a railed track into him.

  But at the last few feet, Janice toppled forward as if tripped though she had merely collapsed at the homestretch. Falling into Snider, she wrapped her arms around him in a fierce hug, a grip so tight that nothing could rip her from the world. With his glove still poised for the smacking, Snider couldn’t help but catch the poor woman.

  “Help me, please. It’s coming. Stop. Please. Save me.” Her words rambled together in one extended, sobbing breath, her sniffles the only punctuation. “Please save me.”

  For only the briefest moment did Colonel Snider feel any pangs of sympathy for the wretched victim. “Damn you, woman,” he sneered as his vile anger returned, now redoubled. With one arm extended to its maximum length, he peeled her back away to position her at the ideal distance to hit her across the cheeks with a sobering strike.

  The raising of his palm silenced her half-mad pleas. “No, stop,” she said in demure appeal, pre-emptively flinching in anticipation of the blow. Though he still wanted to crush her to amend his earlier defeat, he could not do so with everyone else’s eyes upon him. He released her from his possession, her whimpering gradually ebbing in intensity though her wide eyes were still gripped in fright.

  “Listen, you strumpet,” Snider said, his voice low and tense in delivering the order. “You tell these ruffians that they cannot leave.” He motioned towards Chiksai and his men who were obliviously arranging their gear. By now most everything had been strapped down and tethered onto their persons for departure.

  Janice could clearly tell that the raiders wanted nothing with them, but Snider’s stern glare murdered any appeals for reconsideration. She cleared her throat of any residue of phlegm, snot and tears to address the barbarian.

  With a surprising amount of passion, Janice launched into a lengthy speech to change Chiksai’s mind. The dramatic argument was delivered with desperate hands and a tone of pure submissiveness though the native warriors paid no notice to her.

  But eventually the sorry entreaty for their aid elicited a reaction. Chiksai finally looked over at the woman, his rough face actually tinged with a softened sympathy for her. Snider was flabbergasted that her tender negotiations had managed to bargain with these dolts.

  A pair of Chiksai’s compatriots chimed in with their gruff, dissenting opinions, barking at their leader with irritable urgency.

  Snider realised the true interpretation of the conversation and stormed angrily over to his interpreter, viciously ripping her back by the forearm. “How dare you try to betray me too”

  Janice was horrified, her eyes became wet with tears. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she sniffled.

  “So now you take me for the fool too? You think I cannot decipher your pleas for them to rescue you? Do you?!” Snider turned her to face him so that she could witness his intensity. “Is there something to my face that just makes people want to cross me?”

  Snider flung the woman roughly aside onto the ground. A few nearby soldiers courteously lifted her back to her feet, but each restrained an arm in the traditional manner of keeping a prisoner. While now engaged in eye contact with Chiksai, Snider shouted at the woman, “You tell that yellow-bellied coward and traitorous dog that you are staying with us.”

  Janice was broken at the news, her voice became hysterical. “No, please, I beg you. I’m sorry, so sorry. Have I not done enough?” Apology, pleading, reason, Janice rapidly tried every tactic to appeal the decision. “I’ll do you no good no more. Please!”

  Snider turned back towards Chiksai. “And if that fool still wants any part of the greatest wealth and treasure ever to grace this godforsaken continent, Miss Dover, then he should stay with us too.”

  The world was silent until Snider screeched, “Tell him!” in a frighteningly berserk tone.

  Once Janice’s sobbing softened, she sighed and sniffled before iterating the information over to the bandits, though clearly without the same zeal as her earlier appeal. While the language could not be deciphered, her voice clearly communicated a tone of resigned defeat.

  After just a moment’s worth of contemplation, Chiksai barked a short order to his posse, and they began their march. After the last of his men had departed along a narrow path that branched down the mountain, Chiksai shouldered his own gear then calmly spoke a small sentence over to Snider, Janice and the remaining soldiers.

  “Blast you, you yellow scum,” Snider shouted in indignant rage. “Your cowardice and weakness would only have slowed down our conquest anyways.” But Chiksai cared not for any of Snider’s words as he retreated away behind his men. “Britannia!” spat Snider in one final rebuke.

  The last scream left him fatigued and quiet, but he could not reveal those failings to the last of his followers. So he summoned a new reserve of venom to snap angrily at Janice, “So what exactly did that ignorant coward have to say?”

  Janice was still transfixed upon the departing Asian. Her last chance to escape and survive this damned ordeal was leaving with him. Her face hung in defeat as she spoke softly into the snow
. “He said no treasure on earth is worth facing the Yeti.”

  Chapter XXXI

  The Treasure Discovered

  Conrad felt horrible. He clutched his coat to his weak frame while trudging through the torrent of snow. With the onset of evening, the temperature had recently dropped over ten degrees, while the thin air left him constantly gasping for more.

  Recently his insides had become frigid while his skin felt like a fiery hot net holding his guts and muscles together like a tightly bound sausage link. It was this condition which informed Conrad how foul his situation had become. Previously on the journey, his body’s temperatures had been in the opposite situation, with the cold on the outside. Frostbite, disease, pneumonia, there was a litany of sicknesses from which he could be suffering now. The most likely diagnosis was a combination of all of them. With each pained breath, it was as if these ailments were all competing to see which could kill him first.

  The rest of the company trudged along drearily, though the Sherpas seemed unaffected by the climate. They only partially covered their faces in own testament to their fortitude at this wretched weather.

  But instead of concerning himself with the very real demise he faced, he kept himself warm with meandering thoughts about all the fantastic ways he would enjoy his newfound wealth. At the moment he felt like spending a fistful of gold on constructing a gigantic furnace, and another few coins could pay for a very large and cosy chair to sit before the roaring fireplace. A pair of lovely maidens to massage his cold, weary feet would fit nicely into the scenery as well. And a fine scotch would help warm his insides.

  Everything would be worth it once he was rich.

  Conrad licked his lips at the lovely dream, then instantly regretted it when the freezing cold began to turn his wet skin to ice. He rubbed away the moisture with the back of his glove, then began to idle his time by counting the hours since his last real drink. It was an interminable and depressing while ago.

  A hand smacked down roughly on his shoulder, surprising him. His military senses for any swift reaction were muted by the cold, only permitting him to drearily turn his head and hope he was not being attacked.

  A man covered from head to toe said something that was muffled and undecipherable from under the layers of clothing over his mouth and the whistle of the wind. But then Douglas peeled apart an opening before his mouth to clearly say. “Cheer up, mate.”

  Conrad nodded in understanding, too worn to respond verbally.

  “We’re here,” Douglas explained. In his left mitt, he displayed the rumpled, makeshift map which led the expedition. With his right hand, he pointed at the upper right corner of the flimsy material waving tiredly in the breeze like the deathly flag of a ghost ship. Then the same hand pointed yonder towards the next hill. The hand danced back and forth between map and the hill ahead to communicate their connection.

  Despite Douglas’ childish explanation of the news, it still took a long second for the information to travel up the chilled synapses of Conrad’s brain. Yet the moment the revelation made impact, a tremulous and vibrant explosion erupted within the veteran. The almost forgotten spirit of hope was more rejuvenating than the most hallucinatory illusion of the most comfortable hearth in the world.

  In his sudden excitement, Conrad danced forward in a rickety jig like a drunken old man. He snatched the open end of the map, though Douglas loathed releasing it from his custody, firmly maintaining his end of chart. Conrad leaned forward to inspect everything, and while he was afforded few glimpses of the diagram, he quickly surveyed the known landmarks - the initial ascent, the bridge and cliff, the divergent path, the narrow road to this miniature mountain’s summit - and he was all too eager to share the conclusion of their final arrival at their destination.

  Conrad released the map, then began wildly running along the path as fast as the icy snow would permit. With a loping and stumbling stride reminiscent of a newborn fawn, he rushed towards the moment he would become a well-to-do man of wealth and importance.

  He ran for minutes, expecting each hill to be the last. The equipment jostling upon his back began to make his knees and back ache, but he sprinted forwards anyways, eager to end this tiresome quest.

  On the final stretch of this last hill, he fell to his hands and knees from the gravity, though the new position barely slowed Conrad in his frantic scramble. Once he reached the apex of the hill, he tumbled forward so that his body began rolling down the other side. Like a playful child, he remained unfazed as he happily hopped to his feet to resume his run to the treasure.

  Ahead of him, the snow began swirling in abstract rifts. Flakes collided against one another at conflicting angles indicating how the wind was combating itself. The mist became denser and for every foot of ground Conrad covered, another two feet of visibility was stolen from him.

  “Conrad!” Douglas’ voice cried faintly from behind, surprising Conrad to find he was not alone.

  Up ahead Conrad spied something strange that starkly contrasted the white world of the mountain snow. He slowed to a jog, and then stopped upon the mysterious thing in the ice. Even standing directly over the object, Conrad could not clearly discern what the artefact was. He stooped down to pick it up, praying that his treasure had not been stolen away and reduced to this piddly item.

  It was light and soft. It was cloth. Conrad turned it about in both hands and saw that it was an infantry cap, similar to the cold climate gear upon his own head, made from the same red felt with the Union Jack inscribed upon its side. But unlike the one he wore under the hood of his cloak, this discovery was painted with a dark and familiar shade. Even through the muffled tips of his fingers, Conrad was experienced enough to know the feel of dried blood. To further affirm his suspicions, he found a tuft of dark black hair plastered to the inside, a lock not unlike his own. With a scowl now emerging to disrupt his enthusiasm, Conrad trotted ahead to learn the fate of the other remnants of the expedition.

  Slowly more and more bits of clothing, equipment, and other tidbits from the previous campaign began to decorate the path. Conrad tried not to distract himself by studying what each item was. Maybe one was a coat or a saddle. He thought he possibly spied a broken musket to the side. But connecting each tiny relic like spider webbing was the unmistakable trail of blood. It began in tiny pink puddles. But with each advancing step, the loping drizzles and pools grew darker in shade and intensity.

  The knickknacks of the Royal Army were spread wide, but gradually grew in their ubiquity. While kicking aside a broken wagon wheel that hindered his path, a startling realisation occurred to him. Despite the pervasive appearance of the men’s gear and blood, there were no bodies anywhere. The darkness and the snow prevented him from fully investigating the theory, but the notion was definitely true for his immediate area, which was completely bereft of the dead.

  When finally able to rip his attention away from that grotesque observation, he suddenly found the cherished prize of their journey before him. Sunk into a small mound of snow was a large crate bearing the unmistakable insignia of the royal bank, the British flag, and a variety of customs stamps on tattered papers which all clearly demarcated the remnants of the riches for which they had all insufferably sought. Instead of hurrying forward to the prize, Conrad toppled weakly to his knees with emotion, closing his eyes in intense thought upon the revelation. While he was elated to have succeeded, in the corners of his imagination, Conrad could not help but wish his departed friend Baxter was sharing in the glory.

  But then as Conrad got closer to the box, he noticed it was not really a box anymore. It was only the facade of the box, as the other sides had been smashed into oblivion. There was nothing inside where the walls should have been.

  There was no treasure.

  Chapter XXXII

  The Lonely Night

  Baxter awoke with a shiver. It took him a moment to remember where he was or where he should be. The rough fabric of the blanket had settled down along his body, creating a fine cocoon
around him. While he could not see outside of his enclosure, the dim darkness of his tiny tent informed him that significant time had passed, as no illumination filtered through the fabric. Now the world was under nightfall.

  He listened carefully for any signs of life but heard none. Content that neither the monster nor any of his enemies were present, Baxter carefully moved to find the small makeshift hole in the covering that would allow him to view the world outside. His fingers probed about in the darkness until they came upon a torn hole in the fabric. The tips of his glove were greeted with the icy chill of the frigid atmosphere.

  Sliding the hole over towards his face while also adjusting his body, he pulled the viewing pane before his eyes to spy upon the scenery beyond his shelter.

  The landscape was illuminated with a ghastly pall. A large moon and clear sky lit up the snow and ice with a magical glow, an almost phantasmagorical hue of white that seemed to throb in the darkness. Under the limited perspective provided by the hole in the blind, Baxter could only see the expanse of land between himself and the dark gorge, as he had arranged the bluff to shoot upon the bridge. But the vista was clear of any signs of life or strife, where even the dozens of footprints that had once marked the path from the bridge to the slope around the corner had been almost completely obscured by snowfall. Baxter peered to each side as far as possible but could discern nothing of interest there, just more barren land dusted white in snow.

  Baxter weighed the advantages and disadvantages of leaving his refuge. While he was warm and safely hidden from any danger, he was also starving and dying the slow death of the mountains by staying and freezing in one cold place. Needing food, weapons, fuel, let alone a method and means to exit the icy slopes, he unveiled himself from the blind by casting off his protective blanket.