A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters (31 page)

“But Bernie, you’re—”

“—retired.”

Ned looks ready to argue, then laughs. “Okay, old man. But don’t think I’m done asking!”

“You know what they say. Definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over, expecting different results.”

Ned roars, tosses me a salute, then claps Dean on the shoulder. Meeting Dean’s eyes, his voice deepens to a confidential purr. “You hear any yeti screaming, you let me know.”

Mostly to break Dean out of Ned’s spell, I say, “Believe me, I pay too much for my sheep to be losing them.”

Ned grins. “Exactly. We’ve got livelihoods to protect!” He jogs out the door and down the steps, whistling.

“Livelihoods . . . people—what do
you
think he wants to protect most?” Dean asks.

“His career at the Chamber?” I say.

“Don’t be too hard on old Ned.” Bernie says, then calls, “He’s gone.”

Catherine reappears, irritated. “Why is he prattling on about yeti?”

Dean frowns. “Did he say they scream?”

“Possibly.” I avoid his eyes.

“But that was just Ned being . . . Ned. Seriously, they’re extinct, right?”

“So people say,” Bernie hedges.

When he doesn’t elaborate, I sigh. I hoped he’d just come out with it, but apparently he needs a prod. “But they’re not extinct, are they, Bernie.”

He talked yeti with me frequently last winter. I sat knitting while he described how he felt presences in the woods, found tracks, heard noises right out of the old stories. He gave vivid imitations—hooting, yipping, woofing, shrieking. No reliable sightings for over a century, but Bernie didn’t believe them extinct.

He’d seen them.

Having hunted the Uncanny all his life, he had theories. I finished an entire scarf one snowy day listening to how he thought yeti stayed off human radar. He theorized an ability to disappear, something immensely powerful, steeped in magic. Not just fading into the woods and avoiding people—literally
disappearing
, disguising their very existence.

In the depth of winter I listened, amused, thinking him a fascinating old man with a colorful history and a gift for storytelling. Standing in the woods today, feeling something watching, listening to shrieks, staring at disappearing hair . . . I’m not laughing. All his stories and theories accumulated in my brain until out there in the woods I just knew.

Fact, not theory.

I expected him to see the hair and open up. Usually, I’d respect his reticence but with animals dying and Ned Dietrich hovering, we don’t have time for discretion.

Bernie smokes in silence then finally says, “Not extinct.”

“You’re having me on, right? This is like the bears. Or unicorns.”

“More like the bears,” I say.

Dean’s widening eyes indicate the dots are connecting. “You’re telling me . . . today . . . that really was Bigfoot? Bigfoots . . . Bigfeet . . . more than one?” His voice rises an octave.

“No, likely just one.”

Bernie nods. “Common reaction on their part . . . throwing rocks, trying to scare people off.”

“That shriek—”

“They can bounce their screams,” Bernie explains.

“They
what
?”

“Like throwing your voice,” I clarify.

“So, Bigfoot ventriloquists live in our woods and you DIDN’T TELL ME?”

“I didn’t
know
!” I did, actually, I just didn’t
know
I knew.

Dean glares at me. “And Bigfoots don’t leave tracks? I’d think they’d leave pretty damn BIG tracks.”

“People only ever find random prints.” More facts rise to my brain from last winter. “Bernie thinks yeti take care of tracks, but sometimes get surprised or don’t have time. They apparently just don’t move very heavily through the world.”

Bernie smiles at me, approving. “No need to be scared,” he tells Dean. “They’re all bluff. It’s how they get by. Sweet-natured, really. Not doing this killing, for damn sure.”

“You’re absolutely certain?” I press. “Nobody but you has talked about yeti to me. Now my sheep gets eaten, a yeti appears in my woods, and Ned Dietrich mentions them, all in one day. Coincidence? Why would someone bring up yeti to Ned?”

“That’s what I want to know.” Catherine glares at no one in particular. I get the distinct feeling she’s glowering at an imaginary Ned. “No matter how big that man’s mouth is, he doesn’t say things randomly. If he’s talking about your yeti-friends, Dad, he’s got a reason.”

Bernie’s jaw sets, stubborn. “Nobody would have reason to point at yeti. I’m
certain
, dammit. They got nothing to do with this. They wouldn’t, it’s not in ’em. That one in the woods today? Was a travel companion.”

“A what?”

Bernie sighs. “It came with the one that’s here visiting. They always move in pairs or more.”

“Here visiting?” Dean blinks. “Like . . . HERE-here?”

Bernie nods. “The one in the other room.”

“Does it know what’s going on?” I quell my own surprise in favor of grabbing the opportunity for information. “Do they talk?”

“Oh no. They touch you, then think at you.” He waves both hands beside his head as if shooting thoughts at me.

“You get it in pictures in your head. Not sure what they know. You showed up before I had a chance to talk to him.”

“Will he come out with us here?”

“Think so, if I . . . encourage him.” He heads out of the room, pausing to leave his pipe in a ceramic dish on the coffee table that looks like a handmade present from a grandchild. Maybe the yeti doesn’t like smoke.

Catherine shoots us an apologetic look. “Might take a few minutes. They’re incredibly shy. Took him
forever
to convince them to even be here when one of us was around, and they still won’t talk to us. They do
not
like wolves. Hell, they really only like Dad.”

I nod. We wait in edgy silence until Bernie reappears, along with an indistinct, opaque shape that is hard to look at. He enters the living room, the strange distortion of air close by his side. My eyes struggle and I realize it must have a large arm draped over his shoulders. Where the yeti touches him, I can see straight through to the wall and furniture behind him.

The air beside Bernie starts to brighten, shimmer. My breath catches in my throat when I realize that gauging the beast’s size by the distorted space next to Bernie is . . . inaccurate. As it materializes, the yeti rises up on its legs from a bent position, to a full height above eight feet.

A swirl of fine silver hair ripples and settles, catching the ambient light of the room and absorbing it. His head swivels toward us, a dark face standing out starkly in the mass of white hair. Lips pull back, long teeth gleam, and it lunges, screaming.

We fling ourselves backward. My arm whips out, shoving Dean behind me. My other wrist snaps downward in the practiced motion that releases the VisiBlade into my hand. The yeti rocks forward onto its knuckles and charges on all fours, straight for us.

“Don’t!” Bernie yells. The yeti swings itself right into my face, teeth bared, and rises upright again, towering over us. Reflex kicks in past all assurance of bluffs and my arm flies upward, blade angled.

“He won’t hurt you!” In my peripheral vision, Bernie limps across the room as fast as he can, one hand reaching out as if to hold the yeti back.

In the next instant Catherine stands between me and the yeti, unflinching. Still in human form, tiny as she is, she tilts back her head and meets the yeti eye- to-eye, silent and still, her arms folded over her chest.

Low rumbling vocalizations fill the air. Just before Bernie reaches him, the yeti lowers back down onto his knuckles. The magnificence of the creature’s hair strikes me even in my petrified state. Every shift of muscle sends it swaying, until it takes on the appearance of floating underwater. I long to touch it. I don’t know if that’s my fiber-fascination talking or if yeti-hair sparks the same urge in normal people.

Bernie’s hand settles on the yeti’s back. It lifts its hand and pokes one long finger at Catherine’s shoulder. When she doesn’t move or respond, the yeti tilts its head to one side, withdraws its hand as if satisfied, and hoots softly at Bernie.

“Settle down,” Bernie snaps, voice cross. “Damn fool.” He points at the couch, and the yeti turns away. “Put that away,” he waves at my blade. “He won’t hurt anything.” He follows the yeti.

Catherine turns to us, rolling her eyes. “You okay?”

I nod, sheathing the blade with fingers that start shaking in reaction. That thing is BIG. “Thanks,” I manage, knowing that without her, I could have easily knifed the yeti. That likely wouldn’t end well. I look back at Dean to find him chalk-white and shaking, but staring at Catherine with a peculiar expression. Apparently there could be an upside to getting threatened by a yeti and protected by a werewolf.

The yeti continues hooting as he swings himself up onto the couch in a cloud of glittering silver. The couch creaks under him, and for the first time I notice that it, like the room, is set up to accommodate the movements of something huge, without creating frustration or wreckage.

I return to the rocking chair, happy to sit. Dean positions himself behind it, fingers biting into the puffy back. Catherine stays put. The yeti glances at her now and again, but both seem happy to maintain the distance.

Now that it’s calm, I can’t keep my eyes off the yeti, thinking about Ned’s “gorilla on steroids” comment. The posture, stance, length of arm, and size of hand all say “primate.” Hair distribution also resembles the apes, only the face and palms bare. Facial features continue the simian theme, eyes small and close-set under a heavy forehead, nose flatter and broader than a human’s. The prominent canines call up images of snarling baboons stalking baby antelope on Nature programs. His fingers pluck at Bernie—now on his hair, now at his shirt—in the manner of apes grooming.

The differences are just as striking. The length and quality of the hair is more akin to a horse’s mane or human hair than a baboon’s fur. Sheer size and body structure also argues against ape. The yeti doesn’t have the swaybacked bulk of the gorilla, nor the comical long-armed, round-tummy look of the orangutan. The body structure most resembles a chimpanzee with longer legs, or . . . a human with longer arms.

Even as I mentally set yeti characteristics up against the various great apes, the comparison feels wrong, the same way comparing a werewolf to a standard wolf feels off. The yeti encompasses more than a collection of ape-like characteristics, or even human-like characteristics. The silver-moon glow, the intelligent watchful eyes, the gentle way it looks at Bernie, stroking his shoulder, staying within arm’s reach . . . all speak to the “more.”

Then there’s the invisibility and telepathy.

The yeti returns my regard. The weight of his stare brings back my uneasy feeling from the woods. Despite my statement about yeti moving lightly through the world, his presence is tangible, a heavy aura surrounds him. Bernie is right about the yeti possessing
deep
magic. I’d go so far as “bottomless.”

The yeti’s hand settles on Bernie’s and its head dips toward him. Bernie wraps his gnarled fingers around the long, dark ones and returns the silent, companionable attention. Unexpectedly touched at the image they present, my throat tightens.

Bernie’s face darkens. “You best take a listen.”

Unsure what to do, I push up out of my chair. The yeti extends his right hand and I walk toward him. His dark eyes meet mine, and the world tilts. It’s like a large hand thrusts into my head and
pushes
. Unsteady, I reach for his offered grip. The cool skin surprises me, but not as much as the inherent gentleness. His fingers close on mine and gravity shifts again, sharper this time. I sink to the floor, knees buckling. The massive strength in his one-handed grip supports me down. I hear Dean in the distance, but the scraps of words fall away with my surroundings as night rises up.

Occasional shafts of moonlight shine through the trees, but mostly it’s just dark. I can’t believe the details in the shadowy recesses of the woods, though, the subtle shading along the spectrum of gray, all discernable to me. Scents fill my awareness, spring itself the most prominent bouquet. Earth like I’ve never smelled it, deep and dark, crawling with protein. Plants in every scent of green—scent of green? Yes, all the varying greens have their own smells, woody, sweet, bitter. Underneath hangs the reassuring scent of Family.

They slip out of the woods like ghosts. Pale silverwhite, dark reddish-brown, or some mix of the two, moving like gorillas, bent forward with knuckles on the ground. Dark faces watch me, intent and serious. They surround me. I shift my weight and the group moves out as one.

I move fast, faster than I’ve ever run. A cool night breeze sets my hair whipping, silky silver streams flowing over my face. The rhythmic sway of my body surprises me, the impact of my knuckles on the ground nowhere near as uncomfortable as I would have thought. Something
burns,
a hot stone in my chest, dangerous warmth where there should be only coolness. It pulls me forward, disruptive and
wrong,
until I break the tree line and see the houses of the Bare.

Head lifting to the wind, a scent like burnt matches floods me. Furious movement, a dark-on-dark image, and there—the little winged ball of death and destruction. My vision telescopes as my Focus narrows. I watch in exaggerated slow motion as chickens careen from one side of a fenced pen to the other, doing cartwheels in the air as they’re flung with astounding strength by vicious jerks from a tiny marauder.

The flat, serpentine head on a long neck snakes around to train disturbing yellow eyes on me. Dark wings spread then fold as it dives, the movement fast even in the slowed perception of Focus. A sharp curved beak drips black with blood. The head darts, beak sinking into a fat chicken with evident relish. It rises into the air and flings the bird to the ground.