Lopez scowled irritably but obeyed, heading to the rear of the group with her pistol drawn.
Ethan fell in alongside Kurt and Duran as they led the way up an animal trail that climbed a slope through the forest. The rain was still falling heavily but within the dense trees it was reduced to fat, heavy drops that splashed down around them in a constant patter.
‘Talk to me,’ Kurt said to Duran. ‘Everything you know.’
The old man took a long breath before he began.
‘Sasquatch is not a modern myth like most people think,’ Duran said. ‘Encounters with large, reclusive bipedal creatures are found among the stories of our earliest ancestors. Members of the Lummi tribe of Washington State speak of the Ts’emekwes. The stiyaha, kwi-kwiyai and skoocooms are all ancient tribal names given to species said to live in the forests, and in 1840 a Reverend Elkanah Walker spoke of stories of nocturnal, hairy giants among the native American Indians living in what is now Spokane, Washington. The natives said that the giants lived near the peaks of mountains and sometimes stole salmon from the fishermen’s nets. Even the name, sasquatch, is derived from an ancient tribal name for the creatures the Halkomelem called sásq’ets.’
‘Fascinating,’ Kurt uttered without interest. ‘Now tell me what I actually need to know. What does it eat? How does it live? Does it hibernate, or make camps, or sleep?’
Duran sighed as they walked.
‘There are so few confirmed, recorded sightings that fine details are hard to figure,’ he replied. ‘It’s omnivorous as far as we know. Large scat samples have been found that do not correspond to any known creature that contain everything from wildflowers, nuts and grasses to the remains of carpenter ants, rodents and fish. That matches other wild primate species like gorillas and chimpanzees, which are generally herbivores but will eat meat when it becomes available.’
‘Do they hibernate?’ Ethan asked.
‘Nobody knows,’ Duran replied. ‘They’re very large creatures, living in a region with harsh winters where food of any kind would be extremely hard to find. I’d say it’s likely that their activity is greatly reduced during the winter months, but sightings persist so true hibernation is unlikely.’
‘Camps,’ Kurt pressed. ‘Do they have homes or are they wanderers? Do they have territories?’
‘Every now and again in the woods I’ll find cedar trees bent over at the trunk with incredible force,’ Duran said, ‘the branches wedged beneath another tree’s branches alongside. That can’t happen naturally. Nature also doesn’t plug the gaps in the branches with smaller bushes and twigs, so yes, they make camps out of trees and they’ve been photographed and documented regularly. As for territories, it’s possible. Most reports show that they will remain in one area for a number of months. Other wildlife tends to vacate the area when they’re around, and there are literally hundreds of recordings of sasquatch howls and communications during these periods.’
Kurt nodded, taking it all in.
‘Any evidence of causing harm to humans?’
‘Almost none,’ Duran said. ‘Some people claim to have been pursued but those claims are unsubstantiated. Almost all sightings end with the sasquatch moving off as quickly as it can. They seem almost intimidated by humans despite their physical size, or shy of contact.’
‘You said they were inherently curious,’ Kurt said.
‘They are,’ Duran shrugged, ‘just like us.’
Ethan peered across at Kurt. ‘What are you thinking?’
A grim smile flickered across the soldier’s face as they walked. ‘Curiosity has a habit of killing things,’ he murmured. ‘We need to even the playing field here. This thing has wrecked our equipment, killed three of my men and we haven’t even had a good look at it yet. If we can see it, we can kill it.’
‘Why would you want to kill it?’ Duran asked. ‘You said it yourself, it’s just an animal. If it’s just an animal then it will only have killed your men out of instinct or perhaps defense. You can’t have it both ways, Kurt. Either it’s intelligent or it’s not.’
‘I want to complete this mission and return to base,’ Kurt replied, ‘and whether it’s a monster or a genius I need it dead because it’s in our way.’
Ethan chuckled as he clambered over a damp, dark tree stump.
‘Good luck with that. So far it’s outwitted us completely.’
Kurt nodded. ‘That’s what I’m counting on.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ethan asked.
‘You dangle a carrot for long enough, something’ll come looking.’
Ethan frowned in confusion and then glanced over his shoulder. Dana and Proctor were just behind them with Mary Wilkes, with Lopez and the other two soldiers were further back. Ethan did a rapid head count and realized with sudden certainty what Kurt had done. Two of the soldiers were missing.
‘You baited it.’
Duran understood immediately. ‘The body. You weren’t protecting it from vermin, you were using it as a lure.’
Kurt nodded and abruptly stopped walking. He turned back the way they had come.
‘Time for payback,’ he uttered, then raised his fist with one finger pointed at the sky and twirled it around.
All of his remaining soldiers immediately began backtracking along the animal trail.
‘We’ve gone two hundred yards,’ he said as he started back along the trail. ‘In five minutes we’ll all be on the ridge above the hillside with our weapons trained on whatever goes near that body-bag. Archer and Milner are already there.’
Ethan felt a sudden unease trickle like nausea through his guts.
‘We’re all going back?’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Kurt said. ‘We know what we’re up against now.’
‘You said we should stick together,’ Duran snapped. ‘You’ll be sitting ducks back there.’
‘We’re trained men,’ Kurt replied. ‘We know what to do.’
Ethan stopped in the forest and pointed back the way they had come.
‘Damn it, Kurt. It’ll probably see us long before we see it.’
‘I doubt that,’ Kurt replied, not stopping. ‘That thing will be dead before the sun goes down. You want to come watch?’
41
The body hung motionless from the trunk a hundred yards from where Ethan lay prone behind the rotting bulk of a Douglas fir tree that had fallen long ago. The rain splattered off ferns that quivered beneath the blows, and dripped off the front of his baseball cap as he lay with his cheek against his M-16 and his right eye sighted down the scope.
‘We could be here for hours,’ he whispered. ‘Days, even.’
‘Whatever it takes,’ Kurt Agry whispered back from his position ten yards away, completely concealed by the foliage.
The cold had seeped into Ethan’s bones again, his lack of movement over the past two hours locking his joints and aching through his muscles. Ten years ago such an exercise would have been an almost daily occurrence in the corps, but he’d also been ten years younger then. And at least he’d known that whatever appeared in the sights of his rifle would be human.
Dana, Proctor and Mary Wilkes were hunkered down beneath a plastic sheet a hundred yards behind them, sitting on a pile of folded tents to keep them off the cold earth. Duran had remained with them, his rifle in his grasp. The old man had refused to take part in what he had called cold-blooded murder, but had no problem with firing in defense.
Lopez lay in the damp undergrowth ten yards to Ethan’s right, watching and waiting. Her pistol did not have the range to be effective against anything that may or may not appear before them, but it was still in her grasp, her knuckles showing white around the handle.