Chapter Three ~ Sasquatch!

as told to WendyM by Capelton

Cap stretched and got up. There was no need to check his watch. He intuitively knew what time it was: 2 o’clock. Time to relieve his brother’s watch. He shrugged into his jacket as he walked to the campfire to relieve Knut. As he buttoned up his jacket he looked up at his slightly taller older brother.

With his moccasined feet and fringed jacket, the mountain man, stretched out on the ground beside the fire to start his watch. He looked one with the forest.

Knut started to head back to his tent. “If you need me, Capelton, just whistle,” he said.

Cap replied, “Okay, Knutson, I will.” The two brothers rarely called each other by their given names but when they did it was because what they had to say was very serious.

As he lay there watching the fire, he thought about how he had distracted the Bob-Whites by describing a seven-foot moose. He hadn’t wanted them to think about the possibility of a Sasquatch really existing. So many people thought of the Sasquatch as a legend, but he felt it might just really exist.

He was a little worried about his cousin Trixie and her best friend Honey. For the past year or so he had been hearing about their adventures and how mysteries seemed to find them. He hoped that Trixie’s curiosity would not get her into trouble.

Cap stood watch and just as dawn was breaking, he smelled that awful fish smell. As if in slow motion he drew his knees up until they almost touched his chest. He began to rise, inch by inch, like a mushroom pushing its body into air. Oh, so slowly, he reached toward the fire and withdrew a long brand that had been smoldering within reach of his right hand.

Stealthily, Cap moved away from the fire and toward that awful smell. All of a sudden, a large, furry creature appeared in front of him. Its arms dangling past its knees. His head and shoulders were joined like grotesque snowballs pushed together to resemble a snow man. It was covered from head to toe with fur and as it stood full height the aroma of dead fish and field mice almost choked Cap.

The monster whined almost in question and Cap thrust his firebrand toward the creature and it flared to life. It stepped backward and to Cap’s surprise it made no noise. No twigs cracked beneath its feet. The creature towered over Cap, dwarfing him. Cap stared down the monster across the hot ashes. After clicking its teeth, it shifted its weight, then all of a sudden it disappeared in a blink of the eye. Only the odor lingered. He pushed the firebrand back into the hot ashes.

He jumped when he heard Trixie ask, “C-Cap. Wh-What was it?”

“The sasquatch,” he replied as if in a trance.

“The what?” she gasped.

He shook his head and looked at Trixie as if for the first time. He looked her up and down and said gruffly, “Go get your boots. You’ll freeze to death.”

She hopped from one foot to the other all the way back to her tent. After a few minutes she emerged from her tent wrapped up in a blanket with shoes on her feet. “Was that really a sasquatch?” she asked Cap.

He hesitated not quite sure what to say. Too many people thought sasquatch only existed in people’s imagination. He evaded answering directly by asking, “You saw it, didn’t you?”

Trixie hesitated. “Why—” she started. Then she glanced over at the stump by Miss Trask’s tent. She squinted at it as if to see if that could have been what she saw. “I—I think so,” she said.

Cap pushed his fingertips against is eyes and sighed with relief. “So, I wasn’t dreaming.”

“Have you seen it before?” She asked.

“No, but I’ve heard it several times. I’ve smelled it and I’ve run across its tracks. But this is my first sighting.” Now that someone else had confirmed the sighting, Cap was starting to get excited.

“Will it come back?” Trixie asked.

He shook his head. “Probably not. It’s a night feeder and night will soon be gone. Luckily, this was a friendly encounter.”

“Jeepers, you call that friendly?”

Cap bent over and stirred the coals to bring them back to life. “Well, he didn’t harm us, did he?” He threw some kindling on the fire. “We’ll need a breakfast fire.”

“Breakfast,” Trixie said absently. “Cap, what is a sasquatch?”

Cap shrugged trying to form the right words. “It’s a primate, or mammal, of some kind. It lives in the high country. In Asia they call it yeti or Abominable Snowman. Over here we call it sasquatch or big foot.”

“I’ve heard about the snowman,” Trixie said, “but I always thought it was some kind of gimmick they made up to get people to go to the Himalayas. You know like going to Scotland to see the Loch Ness Monster.”

Cap gave her an amused look then started to interrupt her when she quickly continued.

“Or a legend, like our Rip Van Winkle back home.”

Cap continued to rekindle the fire by jabbing it with his stick. “Pretty stinky legend wouldn’t you say?” He turned to face Trixie. “We aren’t the first ones to see the sasquatch and we won’t be the last. There’ve been hundreds of recent sightings. Seeing it in the Joe country is what shakes me. I never dreamed I’d see it so far inland.” He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Fatigue was setting in. He wondered how he would be able to function the rest of the day. “To be honest, Trixie, I never dreamed I’d ever see one, period.”

“Maybe that’s it – we dreamed it,” Trixie said hopefully. As light dawned, Cap could see that Trixie wasn’t quite as frightened as she’d been ten minutes before.

“Some dream,” Cap sniffed. “It was sort of wonderful, wasn’t it? Now I know how the scientists feel when they discover something a zillion years old.”

“Sure, but those things get put in museums. This thing was right here – alive and well!” Trixie exclaimed. “Maybe what we saw was an ape.”

Cap tried to keep a straight face and not talk down to her. “Too little,” he said.

Trixie started grasping at straws. “How about a gorilla? He could have escaped from a zoo or a circus train. Have there been any circus accidents in the Northwest recently?” Cap could see that she just couldn’t wrap her head around a sasquatch being real.

“The tracks will tell the story,” Cap said shortly. Shading his tired eye he headed for the trees. He turned back to Trixie and said, “It’s light enough. Come on.” He stooped looking at the ground. He walked in circles each getting wider. Trixie followed. On his third circle he stopped.

Cap whistled, “Trix, look at the size of it!”

“I’m looking,” she whispered. “How many hands is it?”

Cap was a little confused. “Hands?” he asked.

“You know, like measuring horses. The palm is about 4 inches.”

“Oh, sure.” He moved his hand over hand adding in his head. “That print is at least eighteen inches.”

“Yipes,” Trixie gasped.

Cap headed back toward the woods. “Let’s see where it went.” He looked back at Trixie and noticed the blanket wrapped around her. He slowed to a stop. “I’ll wait until you dress.”

“Oh, jeepers, please do!”

While Trixie headed to her tent, Cap circled round to Knut’s pup tent. He whistled sharply.

At once Knut answered, “Cap?”

“On the double,” Cap ordered. “I’ll get the other fellows.”

“Shall I wake the girls?” Trixie called.

“Might as well,” Cap answered. “Why should they sleep when we’re awake?”

Cap paced impatiently as he waited for everyone to get up and dressed. Within minutes the glade echoed with mumbles, yawns, and shouts. Miss Trask put her gray head through the tent door and asked, “Is this the customary hour to rise?”

Hallie came out the tent, tucking in her flannel shirt. “It’s daylight in the swamp!”

Finally, Trixie emerged from her tent, fully clothed, teeth brushed and hair combed. She exchanged a look with Cap.

“I didn’t tell them,” he said.

“Tell us what?” Diana wanted to know.

Slowly Cap began, “We had a visitor.”

Hallie wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, I can still smell that pesky bee trap. Did your visitor bring it with him?

“Kind of,” Cap said. Before he could continue Trixie broke in.

“In fact, he was the bee trap,” she added.

“Elucidate,” Mart ordered. Cap started to chuckle. When would his cousin ever learn that using big words didn’t impress people.

“I’ll do better than that,” Cap replied. “I’ll show you.” As he led the way to the footprint the rest of the group followed him like the pied piper.

Brian, the scientist, squatted down to study the giant print. As the rest of the group gathered round he pointed out the flattened arch, wide heel and double ball of the foot.

“That print has three times the surface area of a human foot!” he declared. He cleared his throat and asked, “What made it?”

Before Cap could begin to explain, Trixie chimed in, “The sasquatch.”

Mart laughed and Brian said, “Oh, Trixie, that’s just a myth.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Trixie warned soberly.