‘Is that possible? I mean, that you might injure it?’
‘For sure, yes.’ Jameson puffed impatiently. ‘But even if I did manage to dart the beast, I’m not sure I want to go chasing after it in these sorts of conditions. I mean, some sort of chase is mandatory. We could break a leg, or worse. No, the more I think about it—’
Jameson broke the gun in half, removed the syringe, corked its quill-like tip carefully, and then pocketed it.
‘Just in case I’m tempted,’ he explained.
Swift nodded. ‘I think you’re absolutely right.’
It was then that they heard a shout from somewhere up ahead. The sirdar had found something.
‘U yahaa,’ he called. ‘Over here, sahibs.’
Jameson yelled back, ‘Haani aaii-dai chhaii.’
He and Swift started down the gully in the direction of the sirdar’s voice.
‘It would be just our bastard luck, wouldn’t it?’ said Jameson. ‘If we came across one now.’
Boyd let the search party of three get about half an hour ahead up the trail of strange footsteps and then set out along the same southeasterly bearing. From time to time he stopped and appeared to check his position with the aid of a handheld electronic device. Along the way he considered the nature of the animal the other three were tracking. It amazed him that there were scientists who could subscribe to this kind of wishful thinking. Even if there was some sort of creature, it had remained virtually undetected throughout human history. And they just expected to be able to roll up and find it. He assumed there would be some rational explanation for the strange tracks, and one that did not include the Abominable Snowman. A bear perhaps. Or even a giant Himalayan eagle. He still recalled the fright he had received when coming upon one of these rare birds on the trek up from Chomrong. How much like an ape it had looked from behind as it squatted on the ground. Even the huge footprints left by this enormous bird of prey had looked to be the kind easily mistaken for those of a giant ape. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that it would turn out to be an eagle after all. Possibly even the same eagle. The thought made him laugh out loud, and he almost wished he could have been there if and when they ever caught up with whatever it was.
Still laughing he stopped, dropped his rucksack, and prepared to take a core sample.
The mist was lifting as quickly as it had descended when Swift and Jameson mounted the crest of the gully and, where the stream of the Modi Khola widened, they came upon a small range of signposts that indicated a holy place.
Here they found a little wigwam of rag and paper banners that fluttered at the tip of long wooden poles, like so much laundry left out to dry in the stiffening wind, a rock with some sacred symbols and mantras that were painted in green, and a small Chorten — a conical-shaped reliquary — built of red bricks and symbolizing the four elements. Then they saw the sirdar.
Smiling apologetically he led them through the thinning mist along the riverbed and pointed toward a spit of snow that extended into the fast-flowing river.
An extraordinary sight greeted their eyes. But it was not the one for which they had walked several miles.
There, his whole weight resting on hands firmly placed on a large flat rock, his brown body parallel to the snow-covered ground, his long legs stretched out straight and his bare feet together, with long hair hanging down over his face in Medusa-like coils, and naked but for a small loincloth, was a man.
For a moment Swift and Jameson were too astounded to say anything. With the temperature at fifty-nine degrees below zero Fahrenheit, neither had considered the possibility that the tracks in the snow might have been made by a bare human foot.
‘Our yeti, I think,’ Jameson said finally. ‘Boyd is going to love this when we tell him, the bastard.’
‘Who is he?’ an exasperated Swift demanded of the sirdar. ‘And what’s he doing here?’
‘It is kind of a strange place to do your yoga exercises,’ observed Jameson.
‘Hindu Sadhu,’ explained Hurké Gurung. ‘A follower of the Lord Shiva.’
He pointed at a wooden trident that lay on the ground next to a thin discarded robe, as if this would mean something to them both.
‘Had to stop here because of fog, just like us. Him practising Tum-mo yoga. Very good for heat preservation, not need any clothes.’ The sirdar rubbed his stomach as if indicating that he was hungry. ‘Him very warm on inside.’
‘God, I’m freezing to death just looking at him,’ admitted Jameson.
‘Me too,’ said Swift.
‘This position called Mayurasana. But afraid not know English for Mayura.’
‘A peacock,’ said Jameson. He shrugged as if trying to judge the accuracy of the name. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Before the peacock lifts up its trailing tail feathers to form a fan, the whole tail sticks out parallel to the ground.’
The sirdar continued to rub his stomach. ‘Just so, sahib. Make very good belly muscles too.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘As Mayura kills snake, so Mayura kills poisons in body. Generate much heat. Just like Semath Johnson-Mathey fuel cell.’
Slowly the sadhu lowered his feet onto the snow and then adopted Padmasana, the lotus position.
Bowing several times, Hurké Gurung greeted the sadhu with a namaste, and when the heavily bearded ascetic returned the greeting, he began to speak to him.
‘O, daai. Namaste. Sadhiiji, tapaa kahaa jaanii huncha? Bhannnhos?’
The two men spoke for several minutes, and throughout most of their conversation, the sirdar kept his hands pressed together, as if praying to the sadhu. At last, the sirdar turned toward the two Westerners.
‘This is a most holy man,’ he explained in tones of great reverence. ‘He is the Swami Chandare, a Dasnami Sannyasin of the great Lord Shiva. He has taken most strict vow of nothingness to put his mind to physical and spiritual disciplines.’
The swami nodded slowly, as if he understood what the sirdar was saying.
‘His life is spent walking around Machhapuchhare, which he says is the body of the Lord Shiva, the destroyer of all things, in order to make way for new creations. Formerly he was in India, to be near to another mountain. Shivling, it is called, which, he says — I am sorry, memsahib, to say such words in your presence — he says it is the thing of the Lord Shiva.’
The sirdar shook his head with mild disapproval and added, ‘How, ever after, I have seen this mountain, and it is only the sun’s shadow on the mountain which is sometimes looking like a man’s thing. Huncha. I have said to him that we are most scientifically minded people who have come to search for yeti, and the swami now asks. Why are you wishing to find it, please?’
‘Has the swami seen a yeti, Hurké?’ said Swift.
‘Oh yes please, memsahib. Once upon a time, while praying on lower slopes of Machhapuchhare, a yeti came along carrying a great stone under his mighty arm. The yeti look very fierce, very strong. But the swami, he was not at all scared. Over years he has seen many times yeti but never harm come to him. Only because yeti know he mean no harm to yeti. Understand? Yeti even help swami with dhyana. Jameson sahib, English bhaasha maa kasari dhyana bhanchha?’
‘Meditation,’ said Jameson.
‘Meditation, yes,’ nodded the sirdar. ‘Swami, him say that yeti not speak to him, but very clever.’