J.J. Dupuis - Roanoke Ridge

CREATURE X MYSTERIES

Roanoke Ridge

Copyright J.J. Dupuis, 2020

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All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Publisher: Scott Fraser | Acquiring editor: Scott Fraser | Editor: Allison Hirst
Cover designer: Laura Boyle
Cover image: istockphoto.com/valio84sl
Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Roanoke Ridge / J.J. Dupuis.

Names: Dupuis, J. J., 1983- author.

Description: Series statement: A Creature X mystery

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 2019023167X | Canadiana (ebook) 20190231688 | ISBN 9781459746459 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459746466 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459746473 (EPUB)

Classification: LCC PS8607.U675 R63 2020 | DDC C813/.6dc23

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

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I know I wont be able to convince the world by argument, because it doesnt want to be convinced. I just keep going and I will do until one of these creatures is collected dead or alive.

Ren Dahinden

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I SEE A wounded Sasquatch running straight into a crowd of people holding cotton candy. It has a head start, but its hurt, cradling its left arm. My friend well, best friend, I guess Saad is behind me, trying to capture the whole thing on his cellphone camera. I know, I just know that the video will be one long blur and I may as well be chasing Santa Claus. Itll never hold up, definitely not in a court of law. Saad breathes heavily, his feet slap on the concrete. I feel better knowing hes there.

The air is hot and thick with the smell of burgers and hot dogs cooking on a half-dozen barbecues. The Sasquatch turns a corner and almost knocks over a little boy with a snow cone. Theres a parade happening and the main street of the town is shut down. I keep pace and even gain on the furry ape-man as he runs right across the street, between floats and into a curious crowd. I run in front of an old black convertible with a trio of silver-haired women from the Ladies Auxiliary who are throwing packets of candy into the crowd. Behind the wheel is a fat old guy with dark Elvis-style sunglasses. He honks at me, but I keep running.

Theres no question of primate locomotion here, bipedalism versus brachiation versus quadrapedalism. Its just running, running for its life. Sasquatch runs behind the drugstore, down a side street that slopes down into a parking lot. Its opened up its wound I can see the blood.

Stop! I yell.

Its a beautiful day. A wall of evergreen trees rises up behind the Sasquatch, just across the river. This whole town is like paradise, nestled among mountains and river valleys. But its not beautiful enough to erase death.

What did startle him, however, was that these footprints were of a naked foot of a distinctly human shape and proportion but, by actual measurement, a whopping 16 inches long!

Ivan T. Sanderson, The Story of Americas Abominable Snowman,
True, 1969

THERE IS NOTHING OUT HERE BUT TREES. No restaurants or gas stations. Just trees on either side of the highway, broken up by the odd rocky outcropping or pond filled with cattails and floating logs. In the distance, far from any roads or trails, I can see pristine old-growth patches of western hemlock and Douglas fir.

The radio is on. Some kind of folk music plays between static crackles. Saad isnt listening to it; neither am I. Were not talking. Maybe we used up all the conversation on the flight from Cleveland. We flew into Sacramento this morning instead of Portland because its closer, and we wouldnt have to wait another day until the next flight into Medford.

Saad keeps his back perfectly straight and stares straight ahead. As each minute of silence passes, it feels more and more like I should have left him at home. This is not his problem. Sometimes it feels like Saads life is all mapped out for him and I just screw with that plan, because Im selfish or stupid. Its another detour for him, like the conferences or the speaking appearances, all the extras that come with running a popular website. And hes been there, like a rock, from the very beginning.

I distract myself by thinking of all the thousands of people who followed this same trail westward, looking to cash in on the bounty of natural resources cached away in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest the loggers, the miners. Hordes of people, mainly men, trying their luck in a land with less order, less structure, and less scrutiny than the cities back east. The teeming wilderness conjures up both a sense of freedom and a desire to exploit, to take or name that which belongs to no one else.

Turning off Interstate 5, we come to a detour. Two inches of rain fell last night, causing both a landslide and a sinkhole to open up in the middle of Old Highway 99. A highway patrolman redirects us down a quiet road. The patrolmans uniform, its two shades of blue like the cop in Norman Rockwells The Runaway, tells me weve crossed the state line into Oregon, the khaki-coloured California cops I know from reruns of CHiPs now behind us. Birds of prey, perched on bare trees, watch us as we pass.

I can take over the driving, if you want, I say.

Im fine, Saad says.

Twenty percent of this state is either Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management property, did you know that?

Saad shakes his head, keeping his eyes locked on the road ahead. The sun hangs low in the sky, ducking behind the pointed tops of pine trees. A minivan with two canoes on the roof rack drives toward us, passes with a whooshing sound. Saad looks like he desperately wants to talk about something, but wont. He adjusts his grip on the steering wheel, tightening it and then relaxing it. He swallows and I watch his Adams apple move. Hes too logical, too analytical to get hung up like this. Im trying not to watch, but I almost enjoy it.