by Lee Murphy
From inside the kitchen they heard Norm's voice rise in anger, followed by a vicious slap, then Letitia whimpering.
Kodiak said, "Which side?"
Montagna ignored the remark. "You don't know what Norm has to put up with from that useless sow. She starts lipping off about one damn thing or another, so old Norm whacks her a good one across the mouth. Sometimes that's the only way to keep them in line. Like you never struck a woman?"
"So what's the story on this Ruth you were talking about back at the airport?"
Montagna took a sip of beer, hesitating. Then he said, "She's Norm's mother-in-law. And I don't mind telling you, she's bad news. Norm's crazy about her, but to tell you the truth, she scares me."
"Does she know how Norm treats her daughter?"
"Does she know? Ruth treated her worse than Norm ever has. You want to know how Letitia and Norm got together? Ruth sold her to him. He's forty years older than Letitia. It's like a psycho version of Fred and Ethel Mertz."
"And just what is it about Ruth that has you so shaken up?"
"Norm calls her Ruth-less. And that's exactly what she is. She's more animal than human, if you ask me." He took a hard drink of beer, like he was trying to rinse a bad taste from his mouth. "She's meaner than hell, Kodiak. She's just... I don't know. She's just..."
There was another slap from the kitchen, then Norm came out, his Neandertal face flushed, running his fingers through his greasy hair to get it out of his eyes, only to have it flop right back down. "Afraid we're stuck with stew." He took his place at the head of the dining room table.
Kodiak and Montagna joined him and waited in silence as Letitia came out and set before each of them a plate that was piled high with an incredible looking meal that made Kodiak's mouth water.
Kodiak was the only one to thank her as she served lunch. She simply nodded, holding a bloodied napkin to her nose. When she finished serving lunch, she went back into the kitchen not to be seen again. As they ate, Kodiak secretly hoped that she would come charging back out, brandishing a butcher's knife and bury it deep into old Norm's chest. Hell, he thought, I'd even hold him for her. But Letitia remained hidden as per Norm's orders.
When they finished eating Norm farted, then took the plates one at a time and threw them against the wall, shattering them. "Let's go, gents."
They went outside and headed toward the second cinder block building-- the one where Norm kept the teenage boys. Halfway there, something lunged at them with startling ferocity. Had it not been chained to a tree, the Pit Bull would have jumped on Montagna and ripped his throat out. Montagna and Kodiak jumped back, and Norm laughed out loud.
"I see you still have Goliath." Montagna's voice trembled, making Norm laugh even harder.
The dog was bred strictly for fighting; its face and body were mangled from old wounds, and its right hind leg was bent and atrophied, almost sideways.
"Old Goliath's been retired, I'm afraid. He went after some woman a couple months ago and tore her leg up pretty good. She was threatening to sue me and have him put to sleep."
Montagna seemed genuinely stunned by this news and said, "What did you do?"
"I threatened right back. I got a couple buddies to drop in on her uninvited like." Norm started laughing again. "They sodomized her old man right in front of her and told her they were both gonna die if she didn't drop the suit. Guess what? She dropped the suit." Norm kept laughing as he walked over to the second cinder block building and opened the steel door.
He flipped on a light, and Kodiak saw that this was an armory. The wall across from the door was lined with all sorts of automatic weapons. He wasn't up on the makes, but he knew that most, if not all of them, had to be illegal. They were displayed on the wall like trophies, all in mint condition.
On another wall there were posters of Adolf Hitler and red flags bearing the Nazi swastika. Beneath these was a workbench where Norm did repair work and loaded his own ammunition. Over the bench were several framed photographs. Norm noticed Kodiak was intently looking at the shots, making Norm smile like a teenage boy looking through his first Playboy. "Memory lane, huh, Kodiak?"
These pictures brought back some ugly memories for Kodiak of his time in Korea. They were all black and white photos taken of Norm and his combat buddies standing over their victims. One picture was of young Norm holding a severed head.
There were more pictures on the wall; color photos from Norm's days with the ADC-- Animal Damage Control. This was a government agency formed to hunt predatory animals that haunted ranches and threatened livestock. There were reports that the agency had been allowing hunters to go beyond just killing the occasional mountain lion or coyote, as they were literally wiping out hundreds of these animals. A picture of Norm standing beside a small mountain of severed cougar heads attested to this.
A three-foot wall separated the workshop from a firing range that took up the rest of the building. Three paper targets of human silhouettes were hung from pulley lines at the opposite end of the range, in front of a twenty-four-inch-thick reinforced wall that would stop the high-powered rounds that were usually fired in here.
Norm walked up to Kodiak holding a large caliber machine gun. "This is my new baby. German MG-32, the first version. When I got her, she was missing a few parts and the firing pin was bent, but I had a go at her and now... care to give her a try?"
Kodiak looked at the way Norm cradled the weapon in his arms and said, "You fondle that thing like somebody who's never had a girlfriend."
Montagna grunted, holding back a laugh, and Norm glared at him.
"All right. How's this for somebody who's never had a girlfriend?" Norm pointed the machine gun at the targets. Kodiak plugged his ears and stepped back from the barrel, which was right next to his head.
Norm fired at all three of the targets, making a straight line where all their throats would be. Two of the targets were cut off and fell to the floor. He lowered the weapon and glowered at Kodiak. "Beat that."
Kodiak took the gun, felt its weight, then spun around, the barrel suddenly aiming directly into Norm's stunned face. Norm stumbled out of the way, and Kodiak fired at a poster of Hitler, blasting away all of Der Fuhrer's face, leaving only his ears.
Norm and Montagna took their fingers from their ears and squinted to see the poster through the gunsmoke. When it cleared, they were speechless.
Kodiak tossed the gun back at Norm. "You're right. It's a hell of a weapon."
Norm didn't say anything. He just put the machine gun away.
Kodiak saw several leather collars with radio transmitters attached to them hanging over the retaining wall. He recognized them from his days as an agent for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. They were worn by animals that had to be tracked for various reasons.
Norm saw him looking at them and said, "A few years ago the government was getting freaked out that poachers were gonna wipe out the black bear population. They attached these radio collars to the bears so they could keep tabs on them. The damnedest part was, all we had to do was home in on the same frequency to track 'em down and blow 'em away!" Norm and Montagna both laughed.
Kodiak was familiar with the black bear poachers. These bears were usually killed for the same reasons any big game animal is hunted; for their pelts and for trophies. But the big money came from selling their gallbladders to Korea for their supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac value. There were twelve collars hanging from the ceiling, representing a dozen murdered bears.
They got back into Norm's urine-smelling International wagon and drove to the Bremerton Ferry in downtown Seattle. Once they were on board, Norm pulled out a six pack of Old Milwaukee. He and Montagna stayed in the car to drink, but Kodiak had to get some fresh air, so he went up on deck.
It was a little after two o'clock, and the sun was still high up in the sky. The cool breeze off the water felt good, so he leaned up against the forward gunwale and breathed in the fresh, salt air.
After fifteen minutes he had to turn
his back to the wind, but he wasn't ready to get back in the wagon with Montagna and Norm. There were five other people on the deck; a family of four that looked like they were tourists from out of state, and a woman who was standing by herself, looking out at the ocean, oblivious to everyone else.
She was beautiful; fairly tall and lean, with long auburn hair that cascaded down past her shoulders and shone in the sunlight. She wore a loose-fitting wind-breaker, with khaki slacks that fit snugly around her shapely hips and thighs. She was turned too far away from him to make eye contact, but he wasn't bold enough to approach a woman he didn't know, so he just leaned back and admired her this way until she went inside the cabin.
***
When the ferry docked, Kodiak got back into Norm's wagon and they took Washington Interstate 3 to Interstate 106, which took them to U.S. 101. That circled around the Olympic Peninsula and took them to the town of Red Fern located seven miles south of the Strait of Juan De Fuca, on the outskirts of Olympic National Park.
In order to keep up with changing times, the town of Red Fern was undergoing a face-lift. Much of the town was under reconstruction, expanding to accommodate the large numbers of people who were coming out this way every year.
The Red Fern Lodge was one of the few places in town that was, so far, being left as it had originally been built: a redwood building that boasted fifteen modest and inexpensive motel rooms. But its main attraction was the Red Fern Tavern, a bar, grill, and dance hall that was all part of the same structure. It was also the only source of nightlife for miles around, so the locals, tourists, and lately, the dozens of construction workers contracted to rebuild the town, spent all their evenings there.
Kodiak, Montagna, and Norm arrived at the lodge a few hours before sunset and checked into their rooms. Kodiak's room was sparse in furnishings with one twin bed, a dresser and nightstand. The basic decor was circa 1949 western, complete with a yellowed painting of a cattle drive hung over the bed.
After a hot shower and a change of clothes (the urine smell of Norm's wagon had permeated his clothing), he decided to call Wayne Monroe in New York, where it was after midnight. But Wayne wouldn't care, as he was up till nearly three every morning.
"Hello?"
"Wayne."
"George, how was your trip? Are you at the lodge?"
"Yeah, we got here half an hour ago."
"And?"
"So far, no good."
"What's wrong?"
"You'd love this guy Cocke. He makes Montagna look like a solid citizen."
"Oh, no..."
"Yeah. And now I'm supposed to go over to the tavern and meet three more of them."
"You still want to hang around?"
"I think it's better if I stick with this. My overall feeling is that these guys are too stupid to catch anything more than a good dose of the clap. But just the same, I want to make sure they don't get lucky. I'll give you a call when we get back."
"There is some good news," Wayne added.
"What's that?"
"Pittman's check cleared. You're four-point-five million dollars richer."
Kodiak smiled and said, "Do me a favor, Wayne. Deposit it in the Loch Ness account." Then another thought came to him, something that had been bothering him all day. "There is one other thing, Wayne..."
"Name it."
"This Cocke's got a wife just outside of Seattle. Actually she's little more than a sex receptacle. Anyway, he's got her beaten down pretty good, and unless something is done to get her out of there, he's either gonna kill her, or she's gonna do him and spend the rest of her life in prison."
Wayne's concern for this was apparent in his voice. "What do you want me to do, George?"
"With Cocke out here with us, that will give you a few days to see this woman. Her name's Letitia. Go and see if you can't do something to get her out of there before he comes back. It will be at least a week. Take fifty-thousand dollars and put it into a special account just for her. See if you can set her up someplace safe."
Wayne said, "That's noble, George. And I'll be happy to do it. I'll set out first thing tomorrow."
"Thanks, Wayne. I owe you."
The Red Fern Tavern was almost as dark inside as the night was outside. Creedence Clearwater Revival performed Born On The Bayou full-blast on the juke box, and the place was extremely busy with people both on the dance floor and in the lounge. The floor was covered with sawdust, and the redwood walls were decorated with animal trophies that included the heads of bear, buffalo, moose, and full body mounts of fish, racoons, and rattlesnakes.
Kodiak came in and made his way past the bar that divided the dining area from the sunken dance floor, and could barely hear Montagna when he called to him from a booth on the far side of the tavern.
There were five people in the booth, talking and having drinks. When Kodiak walked over they all stopped talking and looked up at him. Norm and Montagna were here, with a large bearded man who looked something like a pissed-off Santa Claus, a younger man in his twenties, and the auburn-haired woman from the Bremerton Ferry. The pissed-off Santa stood up and extended his hand. "George Kodiak. This is a real pleasure. I'm Ben Tyler." Santa actually seemed like a nice guy in spite of the natural scowl of his features. "Did you hear Bugs Bunny admitted to being a homosexual?"
"What?"
"Oh, no." The woman hung her head, obviously having heard this one before.
Ben smiled at her, then looked back at Kodiak. "Now we really know what's up Doc!"
Everyone laughed, and Kodiak shook Ben's hand. Montagna said, "Ben is the head of a local Bigfoot awareness organization..."
Ben interjected, "The Sasquatch-Gigantopithecus Resource and Information Center."
Montagna continued, "Ben and his people spend their weekends and vacations looking for something that might lead to positive proof of the Sasquatch's existence."
Tyler was still standing when he turned to the others in his group and introduced them. "This is Dave Bovard," he pointed to the young guy, who nodded, sizing Kodiak up with juvenile hostility.
Tyler then pointed to the woman. "And this is Cyrena DeVarona." She stood and shook Kodiak's hand. "How do you do? I've read some of your books. I think they're very interesting."
"Thanks."
Tyler sat back down and scooted over, making a space for Kodiak. "Sit down, please. What are you drinking?"
There were two pitchers of beer on the table that everyone had been drinking from except Cyrena, who was drinking iced tea. "Beer's fine."
Tyler poured Kodiak a glass and set it down in front of him.
Kodiak looked at Montagna and Norm. Montagna had maintained his phoney air of being just one of the boys, but Norm was sullen, clearly unhappy about these people having joined the expedition.
Cyrena looked at Kodiak and smiled. She was even prettier up close, and had an infectious smile. Her auburn hair had some silver in it that caught the light like it did on the ferry and gave it a radiant quality. She was probably in her forties, and had obviously lived right. Her eyes were her most captivating feature; they were wide and the same shade of green as ripe grapes. She was coolly appraising him with those eyes, and he could see she was also capable of great compassion and humor.
Kodiak said to Ben, "How long have you been in this business?"
"Twenty-three years, on and off. I don't make a living at it, since we're a nonprofit organization. I run a small print shop in Seattle, and I operate our headquarters from there."
"You ever seen one?"
Ben's eyes took on a dreamy quality as he seemed to look through Kodiak. "No. God, would I love to. The closest I ever came was about ten years ago. I was actually tracking Cripple-foot."
Cripple-foot was something of a legend in Sasquatch lore. Its footprints had first been seen in Bossburg, Washington, in 1969. A set of footprints was discovered measuring seventeen inches in length, making them some of the largest such prints ever photographed or cast in plaster. What made these prints part
icularly spectacular was that the right foot was deformed. According to physical anthropologists who studied the casts, it was determined that the foot had probably been injured in the animal's youth, and it was a deformity that would be very difficult to fake without expert knowledge of the foot's anatomy. Cripple-foot's prints had reportedly been seen in years since, in some instances as far as a hundred miles from Bossburg.
Kodiak was impressed. "I take it you cast the prints you came across?"
Ben sat up a little straighter, smiling with pride. "Of course."
Kodiak said, "I've got some of the original Bossburg casts back home. Maybe after we get back we can compare them."
Ben nodded. "I'd like that."
Montagna said to Ben, "In the meantime, what have you been able to dig up about our quarry?"
"We're in a hot-bed of activity. There have been several sightings in and around the Olympic National Forest over the past couple years. So much so, it's unprecedented. Did you hear about the trailer park?"
"I heard that was a bear."
Kodiak asked, "What trailer park?"
"There's a trailer park on the other side of Lake Crescent that was attacked by one of them. At least, that's what they claim."
Montagna shook his head. "I think it's crap. If it wasn't a bear, it was bull. I heard because of the newer facilities opening up on this side of the park, the guy running the trailer park needed some gimmick to bolster business. That's one thing Bigfoot activity's always been good for."
"It can't hurt to check it out, anyway," Kodiak said and took a drink of beer.
"Well, either way," Ben said, "this is definitely the place where we're going to have the best luck. Now I figure our friend George can go with Jamie and myself tomorrow and start checking out some of the more recent reports."
"Why not me?" Norm sounded resentful and petulant.
Montagna answered him, "Norm, Pittman's shipping the equipment here tomorrow. I want you to be here to handle the unloading of it. It's gonna be an all-day job."
"I still think it's crap." Norm belched and poured himself another glass of beer.