by E C Hunter
“Whoa, what’s with the we? You can’t be involved, what if we get caught…what would happen to you?”
“Well, my dad would probably beat me to a pulp and then buy me another pony”.
“Hell….er…I don’t know your name”
“It’s Milledow.
“What is?”
“My name knuckle head. It’s Milledow, I hate it. Before you ask it means hummingbird in Mic’maq, mum was first nation, she thought it was fitting. Everyone calls me Milly. My last name’s Murphy, dad is of Irish descent, not all that glamorous eh?”
“Was? You said mum ‘was’”
“Car smash, her Buick was caught between two semi-trucks.
“Cancer”
“Huh?”
“My mum, she died of cancer when I was young” Archie looked down for a moment, both of them falling silent. “We’re getting side tracked again, your dad, he surely can’t be that bad” Archie’s experience of the grimier side of life had never gone deeper than having some sweets stolen from his tuck box. Of course, he’d seen Crimewatch and read the newspaper, but the people featured in those seemed remote and almost fictional. Now here he was on the brink of confronting someone far more dangerous than any Sasquatch.
“So, how many, er, goons, does your dad have?”
“There’s Karl…the guy who’s canoe you borrowed. Then there’s two others, both out on four wheelers looking for you right now, Pierre and Willy. Oh there’s Dick but he’s not too tightly wrapped. Then there’s my brothers Patrick and Seamus – dad’s people came from Ireland, did I say that? They’re away at the moment”
“I think I’ve met Karl and Pierre” Archie told her. “I suppose I’d better tell you what happened but you’re not going to believe it, some of it at least”. Archie told her. The animal, the Dutch oven, the rope, the jousting. Milly just seemed to accept it.
“So my dad’s henchmen are lying out there in the bush, hurt bad, with some kind of large hairy guard – that is soo cool…I hate those guys”. Milly seemed almost gleeful at the thought of the injured men. As the last word left her lips a shadow fell across the pair, accompanied by that fetid, cloying odour Archie had come to know well. Archie held his hands up to the animal in what he hoped was a universal sign for no.
Chapter 18
“Oh no, please” whispered Archie, fully expecting the animal to reach out for Milly. To break her like a twig and twitch her broken body into brush. But no. As he watched with growing incredulity the animal reached out and touched the girl very gently on the shoulder. Milly brought her own hand up and placed it on the muscular, hairy arm. It was over in a moment, an intense and unique moment and was to turn Milly’s life on its axis.
Milly covered the spot where the animal had touched her with her hand; as if to preserve its warmth. Her eyes remained firmly on the animal, which stood before them, looking slightly unsure of what to do next. To Archie’s amazement Milly held both her hands out in front of her, palms down and motioned towards the ground. She sat down, cross legged and the animal did likewise, folding it’s gangly legs underneath it. Archie followed suit. With the animal sat it was possible for Archie to see that the creature was indeed, as he had suspected, a boy. It had been somewhat difficult to tell in the previous scuffles not to mention all that hair.
“He ought to have a name” said Archie, any ideas?
“I expect he already has one” replied Milly. She placed her hand on her chest and said to the animal “Milly”. She then pointed at Archie and said “Archie”. “Now you do it” she told Archie.
“Archie” said Archie, somewhat self-consciously touching his chest. He pointed to Milly; “Milly”, then he pointed to the animal. It looked at him, puzzled.
“Try again” said Archie, looking at Milly. Milly repeated the process, this time also pointing to the animal. Nothing happened. For a moment she look crestfallen, then mentally shook herself, firmed her expression and again pointed to herself “Milly” she said slowly. “Archie” placing her hand on his chest. She looked at the animal with what she hoped was a quizzical expression and touched its arm. A light seemed to flicker in its eyes and it touched its chest. A low rumble sounded from its mouth, followed by a small yelp. Archie and Milly glanced at each other and grinned but their smiles soon turned sour as the animal released a gust of odour that smelled something like the gents at a football ground overlaid with essence of long dead sheep.
Milly suppressed a snort of laughter, Archie didn’t manage even that, he let out a full-bodied hoot, all the worry and stress of the last few days were let out as helpless laughter. Milly couldn’t help herself and followed suit. The smell only seemed to get stronger and the pair were laughing hysterically while the bemused animal sat and stared at them.
“Looks like dad was right” spluttered Archie through his tears “they do use scent to communicate”.
“Scent” snorted Milly, “Scent is what my granny dabs behind her ears, that’s stench. This fella has a royal reek”. They fell silent for a moment, unsure of what they should do next, both of them suddenly realising the profound importance of this moment. Not only had they definitively discovered a new species of hominid but they were communicating with it. It was possibly the most important discovery in biology since Darwin proposed his theory of evolution.
“Let’s call him Stinky” Milly suggested, she glanced at her watch.
“Hell, I need to get home” she said and rose to her feet. Immediately the Sasquatch jumped up too and stood behind Milly looking expectant.
“Looks like you’ll have company” said Archie “He thinks you’re the best thing since sliced bread”.
“Yeah, this might be a bit awkward, if my horse smells him he’s gonna freak.”
“The horse or this big man?”
“Both of them probably” answered Milly. “Look, you make him sit again and wait until I’ve been gone a while and then make camp and wait for me here. In the morning we’ll head back towards Ingonish and make a plan. Nearly forgot, here’s some food I brought”. Milly reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a couple of bars of chocolate, two cans of Pepsi, a pack of beef jerky and two apples. “Sorry, it was all I could manage.”
“Look, don’t you think we just ought to get the police? I mean, what if it goes wrong and someone, er, someone else gets hurt.” Archie put the food down on top of his rucksack. “Thanks.”
“Details, details. It’ll all look clearer in the morning. I’ll be back as soon as I can. It’s a fair ride so don’t expect me at sunrise.” With that she turned on her heel and flew up the rocky outcrop with as much confidence as her descent. Archie turned to his hairy companion and made the ‘sit’ gesture. Immediately Stinky lowered himself to the ground and Archie did likewise. The oddness of the situation hit him hard. Here he was sitting in the middle of nowhere with a potentially dangerous, relatively intelligent, newly discovered species. How the hell had that happened? Archie rolled one of the apples towards the animal. It poked it gingerly with a long black nail, picked it up, held it to it’s flat, gorilla like nose and inhaled noisily. It then popped the apple into its mouth whole and crunched it with relish, apple juice and bits of skin sliding from its loose lips and dripping from its chin.
Tentatively the animal put out its hand towards Archie. Oh well, thought Archie and placed the other apple in the leathery palm. It disappeared with even greater speed than the first. Another thing his dad was right about, Sasquatches love apples. Archie tucked the jerky (a kind of seasoned, dried beef) into a side pocket of his rucksack, unwrapped a chocolate bar and broke off a section. The animals’ nose wrinkled and a string of gloopy saliva drooled from its lips.
“You’re not getting any of this buddy” Archie told him. “Heaven knows what effect it’d have on you” The animal looked at him longingly; in much the same way a Labrador does as it tries to will your cake into its mouth. “Oh no, don’t give me that look, it won’t work. It’ll ruin your teeth too.” Archie chatted am
iably to the animal, much happier now that he had an ally and some to take his mind off his father…and Milly’s riding breeches.
Stinky continued to look at him with the light of hope and expectation in his eyes. Archie felt himself quavering, what harm could it do? Archie broke off a chunk of the chocolate bar and pressed it into the waiting palm. Stinky sniffed it and then tentatively slipped it between his damp lips. For a few seconds nothing happened and then Stinky’s eyes flew wide open, he made an excited gibbering noise and held out his hand again. What could he do? Archie passed the animal another, larger lump of the chocolate. This time Stinky crammed it in his mouth as fast as he could, his eyes rolled in ecstasy and gloopy loops of chocolate flavoured dribble hung from his lips. Archie slipped a chunk of the chocolate into his own mouth, his eyes not leaving Stinkys face. Immediately a look of puzzlement and hurt crossed Stinkys face.
“Hey big guy, I need to eat too” Archie told him, “but I don’t suppose you can understand that, can you?” For an answer Stinky reached over and delicately tweaked the remaining chocolate from Archie’s hand and stuffed it, wrapper and all into his mouth. Whilst Archie didn’t exactly feel threatened he certainly didn’t feel comfortable with this new aspect of the animal’s behaviour. Archie thought back to the times when the animal had done his destructive worst to his potential attackers. No, he didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the Sasquatch. Further thought brought Archie to the realisation that Stinky’s behaviour with the chocolate wasn’t too far from a chimp, which, he supposed, made a lot of sense.
Stinky seemed to calm down a little after he realised that the chocolate was all gone. Archie breathed a mental sigh of relief and started to think about settling down for the night. He was half way through pitching his basha when a nagging doubt started to gnaw at his innards. Was Milly genuine? Was she an agent for her father or did she genuinely despise him? Perhaps she was hidden in the trees with the goons, just waiting for him to bed down. They would shoot Stinky and maybe him too. Archie decided he couldn’t take the risk, packed up his camp and jumped back on the quad.
A lot of the Canadian forest is divided up into grids with straight fire roads cut through the trees and intersecting at intervals, here on the edge of the National Park was no different. Archie turned left at the next cross roads and right at the one following. After another few hundred metres there was an area of stunted, moose browsed trees. He ducked into the brush and waited. After ten minutes nothing had appeared. After another ten a hairy shape came striding along the track and unerringly turned into the trees where Archie was couched and squatted next to him. The two of them glanced at each other and Archie couldn’t help himself but grin at his new buddy.
“Guess I was being paranoid then eh?” Inevitably there was no reply from the Sasquatch.
The Sasquatch began to gather loose vegetation into a pile. When the pile had reached about a metre high the animal threw himself on top and was instantly snoring heavily.
“You’re not much of a threat are you?” Archie said to the sleeping figure and got his own sleeping arrangements in order. He woke as dawn was showing and with no sign of the Sasquatch, or his bed.
Chapter 19
“He’ll be back” were Archie first thoughts. After all, he did keep turning up like the proverbial bad penny. Archie had a meagre breakfast of his one remaining cereal bar and half a packet of jerky, washed down with some water from a crystal clear stream. As he drank he could hear George’s admonishment in his head ‘drink it raw, you’ll be poor, drink it boiled, the bugs are foiled’. Never mind, he didn’t want to go to the trouble of lighting a fire and had not remembered to bring the purification kit with him.
He needed to head back to the rendezvous but wanted to stop just short so that he could observe who actually turned up. In the half- light he jumped back on the quad, grateful for the leaf-rustling breeze which would mask the sound of his engine and drove the short distance back towards last night’s meeting. After hiding the quad just off the track Archie stalked in close to the spot, using all the skills he had learnt while trying to photograph roe bucks at home in Scotland. He settled in on a small bluff overlooking the pool where he and Stinky had met Milly. Nothing happened for an hour. Nothing happened for another hour. Then a moose wandered across in front of him. Then some more nothing. No Stinky, no Milly, no goons.
By midday Archie was stiff and bored. He made his way slowly to the edge of the forest road and sat quietly for a few minutes. Still more nothing. Using his binoculars he slowly scanned the track-way for any sign of movement. From his slightly elevated position he could see scuff marks in the dust. With exaggerated caution Archie emerged from the tree line onto the track. Squatting in front of the marks Archie began to piece together the scenario. There were Stinky’’s huge marks, plain to see but overlaid with adult work boot prints, at least three pairs. There was a clump of hair and a few drops of dried blood. Signs of a struggle. The tracks were messy and not easy to understand but one thing was clear, there were drag marks that lead towards where a vehicle had been parked. Stinky had been captured.
Archie put his head in his hands and tried to suppress the wave of misery threatening to sweep over him. ‘OK’ he thought, ‘I was betrayed’’. Nothing could change that but now he had a much larger task on his hands, not only to find his dad but he also felt duty bound to rescue Stinky from some appalling fate.
Something made Archie’s neck prickle, he hadn’t heard or smelled anything, but he knew with certainty someone or something was standing behind him. He’d had a lecture at school about something called morphic field, a theory from a chap called Rupert Sheldrake who postulated that the brain sends out waves, much like magnetic waves. He felt it now, he was picking up someone’s field. Archie stood and for a few moments did not move. He heard a swift footstep and felt a hand fall softly on his shoulder. It felt small but had a certain strength to it.
“Archie, I’m so sorry. I tried to stop them, truly I did.” Milly squeezed his shoulder. Archie turned to look into those luminous eyes but something was wrong. One of Milly’s eyes was closed and puffy, the dirty rainbow of bruising starting to show through. Her cheek was grazed and there was an angry welt on her forehead.
“Milly” Archie began but could not find words. He did not need to ask what had happened, her father had happened. He looked at her for a long time and finally found the words. There were a lot of them, they were brutal and violent and Archie felt no better for having spoken them.
“They made me tell them, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” Milly started to weep, but as soon as she felt the first tear start to trickle down her cheek she pulled herself up short, sniffed loudly and pulled a blood stained handkerchief from her pocket. Archie reached out a hand and placed it on her arm. “I didn’t make it home, it was too far and the found me on the road.”
“It’s OK, really it is. We’ll find him and my dad and we’’ll make them pay, boy will we make them pay.” Archie felt a new kind of anger, it steeled him, shored up his reserves of decency and righteous outrage. Milly sniffed again and took Archie’s hand. Even in this state of anger his heart gave a little flip. Her hand was warm and soft. With a swift movement, Milly twisted his little finger playfully.
“Come on then slowcoach, what are we waiting for?” Not for the last time Archie was left breathless by her ability to change tempo so quickly. “Syrup is over there, behind the spruce trees, I’ll ride you follow on your four-wheeler and we can camp tonight on the outskirts of Ingonish. Don’t worry, they won’t be looking for you now, they’ve got what they want. Well, Karl might want to kill you a bit but we’ll deal with it.” With that she strode off and returned a few minutes later on Syrup, complete with voluminous saddle bags. Milly saw Archie glance at them. ““Oh, and I’ve left home too, ‘bout time. Lucky they didn’t think to take Syrup away.”” Archie couldn’t think of a reply to that and trotted off to get his quad.
Archie burbled along a hundred metres or so behin
d the perfect horse, slightly distracted by the perfect shape sitting atop it, that long dark hair shifting in a silky wave with the motion of the animal. Their slow progress made it easy to spot wildlife and Archie began to enjoy himself. Moose laconically browsing, a black bear wandering across the road, coveys of ruffed grouse scuttling along ahead of them. This was his kind of holiday. At least it would be if you took away the kidnapped father, the murderous thugs and all the other stuff he’d been subjected to.
They stopped for lunch. Again Archie had to thank Milly for bringing food with her. This time she had brought bread, cheese, ham and cans of Pepsi. Archie fell on the food like a bear emerging from hibernation.
“Hey, that’s got to last” Milly managed to stop the scoffing. “You do realise that when we get to Ingonish we won’t be able to buy anything or go anywhere public, everybody knows me.” Archie nodded, feeling stupid and greedy. His stomach gave a lurch. He passed it off to actually eating something substantial, just a shock to the system.
They had been travelling for another ten minutes before Archie felt the next wave of griping gut pain. He stopped the quad and doubled over the fuel tank, knowing immediately that it had been caused by his own laziness in drinking straight from the stream. The pain was bad but worse was the impending feeling of ‘looseness’! Carefully, very carefully he dismounted from the quad and scuttled into the undergrowth. He only just managed to drop his trousers in time for his bowels to void, loud, long and violent. Relief was short lived as another round of pain gripped him and again the world dropped out of his bottom. He held onto a branch and waited for more unpleasantness.
“Archie, Archie, you okay?” Milly called from behind his leafy screen.
“Er, yeah, stay there, don’t come any closer, bit of an issue.”
