The Yeti: A Novel by Rick Chesler & Jack Douglas

Author:Rick Chesler & Jack Douglas [Chesler, Rick]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2016-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

* * *

Dustin turned away from Francesca, pondering the question she had posed.

“And what if it was not Skinner who cut the rope? What then?”

Dustin clenched his fists, refusing to look at Francesca. For the first time since this started, he was angry with himself. Maybe even a little ashamed. What the hell had he gotten them into?

It had all started last December with a telephone call from Kathmandu. Ed Pruit was an acquaintance Dustin had made years before while climbing the Dom in the Swiss Alps with his cousin. Now Pruit said he’d just returned from the Solu Khumbu region after visiting with friends in the Sherpa village of Luza. There, he told Dustin, he’d met a middle-aged Sherpa by the name of Ang Tendu.

Tendu told Pruit and his Sherpa friends that three nights before he’d been resting on a dry rock above the riverbank on the outskirts of Machhermo when a shadow crossed over a thick row of rhododendron bushes. The only light was from the moon in the sky, so he quickly glanced in that direction. In the moment his head was turned he heard a rustling. Then nothing.

Sitting stock-still, Tendu searched the darkness with his eyes, his heart beating hard in his chest. Whatever it was that cast the shadow had moved fast, faster than any man ever could. And though shadows can be deceptive, this shadow appeared unusually large, the size of maybe two men stacked one atop the other.

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.

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