Bigfoot and the Boy Scout

Photo by Brady Knoll from Pexels

Myah heard a twig snap behind her, off trail in the woods. Could be a deer, she thought. Mountain Lion? No. Stop being paranoid, she told herself. She tapped the bear spray attached to her belt. If it’s a cougar, you won’t see it coming until it’s on top of you and that bear spray won’t be of any use.

“Stop,” she said out loud with a slight shake of her head. “It’s nothing. You’re not in Mosul anymore. Get a grip.”

Under her jacket on her waistband opposite the bear spray, was a holstered M9 Beretta. Before leaving home Myah decided to add it for protection. This was for humans not wildlife. In a pocket was her cell phone, turned off. There is no cell service in the wilderness.

Myah hadn’t hiked since childhood and never alone. As a girl she had skipped along at her dad’s side on hikes, but he’d never brought her here. This part of the wilderness was where he came for his solo expeditions. Once her mother got full custody of her at age 11, she’d insisted that father and daughter stay out of the woods. When Myah complained, her mother said, “I don’t want him contaminating you with his crazy ideas. I don’t want him to turn you into a freak, Myah. It’s for your own good, and you be sure and tell me if he starts talking to you about fantastical creatures.” Myah didn’t know what her mother meant by “fantastical creatures,” but she knew if she found out, she’d keep to herself.

Today on her first civilian hike since childhood, Myah tugged the bill of the cap she wore. It had been her father’s. On the front of it was an emblem that represented his nearly lifelong passion.

A raven flew overhead cawing and was answered some distance away by others of his kind. Myah stopped for a moment and watched the bird in flight. “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary…” she recited Poe’s poem as she made her way up the trail, her steps in cadence with its rhythm.

When the last “nevermore” was recited, Myah looked up at the clear blue sky and said, “It feels like I’m the last person on earth, Daddy. It sure feels good, but I wish you were here with me.”

The trail became steep. Myah leaned forward into the ascent and began to sing softly. “I wanna be an Airborne Ranger. Live a life of guts and danger. One mile, no sweat. Two miles, no sweat….” It was an army running song that she’d learned in basic and her go-to song when she needed to push herself physically.

When the trail leveled out, her breathing was quiet and smooth. The incline had been literally no sweat. On her feet she wore her trail running shoes, suitable for light hiking. She felt like breaking into a run, but this was a day for observation and reflection not exertion, so she kept walking.

“Maybe I got lucky and I’m being followed by one of the big guys,” she said under her breath and with a smile. “You’d love that wouldn’t you, Dad? Wow, out here my imagination is getting as big as yours.”

Not long after her mother’s warning about her father’s fantasy creatures, Myah discovered that her dad, Artie, was a Bigfoot enthusiast. Like her mother, Myah didn’t believe in such creatures or cryptids. Today she was out in the wilderness to be closer to the memory of her dead dad. She just wanted to walk the trail that he’d visited over and over again in search of something from his boyhood that had triggered a passion. Off this trail somewhere among the evergreens, her father’s life had changed.

When Myah was twelve, she asked Artie about the creatures that had made him a freak in her mother’s eyes. He said, “I will tell you if you promise not to tell your mother.” She promised.

He claimed he’d encountered a Sasquatch when he was on a Boy Scout camping trip here where Myah now hiked in the Willamette National Forest of Oregon. The incident occurred close to the campsite, while he was picking up twigs for kindling. According to Artie, he caught a foul scent on a breeze. It smelled like rotting meat. Then he moved his eyes from searching the ground and looked up into the eyes of another being’s. The creature was about 6 feet tall and covered with dark brown fur. Its arms hung long at its sides, past its knees. The eyes were golden-brown but there was white also, like the whites of human eyes.

“Were you scared, Daddy,” Myah asked him.

“That was the really strange part, no. I felt calm like I was in a dream, a dream, not a nightmare. I wasn’t really thinking anything and then I pressed the sticks close to my chest with one hand and with the other I gave the two-finger Cub Scout sign. It looks like a peace sign, ya know. The Squatch started to lift one of its arms, I think to do the same, but some of the other boys started comin’ towards us. I could hear them getting close behind me. I turned to look and when I turned back he was gone. It was so weird, Myah, he just vanished without making a sound. Now I know he was probably an adolescent because of his size. An adult male is usually 7 to 9 feet tall and he was only about six. I was pretty sure of that at the time.”

“How did you know it was a boy?”

“Well, I got a glimpse of his boy parts.”

Myah’s face and ears turned hot. She bent her head and pretended to read the book in her lap. Artie went on to tell her that right after that fateful camping trip, all he could think about was seeing that creature again, and as soon as he got his driver’s license, he began solo backpacking in hopes of re-experiencing the most mysterious and wondrous thing that had ever happened to him.

Myah never talked with Artie about the encounter again. Something she regretted now. She didn’t know if Artie ever saw a Bigfoot, or whatever it was that he mistook for one, again. Myah believed her father thought he’d seen a Sasquatch, and she believed he’d been mistaken.

While she was stationed in Iraq, a month or so before Artie’s death, Myah had a video chat with him.

“I don’t believe in any particular religion, but I believe in the mystery of life,” he’d said. “There is so much we don’t know about Mother Nature. We’ll never have all the answers. The most dangerous and ignorant animal on Earth is man. But you know that, don’t you, honey? You’ve seen the carnage of man up close.” He’d paused and then said in a choked whisper, “Sorry, honey, I can’t even imagine what that must be like there.”

“Hey, little lady, what are you doing way out her by your lonesome?”
Myah had been lost in her thoughts and looking down at the trail. She gave an involuntary start and looked up to see two men, one older, fifties or sixties, and one about her age, in his late twenties. They were rugged looking with long beards, hair reaching their shoulders, and floppy-brimmed felt hats, mountain men types, without the fur pelts. They each held a rifle, 22s.

“Well, what do you know, Billy? We were hunting for squirrel but we found a pussy instead.”

Then the older man let loose a screeching laugh that spooked two ravens in nearby treetops. The birds flew off cawing. The younger man raised his rifle and aimed. A blast went off and one of the birds dropped from the sky. The other continued flying and squawking, broadcasting danger.

“Oops, don’t tell the game warden on us. Well now, girly, you should know that you have the privilege of being in the company of the best shot in Marion County, maybe all of Oregon, even. That’s our Billy, here.” The older man started chuckling, which led to coughing and his face turning scarlet before the one called Billy began slapping him on the back so hard that the older man stumbled forward a few steps.

“Pull yourself together, Leroy,” mumbled Billy.

After a long minute Leroy’s coughing subsided and then he squinted and leaned forward looking at Myah’s cap. “Hey Billy, you remember that tenderfoot we spooked a few weeks back. He had a hat like that. Told him we were going to make him squeal like a pig, ‘member? Never saw a man run so fast. You belong to some sort a club, girly? Squatch hunter, are ya? Like em’ hairy and hung? Well, we’ll have to do. Cause there ain’t no such thing as an ape man. But we won’t disappoint ya. We’re fairly new to these parts and we ain’t seen a piece as fine you since we come here.”

Myah turned on her heel and dashed down the trail. When a shot was fired and the bullet hit the dirt beside her, she plunged into the woods, crashing through the undergrowth and fallen debris. She jumped over a downed, rotting tree and then ran behind a huge old growth cedar. She attempted to quiet her breath as she sneaked a peak. Through the trees she had a view of the trail. The two men stood where she’d left it.

“Well, looky here, Billy,” shouted the older man for her benefit. “I think our minx has left the trail. And she’s made it real easy for us. Might as well come out, girly,” Leroy shouted. “We’re the best trackers this side of the Rockies. We’ll find you sooner or later, dead or alive. You can count on that,” he said and then squealed with laughter. “Well ain’t this fun!”

Myah bolted and started scrambling up the side of a hill, zigzagging for cover behind trees as she climbed. Getting on the other side of the hill seemed like the best option.

“Hear that, Billy, she is on the run. Don’t let her get away, son. Git er! ”
Myah heard the sound of someone charging through brush, Billy, no doubt. She stopped and hid behind a tree. She peeped around to see the backwoodsman coming fast and she was close enough to see the glee in his eye when he spotted her. He was in his element — hunting.

She pulled the Beretta from its holster, switched off the safety, and took aim but missed her target, Billy’s head. The felt hat flew off but the bullet hadn’t touched flesh. Myah knew she should have taken a body shot but there was no time to berate herself or for a second shot, so she sprang up to run but tripped over a fallen branch and fell to her hands and knees. The Beretta jarred from her grip slid down the hill and disappeared into a patch of ferns.

“Fuck!” Now all she could do was run, so she launched herself into a full on sprint.

There was hardly any cover for about 40 feet before reaching the top of the hill. Myah crisscrossed the hillside like a drunk banking off invisible walls, back and forth. A bullet whizzed into the hillside just inches from her left foot. She kept running and making her way up. Then as she reached the top, she felt a hot searing pain in her outer left thigh, a flesh wound. With the impact, she tumbled to the ground. Her head grazed a rock, part of an old campfire ring. Down below in the distance, she heard what sounded like frantic coyote yips.

She shook her head and began to get back up, and then her nose wrinkled. This hillbilly really reeks, she thought. Wincing with pain, she moved into a crouch, getting ready to run again, but then in the corner of her eye, she caught a movement near her. That’s when she realized that she and Billy were not alone, and it wasn’t Leroy. At first, she thought she saw a bear standing on two legs. Then the creature moved closer to her as it stepped out from behind a tree that had hid it from the hunter below. Taking two large strides, it or rather he (she noticed boy parts), stood on the hillside above and facing her pursuer.

Billy, who had been looking down as he climbed the hillside, stopped abruptly. Looking through the gap between the creature’s legs, Myah could see the man’s eyes widen and his mouth open as he sucked in a breath.

“What the hell?” Billy said and made a quick move to lift his rifle into firing position, but just as he did so, the creature leaped, knocking Billy to the ground. Next the creature picked up the man by one leg and flung him down the hill and against a tree trunk. Myah heard Billy’s spine crack and she shivered. As Billy lay twitching at the base of the tree, the thing strode over and applied a quick foot stomp to the hunter’s head. The dull pop told Myah that Billy was no longer the best shot in the county.

“Billy Boy?” called Leroy. His voice quavered. “Billy, you okay, boy? What’s going on? That bitch ain’t givin’ you any trouble, is she?”

The creature moved behind a tree as the older man made his way up the hill.

“Some city folks were comin’ up the trail so I hid and scared em’ off with coyote yelps. I heard some commotion your way. You okay? Oh no, oh no, Billy!” The older man crumpled next to Billy’s broken carcass. “Aww no Billy! Aww no! What that bitch done to you!” cried Leroy.

At first, one of the self-proclaimed “best trackers this side of the Rockies” wasn’t aware when the ape-man moved into position behind him. Then Leroy stopped his moaning and was silent and still. He knew. With the agility of a gymnast, he sprang up and turned to face the creature. First his brow furrowed and then his eyes bulged once he realized what stood before him. Then Leroy began coughing so hard he doubled over. When he caught his breath, he said in scratchy voice, “But you ain’t real, you son of a bitch. You can’t be real.”

With his long arms, the Sasquatch shoved Leroy, knocking him a few feet through the air. Leroy hit the ground and skidded down the hill a ways. The rifle flew from his hand and landed far from his reach. The hunter lifted his head and in a raspy whisper said, “Just do it, ya stinkin’ son of a bitch. Get it over with.”

As if obliging the downed man, the Squatch picked up an old tree branch that was white and barkless, smooth like a bone. With little effort, he drove it into Leroy’s chest. After a shattering scream from the hunter, came silence. The woods were completely still, hushed and complicit as the man’s blood soaked into the earth beneath his lifeless body. Leroy’s open eyes looked up at the sky as if searching for an answer to the question Why me?

Myah did not move a muscle. With some surprise, she realized that her breathing was calm. Then the Squatch turned and looked at her. Myah saw the whites of his eyes, just like a human being’s. She did not panic and a smile came to her face. It was a smile of recognition. She raised her right hand and gave the two-fingered Scout sign. The creature’s eyes were locked with hers. She had the sense that he knew her. Maybe I smell like Dad? Maybe it’s the hat? she thought.

Whether this was her dad’s Bigfoot or not, she felt no threat from him. She felt safe. It was a gut instinct that she’d developed when deployed in Iraq, and so far, it had proved to be right.

Suddenly sharp and persistent calls broke the stillness as several ravens flew overhead.

Myah looked up and watched their flight. When she looked back down, the creature was gone. She scanned the woods as far as she could see but he’d vanished.

Just like with dad, she thought. “Your secret is safe with me,” she shouted. “Thank you!”

The birds landed in the trees nearest the bodies.

Myah stood and took off her pack, took out a t-shirt, and wrapped her thigh. She eased her way down to where Leroy lay and pulled the blood soaked tree limb from his body. It was just the right length for a walking stick. It would be a slow and long hike back to the trail-head. It would be manageable, but first she would retrieve her handgun.

Myah wiped the blood and bits off of the bottom of the stick and onto Leroy’s jacket. If anyone she happened to meet on the trail asked about her wound, she’d say she’d slipped and fell on some wood debris when going off trail to pee.

Once Myah moved away from the corpses, the ravens flew down from the trees and landed on the hunters, cawing raucously as they pecked at the dead men’s vacant (and in Billy’s case - dislodged) eyes.

“Bon appetite, my feathered friends. Now that’s what I call poetic justice.”

One of the birds looked straight at her with a bloody eyeball in its beak, the optical cord dangling. Then the raven tilted its head back and the eye and eventually the cord disappeared down into his gullet.

“Nevermore,” Myah whispered as she turned away from the feasting birds.
She looked up at the sky and spoke, “I get it now, Daddy, I get it.”

A raven raised his bloody beak from feasting on flesh and cawed, as if in acknowledgment.