Chapter 5

THE LAST CHANCE GAS AND Diner was positioned between a barren strip of Route 66 and the rugged tableland of a mesa a mile or so behind. The slope leading toward the tiny outpost of civilization was covered in rust-colored boulders that shaded drowsy lizards and pale green clumps of sagebrush.

Mike and Winnie descended the incline toward Ambrosia with terrific speed. Their churning feet kicked up clouds of dust, and more than once only a quick jump kept a stumble from becoming a fall. The two friends tumbled down the hillside as if pursued till finally they arrived at the bottom, gasping for breath. Mike bent at the waist with his hands on his knees.

The third member of the group also obligingly stopped, then turned with a questioning look and a wag of his tail. Jake, fully recovered from his dehydration and excited at being out of the vet’s kennel, wagged again and tipped his head as if to ask why the pleasant romp had been interrupted. Abruptly jumping up, the dog smacked against Mike’s chest with his front paws, knocking the boy over.

“Whoa, Jake,” Winnie protested. “Don’t be so rough on Mike!” But her words were punctuated by her giggles.

Jake stood over the boy, covering his face with sloppy, slobbery dog kisses of gratitude and friendship.

“Ugh!” Mike spat as Jake continued to lap the boy’s grimy face. “Winnie, help.”

Laughing, Winnie made no hurry about pulling the enthusiastic canine away until Mike shoved the dog off his chest and tried to sit up. At last she grabbed Jake’s collar and ordered him to settle down. “Come here, boy. Leave Mike alone.”

Jake backed off, tail still wagging, then began lapping at Winnie’s hand.

“Good boy,” Mike said, getting to his feet and brushing himself off. He patted the top of Jake’s head and scratched behind the shaggy ears. “Doc Mangus was right. That IV sure did the trick.”

“I know,” Winnie agreed, straightening the shiny braid of her long black hair. “Jake’s so smart. How’d he know to lead us back here to the diner?”

“I don’t know,” Mike answered, shrugging. “Scent, I guess,” he said, massaging the dog’s neck. “Attaboy, Jake! Good dog! All you needed was a little help from your friends!”

As Mike and Winnie began to walk toward the diner, Jake bounded ahead. “So, did your mom say you could keep him?” Winnie asked, wiping a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes.

Spotting an old can lying about twenty yards off, Mike grabbed a smooth gray stone from the ground. With a frown of concentration on his face, Mike wound up and pitched the rock. “I haven’t asked her yet.” A satisfying clank resounded when the lump of shale connected with the can, and Jake ran over to investigate. Smiling at his success and the dog’s curiosity, Mike continued, “I mean, taking him to the vet is one thing, but keeping him . . .”

Winnie looked concerned as she said to Mike, “You don’t mean you’d actually think of taking him back to that mean old man? Mike, he almost died!”

“I just don’t . . . he’s not mine,” Mike answered defensively, squinting one eye.

“Oh, Mike, no! There’s gotta be another way,” Winnie said firmly as they neared the diner, passing a pink-and-brown sign that announced “Best Milkshakes Around.”

Mike looked unhappy, then he brightened suddenly as a thought struck him. “I know,” he said. “Let’s give ol’ Varner a call. Maybe he’ll sell Jake!”

Winnie and Mike banged through the screen door and, passing the cash register, headed straight for the phone near the kitchen. As Winnie crossed her fingers and stood looking across the colorfully speckled countertop at the pink and blue stools of the diner, Mike opened the thin phone book to the letter V. Following halfway down the page with his fingertip, he said, “Here it is: Varner, Silas.”

Winnie laced together the fingers of both hands, placing them to her lips in hope as Mike dialed the number.

“Hello, is Mr. Varner there, please?” Mike asked politely.

“Who’s this?” The harsh, grumpy voice that erupted from the earpiece was loud enough for Winnie to hear and sharp enough to make Mike jump.

Butterflies doing loops and barrel rolls in his stomach, Mike answered, “It’s Mike Fowler, sir.”

“Fowler, where in tarnation is my dog?” the angry tones of Silas Varner demanded.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Mike said hurriedly, rolling his eyes at Winnie. “You see, I was kind of wondering . . . well, you know . . . if you’d be interested in, um, selling him.”

“Sell him?” Silas sputtered as if he was spitting out a mouthful of rock dust.

“Yes, sir,” Mike agreed hopefully. “He can be a lot of trouble for you to take care of, and I thought—”

“No!” the old miner practically screamed.

Mike sighed with frustration. “Why not? He’s—”

Silas cut him off bluntly. “Never should’ve let you on my property in the first place. Should have knowed you’d try something like stealin’ my dog. Why can’t you Fowlers leave me alone?”

“But—”

“I said no! And even if I was int’rested, I wouldn’t sell him to no thief!”

“But we didn’t steal him,” Mike argued.

“Now you listen to me,” Silas told Mike in a tone that allowed no further discussion. “I want that dog brought back tomorra! And that’s final!” the prospector screamed as he slammed down the phone.

Mike stared at the receiver, lost in deep concern over what to do next.

Mike sadly hung up the phone and turned to Winnie with an apologetic shrug and a shake of his head.

A tear rolled down Winnie’s cheek. “He can’t do that,” she protested, half angry and half concerned. “It’s not fair. Jake’ll get sick again.”

As Mike sat down at the counter, a picture of dejection and worry, Winnie said she would go locate Ben and Spence to see what ideas they might have. Mike scarcely even knew when she left, nor did he notice the three young men who entered the diner to occupy a booth.

Gail, Mike’s mother, had overheard Mike’s end of the conversation and guessed at the rest. She left off sorting a stack of papers and receipts and sat down alongside him, putting her arm around him.

“It doesn’t look like it went too well,” she commented kindly, studying her son. The pale, sky-blue shade of her dress matched the color of her sympathetic eyes.

“He says he won’t sell him to me,” Mike said. The depth of his disappointment was evident in his tone.

Mike’s grandmother was pouring a cup of coffee. Gail looked at the silver-haired woman before saying in a quiet but firm voice, “Then I guess you know what you have to do.”

Mike swallowed hard, fighting the lump of anger that was in his throat. He shook his head violently, then said, “But I can’t just take him back! It wouldn’t be right.”

“And it was right for you kids to just take him?” Gail asked pointedly.

“Well . . . yeah. It’s not like we stole him.”

“Then what would you call it?”

Mike sat quietly, feeling the weight of disapproval in his mother’s words. Not able to answer her question, he changed his tack. “But Jake could have died if we left him there.”

“So the end justifies the means,” Mom stated.

Shrugging, Mike responded weakly, “Something like that.”

“Mike, I know your heart’s in the right place,” Gail continued. “But you can’t make up your own rules as you go along. The world’s full of that kind of thinking . . . and it can start you down a very slippery slope.”

“But, Mom, the rules weren’t going to help Jake! Isn’t it better for Jake to be treated right?”

“Don’t mix up the two issues,” she disagreed. “Nothing is right if you have to break God’s rules. Mike, your dad gave you that Bible you carry around for times just like this. In Proverbs it tells us not to lean on our own understanding, but to trust in God. In other words, you do what you know is right and leave the rest up to Him. It’s not always easy, but that’s the deal.

“Anyway, we are talking about two different things here. Maybe there wasn’t time to call the authorities first, and we’re all glad you saved Jake’s life. But even thinking about not returning him now is different, and you know it’s wrong. There are some terrific people like Sheriff Smitty and the Humane Society whose job it is to watch out for Jake now.”

Mike’s grandmother, Kate, broke in at that point. “I’m sure you already understand how to live by laws and that stealing is wrong, don’t you, Mike?”

Mike nodded his solemn, if still a little unwilling, agreement.

“Anyway, Gail,” Kate said, “if you don’t skedaddle on into town, you’re gonna miss that shipment of fresh vegetables.”

“Oh, right. Thanks, Mom,” Gail said, rumpling Mike’s hair. “Grandma’s right. We’ll talk more later, okay?”

“Sure, Mom,” Mike said, grateful that Grandma Fowler had joined the discussion. He smoothed his hand across the pocket Bible given him by his father as his mother put on her sweater and prepared to leave. Mike heard the screen door open and close as his mother left, but he didn’t notice that someone had sat down at the counter next to him.

“Sounds like you’ve got yourself quite a dilemma.”

It took a moment before Mike recognized the figure as the man from the wrecked truck and U-Haul trailer. “Mr. Plummer,” Mike said with surprise. “What are you doing back here?”

“I just couldn’t resist coming back for some more of that small-town hospitality,” Plummer said, smiling. “So who is this infamous dog abuser, anyway?”

Mike scratched his head. “Oh, an old prospector that lives outside of town. See, me and some friends were out there looking for signs of Bigfoot, when—”

“Bigfoot!” Plummer interrupted. “Out here in the desert?”

“Yeah, Bigfoot,” Mike answered, sitting up excitedly. In the unhappiness over what to do about Jake, Mike had almost forgotten the mystery that had led the Last Chance Detectives to Jake in the first place. “I know it sounds strange, but Mr. Varner claims that he saw one, and well, now that you’re back, I wanted to ask you if you saw anything that night that you—”

“Excuse me,” another voice called from a booth behind them.

Mike and Mr. Plummer turned around to find a college-aged kid dressed in Levis and wearing a varsity jacket standing near them. His two friends were also looking on attentively from their booth.

“Did you say something about Bigfoot?” the college student asked nervously.

“Bigfoot, yeah,” Plummer agreed. “Apparently my little buddy, Mike, here, has been investigating rumors around town.”

“Well, it’s no rumor,” the college student said. “I saw him!”

Winnie watched from under the brightly polished wing of Lady Liberty as a sizable crowd gathered in the sun outside the Last Chance Diner. Chattering noisily, the onlookers listened and commented as Alex and his friends made their report to a deputy sheriff about the previous night’s frightening encounter.

“It was enormous and hairy, and it had these huge hands! It tore up our cooler, nearly killed me when it grabbed for me like this!” Alex enthusiastically demonstrated on the deputy’s arm. “And then it . . . it roared . . . like this, Aarrrrrggh!” he snarled, right into the deputy’s face.

Blinking and stony-faced, the deputy stepped back. “Uh-huh,” he said with barely hidden sarcasm. “Do you think I should write that down?”

“Well, uh, that’s what it sounded like to me,” Alex answered, nodding. “Look, I know this sounds lame, but you’ve gotta believe us. I mean, we were all there.”

“That’s right, officer,” said Sam, slipping the dark blue bandana off of his hair. “The thing practically threw the car at us. If I hadn’t jumped when I did, I wouldn’t be alive to tell you this now! And then when the fire exploded—”

“Uh-huh,” repeated the deputy without showing any emotion. “You sure you boys weren’t . . .” The deputy pantomimed taking a drink from a bottle and got a loud howl of protest in response.

Winnie shook her head. Sighing, she turned her back on the scene at the diner and, climbing under the belly of the bomber, entered the plane through the hatch.

She had only just passed through the curtain into the detective agency headquarters when Ben leaped out at her. His arms raised like claws above his head, Ben growled at her through orange-peel monster teeth.

“Aarrgggh,” Ben howled through the clenched orange rind, trying to scare her.

But Winnie, wise to Ben’s pranks, did not scare easily. “See what happens when you don’t floss,” she remarked.

“Aw, Winnie,” Ben complained, “you’re no fun. Hey, I was just trying to lighten things up a bit.” Ben stepped down and removed his fake fangs. “It’s not like we can’t have fun once in a while.”

Winnie sat down at the table next to Mike. He and Spence were examining something under a microscope. Both boys seemed preoccupied with their examination.

“What are you guys doing?”

“It’s a perfect match,” Spence noted as he lifted his eye from the scope and moved the eyepiece so Mike could take a look.

“What is it?” Winnie asked.

Spence cleared his throat and pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “Remember that hair that Mike found at Mr. Plummer’s wrecked trailer, where the door was smashed?”

Winnie leaned in closer. “Yes, I remember.”

Mike finished with the microscope and, sliding it over to her, said, “It’s a perfect match with this other hair.”

“What other hair?” Winnie questioned as she rotated the focus knob until the image became clear. “Where did you find the other hair?”

“You know that college kid Alex, who says he saw Bigfoot?” Mike reminded.

She glanced up from the eyepiece of the scientific instrument and motioned for him to continue. “Right, the one outside with Deputy Sorenson.”

“That’s him,” Mike agreed. “Well, I found more hair today on the back of his car.”

“Wow,” she said. “So there really is something big and gruesome out there.”

“That’s not all,” Spence added. “We think we know where he’s going to strike next.”

Ben stopped slurping the last of the orange, dropped the remains of the peel to the deck of the aircraft, and wiped his hands on the front of his red shirt. “You do?” he interrupted, walking over to the table. “I didn’t hear this part. When’d you guys figure this out?”

“While you were planning how to ambush Winnie,” Mike said. The leader of the Last Chance Detectives reached behind him to a small wicker magazine rack and pulled out a topographic map of the local area. “Look. Here’s Mr. Varner’s place,” he noted, circling a tan-shaded area of the map with a fat-tipped red marker. He placed a single dot in the circle. “Right here is where he said he saw Bigfoot.”

“Which was night before last,” Spence added.

Mike moved his hand slightly across the map and indicated the wavy line marking a road. “And this highway, here, is where I found the hair near Mr. Plummer’s trailer.” Mike added another circle and a dot.

Spence placed his finger next to the mark on the highway and added, “Which was smashed and scratched sometime earlier.”

“And here’s the campsite where he scared those three guys,” Mike continued, moving his hand away from the highway, past the circle on the Varner cabin, to a third location.

Spence gave a nod and said, “Last night.”

Winnie let her eyes trace the line made by the three dots together. Realizing their theory at once, she looked up with a serious expression. The barest prickle of fear made the back of her neck feel peculiar. “So . . . it’s moving in this direction.”

Spence began to retrace the line slowly with his fingertip. “And the next human habitation in this line, the next place the creature could try to steal food, the straight path from the first three sightings, is—”

“Here!” Ben exclaimed. “It’s coming here!”

Mike sat back and crossed his arms thoughtfully. “It’s just possible. If we’re right, then we can probably expect a visit from our friend tonight.”

Ben gulped hard. The swallow echoed loudly in the otherwise silent airplane. “Well, I know where I’m not gonna be!”

“Are you kidding?” Mike retorted. “This is our big chance.” He nudged Ben’s arm. “You could be famous.”

“I could be dead! You be famous . . . or Spence . . . or . . . what’s this?”

Spence tapped his left fist with the palm of his right hand. Reaching into his grip, he pulled up four toothpicks until all stuck out evenly. “Short stick spends the night here in the B-17.” Spence motioned to Ben. “Come on, Ben. We’ll even let you pick first.”

As if his life depended on it, Ben touched a fingernail to one stick, drew back, touched another, went back to the first, then skipped one stick completely to grasp his choice and pull it out. It was really short, and Ben held his breath while waiting to see what the others drew.

Winnie scarcely looked at the three remaining options before making her selection. Ben craned his neck anxiously and groaned at the length of her straw. It was longer than his!

The next turn was Mike’s, and the stick he drew was slightly shorter than Winnie’s, but still longer than Ben’s. The stocky boy let out his breath with a whoosh, then took another breath and held it as Spence opened his palm to reveal the final stick.

“Let me see that, Spence,” Ben whined, holding up his toothpick for comparison. “Oh, no! It isn’t fair!”