by Mike Miller
In the bare light, its white fur was still greatly illuminated, making the various jags and scars decorating its body all the more noticeable. From its broad brow down to the talons on its toes, the creature was covered with long streaks of dark, bloody wounds. Its clean white fur was now like a bruised zebra with a striped covering of black and while. A broken left horn also showed the damage it had suffered from the fall.
With a steely sneer on its lips, the Yeti grunted loudly and mechanically as it hauled itself up the sheer mountain face. Claw over claw, the monster scaled the ice and rock at a steady pace, never pausing or hesitating for a respite from the arduous labour. Throughout the entire climb, the monster’s small white pupils were locked on its lair at the summit. Its tail flicked idly, but its powerful arms and back were locked in syncopated motion like a locomotive’s wheels.
The Yeti reached the cavernous opening of its lair, the same it had been so cruelly cast from by the humans. Only now that it had reached flat ground did it allow itself a moment’s rest. The monster’s huffing was loud, a rattling wheeze indicating an errant abundance of fluid in its lungs. But with each breath, the sound diminished.
Though the shadows of night blanketed the entire chamber in blackness, the Yeti could still see well. Only a smidgeon of light was necessary for it to easily perceive the history of the battle write across the cave. Blood covered the floor, both from itself and the spry, little man. There were select spots where dark blood had splashed along the ceiling and walls.
The monster snorted contemptuously and lumbered back into the dark recesses of its lair. As it rounded a corner, it stepped in a small trickle of water and was puzzled. Not only was running water a rarity in this cold abode of ice, the water was uncomfortably warm. Alarmed at the unusual development, it charged forward through the tunnel while its hands and feet splashed through an increasing amount of water.
The monster’s charge quickly halted as its senses detected two new nuisances: a warmth in the air and the noxious, noisome smell of fire. Though both sensations were greatly disorienting to the already battered monster, when it saw its source, its mind was even more greatly pained.
The sprawling chamber of the Yeti’s collection was ablaze. In the distant corner a bright orange fire burned the floor, its rosy flames gnawing at the rubbish like a grazing animal.
The Yeti roared angrily as if its shout would quash the fire. It stomped the ground and yelled angrily at the uncontrollable blaze. But the conflagration continued its idle feast, slowly growing in scope. The heat stung the Yeti, particularly its open sores, yet it refused to leave. The monster screamed loudly, its voice reaching a high shriek previously unheard of from the beast. It angrily paced about in a circle, pounding its hands and feet angrily on the ground while it watched the world burn.
The flames spread so wide that now their height licked the ceiling, causing melting water to rain down from the chamber. Smoke billowed against the roof like ominous storm clouds. In this mad world where a storm could erupt inside a mountain, the Yeti screeched wildly at the calamity. Its hands thrashed and shredded the nearest chunks of warped wood and metal in anguish. It furiously hurled debris about like a dervish.
But the blaze began to affect the Yeti. While the flames remained across the chamber, the heat slowly encroached upon the beast. The discomforting sensation of the warmth on its chilled flesh and wet wounds became unbearable.
The monster galloped away on all fours, unable to escape the corrupted lair quick enough. The cold night air was welcome upon its body, the suffocating fire left behind in its lair.
The creature raised its jaws to the moon and wailed wildly. The sound spread in all directions, even causing a distant piece of mountain to reply with a rumbling avalanche. It hammered its fists against the icy ground, splintering open the surface of the frozen lake with hard cracks like the breaking of bones.
Exhausted from the outcry, the creature mellowed. Some smoke silently billowed out from the caves in thin vapours that quickly evaporated in the wind.
Then the Yeti froze and became still. Its nostrils flared and snorted, consuming all the scents of the night. Beneath the dusty reek of the fire boiling within its lair, the Yeti detected the faint scent of another fire, weak wisps of warmth which travelled up the mountain. Combined with that telltale musk of ash and cinder was the unmistakable and grotesque scent of man. The two odours together were even more vile and disgusting when combined.
Then on the ice, the Yeti saw their trail. Tiny footprints strolled out and along a trail that led down from the mountain to where the sun rose. The markings and the stench led the Yeti’s eyes to a tiny fire in the distance. In the cool world of ice, this rosy flame dared to intrude with its cursed heat. These men simply refused to respect the domain as they had to bring their world to invade the Yeti’s.
These men had destroyed the harvest. The harvest had to begin again.
With unabashed aplomb, the Yeti howled aloud into the night. It screamed so that the rushing current from its own mouth might roar down the mountainside and extinguish that fire.
Hopping over the crest of the lake’s plateau, the Yeti landed deep in the snow, then hurried towards the tiny speck of light that defied the black night.
Chapter LIV
Over a Campfire
The solemn group had marched all night to escape the punishing twilight weather at the peak. Unlike the progression up the mountain which occurred on round, winding roads, their journey downwards was upon a remarkably direct route. Now, they travelled a steep path that dropped straight down the mountain at such a degree that the group had to repeatedly stop themselves from falling forward in their speedy descent. While the western half of the mountain seemed arranged in a byzantine labyrinth of paths, it appeared that the eastern side was forged with the swiftest efficiency in mind.
Jah remained asleep atop the mule, though occasionally calling out in despair from some nightmarish terror. Baxter repeatedly checked on the man to be sure his condition did not depreciate. Not to be outdone, Conrad also inspected the wounded boy too, though he stopped when he caught Baxter angrily watching with a possessive envy. The wounded boy had not awoken since they had administered the medicine and seemed stabilised and peaceful.
When the men encountered a patch of forest trees, it was the first evidence of plant life they had witnessed in some time. The woods were bare of leaves and were lean sticks like skeletal fingers. Yet the forest was also densely grown, providing protection for the wind. The dead trees were also massive, stretching high and wide enough to block the moon from view. The trunks and branches were so large, the growths resembled grand monuments from some lost civilisation.
As the group ventured deeper into the thicket, they found a clearing conveniently located in the middle on flat land. Only the curtest glance between the two soldiers was enough to signal to break for camp.
While the ground here was still covered in snow, it was a thinner sheet than prior on the peak. Once they had collected brush for a fire, the thin trunks and branches around them cast a wide web of fading shadows into the black night around them.
The men camped in silence together, having not spoken a word to each other since abandoning the monster’s home. At this point, Baxter was not sure who was ignoring whom, as both soldiers seemed to be bitterly angry with each other. The fact that one had yet to break and apologise had stubbornly encouraged each prideful man in their campaign.
Even if he was in exile from Conrad for whatever wrongdoing, Baxter felt his own treatment of his old friend was both harsh and just. Across the campfire from him now, the manner in which Conrad devoured the cans of beans and meat was upsettingly glutinous. Though the man was starving, it was still sorely reminiscent of the deplorable selfishness and greed he had long displayed, most recently back at the Yeti’s mountaintop lair. While the man had tried to kill himself to destroy the beast, Baxter dismissed the noble action as just the man’s desperation, madness and stupidity.
Meanwhile, Conrad focused his attention squarely upon the spoon and his beans. Unlike the two bickering friends, both the utensil and the food worked in perfect tandem with one another. How Conrad’s brash mate had suddenly turned on him was madness. The man seemed already to have forgotten his heroic, though insane, attempt at self-sacrifice when lugging the Yeti to its death. Now he half-wished that he had succeeded in the suicide. And any reasonable discussion to reward themselves was met with pious indignation. Rather than think about the injustice or how to mend the friendship, Conrad was content to just stuff himself with another ration of cold gruel.
Jah had slumbered soundly while bound tightly in a thick bundle of blankets, but smell of food awoke him. The boy rose and ate some food, and the exhaustion of the work knocked him back into dream again.
Conrad caught Baxter staring at him, and the African shyly averted his eyes. The shameful response made Conrad slam a tin into the fire, a miniature burst of embers floated into the night. Jah briefly opened one eye to inspect the disturbance like a lazy feline, then he closed them again and nestled into his blanketing.
Conrad now went on the offensive and stomped combatively up towards Baxter, who nonchalantly sipped some more tea with eyes lost in the fire, still refusing to acknowledge his angry cohort. Conrad drew a hand back to smack either Baxter or the cup from his hand, and the intended target did not flinch.
Relenting his hand to his side, Conrad muffled his vexed grunt as quietly as possible as he walked back to his seat across the blaze.
Looking over at the opened pack by his side, Conrad saw the small crate of opium peering out from his rumpled sack. While not actually an aficionado of the drug, the idea of being removed from the oppressive moment was not unappealing. Without any liquor to drink either, his hands rubbed across his whiskers as he toyed with the idea.
“I wish we hadn’t ever come on this trip,” Baxter announced blankly. Another sip of tea assisted his enthralled trance, his attention fastened upon the flickering fire. He spoke more to himself than to either of the others.
“How so?” said Conrad.
“If we hadn’t got greedy, hadn’t commandeered the expedition for ourselves,” Baxter spoke slowly like as if the thoughts were transmitted from a remote location. “Hadn’t allied ourselves with Douglas, then we wouldn’t be in this…” He shook his head at the inability to conjure the right word. So instead he held the cup aloft and stirred the air with it, the tiny gesture indicating the whole, entire universe. “This pickle. Stranded, hated, impoverished. Hungry and dirty.”
Conrad nodded at the statement,. For the first time in a while Baxter bothered to look his way. The African’s overt seriousness forced Conrad to wilt in his own sombreness. He couldn’t help to chuckle at the amusing description of their predicament. Baxter’s tightly clenched lips spread in a broad grin, exposing his white teeth in the firelight.
“Aye, the pickle,” said Conrad.
“That damned pickle,” chuckled Baxter. The two friends both roasted in the warmth of shared humour.
“Well, I still disagree,” Conrad said, rising to his feet with an amicable expression despite the pending confrontation of ideologies. Taking a long loose stick to animate his point, he drew errantly in the wet dirt at his feet where the snow had melted. First, he made one long line that jagged sharply up. “If we hadn’t set out to secure the precious treasure ourselves, then we’d be back where we started: with the rest of the damned infantry under old Snider’s command, still marching up this accursed mountain to be eaten by that Yeti thing with all them yahoos.” Baxter drew another line parallel to the first and then intersected the two together. “So no matter what our choice, we’d still be up on this frozen hellhole and/or dead.”
Baxter did not disagree.
“At least now,” Conrad spread his arms wide, “we are free men. Was that not our primary goal, to rid ourselves of shackles of servitude? While we are not necessarily rich and free, for that would have been the choicest outcome, at least now we are spared that oppressive tyranny of our buffoonish commanders.” He shook the stick at Baxter as a teacher might lecture a pupil with a pointer.
“Someday now you will return to your beloved wife. You will, because even if we had stayed with the troop and vanquished the Yeti together as one happy military, then you know those bastards still would have done their darnedest to murder you elsewhere, in some pointless battlefield or a different ice-encrusted mountain in the name of conquest. But now we can eat as many tins as we like, stay up all night past curfew, and not have to be marched into another doom.”
Baxter smiled at the thought. He rubbed the small piece of paper ever folded in his pocket, the lone token of his wife save for the precious memories that filled his thoughts. Conrad’s enthusiasm even permitted Baxter’s troubled disposition to temporarily permit a few enchanted imaginings to enter his mind, a lovely and reassuring hope that he would indeed see her again someday. While everything may not have happened with ideal and ultimate success, they had been guided to survival for another opportunity at success.
“You know, when you put it like that, mate,” Baxter sighed, “it doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Good,” said Conrad. “That’s part of faith, right? Believing things will all be good in the end.”
With Baxter’s merriment restored by Conrad, he then dwelled upon reinvigorating the old soldier’s mentality. “You know, Conrad,” Baxter began slowly, “why’d you try and kill yourself back there?”
Conrad smiled, secretly happy his friend had indeed remembered the gesture. But to ruminate upon the motive and methodology of the rash decision troubled him. “I don’t know. It wasn’t really thinking, just feeling. It felt like the right thing to do.”
Baxter knew then that it was born not from noble sacrifice or heroic duty, but from despair. The haunted loneliness in Conrad’s voice wounded Baxter to think of the bitter resentment with which he had treated his old friend, the only man to ever defend the outcast African in the unit. “Well, it was bloody stupid,” joked Baxter.
Conrad chuckled pensively. “You know me too well.”
A piercing roar came down upon them. Both men stood and turned to look back at the mountain. Through the trees, the looming summit was still a sharp black point in the dark blue night, like the peak was the tip of a blade cutting into the evening sky. Jah astoundingly hopped to his feet as well with little sign of wear. The echoing roar ebbed to silence, but despite the distortion of the cry, there was no denying by any man what the sound was.
“Maybe it’s a different Yeti?” suggested Conrad. “One that’s less pissed?”
“We must prepare,” said Jah, immediately adorning in his black robe. Baxter too went for his rifle, beginning his pre-battle ritual of inspection, testing and sorting.
“For what?” said Conrad.
Both men did not remark upon Jah’s condition as they watched the boy’s lost hand awkwardly fumbled with his own clothes. The crippled child could not even dress himself now.
“How long do you think we have?” Baxter asked aloud.
Jah responded, “How long have we marched since departing its lair?”
“About six hours or so,” Baxter figured.
Jah’s head bounced from side to side during the estimation. “We have an hour.”
Baxter noticed Conrad’s frozen muteness and found it unacceptable. “Get ready,” commanded Baxter like a superior officer. “Whatever you can.”
Conrad growled resentfully. “I’m not fighting that thing again. What chance do we have? We should flee immediately. Outrun it and hide.”
“You should go then,” said Jah calmly. “No one is forcing you to stay.”
Before Conrad could take offence at the chaste remarks, Baxter spoke, “We need you. You know we have a better chance together.”
Both Baxter and Jah continued their dutiful preparations while Conrad mused his options. The old warrior sighed and grabbed his sword. “Fine, but we don’t do th
is without a good plan,” he grumbled.
Baxter glanced over at Jah who had finally succeeded in tightening his belt. “Agreed,” said Jah reluctantly. “We need a plan.”
Chapter LV
The Final Fight
When Baxter finally saw the charging Yeti, he tried not to let the ghastly sight rattle him. Though the amplification of his rifle’s lens left the hulking beast a measly speck at this distance, the beast moved with a wild frenzy and verve that was frightening. Its tail thrashed excitedly behind the rampaging monster as if it were a whip lashing it forward. The thing was nearly invisible in the darkness save for its rushing motion which provided sharp contrast against the static stones and snow.
“See it yet?” called up Conrad from the ground below.
Baxter calmed his nerves with a deep exhale. “Yes.” He sat perched high atop the highest tree branch in their encampment, some several dozen feet in the air. A straight fall would surely have killed him, though the myriad branches would assure he would have collided numerous times on the way down.
Baxter felt that this was the final test to prove his worthiness. He once thought himself blessed to have survived such a long ordeal on this mountain. But perhaps after so many torturously close calls, fate had designed this gauntlet of incessant abuse as prelude to a most horrific finale.
Baxter steadied the weapon. At such a far distance and with the beast galloping at unbelievable speed, Baxter had to lead the target significantly. Reciting a short prayer in an appeal for the Almighty to guide him, he squeezed the trigger.
It took almost a full second before the speeding projectile struck. It appeared that Baxter was still in good standing with the divine as the whizzing projectile collided with the beast.
The blow spun the Yeti to the side, sending it stumbling over and running aground with a plump spray of snow. Baxter had no time to relay the good news to his allies as the beast quickly sprang to its feet and resumed its ferocious charge.