The Abominable: A Novel

27.

I came to lying in a fresh-smelling silken tent, tied facedown onto many not-so-fresh-smelling silken pillows. My wrists were tied to stakes driven into the ground between an array of elaborate Persian rugs that covered most of the floor of the tent. My head hurt terribly. My upper back hurt quite specifically—I could feel where the German bullet had entered when Pasang and I were first shot. I moved my head to look in both directions—more rugs, tall tentpoles, more tent, more pillows, no Pasang. Maybe he was dead. Perhaps I was.

But I hurt too much to be dead. I noticed that I was shirtless in the cold—I’d accidentally dislodged blankets when I’d first stirred—but there was something bulky and sticky on my back. I wondered idly if the bullet was in my lung or spine or near my heart. My head hurt too much for me to work on that problem with the mental effort it deserved.

I heard something behind me and I swiveled my head quickly enough to send so much pain coursing through my skull that I almost fainted, but I did manage to see a very Asian-looking Tibetan, or perhaps Tibetan-looking Mongolian, step into the tent with a steaming bowl in his hands, see him notice that I was conscious, and then he beat a hasty retreat.

Bandits, I realized. I could only hope that it was the band that Lady Bromley-Montfort was friends with and had already bribed with pistols and chocolate. What was the name of that band’s leader…??

Jimmy Khan. How can one forget that?

The little Asian-looking man in furs and still carrying the steaming bowl came back through the tall tent entrance with Pasang and the bandit Jimmy Khan walking next to him. Pasang had obviously bandaged his own head and also washed the blood from his face. He did not look dead any longer. I could see the end of the bullet furrow as a white scar raised against the dark skin of Pasang’s left temple.

The bandit Jimmy Khan said something in Tibetan and Pasang translated. “Khan says, ‘Good, you are alive again.’”

From our first encounter the month before, I remembered that Jimmy Khan spoke and understood some English. “Why am I staked out here, Pasang? Am I a prisoner?”

“No,” said my tall Sherpa friend. “You were a bit delirious, Jake. I decided to remove the bullet from your back while you were unconscious, and the ropes were the only way to keep you from rolling over onto your dressings.” He produced the curved penknife from a pocket and cut the twine binding my hands.

“I had a bullet in my back but I’m alive?” I said, head fuzzy and hurting.

“Mr. Ulrich Graf—he had his identification on his body—appears to have shot both of us,” said Pasang. “The bullet that hit me just tore through scalp and left a groove in my skull. I was unconscious only a short while from that. The bullet that hit you high in the back passed—as far as I can tell—through both of your oxygen tanks, a steel fitting on your flow regulator, as well as through the Unna cooker and two of the cooking pots you were carrying in the gas mask bag slung over your back. Oh, and the slug also had to pass through the aluminum frame of the oxygen rig before it struck you. Most of its kinetic energy was spent by the time it reached your body, Jake. I removed it from beneath only about an inch of skin and a small layer of shoulder muscle.”

I blinked at this. My back hurt but not as much as my head. I’d been shot! “How do you know that Graf was the one who shot us both?”

“I found the mashed-flat slug that grazed me at the base of the boulder we were standing near,” said Pasang. “But it was the slug that I pulled from your back that settled the matter. Both were nine-millimeter Parabellum rounds…essentially you were struck by a pistol shot from long distance, otherwise you’d be dead.”

“Artur Wolzenbrecht also had a Luger in his hand when he was coming toward us in that last second or two,” I managed to say. What did it matter which one of those Nazis shot us? was what I was really thinking.

“He did,” said Pasang and held up a shortened bit of lead. “Evidently they paint the points of the Schmeisser nine-millimeter rounds black. Both of ours had black tips. Graf’s Luger carried that kind of ammunition.”

I sat up on the cushions and swayed a bit with dizziness. “So what happened to Graf and Wolzenbrecht?” I asked. I tried to remember through the throbbing blur, but all I could recall was starting to raise the Webley, blurs of gray and dark masses moving in the swirling snow, screaming.

“That’s a good question,” said Pasang. There was some warning tone in his voice, but I was too preoccupied with pain to sort it out.

“If you can stand, Jake,” said Pasang. “Let me help you outside so that you can see something before more vultures arrive.”

“You explain,” said Jimmy Khan to Pasang and patted me on the back right where the dressing covered my wound. I managed not to scream.

Over on the broad, flat boulder near where we’d been standing when we’d been shot from distant ambush—evidently the two Germans had been hidden behind a boulder only about twenty yards beyond the memorial pyramid of stones that had been raised last year for Mallory, Irvine, and the seven lost Sherpas in 1922—Ulrich Graf’s and Artur Wolzenbrecht’s decapitated heads were set on short stakes lined up very neatly next to one another. Their wide eyes—just beginning to glaze over thickly with the white caul of death—seemed to be staring at us in total surprise. Next to the heads were four severed arms complete with hands, two right arms to the left of Graf, two left arms to the right of Wolzenbrecht.

“Jesus Christ Almighty,” I whispered to Pasang. Looking at Jimmy Khan standing and beaming a few yards away, I also whispered, “Khan and his boys really did a job on these poor devils.”

Dr. Pasang looked at me without blinking. His voice seemed too loud when he spoke. “Mr. Khan explained to me that he and his fifty-five men arrived thirty minutes or so after whatever happened here. He and his men are very impressed with how four or five yeti, angered at the Germans’ presence, took care of our enemies.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I began. But then I finally sorted out the tone of warning in Pasang’s voice and gaze and shut up. For some reason, the bandits wanted us to buy the story that yetis, rather than fur-covered barbarian bandits on horseback, had killed the Germans amidst all that swirling snow. I had no idea why they’d want us to believe that, but I was finally conscious enough to know to keep my mouth shut. These bandits had already knocked me on the head once.

The wind blowing down the long Trough from Everest whistled through the boulders and ruffled the short hair on the dead men’s staked-out heads. The vultures were arriving in force now, and I looked away as they started their meal with the two men’s eyes.

“How long have I been unconscious, Pasang?”

“About five hours.”

I checked my still-ticking watch. (My father never chose anything cheap for a gift.) It was just after noon. Jimmy Khan and two of his lieutenants stepped closer, folded their arms, and grunted with satisfaction at the decapitated heads, four lopped-off arms, and strangely shriveled-looking dead hands. For the first time I noticed, about fifteen yards behind this large flat boulder, a tall pile of what could only be the two men’s intestines. I could see no other evidence of their bodies.

“Metohkangmi,” said Jimmy Khan, and his two lieutenants grumbled and nodded assent. “Yeti.”

“All right,” I said. I staggered away from the trophy stakes and heaps of body parts and found a small boulder to sit on. “Whatever you say, Mr. Jimmy Khan.”

“I’ve found no bullet wounds in the skulls or other detached parts,” said Dr. Pasang, as if that gave forensic support to the bandits’ idiot yeti theory.

As Khan grinned, I gave Pasang a look that should have melted him but somehow didn’t. Perhaps my melting powers were being interfered with by the tremendous headache that continued to throb.

“What next?” I asked.

“Well, Mr. Khan and his associates allowed me to raise the one tent so that I could cut the bullet out of you and let you rest a few hours,” he said softly, “but they won’t allow their camp to be set up anywhere near here. Evidently they feel that Guru Rinpoche, Dzatrul Rinpoche at Rongbuk Monastery, will be displeased when he hears of the violence here today.”

“I thought the Guru Rinpoche liked spreading stories of yetis being up here in the Rongbuk Valley,” I said. “Remember the fairly new mural in the monastery? It helped keep his people and monks away from the hills here.”

“Well, Mr. Khan and his friends insist that we start on the voyage back to the east right away—this afternoon. They have Mongolian ponies for both of us.”

“We can’t leave here,” I said, shocked. “Reggie and the Deacon…”

“Will not be coming down…this way at least,” said Pasang. “Of this I am certain. So we should go with Jimmy Khan and his friendly bandits, Jake. They’ve offered to lead us almost due east from here and then south again across the high Serpo La. That will take us straight down into India. And since we’re traveling so lightly, and if the weather on the high pass holds, the entire trip back might be made in three weeks or less rather than five weeks the way we came in. Jimmy Khan and his band will ride with us and protect us the whole way to Darjeeling, providing a palanquin for you if your wound and headache begin acting up.”

“He must be demanding something for all this friendly help,” I said dully. “Even his old friend Reggie had to pay him so that we could pass through his band’s territory.”

“I offered to pay him one thousand pounds sterling when we’re safe at Lady Bromley-Montfort’s plantation.”

“What?” I cried. “We don’t have a thousand pounds to pay these bandits with! We don’t have a hundred quid between the two of us.”

“You forget, Mr. Perry,” Pasang said sadly. “Lady Bromley-Montfort left the entire tea plantation in my hands—full ownership if she does not return, which I sincerely pray to our Savior that she does. And soon. Her only stipulation was that I pay one-third of the annual profits to Lady Bromley in Lincolnshire as long as the aunt lives. Suddenly—and I pray God, temporarily—I find myself awash in funds. At any rate, considering the importance Mr. Deacon and Lady Bromley-Montfort placed on what you’re expected to deliver directly to London, I agreed that a thousand pounds was reasonable for Khan’s protection and ponies on our voyage back. Khan’s men rarely travel as far into India as the outskirts of Darjeeling, so Mr. Khan is being generous. He will even leave two of his men to stay here near Base Camp for two weeks just in case our friends do come this way.”

I had nothing to say to that.

I looked up toward Mount Everest—mostly hidden by snow clouds, wind blowing wildly from the North Ridge and North Col—and then back at the two Germans’ staring heads on the boulder. The vultures were very busy now.

“If we’re not going to wait here days or weeks in person to see if Reggie and the Deacon end up coming down this way,” I said slowly, trying to think clearly, “then we might as well get headed toward Darjeeling sooner rather than later. Let’s go see what shaggy ponies they’ve chosen for us.”