Footprints

by Alex Archer

  Jenny looked at her. "The students?"

  "Safe back in town, thanks to Joey."

  Jenny smiled at Joey. "That's one more I owe you, huh?"

  "Added to the tab, no worries."

  Jenny looked back at Annja. "And you stayed?"

  "Sure, I wasn't going to desert one of my friends. Especially not one who went through so much trouble to get me to come out here in the first place."

  "Thanks. I mean it. And thanks for making sure my students got taken care of. If anything happened to them—"

  "Let's not think about that right now. They're safe. So are you. That's what matters." Annja glanced at Joey. "Would it be too much to ask you to make a fire? Some of that tea you made Jenny sounds really good, too. I could certainly use a cup and I'm sure Jenny would like another, as well."

  Joey smiled. "Consider it done."

  Annja watched him vanish into the woods to find the necessary ingredients. Annja looked back at Jenny. "All right, now what the hell is really going on here?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "What I mean is, you bring me out here to some camp in the middle of nowhere. I get here and instantly I'm faced with three mean dudes with guns. I have to shepherd your students back to town. Then I have a run-in with a wolf. It's been pouring buckets and you almost die from exposure. I visit some old Native American man who surreptitiously teaches me how to do something called spirit tracking and we manage to find each other." Annja took a breath. "You're sure this is all about some set of tracks?"

  Jenny took a deep breath. "I don't know."

  "That's not much of an answer."

  Joey emerged from the brush and started making the fire pit. "I take it you want this thing kept low profile?"

  Annja nodded. "The lower the better."

  Joey nodded and within a few seconds had a small blaze started. Annja watched him fix several sticks together to make some sort of grill. On top of this, he placed a small container of water to boil. Where he'd managed to get the water, Annja had no idea. She wondered what else Joey had hidden away in the small pack he carried.

  She glanced back at Jenny who wasn't looking nearly so happy. "Tell me about this contact of yours," Annja said.

  "David? He's just a friend I met through an online site for Sasquatch aficionados. We hit it off and started comparing notes. He mentioned he was out here and that he'd come across something he thought I might find interesting."

  "The tracks."

  "Yes."

  "And he showed them to you?"

  "Via e-mail. He sent me a digital photo of them."

  Joey sniffed. "Any fool with Photoshop can alter a picture and make it look like something else."

  Jenny sighed. "Maybe I was naive."

  "Have you seen this David guy since you've been out here?" Annja asked.

  Jenny frowned. "That's the odd thing. He was supposed to meet up with me in town to discuss the search pattern we were going to run to find the creature."

  "You actually thought you were going to find the Sasquatch?" Joey shook his head. "And they say kids are crazy."

  "Make the tea, Joey," Annja said. She turned back to Jenny. "You really thought you might catch one?"

  Jenny shook her head. "That's a bad choice of words. By find I meant that we would get some type of evidence on film that the creatures exist. I didn't mean that we were going to trap one and cart it off for study."

  Joey sniffed again, but this time didn't say anything.

  "What's the background on David? Is he local? Would Joey know him?"

  Jenny shrugged. "I thought he was local. But I guess I don't really know."

  Annja sighed. "For someone as intelligent as you are, Jenny, you really dropped the ball on this one. How in the world did you ever convince the university to back this expedition?"

  Jenny smiled. "I used to date the head of the department of anthropology. He owed me a favor."

  Annja took another breath. "So let me see if I've got this straight—you hook up with some guy on the Net. He sends you pictures. You agree to come out and meet with him and manage to convince people to give you money to do so."

  "That's about it, yes."

  "You realize this sounds exactly like some type of exposé on the dangers the Internet poses to children, don't you?"

  Joey stirred a handful of pine needles into the boiling water. "Tea will be ready soon, everyone."

  Annja frowned. She wished she had some whiskey to go along with that tea. The thought that Jenny would be so reckless, not just with her own safety but with the safety of her students, really bothered her. Annja couldn't believe it. It didn't seem like something Jenny would do, and yet here she was.

  She decided to change the subject. "David never showed up, huh?"

  "No."

  "And just what did this guy look like?"

  Jenny shrugged. "He was sort of tall. Nice face. Clean shaven. Kind of that scholarly look—you know the one I like."

  Jenny had always had a thing for bookish guys.

  "Yeah, I know what you like." Annja glanced around. It didn't seem as if this David had any connection to the angry gunmen. None of them fit that description. That was at least something in his favor. Still, Annja wanted to know more about this guy and why he hadn't shown up when he said he would.

  "Did you have any established communication routine at all? Would he know how to get in touch with you?" she asked Jenny.

  "He had my cell-phone number."

  "And did he call you at any point?"

  Jenny frowned. "No. He didn't."

  Joey handed Jenny a cup of the tea. "Drink this. It will make you feel better. I added a few extra touches to it."

  Annja accepted tea from him, as well. She could feel the heat emanating from the cup and sniffed it. "Smells good."

  "It is," Joey said.

  "So does this David guy sound familiar to you? You seem like the type who would know anyone in town, and this guy sounds just different enough that he might stand out in your mind."

  Joey shook his head and sipped his own cup of tea. "Sorry, no. I mean, every once in a while, we get some kooks through here who think they're on the monster trail and all, but it's happened often enough that we just get bored with them. They camp out for a week or so, don't see anything and then pack it in. When the Sasquatch doesn't come out of the brush and sit in their camp, they tend to lose patience and move on."

  Annja nodded. "Looks as if David is a ghost, then. If he even existed at all."

  Jenny sipped her tea. "But I spoke with him."

  "Online," Annja said. "There's no guarantee that it wasn't someone else on the other end feeding you a fake picture of who you thought David was."

  "But why go through that trouble?"

  Annja shook her head. "I don't know. But someone did apparently. Or else, there's the other option."

  "What's that?"

  "That David has either been kidnapped or killed."

  Jenny gasped. "You're not serious."

  "Why not? Missing people who don't turn up when they're supposed to? Let's not be foolish here and discount it so fast. Given the other characters I've run into since I arrived earlier today, it's not out of the realm of possibility that something bad happened."

  Jenny shook her head. "I don't believe it. I think he's still around. After all, look what happened to me. I vanished and yet you found me."

  "You found your way down the mountain, Jenny," Annja said. "I didn't do anything."

  "You spoke to me in a dream," Jenny said. "It was very clear to me."

  Joey raised his eyebrows. "Wow, pretty good for a first timer."

  Annja shushed him. "You heard me?"

  Jenny nodded. "When I was in the cave. It was completely dark. Couldn't see a thing. And yet, in the darkness, you spoke to me as if you were right next to me. I'd been crying softly and then it was like you were there. Pretty amazing."

  Annja took another sip of tea. "You remember anything else about getting to that c
ave?"

  "Not really. I had the distinct sensation of someone lifting me up and running with me in their arms."

  "They'd have to be pretty strong to do that," Annja said. "Maybe you were just hallucinating or sleepwalking?"

  Jenny shook her head. "No way. This was for real."

  "And just who do you think snatched you up like that?"

  Jenny took a sip of tea and then looked right at Annja. "Why, big foot, of course."

  Chapter 10

  Joey glanced at Annja and rolled his eyes. Annja herself wasn't quite sure what to make of Jenny's statement. She seemed so utterly certain that it was almost hard to argue with her conviction.

  "Big foot?"

  Jenny glared at her. "I know you think I'm being crazy."

  "I don't—"

  "I do," Joey said. "Completely bonkers. You need serious help for that condition."

  Annja frowned. "Joey…maybe we should just let her talk and get it out of her system."

  "Get it out? That's not going to happen. She's completely obsessed about this stuff. Like I said earlier when I saw you on the trail."

  Annja held up her hand. "Regardless, we have to let her speak her mind and tell us why she thinks that the Sasquatch had something to do with her disappearance."

  "He had everything to do with it," Jenny said. "I was almost asleep when Joey left me, just about to drop off into deep rest, when I sensed this presence around me. As if I was being enveloped by it. And then I was rushing through the forest."

  Annja frowned. What Jenny said sounded similar to the experience that Annja had had when she was spirit tracking. Was it possible that the Sasquatch really did exist? Or was it something else? Something far more sinister?

  "Did you see it?" she asked.

  Jenny shook her head. "I was asleep, remember?"

  "Yes, but if you didn't actually see it?"

  Joey sighed. "What about a smell?"

  "Smell?"

  Joey nodded. "A lot of people who have claimed to see the Sasquatch say that it smells really awful. Some kind of body odor. But it's supposedly awful stuff. Nose-pinching quality. Did you smell anything?"

  "Well, no, actually, but…" Jenny's voice trailed off.

  Joey shrugged. "Seems weird that a giant ape creature could stroll in and pick you up, run you through the woods and yet you didn't think to open your eyes or take a whiff? Doesn't fly with me. I think you hallucinated the whole thing. Maybe you were sleepwalking or something. In your condition, right there on the brink of hypothermia, anything's possible."

  Annja took a breath. "He might be right, Jenny."

  Jenny frowned. "I didn't ask you to come all this way just so you could belittle my experiences, Annja."

  "I'm not trying to belittle them. I'm just trying to play devil's advocate here. It doesn't add up. Surely you can see that?"

  Jenny took a sip of her tea and then sighed. "I guess. But why did I think that it was a Sasquatch, then?"

  "Maybe because that's all you think about," Joey said. "You're so keyed up on the idea that it exists, you're filling in parts of your brain with the notion that anything even slightly unexplainable is due to something Sasquatch related."

  Annja cocked an eyebrow. "That was awfully insightful, Joey."

  "Thanks."

  Jenny shook her head. "Well, I don't know what to make of what happened. But if you guys won't believe me, then I suppose there's no sense arguing about it. I'll just chalk it up as unexplained and leave it at that."

  Annja helped her to stand. "And how are you feeling otherwise? Still cold and shivering?"

  "No. Joey's fire saw to that. And the tea. I'm much better now. I think I just needed to recharge the battery."

  Joey watched her. "You should be careful all the same. Ideally, you should sleep and let your body restore its balance. What about if we pitch camp here and get some rest?"

  Annja glanced around. "Can we bushwhack off the trail some? I don't like the thought of those guys roving around the hills looking for us."

  "As far as they know, we all went back to town," Joey said.

  Annja nodded. "Just the same, I don't want us easily found. Can you make us a camp that's nice and concealed?"

  Joey shrugged. "Take me a bit of time, but yeah. How far off the trail should it be?"

  Annja looked around. It was still quite dark. The sun would start coming up in a few hours, however. "Far enough so we can't be seen. For that matter, it should be far enough that we can't be heard, either. Talking's going to be a no-no until we get this figured out."

  Joey erased all signs of a fire pit and then stood. "All right, follow me." He led them up the hill and into the dense vegetation.

  Annja made sure to keep Jenny between them. She had to watch her step. In this part of the woods, the trees grew thick together, their trunks entwined like snakes oozing all over the soft pine needle carpet.

  Joey led them for the better part of half an hour. Annja was lost in thought. There were still a lot of questions to ask and she wanted answers.

  But would Jenny be in any shape to answer them? Or would she even answer them honestly? Annja didn't necessarily think that Jenny would deliberately mislead her, but she also knew that big foot was an all-consuming passion of hers. Back in school, Jenny had forsaken an active social life for her studies. She devoured everything she could get her hands on on the legends of big foot. Not just the sightings in the United States, but also the reports from China and the Himalayas.

  Jenny had even gone so far as to undertake an expedition to Nepal as part of her work on her graduate thesis. She'd endured an amazing amount of adversity only to come home with very little to show for it.

  Annja admired her resolve and her perseverance, but when it came right down to it, part of her wished that her friend would give up the ghost chase and get on with studying something much more concrete in origin.

  Annja sighed. But then again, what would people say about her if they knew the half of what she herself had been through, including her own trip to Nepal and her encounter with what some people would claim was the infamous yeti?

  They'd think I'm a nut, Annja admitted to herself, and they might be justified.

  Annja grinned.

  As they walked on, Annja pressed closer to Jenny, trying to keep her voice quiet. "So tell me about David's disappearance."

  "What about it?"

  "I'm sorry to keep bringing it up, but do you think we should contact the sheriff?"

  Jenny shrugged. "Would it do any good?"

  "I don't know. Would it?"

  Jenny stopped and turned. "Are you driving at something here?"

  Annja shook her head. "I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on, like why we have three armed men roving around, warning you off an expedition to prove the existence of big foot. Doesn't that strike you as slightly out of the ordinary?"

  "Of course it does. Don't insinuate that it doesn't."

  "And David? What's his role in all of this? Did you two have an understanding? Was there something there?"

  "Like something romantic?" Jenny asked angrily.

  Annja nodded. "A lot of people hook up on the Internet. It's no big thing. I'm just wondering if there was a spark between you two. Maybe something that led you out here, even if the promise of discovering some real evidence wasn't as convincing as it could have been."

  "Now you're questioning my motives. That's nice. You think I deliberately defrauded the university so I could come on the trip? What, that I'm too poor to come out on my own if I wanted to?" Jenny turned and stormed away.

  "That didn't come out right," Annja said.

  "It didn't sound good, that's for sure."

  Annja rushed ahead. "Jenny, neither of us come from money. But I didn't mean to imply that you're financially hard up."

  "No, just that I would willingly lie to my superiors so they could bankroll this little camping trip. What's worse? I wonder."

  Annja sighed. Jenny picked up spee
d and Annja let her catch up with Joey, who was navigating his way over a tangle of fallen logs. Overhead, the moon peeked out from behind a cloud and showed a fair expanse of the forest.

  Annja could make out the lay of the land. Joey seemed to be leading them uphill on a very slight slope. Probably he would make camp someplace where they were surrounded by trees. Annja knew the best hidden campsites always took advantage of natural surroundings to blend in. And she was sure that Joey would know how to make best use of the environment to guarantee that they wouldn't be disturbed.