WHERE LEGENDS ROAM

by Lee Murphy

  The Kodiak Books

  WHERE

  LEGENDS

  ROAM

  The Kodiak Books

  WHERE

  LEGENDS

  ROAM

  Lee Murphy

  DEFINING MOMENTS

  Los Angeles

  DEFINING MOMENTS

  P.O. Box 7037

  Van Nuys, CA 91409

  All of the characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Murphy, Lee

  Where legends roam/Lee Murphy

  99-75269

  ISBN 0-9667704-4-7

  Copyright (C) 2000 by Lee Murphy

  All Rights Reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  Edited by Mariana Malkoskie

  Cover design by Mike S. Compter

  DEDICATION

  For me, this book has been has been a gift from God. For this, and the many wonderful people and things in my life, I thank Him.

  This book is also dedicated to my family: Dad, Mom, Dana, Heber, Jay and Mackenzie, who always believed in, and encouraged me, despite having put up with many years of my hair-brained schemes.

  And finally, to Gloria Patterson, the other Mom.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I cannot assume credit for this work on my own. There are many wonderful friends who gave of their time and offered up their best ideas for this project. At best, I was smart enough to listen to them. Because all of their contributions are equally important, I have listed them alphabetically. This is because they are all the best. If there is anybody I have failed to mention, I apologize.

  Michael Bernstein, Tim Bovard, Chris Buccowich, Beverly Burwald, Arlene Busey, Caryl Castleberry, Joe Cocke, Dr. Martin Dinnes, DVM, Charles Fischer, J. Richard Greenwell, Chris Hardt, Dr. John Hartwick, DVM, Scott Johnson, Don Lanning, Jacquie Leger, Carsten Lien, Dr. Roy P. Mackal, Mariana Malkoskie, Michael Martin, Michael Meaker, Steve Melendrez, Stefan Miles, Ronald Miller, Pasquale Moscatello, Cyrena Nouzille, David Patterson, Sam Pitassi, Robert Reid, Christine Richard, Alexis Skriloff, Renee Tedesco, Heidi Wiss.

  The Kodiak Books

  WHERE

  LEGENDS

  ROAM

  Foreword

  by

  Dr. Roy P. Mackal

  This tale, WHERE LEGENDS ROAM, is a novel, a great adventure novel. It is fiction, of course, but very special in a number of ways. The storyline is gripping and fast-moving, and it carries the reader to the very end with a sense of excitement and anticipation for the next page. But many stories have this quality, and they also exhibit a high level of literary skill. This was all I expected when I read Lee Murphy's story. To my amazement and delight, I found much more in the manuscript.

  I found that it was a tale about cryptozoology with a cryptozoologist as the chief protagonist. Cryptozoology is a new name, but not a new science. What is cryptozoology in reality? It is the investigation of, search for and study of unknown living animals which are unexpected in (1) size or shape, or in (2) time or place. The discovery of animals surviving from the past, thought to be extinct since evidence for them ends in the fossil record thousands or millions of years ago, is cryptozoological. Hans Schomburgk's discovery of a species of pygmy hippopotamus in Liberia in 1912 is cryptozoology. As I previously stated, this was part of what zoologists did in the 19th century. No eyebrows were raised, nor was anyone (whether scientist or layperson) vilified due to such activities. Then the cultural climate changed: reports of the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti (or Abominable Snowman) and Bigfoot appeared. A tabloid atmosphere developed: serious cryptozoology was categorized as pseudo-science engaged in only by kooks and flakes. Those who dared to persist were ridiculed, tenure was denied to academic younger career scientists, and even scientists with established reputations and the best of credentials were labeled as having lost their senses.

  As a scientist engaged in cryptozoology, I am happy to report that this situation has at least been partially modified. A key factor in this happy improvement was the founding of the International Society of Cryptozoology at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 1982. I was the co-founder of this organization which consists of about 1000 members, approximately evenly split between scientists and non-professionals. The purpose of the Society is to disseminate accurate, serious, non-tabloid cryptozoological information in a peer-reviewed journal and in four annual newsletters. No longer need people interested in the discovery of new and strange animals rely on cloud-cuckoo land publications.

  Why have I digressed to bring this information about the science of cryptozoology to you, the reader? The reason is that Lee Murphy has incorporated into his exciting adventure novel a true sense of what real cryptozoologists really do, what they feel, their hopes and fears, their successes and failures, their sacrifices, and their rewards, all encased in a marvelously entertaining adventure story. This achievement cannot fail to bring much enjoyment to the reader; it may even result in some readers pursuing cryptozoology in the real world, from an armchair or in a jungle, in ocean depths, or in lost worlds on mountain top plateaus.

  Roy P. Mackal, B.S., Ph.D., D.Sc.

  Hong Kong, 1935

  A goat was loose in the marketplace. It had chewed through the rope that tethered it and was wending its way between the legs of shocked patrons, whose stunned faces elicited laughter from the other people who were milling about.

  Voices here were loud, but not angry, as people bartered for food and other wares, while vendors took chickens from their holding pens and decapitated them in routine fashion without regard to cruelty, or for that matter sanitation, as the severed heads were left in bloody piles at their sandaled feet.

  All along the street cleavers dropped in rhythm to the music of street musicians, as all varieties of animals were butchered for selective patrons. Skinned dogs hung from meat hooks, while across the way a vendor expertly peeled the skin from a cat in one deft, fluid move. Other tables offered a selection of body parts: piles of chicken feet, dog heads, pig ears, and even ox entrails. Nothing was wasted of any animal.

  As foreigners were a rarity in this part of the world, a lone Dutch scientist turned many heads as he maneuvered through the ebb and flow of jostling peasantry. He was a short man, not much taller than the people around him. Preoccupied with other matters, he was oblivious to the excitement his presence was causing, merely because his skin, hair, and features were different from theirs.

  People pointed at him, gesticulating excitedly as though they might be trying to ward him off, while others came up to him boldly, brandishing their goods; hand-crafted jewelry and various wood items, all beautiful and fetching, but of no interest to him. He simply pressed on through the barrage of faces, waving them away with a polite smile and nod. Looking past the curiosity seekers, his eyes scanned the buildings, deciphering the Chinese characters on walls and signs for one specific place.

  A large following had formed around him when he noticed a peculiar item in the front window of a building that was otherwise indistinguishable from the rest. As he walked over to it, another vendor reached into a wooden barrel and proffered two handfuls of squirming live eels that brushed against his khaki shirt. The Dutchman ignored this as he shaded his eyes with his hand and pressed his face up against the glass to reduce the daylight glare, so he could get a better look at the mummified orangutan's head that was on display.

  This was the place.

  He went inside where the late afternoon sunlight filtered through billions of airborne dust particles, giving the room an ethereal quality. Wind chimes made of delicate sea shells tinkled i
n the warm breeze, and the room smelled of incense and tea that brewed in another room. But the Dutchman's senses were more attuned to the smell of rock and bones-- the very things that attracted him to this apothecary where potions, powders, and various extracts were derived from thousands of organic materials.

  Hundreds of small ceramic bottles filled with dried mushrooms, flowers, herbs, and roots covered the back wall of the tiny store. Animal pelts hung from the ceiling, their internal organs pickled in glass jars to remain fresh, or dehydrated to be pulverized at a later time, depending upon their usage.

  These apothecaries were also wonderful sources of material for people like this Dutchman, who had come here in his search for the origins of humankind and to look for as yet undiscovered species of prehistoric life. The Chinese were notorious for excavating thousands of tons of fossils, calling them dragons' bones, and grinding them into powders that would serve as medicines and aphrodisiacs.

  On this particular day, though as yet unaware of it, the Dutchman was about to make such a discovery.

  He'd been through dozens of these apothecaries in places like Java, Borneo, and Sumatra, and it was in the Philippines that he discovered the first fossil orangutan teeth. When he inquired as to their place of origin, he was directed to this place in Hong Kong.

  During his initial search through the deep, dusty drawers and massive wooden cases that filled the shop, he found the same things he had encountered in other apothecaries: more orangutan teeth, some pieces of a tusk, and the partial skull of some long-extinct rodent. He found some pieces from the jaw of Ailuropoda, the giant panda, and the teeth of Stegodon, an extinct elephant. There were even teeth from Homo erectus, the earliest hominid known to have existed in Asia.

  He gingerly continued to go through the loose piles of fossils that had been dumped without care, not wanting to miss anything of significance, when he came upon something extraordinary.

  It looked like a human tooth, a molar, but was more than six times the size of any human tooth previously known to exist. Upon closer examination, he saw that it was flatter than a human molar, with low crowns and thick enamel ideal for grinding heavy vegetation like bamboo. Was this the tooth of an ape? If it was, it belonged to an anthropoid ape far more gigantic than any known species-- even the recently discovered mountain gorilla of Africa.

  His heartbeat accelerated with the thrill of a new discovery as he took the tooth out of the drawer and held it into the light for a better look. It was a lower third molar, and the yellowish deposits within its pulp cavities indicated that it was originally found in some cave or fissure that had protected it from the harsh tropical elements.

  He visualized what such an animal must have looked like. The American film King Kong had only been released two years earlier, and the screen image of that monster ape seemed a-not-so-unrealistic analogy. Of course, the animal this tooth had once been a part of was no monster. It had lived alongside the panda and the orangutan, peacefully filling the niche nature had intended it for. A monster only in size, and perhaps in appearance-- at least to the simpleminded-- majestic was how the Dutch scientist would have described this animal.

  In his mind's eye he could imagine a dozen family groups feeding in a field of bamboo, their black fur shining under the Asian sun, with the big males intently watching the females and the young as they play and explore. They were just like gorillas, only twice the size of any known species of that great ape.

  To have become extinct, as this species had, could only have been at the hands of early man. Cognizant thought had given the human species an unequaled advantage; the ability to form ideas that made the human animal a cunning predator. A single specimen of this large ape would provide a tribe of humans with plenty of meat and fat, as well as a thick pelt to protect them from the elements.

  The Dutchman spent the next several hours on an exhaustive search, going through all the other drawers and cases of bones hoping to find another one of these magnificent teeth, if not something more. But he was unable to find anything that compared to the tooth which he assigned to this unknown primate of magnificent proportions.

  Finally, he went over to the open doorway and held the fossil between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, letting the sun glint off its ancient brown surface like some priceless jewel.

  His name was G.H. Ralph Von Koenigswald, and he had just discovered the first evidence of the largest ape to have ever roamed the earth.

  He had discovered Gigantopithecus.

  The Cryptozoologist

  George Kodiak was born and raised in Hell. Hell, Michigan, to be exact.

  One hundred and thirty-five feet down in the lake behind his house, a two hundred-foot sink hole bore the fossil remains of animals from the Pleistocene and Miocene epochs, more than ten million years ago.

  His attention was fixed on a fourteen-inch circle of yellow light that shone from the lamp atop his head, upon a jagged limestone wall that was blanketed under a layer of slimy algae that whipped and danced with each languid wave of his hand.

  In the center of the wall, an eye socket large enough to house a cantaloupe protruded through the slime. Twenty inches below that, a shattered stump was all that remained of a mighty tusk that had long ago disintegrated after this animal had died and become entombed in the rock. After more than three months of excavating by hand with various tools and dental instruments, the Mastodon skull was still more than two-thirds buried in the rock.

  This was the most recent of hundreds of animal fossils the sink hole had yielded that included several species of extinct deer, saber-tooth cats, and giant sloths. He had even found the mummified remains of an early Asian immigrant who had been buried beneath a limestone shelf when this sink hole was still above ground before the ice age.

  This was as much a home to him as anywhere else in the world. Not so much the depths of this sink hole, but the time in history which it represented. The Mastodon and the other animals down here were familiar to him as individual beings-- friends from another life. But they had all gone on to the next dimension, and he was still trapped in this world, a stranger disconnected to other human beings in ways he never fully understood.

  George Kodiak was something of a celebrity, albeit a reluctant one, having become famous for a series of books he had written on his field of expertise: cryptozoology, the study of hidden and unknown animals. His books were all internationally famous, each based upon his experiences searching for such creatures as the Sasquatch, the Loch Ness Monster, and dozens of other animal anomalies reputed to exist, but denied by the scientific community at large.

  Peace and solace were found in solitude. The only sounds now were the hiss of the air regulator in his mouth and the roar of bubbles that were expelled in the continuous rhythm of his breathing.

  Kodiak checked his pressure gauge and saw that he had enough air left to allow for decompression. It had been a long day, and the water was getting steadily colder. Despite a physical body that could still serve him exceptionally well, there could be no doubt that he was getting old. Soon his joints and the old cracks in his bones would ache like hell and remind him that he was not a young man.

  ***

  Wayne Monroe had never been to Hell, and trying to find it proved to be far from simple. All he had to go on was that it was a small town with a population of less than a thousand people, located some forty miles northwest of Detroit. Ann Arbor was roughly twenty miles closer in the same direction, but nobody he spoke to in either of those cities had even heard of it. He ended up buying a map when he rented the BMW coupe at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, and in less than an hour he was stopped at a badly weathered and bullet-ridden city limits sign that read:

  HELL, MICHIGAN

  aptly named

  Wayne was a five-foot, six-inch-tall cowboy born and bred in the heart of Texas, with a pushbroom mustache, lamb chop sideburns, and a gold and jeweled belt buckle that, on him, looked like it was the size of a dinner plate.

  "Jus
t how well do you know him, anyway?" Ron Pearl had to holler to be heard over the car's engine, which had been poorly treated by previous renters and was in dire need of a tune-up.

  Wayne had one of those sonorous voices that he didn't have to raise to be heard above the engine's din or the rushing wind. He had spent the last twenty-three years working in New York, but he never lost the trademark drawl that made words like "fine" sound like "fahn." "Not all that well, really. George is a good enough guy, but anybody who ever really knew him is dead."

  Hell was not an altogether bad place; a rustic town that was spread along a five-mile stretch of road among open, rolling hills. They passed one bank, two service stations, various diners and private businesses. Pearl thought they played the devil thing up a bit much, as it was a common caricature that was used all over town on signs and painted on storefront windows.

  Wayne Monroe was Kodiak's literary agent. And the fact that Wayne was naturally gregarious and business-minded didn't leave a great deal for the two men to have in common. Except for the books. Despite their differences, they were good for each other's careers. Kodiak even had a major following, in spite of himself. He rarely gave interviews, and not many people even knew what he looked like, except when his picture showed up on the cover of Discover magazine. His picture never appeared on any of his book jackets, and all his bios ever said about him was that George Kodiak was born and raised in Hell, Michigan.