by Rod O'Grady
Kaayii took his chance and loosed the rock. The rock hit its flank, it yelped and sprang back flailing with his huge clawed paws, baring his teeth as he growled and hissed. His father leapt at the cat jabbing it hard in the neck with the branch. Kaayii’s mother whacked the thick end of a branch against the nearest tree loudly – KLONK! KLONK! KLONK!
The cat backed angrily away as the three Sasquatches advanced towards it. It scampered off growling and snarling and slipped away into the shadows.
Suddenly the clouds parted and the moon bathed the forest floor in gleaming silvery tones, lighting the haunches of the cat as it hurried away through the underbrush, his pride bruised and his stomach still empty.
The three Sasquatches crouched down by the tree and listened to the girl’s breathing. Kaayii very gently poked his stick under a low branch and pulled it aside. The moonlight through the trees made jagged, striped shadows across the forest floor and across the sleeping girl’s face. The dog, his head still on her shoulder, was awake and his eyes flitted from one huge beast to another. Kaayii let the branch swing back and they backed away from the tree.
They heard a crashing sound somewhere up the mountain, like a herd of moose galumphing through the forest, thundering through brush and stomping down the game trails. Kaayii’s father muttered, ‘Ahniiq,’ and sure enough, Kaayii’s uncle came bounding down the trail with the young female from the clan, Shumsha. Both were carrying sturdy sticks.
Ahniiq gazed at his brother, noisily snapping branches away at head height: wolf?
Kaayii’s father held up both his hands, telling him: quiet!
Where is the wolf? Ahniiq demanded.
No wolf, they told him. Yumiqsu and Shumsha stayed by the tree, as Taashi and Kaayii led Ahniiq away down the trail.
Ahniiq was unsettled and kept stopping and looking back up the trail. The forest fell silent as they walked, the birds settled down, the squirrels stopped chattering.
Come, Taashi told his brother.
They walked quickly, his father and uncle ahead, with Kaayii keeping a few paces behind. They came to the first big X, and then on through the Aspen Grove and on to the the Giant X.
Taashi looked at his brother as they walked. People are on the ancient trail. He took Ahniiq’s hand and they jogged down the slope towards the bay, making very little noise, keeping to the dark earth of the game trails and the thick grass of the underbrush, Kaayii following in their footsteps.
They stopped at the top of the main trail and all three chose a pine tree to climb. From high up they could look down on the cluster of cabins by the bay. They could see Connie’s car by her cabin, the wind turbine with its four slim blades glowing brightly in the moonlight, the vegetable garden with the tall deer fence all round it, and the jetty jutting out in to the bay, with two small boats moored to it. The tide was in and waves splashed against the rocks. A strong breeze blew across the bay and they smelt salt water and seaweed.
Ahniiq communicated one thought: fish. He began to climb down his tree. No! Kaayii’s father insisted and hurriedly clambered down his pine tree. He dropped to the ground as his brother was already moving down the trail. Taashi grabbed Ahniiq’s arm: no!
Ahniiq grumbled and growled, muttering about wanting yummy fish, seaweed, and oysters, as Kaayii dropped from his tree and helped his father push Ahniiq up the trail ahead of them, away from the sea, and away from the people.
MINNIE
Chapter Twelve
The forest came alive, stimulated by the light of a new day. Minnie, curled up in her pine-needle nest, woke from a deep and restful sleep, feeling as fresh and happy as she could remember being since her mother had passed. Her first thought was not ‘Where am I?’ but, ‘I slept all night in the forest.’
The birds sang, whistled and chirped, and squirrels chattered and trilled to each other as they scampered along branches and leapt from tree to tree. Minnie just sat, encircled by the curtain of low-hanging fir branches, and listened to the forest outside her little den, feeling completely at peace.
She vaguely remembered dreaming about her mother – that she was with her mother in the woods, not next to her but somehow just around, floating like a morning mist through the trees, keeping watch over her.
Her sleep-drowsy mind began to clear and she realised she was alone. Musto was not with her. ‘Oh no, not again!’ she said.
She noticed a hard smear of black on her hand, and only then she remembered falling, cutting her head and her hand. There was dried blood on her hands and her head was throbbing slightly. She felt an egg-shaped lump on her skull amongst her tightly curled hair and something hard stuck to it.
Something was embedded in the pine needles under the branches, and she pulled up thin, white strips of wood. She sniffed at them and nibbled at one end – it tasted sweet. She was hungry, so she chewed on it. She crawled out from under the nest of branches, pulling her backpack with her and squinting in the low, flat glow of early morning light. ‘Did I dream that Musto was here?’ she wondered.
Minnie now saw that the massive fir tree she had slept under, and it was by far the biggest one around, had five tall straight tree trunks, stripped of their bark, leaning into it. She looked around. ‘Structures,’ she said. She was surrounded by carefully positioned, stripped-bare tree trunks and branches. There were boxed off areas on the ground where the forest floor was clean – cleared of undergrowth, leaf litter and fallen twigs, and the earth pressed down flat.
Under the nearest three pine trees moss had been gathered in huge piles, and appeared to have been sat on, or lain on, by something large. There were three of these mossy ‘nests’ and as she looked around she could see that in places the duff under the pines on the game trails was disturbed and roughed up.
‘Musto!’ she yelled. Silence. An eerie sense of not being alone began to creep over her. She had a distinct feeling that she was being watched. She hoped it was Musto, looking at her from somewhere nearby in the bushes, but she heard nothing, and saw nothing move.
‘Caw!’ called the crow from a branch directly above her.
‘Oh, it’s you! Great,’ said Minnie. ‘You’ve been watching me. Go on then, tell ’em I’m here.’ And the crow spread its wings and lifted from the branch. It disappeared through the trees, and she could hear its call growing fainter as it flew higher up the mountain.
Then, klunk! A clear wood knock rang out in the still morning air.
‘Well, that wasn’t Musto,’ she thought. She looked directly up at the white sky between the pine treetops. ‘Mom, what should I do?’ she said out loud. ‘If I walk downhill I will come to the bay in the end, but I can’t leave without Musto.’
There were a lot of tracks on the ground, so many she couldn’t differentiate between them. As she knelt to examine them a sound she knew well came from far down in the forest, but it was so faint she feared she was imagining it. It was Musto’s bark! It was his excited bark. She heard it again and it was getting closer. ‘Musto!’ she called out as loud as she could.
‘What if he’s being chased by a wolf or a bear?’ It was unlikely, as there was very little wildlife in this forest, apart from squirrels and birds, as far as she knew. She climbed the nearest tree anyway, just to be safer. Then she heard a voice. It was a man’s voice. It was Dan, yelling her name!
‘Here! Here Dan! I’m here!’ Musto came bounding up the trail, his tail wagging madly, his bark ringing out through the forest.
‘Minnie!’ called Dan, still out of sight. She climbed down from the tree and Musto jumped up at her. She held him and hugged him, crying tears of joy and relief. Dan jogged up the trail panting heavily, rifle in hand, grabbed her and hugged her so hard she thought she might break.
‘Dan! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!’
‘It’s OK, Minnie. It’s OK.’
‘I went to Connie’s … this morning…’ between breaths he spluttered out. ‘You weren’t there … she said you didn’t stay over … but your bed wasn’t slept in … then
Musto comes screaming out of the woods barking like crazy and he makes me follow him…’
While he caught his breath, Minnie tried to explain. ‘I’m sorry, Dan. I wanted to make a special meal but I needed some onions…’
‘Onions?’ asked Dan.
‘Yes. It’s in the recipe, so I came up here with Musto. Well, down there a-ways. It grows in the Aspen Grove, under the Giant X. But he ran off after something and I followed and…’
‘What did he run after?’ Dan asked, looking at Musto.
‘I don’t know. Then I slipped and fell…’
‘What’s that on your head?’ Dan touched her head.
‘That’s where I cut my head.’
‘What’s that stuff?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know. I woke up with it on my head and my hand, where I cut myself.’
Dan now started looking around, looking at the disturbed ground, and up the trails, and up in to the trees.
Dan pulled her pencil from a pocket. ‘I found this. You woke up with that black stuff on your cuts? What is it?’
‘I dunno,’ she said. Dan held her hand and sniffed at the black stuff.
‘Pine resin maybe?’ He touched the hard resin on her head. ‘And you didn’t put this on?’
‘No, but Dan, I was fine! I slept under there, with Musto! He found me and we kept each other warm.’ Dan looked around at all the structures leaning this way and that, at the cleaned and clear area, boxed in by straight trunks with no leaf litter or random twigs, all neat and tidy. He examined the large indentations made in the moss piles, picking them apart and sniffing them.
‘Eeuw … No animals came around?’ he said, and he stuck his head under the low fir boughs of the tree where she’d slept.
‘No. Nothing happened,’ she said, still hugging Musto. ‘It was all quiet. Peaceful. Well, I think I woke up once, or I might have dreamed it: three loud knocks.’
Dan knelt down on one knee, scrutinising the tracks around the tree. ‘Well, this is deer. A whole bunch by the look of it. But they can be pretty quiet.’
‘Oh?’ said Minnie, as she fussed over Musto.
‘But this…’ He crouched low to the ground and followed tracks on the earth. ‘This is a cat, and a big one.’ Minnie bent down to peer at the print.
‘Oh … that’s big, it’s like…’
‘Like, bigger than my fist.’ He followed the cat tracks. ‘But it goes off this way and the deer went off that way.’ He looked at Minnie. ‘You heard nothing last night?’
‘Yup.’
‘Nothing?’ he asked again.
‘No, nothing. Just the usual night-time kinda rustling … but that’s the wind and…’ Dan was still searching the ground all around. He stopped.
‘Minnie? Um, this … take a look at this.’
She looked. ‘OK. So…’ she began, ‘a really large homeless person must have, like, chased off the mountain lion?’
‘After applying some kind of plant-based antiseptic salve to your wounds,’ said Dan wryly as he lifted his rifle and scanned the trees, ‘whilst you slept under that tree.’
Minnie whispered, ‘I’m really hungry…’
Dan whispered, ‘Shall we…?’
‘Yup…’ was her immediate reply. As they backed out of the area a pinecone flew past Dan’s head.
‘Quick! Let’s go!’ They didn’t run, but walked very briskly back down the trail.
‘Thank you!’ she called out. ‘Thank you for helping me! We’re leaving now.’ A pinecone whistled past her head. ‘OK! We’re going!’
They hurried all the way down the trail, past the big teepee structure by the redwoods, past the Big X and the broken tree, past the Giant X and through the Aspen Grove, without pausing.
As they hurried along, they began to hear a crashing sound in the trees on both sides of the trail. It was like two very large animals, one on either side of them making as much noise as possible by shoving through the brush, breaking branches as they went, like they were noisily and rudely escorting Minnie, Musto and Dan out of the forest. The earth juddered with the sound of heavy weight stomping on both sides of the trail, accompanied by the wrenching of branches off trees and the snapping and tearing of saplings out of the ground.
‘Run!’ yelled Dan. They ran. The path through the trees joined the main hiking trail, and the cabins were just visible through the trees, when the thudding, shaking of the earth and crashing suddenly stopped. Minnie and Dan stopped too, and looked back. She opened her mouth to shout a last cheery farewell but before she could, the longest, loudest, deepest, roaring h o o o w w l l l… filled the very air they breathed, filled the air in the forest, filled the air over the bay, like twenty lions roaring together as one. But it was much, much louder!
The howl lasted many seconds then changed in tone until by the end it sounded like an anguished being crying out with anger, yearning and pride all in one giant voice. The howl echoed and faded away.
‘OK then!’ said Minnie to the forest.
‘Er … wow,’ said Dan in an awe-struck whisper, and they turned and walked quickly towards the cabins. Tears coursed down Minnie’s freckled cheeks but she had the broadest smile on her face.
She was exhilarated, so fired with a quickening of joy and so aglow with wonder, that deep in her mind, a part of her asked if this was the summit of her life, if there could be more that would make her feel as alive as she felt at that moment. ‘Thank you,’ said Minnie to the sky. ‘Thank you.’
Chapter Thirteen
Connie and Billy were standing on the deck of their cabin by the trail when Dan and Minnie came in sight through the trees. Connie ran down the steps when she saw them.
‘Was that sound what I think it was? Minnie, where were you?’ Connie ran to Minnie and swept her up in to her arms. ‘When Dan said you hadn’t slept in your bed…’ Billy came over and joined in the hug.
Dan just stood looking up at the mountain, one trembling hand on his chest.
‘It was like two trucks,’ he said, gazing back at the trees, ‘crashing straight down through the woods, but … but … with, like, you know, no engine noise…’
They all walked down to Connie’s cabin, but kept looking back at the forest as they went, still wary, still shaken by the experience.
Connie took Minnie inside, leaving Billy and Dan on the deck, wrapped her in a blanket and fussed over her saying, ‘Now, you must be starving. Are you starving? I’ll make us all breakfast. Dan, you want coffee? Sit there, Minnie. Gosh, what is that on your head?’
Dan stepped inside the cabin. He checked that Billy wasn’t right behind him. He could see the boy still stroking and cuddling Musto on the deck. He stood by Minnie at the sofa and said quietly to Connie, ‘I don’t want Billy to hear this but … Minnie fell and cut her head and her hand…’ Minnie held up her hand ‘… and some … some how … when she woke up, this black resin stuff was on the cuts.’
Connie gasped. ‘What?’ She bent down to sniff Minnie’s hand. ‘There’s a black pitch comes from the balsam tree. It’s antispetic. But there’s something green in there too, look.’
The three off them scrutinised the hard black crust. Connie looked at Dan. ‘Could be juniper needles. Also antiseptic.’ She stepped back. ‘And there are fingerprints in it. Big fingers…’ She leant against the table. ‘OK, so … oh my!’
‘And there were footprints again, all over.’ Dan put his hands about eighteen inches apart. ‘Like, yay big, again.’
Connie sat in the chair, and said, ‘I can’t hide this from Billy. He needs to know.’
They ate a hearty breakfast on the deck. French toast with maple syrup, scrambled eggs, bacon, tomatoes from the garden and steamed spinach, also from the garden, which Billy didn’t eat but Minnie did.
‘Gosh, you were ravenous,’ said Connie. ‘Now Dan, I hate to be crude and bring up business at the breakfast table, but wouldn’t a Bigfoot encounter like this be good for business?’
‘Encounter?’ said Bil
ly.
‘I didn’t see one,’ corrected Minnie, ‘but they’ve seen me.’
‘They touched you,’ said Connie firmly, ‘so it’s a close encounter. Look, there are fingerprints on that resin where they pressed it! Bigfoot fingerprints!’
‘Big fingerprints,’ contributed Billy, ‘from a Bigfoot finger.’
‘And they are not going to harm us, Billy’, said Connie.
‘It’ll be just another report on a Bigfoot research organisation’s website,’ said Dan, ‘and most people will simply say it didn’t happen or say she put that stuff on herself, she’d hit her head … blah blah … she doesn’t recollect correctly … blah blah…’
‘Do you recollect correctly?’ Billy smiled, relishing the word play. ‘Or correctly recollect?’ He employed the pepper grinder as a microphone, which he proffered in Minnie’s direction and she started giggling with Billy.
‘With that fire … no bookings…’ Connie continued.
‘With that fire they’ve had to move over this side of the mountain,’ said Minnie, ‘and so probably have other animals, like mountain lions.’
‘And bears?’ asked Billy.
‘Or moose, bobcats, porcupines, coyotes…’ said Minnie.
‘Until that side grows back, which it will in a couple of years…’ said Connie.
‘Not the trees,’ said Billy, ‘they take way longer.’
‘Decades,’ said Minnie.
‘Decades,’ repeated Billy.
‘I heard wolves,’ said Dan.
‘Wolves?’ asked Billy.
‘Not close. Far away,’ Dan assured him. ‘Far, far away.’
‘Oh, and there was this.’ Minnie pulled a long white strip of inner bark out of her jeans’ pocket. ‘I found this next to me when I woke up.’
They all just stared as Minnie chewed on the bark. ‘It’s yummy.’
