Bigfoot Mountain

by Rod O'Grady

  The forest being looked at each of them in turn in a perfect gaze of blankness, looking at Minnie first, then Connie, Billy, Musto, then Dan. His eyes rested again on Minnie, and she felt a stirring of recognition on some level beyond her understanding, a sense of connection, of sympathy between her and this other intelligent being.

  He rose slowly up until a hair-covered chest and massive muscular shoulders came into view. Black fingers with black fingernails from one massive black hand grasped the top of the railing and long thick hairs from the arm hung down. He looked like he might start to climb up and Dan put his arms out across Billy and Minnie, either side of him, but he stopped moving, stopped rising up, releasing his grip on the top rail. He opened his hand, showing a huge, wide black palm. Then he slowly lowered, the last part to disappear being that massive black hand.

  ‘Bye,’ said Minnie. Then Billy, then Connie, then Dan, then Musto. ‘Bye,’ ‘Bye,’ ‘Bye,’ ‘Woof.’ The hand dropped from sight.

  The four humans and the dog, like statues, stared into the darkness, unable to move or speak, so utterly stunned were they all by what had just happened. After what seemed like an age, Dan took one careful silent step after another, slowly crossing to the front of the deck, and looked down. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘What just happened?’ said Connie. Billy was frozen to the spot, eyes wide, mouth open, and Minnie, grinning broadly, wept profusely.

  ‘Thank you, thank you…’ she whispered.

  Dan’s head whipped round. ‘Wait. Can you hear that? There’s movement in those bushes.’

  Minnie moved to the corner of the deck nearest to where the old cabin had stood and peered up the slope into the twilight gloom. She saw it, the same very tall figure, a massive black shadow ghosting away from the back of the cabin, towards the standing posts. The Bigfoot stopped, turned and looked back, resting a hand on the top of a post. She knew in that instant that he was the one, the one in the woods who had watched her, had lifted her out of the gully when she fell, and had looked out for her as she slept in his forest; and that he was the Bigfoot who had left the seafood on the jetty, as a gift.

  He looked up at the full moon and in doing so Minnie was able to see his face clearly in the moon’s glow – hair growing low to a brow highlighted in a silver sheen, dark eyes, a wide nose, and more dense hair covering his high wide cheeks and chin. Longer hair hung from wide muscular shoulders and long arms. There was somehow a youthful air about the creature to Minnie, despite his size, perhaps in the boney elbows and knees. He looked at Minnie a moment longer, turned and headed away up the trail.

  She hoped he understood that they’d done this for them, they’d taken down the cabin, moved their entire home, for them – just in case these Bigfoots really did have ‘an ancient way’ that the cabin was blocking.

  Days, weeks, months and years later as she would cast her mind back to this time, she felt that in those briefest of moments as their eyes locked, she had sensed that he understood.

  ‘There’s something down on the jetty!’ said Dan. ‘Look!

  KAAYII

  Chapter Eleven

  The receding tide exposed more rocks embedded in the dark grey sand. Kaayii dug around them where eddying water had left dark still pools. He found shiny dark-blue mussels, small grey limpets, and muddy white cockles.

  The night-time sea was as black as ink and as cold as a mountain stream, but Kaayii loved the feeling of the water on his body. When the snows melted, the ponds on the mountain were deep enough to bathe and splash about in, and the Sasquatches would take turns to ‘spring clean’ the nooks and crannies of their body. This salty ocean water with the pull of the tides and the swell of the waves was something else – and the sea life was plentiful, colourful and so tasty.

  He waded out deeper, swam out further and dived, feeling around the rocks and seaweed. After a few failed attempts he began to be able to tell by feel alone the best crevices in which to find shellfish. After a few hours of swimming and diving he had a collection of black-and-silver-striped oysters, pink scallops, a red sea anemone and brown clams to add to his haul.

  Next he needed fish so he stood, waist high in the water, and applied his uncle’s technique. It took a while but he managed to catch five, one of which he ate up greedily.

  He piled the sea life on a big flat rock and when he had enough, carried them in his black leathery hands over to the wooden jetty. Looking up at the cabins he could see no lights on, and could sense no humans watching him.

  It took three trips to move them all but when he’d made a pile on the wooden boards he climbed up and started to arrange them in a perfectly round circle. Kaayii took care to mark the direction of the rising and setting of the sun, positioning the fishes carefully on the strips of seaweed, placing in the centre the red spiny sea anemone.

  Pleased with his work, he stood over it and hoped they would like it. He hoped they would forgive the Sasquatches for banging on their sleeping places.

  The two wolves jumped up as he passed the Watcher’s Place and fell in with him, sniffing at his fishy, salty, hairy legs, as they trotted along up the trail. Day was dawning and a thin mist was hanging still in the valleys and hollows. A chorus of birdsong rang through the forest as the young Sasquatch and his wolf friends made their way through stands of grass and fern, under towering redwoods, past pine and fir, and aspen, alder, cedar, birch and oak, and all the animals that couldn’t fly, like the polecats, weasels, racoons and porcupines, kept a very close eye on them as they passed.

  When they got up to High Ridge his father was sitting with Ahniiq. The other family group in the clan was sitting together feeding on gathered mushrooms. When his mother and his sister saw Kaayii they walked over and sat with him. His sister looked at the two wolves cautiously. They sniffed her, from top to bottom.

  The wolves curled up near his feet but kept their watchful eyes open, ever alert to the sounds, smells and new senses.

  Kaayii felt a growing impatience and restlessness in his father, Taashi, and as the oldest and most respected in the group that sense was felt by all the beings gathered under the pines at the top of the mountain. He sensed too that his uncle Ahniiq was not happy with Taashi.

  The wolves, aware of tension between these two huge Sasquatches lifted their heads, looked at Kaayii, communicated: hunger, and trotted away through the pines.

  Kaayii found a place under the low boughs of a pine tree away from the others. He pulled leaves and branches over his body and slept all day, tired after the swimming.

  For the first time he had watery dreams – he was diving deep with strange underwater animals, blue and white, sleek and fast, catching fish in their mouths. These ones whooshed their tail up and down, instead of side to side like fish. Other strange sea creatures visited his dreams with big round heads like mushrooms, and too many legs to count, that shot off into a towering forest of swaying brown seaweed.

  He awoke as the sun was setting and hurried down the mountain. He felt drawn to the lower slopes after his visit to the shoreline, after having swum in the sea, and touched with his hands the places where the humans lived.

  He plucked berries from the bushes as he walked down the trails and when he reached the clearing at the Aspen Grove, he gathered and munched on wild onion.

  His uncle was in the Watcher’s Place staring at the bay. When he sensed Kaayii approaching he stood up and walked away without a word or a thought, gently touching his nephew’s head as he passed him.

  Kaayii knew Ahniiq was sad because he did not want to be left in the forest alone to look after it, when the others left. He knew there were other clans a day or two’s walk away and Ahniiq could start a new clan here, but he knew his uncle, and he knew his heart was not full of joy at the idea.

  Kaayii climbed a tree and could see that down among the cabins the humans had begun collecting strangely shaped things and were arranging them on the grass. He could see the girl and the man, and they were moving back and forth, from one cabin to
a smaller one, carrying things.

  He sensed animal energy so he stayed up in his tree waiting for it to appear. It was his wolf friends. As they approached he grunted and they looked up. Huff barked one short greeting and Kaayii climbed down to greet them. They had blood around their snouts and had a sense of contentment about them. They settled in his nest and looked at him.

  Gathering more pine boughs and tree limbs, Kaayii built up the back and sides of the nest. He collected handfuls of moss and ferns and dumped them on the wolves’ heads, which made him laugh. The wolves flicked the moss off and nudged the moss and ferns into a comfortable pile. At the nearest redwood tree he gathered pieces of soft bark, pulling it free with his strong fingers, and pressing it down on the wolves’ mossy pile. They licked his hands appreciatively and he stroked them enjoying the deep, warm softness of their fur.

  The night passed uneventfully so he dozed with the wolves. He got up at dawn, stretching his legs and grazing on juniper berries and fern fronds. He listened to the rustling of creatures in the forest, the hooting of an owl. He wondered why his uncle didn’t want to stay here in this beautiful forest.

  He and the wolves explored the woods by running further than usual, away from the Watcher’s Place. They chased a weasel and a raccoon for fun, and whenever they stopped to rest he pulled over a small tree and leant it against another to show other Sasquatches if they ever ventured this far, that he’d been there and that this forest already had a Sasquatch guardian.

  When he sensed quartz in the ground he’d stop and scrabble about clearing the earth to see if it was a big piece or a smaller loose lump. He was committing to memory all the places where there was quartz in the forest and learning all the game trails.

  They ran back along the track to the Watcher’s Place and he immediately climbed the tree to see what the humans were doing. He could see the man inside the cabin, the one he and his uncle had banged on, because there was no roof. The human had taken the flat pieces of wood off the top and Kaayii could see them stacked against the little rocky cliff.

  Humans seemed to like to build things, just like Sasquatches did, but to take something apart? Well, he had never heard of such behaviour from humans before. He knew that Sasquatches take structures apart and rebuild them, but only if a human has come and moved them. So, what was this man doing? Was it because he and his uncle had touched it? Kaayii thought it might just be so they could see the stars as they lay in their bed at night.

  For almost all the next day Kaayii sat and watched the people from his tree. He watched as the man started to take down the walls. The man didn’t look like a Sasquatch but he was behaving like one, thought Kaayii. He wondered if the man might push over a tree next, but he knew that was never going to happen as the human was too small.

  This latest development was so bizarre to Kaayii that he climbed down, found a strong stick in the leaves and whacked it against the tree three times – knock knock knock! A short while later there was an answering double knock from way up on the mountain – knock knock! Then he climbed back up.

  Kaayii was still there when his father appeared and started climbing up. Kaayii told his father: no, you’re too big for this tree.

  His father dropped down and climbed another one and sat there as the tree swayed slightly under his immense weight. Looking across at his father, Kaayii could see that he too was fascinated by what the man was doing and what they could see inside the cabin without the roof. It was divided up in to smaller areas inside. There was a strangely shaped, long, white thing in the smallest area that looked like what the humans use to float around on the water, and the girl was still taking things out of this cabin and over to the smaller one.

  They sat in the tree all day eating sweet strips of inner bark, watching the humans. As the sun began to set the humans stopped being interesting and his father left. Kaayii climbed down and stayed with his wolves sleeping in the Watcher’s Place.

  The next morning from up in his tree, Kaayii watched as the man started removing the bottom part of the cabin, taking away the flooring. When he’d finished Kaayii could see tall straight stumps standing there sticking out of the ground. The cabin had gone!

  He was so astonished by what the humans had done that he was about to climb down and whack three times on his tree, when he sensed his father approaching with his uncle. They climbed straight up the two closest trees. They looked down, swaying in their lofty pines, fascinated by the sight of bare stumps where the cabin had been.

  Through the patchwork of pine boughs they could see movement on the track down to the cabins. It was the older female and the boy carrying something. When they came in clear sight Kaayii saw they were holding a long, curved piece of wood, and he wondered how they had managed to make it grow that way. Kaayii himself had bent young trees so that they would grow with a distinct curve to their trunk, used as a territorial marker, but this piece of wood was different.

  The woman and the boy carried it down to the shore, put it on the water, sat in it and paddled with fat sticks out across the water. The three Sasquatches watched, enthralled by what they were seeing.

  The girl seemed to have stopped helping the man, and was walking up past the smaller cabin and all the things they’d put there, to where the old cabin had been. She stood there alone amongst the stumps, which were much taller than her.

  She looked up at the mountain. It felt to Kaayii that she could have been looking directly at him. She raised her arms up high and wide to the mountain, and gazed up at the forest standing perfectly still. Then she turned and stretched her open arms out to the sea and stood perfectly still. That’s when Kaayii understood. In that instant he knew why the humans had moved the cabin.

  His father, in the next pine tree, looked across at Kaayii and his words meant, ‘The ancient way is clear.’

  Kaayii smiled. ‘I gave sea gifts. The young one, she understands.’

  Kaayii, sensing his father’s gratitude felt a warm glow of pride spreading through his body, and he watched as Taashi hurried down to the lowest branch, dropping as silently as a squirrel to the forest floor. Without another word, he ran through the woods, scattering weasels, rats and mice, panicking squirrels and disturbing roosting birds, so reckless and hurried and heavy were his steps as he crashed his way through the brush, straight up the mountain.

  Kaayii and his uncle Ahniiq climbed down slowly. The two wolves leapt out of the perch and fell in beside Kaayii as he strode purposefully up the trail. He took his uncle’s hand. He needed to communicate something important to Ahniiq and as they walked up the trail he shared his thoughts with his uncle. By the time they reached the mountaintop his uncle was a happy Sasquatch once more.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kaayii could see and hear much activity in and around the Sasquatch gathering place as he approached. All the structures were being dismantled. Tree limbs that had been stacked one on top of the other were pulled and moved, dragged or carried hundreds of feet away. Tree trunks that had been arranged in ‘tripods’ leaning against each other, were separated and scattered and the sleeping den under the fallen redwood was being taken apart.

  Kaayii took his uncle’s hand and led him to his father Taashi. Kaayii spoke of his love for the forest and the animals, and of his wishes. When he finished speaking his father called the clan together with two loud short calls, ‘Ah. Ah!’ No one took any notice, so busy were they with their work – even little Yaluqwa was throwing twigs this way and that. He called again, louder, ‘AH! AH!’ They gathered around.

  Taashi chose words carefully, to stress the significance of the moment and the decisions being made. The rhythm of his words, as he gazed across the trees and the bay at the wooded island beyond, repeated in their hearts. ‘Full is the joyful moon as the sleeping sun sinks beyond our forest home. Kaayii is to be guardian of this mountain.’

  All the adult Sasquatches and his little sister huddled tightly together, arms holding each other close and tight, with Kaayii in the middle o
f the group, and the Sasquatches wept, and hummed one musical note, and repeated it over and over and over.

  At dusk the Sasquatches walked down the mountain together. Kaayii held hands with his mother and sister. As they passed the Watcher’s Place he told the wolves to wait there. They jumped into the nest and settled down, Huff resting his head on the female’s neck.

  The Sasquatches crouched in the trees behind the highest cabin, and Taashi took his son’s hand. He pressed his nose and his forehead softly to Kaayii’s nose and forehead and communicated love to his son. Taashi picked up two straight sticks from the ground, and Kaayii backed away from the group.

  The crow landed on a cedar tree nearby, and made eye contact with Kaayii, its beady yellow eyes ever alert.

  He made his way stealthily down the trail towards the first cabin, listening, looking, sensing. He felt no life energy nearby so passed it quickly. Where the next cabin had stood he paused among the posts. They were chin-high to him. He felt the energy of the life that had happened in the cabin and honoured it, humming softly.

  He could hear humans talking and laughing further down the slope and, tantalisingly, the gentle slop and sigh of small waves breaking on the rocks. To be so close to the sea and not be able to swim and catch fish was hard for the young Sasquatch. He reminded himself that he had more important things to do – to look after the balance of the forest on this side of the mountain and watch the recovery of the forest on the far side, the fire side of the mountain.

  The crow landed on his outstretched hand and he held it gently in both his huge hands, telling it to sleep. He waited for his father’s signal and when he heard the quick steady burst of drumming sticks on wood, he crept behind the cabin where the humans were sitting, and waited. When all the creatures in the woods stopped singing and chattering he crouched down so he was below the level of the deck, crawled to the corner, and lifting the sleeping crow in one hand placed him on his back, on the edge of the deck.