Roanoke Ridge

  “I served in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ted says. “The rule of law is all that stops America, or any country, from turning into a war zone. You boys think you’re bringing freedom with all those guns? That’s exactly what the Taliban think. All you’re bringing here is chaos. Now why don’t you back off so I can do my job.”

  The commander, his hands behind his back, walks up to Ted, stops a foot away. He tilts his head back, clearing the bill of his hat from Ted’s face, and looks down his nose at him. It’s almost like the commander is breathing him in. “Nice speech, now give this man his weapon back.”

  “My dad always said, give in to a bully once, you’d better be prepared to give in to him for the rest of your life.”

  “Your daddy and me would have gotten along just fine,” the commander says. “What would he think about you?”

  “My dad is proud of the man he raised.”

  “Here,” I say, slipping the pistol out of Ted’s waistband and handing it to its owner. “Take the stupid thing.”

  “Smart lady,” the commander says.

  “Why don’t you and your men get back to doing whatever it is you do,” I say.

  “Move out, boys.”

  The men get back into their jeeps and we all take a few steps back to clear enough space for them to make U-turns. Their tail lights burn like demonic eyes in the darkness as they disappear through the winding dirt road. The tension pours out of the bystanders as the standoff comes to an end.

  “What about the ammo,” the gunman says.

  Before I know what I’m doing, I kick him in the balls with a full-speed front snap kick. “You stupid son of a bitch. It wasn’t bad enough you fired off your gun right next to my face, but then you snitch to some militia guy? Are you out of your mind?”

  The rage subsides and I feel Saad and Ted holding me back by either shoulder.

  The gunman is looking up at me, his eyes conveying both fear and pain. “Did you see that?” he says after several deep breaths.

  The crowd disperses. Nobody saw anything, and they are going to keep it that way.

  Behind us, the bushes part. The two men chasing the Bigfoot have returned, winded, bending at the waist and resting their hands on their knees.

  “He’s hurt, he’s definitely hurt, but he still got away,” one of them says. “No man can move that fast wounded like that.”

  TEN

  Gathering material for a book, (Roger) Patterson talked to many old-timers and residents in the Trinity Mountain Alps area. Reports were gained by him of people who had seen the creature. Most descriptions concur that what Patterson is after is a creature which is tall, hairy, and apelike …

  — Union-Bulletin, September 23, 1966

  BACON SIZZLES ON THE GRILL BEHIND THE counter. A waitress passes our table with a plate in each hand, then slides them along the neighbouring tabletop to hungry patrons already holding their cutlery. The other waitress walks over with the coffee pot, refilling our cups.

  The TV in the corner is playing a morning show out of Portland. The scene changes from a man and a woman sitting around a table in a studio to an aerial shot of a forest and a mountaintop. The banner at the bottom of the screen reads Bigfoot Attacks on Roanoke Ridge? The scene changes again. A young man in a well-fitted suit holds a microphone in front of a backdrop of trees. The breeze that shakes the branches behind him does nothing to his short, well-gelled hair.

  I ask the waitress if she can turn up the volume.

  “I’m here on County Road 12, not far from the scene of a grisly murder, a murder committed by what locals are saying was a Bigfoot.”

  The camera switches to a wider angle and we see the man with the gun, the man who I kicked in the groin, looking wildly at the reporter. He doesn’t once look over toward the camera. He’s jittery. Ben Compton is his name, according to the caption at the bottom of the screen.

  “Can you tell us what happened here?” the reporter asks.

  “My friend Rick Driver was volunteering as part of a search and rescue operation when he was killed by a Sasquatch. It threw stones at him. They do that, you know, they throw stones, great big ones. Remember Ape Canyon? Well, this one killed Rick, and the Forest Service is trying to cover it up!”

  We see some shots of previous Bigfoot Festivals as a voiceover sums up the armchair squatcher’s history of the region. “In 1924, in a canyon near Mount St. Helens — an area a lot like this one — a group of miners were pinned down in a cabin by a group of what they described as ape-men, who hurled stones at them. The miners bravely fended them off, potentially killing one of these beasts in the process. The area was later named Ape Canyon after the incident.”

  Back in studio, the two hosts trade inane remarks about the idea of Sasquatch. The woman ends with a comment about staying out of the woods and locking her door at night, while the man finishes by saying that his, and the network’s, thoughts and prayers go out to Rick Driver’s family.

  Saad straightens up a little, looking over my shoulder. I follow his gaze and see Sheriff Watkins removing his aviator sunglasses and scanning each of the faces in the diner. His eyes lock on mine and he points to me as though he’s pressing a particularly stubborn button. I slide out of the booth, putting my hand on Saad’s arm to stop him from coming with me.

  “Stay here, it’s probably nothing,” I say. “If for some weird reason I don’t come back, tell Ted what’s happened.”

  “Laura,” Saad says as I walk away.

  When I reach him, the sheriff does an about-face and goes for the door, holding it open for me like a proper gentleman. “Did you tell that idiot Compton that Driver was killed?” he says quietly.

  “No, Sheriff. This is just the sort of thing I wanted to avoid.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “Smart enough to deserve an explanation?”

  “About what?”

  “That SAIT guy, Dale Jordan, why does he think Driver was murdered?”

  “They found evidence, on the ledge, right where you said they would. Not footprints so much as … impressions, of something having stood there. Something man-sized, I might add. All the rocks by the body had been pulled out of the ground from that spot. This was no spring thaw accident.”

  “I didn’t want to be right,” I say.

  “I heard about what you did last night,” he says. “That was assault.”

  “Is Compton pressing charges?”

  “No, but he doesn’t have to. The State can, since we can make a strong case without a complainant. But if it were up to me I’d give you a citation.” The sheriff tries smiling at me but it doesn’t come naturally to him. “These cowboys that you met last night,” he continues, “are a danger to regular folks and their everyday lives. Last thing I need is an army of out-of-town yahoos coming here armed to the teeth telling us what the law is, using intimidation in place of authority. And that weasel, Compton, I’d lock him up for shooting a gun off in a crowd. But if I did that I’d have to throw you in the cell beside him.” He looks off at the empty lot across the highway. Gravel with weeds poking through, a wall of hemlock trees in the back. “I knew your father, I’m not sure if you knew that,” he says, turning to study my face.

  “I didn’t.”

  “I can’t say I like a lot of the Bigfoot hunters that come through here, but I liked him. He cared about this town. He didn’t just come here looking for Bigfoot and to hell with the rest of it. He had a sense of duty.”

  My face does something, I’m not sure what, but Watkins picks up on it.

  “I don’t know what kind of man he was as a father or a husband, but here, he was the kind of man you could count on.”

  “Sheriff?”

  “Yes?”

  “When my dad came here, was Rick Driver ever with him?”

  “Sure, that whole crowd came around here then, just as they do now. I remember the three of you together, sitting at that picnic table, eating ice cream.”

  He points down the highway. I can see the p
icnic table, and the building with a walk-up window and a big ice cream cone–shaped sign.

  “You were just a little girl then. It’s no wonder you don’t remember.” He takes a step closer to me, tilting his chin down and looking through bushy eyebrows at me. “I think it’s best you steer clear of the search today. Not much you can do anyhow, and I think you should lay low before Ben Compton swears out a complaint against you. From what I hear, your ranger friend has been given the day off, too. The Forest Service doesn’t want to court any more controversy than they already have.”

  “I can do that, Sheriff.”

  “Good girl,” he says. “There’s one more thing I was going to ask you. We’d like to notify Driver’s next of kin and collect his personal effects, but we haven’t been able to locate where he was staying. I know you don’t remember much of the time he and your dad spent together, but is there any favourite place of your father’s, a cabin or trailer park, where Driver may have stayed?”

  I shrug. “No, I can’t think of any place. When Dad used to bring me up here we always camped right in the woods. We never stayed anywhere.”

  “Thank you for your time then,” he says, tipping his hat to me before walking to his car.

  When I get back, Saad is using a piece of whole-grain toast to wipe up what is left of the eggs on his ketchup-smeared plate. “Is everything okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah, it’s fine. But our plans for the day have changed.”

  Saad looks almost relieved to learn he doesn’t have to traipse around the woods for a third day in a row.

  “We need to find out where Rick Driver was staying,” I say.

  “Why?” Saad asks, taking the napkin from off his lap and wiping his mouth.

  “There’s more to this, more to all of this, than we understand. I need to know how my father’s involved.” I’m still coming to grips with the idea that my dad was of the same ilk as Rick Driver, a remorseless hoaxer and cheat.

  Saad leans over, his elbows on the table, and speaks softly. “How can you be sure he has any involvement with Rick Driver?”

  Just then, the chimes above the door announce a new customer. Dr. Laidlaw walks in, looks around for a spot, then sees us and smiles.

  “Good morning, good morning, how are we?” he says.

  I slide over in the booth. “Care to join us?”

  “I’d be delighted,” he says, sitting down. “So long as I’m not imposing.”

  “Not at all, Dr. Laidlaw.”

  “I heard there was quite a bit of commotion last night.”

  “I’m surprised we didn’t see you there,” I say.

  “I was otherwise engaged, I’m afraid, recording a podcast via Skype.”

  He flags the waitress down and spends several minutes conversing with her until they come to a consensus of what bangers are and how he can get some, and compromising on home fries in place of mash. “So,” Dr. Laidlaw says, pouring cream into his coffee, “give me all the eyewitness details. The creature, what did it look like? How large was it? Describe its locomotion. Did you manage to get a photo of the thing?”

  “It came out of the brush so fast,” I say. “There wasn’t any time to take a picture.”

  “A decent counter to the argument of why we have no photographs of this animal, given that everyone has a camera on their phone,” he says.

  “I didn’t really see it. It was just a shadowy figure on a dark road. There was no time for perspective. It was moving toward me, there were people behind me, armed men emerging from the woods, flashlight beams everywhere.”

  “Chaos.”

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “How about you, Saad? What did you see from your perspective?”

  “I saw even less. There were three people between me and the creature, one of them a cameraman. I couldn’t see around him.”

  “Hold on, do you mean the NatureWorld camera crew was with you? Is there a video of this encounter?”

  There is a list of people who I hoped would never see the look on my face when I realize I am a total idiot. Dr. Duncan Laidlaw was certainly on that list. Now, I’m afraid, that ship has sailed.

  “I never thought to ask,” I say. “The camera itself was damaged in the encounter, so I just assumed the tape was destroyed, too.”

  “Easy enough to find out,” Dr. Laidlaw says, pulling his phone out of his corduroy pants. He searches his contact list, squinting a bit and showing his two front teeth.

  I listen to the tick-tick-tick of his button pressing. Saad’s eyes meet mine and I smile; I don’t know why.

  “Danny? Duncan. Just having breakfast with my mates Saad and Laura. Thought we ought to ring you up and ask if you salvaged any footage of your little adventure last night. No? Not yet anyway. Defragging? Certainly. Certainly. Perfectly understandable. Quite all right, then.”

  Dr. Laidlaw looks at me, shrugs, then leans forward and slips his phone back into his pocket.

  “That reminds me, I have a couple phone calls to make,” I say to Saad. “Then let’s take a little trip.”

  In the back of the diner, where it’s quiet, I call the number I’d saved while googling all those Bigfoot hoaxers our first night in town.

  Donald Oreskes answers, his voice husky. He wheezes when he gets excited, his pitch growing higher and higher, and he chuckles at the mention of my dad’s name. I was prepared for resistance, but this guy just wants to chat about old times.

  “Yeah, John — back then ‘Rick’ was still John — his dad was a bit of a boozehound, his mother didn’t think it was safe to raise a boy in a house like that, so she shipped John off to live with his grandma, a lady by the name of Sally Johansson. She lived not too far from Roanoke Valley, a twenty-minute drive at most.”

  “One more thing, Mr. Oreskes. About the bus hoax. Was my dad the man in the gorilla suit?”

  “Your dad? No. We didn’t hook up with him until a year or so later. Met him in that very town you’re standing in now.”

  Ted has offered to guide us to the Johansson house. As we follow his truck, I can see him through his back windshield, bobbing his head to the radio, his air of authority all but dissipated.

  There’s a nagging doubt in the back of my mind. What if we’re wasting our time? If we don’t find anything, how do I explain to Aunt Barb that I wasn’t even looking for Uncle Berton? I rest my phone on my thigh and glance down at the screen. Should I be at her side? Right now she’s sitting at the ranger station, worrying while search and rescue operations carry on around her.

  We drive into a town under siege. Militia men from the next county, dressed like Special Forces, walk around with assault rifles hanging from their backs, semi-automatics strapped to their thighs. Heads turn and eyes narrow on our vehicle.

  “There’s practically an occupation army,” I say. “It’s insane.”

  My phone buzzes. It’s Ted.

  “We need to stay away from them,” he says. “Please. They’re dangerous.”

  “I have no plans to reacquaint myself with them.”

  “One of them shot at me two years ago. I had bullet holes in the side of my truck. He said if he wanted me dead, I’d be dead. Can you believe that? These people call themselves patriots — until their country asks something of them that they don’t like, that’s inconvenient maybe, then it’s all get your guns and shoot at the guy trying to keep your country beautiful and free.”

  “What’s their deal?”

  “Most of them were soldiers at one point or another. Many of them are out of work,” Ted says. “Soldiers without a mission have a way of finding one. Right now they’re trying to stop the government from evicting a pair of miners who violated the mining regulations on federal land. But if it wasn’t that, it would be something else. Groups like this have occupied land in Grants Pass and Burns, not to mention similar actions in other states. I’m not sure what it’s really about, though. I mean, so much of the West is owned by the federal government and a lot of people around here resent that.
But local governments are too small and don’t have the resources to actually manage this much land.”

  Out the other side of Roanoke Ridge, we come to a bend and stop at a driveway that is almost invisible, just two tire ruts covered over by dead leaves that curve far back from the road. There’s a mailbox here, labelled Johansson. Its little red flag is down and the sheet-metal structure of the box itself is browning with rust.

  We drive up halfway and park our vehicles next to an old maple tree with branches that reach out over the driveway. A fence with split wooden posts, rife with knotholes and rusting nails, stretches along the front of the property. The house itself, hidden from the road, is one stiff breeze away from collapsing. A squirrel vaults across the awning over the porch, and I can’t help but think the whole structure might fall apart under its weight.

  Saad and I walk toward the front door, slowing at the sight of the steps, all of which have either bowed in the centre or split completely. Ted walks around the side of the house, following the tire ruts to their conclusion.

  “Guys,” he calls out.

  We find him standing next to Rick Driver’s pickup truck and its footprint decals. Hitched to the back is a trailer large enough to sleep in. Both have Texas licence plates.

  “We can tell the sheriff we’ve finally found where Driver was staying,” Ted says. “Too bad it’s out of his jurisdiction.”

  “If his truck is here, how did he get to Roanoke Ridge?” I ask.

  “It’s not too far from here if you go through the woods,” Ted says. “It’s just the road that curves around the park, on foot it’s a straight line.”

  “Shouldn’t we knock on the door,” Saad says.

  “He’s right,” I say to Ted. “Last thing we need is a dose of shotgun justice from someone who doesn’t take kindly to trespassing.”

  Back at the house, Ted takes a running jump and hops all the broken steps. He reaches down and offers his hand for me. I step up on the skirt board, which looks sturdy enough, and jump up to the porch, no assistance necessary. Saad looks over the situation and decides to walk up to the porch beside the stairs, grabbing hold of the railing and pulling himself up.