We reach the top in about fifteen minutes. As we disembark from the gondola, I make an effort to peel Kelly’s hands from my arm. Kelly’s long fingernails clutch my bare arms like a cat that has been chased up onto my arms by a big bulldog, which proves to be a very painful moment. Finally free of her clutches, I rub my arm to hopefully help start the circulation moving once again.
We talk first with the manager of the lodge, who tells us that we will need to hike on up to the forest service cabin, about a half a mile up the hill. There, he tells us, is where some campers and forest service personnel have supposedly seen Bigfoot. We also find out from the lodge manager that the police officer that Lloyd said was one of those who sighted Bigfoot, is actually a Forest Service Ranger that has been stationed at the forest service cabin up the hill.
Sitting at a desk and typing up stories definitely did not get me in shape for this. The trail is very steep, and I anticipate a rough time. Surprisingly though, Kelly seems to be in her own element. She opens up her arms and audibly takes in deep breaths, picks flowers and says, “This is so beautiful,” every few minutes.
We arrive at the forest service cabin about ten in the morning, with the rising sun already beginning to dominate the sky. After only fifteen minutes of walking an uphill trail, I am perspiring profusely. Kelly seems no worse for wear. She continues to take deep breaths and point at the scenery as we reach the top.
I take off my backpack and swing it around sharply onto a nearby picnic table. The picnic tabletop and the ground are still wet from the overnight drizzling rain, and the smell of steamy moisture is now heavy in the air. The Cascade Mountains have been blessed with frequent copious showers, creating the lush Pacific rainforest that we see before us. Kelly is right, it is very beautiful. The air is like breathing in life.
This time of year there are very few people camping, and there are only two tents pitched in a campground of sixty campsites. I take out some water from my pack, and drink down the whole pint bottle without taking a breath. Kelly is busy choosing the perfect maple leaf to put inside her notebook, as a souvenir of our outdoor adventure.
Smoke is rising from one of the campsites and the smell of burning wood and frying bacon fills the air, and we can hear the peaceful noise of a waterfall from somewhere in the forest background.
As we approach the Forest Service cabin, we notice one of the uniformed Forest Rangers busily stacking firewood against the side of the little cabin. Thinking he might have some helpful information on the Bigfoot sightings, I pick up my pack and walk over toward him.
As I approach the forest ranger, I notice how engrossed the Ranger seems to be with his job of stacking wood, so I decide to say something in order to capture his attention.
“It looks like you have got your work cut out for you,” I try to be friendly. Strangely, the words do not seem to affect him at all; either that or he is deaf. I speak out the same words again as before. Still he does not respond.
Trying not to frighten or startle him, I lean over closer and lightly tap his shoulder. Immediately, he stops stacking wood and stands erect without turning around, as if he had been suddenly commanded to come to attention.
Standing there for what seems to be an eternity, I stare at the back of the man wearing the dark olive green uniform.
In those few seconds of waiting for him to turn around, I notice his uniform is a little different than the other Forest Service Rangers I have seen earlier today. His uniform seems to look somehow older, and the insignia patch on his arm reads ‘U.S. Forest Service 1945’.
Before I can digest this, the man slowly turns around. The smile on my face abruptly turns to a mouth-opening surprised look. To my total surprise, he is the same man I saw earlier from the airplane crash site, as well as in the old newspaper clipping of the Hindenburg disaster. He is the same man, with the same expressionless face, and those unforgettable intense cerebral eyes that seem to have such purposeful penetration.
While I am still in an astonished trance, the man drops the piece of wood he is about to stack, and bolts for the woods. I gain my presence of mind and call after him. “Hey, I just want to talk to you for a minute. Wait!”
In a few seconds the dense forest seems to have swallowed him up. He is gone.
Startled at hearing me calling after the stranger; Kelly stops taking pictures and turns her attention towards me.
“What’s going on Matt?” Responding to her question, I point toward the woods:
“That Forest Service Ranger isn’t ….” I stammer; my mouth being stupefied shut.
“Isn’t what?” Kelly asks, shrugging her shoulders with the palms of her hands pointing up, in a questioning gesture.
“The man that was just over here stacking wood, wearing a Forest Ranger’s uniform isn’t really a Forest Ranger,” I shout at her, pointing over to the cabin.
“What do you mean?” Kelly says, as if I am teasing her for some absurd reason.
“I mean, I don’t think he is really a Forest Service Ranger. He can’t be.”
Seeing how shaken and confused I am, Kelly carefully tries to pose the correct question that will make some sense of it all.
“You’re not making any sense. If he wasn’t a forest service ranger, who in the world do you think he was?”
“I don’t know exactly who he is, but he is the same guy I saw running away from that plane crash at the Portland Airport. He is also the very same guy I saw in a seventy-year-old newspaper clipping about the Hindenburg disaster. Now he’s run off into the woods!” I try to explain it to her as a person that is in full possession of his faculties, but I come off sounding kind of rickety. Kelly looks at me as if I have mentally left town.
“Wait a minute Matt, slow down. You say you saw that same Forest Ranger the other day at the Portland Airport, running away from the plane crash site?”
“Yes, he’s the same guy I saw at the crash site.”
“Well, what are you so upset about? It’s just a coincidence. He just happened to be at the same time and place we were. That’s all,” she concludes.
“You’re not listening to me Kelly!” I protest.
“I saw him at the airport running away from the crash site; then I saw his face in a photo from an almost seventy-year-old newspaper clipping; then I see him here today wearing a Forest Ranger’s uniform. Now I don’t know who he is, but I’ve got a pretty good sneaking feeling that he’s not a Forest Ranger. Most Forest Rangers do not run off into the woods when you try to ask them for help,” I reason with her emotionally.
“Well, why do you think he ran off?” she asks, still not quite understanding where I am coming from.
“Because he recognized me,” I explain to her.
“Recognized you?”
“And because I recognized him. When he turned around I saw his face, that unusual strange face with those piercing eyes. I was so surprised at seeing him again, it caught me off guard.
“Then he reacted as if I had stumbled onto some secret he was trying to hide. I know he recognized me. I could tell just by looking into his eyes that he recognized me, and for some reason he felt that he had to escape.”
“If what you are saying is true, Matt, who is he and what was he doing here? Why in the world would he be dressed up in an U.S. Forest Service uniform if he isn’t a Forest Ranger? Why would he run off into the woods like a scared rabbit when he sees you, as if he has got something to hide?” Kelly asks the same questions that are now running through my mind.
“I don’t know who he is, why he’s here, or where he has come from. I do know one thing. This is too strange to be a coincidence, and too strange to forget.
“I swear, whatever it takes I’m going to find out who this guy is.”
We spend the rest of the day interviewing campers and park personnel, getting eyewitness accounts of the so-called Bigfoot sightings. Even though some of the eyewitnesses are enthusiastic and believable, the possible story seems trivial, compared to the story of the fleet
ing Forest Ranger impersonator.
We receive the most compelling account of the Bigfoot sighting from a man and wife, camping on the edge of the forest. With exaggerated gestures they tell the story of their close encounter with Bigfoot. Giving us a tour of the scene, they show us what appear to be large human-like footprints in the muddy forest floor.
Later, back at a local fast food joint in the little town of Hood River, we order two chicken dinners to go and settle down for the evening at Super 8. Kelly busies herself, hanging a large blanket between our beds which she requested from the motel office. She happily hums some unknown tune, in an effort to soften the uneasy feeling we both feel, of being in the same motel room together. Still bewildered by the day’s events, I am quiet. Being ravenously hungry as an animal, I savagely attack my dinner with gusto.
“Matt, you know in the short time I have known you, I have never seen you look as unraveled as you were today. I’ve seen you very frustrated and mad, but I’ve never seen you the way you were today. Are you all right?”
“This kind of thing doesn’t happen to a person every day, at least not to me. There is probably a good explanation why I see that guy everywhere I go, but right now it just seems too unbelievable, and I can’t get it out of my mind. It just sort of took the wind out of my sails. But don’t worry, I’m fine. A good night’s sleep and I’ll be as good as new,” I assure her.
Kelly and I talk for a long while about trivial things, of our work, and where we see ourselves in five years’ time, when unexpectedly the motel room phone rings.
“Hello, this is Matt,” I answer, figuring it was probably Lloyd Hatch calling.
“Hello Matt. This is Lloyd. I was hoping you would have called me to keep me up to date. How is the story going? Good, I hope.”
Feeling like hanging up the phone, I gather some of my remaining strength in order to give an acceptable reply.
“Yes Lloyd, we have the story you sent us here for. It is the same old Bigfoot stuff. But don’t worry; with the Kelly and Matt team on the job, we will come up with our usual epic saga.”
“I’m not worried; I’m counting on it. Please come back as soon as you can. I need you for another story. See you back here tomorrow.” He hangs up before I can give him a respectable reply.
“Lloyd says he misses us and to be sure to tell you goodnight.” I convey Lloyd’s greetings to Kelly. Pulling up the blanket to reveal her face, she smiles.
“Very funny, Matt.”
The phone rings once again.
This time my body pumps me up with enough adrenaline to say something nice and sarcastic to Lloyd, before he gets a chance to speak.
“Hey Lloyd; I know you like me, but why don’t you get a life. I can see the shadow of Kelly through the blanket, instantly sit up now.
“Watch what you’re saying, do you want to get fired?” Kelly calls out to me in an excited whisper.
Wearing an ‘I don’t care’ smirk on my face, I wait for Lloyd’s reprimand.
For awhile I hear nothing but silence; then I detect the sound of someone breathing.
“Hello? Lloyd is that you?” I ask.
A whispering throaty voice begins to speak.
“Forget about what you’ve seen.”
“Who is this?” I ask.
“Forget that you saw me today,” the mysterious voice continues.
I motion to Kelly, waving my hand as if I am trying to fly with just my left hand. With my hand over the receiver, I attempt to tell her who is on the line.
Feeling like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; I make an effort to keep the stranger on the line.
“I’m glad you called,” I tell him. “Because I would really like to be able to talk to you. We could talk in private, no one else, just you and me.” Again, there is only silence. I am getting nowhere. It seems bizarre, pleading with some unknown whispering stranger on the phone.
“The others will want you destroyed. If you don’t listen to me, it will be out of my hands,” The rasping voice utters, once again.
“What others? Who are you? Please, I just want to know…”
The phone clicks, leaving behind only the nettling hum of the dial tone.
§
FOUR
If it weren’t for being in the car as we drive back to Portland, we would surely be drowning under the river of falling rain. We discuss little of our Bigfoot story assignment we were sent to cover, instead we talk about the strange man who seems to have popped out of a seventy year old newspaper article. We try to analyze all the reasons why, but really came up with nothing that makes sense.
I don’t know why, but after a long frustrating trip, it feels good to finally sit again at my desk. Funny, it’s such a little thing, but the familiarity of my own desk gives me a measure of comfort and a sense of control; something I can count on after such a puzzling episode.
Walking quickly by my desk with a pile of paperwork, a very busy Betty delivers a quick verbal message as she passes by, without looking at me.
“Ya father is in town for the weekend and wants to take ya to lunch. He said you should meet him at Papa’s.” My head quickly moves from left to right, as I watch Betty rush by. She reminds me of a little kid on a bike delivering a newspaper, not stopping to see if the paper hit the porch or not.
“Thank you Betty,” I tell her, but she is already too far away to hear my reply.
I finish up the Bigfoot story, attaching a few supposed footprint photos contributed by Kelly. Since Lloyd is at lunch, I contact the final print department and send the story to bed myself. It’s Friday, and I look forward to a good lunch and weekend with my father.
My father spent thirty of his best years as an agent for the secret service department of the federal government. During those years we lived in West Virginia, and he was gone most of the time. When he was home, he gave us his best. It was always a real treat when he came home for a week or two at a time.
He never brought the problems of his work home or even talked much about his work. He always displayed a very kind ‘father knows best’ quality when he was with the family.
Even though I was a child, I could sense there was another side of my father, something seriously secret he would never outwardly display. I would come in to the room sometimes and catch him looking out the window with that ‘something more serious is going on’ look on his face. For some reason, it made me feel insecure seeing him look that way. I would leave the room quickly, feeling I had come upon something I wasn’t supposed to see. Since he retired I have never seen that look on his face again.
I walk into Papa’s and see Dad sitting at a table next to the window, facing the street. As I enter the restaurant, he smiles from ear to ear. It’s so nice to see his face once again, I think to myself.
He stands up and greets me with that bear hug I come to expect.
“You look great,” are his first words.
“You do too, Dad, you’re looking as young as ever.”
“Yeah right! I see that your newspaper job has at least taught you to tell a good story.” We eat and talk of the good times we had as a family, the vacations we took, and of the wonderful woman we shared as my mother and his wife.
“How about going sailing tomorrow, son?” he suggests with an excited smile on his face.
“That sounds like a great idea. I’ll call Bill down at the marina to reserve us a boat. If we’re lucky, we can get my usual boat, the Osprey. She’s a little 30-footer that glides through the water, smooth as silk.”
“Don’t bother, son, I already reserved her this morning.” I blink my eyes open with surprise.
“How did you know about the boat?”
“Remember, you told me about it a few months ago on the phone?” he reminds me.
“You’re good Dad; you’ve still got the touch. You’re still a secret agent at heart.”
His countenance suddenly changes, his huge bright smile dims into a frugal grimace. He looks down and begins to fidget wit
h his fork. Watching him, I reason that I should bring the subject to a close.
“I am so glad you are here. I hope you didn’t forget how to sail,” I tease him a little.
When I was growing up, our family went off on sailing adventures almost every weekend. In fact, my very first memory was of my father teaching me how to hang on to the tiller and steer the boat while my mother took pictures. Sailing with my father once again would be as pleasant as going home, except now, my mother wouldn’t be there to take the pictures.
“What are you talking about son? I go sailing almost every day. What do you think I’ve been doing with all my time in Miami? I think there are still a few things up my sleeve I can teach you about sailing!” My father’s eyes sparkle.
“I know you do, Dad. I know you do.”
I show up at the Columbia River Marina at half past eight. Because my body and mind are still permeated with sleep, I nurse a hot cup of espresso, containing three lumps of sugar. As I start to step down the stairs leading to the dock, I see Dad already hard at work on the sailboat, unfurling sails and stowing away supplies.
Being so intent in making things ready, Dad is not aware of my presence. I quietly stand there for a few seconds, sipping coffee, coaxing a weary smile to show on my sleepy face.
As I look around me, I see the beautiful picturesque panorama of the Columbia River morning displayed before me. On the eastern horizon, a bright-lit sky gives promise of a warm, sun filled day about to arrive. The river looks as if it has been frosted with light and a slight fog lifts from its slow moving waters.
The lazy movement of the river makes me think of some giant languid creature we are trying to wake up, that refuses to rouse from its slumber. In the distance I see a kingfisher, flying just above the water, browsing the river for a big fat trout for breakfast. Finally, I break the silent dawn shush of the river.
“Good morning!” I call out lightly. The morning greeting breaks Dad’s focus on his duties at hand.
“Ahoy mate! How is my favorite son this morning?”
Wyatt, Richard Page 3