by Alan Monroe
Bruce screamed while he rolled back to his back twisting through the manure that remained on the ground. He gripped the two sides of the sleeping bag at the top of the zipper and ripped the metal seam apart sending the tiny teeth across the clearing. Bruce staggered to his feet and picked up a large stick. The stick came down across one of the dogs back with a crack snapping it in half; a stiff kick to the ribs cowered the second pit bull. The first dog tried to slink away, but Bruce threw the stump of the stick in his hand and drew blood from the back of the dogs head.
“Worthless dogs. You let some animal come in here during the night and scat all over me.”
The dogs whimpered and backed up to a tree trunk when Bruce snatched off his long leather belt and sliced through the air at their backs. He drew breath in ragged gulps until he finally staggered into a tree.
“What do I keep you around for?”
He finally sat down and wiped the manure from his sleeping bag and shirt. A quick glance at the ground did not reveal any obvious tracks. After cleaning himself for several minutes, he threw some of the feces at the still cowering dogs.
“I ought to turn you two into slop for old Feyhee’s pigs.”
He crammed the wadded smelly sleeping bag into his backpack. The dog’s ears perked up when he unrolled the bag of beef jerky and crammed a fistful in his mouth without cleaning his hands.
“You aint getting nothing from me. Eat that scat if you want to eat.”
The dogs backed up as he kicked some more feces in their direction.
“It’s bad enough that I have to walk the rest of the way, but now I have to climb over this wall.”
He stepped up to the ridge and leaned over gripping the far edge with his fingertips, but his shirt started to roll up when he tried to wiggle his girth over the wall. The rock chaffed at his stomach until a red strip ran from one side to the other. One fingernail bent backwards when he threw his right leg up on the rock rolling his body towards his hands.
Bruce climbed to his knees and looked at the bloody fingernail. “Get up here you stupid dogs.”
Both dogs cleared the four foot distance in a single jump.
Bruce took the satellite phone out of his pack to make sure it was still working. He had not received an expected call from Wallace the previous night, but his phone appeared to be working fine.
He cursed again. “We’re stuck waiting for that gutless Wallace again. He knows I can’t call him, or them tenderfoots will know he has a phone.”
Once again the dogs stared at him blankly.
He bit down on the fingernail and ripped his hand away from his mouth; blood dribbled down his beard when he spit the fingernail onto the ground. “I’m gonna kill that Wallace.”
Tuesday, May 14 5:38 a.m.
The long dark night gave way to dawn reluctantly when Jared opened his eyes and stared up at the craggy mountain peak towering above the old growth trees surrounding the clearing. He slid out of the sleeping bag and rose to his knees shivering when his hand brushed the frost covered ground. The ski jacket zipped quickly and he smooth back the long blonde hair before he put on the red cap with a white cross above the bill.
Jared walked to the small fire where Davis knelt stirring the coals underneath a metal coffee pot. “Good morning. Coffee?”
“Sheriff, I was hoping it was all a dream. I thought I was gonna wake up back in my own bed this morning.”
“Jared, I wish it was a dream too. But none of us are going to be that lucky today.”
Jared sat down by the fire. “Why didn’t somebody wake me for my turn on guard duty?”
“We figured you needed the rest. Hugh took your watch.”
“Sorry I wigged out last night.”
“We were all on edge, and with good reason. Don’t worry about it. With any luck, we’ll find Roundtree and his group and be out of the old growth before dark.”
“I’ve been skydiving for seven years, and I’ve skied down some mountains that I shouldn’t have. I was always proud of being able to do things that frightened others; now I’m scared to death.”
“That seems like a reasonable reaction.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“You know how to skydive and at least a dozen other things that would scare me to death. We’re dealing in the unknown here; it’s natural to be scared.”
After several moments of silence, Jared looked at Davis. “There are some people that always know what do; how do you do it?”
Davis smiled. “I don’t always know what to do.”
“It sure seems that way. Hugh talks like you know what to do before anybody else knows something is even happening.”
“Hugh says a lot.”
“That’s not what I mean. What makes you decide to run out to the woods and chase after lost people with a monster in the forest?”
Davis sat down on a log and faced his young friend. “Well I’m not convinced there is a monster running wild in the forest. But to answer your question, it all depends on what your focus is in life.”
“What?”
“Well, you know my focus in life is my faith, right?
“I know where you are every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night.”
Davis scratched his head. “There’s a lot more to it than sitting in a pew three times a week. Faith is like a filter for decision making. You run a situation through the filter and the right answer comes out. You have to run the decision through the right filter though. Use the wrong filter and you make the wrong decision.”
Jared nodded. “So when your friend is lost in the woods, your faith tells you that you have to help?”
“Yeah. Everybody believes in something whether it’s God or money. What we truly believe dictates what we do. My faith tells me that I cannot leave this mountain without trying to help these people. My faith tells me that when I get scared, and I do get scared, I have to keep going no matter what. My faith also tells me who to look to for help.”
Jared let the sheriff’s words sink into his mind without further questions on the subject. “I guess Hugh is out teaching Clint how to loaf.”
“Funny.” Davis chuckled while he poured himself another cup of coffee. “They're out looking for some tracks. The phone call was placed from this camp. We don’t have any more GPS coordinates so we’ll have to do it the old fashioned way from here on out.”
Davis turned his head at the crunch of shoes breaking the frost. Hugh walked to the campfire and warmed his hands.
“Sheriff, you have got to come see this," Hugh said.
“Did you find the trail?”
Hugh scratched his head. “Yes sir, and something else.”
Davis and Jared picked up their rifles and followed the Hugh to a point about twenty yards outside the clearing. The grass thinned out as they moved away from the camp, and the spaces between the trees grew large due to the huge girth of their trunks. Davis walked to where Clint knelt by a tree. The crisp clear print outlined by the frost stretched to almost two feet.
“Clint, is this what I think it is?” Davis asked.
“It’s got to be the real thing, sheriff. There are just too many identifying marks to be faked.” Clint pointed to knotty shape at the heel. “This boy’s either got an injury or some kind of growth on one of his heels. I’ve seen this in the tracks of other animals, but it's rare. No way some joker came up here in the middle of nowhere and put out a fake track like this.”
Davis stared at the track for full minute, and he touched the edges of the print with his fingers.
Hugh smiled as he looked down at Davis. “Still having doubts sheriff?”
“No. Not any more. This is nothing like the fake prints I found a Feyhee’s last week. Those things were a joke; only a nut would think they were real. Clint, how big you figure this guy is?”
Clint let out a low whistle. “Big. I can’t guess at the height. But to make a footprint that deep, it would have to weigh at least six or seven hundred pounds. ”
Jared leaned against a tree. “No way.”
Clint pointed at the footprint. “Hugh, stand next to the print on one foot; put all your weight on it. How much do you weigh, Hugh?”
Hugh stood on one foot as instructed and then stepped aside so his footprint could be compared to that of the Bigfoot. “About 320.”
Davis laughed briefly. “Been eating a lot of burgers Hugh?”
“That,” Hugh said. “Is my division one playing weight; you boys that played at the small schools could afford to be lite.”
“Live in the present Hugh,” Davis said. “Looks like you made about a half inch depression in the soil.”
Clint nodded his head. “The Bigfoot track is almost two inches deep; it has to weigh at least two or three times as much as Hugh.”
“That’s a lot of weight. What if the footprint were made when the ground was wet?”
Clint shook his head. “This was made last night; the ground was dry last night. I’m betting this is where he stood during the williwaw and screamed at us.”
Davis looked at the clearing and then looked back at the footprint. “You mean he was eighty to a hundred feet away from us and we could hear him over that wind.”
“Boy’s got a set of pipes,” Hugh said.
“A lot of muscle has got to be wrapped around those lungs,” Clint said.
Davis crossed his arms. "True. Clint, you’re the expert tracker and woodsman. Do you believe in this thing?
"My brother and I have the same basic beliefs; we were taught by the same people. I’ve always believed the Sasquatch could exist, but I’ve never seen one though, not even a track. And I sure didn't know that we were going to run into one up here. I always told Tom he should leave certain things well enough alone. But Tom is a seeker. He had to see it to believe it; he had to know for sure."
"So what do you suggest we do now?" the sheriff asked.
"You're asking me? Just because I was brought up to believe in Bigfoot doesn’t mean I know anything about them. I know about animals, and everything I know about animals tells me that if we leave them alone they'll leave us alone. This thing acts completely different. Animals don't sneak up a camp and scream. Animals don’t tear up camps and chase the occupants without reason. And animals may mark their territory, but they never do it with a mutilated human."
Hugh interrupted the conversation. "So you still think that body was set up as a warning?"
Clint nodded. "More than ever. This thing is very aggressive when it comes to defending its territory."
"Do you know what direction Tom and the others traveled in?" Davis asked.
"They traveled uphill deeper into the old growth forest."
"In your opinion, does that lead into or out of this Bigfoot's territory?"
"Oh, they headed deeper into its territory. And they weren't walking; they were running."
Davis shook his head. "I don't like it. But I don't see that we have any choice. Let’s go pack our gear. The sooner we find Tom and his people; the sooner we can get out of here."
Clint and Jared headed back to camp while Davis and Hugh, however, lingered around the footprint.
"Well, sheriff I'm glad that we are on the same page about this thing now."
"I'd rather still be a skeptic," Davis replied.
"I thought these things weren’t supposed to be violent. We hear stories about people seeing a Bigfoot all the time. But it just runs away."
"PETA would have us believe that all animal human conflict is our fault, and sometimes we are at fault. But sometimes they’re just hungry.”
"You think we can find Tom?"
"If anybody can track his group, Clint can. I just hope we find them soon. I don't want to spend another night out here."
"Amen to that."
Davis began to walk back toward their camp. "I would hate to complete the journey from skeptic to believer to statistic in less than a couple of days."
Hugh frowned.
Tuesday, May 14 10:44 a.m.
The frost covered grass crunched under Davis’ feet as he climbed uphill, each exhalation filled the air in front of his face with a thick fox. The layers underneath the Gore-Tex jacket kept his body heat trapped inside, but the north wind bit into his exposed face. Lungs ached oxygen much more plentiful just a few thousand feet below.
Davis spent the better part of the morning watching Clint lead along a trail that led further away from civilization with every step. The trail started with thick piece of flannel hanging from a large tree; occasional gouges in the soft dirt pointed the direction along with even more infrequent spots of bright red on the ground and about knee level on the brush the fought their way through.
Clint crouched on one knee fingering the soft dirt in the latest Sasquatch footprint when Davis squatted down next to him to get a closer look. "Even I could follow this trail with all of the shoe marks. But why are there so few tracks from the Sasquatch?"
"Looks like he didn’t follow directly behind them. He mostly stayed off to the right or left. And every once in a while he would cross over their trail and follow from the other side. And it looks like he never moved at more than a fast walk."
Davis raised his eyebrows. "You mean this thing can keep up with a man running for his life by walking?"
Hugh quickly added, "And it didn't even walk in a straight line. It was zig zagging the entire time; kind of makes you feel slow, doesn't it?"
Clint stood. “They were running for their lives; Tom was in the back probably helping whoever was bleeding. The people up front had no rhyme or reason to where they were heading. If they had sense, they would have gone downhill. It’s just dumb luck they traveled in a more or less straight line.”
“That sounds like Tom,” Davis said. “He wouldn’t leave anybody behind.”
“Or it could have been herding them a certain direction,” Clint said.
Davis and Hugh looked at each other.
"Can we hurry up and get a move on guys?" Jared spoke for the first time since breakfast.
Davis patted him on the shoulder. "Good idea. Lead the way Clint. I'll take the drag guys. Stay close. I don't want anyone even close to being by themselves."
Each individual Sasquatch print sunk deep into the soft earth like a miniature canyon. Davis moved into the habit of counting the number of tracks he saw in close proximity to the trail they followed. The count started at only one or two tracks, but it rose gradually until a solid line of footprints followed the path left by Tom’s expedition.
"Clint, how close do you thing this thing was following our group at this point?"
"Real close sheriff. I think he was right on top of them. And what's weird is that he’s been that close for the past quarter mile. I can't figure out any….."
Clint stopped speaking in mid sentence and looked very closely at the trail. "The trail suddenly makes a ninety degree turn to the right and our Bigfoot moves from a walk to a dead run."
Hugh said, "But that's completely different than anything he’s done before."
Davis moved in the direction of the running Sasquatch tracks with his double rifle level to the ground. "Hugh and Jared wait here. Clint, we are going to follow this trail for a little bit."
Hugh stepped between the sheriff and the new trail. "I don't like the idea of us splitting up."
"Don't worry Hugh, its daylight and we’re all armed."
"But…."
"No buts. If I don't come back you'll be in charge, and you can decide not to split up."
Hugh frowned while he stepped out of the sheriff’s way.
"Don't worry Hugh; we'll be back in thirty minutes or less."
"Who says I'm worried about you?"
Thick trees quickly isolated Davis and Clint from the waiting Hugh and Jared, but the undergrowth abruptly thinned after the first one hundred yards creating large open areas between the trees.
“Sheriff, what are doing out here?” Clint asked.
Davis shook his head. "Call it
a gut feeling. I have a bad feeling about this trail."
"You mean you have the same bad feeling as me about what we’ll find at the end of it."
"Something that a guy as jittery as Jared doesn't need to see."
Clint just nodded.
The tracks marked a trail flanked by broken branches the diameter of a man’s thigh. Thirty minutes into the hike Davis and Clint silently followed the tracks around the base of a tree large enough to hide a car. Clint immediately turned and staggered away falling to his knees. Davis edged his way around the tree trunk; Clint retched in the background. Davis choked back the bile as he knelt on the ground staring at the shredded human remains scattered on the red ground. No piece larger than a man’s hand remained. The red dyed crime scene stretched across the ground and up the trunk of the tree they just past.
“I’ve,” Davis said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. This took time; this took a lot of time. It makes Jack the Ripper look like a teddy bear.”
Clint forced himself to look back at the shredded body. “Sheriff, look up higher on the tree."
A large red stain marked the tree six feet off the ground; small pieces of bone clung to the bark while the ridges in the center of the mark had been mashed flat.
"Sheriff, I bet he snatched that boy up without breaking stride. He carried him here screaming, and, and...."
"I know Clint, I know."
The two men stood for a few more moments in silence.
“Clint, I studied criminal justice in college. We looked at some of the worst serial killers in this country’s history. And they never even came close to anything like this.”
“This is not natural. Animals don’t act like this. I looks like he reveled in the kill.”
Davis cut his eyes toward Clint. “He what?”