by Rod O'Grady
Minnie took herself away from the others, went into her room and sat on her bed. She lifted the framed picture from the shelf – the one of her mom smiling while sitting on the jetty last summer on her birthday – held it to her chest and lay back on the bed.
‘Onion!’ She opened her backpack, pulled the wilted onion plants out and rolled off the bed. She ran out of the cabin and into the vegetable garden. After a brief hunt around she found striped green and yellow zucchini growing under their low spreading wide green leaves and twisted and hoiked four of them loose. Then she found the garlic and the parsley – she had to bite it to check it was parsley. Then she picked a nice pile of tomatoes. She lugged the vegetables back to the cabin in an old basket she found in the small tool shed, and set to making Dan’s favourite meal.
It took her the rest of the morning and she was so exhausted after making the casserole and leaving it all ready to bake on the table with a cloth over it, that she went back to her bed to lie down. It was only then that she allowed herself to really think about what had happened in the forest.
She went over it in her head. ‘While I slept, a Bigfoot crawled into my den and applied antiseptic goop to my cuts, then kept watch over me, chasing away a mountain lion?’ She remembered how she fell down the ravine, slipping on the flat rocks, and how the next thing she knew she was up on the other side of the ravine, lying on her side with a leaf placed under her cheek. ‘So he or she picked me up and carried me out of that ravine? And was watching me all that time?’
She remembered reading somewhere that some states in North America have signs up in the National Parks warning people to respect the local fauna including Sasquatch, which is the native name for Bigfoot.
She’d read on the internet that mostly they were believed to be fantasy beasts in stories told by First Nations people to scare their kids and keep them from wandering off in to the woods. Which was exactly what Minnie had done.
She wondered why she hadn’t been really scared in the woods, only anxious that Dan, Connie and Billy would realise she was missing and be worried. She wondered whether Bigfoots have extra special powers to sense the feelings of other animals and maybe they knew that she was sad about her mom, and maybe there was a Bigfoot rule not to harm any fauna that is sad. She thought about Dan, how he was sad and that the Bigfoots might know that too, and that Dan should let them into his thoughts and then he might have happy dreams about Mom.
She must have fallen asleep because she woke up to Dan tapping on her door. ‘There’s something on the table that looks particularly delicious.’
They ate together on the deck. ‘Mmm … them’s good eats!’ said Dan, wiping his mouth. ‘As good as, if not better than, your mom’s.’
‘A thank you for coming to get me this morning.’
‘Well, thank you, Minnie.’
‘And an apology for not doing as you said, not staying at Connie’s.’
‘Well, thank you, Minnie.’
‘And an apology for saying the things I said to you before…’
‘Well, again, thank you, Minnie.’
‘When we were on the jetty, about me being a dreamer and Mom being a dreamer and you…’
‘Yes, OK, well that’s fine and I appreciate the gesture, Minnie. It was delicious.’
Minnie stood up and leant against the wooden rail that bordered the deck so she could look at the mountain stretching up behind their cabin.
‘If you’re thinking that you want to…’ started Dan.
‘No, I’m not thinking of going up Bigfoot Mountain any time soon, Dan, no.’
‘You’ve given it a name?’
‘Yup. It’s a mountain, and there be Bigfoots, so…’
‘Please keep that name to yourself.’ Dan said, as he twisted the cap off a bottle of beer. ‘Bigfoot Mountain? We need bookings!’
‘There’s plenty of Bigfoot researchers would love to come here,’ said Minnie, ‘Thing is, I don’t want to share my Bigfoots with them, and my Bigfoots do not want to be bothered by people whacking trees, whoopin’ and hollerin’ at night in the woods and generally being a gosh darn nuisance. So I will be keeping this info to myself. And so will young Billy.’
‘And so will I, Minnie,’ said Dan.
‘I think,’ said Minnie, ‘I think they deserve a bit of peace and quiet so I will not be going into that there forest, no Dan, not for a while. Even if I take Musto and Billy with me!’
‘Billy? He’s nearly as chicken as me!’
‘You are not chicken, Dan, not when you’ve got your big gun to protect you. I reckon that’s why they got close, Dan, because I had no gun. They’re not stupid.’
‘No, they’re not,’ he said.
‘So you believe in Bigfoots now, Dan?’
‘You mean there’s more than one!’ he laughed.
‘There were at least three last night. We saw the moss they’d been sitting on,’ said Minnie. Dan just smiled and looked away.
While they talked she picked at the hard black resin on her hand. ‘If you don’t believe they were Bigfoots watching over me? Who else was it? Hunters? Homeless people?’
‘Let’s not get in to this again,’ he said.
‘I know it’s amazing and incredible, and blows your mind. It blows my mind too. But Dan, we saw the footprints. Huge! Hunters don’t walk around barefoot in the forest at night. No one does, except… Oh. Look.’
She’d scraped the black resin crust off her cut hand and the two sides of the cut had knitted together, neatly and cleanly.
‘That’s … that’s looking good. Should put a band aid on though so you don’t open it up.’
‘Yeah. I will.’ Minnie said as she went in to the bathroom.
‘I would leave the one on your head though, the resin … let it do its thing.’
Minnie came out with the first-aid box. She opened the box and Dan took out a sticking plaster, peeled the back off and stuck it over the cut.
‘Thanks.’
‘Wait,’ he said, and he started to wind white bandage gauze round and round her hand and pinned it with a safety pin. ‘I know how you love to climb your trees. That should hold.’
‘Thanks, Dan.’ She started stacking the plates. ‘Can Billy and I go fish on the jetty? You can watch over us from the deck, like a king surveying his kingdom.’
Minnie leapt down the steps. Under the cabin was where they kept the fishing gear. She unhooked two rods and grabbed the tin of bait.
‘Catch us something for tomorrow’s lunch!’ he yelled.
‘We will!’
Chapter Fourteen
It was twilight, and day was fast fading to night. The waxing moon was cresting the hills in the southwest. The white cabins stood out, but everything else – the grass, the bushes, the paths – was lost in the murky gloom.
The tide was in. The water of the bay lapped and sloshed against the jetty posts under their dangling feet, as Minnie and Billy sat on the end with their fishing lines in the water. Neither of them had caught anything. ‘So you weren’t scared?’ asked Billy.
‘Yes and no! Sheesh! How many times you gonna ask me?’
‘I would be, like, really scared, to be on my own in the forest,’ said Billy.
‘I know. You said. I had Musto with me,’ said Minnie, ‘and I just, kinda, fell asleep, without thinking about stuff too much. If I’d thought about it, I might have been more scared. OK? Happy? Can we not talk about it anymore?’
‘Mom says I have an over-active imagination, and that it can stop me doing fun stuff. I just say I will do fun stuff, just not the dangerous fun stuff.’
‘Walking in the forest is not dangerous,’ said Minnie.
‘If you carry a gun!’ said Billy.
‘No, Billy-Bug. If you take sensible precautions.’
‘Like, stick to the hiking trails?’ he said.
‘Yes. But if you stick to the hiking trails you may not discover cool new stuff.’
‘Like Bigfoots.’
‘R
ight. But make sure you’re back by nightfall…’
‘So do you think they were there, looking after you,’ asked Billy, ‘like, all night?’
‘I do, Billy, I do.’
‘That is so cool! I hope you get some bookings for your cabins soon.’
‘Why, Billy?’
‘So I can scare their kids with stories of Bigfoot in the forest.’
‘Don’t do that, Billy. Do not do that. Or those people will not come back ever again. We need them to come back and to bring their friends! They won’t do that if you’re terrifying their children.’
‘But it’s true,’ Billy said, as he pulled up his fishing line. ‘There are Bigfoots in the forest.’ His bait was gone.
‘Billy, you must keep this information to yourself. Tell no one. Please, or we’ll never get these cabins rented. Yes, they are in the forest.’
‘But you haven’t seen one.’
‘No, I haven’t seen one … but they will not bother you if you do not bother them. I went up too high, following Musto into their territory, and they didn’t feel comfortable with that, so in the morning they let us know not to go that far up again. Up there,’ she pointed up the mountain, ‘is theirs. Down here is ours.’
‘OK, I won’t tell no one.’ He was reeling in his line.
‘That’s a double negative, meaning you will tell someone. Are you being clever, young man?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Billy sincerely.
Clouds had floated in from the southwest, the sun had set, and night was closing in. Minnie wondered why Dan hadn’t called her into the cabin. ‘He must be engrossed in Bigfoot research,’ she thought, as she could see him sitting on the deck with the laptop. While she was looking at him, she saw him answer his phone. Then he stood up and yelled, ‘Minnie! Billy! Get up here now! Now!’
‘What is it?’ Minnie yelled as she pulled her line in.
‘Run!’ Dan was running down the path to the jetty with a desperate look on his face. ‘Quickly! That was Connie. Something just thumped the side of her cabin, like twelve feet off the ground!’
BOOM!
‘Like that?’ said Minnie as something thumped hard on the back of their cabin. Dan grabbed Billy and Minnie and they all ran back up towards the cabin.
BOOM! Again.
They stopped and stared into the shadows.
‘Let’s go!’ Dan led the way and they sprinted for the cabin. They ran up the steps, went inside and slammed the door shut. Dan went to the window on the side overlooking the vegetable garden and looked out. Billy grabbed Dan’s arm. ‘What’s happening, Dan?’
‘A Bigfoot just whacked the cabin,’ said Minnie matter-of-factly. She was trying not to frighten Billy any more than he already was, by sounding unemotional when in fact she was fizzing with excitement.
Dan went into the bathroom and Minnie followed him. Billy hurried after them. ‘Why are we going in the bathroom?’ he asked.
Dan peered out of the small window that was the only one at the back of the cabin facing the mountain and Connie’s place.
‘See anything?’ Minnie asked.
‘Nope.’ Dan hurried out of the bathroom. He grabbed his torch off a shelf and his gun from its clips high on the wall and went out onto the deck. He turned on the torch. Minnie leant over the rail to look. The beam lit up a corner of the vegetable garden, the track up to Connie’s and Connie’s cabin. There was no movement, it was silent – no wind, no birds, and no barking from Musto. Nothing. Then a weird sound broke the silence – it was a warbling whistling sound, and it came from the trees behind Connie’s cabin.
‘What the…?’ said Dan.
‘That was like a whistle,’ said Minnie, ‘but with your lips loose and flapping.’
Dan pointed the strong beam of his torchlight in the direction of the whistle.
‘Connie, stay there!’ he yelled. ‘I’m comin’ to get ya!’ He scanned the trees. Again, nothing stirred, nothing seemed out of place.
‘What have you stirred up?’ Dan said to Minnie.
‘Me?’ asked Minnie.
‘Something’s got them riled up.’
‘They’ve had to move over to this side because of the fire!’ she said.
‘Why are they harassing us?’
‘They’re not!’ she yelled.
‘I’m gonna fire a warning shot to scare them back where they came from.’
‘No, Dan, no. Leave them be! It may just be their way of saying hi!’
‘Whacking the side of the cabin? It’s aggressive behaviour! Go inside! I’m going to get Connie and lock the door!’
Dan sprinted off into the night, his torch beam jerking as he ran past the vegetable garden and through the parking area and round on to the track.
Minnie went inside. Billy was standing there, close to tears. ‘Are they gonna come in?’
‘No, they are not going to come in,’ she said as she took his hand.
‘What do they want?’ he asked.
‘They’re just letting us know they are there.’
‘Why? We already know they are there.’
‘I’m not sure why. Dan’s gone to get your mom. Look.’
She led him into the bathroom and from the window they could see the beam of light from the torch swinging this way and that, as Dan scanned the track, the trees and the cabin.
‘They’ll be back in a minute,’ she assured him, ‘less than a minute.’
As he passed behind the cabin Dan turned and directed the beam briefly on the back of the cabin and something caught Minnie’s eye. Looking more closely she could see there were two handprints on the outside of the glass. The smaller handprint was much bigger than Minnie’s hand and the bigger one was more than three times the size of her’s with really long fingers. The prints were both slightly smeared, as if the hands that touched it had a sweaty, greasy sheen to them. Minnie and Billy both put their hands against the prints. She opened the window and yelled out, ‘Dan!’ but he must have gone inside Connie’s cabin as the torch beam had disappeared.
‘Just letting us know they’re here?’ Billy asked, weakly.
The torch beam reappeared. ‘What? What is it, Minnie?’ called Dan from outside Connie’s.
‘Look at this window.’ Dan and Connie were running down the track, the torch beam jumping around ahead of them.
‘Oh my!’ said Connie, when they got up close. Dan reached his hand up to the window but the prints were about eight inches higher than he could reach.
Dan scanned with the torch all round, flicking the wide beam of light from bush to tree, to the trail up to the forest. ‘Close the window. We’re coming in.’
Minnie shut the window and locked it.
Dan and Connie came in and Billy rushed to his mother. Dan locked the door. They all stood there just looking at each other.
‘OK, I think they’ve gone, so…’ said Dan.
‘Yes, they don’t mean us any harm, let’s just…’ said Connie, still shaken, holding Billy who was hugging her tight.
‘Let’s see these prints, Minnie,’ said Dan and they went in to the bathroom.
‘Should we feed the kids, Dan?’ called Connie.
‘Yes, let’s eat,’ called Dan. ‘There’s zucchini casserole…’
Dan and Minnie looked closely at the prints. Dan snapped photos with his phone. Then he put his hand up and placed it over the bigger print. It was twice as long and twice as wide as Dan’s hand.
‘Er, what do you think?’ asked Minnie.
‘I don’t know what to think,’ Dan said, leaving the bathroom.
A short while later they were all sitting at the kitchen table, eating in a kind of shocked funk, as each of them tried to process what had happened. The adrenaline that had coursed through their bodies earlier had subsided, leaving them emotionally drained and physically weary. All the lights in the cabin were on and blazing brightly, casting a glowing pool of light around the cabin, in which the humans felt somewhat protected – like lighting a campfi
re in the woods to keep the beasts away.
‘You can have my bed, Connie,’ said Minnie.
‘Minnie, thanks, but I’ll be fine on the sofa, really.’
‘How many nights are we staying?’ asked Billy.
‘Just as long as you want,’ said Dan.
‘No, no, just tonight.’ said Connie, ‘I’m still shook up about that thing hitting the side of my cabin. I was sitting right by that wall and boy, it made me jump! At first I thought it must have been a hiker, though there’s been no one hiking since the fire started, that I’ve seen. Then I realised how high up that thing hit. Gotta be twelve feet off the ground at that point, maybe more.’
‘And you’re sure you didn’t see the Bigfoots at the back of our cabin?’ asked Minnie. ‘The ones who touched the window?’
‘I didn’t move from the table until Dan got up there,’ Connie said with a tremble in her voice.
‘We don’t know for sure it was Bigfoots,’ said Dan.
‘Er, hello?’ said Minnie. ‘The handprints?’
‘OK, so, if it’s them, why now?’ asked Dan. ‘There’s been cabins here for fourteen years at least.’
‘Must be the fire. Maybe they’re competing for food now on this side,’ said Minnie. ‘That’s why there’s wolves, coyotes, mountain lion.’
‘It’ll be bears next. Just like the old days!’ Connie refilled her glass from the water jug.
Minnie asked, ‘Which cabins were built last?’
‘Cabin number five was the last one your mom and I built, two years ago,’ Dan said. ‘But before that it was this one. Why?’
‘Just wondering if maybe they want to get to the shore.’
‘The shore?’ said Billy.
‘There’s plenty of access up or down from here. From the rocks,’ said Dan.
‘But it’s all slippy rocks, or cliffs. This is the only place with a beach at low tide,’ said Minnie, ‘so it’s easy to access the water from here.’
‘That’s why there was always someone living here – access to the water,’ said Connie.
‘They can’t get to the beach because of this cabin being in the way,’ said Minnie, ‘and they’d have to climb two high fences to get through the vegetable garden, or go all the way around the garden, and my tree, and through the parking area, through the gate…’
