Chapter Sixty-Three
We loaded up as soon as the sun rose not that it made much difference in the amount of light in the woods. The birds were the first to break the silence and then the chutter-chutter of the frogs. An eagle called overhead; I wished that I could see it gliding on the thermals. The air held a hint of moisture, rain or early morning dew. Only a few hours would tell us the outcome.
Mairy had made breakfast burritos with the last of the eggs and bacon. And coffee. We drank most of it so she made another pot and we used that to fill our thermoses.
On the way out of the cabin, Robin took one last look before he locked the door leaving the keys in the front seat of the truck.
“The bike?” I wanted to take it but riding in the woods was stupid. Plus, there was only the one so someone would still have to walk, it was out of gas and was too loud announcing our presence. Besides, we were headed into a no-vehicle zone and that was one way to draw negative attention to us.
“Someone will find this place, the truck and put it together. By then, we’ll be long gone,” Robin shrugged. “Ready?”
I nodded and stepped out of the clearing weaving my way through the close-knit trees following no trail because there wasn’t one. Within minutes, my lower legs were soaked even through the treated nylon of our outerwear.
We hiked on a steadily rising slope through trees so large that a lumber broker would have drooled in ecstatic greed yet these were protected from logging. We came across a blowdown where the wind had funneled through a small gully and made a maze of dead and fallen giant matchsticks. It was open enough so that we could see the sky and looked up to the giant peaks of the Sawtooth Range. A hundred miles over that first ridge lay El Capitan and the heart of Yellowstone.
We saw no one and when we camped for the night, it was always in a place where we could escape in at least three directions yet not where anyone could see our fire. I dug pits for the fire so that the heat could escape but the flames were not visible unless you stood over it. All we used it for was to boil water and make coffee with the occasional hot soup.
Our backpacks held a week’s worth each of food and when the dried stuff ran out, we had protein bars and could hunt and fish.
We saw views that only John Muir would have seen and documented, places where the ordinary person never got to go. Animals so shy that we barely caught sight of them. Once, Robin whispered to me that he had seen Bigfoot and I looked, too. The Sioux believed in the creature called Sasquatch and so did I.
Occasionally, we heard a deep hoot and the sound of a stick beaten against a trunk. Robin and Mairy’s eyes were huge and fearful.
“Don’t worry, the hairy man won’t hurt us,” I smiled and called a greeting in Siouan. He was quiet, but we knew he was around. On the third day of our 12-hour hikes, I led them to a small canyon carved between two ridges. It was no more than twenty yards wide with shale and slate outcroppings. Huge slabs had fallen making passage difficult but not impossible yet there was a clear, well-defined animal trail in and out.
The walls of the slit rose above us for forty or so feet before they curled in on themselves as if it were the edges of a fluted bowl that had fallen inside. So nothing could stand on the rim and look directly down underneath along the wall.
“Where does this go?” Mairy asked me, tired for the first time that I could see. She dragged a few feet behind Robin, the last in the line.
“We’ll camp here for two days,” I said and danced around the debris. It took only a few minutes to reach the center of the canyon, a small cleared spot under an overhang where the two edges of the bowl almost met.
The soil was a reddish sand from sandstone washed through during flash floods with chunks of granite on the walls. In the granite were gem grade garnets. A small spring trickled into a basin behind me and the smell of sulfur was strong.
Ten feet further in was a series of rock slides with water running into basins carved into the rock descending to a vertical drop of ten feet with a steaming waterfall that fell into a deeper pool. They fell in layers as if they were giant steps and were beautiful.
“Hot springs!” Mairy squealed, dropped her pack and ran, shedding her clothes as she went.
“Spa baths and a shower,” Robin admired. “How did you know this was here? Your grandfather tells you?”
“I read about it years ago in a letter from a Franciscan priest, Antonio de Vargas, to his father, in 1659. No one had bothered to translate a document from an obscure friar about a trip to convert Indians when it had nothing to do with gold or gold mines,” I explained. “There’s a way out of here down past the waterfall but we should be safe enough in here for two days. Safe enough to cook with fire, bathe and rest.”
I shrugged the pack off, made sure my bow was handy and gestured for him to go play in the water.
“I can wait if you want to go with my sister,” he said grudgingly.
“Naw. It’s okay. I’m not as tired as you two.”
He needed no second urging but joined her. She screamed at him to cover his eyes but he told her that he had seen her butt naked before. I noticed he kept his boxers on, though.
I had beef stew bubbling in the kettle and biscuits browning, with a full pot of coffee ready by the time both of them dragged themselves back to the campfire.
All three tents were propped up and open, I’d laid out fresh clothes and a towel each. Mairy walked gingerly on soft feet and her wet t-shirt left nothing to the imagination. Her panties were silk and transparent. Robin’s boxers were jockeys and surprisingly dapper, a sedate blue with white stripes. I handed over the towels and they rubbed their hair and then wrapped the towel at his waist and her chest.
“I figured you for a briefs man,” I commented and gave Mairy my block of rock. I’d managed to move two of them over for seats, the rest were either too large to move or too small to bother.
“Thanks.” She shoveled it in and then slowed down as the taste hit her. “This is really good. And biscuits, too.”
“There are herbs and foodstuffs all around us,” I said. “You know that. I just used what’s growing here to add flavor. Wild onion and garlic, sage, oats and wild rice.”
“When did you have time to find them? I never saw you go off the trail.”
“I didn’t have to. I picked as we walked. Look.” In the spots where there was soil, red cane thickets had sprouted; the red canes of raspberries, already leafing out. Dried, the leaves would make sweet refreshing tea full of vitamin C and anti-oxidants.
She sat down and ate two bowls of stew plus four biscuits with Robin doubling her efforts. Only when they were done did I finish what was left. Both of them blushed at their greed but I laughed.
“Don’t worry, I ate enough tasting it when I cooked it. I’m not hungry anymore. Coffee?”
Mairy drank hers black but we still had non-dairy creamer and sugar packets. When all of us were done, I cleaned the pots and Robin helped me hang the food packs from a hook stuck in a crevice and out of a determined bear’s reach. Not that I was worried about bears, a sasquatch was in the area and would keep away any large predators.
“You ready for your bath, Lakan?” Robin asked sleepily as he stretched on his rock. Mairy had rolled into her tent and looked to be asleep already.
“Keep watch if you want,” I said softly. “But I think we’ll have a warning before anyone approaches.”
“Bigfoot?”
“The hairy people prefer to be called Sasquatch or man of hair.”
“Go get wet.” I noticed he dragged his bow close but his eyes were heavy. I laughed and took off my clothes walking carefully down to the lower pools, sliding with the stream of warm water until my feet found the five-inch ledge behind the waterfall. I slid onto it and hot water cascaded over my entire body in pure bliss. I had my hot shower.
I stayed under long enough to wrinkle like a prune and only came back as Robin called my name in worried tones. Where I stood, I wasn’t visible to him being below eye level.
As I padded back, I used my enhanced metabolism to dry myself off and it shocked him as I was enveloped in the blue aura.
“What is that?” He stared at my face after a quick glance and away at my genitals.
“Some kind of energy aura,” I shrugged. “Comes in handy when I want heat or cold. Dries me off and my clothes, too.”
“Cool. Can you make ice or drinks cold?”
“Never tried that.” I dressed quickly, the chilling evening air leached my heat out quicker than normal and I didn’t want to waste energy if I didn’t have to use it.
“Who’s taking the first watch?” he asked.
“You go ahead and sleep. I’ll wake you in four hours,” I decided.
“Mairy?”
“I’ll take her turn, too. Let her sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll hit the Montana border and have to cross the river somewhere, a bridge or the road depending on where we come out of the woods. That will be the most dangerous crossing for us, except for crossing into Canada.”
“We have to pick up the passports, right? At that country store/post office?”
“Yeah. I received confirmation that all three packages were delivered and on time.”
“I miss Dad and my horses,” he mumbled.
“I know,” I sympathized. “You can go back, you know. They’ll give up on me eventually and you can have your life back.”
“What kind of life is it? When the spies are everywhere, watching you, waiting for you?” he mumbled and his voice trailed off. I pushed him towards his tent and he fell to his knees, crawled into a fetal position and dragged his sleeping bag over his face. He was snoring in seconds.
I watched the moon rise and saw a huge shadow fall over the ground from above me. When I looked to the rim’s edge, I saw the hairy man standing there looking down at me. He threw something and it hit the ground with a soggy thump. I reached it, finding a fresh haunch of venison. As I turned to say thanks, I threw one of our last chocolate bars up and grinned as the hairy man snatched it out of the air. He ate it, wrapper and all, disappearing as quickly and quietly as he had come.