They could hear numerous sounds of water dripping in the darkness.
Someone moved in the cabin above and the overhead support rafters creaked, raining dirt down on their heads.
“Looks like Micah kept himself pretty busy down here,” Ethan said, shaking the dirt out of his hair.
“It’s a regular maze.”
“I suppose if you didn’t know your way around, a person could get lost mighty quick,” Ethan said.
“Think it’s worth exploring?” Clay asked. “Maybe it leads to the outside. Would explain why Alden came in through the trap instead of coming in through the front door.”
“It’s not safe. We’ve seen enough.”
“Uncle Ethan? Do you think we’ll ever find him?”
Ethan gave Clay a solemn look.
“It’s been two days. I don’t see how…” Clay said, unable to contain his tears.
Ethan put his hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “We’ll find your son. You have my word. Now, let’s get out of here before the place caves in.”
25
The Payne brothers were up at sunrise, packing up their gear.
Jacob had made a good effort harvesting, as there was a decent amount of buds accumulated on the drop cloth, enough for more than a single run down the mountain.
He had only been able to trim about forty plants, which left well over a hundred fifty plants that still needed tending, idle money waiting to be spent. Landon and Mason hadn’t bothered to help as they saw no point in over picking as it was better to preserve the buds on the plants as they had no idea what was going to happen in the near future.
Landon always joked that money didn’t grow on trees, that it was marijuana that put the big bucks in a man’s pocket.
Jacob gathered up food in the cave for his pack. He found a half-filled jar of moonshine and included that.
He went outside and found Landon standing at the edge of the field, staring pensively out at the crop. It was easy to distinguish which plants Jacob had trimmed, as there was only the greenery of the leaves on a portion of the ten-foot tall crop.
Landon wore a backpack and was holding one of the Marlin lever-actions equipped with a scope, which served as a good hunting rifle. The butt of his .45 caliber revolver faced forward in his shoulder holster.
Jacob picked up his Ithaca pump shotgun and joined his brother.
“How’d I do?” Jacob asked Landon, always seeking his older brother’s approval.
“That should do us for a while,” Landon replied.
That was enough to put a smile on Jacob’s face.
Mason cut across the field and walked over. He was also wearing a rucksack and was carrying his Colt AR-15 machinegun. “I’ve spent some time studying those tracks.”
“Let’s hear it,” Landon said.
“Well, I found three different sets of bootprints. One of them was pretty large. I also saw tracks left by a dog. And then there were a few footprints which I’ve never seen before that were even bigger.”
“You think it could be one of them?” Jacob asked.
“The bigfoot? I reckon so,” Mason confirmed.
“But we still don’t know who killed James.”
“It’s not going to matter,” Landon said.
“Why’s that?”
“Because we’re going to kill anyone, and anything, that gets in our way.”
As Landon, Jacob, and Mason passed by the giant oak, each one glanced over at James’ gravesite, knowing that their younger brother was buried under that mound of earth.
And his killer was up there somewhere on the mountain.
26
Micah stood by the open cabin door and watched the small group preparing to leave. Clay helped Mia with her pack. She adjusted the shoulder strap and walked in a tight circle.
“Is that too heavy for you?” Clay asked.
“No, I can manage.”
“I see you’re not limping,” Micah said.
“Thanks to your poultice,” Mia replied with a smile of gratitude.
Ethan already had on his backpack. He was armed with his holstered .45 caliber Colt, machete, and hunting rifle; Clay, the Winchester lever-action, his hunting knife, and the Remington thirty-eight; Mia, her .22 caliber pocket pistol and the folding pocket knife.
Even though Alden knew how to use tools, he did not carry a bludgeon or any other type of weapon.
Blu was eagerly pacing, sensing something was up as everyone bustled to get ready.
Because of his peg leg, Micah walked with a lurching gait as he went over to a nearby stump and sat down.
Ethan, Clay, Mia, and Alden gathered round to say goodbye.
“You still have a lot of mountain up there to cover,” Micah said, trying to prepare them for what lie ahead. “Some of which I know about. Watch for swallow holes.”
“What are swallow holes?” Mia asked.
“Holes in the ground that are so deep, they swallow you right up, and you’re never seen again.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Clay asked.
“No, son, I’m dead serious. Now, long before you reach the summit, you might come across the ridge above the gorge. Stay away from the edge, whatever you do.”
“Why, is it dangerous?” Ethan asked.
“I’ve heard tales of men who went down there, were never seen again,” Micah replied.
“Don’t tell me. Another one of those Indian legends,” Clay scoffed.
“Believe me, you don’t want to find out,” Micah said.
“All right,” Ethan said. “We’ll stay clear of the gorge.”
“Then this is it,” Mia said, sad they had to leave.
“Godspeed. I pray you find your boy,” Micah said.
“Thank you for everything.” Mia gave the hermit a hug.
Ethan and Clay stepped over, and each, shook the man’s calloused hand.
After an exchange of waves, the small party began up the trail.
Alden, Mia, and Blu were walking up ahead when Ethan looked over at Clay and nodded to the threesome a few yards away in front of them.
Clay watched the burly bigfoot ambling beside Mia with the spry coonhound prancing along at her side.
“Ever imagine you’d ever see such a sight?” Ethan said.
“No, sir. Not in a million years,” Clay replied with a grin.
27
After hiking almost three hours, Ethan thought they should rest up for a spell when they reached a small glen with an overabundance of berry bushes clustered in the middle of the thick forest.
Alden immediately sauntered off toward a large berry patch.
Ethan and Clay dropped their backpacks on the ground next to a log while Blu paced around, sniffing the ground.
“I’ll be right back,” Mia said, shrugging out of her rucksack, already holding a small tube of toilet paper.
“Don’t go far,” Ethan cautioned.
“I won’t,” Mia replied over her shoulder as she stepped between two bare-leafed shrubs that were so thinned out that they offered no privacy whatsoever. So she continued on. When she thought she was far enough away so as not to draw attention to herself, she pulled down her trousers and underpants, squatted, and did her business.
It was when she was hiking up her pants that she heard something cry out in the bushes in the opposite direction from where she had left Ethan and Clay. She debated whether she should walk over and investigate or just return to the others.
And then she heard the cry again. A sound she had heard over and over, so many times in the past year. A cry she knew all too well.
It was Casey.
Her first impulse was to run through the bushes, rescue her baby boy, but she knew that would be reckless, as she had no idea what lay on the other side of the gnarly wall of briars where the sound had come from.
Mia got in a low crouch and crept as quietly as she could through the brush, doing her best not to rustle the branches too loudly and be heard. She edged over to the thick, t
horny bushes, and so gently, pried the branches apart so she could see through to the other side.
The gray bigfoot was sitting on the ground in front of a tall patch of blackberry bushes, gathering up the tiny fruit and shoveling into its enormous mouth.
Seeing it this close—the incredible creature couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet away—Mia was astounded by its size. Even in its current position, squat on the ground, she knew the animal had to be a least seven feet tall. She could only surmise, but it had to weigh close to five hundred pounds.
Though it was the same shade of gray as Alden, this bigfoot seemed lankier, and that’s when Mia realized that this was a female.
The bigfoot mashed up the berries in her mouth and spat the juice into her rubbery palm. The animal shifted its weight to one side and turned slightly.
That’s when Mia saw Casey, cradled in the bigfoot’s other arm. He was no longer wearing his sleeper and was naked and filthy. His tiny fingers were clutching the long hairs on the bigfoot’s bosom.
Casey opened his mouth eagerly and the bigfoot dribbled the fruit juice down from her palm. The purple liquid was all over his face and chest.
Mia’s heart was pounding as her maternal instincts kicked in. Here she was, watching idly, as this monstrous creature was feeding her very own son, knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop it.
If she stepped out of the bushes and confronted the bigfoot, she would be putting her son at risk, which would most likely get her boy killed, and her along with him.
Her only choice of action was to sneak back and tell the others. Ethan would surely know what to do.
She turned to scoot away, and in doing so, snapped a branch.
The bigfoot turned to the sound. She glared at Mia hiding in the bushes.
Mia froze. Not because she suddenly found herself in a stare down with such a dangerous animal.
It was because Casey was suckling on the bigfoot’s black nipple.
“Enough,” Mia yelled and stomped out of the brush to reclaim her son.
28
Ethan and Clay were seated on the log, resting their feet. Clay had one of his boots off, and was massaging his tired foot.
Tearing off a piece of pemmican, Ethan handed the strip to Clay. Ethan ripped off another chunk and gave it to Blu sitting by his feet. The dog gobbled it up without even chewing once and swallowed it down.
“Thanks,” Clay said, slipping the jerky into the side of his mouth to suck on like a plug of chewing tobacco.
They looked over at Alden, who was hunched down on his hindquarters by a raspberry patch about ten feet away. Even though his hands were the size of a catcher’s mitt, there was a certain grace in the way he delicately plucked each berry individually with his fat fingers and popped it in his thick-lipped mouth.
His lower lip was reddening from the raspberry drool. Whenever he opened his mouth, the sight was a little off-putting, as the blood red on his tombstone teeth made him look more like a feasting carnivore.
“Do you think he eats meat?” Clay asked.
“Don’t rightly know. Micah never mentioned it. Though I don’t think Alden got that big eating twigs.”
“No, I suppose not. How much do you think he weighs?”
“Three hundred, maybe more.”
“Do you think he knows what we’re saying?” Clay asked.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“I don’t really…”
Alden turned his head casually toward the men. He smacked his lips, let out a deep snort, and cocked his head a few times at the fruited bushes.
“Well, I’ll be,” Ethan said. “He’s inviting us over to join him.”
“Boy, I wish Mia was here to see this. What’s keeping her so long?”
“Must still need her privacy,” Ethan said.
“Maybe I should—”
Blu jumped up and bayed like a prison bloodhound that had just picked up the scent of an escapee. He took off in a fast gallop and disappeared up the trail.
Alden stood erect and gazed up at the mountain slope but stood his ground.
“What’s gotten into Blu?” Clay asked.
“I don’t know. I better go get him before he gets himself into trouble,” Ethan said, gathering up his backpack and rifle.
“I’ll wait here for Mia. We’ll catch up.”
“All right. Hopefully, Blu runs out of steam before he gets too far,” Ethan said.
Clay watched his uncle hightail it up the trail after Blu.
He bent over, slipped his stocking foot inside his boot and tied up the laces. He stood up from the log and grabbed the Winchester.
“Mia!” Clay yelled. “We have to go!”
He waited for an answer, but there was none. He tried again with a similar result.
“We better see what’s keeping her,” Clay said to Alden then laughed to himself for thinking the creature could understand what he was saying.
The bigfoot grunted.
“Well, aren’t you something,” Clay said.
Clay tried to remember which way she had gone, and when he decided he was fairly certain, the two went off in search of Mia.
29
Mia started to question if she had done the right thing, stepping abruptly out from behind the brush, when the bigfoot snarled and clutched Casey tightly in a protective hold. She couldn’t see her son’s face as it was pressed into the animal’s thick fur. Would the beast be so fearful of Mia to accidentally smother her surrogate son?
Taking a different tact, Mia dropped to the ground in a squatting position to show the animal that she wasn’t going to come closer and that she wasn’t a threat. Mia placed her hands on the ground, palms down.
The bigfoot coughed out a warning.
“I’m staying right here,” Mia said.
Upon hearing his natural mother’s voice, Casey turned his head, and Mia saw her baby boy’s face. Even under all the dirt and grime, he was adorable.
Casey began to jabber like he often did whenever he was sitting in his playpen.
The bigfoot glanced away from Mia and gazed down at the human baby cradled in the crook of her massive, hairy arm.
Mia swore she saw the bigfoot’s fierce facial features soften as her hazel eyes showed a hint of—what, was Mia losing her mind—a mother’s loving attachment for her child.
And then a thought came to mind. What if she tried communicating with the animal? Like she did with Alden. Sure, she only knew a limited amount of hand gestures and sounds, but it was worth a try, even though Micah had told her that he had no idea if what he and Alden had developed was even in the realm of how other bigfoot conveyed their emotions or actions.
Mia raised her right arm up slowly and with the palm of her hand, patted her left shoulder in a show of friendship.
The female bigfoot huffed and seemed to be taking an interest in Mia’s behavior.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Mia said to the creature. “I just want my baby back.”
Even though she swore she would remain strong, Mia couldn’t hold back the tears. She stretched her hands out in front of her. “Please, give me back my son.”
Casey was no longer blabbering as he was back to breastfeeding, which repulsed Mia.
The bigfoot gazed down at the nursing infant, then looked at Mia. At first, Mia truly believed that the creature was contemplating returning her son, but then she saw the bigfoot’s eyes darting back and forth, searching for the nearest escape route.
Mia stood up and pleaded with the beast. “No, please—”
The brown, male bigfoot burst out of the bushes and charged Mia.
30
Mia screamed and fell back onto the ground as the giant beast ran at her. She crossed her arms in front of her face in a feeble attempt to ward off the attack, knowing she was about to die a gruesome death. She snapped her eyes closed, rolled over, and curled up in a ball.
The bigfoot roared and stomped over. Mia could feel its presence
, as it stood over her, ready to strike. She heart raced as she thought of that poor man they had discovered back at that pot field, and how terrified he must have felt as he was being mauled and dismembered. And now she was about to suffer a similar fate, maybe even worse.
Mia heard fast approaching footfalls, and then a collision of bodies. She glanced up and saw that the brown bigfoot was no longer hovering over her but was a few feet away, wrestling on the ground with a gray-furred creature.
At first, Mia thought that the female had come to her defense, which meant that Casey would be unattended; giving her the chance she had been hoping for so that she could regain her son. But as she caught another glimpse of the two beasts battling, she realized that it was Alden that had come to her rescue, and not the female bigfoot.
Mia’s heart sunk as she glanced around and realized that the female bigfoot was gone and had taken Casey. She got to her feet as the two bigfoot tousled on the ground only a few feet away.
The brown bigfoot was clearly the bigger foe, outweighing the smaller Alden by at least two hundred pounds. They grappled like a couple of Greco-Roman wrestlers, only they were using their teeth, doing their best to inflict lethal bite wounds.
Alden punched his opponent in the face, which didn’t seem to faze the larger thick-skull animal. The brown bigfoot snarled and pummeled Alden on the chest.
The blows were starting to have some effect on the smaller adversary as Alden was struggling to break free and fend off the attack.
Mia looked around and saw a tree limb on the ground. She went over, picked it up, and wielding it like a bat, she ran over and clubbed the brown bigfoot on the back of the skull. The beast reared back and stepped off of Alden to face its newest opponent.
The bigfoot raised its fist to strike Mia.
A gunshot sounded, and the bigfoot yowled with pain as a hairy chunk of meat ripped out of its shoulder.
The Beasts Of Stoneclad Mountain Page 9
