Monster in the Mountains

by Peacock, Shane;

  We started finding logs that looked as if they’d been tossed aside, pitched away in anger. And then we found a tuft of hair. It was on the bark of a big, dying Douglas fir right near a footprint. We all crouched down to look. Walter examined it for a moment, then passed it on, first to me and then to Alice. I felt a tingle when I held it between my thumb and forefinger. What if I were really holding sasquatch fur? It would be like having something in your hand that everyone said only existed in a story. It was dark brown and I could smell it without even bringing it near my nose. It had the odour of rotting meat.

  “I’ve never seen this much evidence before,” said Walter as we trudged forward.

  Half an hour later we were still making a beeline for Harrison Lake.

  “It’s going straight back to the lake, just like I suspected. It’s easier for him that way. There’s a forest service road that goes up the east side of the shore. He probably walked it in the dark last night. Then he’s heading north to Big Silver Creek. It’s a river where they’ve spotted lots of sasquatch tracks in the past.”

  “So, that’s where we’ll find him?” I asked, hoping that we at least wouldn’t have to go too far to meet our fate.

  “No,” said Uncle Walter. “From there, he’ll turn and go northeast along Big Silver, then straight east across land and over the mountains. It’s about thirty kilometres to Hell’s Gate that way. That’s where I saw the creature. That’s where he seems to be going, somewhere near there.”

  He was talking really fast. It was obvious that his mind was racing.

  “We have two options,” he continued. “We can head to town, pick up my Hummer, drive over to the Trans-Canada Highway, and motor up the Fraser River Canyon to the tourist place at Hell’s Gate. They have an air-tram there that brings visitors over the river at a really deadly spot: unbelievable rapids. It’ll be fast, and we’ll be close to where he comes out. We can go into the forest and see if we can meet him coming back from over here.”

  That sounded good to me: the three of us in a nice warm vehicle heading towards a tourist destination.

  “Or,” continued Walter, “we can hike our way out to the lake, westward, like he’s doing. We’ll be there in less than an hour. Then we can hitch a ride north from someone in a boat, get to Big Silver Creek, and then find our way eastward across land to the west side of Hell’s Gate, following him. It’s a longer route. We’ll have to camp out somewhere in the mountains.”

  Door number one, please.

  “I like it!” cried Alice. “That way we’re going the same way he’s going. That way we aren’t near the tourists. He’ll be trying to avoid them. If we drive, we’ll lose the trail. If we go this route maybe we’ll see him on the way!”

  “I like it, too,” continued Walter, kind of glancing at me to see my reaction. He looked away quickly. “It’s fishing season. We should be able to find somebody who will get us up the lake in no time.”

  “This will be great, Dylan! Just like the explorers!” yelled Alice.

  Didn’t quite a few of the guys who went with the explorers die?

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, “uh, just like the explorers. Let’s go. I’m game.”

  I found myself bringing up the rear the whole time we made our way to Harrison Lake. The forest started to get thinner as we got closer. Then we saw the entire lake from the side of the forested mountain, stretching north and south in a great, thin fjord. The town was so far to the south now that it was out of sight. But Walter was right: there were lots of boats on the lake below.

  Way up in the blue sky I could see a black dot, circling, looking anxious to fly north. Poe.

  The hike down the side of the little mountain went fast and soon we crossed the forest service road and were standing on a rough dock. Walter unzipped one of the many big side pockets of his green sasquatch-hunting pants. Out of it appeared a huge whistle. For the first time I noticed something else. Right beside the whistle, hanging down in a sheath tied tightly to his body and camouflaged green like his pants, was a huge knife. Really huge. A machete.

  Walter blew his whistle. Five minutes later a boat was heading our way.

  “Hey!” cried Walter, “I know this guy! He’s one of the best guides in the whole area.” He turned to me. “He’ll find a way to get word to your parents too.”

  “Walter! Walter Middy, you old rascal!” shouted a middle-aged man from the boat as it approached. He had a big salt-and-pepper handlebar moustache and was nearly the size of a sasquatch himself. His face was really tanned. There were all kinds of fish lures pinned to his hat and he had a thick vest over his jean shirt. He pulled the boat up to the beach and jumped out, taking Walter’s hand in his own big paw.

  “Mackenzie! Mackenzie Cook, you old con man!”

  At that moment Walter could have asked his friend to take us all southward, back to the safety of Harrison Hot Springs. But you could see in his eyes that his mind was made up. They were focused northward.

  Cook, who ran a company called Cascade Adventures, was more than willing to take us up the lake. He and the tourists on board were all going north anyway, past Big Silver Creek to fish for salmon. The tourists were three guys wearing glasses, a bit overweight, dressed in clothes that were meant to be perfect for the wild outdoors but looked brand spanking new. We thought these guys were pretty nice at first. Then they found out that I was from Ontario.

  “Is that part of Canada?” one of them joked.

  “Well, you’re in God’s country here, my boy,” said another.

  Then they discovered that I lived in Toronto.

  “Toronto?” the fattest one said. “And you’re still alive?”

  What a doink, I thought.

  They were even worse about the sasquatch. Uncle Walter had just brought it up. He didn’t seem to be worried at all about telling Mack Cook. And I could see why. Mack listened very carefully. The expression on his face was serious. But just as he was about to open his mouth, one of the tourists interrupted.

  “Sasquatch? You mean Bigfoot, don’t you?”

  “Bigfoot is what the Americans call it, sir,” explained Mack, looking anxious to continue his discussion with Walter.

  But by this time all three of the tourists were roaring with laughter.

  “Are you sure you’re over sixteen years old?” another of them asked Walter. “Can’t be in a boat without a life preserver at twelve, you know.” They all guffawed again.

  “That’s a good one,” said Mack, rolling his eyes in our direction.

  Walter just smiled. “The Salish people believe there were sasquatches,” he informed them.

  “The Natives?”

  “The people who were here before anyone thought of calling your beautiful area ‘British Columbia.’ The spirits of their people live in the mountains here and they don’t like hearing anyone question the great ape’s existence.”

  The three men looked at each other, as if they might burst into another laugh.

  “More nonsense,” one of them sneered.

  “An old legend says that certain white men who go north on Harrison Lake, north to remove fish from the sacred waters, find themselves marked, unaccountably, with the sign of the sasquatch: a black X on their wrists.”

  The three men smirked again and looked away. Walter was a total nutcase to them.

  “He who finds the mark on the inside of his left wrist, the sinister wrist of the two, will be dead at the hands of the sasquatch by noon the following day, killed in an encampment on the Lillooet River as he sleeps.”

  All three men looked right at Walter when he mentioned the Lillooet.

  “Gentlemen, if you have the mark, you should know, and beware. Let me see your wrists.”

  With that, Walter took one tourist’s left hand in his and turned it over: nothing. Then he tried another’s: pink and clean. When he got to the third tourist,
he seemed to grip him the hardest of all. Then he turned over his wrist. There was a big black X on the inside just below the meaty part of the thumb.

  This was the same guy who’d been bugging me about where I lived. “Uh…uh,” he stammered.

  “Don’t panic,” said Walter. “In order to qualify as a sasquatch victim you must also have a certain name within yours. That name is Nomis.”

  The tourist laughed. “The name’s Simon, smart guy.”

  Uncle Walter looked like he was going to faint. “What’s wrong?” asked Simon.

  “Spell your name backwards, my city friend.”

  “It’s, uh, N-O-M…I…S.”

  After that, the guy was pretty quiet. He kept trying to make jokes and smart comments but couldn’t really do it. He kept looking up into the forest-covered mountains and straight ahead of the boat towards their destination in the Lillooet River. Walter had known all along that Mack took his clients there when they were going this direction. And Alice and Mack and I wouldn’t dream of telling this guy about Walter’s circus background. He’d obviously put the mark of the X on many customers in his sideshow in his day. And even I’d seen what the poor guy’s wife had written out on his socks. His pant legs had pulled up as he sat in the low seat at the back of the boat, and just below where his thick hairy legs, hairy like a sasquatch, showed, it read: Simon Gray, North Vancouver, BC.

  Nomis: what a great Indigenous name. Probably meant “idiot.”

  Mack Cook had us to the mouth of Big Silver Creek in no time. His boat was one of those jet-powered things, souped up and sleek, available for the big bucks to city folks. The Thompson could really fly.

  He let us off onto a dock at a logging camp. As we got out, Walter was explaining more about where we were going. Mack pulled a dirty old map out of one of about a million pockets in his vest. Then he unfolded the map, popped a pen out of another pocket, and began drawing on it. We all crowded around to watch. He drew an arrow to a place called Big Silver Creek, then made his arrow veer northeast along something he labelled Shovel Creek. Then he drew some rapids on the map and the words “Granite Falls.” After that, his arrow left the waterway and went through an “unnamed valley” to a mountain, across which he wrote “1,600 metres.” He drew a line over the mountain and the words “mountain pass.” Finally his arrow came to “Scuzzy Creek.” The creek led to “Green Ranch Road” and out to a bridge over the Fraser River to Boston Bar.

  “Boston Bar is the closest town to Hell’s Gate Canyon,” Uncle Walter explained to us. “It’s right near the Trans-Canada Highway.”

  When Mack was done drawing on what appeared to be his only map, my uncle just stood there studying it for a while.

  “Got it?” Mack finally asked him.

  “I think so,” said Walter.

  “Just walk up this logging road on the east side of the river for about a kilometre until you come to a path on the left-hand side. It goes into the bush and down to the river. We have a campground there where we take folks for wilderness fishing. Just off the path you’ll see an ATV under a tarp. Here’s the keys.”

  He slapped a set of keys into Walter’s hand.

  “Drive that baby up the road until it ends. Just leave it somewhere there. Nobody will steal it, believe me, unless it’s the sasquatch.” He smiled at Walter. “Then, just walk into the forest and head towards the mountains.”

  Walter seemed to gulp.

  “You got a gun?”

  Walter placed his hand on his machete. Mack raised his eyebrows and nodded.

  “I need another favour,” said Walter. “I need you to get a note to John and Laura Maples at the resort in Harrison Hot Springs. Dylan here will write it.”

  “Sure,” said Mack, “just write it on the back of the map. I’ll be back home tonight and I’ll make sure someone at the resort writes it out for your folks. Don’t worry, I know lots of people there.”

  I took the pen. I’d been thinking a lot about Mom and Dad while we were coming up the lake. They would be totally freaked. They didn’t deserve this. I hesitated for a moment, then wrote:

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  The man who gives you this note will tell you what I’m doing. I know it sounds crazy. But don’t worry. We’re okay. This was MY idea. Not Uncle Walter’s. I needed to do it, and I wanted to do it. I had to face it. I couldn’t be afraid any more. I hope you understand.

  Love,

  Dylan

  I handed it to Mack. He glanced at it, nodded, and winked at me. Moments later, he and Walter slapped each other on the back. “Good luck,” said Mack. “You know I don’t believe in the creature, Walter, but bring me back a tape and we’ll crack open the beer and popcorn and have a look.”

  The three tourists were on the dock too, to stretch their legs. As they settled themselves back into the boat, we could hear Simon arguing with the others. He was trying to tell them that he doubted the fishing was all it was cracked up to be on the Lillooet River and that maybe they should turn around and spend this “beautiful day” back at the resort.

  By the time Mack and the Three Stooges purred off we were already moving up the logging road. Soon we found the path to the camp and the ATV under the tarp. Through an opening in the trees I could see the edge of Big Silver Creek, some of the cabins on this side of it, and the skeleton of a fish near a campfire. It was gigantic: the biggest fish I’d ever seen. For a second, it actually spooked me. It was longer than me and almost as wide! It looked like a monster: offspring of Ogopogo or something.

  “Sturgeon,” said Walter, noticing my look.

  They were the prize catches of the Harrison Lake region, massive fish that sometimes took two or three men to lift.

  Soon we were racing up the logging road, dust flying up in great clouds behind us. Walter was really motoring. He seemed to like speed. Eventually the road got bumpier and we bounced around like we were at the end of a bungee cord. Then it became a path and Walter slowed. When the path disappeared into the trees we parked the ATV and got out.

  There was nothing but a dense rainforest in front of us and a barely visible trail behind. I could hear Big Silver Creek nearby and all sorts of creepy sounds coming out of the woods.

  We were in the middle of nowhere.

  13

  In the Mountains

  We entered a world unlike any I’d ever been in before. My heart was pounding and Alice’s bright blue eyes were getting brighter. It was a true BC rainforest: a thick, wet jungle deep in the wilderness. Big Douglas firs, some nearly three metres across, stretched up to the sky, cedars by their sides; vines lined with maple leaves hung in spidery curves; giant ferns of yellow and green towered over our heads; and monster-high shrubs were everywhere. Walter had warned us about them. They had big green leaves and spikes on them that could pierce your skin if you touched them. Infection would set in quickly. They were called “devil’s clubs.”

  Uncle Walter had his machete out and was hacking down limbs, not just to help us get by, but to mark our trail in case we got lost. When the travelling was quieter, he turned on his iPod at low volume. We could barely hear the first song, whispering in the forest winds: “Imagine” by John Lennon, about being “a dreamer.”

  We kept close to the green river on our left. It was like we were following a tunnel through the trees. This really was the point of no return. There was nothing civilized between where we were and Hell’s Gate Canyon. I wondered how long it would take, and if I’d make it. Mom and Dad were going to kill me, if this trek didn’t do it first. They had been so relieved when I was found in Alberta, unhurt by the Reptile. And they’d spent every minute since then worrying about my moods. Now, before they had fully recovered, I was doing this, giving them this nightmare. But I felt driven to do it. I could only hope that they understood what I’d said in my note.

  We trudged forward, all of us working hard at hiking. The thick
undergrowth made walking difficult. Every now and then Uncle Walter glanced up. That black speck was still in the sky above us. Poe was like a compass needle we could count on.

  Evidence that the creature had been here was all around us. We discovered more footprints in sandy patches on the riverbank and more twisted-off trees. Then we stumbled upon a marmot, or more precisely, its head, feet, and tail, ripped from the torso and lying in a scattered trail, as if our prey had torn it apart while it kept walking. The blood was still clotting on the fur around the severed limbs and neck.

  So far Uncle Walter was right. The creature appeared to be going where he thought it would go, taking the same route Mack suggested.

  As we worked our way forward, the sound of the creek rushing along beside us and shapes moving behind every tree, my eyes were so wide open that it felt like I could see backwards. It made sense to me that a bear or a wolf or anything that could kill us would take advantage of our situation: three vulnerable human beings in their territory. And if there really was such a thing as a sasquatch, then what would he do? I tried not to think about it.

  It took us a couple of hours to get to the spot where Shovel Creek meets Big Silver. But when we did, things got a bit better: the thick undergrowth got sparser, the trees farther apart, and everything was drier. Shovel wasn’t very wide. In fact, it was so narrow that we almost went past it, thinking it might be just a little stream running gently over rocks. We turned northeast along its banks.

  It was late afternoon when we started hearing something unusual. We had just entered a canyon, and sounds began echoing around us, rushing sounds that got louder as we moved closer. The creek, now pretty well a river and flowing much faster, made a sudden turn. When we came around the corner, we saw it. A waterfall: a big rocky waterfall right in the middle of the wilderness! I thought of Mack’s map. Granite Falls: right on schedule.