Monster (11 page)

That brought Pete to his feet. “Over
that
? Doggone, Tyler, I don’t need any more surprises!”

Tyler explained, “We’ve got a deep push-off in that toe print and a deep compression on the heel over here, and nothing on top of the log.”

Pete examined the toe print, then checked the top of the log with his light. “Don, I want you to tell me you’ve got some claw marks.”

Don knelt and studied the print from several directions. “Can’t say I do.”

“No claw marks,” Pete muttered, obviously fed up.

“That thing jumped,” Tyler repeated.

Pete looked back. “And that’s when Beck lost her backpack.”

“We’re missing something,” Don objected.

“A bear would’ve torn some pretty good claw marks in this log going over, especially if it was carrying a . . . carrying somebody.”

“What are you talking about, ‘carried’?” Tyler said. “A bear doesn’t carry a body; it drags it in its teeth.”

Reed gave up trying to contain himself. “It didn’t drag her. It carried her. I saw it lift her off the ground.” They all stared at him, so he threw back a challenge. “Have you found any sign that says different?”

The trackers looked at each other, waiting for one of them to answer.

“We’re . . . we’re missing something,” Don said again.

“No, we aren’t,” said Pete, and Tyler agreed with a wag of his head. “Nobody got dragged. The sign says what it says.”

“And what is that?” Reed demanded.

No answer.

“Tell me!” he shouted.

Pete was thinking when his radio squawked, “Pete. Pete, this is Mills.”

“This is Pete. Go ahead.”

“We can’t find a body up here.”

Pete made a curious face. “Say again?”

Mills came back, speaking with forced clarity. “We cannot find a body. Do you copy?”

Pete looked at Reed, but Reed was dumbstruck. “Uh, we copy that you cannot find a body.”

“We need you and Reed to come and help us out for a few minutes.”

First one blow, then another! Reed shook his head.

Pete spoke into his radio, “We’ve found Beck’s backpack. We could be close.”

There was a pause, apparently while Mills thought it over, and then Mills replied, “Pete, hand off to your flank men, let Reed stay there, but give him a radio so we can talk to him, and you come up.”

Pete checked visually with Don and Tyler. They were ready to take over. He reassured Reed, “You can trust these guys.”

“I’d rather you were here,” Reed protested.

Pete sighed and spoke into his radio again. “Can it wait?”

Mills came back immediately: “No, it can’t.”

Beck’s head throbbed, her ankle shrieked, everything in between hurt, and it was getting hard to breathe with those huge arms squeezing her. She’d been hanging on to fistfuls of fur, ducking her head as branches swept close, and praying for an end to this for what seemed hours. The big female had climbed, galloped, strode, reversed course, run, reversed again, and run some more, penetrating miles of forestland and covering vast stretches of mountain slope to the point where Beck hadn’t the foggiest clue where on the planet they were. Everything—trees, gullies, ridges, boulders— looked the same. She couldn’t even be sure she was still in Idaho.

But the creature was hurting too. She hobbled and wheezed, swaying unsteadily as she walked. Beck had the uneasy feeling she was sitting high in a tree that was about to fall over.

She was right.

With her last feeble steps, the big female pushed into a scrubby clump of trees, spun a few dizzying turns, then collapsed like a condemned building imploding, her legs giving way beneath her, her nostrils huffing clouds of steam. She bumped on her behind, teetered there a moment, and then, with a long, breathy groan, slumped onto her side. Her arms wilted like dying plants and Beck rolled onto the moss and uneven rock. Her clothes were dampened with the creature’s sweat, and she ached in every muscle, wincing from the pain in her ankle, and amazed she was still alive.

Her hair-covered captor sounded like a locomotive leaving a station, chugging and laboring for every breath, holding her side. Her eyes were watery, filled with pain and unmistakable fear.

Beck stared, unable to make sense of it.
The
beast
is afraid? What could a beast of such power and size be afraid of?

The female looked back at her, never breaking her gaze, until her expansive rib cage began to settle into a quieter, more restful rhythm and her eyes softened from fear to a kind of resignation. With a deep sigh and a swallow, she pushed herself into a sitting position and began peering through the trees like a soldier in a bunker, scanning the expansive landscape below, the deep amber eyes searching, searching, searching.

Beck sat up as well and followed the creature’s gaze. The view was spectacular from here. Below them stretched a vast valley under a thin veil of blue haze, and beyond that, so clear it seemed one could touch them, a range of granite peaks took a jagged bite out of the sky. It even
sounded
vast up here: dead quiet except for the all-surrounding whisper of air moving through the trees and the trickle of a stream nearby. If Beck wasn’t so miserable, fearful for her life, and occupied with trying to think of the “right” thing to do, she could be enjoying this.

The right thing to do? She wanted to cry. The right thing
would have been
to stay home where she had a warm bed, a latte machine, fuzzy slippers, and a nice shower with brass handles.
This
was unthinkable!

The shadows were long now, the mossy rubble outside their hiding place almost entirely in shade. Not comforting. She’d learned the hard way what to expect in this weird, wild world at night, and she did not relish facing that alone and lost.

She looked at her smelly, unknowable, unpredictable host, who was still looking out over the valley as if expecting an enemy. What were her plans?
Had
she captured Beck for a meal? Beck remembered something she learned at a zoo once, something about gorillas being vegetarians. This creature seemed to like berries.

But so did bears.

Keep thinking, Beck; keep thinking!

Okay. What was it going to take to survive? Shelter. Water. Food. In that order.

She considered shelter. If she could move, if she had some tools, if there was anything with which to build a shelter . . .

Well, what about the next one? She hadn’t had any water since last night, and that stream was calling to her. She craned her neck but couldn’t see where— Whooa! Hands wrapped around her like a big sling, and she was in the air again. No freight-train speed this time, though. As the creature ambled with smooth, bent-kneed strides through the trees, over rocks, and down a shallow draw, Beck felt a sensation much like floating over the ground on a ski lift.

They found the stream, sparkling and splashing over broken rocks and forming pools from which to dip water. The big female set her down on a large, flat stone and then squatted next to her, dipping up bucket-sized helpings in her hands, slurping them down. Beck watched, wondering if it was safe to move, to take a drink herself. She leaned over the water, then checked with a sideways glance. The creature didn’t seem to mind; it may have been expecting it. Beck prayed silently,
Oh Lord, don’t let me get beaver fever—whatever that is,
and then started dipping and drinking.

After only a few gulps, she heard a familiar whistle and froze to listen. Her furry captor heard it too and became alert, cocking her head one way, then another. When the whistle came again, she pressed her lips against her teeth and returned a whistle of her own. Its piercing sound made Beck flinch.

The whistle answered, closer this time, and now Beck heard rustling and saw movement in the brush on the other side of the draw. She backed away from the stream on one knee and two hands, looking about for a hiding place.

The beast reached with her inescapably long arm and pulled Beck in, half-dragging her, pressing her close against her furry, sweaty side. Beck felt like a trophy, a prize, a fresh kill about to be shared. Playing dead occurred to her, but the beast’s big arm wouldn’t let her fall down.

Across the stream, from somewhere in the trees and thick brush, a low whistle sounded, and then a pig grunt.

The beast whistled back and gave a soft pig grunt of her own.

There was an interval, a strange moment when nothing happened— no sound, no stirrings, no whistles or calls. Beck searched the bushes, but all she could see across the creek was a sea of leaves, motionless except for an occasional flickering in the breeze. She had the distinct feeling she wasn’t just being watched—she was being
studied
.

Then, so slowly, so silently that it almost escaped notice, a gray, hairy dome rose like a dark moon out of the brush. Beck looked directly at it—

It vanished as if it was never there.

The big female whistled again and then made that strange guttural noise with the loud tongue clicking.
Tok! Tok!

The gray dome rose again, and this time, two steely, amber eyes glared at Beck, narrow with suspicion.

Beck could only hang there motionless, expressionless, without the first thought of what she could do.

With its eyes darting from Beck to the big female and back, the second creature moved forward, only the head and shoulders visible above the brush, until it emerged, stooped over, stealing, sneaking, edging closer.

Beck looked it in the eye again. It leaped back several paces, almost vanishing in the brush, hissing through clenched teeth.

Don’t look it in the eye,
Beck thought to herself.
It doesn’t like that.

She looked down at the water instead and watched the beast’s rippling reflection as it relaxed enough to approach again. It came closer, one furtive step at a time, until it reached the other edge of the stream, and then stood there, still making a nervous, hissing noise with every breath. Beck ventured a look at the feet. All five toes were up front, in a row, but the bone structure was somehow different from human. The feet had a funny way of flexing in the middle, conforming to the streambed, curving over the rocks.

Beck let her eyes move up a little more. The creature was standing nearly upright now, almost seven feet tall by Beck’s estimate. It was another female, a mass of muscle covered in dark gray fur and a little thinner than the first one, although at the moment its fur stood out and bristled, making it appear larger and anything but friendly.

It uttered some pig grunts that could have been an inquiry. Beck’s female gave some pig grunts that could have been an answer, then extended an open hand. The other female ignored it, eyeing Beck with vicious suspicion.

There was another stirring in the brush, and a third creature appeared. It was steely gray in color and, judging from its size, a youngster. It sidled up to the big gray, gripped her leg, and joined her in staring at Beck. This one appeared to be a male. Beck stole one quick little glance at its eyes; he was unflinching. He stood at least five feet tall. The face was pale, like a baby chimp’s, and the hair on its head stuck out in wild directions. If she’d seen this thing in a zoo from a safe distance with bars between them, she probably would have thought it was cute.

She ventured one more look in its eyes—

“Roargghh!” The little beast exploded like a bomb going off, leaping into the stream, sending up a spray of water that doused her. Terrified, Beck squirmed, kicked, and tried to get free while the juvenile roared from the middle of the stream, arms flexing, fists clenched, fur on end, teeth bared in a vicious display. Then his mother got into it, roaring and putting on a horrific show of anger.

The big red female pulled Beck in close and turned her back to the onslaught. Beck was glad for the shield, but the female was cowering, and Beck could feel her tremble.

With just one eye peering through red fur, Beck saw the other female standing her ground on the opposite bank, teeth bared and growling, while the youngster, emboldened by his mother, splashed across the stream, grabbed up pine cones, and threw them. The hurled cones bounced off the big female. Beck leaned out a little too far and one glanced off her shoulder. It smarted. Another pine cone whizzed by her ear and she ducked.

The big gray stepped into the stream. In only a few long strides, she loomed over them, eyes burning with anger—particularly at Beck.

Shaking with terror, Beck buried herself against the red female’s chest.

The female toppled forward.

“Nooo!” Beck cried.

Suddenly Beck was buried under an avalanche of muscle, fat, and fur, nearly smothering in the coarse hair, her back pinned against the rocks, in total darkness. On top of her, the mountain trembled and quaked, the heart pounding like a huge drum. Beck couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move either. She cried out to God. Things got quiet. The mountain lifted slightly and daylight trickled in through the hair, along with breathable air. A pine cone bounced on the ground just outside, but it landed lightly, so it had to have been tossed, not hurled.

Beck heard feet sloshing back across the stream as the mountain sat up. She dared to peek. The youngster and his mother were returning across the stream. He clung to a fistful of fur on her side, and she stroked his head. He looked back over his shoulder as they left, bared his teeth, and huffed at Beck and her keeper.

With one parting, spiteful grunt, mother and son hurried into the brush, then barked one more loud insult before they vanished from sight.

So there were
three
of them.

Reed sat on the bed in Room 105, Beck’s bent and soiled backpack in front of him. Carefully, solemnly, he removed the contents, handing each article to Cap. As Cap arranged everything on the floor, Sing listed each in her notebook: dry changes of clothes, an extra pair of long underwear, rain gear, matches, dehydrated snacks, a first aid kit, a tool kit, a compact tube tent, a compass, a Swiss Army knife. Reed wept when he found two rolls of toilet paper and a small pouch containing makeup, but he kept going. He couldn’t allow his emotions to keep him from this task. Next came a thermal blanket, some containers of food, and—Reed paused to look at it—a crumpled, bent book,
Wilderness Survival,
by Randy Thompson. Several pages were marked and paragraphs highlighted.