Nighthawk

by Alan Monroe

  Davis sat on the floor in the rear of the cave with his back against the wall. On his right sat Hugh, and on the other side Tom Roundtree. Jared and Rachael sat close to Dr. Smith occasionally checking on his broken leg; Clint actually managed to fall asleep on the rocky floor.

  Davis was content the Sasquatch seemed willing to leave them alone, for the moment anyway. The rock throwing and howling ceased almost as soon as they entered the shelter of the cave. Davis did not even see the need to post a guard at the front of the cave while most of them were still awake. Anything that entered the mouth of the cave could easily be fended off from the rear of the cave with the number of weapons they carried. If anything, the narrow confines of the cave almost ensured a clean kill as soon as something entered the cave opening. They would be in more danger in the forest where they could not see past the trees only a few feet away.

  Jared and Clint managed to build a stretcher for Dr. Smith from the pieces of their small tent. They both seemed to think that the stretcher would be suitable for the trip down the mountain. It would not, however, allow for a fast trip down the mountain. Jared said the antibiotics should keep the leg free of infection, but the leg needed specific treatment in the next two days.

  Davis knew the rain effectively ended any chance of Thomas’s relief team driving up the firebreak from Nighthawk. On foot, the time line for the arrival of the relief deputies had been pushed back several days. They would either be safely out of the forest before the relief team did them any good or dead before they ever made their way up to the old growth forest. And with the satellite phone busted, Davis could not even communicate their current situation to the undersheriff.

  Davis had spent some time comparing his best guess at their location with the location of the vehicles at the firebreak. It had taken Clint, Hugh, Jared, and himself just over one and a half days to hike to the cave where Roundtree’s group had found shelter, but their route had been anything but a straight line. Simply based on pure distance, Davis believed they could hike back to the vehicles in less than a full day if they could follow a straight line path through the timber.

  Variables saturated his mental timeline for their trip off the mountain. They could leave early in the morning, if it stopped raining by then. Even if it did stop raining, they needed to travel through fresh mud. And Davis had no idea what kind of terrain they would encounter. The straight line route Davis had planned could hold obstacles that would be impassable in bad or good weather. Not to mention two or three very angry Sasquatch that might do everything in their power to keep Davis from leading his people out of the old growth forest.

  After being lost in thought for what seemed like hours, Davis finally spoke. “Know you enemy.”

  Roundtree raised an eyebrow. “What’s that, sheriff?”

  “Sun Tzu said, ‘Know your enemy,’” Davis said.

  Hugh said, “He also said ‘Know yourself.’”

  Davis smiled. “I know myself. I don’t know anything about Bigfoot. Tom, do you still have that digital camera?”

  Roundtree handed him the camera, and Davis walked toward Dr. Smith squatting down next to the professor. “Doc, would you like to see a picture of the Sasquatch we shot earlier today?”

  The professor brightened and slowly pushed himself into a low sitting position with his elbows. “Yes, despite all that has happened I would still like to see the creature.”

  “Let me warn you. This is anything but pretty.”

  Dr. Smith leaned his back against the cave wall and began to scroll through the pictures Roundtree had taken earlier in the day. The corners of his mouth turned further downward with every tap of his thumb on the scroll button. Davis closely studied the doctor’s reaction only to see the light fade from the once excited professor’s eyes. Finally, Dr. Smith set the camera down on the rocky floor of the cave and simply stared at the back wall.

  Davis allowed the professor several minutes to mentally process the pictures he had viewed. “What do you think Doc?”

  The old man's voice cracked when he finally spoke. “We have not discovered Sasquatch."

  Davis stood up. “What do you mean?”

  “We have discovered an abomination of nature.”

  Roundtree, after hearing the despair in his friend’s voice, came closer. “You’ll have to explain this to us, Doc. We don’t understand.”

  Smith snapped his head towards his young friend. “It’s perfectly clear. I was right about everything. Logging and mining activity forced one or more Sasquatch family groups to retreat to this area of old growth forest. However, when the logging and mining activity in this area stopped, they never expanded out of this relatively small area. And the result has been generation after generation of inbreeding. That accounts for the massive deformity. They have been hiding in this area for years, and anytime a human being invades their territory, they react violently. I would guess that there has also been a breakdown in the family structure. The young are not cared for as they should be. That explains the haggard and malnourished appearance of that thing in the pictures. Even if they used to be Sasquatch, they are not anymore. They are something else." Smith paused, "Something unintended.”

  Davis crossed his arms over his chest. “I need your best guess Doc. What can we expect from these things?”

  Dr. Smith lay down on his side and turned his back on Davis and Roundtree. “I have seen nothing that could make me believe the level of violence and antagonism will decrease. If anything, these creatures will grow more violent as we attempt to leave.”

  Davis and Roundtree moved away from the sullen professor; they were quickly joined by Hugh and Clint who had been listening at a distance.

  Davis let out a slow whistle as he ran his hand through his hair. “That is just about the worst news I have ever heard.”

  Hugh said, “Do you think he was on the level? The guy is hurt. He could have been talking crazy.”

  Tom shook his head. “I don’t think so Hugh. He’s a brilliant man. He has always had an easier time analyzing data than relating to other people. If anything, the analytical part of his mind is working in overdrive. I bet everything he told us is correct.”

  Davis nodded as he spoke. “I have to agree with Tom. Now we need to focus on getting out of here. Do we have any suggestions?”

  Hugh and Tom stared at each other.

  “Why does he always ask us that?” Roundtree asked.

  “He always knows what he’s going to do before he asks us,” Hugh replied.

  Clint smiled. “But he's always right from what I hear.”

  “Why yes, yes, I am. We leave at first light. We take a straight line path from the cave to the fire break where we left the trucks. Hopefully we can make it in one day. I don’t need to spend another night out here. Clint you’ll take point; set a fast pace. Tom, you and Rachael will follow next. Hugh, since you’re so big and healthy, you get to help Jared with the stretcher.”

  “Thanks,” Hugh said sarcastically.

  Davis looked at Hugh. “Sorry Hugh. You’re big enough and strong enough to move that stretcher faster than anybody else. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be in the back trying to make sure that Bigfoot doesn’t sneak up on us.”

  Hugh put his hand on his old friend’s shoulder and smiled. “I’m just giving you a hard time. Of course, you will be carrying that elephant gun."

  The crooked smile worked its way across Davis' face. “Yes I will.”

  Clint stepped forward. “I know the phone is busted, but is there any chance that Thomas can get a rescue party up here.”

  Davis shook his head. “This rain is going to turn that fire break into one long mud pit. There is no way they’ll be able to drive up it. We’ll be doing well if we can manage a controlled slide down to the bottom. Best case scenario, we might meet them a few miles from the bottom.”

  A very nervous Rachael had heard their conversation and moved in closer. “What about a helicopter?”

  These were the first
words that Davis had heard come out of the frightened girl’s mouth. “I’m sorry, but the winds in this area are too strong and too unpredictable.”

  The girl slowly moved to the back of the cave and began to cry.

  Davis said a silent prayer for the girl before he spoke. “Let’s get some rest. I’ll take the first watch. Hugh, I’ll wake you at midnight. Then you wake Clint at about three.”

  As each man moved to different parts of the cave, Davis found himself staring out the mouth of the cave into the rainy night; he could still hear the young girl crying far behind him. He heard the snores of a frightened young paramedic who had still managed to do his duty. He could hear the rest of his friends trying to find a tolerable spot to sleep on the rocky cave floor. His eyes bored a hole through the wall of rain into the dark night.

  Wednesday, May 15 11:48 p.m.

  She held the long cigarette between her lips by the merest fraction of an inch; smoke trailed across the room behind her while she carried a stack of folders. Fifty years of employment at the Okanogan Times made her the senior staff member even beyond the editor. She exhaled smoke between yellow teeth without stopping her raspy voiced version of “Roxanne” or removing the cigarette. A large puff of smoke left her mouth and obscured the no smoking sign, but the queen of the Pit had ignored the sign since Dale first posted it twenty years earlier.

  All of the paper’s back issues were kept on microfilm and some microfiche in this underground repository. Irene spent five or six days a week in the dark cold cellar of the newspaper building listening to the huge printing press running through the concrete floor over her head. File cabinets and storage bins covered the floors and the walls; only a wooden table with three chairs avoided the chaos that covered the rest of the Pit. Thomas sat in one of the chairs staring into the microfiche reader’s black and white screen while Dale adjusted the speed at which the microfilm ran through another machines spinning wheels.

  “Set those down over here Irene,” the editor said.

  “Sure Dale,” she said in a deep guttural voice followed by a cough.

  “Thanks Irene," Thomas said.

  “No problem, Howie.”

  Thomas sat up and ground his teeth for a moment. "Please don't call me Howie."

  She put her hands on her hips as she spoke. “Now why not? You two grew up playing with my sons which means I’m old enough to be your mother. I’ll call you two whatever I want to. You’ve got all the Sunday papers on film since the paper was founded in 1910. All you need to do is look on the front page for anything weird. I’m going outside to burn one away from the noise of that whining microfilm reader; let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Thanks Irene,” Dale said.

  “I expect overtime for this work,” she said as she walked up the rickety stairs.

  “You’re one of a kind Irene,” her boss said.

  Thomas rubbed his eyes. “We've been at this for hours.”

  “I know,” Dale said. “I'm beat too.”

  The microfilm reader whirred as Thomas forwarded to another front page. “There is some information on Bigfoot sightings around Nighthawk, but nothing stands out.”

  “I'm with you Howard. I haven’t seen anything that‘s of real use so far.”

  “I've got to head back to the station in about an hour or so. The boys will be ready to head up to Nighthawk shortly.”

  Dale reached into the new box of microfilm that Irene just sat on a table. He picked up a roll of microfilm still sealed in its factory packaging.

  “This is strange,” Dale said.

  “What is it?”

  “This case of microfilm has never been opened before.”

  “Why's that so weird?”

  “Standard policy here has always been to review all miniaturized documents as soon as they arrive. We have to make sure that there are no mistakes. Of course, now everything goes right on computer; stinks for the microfilm companies.”

  “What's the title?” asked Thomas.

  “Apparently it’s a list of obituaries by geographic region in the county.”

  “Why would someone want that information?”

  Dale shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Probably some type of package deal from the microfilm company. Apparently this covers from 1910 until 1980. Could be an attempt to get similar types of information on the same piece of film. Looks like it lists people in multiple ways including based on where they died.”

  Thomas walked over to Dale’s microfilm reader. “Put it in and see if what we get on Nighthawk. Can't be that much; there have never been that many people living up there."

  Thirty minutes later the two men sat glued to the screen examining the same piece of film; neither one had spoken a single word.

  Thomas licked his dry lips. “I can’t believe what I’m reading here.”

  “This is amazing. I've never seen anything like this in thirty years as a journalist.”

  Thomas pointed at the screen. “We have gone from 1910 up to 1950 so far and I have counted forty-two missing persons and ten violent and fatal bear attacks within a five mile radius of Nighthawk.”

  “Statistically,” said Dale. “There are probably more that that number that went unreported during that forty year span.”

  “One reported missing person per year doesn't sound that bad at first, but this is just the number that made it to the newspaper. There had to be a lot more that didn’t make it into the paper.”

  “There wasn't a lot of law enforcement around here during the first half of the century either. There was probably no one to report it to.”

  “And the bear attacks…….”

  “I know. These are the fatal bear attack where there was enough left to tell there was an attack.”

  Thomas pointed at the screen again. “The vast majority of these cases occurred when people ventured onto Little Chopaka Mountain.”

  Dale started to pace the room. “Something bad has been going on up there for a long time.”

  “All the obits say the same thing. Died in the area of Little Chopaka Mountain, missing in the area of Little Chopaka Mountain.”

  “That’s a small area too. No way there should be that much death associated with it.”

  “If Nighthawk had not become a ghost town in the fifties, we would have picked up on this pattern. We would have known something was going on.”

  “How many people did Davis say had died?” Dale asked.

  “Two from Tom’s expedition had died last time I talked to the sheriff, and they died bad.”

  “Well, the mountain is averaging more than one per year now.”

  “They found a third body, but it had been tied to a tree for years.”

  Dale looked puzzled. “What? You didn’t tell me about that.”

  “Sorry. The first body they found was from the guy who kidnapped the Chase girl a few years back.”

  “What was that about it being tied to a tree?”

  “It was ripped in half. And both pieces were tied pretty high up a tree. The sheriff said it was like a warning to anyone who came from Nighthawk. A keep out sign.”

  “Three of the bear attacks mention the body being in two pieces. Howard, I don’t know if there is a Sasquatch on that mountain, but something up there sure wants to be left alone. It’s been killing a lot of people for a long time.”

  “I have got to get the sheriff off that mountain.”

  Undersheriff Howard Thomas sprinted up the rickety spiral staircase on his way back to the police station.

  Thursday, May 15 12:40 a.m.

  Wallace’s eyes snapped open; sweat seeped from his pores again. He slowly moved his hand to the edge of the tarp near his face gently pulling it back so he could look down at the base of the tree. Rain and darkness obscured the ground; after several moments of peering through the night, he exhaled a deep breath and brought his head back under the tarp.

  Water dripped off his face while both hands gripped the heavy gold nugget sitting i
n his lap. He pulled a small flashlight from his hip pocket and shinned it on the gold; the bright light reflected off the nugget and filled the area under the tarp with a golden luster. Wallace polished the nugget with what was left of his dirty shirt and caressed the grooves in shiny surface with his fingertips.

  He pulled his canteen from his belt and took a long drink of warm water; despite its bitter dirty taste, the moisture managed to return a measure of strength to his body. The bag of peanuts he removed from another pocket crunched between his teeth, but they carried the taste of a four course meal. Knotty clumps of bark ground into his spine, and he shifted his position away from the center of the limb. The sneer spread across his face between peanuts as he played with the reflection of the light off the surface of the gold.

  A soft slapping sound began to fight its way through the pouring rain into Wallace’s ears; he turned his head toward the noise noticing that its volume continued to increase. The slapping grew to a rhythmic pounding sound of ever increasing frequency in the water covered dirt until individual sounds ran together like the sound of an approaching freight train. The small flashlight began to shake in his hand until he finally switched it to off and tucked the tarp close around his head.

  Vibrations ran through the trunk of the tree all the way through Wallace’s spine into the fillings within his teeth as something slammed into the base of his sanctuary. A roar pierced the night air causing Wallace to drop the flashlight and cover his ears; the small light tumbled to the ground with its switch landing on a root reigniting the bulb. Only the faintest speck of light was visible on the ground from under the tarp, and a large shadow loomed in front of the minor illumination.