The Yeti: A Novel

by Rick Chesler

  The night remained silent, the forest calmed. Ang Tendu’s pulse started to slow. It was then he realized he’d been holding his breath for fear whatever it was in the forest would hear him. He exhaled out the mouth, inhaled through nose. Then he doubled over and nearly vomited from the thick stench that hung like fog in the air.

  As he regained his composure he heard the first dreadful wail, a whistle so shrill the sound remained in his ears, even as he started to run. That whistle, he’d been warned long ago, meant danger. Meant that a yeti was near.

  As branches scratched at his face and juniper bushes threatened to trip him, Ang Tendu began to cry. Already he mourned the loss of his wife and son. Because he knew the yeti would catch him if it tried. It was too fast, too strong. It was only a matter of time.

  Of course, Tendu survived. The beast, it never gave chase.

  The moment Dustin hung up the phone he pulled out a map. Machhermo, he knew, was the village known for the most credible yeti incident ever reported. In 1974, a teenaged Sherpa girl named Lhakpa Dolma was grazing a herd of yaks when the animals suddenly became restless. Fearing a bear or snow leopard might be lurking nearby, she led the yaks to an open area of land where she would have a better vantage point. After a while, she relaxed and drank from a snow-fed stream. It was then that she heard a strange, alarming vocalization, like a deep grunt combined with a whistle. Before she could spin around, a bipedal beast drew out of the brush and dashed toward her. She screamed and then the monster was on her.

  Even as she kicked and shouted she knew it was futile. The yeti could break her in half, rip her limbs from her torso. And she’d seen it move; even if she somehow managed to slip out of its grasp, the animal was far too fast for her to get away.

  She closed her eyes and waited for death. It would at least provide a reprieve from the horrible stench.

  When the yeti lifted her high in the air with its long and powerful, hairy arms, she knew her life was over.

  But instead of slamming her against the rock-hard earth, the creature merely dropped her into the stream. The icy waters saved her from a faint, and she quickly lifted her head toward the surface to keep from drowning.

  It was then she witnessed a scene she would never forget. The yeti turned and attacked the startled yaks, killing three of the bovines, each with a single blow to the head.

  Lhakpa didn’t wait around to see what the beast did with their carcasses. As fast as she could she crawled out of the stream and ran back to her hamlet, not once looking back in the direction of the violence.

  When she made it back to her village, she immediately informed the authorities. When police arrived at the scene, one of the dead yaks was missing. The remaining two each had their skulls caved in.

  After a painstakingly thorough search they found what appeared to be a giant man’s bare footprint. But nothing else.

  As Dustin traced the route to Machhermo on his map, he decided if ever there was a time to head to the Khumbu in search of hard cryptid evidence, it was now. He booked a seat on a flight to Kathmandu that would depart two days later.

  Before he left, Dustin contacted a friend who regularly visited Tibet. Told him he was in the market for a bounty hunter.

  “In Tibet,” his friend said, “the closest you’ll get is a man named Wangchuk Cering. Here’s his address...”

  Shortly after his arrival in Kathmandu, Dustin hopped a flight to Lhasa. His friend had said Wangchuk spoke little English, so on the flight over, with the aid of a Lonely Planet phrasebook, Dustin prepared a short statement on a scrap of paper, using Tibetan characters.

  Roughly translated it read: I need to find an animal.

  Later these words would be misinterpreted by a pair of Sherpas to mean that the dying man they discovered near Pangboche was a Tibetan farmer.

  It took two days and a hell of a lot of Chinese currency to finally convince Wangchuk to accompany Dustin to Machhermo.

  But if Dustin were successful, money would never again be an issue. There was, of course, the fame and fortune that would inevitably follow from the discovery of a new mammalian species that just happened to be the world’s most famous cryptid. Humanity’s closest living relative, as well.. On top of all that, the Texas billionaire, Harvey Carmichael, had formally offered a ten million dollar reward for conclusive evidence of the yeti’s modern day existence.

  But money wasn’t what led Dustin to the Himalayas in the first place. He was a scientist, damn it, despite what his critics charged. He didn’t race off to areas unknown on mere hunches or unreliable eyewitness accounts. He only traveled abroad when he believed there might be credible evidence to be found. And this was one of those times.

  It turned out he was right. Here he was, on the cusp of making what might well prove to be the world’s greatest scientific discovery, ever. In time, Dustin knew, the name Blaisdell would take its rightful place beside the icon of Darwin, and his legacy would live on forever.

  * * *

  Zack screamed when he came to in the tent. Less than eleven minutes had passed, but it felt like hours. Dustin and Francesca were hovering over him. His left sleeve was pushed up and a needle was sticking out of his arm.

  “Easy, buddy,” Dustin said. “You’re going to be all right.”

  What the hell were they doing to him? He reached for the needle, but Francesca pulled his hand back, pinning down his right arm. He sputtered incoherently not yet able to speak.

  Dustin injected the rest of the drug into his arm. Zack cried out as his blood flooded the barrel of the syringe.

  “We’ve got to get him down to ABC,” Dustin said, “which is going to be no easy feat.”

  Francesca stood, ducking low so that her head didn’t hit the top of the tent. “I’ll go get Skinner and Ruiz.” She disappeared past the flap, allowing brutally cold air and snow to blow in.

  Zack stared into Dustin’s fierce blue eyes. His own felt as though they were bulging from his head.

  “Easy, Zack,” Dustin said, removing the needle and taking hold of Zack’s gloved left hand. “Help’s on the way. You’re going to be fine. You just need to descend.”

  Next thing Zack knew, Skinner and Ruiz and the Sherpas were all crowding the tent.

  “I gave him an injection of dex,” Dustin was saying, “but he needs to go down right away.”

  “Clear the tent, mate,” Skinner cried.

  Ruiz began to pray.

  Then the Sherpas--Tashi and Norbu-- had Zack’s arms around their shoulders and were heaving him up. Zack’s legs felt like laundry sacks but he gave them all the help he could.

  Clear of the tent, Zack felt the night slap his face. For once he was grateful for the freezing air; it helped him to stay awake.

  Soon headlamps beamed all around and for an instant Zack felt like he was on Interstate 95, riding with Nadia in a rented Mustang convertible with the top down in the middle of January, racing up the fast lane north toward Maine.

  On the way down the mountain Zack thought of Mallory and of whether he made it to the summit. When Mallory’s body was finally found in 1999, Zack read, the body was as white as a Roman statue. The corpse lay fully extended, facedown, his head still pointing toward the peak. Frozen forever in a position of self-arrest, his head and torso had become part of the mountain, more rock now than flesh. One of Mallory’s legs was broken.

  The discoverers found on Mallory a variety of items, including a pencil, nail scissors, a matchbox, a tin of meat lozenges, a tube of petroleum jelly, even a monogrammed handkerchief. They also found his glacier goggles, his pocketknife, letters, notes, and a watch. What they didn’t find was the collapsible Kodak Vestpocket camera lent to Mallory by climber Howard Somervell - the lone piece of evidence which could have indisputably proven whether Mallory and his partner Andrew Irvine made it to the summit before they perished.

  Neither did they find the photograph of Mallory’s lovely wife Ruth, which he’d planned to leave at the peak.

  Of course, Mallory
assaulted Everest from the north side in Tibet, and Zack’s feeble attempt had come from the south in Nepal, so there was never any chance of Zack running into his corpse. Still, the mystery intrigued Zack as the Sherpas carried him down the mountain.

  That is, until he faded back into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 20

  “Should I notify his father?” Patty said softly.

  Ian looked up at her. It had been five days since Jimmy Melonakos had gone missing, and all search and rescue missions had come up empty. It seemed the young Greek’s body might never be found.

  “No.” He reached tiredly for the satellite phone. “I’ve got to do it.” He picked up the phone then set it down. “I just need a few more minutes.”

  “It needs to be done before anyone else finds out.” “If the news leaks–”

  “I’m aware.”

  Patty sat down across from him and for the first time in days Ian thought she might feel a little sympathy for him. Maybe even a little love. Something, anything but hatred and blame.

  Patty said, “There are going to be a lot of questions.”

  “And not a lot of answers.”

  “We still can’t account for Skinner’s whereabouts–”

  “Skinner was in radio contact the entire time.”

  Patty gaped.

  “Come on, Patty, you don’t really believe that Skinner had anything to do with Jimmy’s fall, do you?. You’ve known the bloke for seven bloody years.”

  “Of course, I don’t. But–”

  “But what, luv? You’d rather let the media speculate, cast aspersions? Ruin Skinner’s bloody career?”

  Patty fell silent. Finally, she said: “There’s going to be an investigation, you know.”

  He shrugged. “Let them investigate. We’ve searched the entire Lhotse Face and found nothing. Nothing below, either. Every trace of the poor bastard’s gone.”

  “There’s the rope,” she said.

  “What of it?” Ian clenched his teeth and sat forward. “The Greek must have had himself a pocketknife to cut his bloody hash. Chances are he was drunk, high, and bloody hypoxic. Probably went and cut the bloody rope himself.”

  Patty hesitated. “What about what Tashi said?”

  Ian smirked. “What? That there’s a bloody monster on the mountain? Yeah, luv, I’m sure that would go over real well. Blame it on a mythical creature! Do a lot of good for mountaineering in general and Everest in particular. Not to mention the Sherpa people. Or do you forget that their bloody livelihoods are at stake?”

  He looked again at the sat-phone. Only six years ago, he received a similar call of his own. “It’s your son Luke,” a defeated male voice had said. And it needn’t have said anything further. At that very moment Ian knew his son was dead.

  Luke had never harbored aspirations of being a professional mountaineer like his father. Had never even really wanted to climb at all. He’d wanted to be a barrister. To have a simple life and to spend more time at home.

  Luke hadn’t wanted to spend six months a year in the mountains like his father. Never wanted to leave his wife and child back in London alone. But Luke always did want to be closer to his dad. And damned if his dad didn’t want him to climb.

  No wonder Liz still hated him so.

  “Did everyone qualify to make the summit push?” Patty asked, breaking the silence.

  Ian shrugged. “Everyone did, but before the push, I want to have a bit of a sit-down with Hitchens.”

  “You’re not sure he’s up for it?” Patty frowned. “Aasif cleared him. Said he may have had a touch of cerebral edema but he’d just have to breathe bottled gas up high.”

  Ian lifted his shoulder. “I feel like I may have pushed him into it.” He looked her in the eyes. “Just wanna make certain he understands it’s his decision whether to climb, not mine.”

  Patty nodded. Then she pointed toward the satellite phone and stood. “All right, I’ll leave you alone for now, Ian, so you can make your call.”

  * * *

  Outside, away from his clients, Ian gathered together his climbing Sherpas and guides. “Not sure how many climbers we have going for the summit this year, but as of right now it’s five: Vergé, Egger, Blaisdell, the Italian bird, and Hitchens.”

  They were only three days away from the summit push, and Ian was far too distracted. By gathering together some of his staff to discuss strategy, he hoped to return his focus to climbing, away from the media circus Dimitri Melonakos, Sr. had assured him would rain down on Nepal, and even farther away still from the army of lawyers Dmitri no doubt had at the ready. Not to mention the death of his own son Luke on K2 six years before. He certainly didn’t need that on his mind right now, either

  “As you all know,” Ian began quietly, “in the face of tragedy, the show must go on. Death is a part of our business, and if it stopped men from climbing to the roof of the world, Everest would never have been climbed at all.”

  Ian coughed into his fist, cleared his throat. “We have two summit teams: Verge and Egger will make up one; Blaisdell, Hitchens, and Corsi the other. Ruiz and Norbu, you’ll start up with Team One - Vergé and Egger - first. Since Jimmy’s gone, you can pretty much play them man-to-man. Ruiz, you stay tight on Vergé. Norbu, you remain with Egger; never let him out of your sight.”

  Ruiz shook his head. “Ian, please, let me take Egger. Vergé and I, we don’t get along.”

  “I would,” Ian said, “if I thought for one second you’d be able to keep up with Kurt Egger. But we both know damn well that you can’t. Even without bottled O’s the bastard’s a whole hell of a lot faster than you.” He stood back and folded his arms. “No, Egger needs a Sherpa.”

  Ian watched a few stray ravens squawk overhead. “Now for Team Two,” he said. “Team Two will leave a day later. Skinner, I want you to shadow the Italian as though she’s your sister. Don’t leave her bloody side under any circumstances, understand?”

  Skinner nodded.

  “Tashi, the same goes for you and Hitchens. That is, assuming Hitchens climbs. I’ve still got to have a bit of a chat with him. But if he does, Tashi, I want you on him like white on rice. Don’t let a bloody thing happen to him or its on your head.”

  “Okay, boss.”

  “Right then.” Ian rubbed at his throat. In all these years it was the first time he was losing his voice. “Today I’ll talk to each climber individually. Tomorrow I’ll address the two teams together.”

  Ruiz raised his right hand.

  “You’re not in bloody church, Miguel. What is it?”

  “What about Blaisdell? Each climber has a guide or Sherpa but him.”

  Ian bowed his head. “Blaisdell sticks to the side of the Italian bird. If Skinner sticks with her, he sticks with him.” He paused, then dramatically shrugged his shoulders. “And if the Yank decides for some reason to go off on his bloody own again, well... He’s a big bloke, a strong climber. I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

  * * *

  That afternoon Ian sat alone in his tent monitoring his weather reports. They weren’t always one hundred percent accurate, but they were the best - and most expensive - on the mountain. They were so coveted, in fact, that Ian had two porters stand as guards whenever he wasn’t going to be in his tent. If bastards had the heart to steal food and oxygen on the mountain, how could he trust them not to steal a glance at his weather reports?

  Ian also had his clients and guides keep mum about when they’d be making their summit push. In fact, he’d already had his Sherpas release false information. As far as the rest of Base Camp was concerned, Himalayan Skies wasn’t trying for the summit until next week.

  Last thing Ian wanted was a traffic jam high on the mountain to cause a repeat of the tragedy that occurred on the south side of Everest in ’96, and again in 2014. By some fluke of luck, Ian had missed both of those tragedies by leading climbs on other mountains during that part of the season. Still, he had spent hours collecting firsthand reports from those who�
�d been there and survived, in order to analyze what had gone wrong and hopefully prevent it going forward.

  In a single day in 1996, during one of Everest’s deadliest season to date, eight people died trying to reach the summit via the South Col route. And all of it, Ian reflected, could have been avoided.

  Ian was in the Alps that season, guiding Mont Blanc. When he finally received word of what was happening in Nepal he was devastated, yet not completely shocked. There were too many climbers on Everest these days, too many bloody amateurs. Ian always said it was just a matter of time. Bottlenecks at the Hillary Step, failure to fix lines at the Balcony - all of it was a recipe for disaster.

  But Ian Furst and Himalayan Skies did things right, did things professionally, and until this season they’d never lost a single climber on Everest. Ian wasn’t one of those bloody punters who gambled with clients’ lives, sent them ill-equipped and untrained to the summit. No, Himalayan Skies was equipped with the bloody best of everything, and their personnel were unmatched on this or any other mountain. Well, maybe with the exception of Ruiz.

  Ian glanced at his watch and sighed. He needed a drink but couldn’t bloody well have a proper sit-down with Hitchens if he was pissed by the time Hitchens got there.

  Hold off, Furst. There’ll be plenty of time for drinking once Hitchens is safely on his way to Syangboche.

  Hell, he’d refund Hitchens his bloody money if he had to.

  “This mountain’s no place for professors,” he said to himself to break the quiet. “Whatever my old buddy back in the States might think.”

  Just then he heard Hitchens’ voice ask if he could come in. Then the young man was standing before him, just as each of the other climbers had hours earlier.

  “You wanted to see me?” Hitchens said.