The Northorpes leave the island three days later. They have never seen so much rain in all their lives, and they have no idea how people can live in a place so damp. Eddie is relieved.
He imagines Becky at home talking to her friends over her computer, taking bites of a Big Mac as she types. She’s just had the most hideous vacation. They traveled all that way and there was absolutely nothing to do. No proper restaurants, no theaters or shopping malls, and the walking paths were absolute death traps. It was so wet you could rarely leave the cabin, and everything smelt like fish!
Granddad says Mrs. Greenshaw’s medicine has helped him and he is feeling more chipper. He sits at the kitchen table wearing his fishing vest on the morning after the Northorpes leave.
When Eddie sees this, he immediately runs back to the room they share for his own fishing jacket. He had just assumed they wouldn’t be going fishing again today. He then bolts down his breakfast while Grandma tells him to stop wolfing down his food and that even Flounder has more manners.
When they are ready, Grandma hands them the thermos and the basket of sandwiches she has made. “Now, Granddad,” she calls after them as they head out the door, “you be sure and mind Eddie.”
Eddie isn’t sure why she says this, but she does, every time they leave the house.
Eddie and Granddad carry their gear down to the wharf. It has stopped raining, although a heavy layer of fog hangs low in the sky. They nod to the other fishermen. Granddad listens to remarks about where the fish are biting and what type of bait they’re going for. They then climb aboard the skiff. Once the gear and baskets are stowed, Granddad starts the engine, and thirty minutes later they are drifting in the foggy bay, waiting for a tug on the line.
Eddie’s heart is much lighter now that Granddad is feeling better. He had been worried that something was seriously wrong. When Granddad had told the Northorpes about the bear he’d seen, he hadn’t done much explaining. He’d just said that the bear had stopped coming around. This was not like Granddad, and again, Eddie remembers what Mrs. Greenshaw said about not getting worried until the stories stopped.
“You’ve never told me about the bear you saw behind the cabin,” Eddie says. “The one you told the Northorpes about.”
Granddad laughs. “Well, perhaps I haven’t. Probably because you were just a little trout in diapers at the time.”
“Was it a black bear?”
“Of course it was. It was Trotter. The old black with the gray snout we see down at the mouth of the river. He and I have been fishing side by side for more than thirty years.”
“Oh,” says Eddie. But he wonders why Granddad hadn’t insisted it was a black bear when Mr. Northorpe had doubted Trotter’s size.
Granddad reels in a little line. There is no resistance. “Do you want to hear the story?”
“It was, as I said, when you were a little guy. About ten years ago. I was down on the wharf loading my tackle when I spotted Trotter loping down the road past the cabins. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Not until I was done for the day and coming back in when there he was again, only this time, he was going the other way. The next day the same thing happened. And the day after that. I began to keep a careful watch. Nearly a month went by and Trotter was making the trip back and forth at least three times a day. You know those ruts in the road?”
Eddie nods.
“They were caused by him—all his pacing. Well, it got to be near the end of December and I wondered why he hadn’t turned in for the winter like all the other bears. So the next day, I followed him. I kept some distance back, ducking behind bushes when he turned. But even as far back as I was, I could see that his eyes were bloodshot and the skin beneath puffed and sagging. Under normal circumstances he would have sensed that I was there, but he was preoccupied, and I realized he was too tired and grumpy to care. He lashed out at branches that annoyed him and he grumbled at anything that crossed his path.
“I followed him to the foot of a rock overhang. The cliff was undercut. Beneath it was a cave with a mass of twisted roots hiding the entrance. It was Trotter’s den. While I watched from behind a tree, he stood before it and let out the most distressing bellow you can imagine an animal made of flesh and blood could create. He then turned and headed back in the direction from which we’d come.”
“Why didn’t he go inside?” Eddie asks.
“Exactly what I wondered. So, once he had left, I got closer and peeked inside the den. There was nothing in it other than his bed of trampled branches and leaves. But while I was in there, the earth began to rumble and the walls began to shake. Well, you can imagine, I got out fast. The sound of machinery grinding and timber cracking became louder. It was a bulldozer, followed by the scream of a chainsaw. They were logging the forest above Trotter’s den. He couldn’t sleep because of all the noise.”
“Poor Trotter.”
“Yes, poor Trotter. But it also occurred to me that if Trotter didn’t get his sleep, he might not be so agreeable about sharing his fishing ground in the spring. I couldn’t exactly move his den. The only thing to do was to get the loggers to move away. I climbed the hill to the part of the forest where they were logging and approached a fellow who looked like he might be in charge. Well, he laughed when I suggested they move somewhere else because they were disturbing the sleep of a bear. So did all the men working with him when he told them what I’d said.
“I didn’t want to resort to anything nasty, but I knew I’d have to force them out. I watched how they went about their work. The fellow I’d talked to—he was, indeed, the foreman—would go ahead of the others and tie markers around the trees he wanted cut. I knew exactly what I had to do. I went home and had your grandmother sew me a costume of hides. ‘I want it fifteen feet high,’ I said. ‘What on earth for?’ she asked me. ‘That’s nearly three times as big as you.’ I told her to never mind, she’d find out.
“While she was doing that, I carved a mask—a hideous face with long teeth and bulging eyes.”
“What were you going to do with it?”
“Just wait. You’ll find out. When that part of the costume was ready, I covered my snowshoes in rubber from an old tire so they looked like very large boots. Then I gathered everything together. Well before dawn, I started toward the area where they were logging. At the edge of the woods where I found the last cut tree, I pulled on the snowshoes and walked through the trees in the moonlight, leaving enormous footprints in the snow as I went. I found a cedar tree about fifteen feet high and dressed it in the costume your grandmother had sewn. I fit the mask I had made in place. I had brought along some long poles. With these, I could manipulate the branches to give the impression that the arms and legs were moving. I then waited for day to break and the logging crew to arrive.
“The sun was barely up when they pulled up in their trucks. The men working the equipment got it ready, while the fellow who selected the trees started out. I could see him from where I waited behind the cedar. He came across my first footprint and stopped. He looked ahead and saw another. Slowly, he followed them, glancing around as he walked. He was maybe a hundred yards away when he spotted the cedar dressed in the costume your grandmother had made. I jabbed hard at the branches with my poles so that the arms and legs began to dance. The foreman’s eyes opened wide. ‘Sasquatch!’ he hollered, loud enough to be heard on the mainland. ‘It’s a sasquatch! Everybody, clear out!’ He then turned and ran faster than a swift fox.”
Eddie laughs loudly.
“Well, there was no question if the others believed him or not. He was so terrified they knew he must have seen something. After all, he was the boss and they had confidence in him. So they packed up their equipment and left the site. And Trotter didn’t come around anymore. When I checked on him, he was fast asleep.”
When Granddad is finished, Eddie thinks about what he has said. “Granddad, why didn’t you tell Mr. Northorpe you knew it wasn’t a grizzly and that there aren’t any grizzly bears on the island?”
Granddad considers his answer. “Because, Eddie, Mr. Northorpe likes to read and he is proud of all he knows. And he was a guest in our house.”
Eddie is reassured that Granddad is still telling stories. But he also wonders if the Northorpes would have thought their island was less boring if they’d heard about Trotter, the sasquatch and how the ruts came about.
