The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(67)

“It’s not until we get to the spring and start making camp that we find out that three or four other people saw something watching us.

“This is where it started to get a little unsettling. There were three separate sightings at different times. When we compared notes, all of them had the same thing to say: it was on the left ridge, at first it appeared to be a man, but then it slunk off like a cat.”

“Did you think someone was playing a trick?”

“Well, yeah. I thought Reese or Alex was doing something with a costume or one of their friends was hiding in the trees. But they were the ones that seemed the most skeptical. Trying to convince Carey and the others it was a bear. Only they insisted this was too skinny to be a bear. They said it looked like Alex’s photo.”

“Did you see it again?”

She locks eyes with me, as if I’d asked the stupidest question in the world. “Did I see it again? Hell, yes. When it tried to drag me out of my tent.”





CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR


ENCOUNTER

“By the time we’d opened up the third case of beer, our nerves had settled down a bit and the ones that came up there to hook up went off to their tents.

“After most of us started to sleep, there was a commotion outside the tents. Carey, Janet, Vivian, and I had decided to share a tent because we trusted the boys less than whatever we thought might be lurking out there.

“One of them woke up at the sound of the tent zipper being opened. At first she thought it was another girl, or one of the boys playing a prank, but when she grabbed her flashlight, whoever or whatever it was had gone. A little while later, Stacey Kavanaugh heard something and yelled. This got everyone up.

“We were back by the fire comparing notes on what happened. Half the tents had said they heard something prowling around and saw a shadow moving past.

“A consensus was reached that it was a bear or a cat. The girls decided to split the boys up among them for protection. Which would have been the perfect plan for Reese and Alex to concoct, only they seemed just as disturbed by what was going on as any of us.

“I knew Scott Cook wasn’t as into the ladies as everyone thought he was, so I ended up sharing a tent with him. He was also captain of the wrestling team, so I felt safe. Poor Scott.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you knew that part. Well, I’m sleeping on the top of my bag because it’s hot. Scott is sound asleep, curled up in the corner of the tent with Depeche Mode playing on his Walkman.

“At first I think it’s a dream. There’s a sound I can’t quite place. Later on, I realize it’s the tent zipper being raised very, very slowly. My eyes are shut and I’m still half out of it, but then something touches my leg.

“I think maybe it’s just Scott being playful. I decide to ignore it and see how far he goes. Then suddenly, something grabs my ankle and I’m yanked out of the tent.”

Elizabeth’s face gets animated as she recalls this. Her body twists as the muscle memory floods back.

“I scream and grab at Scott’s sleeping bag. As I’m getting pulled outside, I try holding the tent flaps, but this thing is stronger than me and I lose my grip. I roll over on my back and I see this shadow . . . this thing.

“Scott comes running out of the tent and jumps on it. Then . . . then, oh, hell, the thing claws at him. I remember seeing its arm pull back and swipe at Scott.

“That’s when Reese fired the pistol he’d brought with him. Nobody knew he had it until then. The thing let go of me and ran off into the woods.”

“Was he wounded?”

“I don’t know. Scott sure as hell was. Not only did the thing claw at him, but Reese managed to clip his shoulder with his shot. That’s why none of the stories were straight. It was against the law to have a gun in Beaverhead Forest, and on top of that, Reese had a couple of previous charges.

“Neither of the wounds was life threatening. The gashes were messy, but we were able to patch him up enough to get him to a clinic in Red Hook. The gun wound wasn’t too deep and could have passed for a cut.

“We agreed to leave the part about Reese shooting Scott out of it, but with over a dozen people, soon everyone knew. When the sheriff asked Scott what happened, though, he denied being shot and that was that.”

“What about the Cougar Creek Monster?”

Elizabeth shrugs. “What about it? Everyone, even some of us who were there, thinks we were making it up or had a drunken encounter with a mountain lion. It made the paper. Some Bigfoot hunters showed up for a while, but that was the last anyone saw of the Cougar Creek Monster.

“A few months later when those California hikers went missing, nobody even mentioned the Cougar Man.”

“Hikers? I hadn’t heard about that.”

“Before we went up, there were at least two people, out-of-towners who were seen going up but never came back. After, there were three hikers, flower children or something, who hitchhiked their way to Red Hook and then went up the mountain. Nobody saw them again, either. There was never a missing-persons report in the area. I think a ranger did a search. But that was the end of that.

“Although I’ve heard that others—some of the people who came looking for the Cougar Man, again, out-of-town people—weren’t seen again. But who knows. You’d think their cars would be piling up at the trailhead parking lot. Right? Probably just talk.”