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Chapter 5

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“Stories of the Wild-Man are found throughout the history of the indigenous tribes here in the Pacific Northwest,” Lauren explained as they unloaded the truck at the trailhead. The crew included camera and audio specialists, assistant researchers, and Sherpas to haul the equipment. Everyone gathered around, inspecting equipment one last time to make sure it hadn’t been damaged in shipping. “Members of the Lummi tribe told tales of the Ts’emekwes ... their name for Bigfoot.”

“So, let’s talk about some of the hazards we can expect to encounter.” Rowan took a seat on one of the cases. A mission and safety briefing was routine before every expedition. “Over the course of the next week, we’re going to be doing a lot of hiking on Mount Saint Helens. Most of it will be uphill, and we’ll be gaining approximately 4,500 to 5,500 feet in elevation. I hope everyone ate their Wheaties this morning,” he joked. “Human error is one of the leading causes of injury here in the National Park. Second is the climate. I checked the weather conditions, and it looks like we have a few good days ahead of us, but there’s a chance of rain later in the week. Rain comes with the risk of lightning, alluvial flooding and mudslides.”

Lauren took over. “This is a strenuous climb. Now, we’re all in pretty good physical condition, but that doesn’t mean we can let our guard down. So, check your gear, double knot your hiking boots, and let’s load up. We have a long hike ahead of us.”

* * *

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“As if it’s not bad enough worrying about the active volcano beneath our feet, we’re hunting for a man-eating bigfoot,” Rowan narrated to the camera as the team made its way up the damp mountain path—an animal trail, really. “Two days of hiking in the cold rain has been miserable, and everyone is near exhaustion, but we’re getting closer to the lair of the legendary Bigfoot.”

Jean-René flipped the camera off. “Clear.”

“Man-eater?” Bahati gulped.

“Don’t let him scare you. It’s just an old folk tale,” Lauren said. “The worst reports, of late, have just been some rock throwing.”

“It is a wild creature,” Rowan warned. “Just because it hasn’t been violent doesn’t mean it won’t protect itself or its offspring if it feels threatened.”

“I don’t intend to threaten it.” Bahati held her hands up.

Lauren shrugged the pack onto her shoulders to adjust it. Her back ached and her feet were cold and wet. “I just want to take its picture. Do you think it would pose with me for a selfie?”

Rowan rolled his eyes and stepped up to where the path opened onto a wide clearing. The sound of running water implied there was a stream nearby, a sorely needed source of fresh water.

“This looks like a good place to make camp for the night,” Jean-René said.

“We’ve got two hours of daylight,” Lauren said. “Let’s go ahead and break out the equipment. Jean-René and I will scout the area once we make camp and see if there are any signs of our target.”

* * *

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In no time, Jean-René had the camera equipment unpacked. Lauren checked her dart pistol before she returned it to her hip holster. It was loaded with a powerful tranquilizer, the only weapon they were allowed to have in the National Park. Guns were prohibited by Federal law. She’d had to use it once before when an aggressive black bear surprised her in the Alaskan back country. She hadn’t been that lucky when she ran into a grizzly a few months before, and had narrowly escaped by slipping inside an abandoned cabin. She wouldn’t go out without one now.

“Aren’t you tired?” Jean-René asked, once they were alone.

“Yes,” Lauren admitted. “But I have a job to do.”

“You should lie down after dinner and rest. It could be a long night.”

“I won’t be able to sleep. Especially if we get any kind of activity. There’s plenty of time for sleep tomorrow.”

“Rowan said he wanted to get deeper into the forest.” Jean-René shook his head. “We might have to hike ... especially if we don’t find anything here.”

A rustling in the distance drew her eyes to the tree line. Jean-René looked at her, then turned, searching for what had caught her attention. He lifted his camera and switched it to infrared. “Did you see something?”

“Maybe.” She held a finger to her lips as she paused to listen. “Got anything on camera?”

“Heat signature on that big fir tree, fading fast.”

She moved to see the viewfinder. “Do bears leave hand-prints?” The fading mark on the tree looked almost human.

“Chance!” Jean-René shouted. “Rowan?” A distant crash echoed above them on the steep hillside. Something moved farther in the distance; a large shadow in the woods. “What was that?”

“Let’s find out,” she said, taking off after it.

“Lauren, wait.” Jean-René rushed to catch up with her. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to go chasing bears in the woods?”

She stopped abruptly, looking down at the loam in front of her. With a hint of caution in her voice she said, “I don’t think it was a bear.”

Jean-René followed her gaze to a large depression in the soft earth. “Oh, wow...”

The footprint was at least fifteen inches long, twice as long as an average human footprint. It was deep in the mud, but it looked as if it hadn’t been there long, though the soil was lightening as it dried around the edges.

Lauren called Rowan to join them. He sat on his heels beside her. “Did you bring the casting kit?” she asked. Jean-René nodded. “Make sure the site is secure. We don’t need whatever made that print sneaking up on us.”

“Look, you can see the toes. Is that an imprint of hair?” Jean-René was still focused on the print. Lauren bent down on her hands and knees with a magnifying glass and flashlight, inspecting it.

“Sure enough,” she said. “Great way to start the investigation! I didn’t think we’d find anything for at least another day or two.” She mixed the compound with water from her canteen. “It’s a good location. Close to the water, off the beaten path. Looks like there’s plenty of game and natural cover. If I were Bigfoot, I’d like it here.”

Rowan gasped as he knelt beside her, inspecting the depression with his flashlight. He shook his head. “Impressive.”

“Okay, I have the casting agent mixed. Ready to film?”

“Yeah. Let’s get this one in the can on the first take, okay?” Jean-René gave them the thumbs up as he switched on the camera.

Lauren narrated as she poured the plaster into the crater left by the unknown creature. “I’m using a product called Dental Stone. It’s stronger and less likely to crumble than plaster. We’ll want to make sure this cast is viable for researchers for many years to come.” It would take thirty minutes for the cast to dry, but the viewing audience would see less than thirty seconds. The half-hour spent waiting for the cast to dry would be edited out in post-production.

* * *

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“We better make sure the motion-activated trap-cams are set around the perimeter. I don’t want this thing walking in on us unawares in the middle of the night,” Lauren instructed, as they waited for the cast. “Jean-René, do we have a GPS ping on this location?”

“Yes, I’ve got it logged,” he said. “I’ll get the trap-cams set up. How long until dinner?”

“Always worried about your stomach.” Lauren rolled her eyes at him, grinning.

“I think it’s Lauren’s night to cook, right?” Rowan winked at Jean-René. “I can pull the cast when it’s dry. Why don’t you go start dinner?”

Lauren’s eyes flamed, as did her cheeks. “Do you think I’m your wife or chef or something?” She narrowed her eyes, staring them both down. She spoke intentionally to their Director of Photography and avoided looking at Rowan.

“It’s only because you’re such a good cook,” Rowan said, clearly letting the comment go.

She softened. “Was someone going to start me a fire?”

“Bahati is in charge of setting up base camp, and that includes getting a fire going,” Rowan said. “I don’t smell smoke yet.”

“Why can’t she cook dinner? Oh, right ... she can’t cook. My bad.” Lauren rose, turning away from the casting. “What sounds good?”

“Red beans and rice,” Jean-René and Rowen said in unison. It was always what they asked for when it was Lauren’s turn to cook.

“Red beans and rice it is,” she said, pulling on her backpack. “Make sure you bag it and fill out the chain of custody records,” she called back.

“Do I look like a rookie to you?” Jean-René asked. She flipped him off over her shoulder as she headed back to base camp.

* * *

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Bahati had set up the tents in a semi-circle around the fire. A pile of wood had been collected by the team and sat ready for a fire to be built.

“They sent you to camp to cook, didn’t they?” Bahati asked. She swore under her breath, but all Lauren heard was, “Men.”

“No kidding,” Lauren said. “Where’s the chow locker?”

“Over by Jean-René’s tent. I found a tree stump that would make a nice stool or prep table. Looks like loggers have been through here before.”

Lauren studied the stump and nodded. “It’s been a while.” She started building a fire. “Funny how some place so isolated from the world has ever seen man’s touch ... yet, here’s proof.”

“There’s no wild planet left anymore,” Bahati agreed, putting bed rolls out in each tent.

A blood-curdling cry broke the stillness of the afternoon and reverberated in the pines. The trembling of the branches made the needles fall like snow. They froze, wide eyes locked on one another. Bahati scrambled into the tent, spinning around on her hands and knees. Her eyes widened and her skin seemed darker against the white of her frightened gaze. Lauren rose, turning her head in the direction of the sound.

Jean-René appeared with the cameras rolling to catch her reaction as she searched for the source of the eerie cry. “You guys heard that?”

“What was it?” Bahati asked. “Wolves?”

“That was no wolf,” Lauren said. She would know. She spent several years in Yellowstone studying the wolf population when she was doing her internship as researcher for PBS on the science program, Nova. She’d filmed wolf populations in Alaska as well. If there was one animal she knew better than any other, it was the wolf.

“What was it, then?” Bahati’s voice trembled, and dwindled to a frightened squeak when the somber cry broke the trees again. Birds scattered and the woods went quiet.

Lauren reached for the dart pistol on her belt, loosened the clasp, but kept it holstered. Her eye went to the locker she knew contained a can of bear mace. The dart gun should be enough, but she only had two shots before she would have to reload. The mace would be easy to reach, but would it be as effective on a cryptid as it was on a bear?

“That was closer.” Jean-René’s voice was strong, but Lauren recognized his growing concern by his thickening accent. He moved in, still keeping the camera on the women. Bahati huddled in her tent, while Lauren stood fixed, ready for battle.

“Where are the digital recorders?” Lauren asked. Bahati scrambled out of the tent to one of the piles of packs that had been hauled up the mountain on the backs of the technicians and Sherpas who accompanied the team. They established a base camp where most of the support crew would remain while the production team continued on, carrying only what they needed on their backs. It kept unnecessary parties from ending up in a camera shot but left them close enough to provide additional support if needed.

Bahati brought her one. Lauren clicked it on. “We’re in the Cascade Mountains in central Washington State on the lower fringes of Mount Saint Helens.” She hesitated when the howling reverberated again, this time to her left. Still distant, the creature was obviously on the move...or there was more than one.

“Camera rolling,” Jean-René said. Lauren nodded and set the voice recorder on the stump.

“Is it possible,” she asked, still watching the tree line cautiously, “that a giant, hairy creature called Bigfoot could inhabit the forested lands of our planet? Many people think so. This reclusive, unpredictable animal is the subject of much debate, and though often called a hoax, the legend of Bigfoot continues to be perpetuated by eyewitness encounters, scratchy audio, and grainy photographic evidence.

“The name Bigfoot,” she continued, “is often interchangeable with Sasquatch, a word derived from the Salish language meaning hairy man—a bipedal creature, rarely seen, yet often discussed. Many disbelievers claim that ample evidence does not exist to substantiate the existence of Bigfoot. The Veritas Codex team is here in the mountains of the northern United States on the trail of the elusive Bigfoot. If there’s evidence out there, we intend to find it.”

“Good,” Jean-René lowered the camera while Lauren returned her attention to the trees, searching for any sign of movement or eyes watching them.

“Where’s Rowan?”

Jean-René sat the camera down, rubbing his shoulder. “He was collecting the cast. When we heard that noise, he sent me to you.”

“We need to stay together until we figure out what that was and where that was.” Lauren’s hair stood up on the back of her neck. A sense of dread washed over her. She wasn’t prone to such flights of discontent, but when she felt this way, she knew it was important to act on it. “We need to find him.”

“I sent Chance to take over the camera when I passed him on the trail,” Jean-René said. “So, it’s not like he’s alone.”

Lauren reached for the walkie-talkie on her belt. “Base camp to Rowan.”

There was a long pause. “Rowan here.” The audio crackled and he sounded winded.

“We’ve got audio set up. Where are you?”

“We had rocks thrown at us about the time all the howling started. We followed something into the woods across the river, but we seem to have lost whatever it was.”

“Did you see anything?”

“No. But Chance is going to have one hell of a shiner. Whatever it was, it’s a good shot. They really do throw rocks.”

“We need everyone back to base camp to set up the perimeter and get ready for sunset. If anything else is going to happen, it’s more likely after twilight.”

“We’re on our way back now,” he said. “I’m gonna need my medic bag.”