Page 10 of Alokar
“Alaska?” Hannah’s voice carried no hint that she’d picked up on my awkwardness.
I nodded with relief, my shoulders relaxing slightly. My mother had told me stories of Alaska, where something called the aurora borealis painted the sky in ribbons of color.
“Are you from here?” I returned the question, fumbling desperately to remember the name of the nearby town. “Redmond?”
“No.” Hannah shook her head, her dark hair catching the tiny rays of sunlight that filtered through the trees. Behind her, Jubal gave a low, rumbling snort—a warning directed at me not to upset his beloved human. I couldn’t help but wonder if Hannah understood how deeply her equines adored her.
“I was born in Tempe, Arizona,” she continued, her voice taking on a distant quality as memories surfaced. “My father was a professor at Arizona State University. We moved to Washington when I was around ten, right after he started believing in Bigfoot.”
“He did not always believe?” I asked, genuinely intrigued by this revelation.
“No,” her low chuckle held no humor, just the bitter edge of pain. “He was a biologist… a scientist, so he was all into empirical data, that kind of stuff. It’s ironic, really, considering the legends of our people and other Native American tribes are rich with tales of Bigfoot.”
I knew fragments of Native American history thanks to my mother’s insistence that Earth’s history be included in my education. The government in the northern Americas had torn the native peoples from their ancestral lands with systematicviolence, established poverty-stricken areas called reservations for them to eke out an existence, and attempted to erase their native culture in favor of beliefs deemed moreappropriate. Despite the cruelty, Native American tribes demonstrated remarkable resilience, clinging to their culture and beliefs, and now most humans recognized and regretted the travesty inflicted upon the native peoples.
“What changed his mind?” I felt curious, drawn in by the mix of love and loss that flickered in her eyes when she spoke of her father.
This time, Hannah’s chuckle held more genuine amusement, a warmth that transformed her entire face. “One of his graduate students brought in some fur samples and a claw he’d discovered on a recent hiking expedition. Daddy tested them, fully expecting the samples to come back as grizzly or some other known species of bear. But they didn’t.” Her voice dropped to an almost reverent whisper. “It was a DNA profile nobody had ever seen before—something that shouldn’t exist according to everything he knew. It made him a believer. After that, he threw himself into research about Bigfoot. He even took a position at Washington State University because there were more documented Bigfoot sightings in the Pacific Northwest than anywhere else in North America.”
“And he made you believe, too?” I could see the passion burning in her eyes.
“Daddy was convincing,” she smiled, and for a moment, the adoration of her father outshone the persistent sadness that flickered across her face.
“What about your mother—did she believe?” I couldn’t imagine my own parents not supporting each other’s dreams.
A harsh, hateful snort escaped Hannah’s lips, wiping any semblance of warmth from her face and replacing it with a volatile mix of anger and deep-seated sadness that made my chest tighten. “The only things my mother believes in are Botox injections and the balance in her bank account.”
“I am sorry,” I said, meaning every word.
“Thanks,” she muttered with a slight shrug, but I could see the old wounds still bleeding beneath her carefully constructed armor.
I paused, carefully weighing each word before speaking, knowing my next question could shatter her fragile peace. “They said at the bar that a grizzly killed your father.”
She stopped so abruptly that Jubal’s massive hooves skidded slightly on the pine needle-strewn trail, his indignant snort echoing through the surrounding forest. When she turned to face me, her gray eyes blazed with an intensity that made the air between us crackle like lightning before a storm.
“It wasn’t a grizzly,” she announced with deadly certainty. The words hung in the air between us, heavy with conviction and barely contained rage. “I was there. It was a Bigfoot, and the creature is craftier than we ever imagined.”
“How do you mean?” I asked, though I knew now without a shadow of a doubt that Yaard had killed her father. Still, I needed to hear her version of events, needed to understand what she had witnessed in those terrible moments.
Hannah’s entire body began to tremble, starting as a barely perceptible shiver that quickly escalated. Her face drainedof color, becoming pale, and I watched in growing alarm as the memory triggered a visceral, physical response that seemed to rip through her like a physical wound.
“It tracked us,” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the wind through the evergreen boughs. “It came out of nowhere and then....”
A wash of unshed tears shimmered across her gray eyes, but she blinked them away, her jaw clenching as she fought against the overwhelming tide of grief. “The Bigfoot used my father as a shield, so I couldn’t get a clear shot. I wanted to stay... to fight, but my dad....” Her voice cracked like breaking ice, the sound raw and jagged with the hint of a sob that she refused to release. “He told Jubal to run, knowing the horse was so well-trained he’d obey.”
She reached back with trembling fingers and ran her hand along Jubal’s powerful neck in a gesture of gratitude, and the horse nickered softly in response to her touch. Then she held her arm out in front of me, her movements jerky and unsteady, indicating the battered leather watch that encircled her delicate wrist. The timepiece was scarred and weathered, with a scratched face, and I could detect faint but unmistakable traces of her father’s blood still clinging to the worn leather band.
“This is all I have left of him,” she said, her voice hollow and distant as she stared at the watch with haunted eyes. “We barely found enough to bury.” She swiped angrily at her eyes with the back of her hand, refusing to let the tears fall, clinging to her rage like a shield against the crushing weight of her grief. “I’m going to kill the fucking thing. Kill it and drag its corpseback to civilization to prove to every person who ever laughed at my dad that he was right. That Bigfoot is real, and dangerous.”
An overwhelming desire crashed over me—the need to gather her into my arms, to hold her against my chest and whisper promises everything would be alright. I wanted to vow with every fiber of my being that I would not rest until Yaard was dead and her father’s death avenged. Yet I remained frozen in place, watching her with what I hoped was a gentle, understanding gaze as she fought to shake off the clinging tendrils of raw emotion.
She took several deep, shuddering breaths, visibly pulling herself back together with the kind of strength that spoke of too much practice at containing unbearable pain.
“What about you? What brings you to this part of the world?” she asked, her voice still slightly unsteady as she deliberately changed the subject. “Redmond, Washington, isn’t exactly a tourist destination. Though don’t tell my friend Stella I said that.”
Hopefully, I would never again find myself within speaking distance of Stella. I’d encountered her during my supply run—a pretty enough human who reminded me disturbingly of adieterwalt, one of those small but tenacious creatures with suction cups covering their appendages. Once a dieterwalt got its grip on you, it simply refused to let go. Much like Stella.
“I came here to hunt,” I replied, the words technically truthful. I wondered what Hannah’s reaction might be if I deactivated the cloaking device and revealed my true nature. If I told her the truth about why I was really here. The cuddwisgdevice continued its relentless itching against my skin, making me scratch absently at my arm.
