Lana gestured to the one tent made from natural materials. Heart pounding in her throat, Nat skied toward it. She didn’t see any of the blood Lana had mentioned, but what if something had happened to the Mansi? What if the man’s tent were a tomb?
“Vasily? Vasily, are you in there?”
She could have cried with relief when she immediately heard a shuffling within. Before long, a familiar weathered face emerged from the animal hides.
“We need to go, Miss. We have angered them.”
“Angered who?” For the first time, Nat noticed how frightened the man was. He shrank back inside his shelter, obviously reluctant to leave it, and was even more gaunt than she’d remembered. She wasn’t sure how it was possible for Vasily to have lost weight, but apparently he had. The man was a living shadow.
“The ones who rule this mountain. We must leave.”
Nat looked to where Igor and Steven were attending to Andrew and Lana, helping them to sit around the dying fire. The pile of collected branches would be enough to get the blaze going again, but more would need to be gathered before nightfall if they were to stay warm. A lot more. It would take a collective effort to keep the fire going.
“We can’t leave. Andrew is ill, possibly with altitude sickness. He needs to rest for at least a few days. Lana is in shock. And Anubha and Joe are missing.”
The man peered at her from the darkness of his tent, the naked terror in his eyes unnerving. “Not missing. Dead. It is my fault.”
Nat thought of Steven’s account of a heated argument between Vasily and the trappers. Had it gotten even more heated after the mountaineer had left? “Did you hurt them, Vasily?”
“No, not me. Not me. But they didn’t listen to my warning. They didn’t believe. I should have tried harder.”
“What warning?”
“No one can hunt on this land. It is their territory. We have no rights here.”
She resisted the urge to seize him by the shoulders and shake him, but just barely. “Whose territory?”
The Mansi said a word she didn’t understand, his eyes rolling around like those of a spooked horse.
“I’m sorry; I don’t understand.”
“The snowmen. This land belongs to the snowmen.”
Nat shivered. From now on we know that snowmen exist. Could it be? After six decades? Clearly the Mansi wasn’t joking, but there was no way he could be referring to the same creature referenced in the Dyatlov note. She touched the man’s arm. “We can’t leave, Vasily. At least not tonight. And we need your help. Please help us get the fire going again.”
For a moment, she thought he would refuse, but after disappearing into his shelter, Vasily returned in his heavy, fur-lined jacket, emerging to stand beside her. “If we don’t leave, they will kill us. The trappers disrespected them.”
Vasily’s fear was contagious, his terror getting to her like a damp cold sinks into one’s bones. “There’s a chance Andrew will be well enough to leave in the morning. Do you think we’ll be okay for the night?”
The man shrugged. “It is impossible to say. Perhaps if we leave them a peace offering, it will give us more time.”
“Then we’ll do that. In the meantime, please help us with the fire.”
Nat followed her guide to the others, mind racing. Already the fire had been replenished enough to revive her, thawing her cheeks with its warmth. She was filled with gratitude as she removed her skis, laying the poles beside them. If she never skied again in her lifetime, that would be fine with her.
Lowering herself to the makeshift log bench where Andrew and Lana huddled together, she took her friend’s hand and squeezed it. “How are you feeling?”
“Exhausted, but Lana doesn’t want me to sleep yet. Just in case.”
Nat studied him with what she hoped was a critical eye, wishing she’d found the time to take more than a basic first aid class. His color was good, his breathing steady, but his eyelids were at half-mast. He clearly needed to rest.
“Are you nauseous?” She ran over the symptoms of altitude sickness in her mind. “Do you feel disoriented in any way?”
“No, only tired. Really, really tired.”
“Lana, is it okay if Andrew lies down for a bit? He needs to rest.”
The Olympian’s eyes were glazed and dull. “Not yet. Someone needs to monitor his breathing.”
Feeling helpless, Nat rubbed her friend’s hands to get the blood flowing. What a mess. What a colossal mess. Andrew was ill, Lana was in questionable shape, and the guide Nat had hired to protect them was ranting about snowmen. The trappers were missing, presumably along with most of the group’s food supplies. The situation couldn’t possibly be any worse.
“And then we need to build a sled,” Lana said, startling her.
“A sled? Why?”
“We need a way to get him out of here as soon as possible. We can’t stay in this camp tonight. It’s too dangerous.”
She wondered if Vasily had told Lana about the snowmen. “It’s going to be dark soon. We have no choice; we have to stay the night. But maybe we can leave first thing tomorrow, if Andrew feels strong enough.”
If he were suffering from altitude sickness, decreasing their altitude should help. A sled was a good idea, though. Nat couldn’t imagine him getting back to the village under his own power. Not that soon.
Steven dropped another load of branches on the pile. “What about the podcast?”
“At this point, the cast is the least of my worries. I think we should chalk this up as a failed experiment and get everyone home safe. But we can’t leave without Joe and Anubha. We have to find them first.”
The mountaineer nodded, but he didn’t look happy. From the beginning, his enthusiasm for the investigation had outweighed Nat’s own, and yet the man wasn’t the type to go nuts over conspiracy theories. He was much too pragmatic. So what was in it for him? Perhaps she’d get the opportunity to ask him that night.
“Lana, you said you saw blood? Whereabouts?” Steven asked.
She lifted a quivering hand long enough to point at the woods on the opposite side of the pass.
“I’m going to check it out. Hopefully I’ll be back before too long.”
“I’m coming with you.” Nat pushed herself to her feet before she had the chance to change her mind.
“Are you sure? Whatever we find might not be pretty.”
“I’m sure. Besides, we shouldn’t separate. No one should wander off unaccompanied, especially with two people missing.”
“I could get Igor to go with me. Or Vasily.”
“No, we need them to gather more wood and take care of the others. I’ll be fine. I don’t scare easily. Let’s go.”
When they told the others their plan, Nat braced herself for more resistance. But Andrew and Lana were too depleted to argue, and the Russian only told them to be careful. The Mansi said nothing.
Once they’d left the relative safety of the campsite for the forest, Nat regretted her insistence. Though the woods sheltered her from the bitter wind, which should have been comforting, she felt anything but comforted. Her scalp prickled, and she quickened her step, closing the distance between her and Steven.
“Do you feel that?” She was close enough to whisper in his ear.
“What?” The mountaineer spoke in a similar hushed tone, giving her the courage to express what she felt, no matter how paranoid it sounded.
“It feels like someone is watching us.” Nat was tempted to whirl around, but at the same time, she had a suspicion it was better not to know.
“Probably your Canadian friends. Who else would be lurking in here? How well did you know those two, anyway?”
She bristled at the veiled accusation. “About as well as I knew any of you. But their character references and reputations were impeccable.”