Monster (Hardback)

The hike was going well—physically. Beck always ran two miles before breakfast, so she was up to the arduous trek, and Reed, being a sheriff’s deputy, prided himself on his physical condition. They maintained a brisk pace, Reed bounding along the trail, fully demonstrating the strength and efficiency of his muscles and cardiovascular system, and Beck keeping up just fine, not about to be one-upped. The day was getting warmer, and okay, Reed was right about her buckskin jacket: she’d shed it only a few minutes into the hike, and now it was draped on the frame of her backpack.

Uphill, uphill, uphill had been the rule of the day. They’d just climbed along a steep, forested slope, half a mile one way, then around a switchback and another half a mile the other way, then back again, the steep mountain drop-off on their right, then their left, then their right, and so it went.

It was when they finished that climb and descended a north-facing slope into old-growth forest that the hike turned from a physical competition to something almost . . . profound. This wasn’t common, everyday forest with trees the size of telephone poles all close together and stickery bushes between them. No, this was something out of a Tolkien or Lewis fantasy, a wondrous, otherworldly place where the earth was soft and deep with moss and peat; where tiny white wildflowers twinkled in the green carpet, iridescent bugs with fairy wings flickered in the sunbeams, and every footstep was muffled in the pulverized red bark of a million trees that lived there before. Now, this caught Beck’s fancy. She’d read about this place, even written her own whimsical stories about it when she was a girl. This was where hobbits and elves, fairies and princesses, knights and ogres had their adventures and intrigues, and where all nature of mischievous creatures lived among the snaking, claw-foot roots. This was where—

“You can eat cattails, did you know that?” Reed still had not run out of things he knew and just had to share. “You can eat the stalk; you can eat the pollen; you can even eat the roots. Of course, they grow in swamps and wetlands, and we’re up a little high for that.” He sounded like a forest ranger on a nature hike, and he was past getting on her nerves.

She held her peace and concentrated on the coarse, furrowed sides of the huge trees. How old must they be by now? How many centuries had they seen? How many—

“Hey, a slug. Did you know those are edible? ’Course, they’re supposed to be better if you cook ’em, but you can eat them either way.”

Enough. “R-reed. You c-can barbecue one and s-serve it with A1 Sauce and I will never eat it. Change the s-subject.”

“How about grass? Remember that meadow back there? We could have cooked up a kettle of grass stew, maybe even made some tea.”

“If I recall c-correctly, we have p-pine needles for tea.”

Now you’re learning. Hey, you know how to find north and south without a compass?”

“D-do you ever stop talking?”

“Beck, we’re supposed to learn all this stuff.”

“Reed, I am happy with my life, I really am! I have a novel to work on, two paintings, and a stack of research. I could be doing all of that right now and enjoying my life, but nooo, I have to be hoofing out in the middle of nowhere, listening to my back-to-earth husband talk about eating slugs.”

“One of these days, Beck, you’re gonna wish you knew this stuff.”

She fully intended to learn it, but she wasn’t about to tell him. She did sneak a look at the slug as she passed by. Ooookay. That settled that.

Reed held back, which gave her precious time to mellow and enjoy things—well, more than just enjoy. She already understood what Reed had been trying to tell her. There were sights out here she’d never seen, and there were feelings that could only be felt by being here: the solitude, the wonder. The unique song of the woods could only be heard in nature’s kind of quiet. She wanted to capture it, but what camera was capable of conveying the depth of such an image? What words could evoke the emotion? God spoke through His creation, and the message went past the mind, straight to the heart. It was all so—

“Uh-oh.” Reed stopped, and in her reverie Beck almost ran into him.

“What?”

“Is that the cabin?”

Ahead, the trail meandered downward into a quiet, tree-shaded ravine where an ancient fallen log formed a bridge across a creek. On the other side, the remains of a man-made structure huddled against the slope in what could have been—should have been—a quaint setting. Once it had been a crude but effective shelter built from hand-hewn logs and split shakes, perched on footings of river rock. Once it had a sheltered front porch, a front door, and a window on each side. Once it had been just as Randy Thompson’s survival brochure had described it—“a wilderness retreat well worth the hike.”

They kept an eye on it as they silently worked their way down the trail, the cabin peeking and hiding, peeking and hiding through the trees. With each new view came more woeful news: The porch roof had collapsed, its support posts snapped in two; just visible under the sagging porch roof, the front door hung crookedly from only one of the two strap hinges; on the shallow creek bank below, the remains of a cot lay ripped and crumpled, the frame splintered like matchsticks.

At the log bridge, the cabin was in plain sight. Reed rechecked the map and Randy Thompson’s detailed instructions. “This is it. This is the cabin.”

One window was shattered; the other was torn out, frame and all. Through the window, and on the porch, and on the ground around the cabin lay gutted food containers, shredded wrappers, crumpled cans, spilled flour.

“Someone’s been here,” said Reed. “Maybe a bear.”

Beck called, “M-Mr. Thompson! Mr. Thompson!”

The only answer was the mournful sound of Lost Creek moving under the bridge.