Yeti Unleashed Read online

  Millie was quiet and shy, most of her time was spent with her head in a book. But Dixie never would have guessed that Jimmy would so blatantly disregard policy and open the Yeti’s cage without the animal being sedated.

  Drayton stopped for a quick lunch at the edge of Black Rock Desert Wilderness Area. He pulled the jeep next to a small copse of trees, and the group ate sandwiches in the shade. As they finished eating, Dixie noticed a small dot in the far distance getting larger with each passing second. She watched the dot get bigger, small tufts of dust billing out behind it until she realized it was a vehicle traveling fast. In another minute she saw that it was a jeep and it was heading in their direction.

  “Someone’s coming, Bruce,” she said, pointing in the direction of the jeep.

  Everyone looked up and followed the jeep as it approached the dirt road where they were parked. Drayton waved at the jeep and it rolled to a stop in a cloud of dust.

  “You fellas been up in the gorge back there?” Drayton asked as he went to the driver’s window. Dixie followed with Harry at her side.

  “We need help,” the driver said. Dixie noticed his blood stained jacket and head wound.

  “What happened?” Dixie said. She shot a glance at the man’s passenger who looked as if he had been in a fight as well.

  “We were attacked by two large animals,” the man said.

  “Really?” Harry said, moving to the window. “What did they look like?”

  “Large. Hairy. Not bears. Walked on their hind legs. Real scary.”

  “Our Yeti,” Harry said, turning to Drayton.

  “Your what?” the driver said.

  “Large animals from Mongolia. Escaped from a research facility near Grant,” Harry said.

  “We need medical help, bad.”

  “Sure.” Drayton moved to the window. “Which way were they headed?”

  Dixie noticed that the man’s passenger was slumped in his seat.

  “Is he okay?” she said, pointing the other man.

  “He’s hurt pretty bad. Needs a doctor.”

  “Direction,” Drayton pressed. “Which direction?”

  “Northwest from the gorge entrance. About ten miles from here.”

  “Thanks,” Drayton said. “You’ll find a doctor in Elko. An hour’s drive if you step on it.”

  “Fine,” said the driver, and he sped off toward the town.

  Dixie’s heart pounded.

  “We’ll go as far as we can in the jeep,” Drayton said, “then take the horses. Hopefully, we can pick up their trail. Dr. Siscom, get your tranquilizer gun ready just in case.”

  “What do we do with them once we find them and they’re sedated?” Millie asked.

  “We’ll have to load them in the horse trailer in order to get them back to the facility,” Siscom said. “They weigh a ton so it will take all us.”

  “This is a large area,” Harry said. “Damn, they could be anywhere.”

  “I’ll pray we get lucky,” Millie said as she climbed into the rear of the jeep.

  Drayton pushed the jeep with the horse trailer into the wilderness area. The region had been set aside for use without motorized vehicles but this was an emergency. There were no roads, only small trails that, to Dixie, appeared to lead nowhere.

  They sped northwest as the sun headed toward the horizon, creating rays of gold, yellow, magenta, and purple over the desert floor, lengthening shadows, sending the temperature dropping.

  Harry retrieved a map from the glove box and studied it. “Looks like there’s an abandoned mining operation up here a ways,” he said. “Rabbithole Mine.”

  “Might be a good place to bed down for the night,” Drayton said. “It’s a place to get out of the weather in case it rains.”

  “Good idea,” Harry replied. “When I was out in the rain I got chilled to the core. I was close to being hypothermic.”

  When the dilapidated mining structure came into view, Drayton pulled the jeep into the shade and killed the engine. The group piled out and stretched their legs. Drayton and Harry pulled the sleeping bags and other gear from the compartment in the trailer while Siscom unloaded and hobbled the horses. They whinnied at being out of the trailer.

  The abandoned mine was a series of ramshackle wooden structures, half standing, half nothing more than a pile of rubble. A group of rusted machinery stood idle, remnants of an earlier time when gold and silver reigned supreme.

  A broken-down sluice stood to one side of what was once a two-story building.

  Dixie and Millie grabbed the water bottles, trail mix, and jerky, and the entire group sat and washed the desert grit from their mouths.

  “Is it possible they can survive out here in this heat?” Millie said. “It’s not their natural habitat nor the temperature we kept at the Animal Care Unit.”

  “We are in uncharted territory,” Siscom said, shaking his head, and turned toward Harry. “No one knows what their tolerances are, do we, Harry?”

  “You’re absolutely right, Gerald,” Harry said. “In Mongolia, the Yeti lived at altitude deep in caves where the temperatures rarely got above forty or fifty degrees. Here, it’s well over a hundred. So I don’t think we know how much they can endure. This heat may be too much of a stress for them to survive for long.”

  “But they have, so far,” Dixie interjected. “And I think that bodes well for their endurance and survivability.”

  Siscom nodded. “From what we have seen at the facility, they have an amazing ability to adapt to their surroundings. So far, they have shown that out here on the desert. There is a potential problem, however.”

  “What is that, Dr. Siscom?” Millie said.

  “In 1847, the German biologist Carl Bergmann observed that within the same species of warm-blooded animals, populations having less massive individuals were more often found in warm climates near the equator, while those with greater bulk, or mass, were found further from the equator in colder regions. This is due to the fact that big animals generally have larger body masses that result in more heat being produced. The greater amount of heat results from there being more cells. A normal byproduct of metabolism in cells is heat production. Subsequently, the more cells an animal has, the more internal heat it will produce.

  “In addition, larger animals usually have a smaller surface area relative to their body mass and, therefore, are comparatively inefficient at radiating their body heat off into the surrounding environment. Galileo described the relationship between surface area and volume of objects interestingly. The volume increases twice as fast as the surface area. This is the reason that relatively less surface area results in relatively less heat being lost from animals.”

  “Like in bears, for example,” Millie said.

  “Exactly. Polar bears are a good example of this phenomenon. They have large, compact bodies with relatively small surface areas from which they can lose their internally produced heat. This is an important asset in cold climates. In addition, they have heavy fur and fat insulation that help retain body heat.

  “Then in 1877, the American biologist Joel Allen went further than Bergmann in observing that the length of arms, legs, and other appendages also has an effect on the amount of heat lost to the surrounding environment. He noted that among warm-blooded animals, individuals in populations of the same species living in warm climates near the equator tend to have longer limbs than do populations living farther away from the equator in colder environments. This is due to the fact that a body with relatively long appendages is less compact and subsequently has more surface area. The greater the surface area, the faster body heat will be lost to the environment.”

  “What this all adds up to is that we need to find these Yeti sooner than later. The longer they’re out here, the greater the risk of them dying.” Harry’s tone was emphatic.

  “And while evaporative cooling is extremely effective in dry climates, there is a major drawback. That is the rapid loss of water and salts from the body through sweat. This can
be fatal in less than a day if they are not replaced. It is common to lose a quart or more of water through sweating each hour in harsh summer desert conditions,” added Siscom. “So let’s get a good night’s rest and get after it early in the morning,” Drayton said.

  Everyone nodded their agreement.

  ***

  A soft rain buffeted the dirty windows of Johnson’s walkup Chinatown apartment ringing out make-believe staccato messages. He and Falco were huddled over a small kitchen table, their attention fixed on the lunch pail before them. A digital alarm clock with several wires ran to a model rocket ignitor that Johnson connected to a lump of plastic explosive. Finished working, Falco lit a cigarette and blew the acrid smoke from his nostrils.

  “Johnson, where did you say you got all this stuff?” he said.

  “I got friends, man,” Johnson said, his right eye twitching as he looked at the man seated next to him. “You don’t think I got friends?”

  “Hey, I didn’t say such. Frankly, I don’t give a damn where you got this shit. All I care about is the money. How much you say?”

  Johnson closed the lunch pail and latched it. Pushed it to the center of the table.

  “Five thousand. Half now and half when the job is done. I told you that earlier.”

  “I know, I know. That’s 2500 apiece, ain’t it? Yeah, it is. Several months of feeling good. When?”

  “When Norma says it’s time. We’re waiting on Norma’s word.”

  Johnson rose, sauntered to the window, and gazed into the darkness beyond the dingy glass. The rain still fell in sheets. Sometimes he wondered how wise it was to keep his friend around--the man wasn’t the brightest bulb on the shelf. But Falco was loyal, if he was anything. Johnson thought back to when they were cellies in Delano prison and a group of La Eme or the Mexican Mafia had him cornered in a shower. Falco had stumbled on their planned beating. He could have backed away but, instead, chose to stay and fight. Turned out to be nothing more than a scuffle when his friend unarmed one of his attackers--a lock attached to the end of a belt. The four Mexican inmates scattered.

  Johnson ambled back to the table as Falco snubbed out his cigarette. The man’s pale watery eyes betrayed a lonely, detached nature.

  “What you thinking, Falco?” he said.

  “I was just thinking about my mother, God rest her soul. After Pa lit out, she took care of me and Bobby.”

  “Bobby?”

  “Yeah. My brother, Bobby.”

  “I didn’t know you had a brother. You never mentioned him.”

  “I know. A marine. He was killed in Iraq. Roadside bomb went off when his Humvee ran over it.”

  “Sorry, friend.”

  “It’s fine. I was just thinking it was always on nights like this that Mom would pop popcorn for Bobby and me. We’d sit with the window open, listen to the rain, and eat popcorn.”

  “Did she work?”

  “Yeah. Took in ironing during the week and cleaned offices on the weekend. She always worked day and night. We lived in a two-room apartment in the Bronx. It wasn’t much. Bobby and I played baseball in the vacant lot next door.” Falco chuckled at his remembering.

  “Your mom still alive?” Johnson said. He poured two glasses of whiskey from a half-full bottle.

  “Naw, she died while I was in jail. Couldn’t even go to her funeral.” Falco’s eyes drifted toward the window and the rain. “I loved that old woman.”

  Chapter 25

  Sheriff Calder slowed the jeep to a crawl and listened while Jessup spoke with the helicopter pilot who circled overhead.

  “Nothing from up here,” the pilot’s voice crackled over the radio. “Any sightings down there?”

  “None,” Jessup responded. “Move farther north. We’ll catch up.”

  “We’re low on fuel, sir,” the pilot said. “We need to set down and gas up first.”

  “Okay. We’ll go on. You can let me know when you’re airborne again. Out.”

  Once Jessup was off the radio, Calder accelerated over the rough terrain, heading toward the Idaho line. At the small ghost town of Sulphur, Calder stopped. Sulphur had been a stop on the Feather River Route of the Western Pacific Railroad until it was abandoned in the early forties. All that was left were several ancient, rusty mining machines aging in the desert sun while Pulpit Rock stood as a lone sentinel.

  “We can bed down here for the night,” Calder said. “Once the chopper has fueled, he’ll join us here.”

  “There’s still a few hours of daylight left, Sheriff,” Williams said.

  “When it gets dark in the desert,” Calder said, “it’s easy to get lost. Real easy. It’s best to wait until morning.”

  “Any animals out here?” Jessup said.

  “Coyotes are everywhere,” Hardin said. He pulled a number of sleeping bags from the jeep. “Also, there’s desert bighorn sheep, mule deer. Antelope, of course.”

  “How ’bout snakes?” Williams said. “I can’t stand snakes.”

  “Ah,” Calder said. “Yes, the dreaded rattlesnake. Be wary of where you step or put your hands, especially when you’re in the shade. They love the cooler places and will strike without warning if threatened.”

  “Great,” Williams said, moving away from the jeep.

  “I knew a guy,” Hardin said, smiling, “who slept on the ground and a damned rattler crawled into his sleeping bag with him. Stayed there most of the night until the man got up the use the bathroom. With all that moving around the snake bit him eleven times. Even on his pecker.”

  “Yeah, what happened to him?” Williams wanted to know.

  “He died before he got to the hospital. They found him in his jeep down in an arroyo. His leg and pecker were swollen black purple and his eyes had sunk deep in their sockets.”

  Williams gulped. “I’m sleeping in the jeep,” he said.

  “They’ve been known to find their way into vehicles,” Hardin added. “If I were you, Steve, I’d sleep with one eye open.” Hardin shot a glance at Calder and winked.

  “I’ll shoot the first sonofabitchin snake I see,” Williams said, putting a hand on his pistol. “Blast the bastards to kingdom come.”

  The group, including Calder, snickered at Williams’ threat then settled down for the evening.

  ***

  From a third floor office in the Chronicle Building, Dr. Wickingham looked down upon Mission Street and waited for the reporter to arrive. He’d telephoned the reporter of the San Francisco Chronicle, and the man seemed receptive to his idea of a newsworthy story, so Wickingham waited.

  The man arrived, dressed in a rumpled shirt and tie, the stub of an unlit cigar in his mouth. “Mr. Wickingham?” he said, crossing the office and sitting at his polished desk. The reporter had a hawkish nose and narrow eyes.

  “It’s Dr. Wickingham,” he said with added emphasis on his title.

  “Yes, of course. You mentioned on the phone you had information regarding the Yeti escape in Nevada. Information that I might find interesting.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Tell me again exactly who you are, Doctor. What kind of doctor are you?”

  “I am a professor at California Pacific University,” Wickingham said.

  “That’s the university responsible for these Yeti?”

  Wickingham nodded. “Dr. Harry Olson who is the chairman of the anthropology department was derelict in his duties, regarding the security of the Primate Research Facility in Nevada. My own investigation led me to this conclusion. This dereliction was the direct cause of there being no policies in place to prevent such a remote occurrence, no training in containment, no safety measures such as alarms or self-locking doors. And because Dr. Olson has become a celebrity in anthropological circles, our university president refuses to deal with him.”

  The reporter took notes, occasionally looking at Wickingham through narrow eyes. “Isn’t this something that should be dealt with through an internal investigation, Doctor? Yours notwithstanding. I mean, what good
will can follow by making this public?”

  “Because, only by making Dr. Olson’s blunders public will anything change. The public is in danger. Not until there is a public outcry will Dr. Olson be replaced and measures instituted to ensure this sort of thing never happens again.”

  “Are you sure that you are not reacting out of jealousy or a desire for advancement or promotion?”

  Wickingham bristled at the suggestion. “Not at all.”

  “Doctor, are you familiar with the phrase, ‘no good deed goes unpunished’? Well, that is usually what happens when employees report wrongdoing.” The reporter put away his notebook and looked at Wickingham.

  “So?” Wickingham said.

  “Why would people who have positive feelings about their jobs, who have good performance records, risk the potential negative consequences--physical harm, online harassment, harassment at home, a demotion, a pay cut, and/or a job transfer--by reporting misconduct? It is simply because whistle blowing is not an act of disloyalty, but the ultimate manifestation of employee loyalty to the organization. But whistleblowers, Doctor, are not always welcomed back with open arms in the organization they outed. Are you prepared for what might follow? The fallout, I mean?”

  “Look,” Wickingham said, irritation showing in his voice, “Dr. Olson needs to be held accountable. If I must leave Cal Pacific, then so be it. I can always find another faculty appointment.”

  “Are you so sure, Doctor? Listen, I only want to make sure you have thought all this through. You wouldn’t become an academic pariah? I’ve heard of that happening.”

  “It would be worth it,” Wickingham said.

  The reporter said he would return to his office and write an outline of Wickingham’s accusations. He promised a story in the near future.

  ***

  Millie sat with Dixie around the campfire but apart from the men. She had begun her graduate studies as Dixie finished her dissertation so the two women knew each other as graduate students. She was happy when Dixie married Dr. Olson and remained on the faculty after earning her doctorate. They had formed a friendship, resulting in Dixie becoming Millie’s major professor, overseeing her research activities.