Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre(28)

“Just breathe.” Her voice never changed its steady, instructional tone. “Deep. Steady. Pretend I’m Yvette.” And she giggled a little at that.

My vision tunneled. I must have swayed because Mostar caught me.

“Sorry, Katie, I shouldn’t joke.” That sounded genuinely contrite. “Go get a washcloth, run it under cold water, put it on the back of your neck.”

I obeyed. She waited. I felt a little better, but not much. I tried to focus on my breathing, the coolness on my neck.

“There we go, both back legs, now the front…over the elbows…and grab and pull the fur just up to the neck, like you’re pulling off a jumper.”

Up and over the head, still attached, exposing the neck.

“You don’t have a cleaver, do you? No, of course not. Neither do I. Just bring me the big knife over there, would you?”

She placed the long chef’s blade across the animal’s neck, holding the handle with one hand and resting her other palm on the other.

“These counters were made for taller people, eh?”

Crack.

“There, we’ll set the head aside for later, give us a chance to figure the best way to get the brains.”

Thank God the eyes faced away.

“At least we won’t have to tan its hide. We need it for food a lot more than we need fur for clothing.”

A head, a skinned carcass, two bowls of organs. A quick hand wash from Mostar, then the same, damp hand on my arm.

“You don’t have to do the rest. I’ll wash and fix it all for stew.”

Relief melted my shoulders. My eyes suddenly teared.

“You did very well, Katie.” Her smile, was it pride? Sadness?

“Better than me my first time.” She began washing the organs in the sink. “And at least you’ll never have to do this to cats.”

CATS?

“Oh, don’t worry.” She gave me a mischievous smile. “I never did that. One of my Italian colleagues would tell these stories about what her mother did to survive during the other war.”

Other war?

I could see her consciously pausing, leaving me an opening to ask. I didn’t.

“It made me grateful, Katie.” She started up again. “I never complained once about ICAR beef or ‘cheese spread,’ fermented powdered milk with a little salt and yeast. Even worse than béchamel and that horrid bread crumb carrot paste.” She looked back proudly at the mutilated animal parts in front of us. “Still, it was food, more than a lot of people had in similar circumstances. Have you ever read about Leningrad, Katie? Those poor souls scraping paste off the back of wallpaper, boiling leather for soup, making sure their children never went out alone…well…we did too, but not for that reason.”

That did it. Not the blood, the organs, the meat, the death right in front of my face.

The stories.

The hints.

“Mostar, do you…is it okay if I just take a quick…”

“Of course, Katie.” She waved over her shoulder from the sink. “Go get some air, come back when you’re ready.”

I slid open the back door, taking long, deep gulps.

I’m not sure why I headed back down the driveway, retracing Tony’s steps toward the bridge. The hiking trail was closer. A need to escape? A subconscious bolt? I’m sure you’d have a ball with this.

You’d probably also take pride in my need to psychoanalyze Yvette. For some reason I’m not as guilty doubting her as I am with Tony. Why had she been so quick to prompt him about a rescue? Was it a power thing? Admitting Mostar was right? Is that why, during our morning meditation, she’d spun the truth about who’d predicted the lahars? And why she’d given us that not-so-subtle loyalty test? Would agreeing with Mostar mean giving up some control of the group? Is control that important to her?

I spun on these thoughts for about half an hour. I’m not sure how far down the road I got. Nowhere near the bridge. You really do forget the difference between walking and driving. I probably could have gone a little farther though. I almost did, distracted with my psycho-musings, but when I rounded this little bend, I noticed a big boulder sitting right in the middle of the road.

I should say now that my eyes were already dry from lack of sleep, and the little particles of ash didn’t help. That was why I couldn’t be sure how big the boulder was, or how far away. I remember thinking that it must have rolled down there within the last few hours. How else could Tony have gotten around it to see that the bridge was actually gone? I could even see the tire marks, four of them to mark the two directions. I remember feeling a sense of finality, that bridge or no bridge, we couldn’t drive out now with that giant rock in the way.

Then I saw the rock move.

It shifted in place, grew, then disappeared behind the trees. I also thought I saw it change shape, lengthen, narrow, even spread out limbs like a tree. Arms? I rubbed my eyes, blinked hard.

When I looked again, the road was clear. The boulder was definitely gone. Then, as the wind shifted in my direction, I smelled it. Eggs and garbage.

I didn’t consciously consider what to do next. No internal debate. This was reflex. I turned and started walking back. My eyes kept scanning back and forth in a shallow arc, like they teach you on the first day of driver’s school. I tried to keep my pace steady, my breathing constant. I tried not to dwell on what I’d seen. An animal, a deer. Maybe that “boulder” was just a speck in my eye.