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I was surprised we made any distance at all. I honestly don't know how Chance was even remaining upright. I was tired and achy from all the things I'd done the day before, so I was happy to move at a slower pace and take more breaks.
"Should we be worried about the creatures we heard last night?" I asked.
"I've been looking for tracks but haven't spotted any. I have to concentrate on where my foot and the crutch are, so I could walk right over a print and not see it today. "We never got to our destination. We'll have to come back."
"I don't know how all this legal stuff works, but if Jim says it’s OK, I think we met the spirit of Uncle Harry's stipulation. I'm going to tell Jim to give you the journal. Just remember, I want a copy."
"That's good. I appreciate that, but I still think we should come back and get to whatever it was Harry wanted us to see. He went to an awful lot of trouble to get us there."
"OK. Should we read the journal first or wait until we can get back out here?" I figured his leg wasn't going to allow him to be hiking for a while even though he had yet to accept that fact.
“Maybe the journal will explain why Harry sent us to that particular spot.”
As the morning wore on, our pace slowed, and our stops became more frequent. Chance hadn't said much as we walked other than to give instructions as needed. I wasn't sure if his mind was consumed with everything that had happened or if he was worrying about his future.
When we stopped again, I asked, "Does it matter if we don't make it back to the campsite?"
"Since they know you were with me, they'll assume one of us is injured. They'll likely send a small team in with a chopper today if they can arrange it. I've been thinking, we should keep some of what happened out here just between us."
I'd been waiting for this to come up. "I know this will affect your business. I am sorry I caused you to fall. Just tell me how you want to play it." I didn't like the idea of lying for the man, but I could understand that he wouldn't want to be the laughing stock of Wilkins’ Gap, and I surely didn't want to be responsible for him losing his business.
"It's OK to talk about the print we found. We got the pictures and the hair sample, but let's not mention the noises or the fact that a bigfoot carried me out of the creek."
My mouth fell open. "Chance, a bigfoot didn't carry you out of the creek. You must have crawled out on your own. That makes you sound tough, so there's no point in not telling the truth of that."
"I didn't. I was pretty out of it, but I didn't crawl to that clearing. Something carried me there. If it wasn't you, then..."
"Oh. My. God. Wait," I said, moving beside him. I opened the net bag and pulled out the shirt and pants he was wearing when I found him in the stream. "No. It can't be." I laid the two pieces out across some bushes. Chance walked over to see what I was so excited about. He stopped beside me and stared at his clothes. The bottom foot or so of his shirt and the top part of his pants were covered in hairs There were only a few on the pants, but the fleece shirt had captured more.
"Yes," he said. "You had me starting to think I was crazy. This makes sense if I was thrown over a shoulder and carried by something hairy."
At first, I could picture it in my head. The bigfoot explanation fit the facts as we knew them, but that didn't make it true. "It can't be true, Chance. Even if there are bigfoot out here, why would they save you?"
"I'm a friend. They know me. They've watched me as much as I've watched them."
We both stood staring at the clothes for a while without saying anything. I still wasn't convinced that bigfoot existed. I had barely gotten to the point where I could admit that some people who seemed to be sane, like Uncle Harry and Chance, believed that the creatures existed. This was way too big a leap for me.
"We need to preserve these," he said. "Take the sack off my sleeping bag and bring it here."
If nothing else, at least this seemed to take Chance's mind off his pain for a while. That was a good thing. He carefully stowed his clothes and rearranged his backpack. When he was closing up the pack, he said, "Don't mention the sign either, OK?"
"Sure. What's one more lie?"
"Only a lie of omission. I seriously doubt it’s the first time you've crossed that line, City Girl."
And that fast, Snarky Chance was back.