Little Brave
    
Gleefully, Little Brave runs beneath the branches of trees that are hundreds of years old. He climbs over moss covered  ones that smell strong of the good earth. He lives in a forest. The name of his tribe is of no importance here in this tale of wild and free living. Little Brave could be of any tribe of this earth and the circumstances would apply just the same.

     He at this moment in time is watching a hidden fawn. Its mother is not far away munching the grass near a large boulder. Little Brave does not wish to harm the fawn, but he does want to pet it. Inch by inch he quietly moves toward the baby deer. Now he stretches out a hand to the top of its soft head. It doesn’t move, at first. But then, it’s all legs as it lurches and tumbles forward fighting to rise and flee.

     Little Brave has never come upon so small a fawn before. He says, “Shush, little one. Quiet now.” The ten-year-old moves forward quickly and gathers the little animal to his chest in a tight embrace. It feels so warm in Little Brave’s arms. He runs a hand down the back of its head and neck. He places his cheek on the hot little head. He kisses it several times.

     He’d already decided he’d take the fawn with him when he left. He couldn’t give it up. It was too good of a sensation having the fawn in his arms. It would be his, belong to him alone. He would give it pony milk and care well for the little forest animal.

     And so the boy and the deer leave the mother deer while she contentedly munches sweet grass. Little Brave rubs his chin on the top of the deer’s head and talks in a low voice to sooth it. About half way home, Little Brave senses he’s being followed. It was more than sensing; he heard twigs pop, foot falls and grunting noises.

       At the next curve in the path, Little Brave speeds his steps and chances a glimpse over his shoulder. “No!” he breathes out to himself in a low, shaky voice.   “Oh no! Oh no!” Little Brave said aloud; and to himself,  he said over and over, “It’s a hairy man!” (Little Brave’s tribe called bigfoots, hairy men.) It wasn’t often one saw one of these giants. Little Brave had never until today seen one. He shifted the fawn to his other arm. He held it across the front of his body much like some women carry a baby but the fawn's legs pointed straight up. The fawn weighed more with each step Little Brave took. He was now on a steep grade going up. The crest was in sight.

    
     Cougar-like screams, too close, rattled Little Braves thinking. The distance to the top of the hill seemed forever. The fawn jerked all four of its spindly legs and fought to roll over in Little Brave’s arms as the screams vibrated the pungent forest air.

     “What was it with this hairy man? Did he want the fawn for his dinner? Did he want me and the fawn?” Little Brave’s brain wouldn’t stop with the questions.

     No help for it, he had to get rid of the jittery fawn to save himself. The giant’s odor was overwhelming. Little Brave knew she was very close. On the run, he dropped the fawn into a nest of thick moss. Next, he found himself flat on his stomach. He’d glanced back for just a long second. (This was when he took note that the hairy man was not a male but a female.) He tripped, stumbled forward and finally landed flat with chin in the hard trail dirt.

     As he fell, his eyes caught a whirlwind of activity. And then quiet. Dust and dark fur settled to the ground. Little Brave’s eyes stung from the dust (he told himself). His nose was running. He slapped at his eyes and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Mortified that he was crying like a girl, he got to his feet and hurried with much courage to where he could see the hairy being back down the trail.

     The hairy female, bent from the waist, with palms forward, was gently shooing the frightened fawn back down the trail.

     A crazy thought came to Little Brave:  Could it be, that the female giant was returning the fawn to its mother?

The End

#2 Old Father Remembers a Hairy Man Sighting

(A story to be read to your children.)

Little Brave, not one to check his words, shared the story of the hairy man (woman) that had followed him along the trail. He did not tell his grandfather about the tiny fawn he’d snatched from under its mother’s nose. The warmth of the gentle being, he could almost feel in his arms still.

     Its ears flicked away huge mosquitoes while the whole time its enormous brown eyes seemed to beg, “Why won’t you help me? Can’t you please get rid of these awful pests?” Actually, he had several times puffed out a stream of warm air at them, when several landed on the shiny, wet nose.

     Today, Strong Hand, Little Brave’s grandfather, was quick with his words. In the past, when these two sat together by the fire, few words passed between them. Today was different.

     Strong Hand kept his eyes to the high, distant hills and tall trees while he pressed his grandson for information about the bigfoot or Hairy Man.

     “Did you see its face, young one?”

     “No, old father, I didn’t. First I saw of it, it was walking away.”

     Strong Hand shuffled his feet, bent and kneaded a swollen ankle. He dipped his chin constantly as he stroked the ankle through the soft deerskin, high-topped moccasin. The old man’s grey hair was free, unbraided, spilling onto his chest and almost to his waist in back.

     “You know, Little Brave, I’ve seen this being two times when I was your age and a little older.”

     Little Brave knew this and waited to hear the story again. A story  his grandfather had told him many times before. For it was a fact that these beings make a deep hard impression on a human. It can seem to be just a dream in the remembering and telling of it.

     Little Brave knew this well. He still woke at night while safe in the family’s tepee thinking of the female Hairy Man that he saw.

     The old man shivered. Little Brave took his blanket from his own shoulders and draped it lovingly across the well-muscled shoulders and arms of his mother’s father.

     “Go on, old father, tell me more.”

     The elder smiled and touched a hand to Little Brave’s knee. He knew the boy could recite both sightings in full detail; the stories he knew so well. He loved this child that let him indulge the adventures of his youth.

     “The warm spring rain had finally stopped. I decided to run to the little creek not far from camp. I had it in my mind to spear a fish for the evening’s meal. It was late in the day. Running as fast as the trail would allow, I rounded the last bend in the trail and came to a jarring halt. There before me, its back to me, on its knees, a Hairy Man; he was drinking from the stream. His hand cupped, he dipped from the creek the cool water. He was a scraggly stinking thing and massive in size!”

     The old man, coughed, chewed his bottom lip and continued, “He, and it was a he.” He smiled, dipped his chin at his grandson to let the boy know that he recognized it as a he from observing its privates.

     “He must have heard me as I crunched the gravel when I stopped suddenly because he swung his head, as big as a large bear head, around and caught sight of me. Next he was on his feet, facing me, hands clenched. Well, you know the story. I turned and streaked like blue lightening back to my mother’s skirts!”

     They both chuckled. The blanket slid from the old man’s shoulders from the jostling laughter. Little Brave again arranged the blanket across his old father’s shoulders.

The End

                         #3 Bigfoot Wakes


The very many birds on the ground and in the tall pine trees rivaled the fast flowing creek for merry summer sounds. Little Brave busied himself with turning over rocks in the cold splashing water. He searched for crawdads.

     For the past while, an unfamiliar noise came from a downed tree several feet away. “No doubt an animal, but what animal?” the young boy asked himself.

     Little Brave inched his way across the creek to the other side. The noise had, of course, grown faint as he neared the opposite bank. He squinted hard his dark brown eyes at the log from where the noise had come.

     A strong wind gusted. A limb high up in a near tree cracked, broke off, and tumbled to the ground, splashing in the creek just three feet from where Little Brave stood.

     He now could see a shadow move at the log. The wind quieted. The near birds chattered not. A far off woodpecker kept to his work, unconcerned. A lone buzzard circled overhead.

     Little Brave slipped on a wobbly rock. He threw his arms out to balance himself. The pictures his eyes registered whirled crazily. When he found again with his eyes the log and moving shadow where the huffing and grunting had been, nothing looked as it had just a few seconds ago. The scene was so altered Little Brave wasn’t even sure if it was the same downed tree he was looking at.

     But then, the log seemed to move. That could not be; it must be the animal, whatever animal it was.

     Frightened now, Little Brave backed up slowly. The shadow animal loomed now. Its black fur glistened in the dazzling sun, now that it stood out in a clearing and out of the forest darkness.

     The big animal snuffled and blew out air in a great noise. He gave the impression of just waking from sleep.

     Little Brave, so shaken at what he was seeing, slipped again on the wobbly rock and fell backwards hard onto his rump.

     The animal swung its massive spiky-furred head around searching for where the noise had come. It took one step forward. Little Brave sprang to his feet and scrambled under a near blackberry thicket. He clawed his way through to the other side.

     The hairy man (bigfoot) seemed to yawn. Next, he kneeled, doing this by falling loudly onto his knees with long grunts, onto the gravel at water’s edge. Then he scooped, seemingly with great satisfaction, the water to his open mouth from the icy creek.

     He paid no mind to Little Brave now peeking over the top of the blackberry thicket at him.

                              The End

#4 Little Brave and Square Jaw

(To be read to your children.)

When Square Jaw was very young, he was mauled by a big black bear. When recovered, everyone said he was strangely different than before he was attacked. One thing everyone found odd was that he refused to wear moccasins. He did not find this strange. The reason he gave was that the warm sand along Eagle Creek was just too good to not feel it on his winter-chilled feet. Square Jaw, now thirty-eight, seldom left the warm sandy area of Eagle Creek. Most nights he’d sleep there too. He didn’t find this strange either. But his tribe did. Square Jaw “The Odd” as he had become known, had many oddities. These oddities, however, are not what this story is about.

     Ten-year-old Little Brave often spent time with Square Jaw. Little Brave enjoyed the warm fine sand under his feet, as well. And Square Jaw was his mother’s oldest brother. So, that made Square Jaw family. And what’s more, Little Brave did not think his uncle “strange” at all.

     Little Brave enjoyed hearing the stories that Square Jaw liked to tell. Especially did he enjoy the stories of when Square Jaw was a little brave. And often these stories included Little Brave’s mother. Just a few of the stories were happy stories. When Square Jaw and Little Brave’s mother were very young, it was often difficult for the tribe to find enough game to kill or fish to net. All members of the tribe from young to old often spent their days hungry; often, all they could think of was getting something to eat.

     Square Jaw could sense Little Brave felt sad when he heard the “hungry” stories, so he concentrated on happy stories that included the games with which the young ones of the tribe occupied themselves.

     One story, Little Brave knew he would always remember. That was the story of his mother learning to swim. Square Jaw was much older than his mother and Square Jaw was an accomplished swimmer by the time Little Brave’s mother decided that she would like to learn to swim.

     “How hard can it be?” she laughed, when her brother offered to teach her.

     The very first lesson was extraordinary. Little Brave’s mother was standing waist deep in the creek when something brushed her knee. It touched her knee for a long time. Whatever it was, was big and long. Giggling she plunged her face in the water to see if she could see it.

     “Stop playing,” Square Jaw shouted so she could hear him under the water.

     Little Brave’s mother couldn’t believe it. A huge fish hovered on the bottom of the creek not too many feet away. “Square Jaw, come on let’s get it. A big fish, right there,” she said. She pointed near where Square Jaw stood.

     Square Jaw squeezed his nose and motioned with a hand he was going under the water after it. Little Brave’s mother again plunged her face into the cold water to watch. She was thinking, “That fish would really taste good for their evening’s meal.”

     Just as Square Jaw completely went under the water, the water churned and turned dark. Square Jaw popped up and yelled for Little Brave’s mother to hurry to the bank, for a hairy man (bigfoot) was in the water and after the fish. Square Jaw stumbled through the water on his way to the bank. Not far from it, he whirled around and realized his sister was not following. He dove into the water and almost bumped heads with the hairy man. The massive animal had the squirming fish in his huge black hands.

     When Square Jaw broke the water’s surface, his sister had found her way to the bank, sobbing. She was so frightened. In fact, it was the next summer before she allowed Square Jaw to give her another swimming lesson. And, neither she nor Square Jaw considered this “odd.”

The End

#5 Little Brave, the Robin and Big Fist the Bigfoot

(Best read to your children.)

It was the time of the year wildflowers shot up over night. Yesterday they were not here and today whole meadows wave with their glorious colors. Little Brave stood admiring the blue, gently swaying flower heads before him. The fragrant meadow he gazed upon belonged to Big Fist the white-eyed bigfoot.

     Little Brave wished to walk straight through the middle of the meadow, taking in close-up the beauty of the newly “painted” scene, running the tips of his fingers across the dew wet petals. But he would not. Big Fist would surely pounce. Maybe even run him down. And then who knows what the mean ole bigfoot would do to him.

     These bigfoot animals were not always to be feared, his elders had told Little Brave. But, they cautioned, when alone, it is the wise choice to swing wide of them. He was alone now. And so he would not take the middle path through the blue field.

     He turned, thinking himself very wise, to the high path skirting along the bottom of Baker Mountain. The fine dirt and rotting pine needles were cool on his bare feet. A fat robin kept flying and landing just ahead of him as he made his way along the animal path of Baker Mountain.

     A waterfall splashed into a moss green pool at Little Brave’s right as he passed. At first glance, Little Brave did not notice Big Fist sitting on a rock several feet to the left of the waterfall. The big shaggy animal dangled his feet off the rock and dipped a big toe of one of his feet into the emerald water.

     The robin that had flown ahead of Little Brave landed softly at Big Fist’s knee. And then it hopped up onto the wide hairy leg. Big Fist seemed to smile as he flexed the thick muscles of his leg, playing with the bird. The robin flapped his wings in exaggerated motions and tipped from side to side as if he wanted Big Fist to think he was in danger of taking a tumble from the rippling leg.

     Little Brave felt to laugh, but did not; he didn’t want to alter the extraordinary scene before him. But a dry limb snapped, alerting Big Fist to his presence, when Little Brave shuffled his feet to get just a little closer to the pair. The robin, in a feather-shedding flurry, flew across the waterfall’s face and landed in a near pine. Big Fist sprang into the green pool and swung his huge white eyes around, searching for what had made the snapping noise.

     Little Brave dug his feet into the path and sprinted to the bottom of Baker Mountain as fast as he could. Curiously, he had noticed before he took flight, that matted in Big Fist’s tangled coat were blue flowers here and there. And mostly they were visible in a line around his neck. Did Big Fist know how to make flower chains? Or did Big Fist have a girl pal that made a flower chain for him?

     “This time of year was certainly filled with curiosities and beauty,” thought Little Brave.


                               The End

#6 Little Brave’s Missing Fish

Little Brave dipped his toes into the green pool. This pool was his favorite pool of all those scattered along the trail to his home, a warm tepee. It was now the part of the day the sun set over the tall swishing pines to the west. The sun twinkled between the branches and the pool at his feet darkened by the second. The pool was now as black as the pony his father rode.

     Unbeknown to Little Brave, an animal watched him. The animal was not a bear. It was not a mountain lion. It certainly smelled like a skunk, but it was not. It was the animal his people called Buk-Was. Little Brave had only seen one of these towering beings himself a few times, but often he heard about them while sitting in a circle as the elders told their tales of an evening.

     Buk-Was sniffed the air. He couldn’t decide what the little human smelled like. But it was a good smell to his nose. A fish, its gills just barely moving, twitched along side of the young boy’s leg. The leg hopped up and down as the youngster paddled his feet in the green pool. “Perhaps it was the fish he smelled,” Buk-Was said to himself.

     The boy hummed merrily and glanced to the top of a pine where a dark bird landed, sending a dry branch tumbling to the forest floor. Just as the branch hit the floor not many feet from the boy, Buk-Was snatched the fish up and crammed it into his mouth. The big animal rose to full height, turned and crashed through the brush straight behind the boy's back.

     Little Brave, startled, and hopped from the bank of the pool, into it. The black water came to his waist and caused him to shudder. All he saw of the Buk-Was’s presence were the branches of small trees and thick brambles crashing back together from where the big body parted them in hasty flight.

     Where was his fish? His eyes swung around searching. No fish! The skunk odor now was thick in the air. “Must have been a skunk that took it,” he said to himself. Then he added, to account for the high brush moving and clashing back to its original configuration, “Or maybe a bear helping a skunk to swipe my fish. Now that’s a story to tell the elders.”

     He scrambled from the chilled black water. He at once began putting together his story he’d tell the elders tonight. Unaware, Little Brave trampled over the huge Buk-Was foot prints all along the trail back to the clearing where his tepee home sat─now in the dark evening shadows.

The End

  UNDER THE BUSH at the SCHOOL BUS STOP

is the last story below. SCROLL DOWN, DOWN, DOWN 




   

#7 The Breaker of Arrowheads

Little Brave sits splashing his bare feet in the narrow but deep creek that snakes along the edge of his tribe’s camp. His feet are almost too cold. But he keeps splashing them anyway.

     In his clenched hand he holds an arrowhead, a broken arrowhead. It was his last one. Today he was to have gone hunting with his father. Now he could not. He would be required to stay behind and prepare himself a supply of arrowheads, and no doubt be pressed into some woman’s work.

     The arrowhead that he held, now biting into his palm, had been broken by his cousin, on purpose. The cousin, Big Ears, was jealous of Little Brave’s hunting feats. Little Brave seldom came home without meat. Big Ears often had nothing to show for his time in the woods while hunting. So out of jealousy, Big Ears broke Little Brave’s last arrowhead.

     Little Brave watched his cousin walk into the near woods, the last in line of the hunters. Tears stung at Little Brave’s eyes, but he would work hard to not let them fall onto his cheeks. The evening sun twinkled at the top of a tall fir as it fell into dusk on its way into night.

     The tears in Little Brave’s eyes made the distant trees waver. The air was heavy with mouthwatering smells of drying deer meat. Still, he splashed his numb feet in the icy water. Something ahead of him, some animal, was working its way down one of the fir trees about twenty feet away.

     He looked up, spotting the heavy rump and legs of what appeared to be a black bear, slowly coming closer to the ground. He had no arrowhead for his arrows. A rock, he’d look for a rock and dispatch the animal that way.

     A smooth rock he lifted with both hands. He quickly turned to face the bear still about ten feet up the tree. What was he looking at? He saw very clearly fingers on the bear’s paws. A bear with fingers? A creepy crawly feeling shot through his body.

     The animal let go of the tree’s trunk and landed on all fours. It whirled around, still close to the ground, breathing loudly and bearing yellow teeth. It wasn’t a bear. It was one of the hairy men of the forest.

     Was the smelly thing advancing on him? Little Brave rose to his full height and backed slowly away. He stumbled over a boulder. His eyes left the animal for what seemed only a second. While Little Brave fell, the animal sprinted into the forest using the same trail his father and Big Ears took. Little Brave did not know where the animal had gone.

     This day got worse because Big Ears came from the day’s hunt with a story of his own about spotting a hairy man. The only good thing about the whole wretched day was that Big Ears yet again did not bring home meat. He came home only with a story of a hairy man.

     These hairy men were seldom seen by anyone. So, it was with great mirth that Little Brave kidded and poked fun at his cousin. And he did not tell anyone of his own sighting of a hairy man. He just didn’t want to endure the laughing that he knew it would bring about.

     He preferred laughing at Big Ears’ story and that the young hunter and breaker of arrowheads had again arrived home empty handed.
                                  
                                The End

 

            

  #8 Pretty Dress

Summer Lee Clark and Spice Martin, both eleven, were at this moment enjoying a sleepover. The two were best friends.

And they both L-O-V-E-D anything sparkly, anything with lots of ruffles  and just anything “girly” as Spice enjoyed saying.

Summer’s mother poked her head in the door and asked if everything was okay with the two since she hadn’t heard a laugh or giggle from the girls in some time.

“Great here, Mom,” Summer Lee laughed while she shook her drying, sparkly pink fingernails.

“Same for me, Mrs. Martin,” Spice said as a big yawn stretched her pretty face all out of shape.

Summer squeaked out an unladylike sound at the funny face her friend had flashed just briefly. Both girls agreed that even a big smile was bad because it could lead to deep wrinkles. The two went so far as to not purse their lips at all while sipping hot tea and they absolutely did not blow their tea to cool it. 

Summer and Spice, mind you, have known each other for years. They each keep a journal of what to do and what not to do in the varied practices of “girl-ness.” These journals were thick, and stuffed with girl-wise rules.

Oh, to be sure, they had differences in their ideals, their rules for a well-groomed and well-dressed modern girl. They even had rules on how to disagree, agreeably.

At this moment Spice had hanging on the clothesline a very dark green party dress. The hot sun and a brisk wind flapped and snapped the delicate ‘gown.’  It gave the girls much pleasure to call their horde of pretty dresses, gowns.

Why was the pretty dress on the clothesline?

Both girls decided that the color was a bit off, a bit too dark. They believed some time in the sun would fade it. Once sun-bleached they hoped it would be just perfect and to their liking.

“Summer, should we turn the dress? We want it to fade evenly.”

“Good idea. Let’s go.”

A few minutes later the girls rounded the corner of the country home. A tiny humming bird shot by on its way to the red feeding station. They paused and watched the birds for a time.

At the rose arbor, Summer threw out an arm, blocking Spice.

“Down, get down!”

“What’s going on?”

“Quiet! Look!” Summer pointed to the clothesline.

Two bears, one small, one large, batted and pulled at Spice’s pretty dress.

The girls ran lickety-split back inside the house, yelling for Summer’s mother. The three then watched from Summer’s bedroom window.

“Those are not bears!” Mrs. Martin breathed out in ragged voice.

“Bigfoot! I think they’re bigfoots!” Spice said. She wanted to tap on the window, but didn’t,  to scare them away or get their attention. She didn’t know which.

The larger bigfoot snatched finally the green dress from the line. Both animals lumbered out of sight.

This shared experience kept these two girls friends for life. It is worth telling that the girls started a new section in their journals, a section on bigfoot. 

Years passed. Summer Lee Clark, as an adult, enjoyed hiking the forest at the end of her parent’s yard, watching for the two bigfoots she’d seen as a girl.

Spice Martin kept her friend, Summer, informed on the news of bigfoot, as it came to her from books, Internet and such. One bit of information she shared was a rumor that someone had sighted a female bigfoot, wearing around her neck some sort of green ruffled fabric. The green had faded to a dirty grey, just tinged with green.

It could have been Spice’s dress, they reasoned. They laughed long about the whole thing, but not too loud, for they still kept to their rules for modern girls; they fought wrinkles and enjoyed still--Pretty Dresses.

The End

 

Preface

NOT SUITABLE FOR VERY YOUNG CHILDREN

#9 The Hairy Men of the High Mountain Forests

In North American Indian lore, there have been uncountable stories told of certain tribes leaving their unhealthy children for the hairy men (Bigfoot/Sasquatch) of the forest to rear.

      In part, this story is of such a boy. When finally the child’s father made the decision to take him deep into the high mountain forest, the boy seemed to do little else but cry. He ate little, walked with much effort and had not learned more than three or four words.

     The opinion of the Chief of this tribe was that if the boy were his, he’d place the child into the hands of the ancient hairy men of the mountains.

     The handsome and much loved three-year-old was the couple’s first child. The young parents, however, were convinced by the tribe’s elders that their child would soon perish if he were not allowed to walk freely the good earth and to breathe deeply of the wide sky, which only the hairy men of the deep forests and high mountains could provide, could oversee.

The Hairy Men of the High Mountain Forests

The stink of them, the hairy men, is strong, powerful, sickening at times; and this for good reason, as I have often observed them roll around in the entrails, in the blood, in the bodily waste of their kills.

     The same is true of the females, except during their time of mating, when to my nose they exude an overpowering green-grass smell.  It’s tolerable, that is if one (one, meaning human) can smell it at all, for the acrid, overpowering filth of them. For me, the odors were the least of the annoyances during the female’s mating time. I was not of their kind. But one of them, Baday, my name for her,  would  sniff  my  breath  and  maneuver  her  powerful hairy thigh between my legs in an attempt to excite me.  After much difficulty, I always managed to escape her advances. By difficulty, I mean, she’d pounce and claw me with her dirty, jagged nails. She’d bellow chest-rattling growls. She’d nip deep patches of skin from my face, neck and back.  When done playing with me, and that’s what she was doing, for with one good swat of her hand she could have killed me, she’d spring to her feet and be off─off to her next conquest, these many, and of her kind, some milling close by, but most waiting patiently in somewhat of a line. And all this before I could rub the smell of her from my nose.

  For as long as I can remember, I’ve been here in the deep woods with these creatures.  And, to look at my face you’d think I was one of them. Hair is thick and long on it, but the rest of my body has little hair. So I was given covering of animal skins, some with fur, some not. While I knew I was not of their kind, I felt myself one of them.  I don’t know how I came to be here, in this place with these beings. I have no memory of it.  We, however, shared this in common: I didn’t speak and they didn’t speak; but having lived my life with only their kind, I on a simple level understood them, and it seemed, they me. We gestured, motioned and went ahead with whatever it was we intended communicating.

     If the creatures spoke in some primitive language, I had no way of knowing. It did seem they’d gibber at one another, and often pounded cruelly on each other’s massive backs and shoulders. If they had a language, then this gibbering was probably it.

      It was when the need  was great  on me to mate, I

could not keep it from my mind, that the hairy being Lome (my name for him) brought a human girl to me and gave her into my care. He was for as long as I had memory, my father-figure. He cared well for me, providing shelter, covering, food and a mate.

    

      For the passing of many moons, my companion girl cried constantly, or so it seemed, and ate little. She finally quieted herself, but still it was my constant concern that she would escape.

     Still, when Baday’s time came to mate she’d bare her teeth and try to force me to comply. The girl had no choice but to witness these attacks. It was many moons passing that I kept her at my side with a tight hold of her wrist. She’d twist around to avoid the scene before her. Often she’d find herself tripped up and in the oddest of positions, laughable if the situation hadn’t been so repugnant and dangerous to us both.

     My fondness for the girl, I now called Umyu, grew. She repeated to me often, Margaret, meaning that it was her name. But I could not call the female before me this name. Margaret sounded ugly to my ears. I called her what I wanted, Umyu, meaning to me, breath of many flowers.

     In time, when we took our night’s rest, she allowed me to thread lightly my arm between her arm and waist (her back to me). More often, she’d allow it when it was cold, when the water from the sky turned white and covered deep the mountainsides.

     Several seasons of hot and cold passed. With good frequency, Umyu now allowed my hand to pull her in tight and caress her maturing body, often until she panted. But still, she refused me, stopping short of mating; whereupon, often I’d spring to my feet and yell out, in good imitation of the hairy men we lived among. With hard blows, I would pound my chest with frustration.

     Even though I had a companion, Baday, when the need was upon her to mate, came to me still, inflicting wounds that took many moons to heal. It was a mean and twisted game she played with me.                        Once I spied Umyu peeking through the tree branches while I fought Baday. She allowed the branches to snap back upright when I saw her. I wondered if she thought I gave in and did as Baday wished. I don’t know, for I didn’t speak to Umyu of such things. Maybe, I reasoned, it was why she’d not have me as mate.

      Because of all the moons and seasons that had passed, I believed Umyu was attached tightly to me. She seldom strayed far from my side. I enjoyed believing that, anyway.  I did not worry overmuch about her running back to where Lome had abducted her. So, she was free to walk her own way during the day.

   

      At this time it is good to say that she could have never found her way back, for we were deep into the high mountains, mountains shrouded in thick clouds and heavy mists most days.

     It was to my great pleasure when next Baday waddled into our private sleeping den that Umyu rose, turned and stared down the overweight and smelly being. In Umyu’s slim hands, she held tight a club that she’d made with a thick branch, thorns bristling all around.   Baday seemed amused, sniffing and jutting her hairy chin in jerks.  She turned, seemingly to walk away and then whirled, catching Umyu off guard, trying to slap the club to the ground. With ease she dislodged it, but it now was stuck to her wrist, possibly by a thorn to the bone. She whooped in pain.

     Grunting and sniffing loudly the air, Baday’s next-in-line suitor charged forward, black puffy hands clenched. His whole body swung around as he turned his massive head, trying to determine what was going on.

     Umyu, shaking hard her stinging hands from the blow when the club was knocked from them, motioned me to make them leave.

     It was my finest and happiest day, for Umyu that night turned to me and allowed our first mating.

     From the time the girl was given to me, that is to say when she finally stopped crying, she made an attempt to teach me to speak her language, from the world whence she came. She tried to explain it, but I had no way to visualize it.

     She made it clear that one day she hoped to return to it, with me and our offspring. I’d smile, but I knew I would never have the courage to leave the high mountains and the hairy men, leave the only world I’d ever known. And so it was my want, that she’d never be rescued, but it was not to be.

     Umyu called me Fellow. Some days, when the  powerful winds are away lingering in far places, I believe I can hear her voice, calling to me across the mountains. 

Years later, 1887

     Mrs. Margaret Sarah Jones, 83, sits now rocking slowly on the porch of her Oregon home. Her husband of many years has just passed, leaving her little to do with her days except care for herself and keep her log cabin tidy.

      During her long and happy married life, she thought often of what happened to her as a girl.  When she was rescued, she was pressed to explain her “ordeal.”  “Ordeal” was used often; it was their word for what had happened to her.

      It was many years before she found a good and decent man willing to have her as a wife. And that was only because David Brian Jones wasn’t aware of the details of her years with the hairy men. Margaret did not tell him everything, him or anyone else.

     All that kind-hearted David knew was she’d been taken by one of the hairy men of the mountains.

     She told him they used her as a slave of sorts, and that she’d watched over  several  of the  hairy  men’s offspring,  gathered  food and  helped  build  shelters

while the group was on  the  move  through and  over

 the high mountains.

      About Fellow she never spoke a word. And about their twin boys left behind, she never said a word. (No children were born alive of the union with her husband.)

     She expected that life would be lonely for her now, now that most of her family had passed on.  But the days she now filled with remembering.    

      She crossed her ankles and pulled a woolen throw over her knees, bunching it over her lap, covering her blue-veined hands. The view before her eased the sore heart beneath the calico bib of her homemade dress. The yard and field sloped down to a tangled thicket of blackberry bushes, a long line of them, shoulder high.

     Tiny yellow birds flitted in and around the vines.

     Again the thought of Fellow came to her. It was at such a thicket that Lome, the hairy man, appeared from nowhere and threw a great hairy arm around her middle and then barreled down into a near, deep ditch completely covered with a canopy of thick trees. She screamed the whole time, but there was no one to hear.

     She’d walked the two miles to the berries by herself. She had walked it often, for she was twelve. Old enough to take care of herself, she assured her mother and father.

     When she was rescued by the road crew at eighteen, her parents were quick to say that they were concerned over her disappearance, but her mother repeated often, “We thought it was Frank Roy Blain. You remember him? We were sure you’d   gone with him and his family to Missouri. You were really sweet on him.”

     And then her father repeated his own string of words, primed by his wife’s, told in just the same way over the years, never changing a word: “A splendid vision you were, when we finally recognized you.” Margaret’s father sniffed in just the same place, telling after telling, trying mightily not to let the tears show and the running nose give away his feelings for his only girl child. “Mercy, mercy such a vision!”

     Margaret cried in grief now, for her husband of all these years, and for Fellow. What, she wondered, had become of him and their children? At least he was not left alone, he had the children.

     “What a remarkable life I’ve experienced,” she thought, “first in the high mountain forest, and then with my gentle David here on the edge of this small Oregon  town.  Would even  one  soul  have believed

 me, believed my story, if I had told the whole of it?”

       She guessed not. So, she didn’t bother. She kept it all to herself and only nodded when a passerby would call to her on the porch, or one of the local newspapers reported, “A young girl (or boy) disappeared last week while picking berries.”

      It was no surprise to Margaret Sarah Jones; after all, her children and her grandchildren would need mates, living there in the mountain mist along with the   ancient  hairy  men.  That  is  if  they wished   to  

produce  families.

      For a fleeting instant, Baday  flashed across her mind. She ground her old teeth and before she gave thought to it, she was yelling insanely in the direction of the berry thicket at the bottom of the yard. It was her own version of the yell of the hairy men.

     She rose from the rocking chair and looked to the high mountains. Now in hoarse voice, she whispered to herself, “Fellow I hope you still live.  I hope you and our children have mates, have families!” And then in loudest of voice she yelled, “F-e-l-l-o-w, where are you?”

THE END


__________________________________________________________________________

#10 Under the Bush at the School Bus Stop

(Names not real)

“Give me that! Chris give it here!”  eleven-year-old Max Lee Brown yelled to his friend.

Chris Ray Smith, also eleven, made a disgusting face, while sprinting around Max. Chris had just snatched a half-eaten meat stick from Max’s hand. It was like this every morning at the bus stop. Most of the kids had fun playing around before the grind of school kept them slow-motion still for the largest part of the day.

After Chris returned the meat stick, Max held onto it as tight as he could. He knew more was coming.

“Look!” Chris teased. When Max looked away to where Chris pointed, Chris successfully slapped the stick out of Max’s hand to the ground.

Amy Sue Black, ten, whirled around when she felt the meat stick brush the backpack on her back. “Really!” she sniffed. “You two are the limit!” She shrugged the bright pink pack off and checked for grease stains.

For just a second the boys thought of turning their full attention to Amy, which in the end they usually did each and every morning at the bus stop. They both liked the girl and enjoyed hearing her piercing scream when one of them would toss a piece of bark or leaf at her pretending it was a bug or worse!

A couple of kids yelled that the bus was coming, so Chris kicked the meat stick under a near bush and got in line, Amy in front of him, and Max behind him.  

Chris Smith plopped down near the window with Max next to him. Max was busy wiping his greasy hands on his jeans when Chris turned and said “Did you see that?”

“What? See what?

“Something is under that bush, back there at the bus stop.”

“Something like what?”

“I don’t know. I just saw the bottom of a big foot. No shoes. I mean it was r-e-a-l-l-y big.”

Max laughed, then lowered his voice and said seriously while still rubbing off the grease, “Are you telling me it was like a bigfoot... bigfoot like the animal?”

“Bud, I saw a b-i-g foot. That’s all I know. I don’t know what it was. Could have just been a big man, with no shoes.”

At the end of the day they looked around the bush.

Nothing was under it. The meat stick was gone.

It being gone was no surprise because forest animals and pets were always in the area.

Chris that evening found it hard to concentrate on his homework, so he phoned Max.  They decided to arrive early the next morning at the bus stop, hide and watch for whatever it was that was sheltering under the bush.

While still foggy and a little dark the next morning, the boys cautiously walked to the bus stop. “Are you chewing on that same meat?  It stinks!  We could get attacked, you know!” Chris said.

Max was wearing the same grease stained jeans he’d worn the day before. And yes he was enjoying one of the meat sticks.

Chris shook his head side to side and said, “I don’t know about this, we could be food for whatever is under that bush.”  They walked without speaking for a time then Chris said, “Can you tell which way the wind is blowing? We should hide down wind if you can.”

Max nodded and whispered for Chris to be quiet.  They were very near the bush. “Something’s moving. You see it. Shhh... ”

“Where? I don’t see it,” Chris said with shaky voice.

“Get on your belly. Don’t move. Look between the bush and fence.” Max pushed down on Chris’ shoulder driving his friend’s chin into the dirt.  Both boys were as close to the ground as they could get and were down wind of whatever they were watching move.

Something nudged Chris’ knee. Without thinking he pounded a fist  down in the middle of Max’s back. Both boys yelled while scrambling frantically to their feet.

“What’s going on here?” Tim Miller aware he’d scared the boys laughed. He had to ask them a second time what they were up to because his laughter made his first try unclear. Tim Miller was out this early morning on his daily jog.  He jogged  in place so not to cool off.

“You guys realize I almost ran over you?” Suddenly, Tim’s eyes narrowed. He growled out, “Back! Back! Get back behind the fence.”

“What! What is it?” Both boys asked while backing toward the fence.

The dark, shadowy bush was growing larger near the fence. Without warning about a third of the bush came to life and was running away from the three. Pound! Pound! The ground shook.

“It’s coming back! Get out of here! Run for home!” Tim Miller shouted as he turned to follow the boys.

Next thing he knew, he was flying and then skidding across the road. The ‘shadow’ had evidently hit him when it passed.  Just then as Tim tried to get to his feet a car’s lights swept the whole area. It screeched to a stop.

The door of the little grey car flew open and a young woman ran to Tim’s aid. When it seemed safe Max and Chris crossed the road and stood, hands in pockets, listening to the adults talk.

“Listen here, did that thing hurt you?” the young woman asked.

Tim noticed the boys and told them to get on home.

“Come on, I’ll get you to the hospital.”

Tim Miller was released in a few hours from the hospital, with nothing broken and only a few deep bruises and scrapes.

The jogger did report the incident to the police, only mentioning some large animal had knocked him across the road. Tim was positive what he saw was a bigfoot, but he knew it would only be trouble if he claimed he’d seen one. He didn’t need it!

Of course, all the school buzzed with the story that Max and Chris were telling. The boys used the word bigfoot in their revelation and couldn’t wait to get back to the bus stop and bush where the being had first been spotted by Chris.

It was a big disappointment for all of the kids that got off at Max and Chris’ stop; the bush was gone, cut down! Several kids stuck around searching the powdery dirt for bigfoot tracks. The area seemed to be swept clean.

To this day Max and Chris revel in the thought that they might have seen a real live bigfoot.  And Tim Miller knows he did!

The end

P.S. I'm not sure if it should have been upwind or downwind when I mentioned where the boys were to position themselves so the animal would not smell or hear them.