Naked Came the Sasquatch by John Boston chapter one Fenberg Two beady orbs, small, dark and pig-like, slid back and forth, searching the lime green hallways for the intruder. Nurse Doris Lagoris had heard the noise again. The rustle of cellophane. It interrupted the silence of the old hospital and she traced its source to a lone figure in the waiting room. The tall man with the half-smile, half-smirk had been sitting for two hours with his feet propped up on a wooden chair. It was Fenberg. Fenberg thoughtfully munched on a cookie. Staring at the old, crinkled, wallet-sized photo protected by yellowed Scotch tape, he fondly regarded the wholesome blonde holding the baby. The child was making a face. One dead wife. One dead baby. One four-thousand-dollar double funeral in a drizzle. And that was that. Fenberg had long ago resigned himself to the fact that those closest to him were either dearly departed or crazy. "...marching to the tune of a different drummer," Fenberg preferred. Fenberg's brother was crazy. Or so the town said. Despite his long walks in the forest, hands behind his back, where he stared at distant horizons and considered what made things tick, there was a darker side to Fenberg's baby brother. Fenberg's sibling liked to roughhouse. He irritated people and sometimes they tried to hit him with chairs. Or bottles. And once with a banjo. Fenberg's brother had been stabbed eight separate times, poisoned once and shot at another sixteen. Mostly, people missed. All things considered, Mike's brother pretty much was an indestructible sort, stronger than both Magonogonovitch Brothers put together. He actually could bend steel in his bare hands, and he never got cold. But the stories of his fights and county-fair strength paled in comparison to the time Fenberg's brother earned brief national network notice and war-declared size headlines in THE BASIN VALLEY BUGLE a few years earlier: 31 INJURED IN "SEE 'EM DEAD
ZOO BAR-&-GRILL" MASSACRE Tuberski Claims They Tripped Fenberg's brother had legally changed his name to: "John Tuberski" many years earlier for career purposes confirming rural suspicions that Fenberg's brother was crazy because his Fenberg's brother didn't have a career. Tuberski believed in reincarnation. Publicly, Fenberg pooh-poohed the notion of eternal life, albeit in different containers, but it was such secret comfort to believe that his wife and son had come around again as bright, fresh babies with clean slates. Fenberg caught himself examining the faces of the little kids in town, seeing if he could pick up a light of recognition in the eyes, some familiar gesture. No. Nurse Lagoris softly closed the door. She tucked the note into her pocket and eyed Fenberg with suspicion. She felt compassion for the young widower, as nurses and decent people should. Fenberg had lost wife and baby in the hit-and-run accident and then, a few days later, his mother and father had disappeared without a trace in the plane crash. But that was five Christmases behind Fenberg. In the here-and-now, Nurse Lagoris disapproved of all the Fenberg boys. As for Mike, his reputation preceded him. It was a small town and rumor had it he liked to stay up late, keep odd company and sleep with married women. She watched the newspaper editor walk down the hallway toward her. "He's sedated," she said, planting herself between Fenberg and the doorway to the reporter's room. A woman of intimidating proportions, she sported more chins than a Chinese telephone book and carried a vague, stale odor masked by talcum powder. "How's he feeling?" Fenberg asked. "Is he going to be all right?" "He didn't say. And I didn't ask him. He's sedated." Her voice was husky. Fenberg nodded. "Did he mention anything before going under?" Fenberg asked. "Any messages? Does he need anything?" "Here," said the nurse, reaching into her pocket. "He wanted you to have this letter." The hospital was quiet and cool. The lime sherbet hallways were deoderized by frequent baths of Pinesol and ammonia. Nurse Lagoris watched Fenberg's mouth move as he silently read the letter. She folded her arms across her rolling, white chest and finally asked, "Say... what happened to that guy, anyway?" "He was shot by an Indian," said Fenberg, not looking up from his reading. The message read: Dear Mike, Sorry about putting you in a bind like this
and I want you to know this is nothing personal. But I quit. "Swell," said Fenberg, shifting his weight. The sixth reporter this year. "Just swell." This has nothing to do with my being shot
during office hours and again, nothing personal.
You've been more than fair, a friend and a good
guy to work for. But since taking this job two
months ago, I've been physically assaulted by
strangers and have had numerous pranks perpetrated
on me by certain members of your family. "What pranks is he talking about?" Fenberg turned his head and saw Doris Lagoris reading over his shoulder. He sifted some unkind remarks about doughnut-loving nurses with nose trouble, but then, reconsidered. After all. Some day Fenberg might be stricken and this was the only hospital in town. "A few months back? The day at the lake?" Fenberg prompted. Lagoris squinched her face in recollection. "Oh yeah. I remember now. Poor guy." "There you go." There were four Fenberg brothers. Mike was the oldest at 32 with John a year behind. Then came Angry Joe at 13. Joe was a sea of Angst, an ocean of hormones. He was permanently hostile. Except for Fenberg, no one ever dared ask why. The baby of the family was Clifford. Clifford was six. He thought he was Anthony Perkins. It was no secret that Angry Joe and Clifford delighted in terrorizing the frail and cosmopolitan Henry Darich. One sizzling afternoon at the lake, Joe and Clifford replaced the reporter's sun tan lotion with Nair. Which rhymes with hair. It denuded Henry. He had no eyebrows and for several weeks, whenever he showered or swam, water beaded off Darich like he was a Safeway chicken. Fenberg continued to read: I despise your brothers and am not at all
attracted to a community whose only social graces
are drinking to excess, high school football and a
drive-in theatre. This is a land frozen in time. I don't know
why you stay here. Charmed, I'm sure, Henry Darich P.S. A letter of recommendation would be greatly appreciated. Fenberg smiled at the postscript. Darich had been the best all year. "I'll hate to lose you." "Huh?" "Nothing," Fenberg told the nurse. "Make sure he gets especially good care and anything he asks for." He turned and walked away. "HEY!!" the nurse called out after him. "All those stories you've been running in the paper. Is this another one of your hoaxes or are you on the level?" "What do you mean?" asked Fenberg, walking backwards. "Is there really a monster out there?" Nurse Lagoris needed to know. "It's not a monster," said Fenberg. And then, more to himself... "It's more like a maniac." "No. It's a monster," corrected the old Indian. He leaned forward on his cell bunk and slowly rubbed his dry hands together. Fenberg sat on the cold, cement floor opposite, his back against the bars. He doodled on his steno pad. "What makes you think so?" The jail was institution white, empty except for the other Indian, Red Dog Rassmussen, in the next cell over. "Something like this happened before, back when I was a boy. My goodness. It was after World War I, in the fall. And I remember my father telling me stories, you know, that were handed down." Fenberg occasionally called on Charlie Two Eagles Soaring Johnson for background. Charlie was seven-eighths Alliklik, the rest, Swede. He had a weathered face and knew things. "I like you, Fenberg. My people like you," said the Indian. "It's nice to be liked," said Michael. "But I must ask you something that has troubled my heart for a long time," said Charlie Two Eagles Soaring. Fenberg shrugged. Go ahead. "Why didn't you ever throw a pass to my son's boy?" Charlie's grandson played specialty teams on the two high school state championship teams Fenberg had quarterbacked way back when. Fenberg considered the question. "Your grandson ran like the deer. His feet and heart were of the wind. But his hands..." Fenberg raised his fists heavily. "...his hands were cast of iron. Sadly, he could not catch a pass to save the entire Alliklik nation." "Yeah. I guess so," said the old Indian, resignedly. He swung back on the lower bunk and clasped his hands behind his head. "Maybe you should have used him on the end-around." Fenberg didn't say anything. "It is the time of the Mandrango," said the old Indian, solemnly. "Sounds Tahitian." "I can't help that." "May I have a spelling?" "Like it sounds." Fenberg rapidly scribbled notes. This would be the sidebar to tomorrow's lead story. "Mandrango is the demon. Translated, it means, 'bottomless pit.'" The word also had a second meaning in the Alliklik tongue, which, out of courtesy to the widower Fenberg, the old Indian would not mention. "It has a great hunger and is formed of all foul things and evil thoughts from beneath the surface of the Earth." "Sounds like Mrs. Villareal," said Fenberg, recalling Tuberski's former common-law mother-in-law. "Yes. She was a very homely woman and contrary to live with," agreed Charlie Two Eagles, staring at the exposed springs in the upper bunk mattress. "I hear she poisoned your brother, the big one, a few years back." "Not fatally, but enough to make her point." "Your brother has a spiritual quality to him. Many of my tribe go to him for guidance." "I'm probably too close. I never noticed. I always thought it was laziness." "There's nothing wrong with resting," said Charlie, matter-of-factly. He was in on vagrancy. "The Mandrango comes from out of the Earth once every hundred years to mate with a woman. A special woman. Legend says that until he finds his bride, he will kill on the nights of the full moon. Once, twice, maybe more, until his blood lust is filled." "Which, being a bottomless pit, could be never?" "Yes." "Or until he mates with this special woman?" "Yes." Fenberg caught the discrepancy of "...once every hundred years," and let it pass. Charlie was a spry 87, so he couldn't have been alive during this myth's alleged reign of terror. Simple math. But Fenberg also knew that so much of Indian folklore was metaphorical, sometimes, even psychological. "Do you have a description of this character?" "Yes. It is a great creature. Covered with the hair of a buffalo, fangs of a lion. It sees in the dark and can smell particular things, like fear at a distance. It can see your heart beating. It is a head-and-a-half taller than the tallest man. Strong and tireless. No shelter can deny it, but for some reason, he cannot escape his own home. I hear they're real smart, but I've never seen one, thank you very much. "Sounds like quite an attraction. If you caught one, you'd be in the chips." "Yes. But it would eat you," said the Indian, stoicly. "You said something about it happening before, in 1932..." Fenberg flipped over a page on the pad and scratched his back against the bars. In the next cell over, the hatchet-faced Red Dog Rassmussen stared, fascinated by the editor's unprotected kidneys. "There was a wedding in my tribe, a young man and a young woman," Charlie Two Eagles Soaring recalled. "He was the son of a pretty good trapper and a guide and took to modern ways outside the tribe. He left to build a cabin at the foot of the face of the cliffs, you know, over by Webster's Leap. It was safe from the cold wind and high enough to stay dry in the worst of the spring run-off. It was a good cabin, I remember, but it's not around any more. Some of the elders warned him not to leave the safety of the village, as the time of the Mandrango was coming near. He would be under no protection if he did. Well, he didn't listen. It wouldn't rain. His crops were dust. No animals visited his traps and none of the white hunters who came to Basin Valley back then would use him as a guide. His wife went hungry and so did he. This young man got himself a regular job in town, helping out at the livery stable, which he mistakingly believed was a blessing. I told you, didn't I, that he took to then-modern things?" "Yes." "Because of this, his ears and heart were closed. For several days, he would leave the cabin in the early morning. Bright, clear mornings. But there was no breeze at all. No birds singing. No squirrels chattering. At the village, I remember the women chanting and surrounding our houses with rocks, in a circle, you know, while the men smoked and talked. The young man thought nothing of this. He went to town to do his work. This was the day he was paid, so he didn't go home right away. He went to the saloon and spent a portion of his money on liquor. He was laughing and feeling quite carefree when I'm told the smile froze on his face and his blood turned to ice water. His eyes, they went wide and he ran from the saloon, screaming the name of his bride. He ran all the way home, too, a good distance. But it was a bright night. The moon was full and he made the trip in short time because he was greatly frightened." Fenberg had stopped writing. "He called for his bride as he ran across the thin woods and meadow in front of his home. But she did not answer. The door, a strong door, had been torn off its hinges and thrown out into the yard like it was some child's plaything. I myself saw the door later. It had great scratch marks from huge talons." Charlie Two Eagles rolled over on his side and raised head on hand to face Fenberg. "The young Indian found blood, his wife's blood, here and there, around the cabin, as she had been chased inside. But this had not been the only sign of her. The Mandrango had carried her off. She was a brave woman because she pulled great tufts of hair from the beast. This young Indian, he found these tufts and held them in his hands and wept. He heard a faint voice, in anguish and grief, call his name from a great distance away. It was his wife. And then, the young man heard a great scream, from a faraway mountain top. It was a godless scream, telling the woods and the Alliklik people of the Mandrango's triumph and mocking the foolish young man. "Did they ever find any trace of the woman?" "No." "What happened to the guy?" "He was as the walking dead. None of our people were allowed to speak to him or look him directly in the eye or they too would be the walking dead. He went searching up in the back hills for her. He died of a broken heart not too long after that. Two years later, I think." "And they never found any trace of his wife?" "My father said the Hairman savagely took the woman, entered her and made her heavy with his child. His child walks the shadows. He is here for his time." "Jesus." "Hardly." "I just meant, it's a hell of a story." "It's the woods," said the Indian, nodding toward the forest that lurked on the other side of the prison wall. "There are many things out there that the white man knows nothing about." "Yeah. Well." Trees, bushes, dirt. Lots of it. What could Fenberg say? "I've got lots to do." Michael stood and stretched. "Still got half my Christmas shopping and gotta get this into a typewriter," he said, holding up the note pad. "Buy you a beer when you get out?" "I'd like that," said the Indian with the long white hair in braids. In the next cell, Red Dog Rassmussen languidly watched the editor of THE BASIN VALLEY BUGLE, measuring Fenberg. Michael calmly stared back. Red Dog looked away. Red Dog was the Indian who shot Henry Darich. Red didn't particularly care for reporters. He had even said so. "I heard you got some new competition in town, Fenberg," said Charlie. "Some A-type personality who puts out like he's real holy." They were distracted by the heavy jangling of keys. Fenberg shrugged as the guard unlocked the cell. "Heard he is opening a newspaper right across the street from you." "Yup." "What was his name again?" "Behan." Charlie held onto the bars and considered for a moment. "Fenberg, I have heard of wealthy, bizarre cults, populated mostly by you white people, who have taken over small towns. But I've never heard of a Baptist doing something like that." "He's non-denominational," said the Deputy. "The Baptists are just letting him use their chapel until he gets his own church built. Me and the Mrs. are going to hear him preach Christmas." Charlie looked at Fenberg and shrugged. "Something else troubles me," said Two Eagles. "Yes." "Fenberg. Why would a man worth many millions of dollars with many better things to do with his time start a church and newspaper in a berg like Basin Valley?" Fenberg half-smiled, half-smirked. "Said he liked the air." The guard and Fenberg were halfway down the cold cement corridor when Michael turned around. "When you getting out?" "Christmas Eve." "What'd they get you for this time?" Fenberg asked, smiling. Behind Michael's smile, deep in the eyes, Charlie Two Eagles Soaring saw the haunting. He tucked his hands in his pockets. "I got a bad attitude," said the Indian. Fenberg nodded understandingly and held up a hand good-bye. Outside, on the jailhouse steps, Fenberg took a deep breath. "Why would someone worth 28 million want to start another newspaper out in the middle of nowhere? You got any ideas, honey?" Fenberg thoughtfully touched his shirt pocket, reassured for the moment in feeling the photograph's familiar outline. There was an invigorating snap to the cold air which carried the aroma of burning wood and living pine. The small community of Basin Valley, with all its fireplaces contentedly puffing, was peacefully framed by the silent and endless ranges of the snow-capped High Sierra. There was a melancholy to Michael that matched the brooding skies of the great Pacific Northwest. He was tall, about six-two, and rather imposing. He had an engaging mischievous mouth that halfway turned somewhere between a smile and a smirk and his eyes were sparkling grey, almost silver against his tan face. But when he wasn't breaking hearts, or joking with the boys, the wrinkles from all the smiles would sag and something would swell and rise in Fenberg's chest, always to be forced down with a sigh. Michael shook his head and patted the picture of his wife and baby. A long day stretched ahead. He had a million things to do, the most important of which was to find a replacement for Henry Darich.
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