Whiteout: 8 (Down the Mountain)

8. Down the Mountain

     The trip down from base camp to the Lukla airport wasn’t dangerous, but it was long. A long rocky trail (if it could be called that) led in switchbacks down for miles into the valley below. The sparse scenery of the higher altitude slowly gave way to mild brush and tall grass. We would pass the occasional village and everyone would come out to stare. “Well, looks like word of our exploits has already reached here.” I said cheerfully to a sour apprentice who was not speaking to me at the moment.

     The trail was not dangerous, unless you were traveling with moody dead weight. Then it was perilous for your sanity. “I can’t just talk to myself all the way down this mountain, come on. We did the right thing. If we had followed Manchester we would be dead men, just as he will soon be himself. Lucky day for me, he took out our only real competition. It’s going to be smooth sailing from here on out.” Still no response other than the blank, moody stare that he seemed content to keep for the entire trip back to the airport.

     I took out the small bag of gold that we had been given and shook it in front of him. “Heh? What about this? What are you going to do with your share of this? I’ve got my eye on a hundred year old bottle of brandy, but your interests seem different. What are you going to buy with it?”

     “A plane ticket back.” He said, ever moodily.

     “Oh come on now! What is your problem? We just saved a village!”

     “Do you really think that? It all adds up. We killed the wrong beast, and you’re just too stubborn to admit it. Previous encounters with the yeti—“

     “Previous encounters with the yeti are either entirely fabricated or overly exaggerated. There hasn’t been a credited sighting in hundreds of years, and even that leaves room for doubt. For all we know they could have just been seeing a warg covered in frost.”

     “That howl wasn’t a warg.”

     “Oh and you’re the expert on warg hunting calls now are you?”

     “At least I’m not blatantly denying—“

     “Dr. Venter!”

     They never learn. Might as well roll with it. I turned around to see Lopsang running down the road hurriedly towards us. “Look pal, no refunds. I got your monster now scram.” Lopsang continued to run and it was sheer surprise when he punched me straight in the face. It’s really a miracle that I haven’t been punched by more people in my lifetime. I didn’t used to be as pleasant.

     “Bout time somebody did that.” Said James, having a good laugh at my misery. “You’ll always get what’s coming to you--
 Before he could finish I swept his leg and slapped him upside the head. It’s important to keep a pecking order, and when it’s violated to maintain dominance. You’d be surprised how similar some of my working relationships have been to national geographic territory displays.

     “Shut up James, and you. You have about five seconds to turn right back up that mountain path to walk away. I understand that you’re angry, but Manchester is filling your head with nothing but lies.” I really believed it at the time. The thought of a yeti, in the Himalayas of all places was preposterous. It was too close to a storybook to be real.

     “No Dr. Ventner. Not lies.” Even in his anger he still persisted in calling me by my fake title. “What killed my brother was not a warg!”

     “A couple of days ago you thought it was a werewolf. What difference does a different classification make?!” I tried to stand from the dirt, but Lopsang put his foot on my chest and pushed me back down. “Look, is this really necessary? I killed the beast, now let me go.”

     “No, just last night we heard it again.”

     “What do you mean you heard it? We were in the same village were we not?”

     “Some of us weren’t passed out drunk! The howling that cut through the wind and tore through the wood boards like they were paper! In the morning we went out to where we had displayed the wargs and they were gone. All we found was this.” Lopsang pulled a leather bag out of his backpack and tossed it to me.  My fingers felt clumsy and my head still hurt considerably from the thump he had given it.

     Inside was a patch of white fur. Not thick and matted like that of a warg, but straight white fur. “This could be from anything.” James snatched it from my hand and held it up to the sunlight.

     “Look at how thick it is. This must be from something huge. Was there any more where you found this Lopsang?” They examined the fur from all angles while I sat solemnly in the mud. The evidence was piling against me and I didn’t much like it. Least of all I didn’t want to beaten by Manchester.

     Of all the places why does he have to come here? There has to be some Romanian village dealing with a coven that’s more his speed. Unless… What if it isn’t a lie? What if it really is Shangri La? The thought still seemed absurd, but the talk of the wealth there was also in absurd amounts. I soon found myself transported away from the mountains and into a large mansion where I was diving into pools of gold coins. Money can be a powerful motivator for the weak of heart.

     I had heard stories about the yeti. None of them ended well for the person hunting it. Most often they froze to death on the side of some god-forsaken mountain, food supplies gone, and entire crew decimated. I have seen the bloody remains, and I’ve been to one too many funerals for people hunting them. Most of the time we chalked it up to some lesser species, but it could have been.

     Even with my ears filled with mud I began to hear the howling. It was only in my head, but the knowledge of what it might be made it truly haunt me. It was long, mournful, and powerful. Any yeti that had made it into our world was likely the last of their kind. They could be spread throughout the world, but the energy to get more than one out would have been astronomical.

     What am I thinking? I deal in facts, not in guesses and hunches. Even in my mind the statement sounded ridiculous. My entire field had been based on guesses and hunches. One day a man had decided that he believed the stories weren’t stories and became the first one to hunt them down. That was the end of it. Soon more joined his cause and there was a secret order of people who knew the truth. This could be it. The chance for me to put my name in the book and put the mystery to bed.

     “Nick!” James was yelling at me. Apparently I had gone off in my own world too long for everyone else. It was a common occurrence. Sometimes deep within the recesses of my mind is where I think best. I like to think of it as going off the edge of the map. Tiptoeing my way up to that line where it says ‘here there be monsters’ and then plunging headfirst to the other side.

     “What?! I’ve got a splitting headache from his right hook, can we stop with the shouting?”

     “Nick, I’m not coming back with you. I’m going with Lopsang. We need to catch this beast, it’s our responsibility.”

     Such nobility. Self-righteous prick. But he was very good at his job. I feel like I should mention that while I belittled him more than anyone else, there was a certain respect in it. It just wasn’t overt. “Splendid, I think I’ll come along.” I snapped to my feet in the moment of surprise and brushed the mud off of my gear.

     “What?”

     “Yes while you two were arguing about whether or not that piece of goat fur was from a yeti, I was considering the real possibilities.”

     “Goat fur?”

     “Yes. The heads were taken down by a disgusted villager who believed that we had killed the wrong animal.” I glared at Lopsang for a solid minute before continuing. “The fur was taken from the back of a goat and dipped in wax to appear thicker, and then brought to us by the very same villager to convince us that it was indeed the yeti that had done it. Very sneaky Lopsang, but I know my Caprinae.”

     “Lopsang?” James was hurt. He had just spent ten minutes shooting the breeze with a liar and had no doubt made several sweeping statements about the nature of the fur that now looked rather idiotic. I would have been embarrassed too. Getting tricked by goat fur only happens to amateurs. Luckily Lopsang was only trying to get his money back, not trying to murder us in our sleep. Damn those Albanians!

     “I know it wasn’t a warg!”

     “But you lied to me!”

 

“Official?” The butler slides in bringing us more drinks.

Thank God for that. This was starting to get boring. He seems to have noticed my speed and leaves me two glasses rather than the traditional one. They are both filled to the brim with clear and brown liquids that are unidentifiable but smell like airplane fuel. Wonderful. “Thank you Jeeves.” He gives me a knowing wink and I sip from one of the glasses. Hot fire runs down my throat like an Olympic sprinter and I feel the urge to vomit. Perfect, now I’ll be able to tell the story the way it was supposed to be told.

I have a lot of state dependent memory from those days. Meaning that I was drunk most of the time and I can recall them better when properly lubricated. “Certification is a tricky thing to get in my field and it involves quite a bit of schooling. I was more of the learn in the field type person. I nearly died more times than I can count, but I’m still here and a lot of the bookworms aren’t.” Poor Barry. If only he had learned the difference between an African and European Blood Swallow. Damn that Nigerian Prince!

“There’s a school for monster hunting?”

“You know for someone with  this much curiosity you are curiously uninformed.” Suspicion, the first stage of my drunken self. It generally helps keep me out of trouble at bars, or gets me out of there before the trouble found me.

“I’m paying you quite a lot not to question me.”

 

Both Lopsang and James were staring at me dumbfounded. Neither of them had expected my change of heart to be so easy. Frankly I hadn’t either, but the thought of gold and treasures beyond my wildest dreams was enticing enough to put my life in danger. Sure the satchel in my pocket could have bought me a nice bottle and a lovely person to share it with, but that’s no treasure compared to Shangri La.

It was a violent place if the tales were right, but also filled with riches. The inhabitants had long ago been wiped out by the creatures they had bred, and so their riches lay unprotected throughout the land. They had been a prosperous people, but as so often happens with greed, they let it get the best of them. One by one they slowly vanished as the strange and terrifying creatures they shared the realm with began to pick them off.

“Look, if we’re going to go after it we need a way up the mountain, and before you say it, we’re not going with Manchester. He may be a professional, but his judgment is clouded here.” It may or may not have been, mostly I wanted to beat him to the prize. “We will travel alone. A small group stands a better chance than the convoy he’s dragging up the mountain.”

“What? You and me? We have no mountaineering experience, and there’s no way we could take it down by ourselves!”

“Of course not, that’s why we’re taking Lopsang.” The Sherpa looked at me quizzically.

“I did not agree to this.”

“No, you tried to swindle me.” I said pulling the large pistol I carried from its holster.

“Woah! What are you doing?” Screamed James.

“This man has to be taught a lesson James. Lopsang, you tried to steal money from me and nearly convinced my partner to go on a suicide mission alone. So yes, when you did that you agreed to help us. Unless you’d rather die here on a mountain path where no one but goats will find you.” It was a rather large bluff. The gun I was pointing had no bullets in it, and I don’t think I would have been capable of killing him, but it ended up working.

“Ok, ok, you’re right.”

“Wonderful! Now Lopsang, you are going to direct us to the black market. If we’re going up there we’re going to need some supplies. I don’t intend to come back a popsicle. We must hurry though, Manchester could be leaving any time now.”

“We actually have about 3 days.” Said Lopsang. “The elders say that a blizzard is coming to the mountain. It will rage for three days, forcing Manchester to remain at camp.”

“Excellent. He won’t want to take any chances with a group that large. All the more reason to leave now. Take us to the black market Lopsang!”

“We don’t have one.”

“Don’t lie to me. I know they don’t like outsiders, but every place has got one, and I’m guessing you had to hear the tale of the yeti from somewhere. Now takes us there quickly please…”