The Yeti: A Novel

by Rick Chesler

  On the freezing face of the mountain now, Ruiz turned to him. “We’re gg-going to die up here, aren’t we, Vergé?”

  Gaston bowed his head but remained silent. His nose was frozen, he’d lost all feeling in his hands.

  “I dd-don’t see any light,” Ruiz said. “I dd-don’t think He’s really th-there.”

  Gaston turned to him, looked into Ruiz’s blackened face, searching for the Spaniard’s eyes. They seemed empty, when only hours before they’d been filled with life.

  “Of course He is,” Gaston said.

  Ruiz lay flat on his back, the dropping snow accumulating on his face. His eyes searched Gaston’s as they never had before. “Rr-really?” he said.

  Gaston nodded. “Really.”

  Ruiz took Gaston’s gloved hand and squeezed it. “Th-thank you, Vergé.”

  Although he couldn’t feel the guide’s hand on his, Gaston tried to smile, a tear freezing up in his eye.

  Whatever brings you comfort, my friend. At least that much is real.

  * * *

  In his tent on South Col, still rocking back and forth, knees to his chest, Dustin closed his eyes and sent his mind back to that hellish December night.

  With his night vision monocular glued to his eye, gun in hand, Dustin proceeded deeper into the cave, until he reached a dead end, a large, almost-circular space that could have easily been home to a primitive man if not a homeless contemporary. Dustin scanned the space with disbelief. There were beds made up of yak skin and fur, nests comprised of branches from fir trees with tufts of thick brown hair clinging to them like cat fur to a couch. There were clothes strewn about, and climbing gear, a collection representative of the past century on Everest. Dustin shot photo after photo, gathering what he could, while careful not to disturb the place in any significant way.

  He was so excited it made him dizzy. By the time he finished with the photos, he’d forgotten all about the aspect of danger. But as he pocketed a tuft of hair from a ten-foot bed, he heard a small cry, like that of a baby.

  Dustin spun around toward the sound, which emanated from a small crawl space at the side of the room.

  An infant? he thought. Suddenly his mind filled with endless possibilities. Before now he’d never even considered retrieving an actual specimen, dead or alive. But what could offer more conclusive proof than a body of the legendary Snowman itself? It was never his intention to kill one. Dustin was no hunter; he’d never purposefully destroyed another being, man or beast, in his life. But now he had a choice to make. Not what’s best for me, he thought, only what’s best for science.

  It took a bullet to finally convince the world of the existence of the mountain gorilla in the Virunga volcano chain of east Africa.

  He held up his gun. Photographs could be altered, physical evidence lost or contaminated. Dustin could very well return to the States and have all his evidence dismissed as a hoax. Unless...

  Slowly he moved toward the hole. Cautiously he edged his face toward the opening.

  But as soon as he stuck his head into the crawl space, the monocular was viciously slapped from his face. This was followed by a huge blow to his chest. He was launched backward and hit the rock with his head.

  In total blackness he fired.

  Once. Twice. Three times, blasts echoing off the cavern walls like a canon.

  His gun hand shaking, Dustin waited. His breathing slowed, though his pulse remained well in the hundreds. Finally, he crawled toward the space where he hoped his monocular had fallen. After a long while he found it and placed it on his eye, relieved that it didn’t seem broken.

  Slowly, he scanned the room.

  * * *

  Dustin sunk to the floor of the cave and vomited. The fallen yeti was female, her infant a boy. The baby still clung to his mother with its death grip. Milk leaked from the large nipple on her left breast.

  Dustin had caught them mid-meal. He rose to his knees and sobbed, the horrible green scene before him already burning into his memory. With three bullets he’d taken two lives, one a baby’s.

  He turned and started slowly out of the cave. But after a few minutes, logic overcame emotion. He returned to the room, covered the infant’s carcass in an old flannel he found on the ground, picked it up and ran.

  * * *

  Dustin suddenly stopped rocking, his nose in the air.

  No question this time. The creature was nearby.

  * * *

  Zack repeatedly glanced at his watch. He’d gotten little sleep at South Col but he didn’t care. It was ten p.m.: almost time to move up the mountain.

  The wind had died down, and for the first time that night Zack was optimistic they might find Vergé, Ruiz, and Norbu alive. Maybe even Egger. But the more time Team Two spent down here at South Col, the dimmer their chances of such a discovery.

  So he finally rose, careful not to wake Tashi. Hunched under the roof of the tent, he dressed, then hefted his oxygen tank and strapped on his headlamp.

  Then he headed outside into the night.

  The South Col was a dark desolate sight, strewn with sharp jagged rocks. Littered with rubbish like old ice axes and scores of empty oxygen tanks, the Col stretched for some four hundred yards, nestled tightly between Everest and Lhotse.

  Zack swung his headlamp from end to end, trying to get his bearings, to scan the moonscape for Team Two’s two other tents.

  The Scottish team’s tents were there, green and blue, some twenty yards away. But the yellow tents of the Himalayan Skies expedition, the tents he’d seen just hours ago, seemed to have vanished.

  Or been blown away.

  Zack’s stomach sunk. Francesca’s tent, he knew, had been set up only a few feet from his, Dustin and Skinner’s a few feet from hers.

  But when Zack shined his headlamp on the spot where their tents had been, he found nothing but rock and snow and ice and discarded oxygen tanks from expeditions past.

  Then, shining his headlamp in the distance, he saw what he least wanted to see. Shredded yellow nylon, slashed with brilliant streaks of red.

  Zack felt the contents of his stomach rise, his head fill with an ethereal light, and suddenly he was tearing the oxygen mask from his face for fear it would suffocate him.

  First he hurried to what he thought was once Francesca’s tent and pored over the ravaged material, searching like a burglar, fast and furious, his knees and shins scraping hard against the Col’s surface, the craggy rocks ripping away the legs of his climbing suit, clawing toward his flesh, his hands digging into the detritus like a cadaver dog digging at a hidden grave. His mind flashed with images of Nadia’s wreck, of burning buildings in northeast Boston, of flames and smoke and mangled metal, of burnt flesh, collapsed lungs, and fractured necks.

  But in the end, he found no body, no gear, not even clothes.

  Next he moved on to what he thought had been Dustin and Skinner’s, and that’s where his hands dug into not only snow and ice and rock and debris, but blood, bright and red, and arms and legs, a head, and finally lengths and lengths of intestines.

  Slowly, horribly, with weak and trembling hands, Zack reached for the decapitated head, closing his own eyes as he twisted the grotesque sphere toward him.

  When Zack opened his eyes again, it took a moment for him to realize he was staring once more and finally into Skinner’s reticent face.

  Zack’s screams weren’t intended, yet they nevertheless flooded the night.

  Next thing he knew, Tashi was at his side, the Sherpa’s eyes locked on the eviscerated corpse that once served as Ian’s chief guide. The Sherpa wailed.

  Zack rose and backed away, falling once, twice to the ground, unable to gain his footing. All the while he yelled Dustin and Francesca’s names.

  His friends were nowhere in sight.

  Falling again, his back slapping hard against the rocks, Zack’s mind finally slowed and he replayed the past few minutes, the going through of the ruin that had once been Francesca’s tent. There had been not
hing there but the shredded nylon and blood that could have been Skinner’s. No rucksack, no camera, not even a sleeping bag.

  They’d already gone.

  He took a deep painful breath.

  They’d already gone, he thought. They were safe.

  A moment later, Tashi was in Zack’s face, yelling something, urging him down the mountain. “They’ve left,” Zack tried to explain over the vicious winds. He knew he sounded hysterical, even as he once again tried to rise to his feet. “Dustin and Francesca have already left for the summit! We’ve got to go after them!”

  Tashi shook his head frantically. “We must descend,” the Sherpa shouted. “Must descend now before it kills us all.”

  Zack stared at the sirdar, his eyes narrowed, trying in vain to fully focus. It? What the hell was Tashi ranting about?

  He stepped back. It seemed perfectly clear to Zack what had happened. It all made sense. After all, Skinner had made one and only one true enemy on the mountain.

  “It was Jimmy,” Zack yelled, pointing to the devastated tents. “Jimmy’s alive, and he murdered Skinner.”

  Zack pulled away from the Sherpa and stepped back over to the pile. His head spinning, he scanned the waste, then reached down and lifted a bloodied ice ax and showed it to Tashi.

  Tashi’s expression didn’t change.

  “Can’t you see?” Zack said, growing angry.

  He dropped to the ground, dug back into the mess, blood and guts splashing his climbing suit. Finally he snatched out a piece of crimson material that he was sure had once been pink.

  “See?” Zack said again. “It was Jimmy. It was the fucking Greek!”

  Then Zack was up off his knees, pounding the rock with his feet. Heading for the far end of the South Col, his headlamp lighting the way.

  “Where you are going?” Tashi shouted, scrambling to gather his and Zack’s things.

  Zack didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. Didn’t even turn his head as he screamed, “To the peak.”

  Chapter 24

  “Right then, Simon,” Ian rasped into the receiver less than an hour later. “Thanks for the information. Have yourselves a safe descent.”

  He stood, set down the transmitter and turned to face Aasif and Patty, both standing beside him, their arms crossed, their faces wet.

  “Skinner’s dead,” Ian said needlessly. “Looks as though someone took an ice ax to him on the South Col.”

  “Jimmy?” Patty said incredulously.

  “That’s what Simon suggests. Said he found pieces of the pink climbing suit all over the Col.”

  Aasif narrowed his eyes. “But you have your doubts.”

  Ian nodded absently, his mind struggling to set aside emotion and focus on the relevant facts. “Blaisdell’s taken off,” he said finally. “Up the mountain, it seems. He’s got the Italian bird with him, and neither are responding to their walkies.”

  Patty sighed deeply, her left hand fluttering to her lips. “What about Zack?”.

  Ian lifted his shoulder, images of Luke invading his already-spinning head. “Hitchens apparently went on up after them. Tashi told Simon the professor’s gone mad. Last Simon knew, Tashi was going up to try to retrieve him.”

  A few moments of terrible silence, then Patty asked, “What about Simon?”

  Ian shook his head. “He’s got to get his clients down to safety at ABC. Offered to climb back up to help after that.”

  Patty’s voice cracked. “Did you agree?”

  Ian swallowed hard, felt his own eyes growing moist. “For what?” he said. “To try to rescue a team of dead men?”

  Ian mentally summarized the situation, hoping he had missed some positive element. Atop the Hillary Step, Vergé and Ruiz had gone silent. There was still no word, of course, from Egger or Norbu. Skinner and presumably Jimmy were both dead, at least one of them murdered. Blaisdell and Corsi were missing. And now Hitchens had taken up a bloody suicide mission. The professor’s only hope was that Tashi would catch him in time. That was it.

  “Bloody hell,” Ian muttered, falling back onto his seat, suddenly feeling short of breath. “It’s a full-blown disaster we have on our hands.”

  Chapter 25

  Death Zone

  With his headlamp guiding him through the darkness, Zack sluggishly plodded toward the Southeast Ridge. From the South Col it was roughly twelve grueling hours to the summit. After the first two, Zack began feeling sick. It started with coughing and quickly progressed into gagging. Before he knew it, Zack was removing his oxygen mask to vomit every few steps. But he trudged on.

  A killer roamed loose on the mountain. Whether it was the drugs, the booze or the altitude, it seemed Jimmy Melonakos had become psychotic. Dustin and Francesca had to be warned. Had to be made safe. Zack owed it to them; at Camp III, for better or worse, together they’d saved his life.

  Dustin and Francesca weren’t the only ones who needed rescuing, either. Somewhere just below the Hillary Step, Norbu and maybe Egger were still alive, stranded. Some forty feet above them, Vergé and Ruiz were riding out the cold hard night. Something had to be done, and with Skinner dead and Tashi frozen with fear, there was no one left to conduct a search but Zack himself.

  He fell to his knees. He tore off his oxygen mask and spewed onto the rock a sixth time. A putrid smell then filled his nostrils, but Zack was convinced it wasn’t his bile and vomit. It was something else. The same something he’d smelled weeks ago on the suspension bridge to Pangboche. The same something that had sent the surviving yaks into a frenzy.

  He replaced his mask, pushed himself to his feet and carried on. He glanced down at his sleeves. His vomit now joined Skinner’s blood and gore on his new red climbing suit. He gave a fleeting thought to his self-imposed school uniform, his starched button down shirts, muted ties, and pressed gabardines. He laughed behind his oxygen mask.

  If only Danny Lansing and Chris Stanley could see him now.

  Digging in, he thought of what George Mallory had worn on the mountain nearly a century ago. Layers of silk and cotton underwear; a flannel shirt; a woolen pullover with matching woolen trousers that made him appear as though he were out for a morning stroll along the countryside; a canvas-like outer garment; hobnail boots instead of crampons. He pictured Mallory’s body strewn out on the north side, after eighty-five years still exposed to the elements and the appetites of ravens.

  Is that what Elliot Wyle will look like? he wondered. Is that what’s in store for Vergé and Ruiz? For Egger and Norbu? For Dustin and Francesca?

  Behind his glacier goggles, tears began to fall. But they quickly froze before they reached his cheeks.

  He envisioned Mallory’s ghastly white skin.

  Is that what I’m going to look like?

  He threw off his mask and vomited again.

  “You’re saying I should leave this all up to chance?” Zack had said to the head lama at Tengboche. “That it doesn’t matter what I decide to do, because it’s all in the hands of fate?”

  The Abbott shook his head, but continued smiling. “Buddha said: I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on men unless they act.”

  Zack wiped the spittle from his chin and replaced his oxygen mask. He took three deep breaths and then moved on. By his calculations, he was now about halfway to the Balcony.

  A few minutes later, his radio squawked. He stopped and listened intently to determine whether it was Dustin or Francesca or one of the other climbers trapped above.

  “Hitchens, do you read me?”

  Ian Furst. Zack felt a pinch of guilt when he continued moving. But Ian had been radioing him nonstop, doing his damndest to bring him down the mountain. And Zack couldn’t go down. Not without his teammates. Not without having delivered Nadia’s ashes to the summit.

  “Hitchens.” Ian’s voice was now little more than a whisper. Even at Base Camp the altitude took its toll. “Hitchens, I need you to respond to me, mate. Do you copy? Listen, Hitc
hens, you’re about to walk headfirst into another bloody st–”

  Zack switched off the walkie. He’d climb another half hour then turn it back on, in case Dustin or Francesca attempted to call.

  But right now, Zack couldn’t be distracted.

  * * *

  “Goddamnit,” Ian spat, slamming down the receiver. “It’s no use. If Tashi doesn’t catch up with him, Hitchens will be dead before dawn.”

  “Try Tashi again,” Patty suggested.

  Ian was torn. Every time he spoke to his Sherpa it slowed Tashi down more. But Ian needed to know where he was. Whether he had Hitchens in his sights.

  “Tashi, come in. Over.”

  After a thirty-second silence, Ian feared his sirdar, too, was lost. Then quietly, almost in a whisper came the words: “Here, boss.”

  “Tashi, I can barely hear you. Pick up your voice. You’re on a mountain, not in some bloody London library.”

  More silence.

  “Tashi, do you copy?”

  “...here, boss.”

  “Yes, you were bloody well clear on that point. Now, Tashi, what’s your position? And where’s Hitchens?”

  In an agitated whisper: “It’s here, boss.”

  The radio fell silent. Ian turned and looked up at Aasif, who shrugged and shook his head.

  “Patty?” Ian said.

  “I have no idea.”

  Ian lifted the transmitter. “Tashi, I’m not following you. Sort me out. What’s going on?”

  White noise. More than a minute passed before the static cleared.

  “I smell it.” Panic rose in Tashi’s voice. “It’s here.”

  From the tone of Tashi’s reply, the Sherpa clearly wasn’t moving. Wasn’t gaining ground on Hitchens. He was wasting valuable time.