Primeval: An Event Group Thriller

by David L. Golemon

  “Yes, I do play games, except at this very moment, I am not. You, Colonel, are thinking about ordering everyone here to remain, while you, afraid for their safety, and ever the good commander are going to go it alone, as you Americans are fond of saying.”

  Collins kept his features neutral, but knew the Frenchman was far more intelligent than his file said he was. Director Compton had tried many times to tell him that, but Jack had always figured one way or another, Farbeaux could be outsmarted. He was now learning that little task may not be possible.

  “If you attempt to go into this wilderness alone, you will die, and your sister will perish with you. It’s that simple, Colonel. And I dare say that I will not get my reward for you playing the hero, and your own people will nod and agree to do what you order them to do, but in the end they will follow you after you have left. So, let’s save us some time here, and not even bring that suggestion up.”

  “If you’re going to follow those bastards, everything you need is in that supply shed in the back. All of my son’s guide equipment is in there. He had a small arsenal of hunting rifles and ammunition—he stocked up seeing the fact that we don’t live right down the street from Walmart.”

  Jack and Farbeaux had not noticed the old woman and her granddaughter as they stood just inside the door. Punchy was there also, wrapping his right hand with gauze. He acted as though he didn’t care to hear what was being discussed.

  “I’m thinking that we should use a boat to get down river and get some authorities in on this,” Collins said, more of a test for the grandmother than a statement of what he was truly thinking.

  “Authorities?” the old woman said with a smirk. “They killed all the authorities north of Jackson’s Bluff if you hadn’t noticed.” Marla placed a hand on her grandmother’s arm and tried to get her to calm down. “I don’t fancy leaving them Russians to the authorities. You seem like people who have dealt with this sort of thing before; just do what it is that comes naturally to you folks. I want those pigs out of those woods.”

  “We’ll need most of what you have if we are to go north,” Farbeaux said before Jack could say anything.

  “You can have everything we can spare. While you are gone, I will send some of the boys down river to round up whatever ‘authorities’ they can find, and get them up here as soon as they can.”

  Jack nodded at the old woman as she gestured for them to come back inside. “C’mon, we have a hand-drawn map in here that’s more accurate than anything you boys have studied, and I think I know where those bastards are heading.”

  Sarah, Mendenhall, and Charlie saw what was happening, and followed the four people into the store. Jack turned and saw them.

  “Start getting enough food for at least five days—move!”

  They quickly started following Jack’s determined orders.

  Collins turned away and saw that Marla had stayed and waited for him.

  “My grandmother is determined to give you a fighting chance; she’s angry and maybe should stop to think about what it is she is doing. Where you are going, the land is unforgivable. More than a few dozen have gone up the Stikine in just my lifetime and never came back. And that was without people out there that wanted to kill them.”

  Collins didn’t say anything.

  Marla held eye contact for a moment, and then stepped aside when she saw the determination in Jack’s eyes. She lowered her head and then saw Mendenhall taking several canned goods from the shelf.

  “Put those down, you’ll have to travel light because we only have two boats in the shed. The freeze-dried stuff is back here, enough to feed an army.”

  Mendenhall, arms brimming with canned soup, salmon, and chili, looked deflated. He glanced over at Sarah and they both rolled their eyes.

  “I could have gone all year without hearing that you carried freeze-dried rations.” Mendenhall slowly started placing the delectable canned goods back on the shelf.

  “Someday, we have to buy stock in the companies that make that crap,” Sarah said as she, too, started placing cans back where she had gotten them.

  “I kind of like the freeze-dried food,” Charlie Ellenshaw said looking around and pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose as he saw Mendenhall shaking his head.

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me, Doc?”

  “Now, we are here,” the old woman said pointing to the fishing camp. “You won’t have to cross the river; stay on this side, and you’ll end up on the northern Stikine all the way up to where those people may be.”

  Jack watched as her finger pointed to the rounded bend in the Stikine more than a hundred and twenty miles north of their current location.

  “And how do you know that is where they’ll be?” Collins asked.

  The grandmother turned to face the Frenchman, the American, and the Canadian. “Because that’s where that damn L. T. Lattimer said he found his gold—that is what they are after, right?”

  “I didn’t think Lattimer was that well known,” Punchy said as he popped four aspirin into his mouth.

  The old woman smiled as she turned fully to face the others. They all could see that at one time in her life, the heavyset jovial lady had been as beautiful as her young granddaughter, but age and time had caught up with her, but to her credit, she looked as if she really didn’t care that her looks were gone. She looked around until she saw the thin man she had seen enter the store. Charlie Ellenshaw was looking at a large can of bug repellant, reading the ingredients closely.

  “L. T. Lattimer was an arrogant, untrustworthy man who was a cancer to this part of the Stikine, a most unreliable sort. We learned of his possible fate from that tall and soaked drink of water right there,” she said pointing from the back room to where Charlie stood.

  Ellenshaw scratched his butt and then felt the eyes on him. He turned and saw everyone in the small office looking his way. He turned his head, thinking that someone was behind him, and then he realized it was indeed himself that was the center of attention. He was about to ask what it was he had done, when he saw the old woman. He squint his eyes and then recognition lit his features.

  “That’s right, you—I remember everything. The way you came back here with the rest of those hippie boys and girls, talking about Lattimer.”

  Charlie placed the bug repellent down and nervously smiled. “I remember you. You warned us to watch ourselves with Lattimer. I also told you about the animals that lived in that area. You didn’t ever deny that anything that remarkable could live there.”

  Charlie swallowed as the memory of those days returned. He shook his head and felt weak in the knees.

  “As I was saying, he knows more about that area than I do.”

  “Tell me, madam, did anyone ever go back and look for Mr. Lattimer?” Ellenshaw asked, getting himself back under control.

  “My boy spent a month looking for L. T. and never found a thing. Never found your monsters, either,” she said turning back to Charlie.

  Ellenshaw looked down at the floor, still feeling the others looking at him. He knew they weren’t believers in his story of what the world called Bigfoot that inhabit this part of the world, but he didn’t care, either; he knew what he had experienced that summer in 1968.

  “It’s okay, boy, you did real good back then just getting the rest of those students out of there, and back down the river, that’s more than most would have done. You have nothing to prove to me,” she said and when Charlie looked up at her, she winked. That made him feel better and he looked away, embarrassed.

  “Come here, Mr. Science, and join us at the map,” Jack said, nodding that he agreed with Helena.

  The old woman gave Charlie Ellenshaw a crooked smile as he timidly stepped into the small office.

  “As I said, the northern Stikine is unkind to fools.” She then turned back to the map. “And like I said a minute ago, we have a stash of weapons, mostly hunting stuff that we have found in the woods from time to time. We don’t hunt ourselves here as we hav
e always left the wildlife be. But you’re welcome to them; it’s a small arsenal if the truth be told. A lot of smart-ass doctors and lawyers who wouldn’t listen to reason; let’s just say they may have come across something that wasn’t as sporting as a deer or elk. That’s right, my friend, I listen to the tales that the Indians talk about at night same as everyone else.”

  “So you believe in that hokey crap about Bigfoot?” Alexander asked, looking almost insulted at the stories that Charlie had been spewing all the way up north.

  “Thank you,” Jack said, cutting off any further comments about what wasn’t really important.

  “As I said, you are welcome to all those guns and equipment,” she said eyeing Punchy Alexander with what amounted to total disdain, “but you listen to me now.” She pulled at Jack’s sleeve and nodded toward Charlie. “Do not venture into the woods ten to twelve miles north of the Stikine River. Do you hear me? Even if your quarry goes to ground there! Stay out of that area.”

  She turned and pointed at a spot on the large map of about a thousand square miles.

  “What’s in there?” Farbeaux asked, more than a little curious, especially since historically speaking, the mother lode of the Alaskan and Canadian gold rushes had never been discovered—the source of all that gold was still out there somewhere.

  “It’s wild, young man, more wild than you could ever believe. Just stay out of there. If your Russians go in there, rest assured that they are not coming back.”

  Jack, knowing that if his sister was in there, there was no way he wasn’t going in after her. He looked at the black, hand-printed words embossed over the field of unbroken green that marked the area the old woman had shown them. Jack wrote the words down on his notes: THE CHULIMANTAN PLATEAU.

  Not one of the men ever thought to ask the meaning of the Indian name that graced the valley and the rise of the large plateau. Collins heard the admonishment of the old woman, but paid her no mind.

  “Don’t go north of the Stikine.”

  8

  After the supplies were organized and stacked, they placed them all in front of the porch. Collins then called everyone except Charlie Ellenshaw to the steps. He was inside looking over the map of the Stikine Valley and Plateau with the old woman. The girl, Marla, was watching the group from a distance, making sure their boxes of .306 ammunition was placed in a plastic pouch to keep river water from damaging them. Altogether, the girl and her grandmother had gathered nearly two hundred rounds for the hunting weapons, and another hundred fifty for the 5.62 millimeter automatics.

  Everett took up position beside Collins, looking from face to face. The two officers had come to a decision an hour before, and Carl knew their news was not going to be well received. Farbeaux suspected what was coming because he had watched as the naval captain had cut the rations for their journey upriver almost by a quarter, and he had also tossed aside one of the tents.

  “Ryan, you and McIntire are staying here.”

  “The hell you say,” Sarah started to protest.

  “No, no. You’re not leaving us behind,” Ryan said as he looked directly at Everett and not at Collins.

  “At ease, Mr. Ryan, you’ll do as are ordered,” Carl said, making sure Sarah understood his anger, also.

  “Look, we don’t know what else is right here under our noses, and these people have gone through enough; we have to leave someone here in case they have a rerun of what happened today,” Jack said, now looking directly at Sarah.

  “Colonel, I would bet two months pay that that old woman could kick my ass three ways to Sunday, and the girl is far tougher than my last three bunkmates combined.”

  “This is not a negotiating session, Mr. Ryan. Will is a soldier; he’s trained for what we do. Doc Ellenshaw, well, he’s Doc Ellenshaw, and he has his reasons for being there, and we have reasons to take him. Punchy goes where I go and Colonel Farbeaux has his own reasons for being brave. You and McIntire have no reason for being on the river, but you have a big reason for watching out for things here. I want that RCMP chopper fixed if at all possible.”

  “Wait a minute, you know I’m not qualified on those damn things,” Ryan protested.

  Jack turned on him. “Damn it, Ryan, you know and I know you can fly one. Fix the damn thing in case we need to beat a hasty retreat out of this place. Do you understand, Mr. Ryan?”

  Ryan didn’t respond, he figured since he was in civilian dress, Jack didn’t rate a salute, so he turned on his heel and reached for a small toolbox and then stormed off toward the damaged helicopter. Sarah meanwhile watched Jack, her eyes never leaving his. He waited for her to continue her argument, but instead she raised her right brow, which told Collins she was about to explode, and then turned and followed Ryan.

  “They just hate being left—” Mendenhall started to explain.

  “Not now, Lieutenant. Leave it,” Jack said and turned on his heel and trotted up the steps. “Captain, organize Colonel Farbeaux, Mr. Alexander, and Mr. Bleeding Heart here, and get that boat loaded. I want to be on the river in thirty.”

  Everett and the others watched Jack leave and enter the store. Carl shrugged his shoulders and then turned toward the supplies.

  “Come on, you bunch of pirates—the wonders of Mother Nature await.”

  The old woman watched the white-haired Charlie Ellenshaw study the map. He had a small notebook out and was jotting down his own information just as Collins had done earlier.

  “Tell me, the acreage here.” He was pointing to the northern most section of unexplored territory far above the Stikine. “How much animal life can that section support in your estimation?” Charlie scrunched up his nose and then turned to the old woman. “I mean, vegetation wise, berries, plants, elk, and deer?”

  “You’re kind of peculiar, aren’t you? Hell, even as a youngster you were, all the way back in sixty-eight,” she said instead of answering.

  “Excuse me, madam?” Ellenshaw said pushing his thick glasses back up on his nose and looking the woman over.

  “You didn’t exactly grow into what you would call a male specimen in all those years, Charlie, so just what are you doing here? You’re not like these others.”

  “You mean, Colonel Collins and Captain Everett? I think we make a pretty good team.”

  “You don’t usually get out much, do you?” Helena said, nodding as if she wanted Ellenshaw to agree outright.

  “I assure you, I am as field qualified as the next man in this group. I could tell you a story or two,” Ellenshaw looked around and then caught himself before he broke his secrecy oath. “Just suffice it to say, I’ve been places and seen things that you wouldn’t find in Kansas.”

  The old woman slapped Charlie on the shoulder, almost knocking the thin scientist into the large map. “Don’t take offense, skinny, I was just funnin’ ya’ is all. Now, you asked about the vegetation and wildlife up in them parts, well, I’ll tell you, Hindershot,” she said, using Charlie’s middle name that made him cringe inside. “There is enough roughage and game up there to support half of the African savanna. Now, why do you ask?”

  Charlie quickly wrote down her information. “Oh, no reason, just a scientist curiosity.”

  “You’re as poor a liar as you are at gunplay, Hindershot Ellenshaw. The colonel’s lookin’ for his sis, and that French fella, well, let’s just say he has the look of a man with another agenda, and the others—well, to this old woman’s eye, you can tell they would follow that colonel man into hell if they had to, but you, you are here for something else, aren’t you?”

  “Madam, I assure you, I am only here to assist the colonel in the task of finding his sister.”

  A stern, motherly look came to the husky woman’s countenance.

  “You hear me good, Hindershot, don’t go lookin’ for something you shouldn’t be lookin’ for; that something could jump right up and bite you and whoever’s with you right in your asses. Some places weren’t meant for people, and that area you’re askin’ about is one of the
m. You were there once; stay by the river, and you just might make it back to your lavatory,” she said with not an ounce of humor.

  “You mean, laboratory, and I again assure you—”

  “Doc, that’s enough. Why don’t you go help the others load up?”

  Charlie turned to see Collins standing by the counter with his hands on his hips; he didn’t look happy at all.

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  Jack watched the professor leave and then rubbed his eyes.

  “Ma’am, there isn’t another phone nearby? A radio?” he asked as he looked at her with his now red eyes.

  “No, there’s no phone lines this far out. We’re on our own until the fishermen come back in two days.”

  “I’m leaving lieutenants McIntire and Ryan behind to assist just in case.”

  “Colonel, we’ve not needed babysitting in our many years here on the Stikine; it’s others who need to take care.”

  “I understand, but, well, the small woman, Miss McIntire . . .”

  “She’ll be safe here,” the old woman said, knowing what he was going to say because of the intense look in his blue eyes. “There is one thing I remember my granddaughter said about some of them Russian’s equipment. She said they had what she thought was some kind of electronics, a lot of it, and some heavy firepower, so you best be careful and not run into another ambush.”

  “Electronics?”

  “That’s what she said. Anyway, good luck, Colonel. We’ll send help upriver as soon as we can,” she said, holding her large hand out for the American. “And we’ll make sure nothing happens to your two lieutenants.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Jack started to turn but was stopped by the woman’s powerful grip.

  “Mind me here, Colonel Collins, stay out of them woods north of the river. I think maybe you should let them Russian boys look for what they came for, because in the long run, the result will be the same, so get your baby sis out of there and come back and leave them murdering sons-a-bitches to their own devices.”