Polar Yeti And The Beasts Of Prehistory (3 page)

Gina felt that her time could best be served by getting in some exercise and relieving some of the stress that was building up inside of her. She sat down on the floor and began stretching. After she had completed her stretches, Gina stood up and began running laps around the ship. She had ran for roughly twenty minutes when she saw a taxi pull up to the dock. Jun-Tuk emerged from the taxi with the urn cradled in his arms.

As Jun-Tuk walked up the long ramp to the ship, he kept his eyes fixed on the urn. When he boarded the ship, he turned to Gina. “Please show me where I will be staying during our journey across the sea.” Gina nodded then she led him to his cabin. When Jun-Tuk entered the cabin, he looked around at his temporary and signed. Then he placed his daughter’s urn on the small table next to his bed. He then turned to Gina. “Have the ship go in a south west direction. When we reach the Antarctic coast, continue to have the ship head west.” He turned to the remains of his daughter on the table next to him. “I should like to remain alone until we reach the coast. When it is in sight, please come and alert me. From there, I shall direct you as to where to land the ship.”

Gina nodded and then she exited the room and closed the door. As she walked toward the bridge to give the captain his directions, her mind wondered if Jun-Tuk was truly in the right state of mind to lead an expedition across the Antarctic. She also wondered if she was in her right mind for placing the grieving father in the position that he was currently in.

Chapter 3

After sailing for nearly six hours, the ship had reached the coast of Antarctica. While Gina was anxious to talk to Jun-Tuk about his tribe, she had respected the man’s wish for solitude during their journey. When the coast was within sight, Gina went to Jun-Tuk’s cabin, knocked on the door, and called out to him. Jun-Tuk answered the door. He was still dressed in the same clothes that he had worn when made the journey across the ocean in a canoe. The old man had a distinct smell to him at this time. Gina was used to interacting with people who lived in primitive settings and who had limited access to bathing and methods through which to wash their clothes. Gina took shallow breaths and she made sure that her facial expressions did not offend the old man.

Jun-Tuk did not say anything; he simply waited for Gina to lead him to the front of the ship and he silently followed her. As they approached the front of the ship, they noticed that nearly the entire team was gathered at the front of the vessel. They were all staring at a group of seals that was frantically moving in and out of the surf. Gina and Jun-Tuk walked over to join the group and see what was causing the seals to be so upset.

When they had reached the side of the ship, Gina saw why the seals were behaving in a panicked manner. Her eyes shifted to the ocean where she saw to large bulges of water streaking toward the beach like giant torpedoes. She watched in awe as two orcas rode the surf into the beach itself. The massive animals crashed onto the beach and into the midst of the terrified seals. Each of the orcas snapped its jaws closed on a fleeing seal. The orcas then rolled their bodies back into the water until they were deep enough to swim back out to sea.

The orcas took the injured animals out to deep water where they tossed their prey high into the air and let them crash into the ocean before devouring them. As the two successful orcas played with their food, another set of the creatures rode the waves into the gathered seals.

Gina and Jun-Tuk stood next to Rodgers as the hunter looked at the orcas with obvious admiration. “Those orcas are true apex predators. There is nothing in the Antarctic that can rival their hunting prowess.”  He looked toward Jun-Tuk. “Isn’t that right, my friend? No other predator in these parts rivals the orca?”

Gina translated for Jun –Tuk who replied in his native language. “Nothing in the sea. On land, the Yeti has no equal.”

Gina smiled and looked at Rodgers, “He says that you are right.” Gina had yet to talk to her team about the Yeti. She knew that after several failed trips to find a lost tribe that throwing in a tall tale about a Yeti would make them even more skeptical about their chances of success. With the thought of the expedition at the forefront of her mind, she tried to press Jun-Tuk about where they would go ashore. “Jun-Tuk where are we taking the ship from here?”

The old man pointed to the west. “Continue along the shoreline in the direction of the sun until the sun sets, the moon completes his journey across the sky, and the sun rises once more. When we reach that point, we will see the mountains. From there, you will go ashore and find the pass that leads into the valley of the Yeti.”

Gina looked at Jun-Tuk with a confused look on her face, “Jun-Tuk, I thought that we were going to meet your tribe first. Once I gain their confidence then I can show them that the Yeti is nothing more than a superstition.”

Jun –Tuk’s face remained stoic. “I can assure you that unless you bring proof that the Yeti is not a divine creature with you, the people of my tribe will kill you and all of the others in your group. I can also assure you that while the Yeti is not a god, it is far more than a superstition.” He turned away from Gina. “It was more than a simply superstition that took my daughter from me.” Jun-Tuk then walked slowly back to his cabin.

Gina cursed herself for once more not being sensitive to the fact that the man was still in a deep state of grief. She had hoped to avoid the Yeti discussion with her team until they had successfully studied and documented Jun-Tuk’s tribe. She took a deep breath and decided that she had better get her team together and advise them of the course of action that they would be taking in the next twenty four hours. She yelled at the gathered people watching the orcas, “Alright everyone, please gather in the galley. We have to discuss the next aspect of our expedition.”  

Gina quickly grabbed Henry and pulled him into their room prior to addressing the other members of the team. “Jun-Tuk is insisting that we need to gather proof that the Yeti is only an animal before he shows us where his tribe is located. He says that unless we show up in the village with proof in hand, they will chase us away from their village if not outright kill us.”

Henry shrugged. “Okay so how are you going to approach this with the team?”

Gina sighed. “I am just going to explain to them that this supposed Yeti is probably nothing more than another lost tribe. I will emphasize that this tribe is probably using the superstitious beliefs of Jun-Tuk’s tribe in order to acquire young females to expand their breeding population.”

Henry gave her a sarcastic smile. “Okay, if you think that explaining the situation to them that way will convince them to go on a Yeti hunt.”

Gina placed her hand on her hip and glared at her husband. “Do you have a better idea?”

Henry shook his head. “No. I can’t think of a better way to explain to people that we are going on a Yeti hunt.”

Gina let out a dramatic sigh. “First of all, stop calling it a Yeti hunt. This is an opportunity to study two undocumented tribes rather than one. That’s how we are going to explain this to everyone.”

Gina started to walk out of the room when Henry grabbed her. “Look, we don’t know what’s out there. We can’t just tell everyone that we are looking for a second tribe when we don’t know for sure what’s taking those girls.”

Gina gave her husband a curious look. “You are not saying that I should go down there and tell those people that we are going after an actual Yeti are you?”

Henry shrugged again. “I am saying that you should tell them what Jun-Tuk has told us. I am saying that you tell them your thoughts on the situation, and then you let them make their own conclusions about what we are facing. Then let them decide if this trip is something that they want to be a part of or not. What we can’t do is not give these people all of the information that we have if there is even the slightest chance that we might be walking into a dangerous situation. Yeti, aggressive tribe, or Godzilla, if there is any chance of us walking into a dangerous situation, those people need to know about it.”

The anger flowed out of Gina’s body and she smiled at her husband. “You’re right. I will fill them in on everything that we know about the situation.” She hugged her husband. “Thank you, as always you are my voice of reason.”

Henry hugged her back. “And you are the passionate risk taker who pushes me to get all I can out of life. We balance each other out pretty well.”

The two of them then let go of each other and walked down to the galley. When they entered the room, Gina was not surprised to see Rodgers and Gordon sitting near the front of the group. Gordon no doubt wanted to be as informed as possible which just further justified Henry’s point and Rodgers would be looking for any opportunity that he could to take control of the meeting.

Gina calmed herself downed and addressed the people who were literally following her to the ends of the earth. “Okay everyone, as you know, we are following the lead of a native of the tribe that we are looking for. He had a caveat to his agreement to take us to his tribe.”

She took a deep breath. “Now before I tell you what he wants us to do, I want you to remember that we are dealing with a tribe that has had limited exposure to the outside world and modern technology. Their culture is still very much steeped in mysticism and superstition. According to Jun-Tuk, his village has long been visited by a Yeti that will occasionally take the young women from his tribe.”

Everyone in the crowd either laughed or started talking amongst themselves. Gina immediately tried to maintain control of the meeting. “Look everyone, I think we can rest easy and assume that we are not dealing with an actual Yeti. What we are probably dealing with is a another missing tribe that is using what are likely to be elaborate costumes to scare Jun-Tuk’s tribe into giving them women of a breeding age. Jun-Tuk reports that sometimes the woman comes back after the Yeti has taken them. I have questioned Jun-Tuk about this and I specifically asked him if any of the women who returned were pregnant. He assured me that none of them were, which would lead to the logical conclusion that the women who did not return were indeed impregnated by this other tribe.”

Gina took a moment to catch her breath as the crowd quieted down. “Jun-Tuk does not believe that the Yeti is a spirit. He says that in order for his tribe to allow us access to study them, we need to bring back proof that the Yeti is not an all-powerful god.”

A hand went up in the crowd. “How exactly are we going to do that if we believe that the Yeti is actually the members of another perhaps hostile tribe?”

Gina shook her head. “This is the main reason that I am addressing this situation with you. I hope that we can simply take pictures of this tribe and the skins that they use as costumes. After we study the tribe from afar, we can consider if it is worth approaching them and offering to trade them for proof that they are the Yeti. Then we can go back to Jun-Tuk’s tribe and have access to study them as well.” She took a sip of water. “Now, while we were not expecting to undertake this extra expedition, it does present us with an excellent opportunity to study not just one lost tribe but two. That being said, given how this other tribe seems to operate, it may be more dangerous than we had originally thought. If anyone would like to back out now, I am offering to pay for your services up until this point and to give you full credit for your work.” Gina looked over the crowd. “Is there anyone who would like to back out?” The entire team was silent. Gina smiled. “Good, it’s settled then. We will proceed with a two-part expedition. Are there any other questions?”

Gina was not surprised to see Rodgers raise his hand. “Have we considered the fact that what Jun-Tuk is saying is true? That there really is a Yeti out there? Before you scoff at me, I would like to point out that Native African reports of gorillas in the jungle were scoffed at by European explorers until a white man saw them. Should we not consider that this could be the case here and prepare accordingly?”

Gina glared at Rodgers. “In the interest of the safety of the people on board, you and Gordon can prepare as if there may be a large animal out there. I am going to emphasize though that this is not some kind of History Channel monster hunt. If we find a second tribe that looks like it is perpetrating this Yeti legend then we are studying the tribe, not hunting for a monster.”

Rodgers nodded. “That sounds reasonable enough but if there is a Yeti then how are you going to proceed?”

Gina’s blood began to boil at Rodgers’ arrogance. She replied with a sharp tone in her voice, “If there is a Yeti then I will decide how we proceed from there. Now are there any other questions?” Gina looked over the silent room. “Good then start preparing. We will be going ashore in a few hours.”

Gina walked out of the room with Henry behind her. Henry whispered into her ear, “You had better hope that there is no Yeti or Rodgers will never let you hear the end of it.”

She grumbled, “Believe me, I know.”

Chapter 4

Gina climbed down into the small motor boat that was going to take the team from the ship to the shore. Even through her insulated boots, she could feel how cold the water was below the small vessel. She had made the trip to land on a small motor boat like this before, but as she looked over at Jun-Tuk sitting calmly next to her, she gained a new-found respect for the old man who had made the trip across this freezing water in nothing more than a seal skin canoe.

Once Henry, Rodgers, Gordon, and Dana Summers were onboard, the motor boat began to speed toward the frozen shores of Antarctica. The serene white landscape of the continent still awed Gina. To most people, Antarctica was a barren wasteland, but to Gina it was a pristine landscape and the last large area of land that had yet to be conquered and overrun by man. The transport boat had to be careful when it tried to go ashore because of the rocky ocean bottom that comprised most of the Antarctic coast. There were only a few very spread out sandy beaches that the transport boats could land on.

When the boat reached the shore, and Gina stepped back onto Antarctica, she almost felt as if she was home. Gina scanned the horizon and in the distance, she could see the mountain range that Jun-Tuk had spoken of. A thrill of excitement ran through Gina’s spine. In a few short hours, she would be the first person to see and document a tribe which had never been seen by a person born outside of Antarctica.

She looked back over her shoulder as the boat that had dropped her off turned and headed back to ship. It would take five more trips to and from the ship to unload the expedition members and small equipment. A larger motor boat would make several trips to bring the vehicles to shore.

Nearly three hours after Gina had first stepped ashore, the last of the large vehicles was finally unloaded from the larger motor boat. The team immediately went to work loading up the Sno-Cats. Gina climbed to the top of the lead Sno-Cat with her binoculars in hand. She called for Jun-Tuk to join her. Gina reached her hand down to help the old man up onto the Sno-Cat, when to Gina’s surprise, he climbed to the top of the machine even quicker than she had. She reminded herself that despite his age, the old man had singlehandedly rowed a canoe from here to South America. Gina took a look through her binoculars at a mountain range that for the most part until now had gone undocumented. There had been satellites which had caught the mountains on camera previously, but because of their remote location, no one had ever explored the polar mountain range. From where Gina was standing, it almost looked like two separate mountain ranges ran perpendicular to each other and came to a point at a sharp right angle. One mountain range seemed to run from east to west as far as she could see. The second mountain range ran north and south. This end of this mountains was also well out of the range of Gina’s binoculars to follow. At the point where the two ranges came together, Gina could see a small upward hill that led in between the two mountains at the tips of the respective ranges.

She looked over at Jun-Tuk and smiled. “I would guess that we can reach the path that leads into the valley in just under two hours. The question from there is, how do we find this Yeti of yours?”

Jun-Tuk turned and looked into Gina’s eyes with an icy cold stare. “The Yeti is a beast but it is a beast very much like a human. If there are humans nearby, the Yeti will sense us and he will come.” He placed his hand on Gina’s shoulder. “Shunu was injured badly. I do not know if the Yeti attained what he was looking to from his interaction with her. He will not come to the village if a woman dies, but with us being near him, he may decide to take one of the women from your team with him.”

While Gina understood the threat posed by a potentially hostile tribe, she was also confident that her team could scare off a group of people who were still ruled by superstitions. She smiled. “Don’t worry, Jun-Tuk, we will be prepared for the Yeti if he shows up.”

Jun-Tuk shook his head. “Nothing can prepare you for the Yeti.” The old man turned and climbed down off the Sno-Cat. Gina shrugged and called out to her team, “All right everyone load up! We are heading for the mountain range directly south of our current position!”
 

The trip went by quickly, and a little under a half an hour later, the expedition team had reached the mountain range. The mountain rang itself was huge; it could easily go on for hundreds of miles. The valley inside of the mountain range could easily have been as large as the area between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean in North America. Gina reassured herself that the tribe they were looking for would have to be near the pass that Jun-Tuk was taking them to or else they would not be able to make the trips that they regularly did to Jun-Tuk’s tribe. Gina had the team set up camp a half a mile from the entrance to the valley pass. She feared that the tribe she expected to find would be terrified if they saw the Sno-Cats and she wanted to study them in as natural a state as possible. This meant that she would need to keep the presence of her team hidden from the tribe as long as possible. She looked over the data that was streaming through the tablet in her Sno-Cat. A winter storm was heading directly for their current location. Snow had already begun to fall outside and it was covering the Sno-cats.

Most of her team members were busy setting up the camp but she wanted to take a quick look inside of the valley. She quickly gathered Henry, Jun-Tuk, Dana, Rodgers, and Gordon and told them that they would be taking a quick trip to scout the entrance to the pass ahead of the storm. They had about three hours until the storm hit. She figured that the hike to the entrance would take about a half hour. They had enough time to get an idea of what the valley looked like and document the area for an hour. They would then make the half hour hike back with an hour to spare ahead of the storm.

When her small team was fully prepped, they started hiking out to the valley pass with Jun-Tuk leading the way. Gordon and Rodgers both carried shotguns and Rodgers also kept his crossbow slung over his shoulder. The snow was starting to increase in volume and Gina began to wonder if the storm had not picked up speed. She kept a close eye on her watch and she was concerned when it took them nearly forty-five minutes to reach the pass. When they reached the pass, Gina made some mental notes on the pass itself. The pass was in actuality a small path that ran between the bases of two separate mountains. The pass itself was roughly forty-feet wide and had a slight upward sloped to it that ended at the entrance to the valley. The incline was dotted with large boulders that Gina surmised must have rolled down off the mountains over the centuries. Gina scaled the small incline to get a look at the valley but all that she could see was the falling snow. It was like staring out into a blizzard. The others were standing beside her and she could already hear Rodgers mumbling about a wasted trip. Gina was about to start shouting at him when a loud noise echoed over the landscape.

Everyone except Jun-Tuk had a surprised look on their faces. Henry looked at Gina. “What the heck was that? It didn’t come from camp. Whatever that was, it came from within the valley.”

The sound repeated again and Rodgers walked up between Gina and Gordon. “I have been on numerous safaris and if I didn’t know that we were near the South Pole, I would swear that was an elephant. What would you say, Gordon?”

The stoic hunter nodded. “It almost sounds like an elephant. The difference is that the trumpet sound that we just heard was louder and deeper than an elephant.”

Jun-Tuk walked up beside Gina. “We need to conceal ourselves now!”

Gina yelled to everyone, “Quick! Take cover behind the rocks!”

Gina, Henry, and Dana all hid behind one of the large boulders and Rodgers, Gordon, and Jun-Tuk behind another. Gina could see a large brown form moving through the falling snow. She tried to focus her eyes on the object when another trumpeting sound echoed through the valley pass. A collective gasp went through Gina’s team as a long, fur-covered trunk and two long, curved white tusks came into view. A massive shaggy head attached to a huge quadrupedal body came into view. Gina whispered to her husband and her best friend, “Please tell me that you see what I think I am seeing?”

Henry kept his eyes fixed on the creature. “If you think that you are seeing a wooly mammoth then yes.”

Gina nodded. “Okay, I was almost hoping that I was going crazy. That thing has to be, what, at least twenty-five feet tall at the shoulder?”  No one answered her as several more mammoths began to wander into their view through the falling snow.

Rodgers waved from behind the rock to get their attention. Once Gina was looking at him, he talked as loudly as he thought was safe, “They’re migrating. That big one in the front is the alpha male. If he even thinks that we are a threat, they will charge us and these little pop guns won’t do anything but piss them off. We just need to stay where we are until they pass by.”

Gina nodded and then she continued to watch as an endless line of what was thought to be an extinct species continued to march by in front of them.