J Moncrieff - Return to Dyatlov Pass

Anubha tugged on her husband’s arm again and Nat winced, fearing the man might lash out at her. He certainly looked furious enough. “Come on, Joe. Let’s go back to bed. It was just a prank. Nat is right; he isn’t worth it.”

This time, the trapper lowered his arm all the way. He spat on the snow. “If you come after us again, I’ll kill you, I swear to God. If it were just the two of us here tonight, you’d already be dead.”

“I don’t know what happened to upset you, but it couldn’t have been anything I did. I was asleep. Igor can vouch for me.” Now that the worst of the crisis had passed, Steven stepped around the big Russian. “I may be a prick, but I give you my word I’d never do anything to you or your wife.”

Nat appealed to Anubha, who seemed a lot calmer than her husband. “What happened?”

The woman moved into the lantern light to lay a blanket around her husband’s shoulders, and Nat noticed her eyes were glittering with tears.

“Something woke me up. This horrible, heavy breathing, something snuffling around my head. It sounded so close, like it was right on the other side of our tent, so I sat up, and that’s when it growled.” Her voice broke. “It scared me to death.”

“Sounds like an animal,” Andrew said.

“It was no fucking animal. When I turned on the lantern, I saw its silhouette. It stood tall like a man.” Joe’s hands clenched into fists, his blade catching the light and winking ominously. “And there’s only one man here sick enough to play a joke like that.”

“Joe, I can understand why you’re upset. If someone frightened my partner like that, I’d be angry too. But Steven doesn’t strike me as a prank-playing kind of guy,” Andrew said.

“That’s because I’m not. I’ve never played a prank in my life, especially something like that. It’s so important we get our rest for the climb tomorrow. I would never mess with that.” Steven wrapped his arms around his upper body and stamped his feet, and that’s when Nat saw he wasn’t even wearing his boots. He was in his wool socks. Since Joe had dragged him from his tent, she guessed that made sense. “If I’ve given you folks the impression I want to sabotage this expedition, I apologize. Because nothing could be further from the truth.”

“You were the only one talking about fucking yetis. No one else believes in that shit.” Joe spat on the snow again.

“That doesn’t mean I’d pretend to be one. Jesus Christ. I’m not insane.”

“Did you hear it growl, Joe?” Lana asked.

The trapper shook his head. “No, I slept through it. Anubha woke me up.”

“I was scared to death. I’ve never heard anything like it in my life.” The trapper sobbed, and Nat felt intensely sorry for her. Whether it had been a hoax or not, it would have been an awful way to wake up. She’d once gone on an African safari and heard a leopard growl outside her tent. While the creature had actually been some distance away, it had sounded close enough to touch. She’d never forget how terrifying that had been.

“Did anyone check for tracks?” she asked.

“Didn’t even think of it,” Joe said. “I knew who it was.”

Steven opened his mouth, but Nat held up her hand to cut him off before the argument got heated again. “Let’s say Steven’s telling the truth. It’s worth a look, isn’t it?”

“I think we should all get some gear on first. Otherwise, we’re going to freeze,” the mountaineer said. “The last thing we want is for history to repeat itself.”

Weak with relief, Nat headed to her tent as fast as her frozen feet could carry her. Andrew followed, and they knocked into each other in their rush to pull on snow pants, parkas, and caps.

“This is so bizarre,” her producer muttered, keeping his voice low. “Not to get melodramatic, but this expedition seems fucking cursed.”

“No more so than anything else involving people. People always complicate things.”

“True, but Joe was ready to murder Steven. Like, seriously slit his throat. I really think that guy would be dead if Igor hadn’t intervened.”

“Something has to be done to release the tension in this group before it explodes. Whenever I think we’re okay, something else happens to put us at each other’s throats again. If this continues, I think we should call it a day.”

“Are you serious?” Andrew raised an eyebrow. “But Nat, all that money. All that time. And the listeners…”

“I know. They won’t be happy. But it is what it is. I’m not going to risk people’s lives for a story.”

“We better get back out there before they give up on us. We’ll talk about this later.”

The rest of their group was already clustered around the back of Joe and Anubha’s tent. There was almost a reverential feel to the gathering; everyone circled around a single light with their heads lowered as if in prayer.

Nat gently pushed her way into the circle. “What is it? Did you find anything?”

“See for yourself,” Steven said. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but the mountaineer’s tan skin appeared ashen.

She studied the snow outside the tent. It was smooth and unblemished.

There wasn’t a single track.

It was a somber group that set off for the Dyatlov Pass the next morning. Even Lana and Igor were silent, focused on the terrain ahead. When Nat suggested the Russian bring up the rear this time, the man had shrugged and fallen back without a word of complaint. She couldn’t tell if he was bothered by it or not.

As though to match their mood, the temperature had fallen considerably. Soon the effort of negotiating the challenging climb in skis warmed her, but Nat worried about what would happen when they stopped and the sweat froze, chilling her further. At least her expensive gear wicked the moisture away from her skin, but the idea of being encased in several thin layers of ice didn’t thrill her.

Only Vasily appeared to be unaffected by the events of the night before, but whether that was because he’d slept through it all or hadn’t bothered to leave his tent, she wasn’t sure. He had watched them as they silently ate their miserable breakfast, refusing their food to chew on some kind of dry, leathery meat, as always, and then had taken the head of the trail once he saw they were ready to go.

“My wife isn’t crazy.”

“Huh?” Nat had been so focused on the path that she hadn’t noticed Joe had dropped back to speak to her.

“I said, my wife isn’t crazy. If she says something was outside our tent last night, something was outside our tent.”

“Joe, no one is doubting Anubha. I believe she heard something, and I believe you saw something. I just don’t think it was Steven.”

“Who else would it be?”

Nat was saddened to see the amiable hunter hadn’t regained his equilibrium. He was still angry, still on the offensive. “I’m sorry I don’t have an answer for you. But I don’t believe it was anyone in the group. No one here would do something like that.”

“There’s no other explanation. Either you think Anubha is crazy, or someone was outside our tent last night.”

“You said you saw its silhouette? That it stood tall, like a man?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe it was a bear. Vasily said there are bears around here.”

“A bear that doesn’t leave tracks? Besides, bears hibernate.”

“Steven would have left tracks too,” Nat said.

“Maybe not. Maybe the fucker got rid of them somehow. You heard his story about Bigfoot’s shoes.”

They lapsed into silence, the only sound the swish of Nat’s skis, her labored breathing, and the crunch of Joe’s walking stick breaking through the snow. It would have been tempting to write off Anubha’s experience as a nightmare, but Joe had seen something outside their tent. Nat wished she had an explanation for him, but, failing that, she still couldn’t believe it was Steven. Aside from the fact he’d been inside his tent when Joe attacked him, it wasn’t in the man’s nature to pull something like this.