The Brave & the Bold

“Yetis? You’ve got to be kidding me!” a shocked Kyle Rayner said.

“Not on your life, kid,” Buck Wargo replied. “Now do you want me to finish the story or are you going to let me finish?”

“Sorry, please continue,” Kyle said.

“Okay, so there we were in the ravine about 20 feet long. I was in the back and the guide was at the front, with everyone else in the middle and we were surrounded by a bunch of small hungry yetis...”

Buck fired a round into another one of the small carnivorous beasts.

“Running out of rounds here,” he yelled to the others as the machete in his right hand sliced into a second albino yeti.

“Just keep reloading,” Roderick “Snowy” Rayner, the expedition leader, yelled back as his single revolver took down three yetis with three well-aimed shots. Snowy reached into his jacket to pull out extra rounds as he kicked away a few more of the monkey-like monsters approaching him.

The two sherpas were doing well armed only with ice-picks. They continued swinging away, keeping up a formidable defense.

Speed Saunders, another American adventurer, fired twin pistols for protection.

Even the Chinese guide, Fei-Hong, was putting up a fight completely unarmed, merely kicking and punching the tiny beasts.

All in all, the six men were putting up a fight against an army of dozens.

They almost stood a chance except for the creature that suddenly appeared near Fei-Hong.

There was a brief pause as the tiny yetis stopped their attack and began shouting. They were yelling in unison at the appearance of the much larger beast.

A giant yeti, easily twice the size of a normal man towered a head above Fei-Hong.

He reared back his giant arms and slapped the guide down with ease.

Buck charged the beast and within seconds shoved the machete deep into the yeti’s gut.

The yeti fell, clutching the wounded area.

“Wait a second,” Kyle interrupted, “I thought you were a good 20 feet away from Fei-Hong during the battle. Even if you did used to play football, there’s no way you could have made it to him in a few seconds, as deep as the snow most likely was.”

“Okay, you got me,” Buck apologized, “Just using a little dramatic license.”

A giant yeti, easily twice the size of a normal man towered a head above Fei-Hong.

The guide looked back to his companions yelling, “Weapon.”

Speed and Snowy each checked their weapons, which had just been emptied.

The sherpas, not willing to give up their only means of defense, held fast with their ice-picks.

Buck, who only had an empty revolver and the machete, both given to him by Snowy earlier, threw the machete, seeing it as the only weapon he could spare. The handgun would take too long to reload to do Fei-Hong a lick of good.

“May not have been a quarterback, but I should still be able throw it far enough,” Buck thought as he chucked the bladed weapon into the air towards the guide.

The machete landed about five feet away from the target.

The yeti reared back his giant arms preparing to slap the guide down with ease, but before he could act, Fei-Hong anticipated the attack and slapped the yeti hard on his chest.

The yeti was briefly stunned through a combination of surprise and shock that such a small foe would perform such an act on him. It was something greater creatures would often do to lesser foes to show disrespect and their own superiority.

The yeti’s hesitation gave Fei-Hong the precious seconds he needed to dive for the machete, pick it up, and return to the yeti’s position.

Fei-Hong quickly shoved the machete into the giant beast’s side.

The yeti came out of his momentary trance and clutched the now bloody wound.

He howled something in pain to his smaller followers.

The yetis howled in response to their apparent leader’s cry. In hordes, they rushed the six-man group.

In seconds, small albino primates were all over one of the sherpas and preparing to go after the other.

The firearms of Speed, Snowy, and Buck scared the others.

Fei-Hong only stared the large yeti straight in the face, while backing away and using the machete, covered in the yeti’s blood, to keep his opponent away.

“We can’t stay here. We can’t last much longer surrounded like this,” Snowy yelled to Speed and Buck.

The two men nodded quickly and began running towards their Chinese guide.

The second sherpa, who managed to keep his small foes off him, tried desperately to toss the monsters off his partner to no avail.

“Leave him,” Speed shouted.

The sherpa hesitated, unsure of what he should do, but quickly decided to survive rather than save his soon to be dead comrade.

The four men met up and were soon behind Fei-Hong as he stared down the albino Bigfoot.

The smaller yetis chose to gang up on the fallen sherpa and ignore the much tougher, still standing opponents.

The large yeti, intimidated at having to face five of the men, when one had managed to wound him so badly, fled yelling something to his smaller companions.

They obeyed, and, soon, the former battlefield was clear save for small yeti bodies and the dead sherpa.

The five remaining expedition members paused, collected their wits after the life and death battle, and moved on to their destination.

“You’re making this all up, aren’t you?” the skeptical Rayner asked.

“That was how it happened,” the old Texan responded.

“There’s no way someone could just smack a yeti in the chest and stare him down the way the guide did.”

“It really happened, kid. You don’t want to believe, then don’t. I was there, and I hardly believed Fei-Hong managed to pull it off, but he did. Besides, I’ve seen that sort of thing all the time among apes out in the jungle when they’d fight for supremacy. He was just using the animal’s own psychology against it to buy him the time to grab a weapon.”

“Whatever,” Kyle shot back. He paused before he let his curiosity prevail. “So what happened next?”

“Well, it was about another day before we reached Point Alpha, the first landmark on our directions. From there, the trip was pretty easy, at least at first...”

The five men trudged up the slope of Kanchenjunga with Snowy in the lead.

The sherpa fell to the back of the group, no doubt mourning the loss of his partner.

Buck made his way towards Snowy as Speed and the guide talked.

“About how much longer do you reckon’ boss?” the Texan asked.

“By my directions, we should only be a mile or so from the first location,” the explorer replied.

“First?” Buck said, surprised at the suggestion that there were multiple sites they would have to find.

“Yes, by these directions, there are a few other sacred spots higher up the mountain. We’re just locating the first so that our backers can find the rest.”

“Oh right, the financers,” Buck replied, remembering the group of Asian industrialists who had financed the small expedition to locate a location of cultural importance. “Well, hopefully, whatever we find, it’ll be good. Hate to see you not have anything to show from this, what with the baby on the way and all.”

“Yes, the baby,” Snowy said, thinking about how he had left his pregnant back in the states while he flew to Nepal to make enough money on the expedition so they could live comfortably well into the near future. Snowy still couldn’t believe that he would soon be a father.

He looked at Buck Wargo, the rough and tough former Texas State University football player that he had accepted for the expedition team.

“Everything’ll be all right, Snowy. I’m sure of it,” Buck said, trying to be supportive.

The two men then concentrated on the objective at hand, locating the nearby site.

Buck occasionally glanced back at the three other members of the group, but the one remaining sherpa continued to keep away from everyone else. The sherpa did however start to place red flags once they passed Point Alpha, most likely to mark their location on the way back.

After another hour of walking, Snowy and Buck spotted a strange wall in the distance, carved into the mountain.

“Everyone,” Snowy yelled back to the members behind them. “We’re almost there.”

Within minutes they were to the wall, which now looked like an intricately carved door.

“Well, Mr. Wargo,” Snowy said matter-of-factly, “Mind opening it up for us?”

Buck obeyed the command from the expedition leader and pushed the large doors open. He stayed near the entrance as his companions, save the sherpa, poured inside.

“This is amazing,” Snowy said, pulling a torch from his pack and illuminating the passage.

He looked at the walls, which had intricate carvings on them, but noticed Buck had not yet come in.

“What seems to be the matter, Buck? Come in from the cold,” he said to the large Texan.

“I’ve read enough about hollowed out passages and forbidden tombs that there are probably traps all over this place.”

“You’ve been reading too many pulp novels, Buck. That kind of thing only happens in movies.”

Buck, still uneasy about his surroundings, pulled out his now-loaded revolver and noticed one expedition member was also still outside. He was about to turn around to check on the sherpa, when something hard broke over his back.

Buck lost consciousness for a few seconds as the sherpa, with lightning reflexes, dropped is broken pick handle and swiped up the fallen revolver and leveled it at the three men inside.

“What’s going on?” Snowy said noticing that Buck had been knocked down.

“I will be taking you prisoner now,” the sherpa said, revealing how well he could speak English.

“How do you know what he said, Wargo? I though you were just knocked unconscious?” Kyle said.

“Well, that’s what your grandfather said happened. I’d say he’s a pretty reliable source, wouldn’t you?” Buck asked mocking Rayner.

Kyle thought about it for a second, then realized a key part of the story.

“So wait, the sherpa betrayed you?”

“Actually,” Buck said, “He was doing exactly what he was paid to do.”

Kyle responded with a perplexed look on his face.

Buck regained consciousness and Snowy quickly mentioned how the sherpa had taken them hostage.

“Now that sleeping man is woken, we can talk. Me glad you make it farther than the last group,” the sherpa said in broken English.

The sherpa singled the Chinese guide out from the rest of the group, pointing and motioning with the revolver.

“What do you want with me?” Fei-Hong asked.

“We were hired by the same people. What did they tell you about what you would do?”

“Just get them to Point Alpha. After that I would just make sure we made it to the site.”

“Then you are expendable now, yes? More money for me.” The sherpa pointed the gun at the chest of the man who was only 15 feet away and fired.

Fei-Hong’s eyes widened at the realization and time slowed down as the bullet exited the revolver and went into the guide’s stomach.

The Chinese man fell back quickly, clutching his stomach.

The sherpa chose to let the man bleed out as he moved onto his next objective. He reached into his pack with his left hand, while covering the trio still standing with his right. He pulled out a flare gun and walked towards the exit.

Still covering the men, he pointed the flare gun in the opposite direction and fired.

A brilliant blaze of sparks and fire shot out, signaling their location to anyone nearby.

The sherpa returned to the others, who were coming up with a suitable plan of escape, and continued his dialogue with them.

“Now employers find us well.”

“Who do you work for?” an angry Snowy said, wanting answers.

“I work for same men as you, American,” the sherpa replied.

“Stupid,” Snowy said, realizing his error. “No wonder they wanted this place so bad. They were going to betray us all along.”

Speed put his hand on Snowy’s shoulder consoling him, “Don’t worry, I have a feeling we’ll get out of this all right.” Speed pointed towards Fei-Hong, and both Buck and Snowy noticed something the sherpa was oblivious to in the darkness. There wasn’t any blood coming out of the guide’s wound.

The sherpa walked around the men and began to usher them out. He was standing next to the fallen guide as they started to move.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed the sherpa by the ankle, causing him to momentarily look. The guide, clearly alive, held fast to the sherpa’s leg.

Before the sherpa could react, his momentary hesitation cost him dearly as Buck “The Truck” Wargo showed why he played both offense and defense for Texas State University as he sacked the sherpa before he had a chance to stop him.

Once Buck was on top of the sherpa, he began to unleash a flurry of fists onto the Hindu’s face.

After beating the man senseless, Buck stood up victorious. “Well, that takes care of that,” he said.

“Good job, son,” Speed said to Buck. “Now let’s lock him up nice and tight.” Speed Saunders quickly whipped out a set of handcuffs and locked them around the sherpa’s wrists. “My superiors will be interested to question this man.”

“Superiors?” Snowy wondered aloud.

“Sorry to drop this all on you, but I’m not here strictly to scale the second-highest mountain in the world. I’m here on assignment from the OSS. We believe this man was hired by the same men who hired you, Mister Rayner, a group of men connected to one of the most evil organizations in the world.”

“Say again?” Buck asked.

“Your financers are a faction of a group called the Kobra cult, a small but lethal organization which has been a thorn in the OSS’s side since before WW2. They’re fanatical followers of Kali waiting for a sort of anti-messiah to be born. It’ll probably never happen, but they’re still a problem. They have roots all over the Asian continent and are attempting to acquire a powerful supernatural artifact up here in this mountain. My mission was to find their temple and retrieve the artifact. Fortunately, I met Fei-Hong who introduced me to you, or I might not have been able to make it this far.”

“Speaking of Fei-Hong,” Buck said directing the conversation towards the allegedly-shot guide.

Fei-Hong stood uninjured among the group.

“These sherpas rarely handle firearms. He didn’t realize I just fell back a second before the bullet fired. It happened so fast, he didn’t realize it,” the guide answered in response to his surprising health.

“Really,” Snowy replied, a tad suspicious of their guide after his hasty explanation.

“What do we do now?” Buck asked. “The financers are probably on the way right now, so we better find that artifact fast before they can get their hands on it.”

“I agree,” Snowy responded. He pulled out the directions provided by their employers. “There’s a small map of this area that suggests there are multiple passageways. I suggest we split into twos and search the area quicker. I’ll go with Buck, and Speed can take Fei-Hong. Any idea what the artifact looks like, Speed?”

“Not a clue, Snowy. It’s been described as both an orb and a staff. Just grab anything that matches that description,” Speed responded.

The group lit torches for everyone and continued down the passage until they came to a large center room. There was a statue of a female goddess erected in the center of several rows of pews. Buck guessed that it was a statue of Kali, the goddess of the cult which had apparently hired them.

There were two other passages in the room and each group chose one to go down.

Snowy and Buck found a few rooms, but the most interesting one was covered with wall to wall pictures and writing.

Snowy immediately went about deciphering the meaning and putting his archaeological expertise to use.

“This is interesting,” Snowy said to Buck, after a few minutes.

“What is it?”

“It looks like a root language with Chinese, Tibetan, and Hindi all in one.”

“What does it say?”

“It talks about the group that used to live in this temple. They had slaves that they controlled with a rod of power. The slaves carved out the chambers in this mountain. Afterwards, the masters stayed in temple worshipping their dark goddess while their slaves went out to rob the surrounding villages and the numerous caravans which passed through Nepal. They accumulated vast quantities of treasure which they used to increase their power.”

“What happened to them?”

“That’s just it, Buck, it doesn’t say. It ends with something about how there was a minor slave revolt.”

“Maybe we’ll find something else in one of the other rooms.”

“That’s probably our only option. Fortunately, the ‘rod of power’ mentioned here is most likely the artifact the cult is after. It gives us a better idea of what we’re looking for.”

Buck and Snowy continued to search the rooms. After a few minutes they came to a final set of doors.

The left was sealed, while the right was open.

They looked into the right room and beheld a sight of horror. Skeletons were piled along the walls, slowly decomposing after being dead for decades.

Roderick “Snowy” Rayner looked over the horrifying bones. Many were broken and ripped apart. He lifted one of the arms up and noted the strange cuts on the bone. He recognized them from just a few days ago.

“These men were killed by yetis,” he said to Buck.

“How can you be sure?” the Texan asked.

Snowy showed the skeletal arm to Buck, indicating what appeared to be teeth marks covering the bone. “I saw these same marks on the arm you tripped over just before we were attacked by that army of pygmy yetis.” Snowy thought about the connection, then came to a sudden conclusion, “The slaves weren‘t human, they were yetis. The yetis must have killed the cultists and the only survivors were the ones who were away at the time.”

“Makes you wonder what’s in the room with the closed door,” Buck said thinking about the mysteries within the temple.

The two men walked into the room of death and stepped over to the left door.

Buck slowly pushed it open to reveal a treasure trove of gold, silver, and other valuable commodities.

“This is just the kind of thing I was hoping we would find,” Buck said. “This should set you and your family up quite nicely.”

“We have to get out of here with it first, Wargo,” Snowy replied looking around. “No sign of a staff though.”

“Then we’ll just have to look harder,” Buck said.

The two men entered the large chamber and began looking for clues.

Buck kneeled down to look at the ground for cracks that suggested hollowed spaces in the floor. He happened to place his hand on the wall and felt a trigger activate. A wall panel pushed in and Buck felt a sense of dread.

“Uh oh. I bet I just thought I set off a trap,” Buck said hoping Snowy wouldn’t notice.

A door slid open revealing a skeleton in a casket. He wore robes covered in an orange serpent. In his bony fingers was a staff with a large glass-like orb at the end.

“Roddy,” he said to Snowy as he grabbed the staff, “I think I just found what we were looking for.”

“Sounds a little too simple,“ Kyle complained.

“The cult supposedly designed their secret areas so that only human hands could access them. Plus the yetis would have been too small to reach them.”

“But you said there was an adult yeti. Couldn’t they have touched the panel?”

“Yes, but according to a journal Spedd and Fei-Hong found, the cult continually killed the adults after giving birth to a litter of yetis so that only young yetis would ever be common. Yetis apparently have litters of 10 to 50, so it was pretty easy for them to repopulate their numbers.”

“Then how did the body get in there? Couldn’t the rod have controlled the yetis and stopped the revolt?”

“Actually, Kyle, we never did figure out that part,” Buck answered the question which begged an explanation. “Our best guess was that the leader was accidentally buried with the rod and the cultists didn’t realize the rod’s significance until it was too late. The power of the rod was kept secret to all but the elite, so it’s possible.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Kyle responded. “So did you escape with the treasure and stop the cult?”

“Yes and No.”

The group of four met back up and headed for the exit. Grabbing the still unconscious sherpa, the men headed out. They were going down the mountain, when a shot rang through the air hitting Fei-Hong in the right shoulder.

“Damn, the people the sherpa must have signaled,” Speed cried. “We need to get to cover. They probably have snipers set up all along the ridge.”

Speed grabbed Fei-Hong and dragged him behind a clump of snow while pulling out his twin pistols.

Buck and Snowy pulled out their revolvers and prepared for the inevitable.

A disembodied voice rang out from below them.

“Surrender and you will not be harmed,” the voice said.

“That voice,” Snowy said, recognizing it.

“What is it, Snowy?” Buck asked.

“It’s the voice of one of our financers.” Roderick Rayner snuck a peek above his cover of snow and thought he recognized someone. “Looks like all four of them are down there,” he told Buck.

Buck checked his weapon to make sure it was full loaded and said, “Well then, let’s have us a little payback for our Chinese compadre.”

“I’ll be fine,” Fei-Hong said clutching his shoulder. “Maybe we could try to use that staff you were making such a fuss about,” looking at Speed.

Buck pulled out the small staff and looked it over. “Maybe if we knew how to activate it.”

“The blood of the user,” Snowy answered.

“What?”

“That’s what the words on the staff are translated as. The use has to put his blood on the orb to activate it.”

“How did you know that?”

“It was in the room we found. It mentioned how, and I quote, ‘they washed the jewel in their blood and commanded their slaves to do their bidding.’ That’s all that’s required. I didn’t figure it out until now.”

“Well give the staff to Fei-Hong,” Speed suggested.

Buck looked at Snowy, who nodded in approval. The Texan handed it to the guide would wiped some of his blood on the orb.

“Let’s see if this works.” The guide lifted the staff and said. “Attack the cult.”

Roars filled the mountain.

Yeti after yeti climbed down past the group and towards the attackers. Shots were fired and yetis fell, but more were coming.

“You were right. There are a lot of these things,” Buck said to Snowy.

A large yeti with an open wound passed by them. “There’s mine,” Fei-Hong said pointing out the large side wound.

The yetis unleashed their fury upon the cultists.

The sounds of gunfire and howling yetis now filled the surrounding area.

After about a minute of the fighting, Fei-Hong spoke up, “You need to go.”

“What?” Buck said shocked. “There’s no way we can leave you here.”

“You have to. I’m only going to slow you down and I don’t know how long I can keep the yetis distracting those men down there. Besides, the path down should be easy enough to find with the markers and the directions I showed you on the way up.”

Speed, Snowy, and Buck paused wondering what to say to the man who was about to sacrifice his life for them.

Speed picked up the captured sherpa and put his hand on the guide’s shoulder saying, “You’re a brave man. You won’t be forgotten.”

Snowy quietly saluted Chinese man that had helped their expedition succeed.

Buck was the last to show his appreciation. “It was a shame you couldn’t dodge that second bullet, friend,” Buck said indicating the shoulder wound. “It was a pleasure to work with you Fei-Hong.”

“Who says I dodged the first bullet?” The guide took Buck’s hand and shook it saying, “Besides, my friends call me Walker.” Buck felt that the guide handed him something during the handshake, but wouldn’t be sure until later.

The three men and the sherpa headed down the slope as Fei-Hong ordered the yetis to attack. A few of the cult members tried to stop the heroes, but yetis immediately leapt to their rescue. Within an hour, the group managed to make it out of distance of the battle. Within a few days, they would be back to the village and on their way home.”

“After that, old Snowy and I went on about a dozen other trips together all over the world. They were some of the best times of my life,” Buck said sitting back in his chair and thinking about old memories.

“Thanks for the story, Mister Wargo. I appreciated it,” Kyle Rayner answered back.

“Well, anytime you wanna here another one of my Snowy stories, just come on back. Of course, you wouldn‘t believe half the things I‘d have to tell you.”

“I’ll remember that.” With that Kyle sat up and left, satisfied with what he learned about his grandfather, famed explorer Roderick “Snowy” Rayner.

After Kyle left, Buck Wargo, famed monster hunter, pulled out a small piece of metal from one of his shirt pockets. It was something of a good luck charm from his first adventure with Snowy.

It was small and insignificant. It looked like a round without the shell casing. It was just like one of the bullets he would have found in the revolver he had on that same adventure.

“Yep, you wouldn‘t believe half the things I‘d have to tell you.”

The End...

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