by Caroline Lee
Copyright © 2018, Caroline Lee
[email protected]
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
First edition: 2018
This work is made available in e-book format by Amazon Kindle at www.amazon.com
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Cover: EDHGraphics
Nick Norego likes being a computer nerd. He likes the careful routine of his day, and the fact he doesn’t have to interact much with people. He even likes that he works someplace as beautiful as River’s End Ranch, where he’s surrounded by gorgeous mountain views without having to actually, you know, step foot in nature.
Okie Pucklin came to River’s End Ranch to paint that nature, and to find Bigfoot. Nick’s website insists this is where Bigfoot lives…but how come Nick is so secretive about that site? And how can someone who is surrounded by such majestic mountains be content to just sit in his office and look at them?
As Nick’s new friend turns into something more, he realizes he needs to find a way to convince Okie to stay. If that means going on a Bigfoot hunt, so be it…because they’re both keeping secrets, and this might be the only way to discover the truth!
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
EPILOGUE
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Bigfoot Believer
River’s End Ranch
Book Forty-Nine
Dedication:
For everyone whose brain doesn’t work quite the same as everyone else’s.
And the people who love them.
CHAPTER ONE
Nick Norego did what he did every morning he was expected at his desk at River’s End Ranch: he took a run through downtown Riston—now that it was late April, he didn’t have to worry about wearing so many layers in the pre-dawn cold—made himself a breakfast sandwich of bacon and avocado, poured his coffee into a to-go cup, and stopped at his overlook to enjoy it.
On mornings he wasn’t expected at the ranch, when he was planning on working from home, his routine differed only in that he took his coffee into the third bedroom in his shared apartment, the one he and Jamal had used as their office since Reggie left when he married Abby.
But today he was needed at River’s End to help wire the second floor of the bunkhouse for WiFi—finally!—which meant he’d be spending the day interacting with another human. Luckily, it was Andrew, who could manage to go more than fifteen minutes without feeling the need to speak, so that was good. Nick couldn’t handle too much chit-chat.
He managed to stifle his sigh as he pulled his truck onto the shoulder and saw there were already three other people at his overlook. It got like this in the spring and the fall, when his morning commute happened to coincide with a particular azimuth of the sun’s journey.
He happened to like this overlook every morning, whether it was midwinter and the eastern sky was just lightening, or midsummer, when the sun was high in the sky by now. But he had to admit that during the spring and autumn, when the sun’s rays were just peeking over the tall mountain at River’s End, and hitting McIver’s Mountain perfectly…it really was the most attractive time of year.
Which explained why he always ended up sharing his overlook with these…these tourists. This morning he took his coffee and wandered over to the guardrail, away from the noisy older couple taking photos of one another with the sun-lit mountain in the background.
Some people just don’t know how to respect beauty.
With a mother who was an art historian, Nick had grown up understanding how to appreciate beauty and art: one did it from a distance, quietly. Respectfully. Art wasn’t something you picked up and handled, and beauty wasn’t something you shoved yourself in front of while taking photographs. You had to stand back and contemplate it.
Preferably while sipping your favorite type of coffee.
He wasn’t an artist, no. He wasn’t even an art lover. But his mother had instilled in him the idea that the best way to start your day was with a few moments of quiet contemplation. When he’d been younger, he’d tried all sorts of things: meditation, yoga, even just flipping through a coffee table book with paintings of the Dutch Masters. But he realized what he’d needed was something grander, something he could stand in front of, appreciate and enjoy in silence.
Preferably while sipping his favorite type of coffee.
When he’d moved to Riston several years ago, answering the ad for an IT specialist at the ranch, he’d found what he’d been looking for in the mountains surrounding the small town. They were grand, and beautiful, and best of all, they looked different every day of the year, depending on how the light hit them. He found he could stand here at this overlook studying McIver’s Mountain every morning, and always find something new to appreciate.
Like today for instance, the Columbine blanketing the glade on the south slope gave the whole scene a sort of purple tint. There were more than there’d been yesterday morning, but less than there’d be tomorrow morning. This meant today’s beauty was unique.
He sipped his coffee from the travel mug and knew Mom would approve.
After a while, the noisy couple climbed in their car, talking about finding breakfast someplace, and Nick was able to tune out the sounds of the passing cars. Without thinking about it, he sunk into the contemplative meditative state Mom had taught him years ago, breathing deeply, and readying himself for the day ahead.
A few minutes later, he exhaled, energized and recharged. At some point while he’d been staring at the mountain, the third tourist had moved up beside him near the guardrail. Nick startled, surprised the other person had been so quiet.
But the kid was so engrossed in his own work, he might not have even noticed Nick there in the first place. He wasn’t the sort Nick usually saw at this overlook during this time of year; for one thing, he was too young. Maybe eighteen, but the smooth line of the jaw Nick studied made it appear the kid wasn’t even old enough to shave.
For another thing, he wasn’t dressed like any of the other tourists Nick was used to seeing at the ranch. He wore battered jeans, skinny and dirty at the knees like he kneeled in the dirt, with a baggy hooded sweatshirt advertising a hardware store from Boise. The kid’s auburn hair was just as shaggy as the rest of him, and reached his collar and scraped his cheekbones under a green knit toque.
But what made him more different from the other tourists Nick had seen, was the Wacom MobileStudio Pro 16 tablet he held in front of him while he furiously sketched and added color to a painting of McIver’s Mountain.
Oh, Nick had seen plenty of artists painting these mountains, even from this overlook. Heck, the ranch had an entire gallery devoted to paintings and photographs of the surrounding mountains. Nick had even contemplated pur
chasing one of Tony Morales’ paintings for his apartment, but ultimately decided against it because it would never change. He preferred the real-life version, which looked different every day.
So yeah, artists trying to capture the majesty of the mountain wasn’t unusual, but Nick had never seen one doing it with such a fancy piece of digital equipment. The expensive tablet and stylus seemed out of place with the kid’s rundown appearance.
Nick watched the kid’s lithe fingers skip over the tablet, choosing colors to capture the scene in front of them. He sure did know how to use the program! Under his fingers and the stylus, McIver’s Mountain came to life in a style halfway between Impressionism and comic-book illustration.
Nick’s lips twitched slightly—as close to a smile as he usually came—when he saw the kid was using a purple tint to the whole thing. Just like Nick had observed when he’d arrived.
His coffee almost gone, and feeling energized for a day at the office, interacting with other humans, Nick turned towards his car. But there was something that stopped him. Something which made him turn to the kid…
“Looks good,” he said, surprising himself. Since when did he go out of his way to talk to people? Especially people he would never see again?
The kid jumped, as if he hadn’t even been aware of Nick’s presence. His stylus skittered across the drawing surface, but he took the time to delete the last wayward stroke before turning hesitant eyes Nick’s way. Those eyes widened, then dropped, when he saw Nick watching him, and a flush crept up his cheeks.
He really is young, isn’t he?
The flush made him look even younger, or at least more delicate, with those high cheekbones and elfin face.
When it looked as if the kid wasn’t going to say anything, Nick mentally shrugged. “Just wanted you to know it looked good.” The kid’s style felt familiar somehow. “You’re a real artist.”
“Thanks,” the kid muttered, still staring at the ground. Then, as if sharing a secret, he blurted out, “That’s the mountain where Bigfoot lives.”
Oh brother, another one.
Nick nodded stiffly, lifted his empty travel mug in a brief salute the kid didn’t acknowledge, and turned for his car. He should’ve known better than to make an effort to connect with another human, even if the kid had looked like he might’ve appreciated some praise. Nick should’ve known the kid wasn’t there just appreciating beauty, as Nick had been. He should’ve known this was just another addition to the stupid mythology of the area.
This place had enough Bigfoot freaks, tourists who came to Riston and the ranch looking for the mysterious Sasquatch, drawn by the internet and evidence and a burning desire to discover The Truth.
And it was all Nick’s fault.
“I met a fan of yours today.”
Standing below, holding the ladder steady, Andrew McIver grunted in response to Nick’s comment. The dark-haired man was chewing gum—he always seemed to be chewing on something—and passing up the tools as Nick needed them.
Taking that grunt as a sign of interest, Nick continued, “Some kid told me this morning that Bigfoot lives on your mountain.”
“And whose fault is that?” Andrew knew exactly why everyone around here had become Bigfoot-crazy in the last year.
“Yeah, sorry about that.” Keeping one hand on the router he was installing, Nick reached down with the other. “Pass me that smaller Phillips, would you?”
Andrew grunted again and passed up the different screwdriver. This was a relatively simple job, but one which required both IT and Engineering. Andrew wasn’t about to let someone go drilling and cutting into his wall—not while he was still breathing and on-property—and Nick couldn’t let Andrew install the routers himself, even though he was perfectly capable. No, Nick had to be the one doing the installing, because when something went wrong—and something inevitably would go wrong—Nick would be the one having to fix it.
The men worked in near-silence for a few minutes, speaking only to share instructions. Nick liked working with the head engineer because the other man didn’t feel the need to make unnecessary conversation, like some of the other engineers did.
After a while, Andrew picked back up on the conversation. “As long as this kid doesn’t talk his dad into trying to bribe Reggie to take him up my mountain. Remember that?”
Nick snorted softly with laughter. “Yeah. Remember how ticked that guy was when Reggie had Wade politely explain why ranch employees couldn’t give tours to places not on the ranch?”
“Guess Wade’s plan backfired, since people now think Bigfoot lives on my mountain. Maybe I should open a touring business.”
Yeah, right.
Andrew’s family might’ve once owned a large ranch and a big chunk of one of the nearby mountains, but the man had no interest in doing anything with it. Andrew’s grandfather had been the last to ranch there—to hear him tell it—and he and his siblings were perfectly content in their chosen careers. A few of them lived over in Quinn Valley, with cousins from their mother’s side, but Andrew and his sister had settled in Riston, where she was the elementary school librarian.
He’d been here at River’s End Ranch since he was young, and had kept the properties together through some pretty epic catastrophes—like the time a guest had left the tub running on the second floor and fallen asleep, causing enough water damage to close over half the bunkhouse for two months. River’s End Ranch was his in that he kept it together, and the Westons appreciated him in a way few people understood.
So there was no way he’d go opening a touring business, even if there were people interested in his mountain. The McIvers had sold off small chunks of property over the years—most recently to Marybeth Weston-Holmes and her new husband, the ex-Iditarod champion—but otherwise, Andrew rarely bothered with his ancestral property.
Still, he needed to reassure the other man. “I think you’re safe as far as unwanted tours go. This kid wasn’t on the ranch and didn’t have his family with him.” In fact, remembering the beat-up truck he’d pulled up behind when he’d stopped at the overlook, the kid had been very much alone. “He was painting—digitally—from the side of the road. But he told me Bigfoot lived on your mountain.”
“I bet you loved that, huh?”
It was Nick’s turn to grunt, partly because he was concentrating on the wiring—red and black—but mostly because Andrew knew him well enough to know why he’d be irritated by the whole Bigfoot hunt in the first place.
“I heard Kelsi talked Wyatt into sharing that story of the Bigfoot cologne and how he smells.”
“Yeah.” Nick focused on his work. “Guess I’ve got to add that to the website too.”
“Good luck.”
A year ago, Nick had agreed to be part of an elaborate scheme concocted by Kelsi, the youngest Weston sibling, to prank her brothers and sister. Many ranch employees had participated, leaving “evidence” of Bigfoot all over, and the Westons had been completely fooled. The crowning achievement—the thing that convinced them all—had been the website Nick had built.
Unfortunately, “The Real Bigfoot” site hadn’t died after the prank. Instead, in the two months he’d been neglecting it, the website had been quietly chugging along, garnering followers and support. When he—on a whim—logged back on last summer, he was surprised to see believers posting photos on the forums, corroborating the fake “evidence” Nick and his buddies had photographed.
When he’d mentioned the whole thing to Wade—as a sort of follow-up “Ha-ha, look what’s still going on” thing—the ranch manager had been thrilled. Nick could still remember the incredulous feeling he’d gotten while sitting in Wade’s office as the man had explained.
“That’s brilliant, Nick! And it’s not like we’re lying, if these people are posting their own evidence. It’s crowd-sourcing, really.” Wade had begun to pace around his office then, brainstorming. “My little sister is convinced Bigfoot lives in these mountains, so I’ll bet other people would be too. We could
just sort of nudge that belief along, and we’ll have people booking stays at the ranch just to catch a glimpse of him. We could have whole Bigfoot packages! I’ll get Reggie to come up with hikes, maybe take them past the spot where you guys put out the fake fur and footprint.”
Even then, Nick’s stomach had slowly sunk. The website had seemed harmless when he’d brainstormed it, when it had just been a trick against the Westons. But since that meeting with Wade, he’d watched his site garner all sorts of interest, until it was getting almost half as much traffic as the actual River’s End Ranch website.
It was almost embarrassing.
So now it was up to him to add in the photos and stories—like Wyatt’s “strange smell” story—which would be really popular, since he was one of the property owners—and make sure everyone behaved themselves on the forum. Luckily, he was also given carte blanche on the site itself, so he didn’t have to follow the design rules someone else had come up with.
Speaking of which….
“I’ve got to find a new image for the header on the ‘Scents and Sense’ page,” he said, thinking out loud. “That old one is getting…well, old.”
He liked to rotate out the images he used, and since he was allowed to do whatever he wanted, he’d chosen different paintings of mountains—preferably ones of the area. After all, he found the mountains relaxing, so why not use them? Several of the site’s paintings came from artists right here on the ranch—Tony Morales and his wife Mira, mainly—but he liked to scour the internet for different kinds of paintings.
Right now he was really into digital painting—like he’d seen the kid doing today—because it was cool how artists could capture the three dimensional look in a media which should only be two-dimensional.
