We Were HUNTED by Bigfoot in Washington | Bigfoot Encounter

I need to explain why we were out there for two weeks, because that's the part people always get stuck on. They hear about the first encounter and ask why we didn't leave. We did. We were already packing when we got our first clear look at it. Everything that happened afterward happened while we were trying to get home. There were six of us when we went in. We'd known each other for almost 20 years. Nobody was looking for Bigfoot. Nobody had brought equipment to prove anything existed. And nobody had some secret reason for choosing that stretch of forest. It was a camping trip. We'd spent months getting the same 14 days off work, and by the time we finally managed it, most of us needed the break badly enough that we'd have gone anywhere. I've changed the names here. The people who were there have read this, and they know why I'm putting it out. There's a version of what happened that describes a damaged bridge, bad weather, and a fatal animal encounter. Every part of that is true. Taken together, though, it leaves out almost everything we had to survive. My name is Cal. I was 37 when this happened in September of 2019. Until then, the worst thing I'd experienced on a camping trip was a stomach bug that hit six miles from the nearest toilet. I worked for a water district outside Olympia. My job involved replacing pumps, repairing broken pipes, and explaining to people why their water had turned brown. Nothing about it prepared me for the woods. I mentioned the job because later when we started making decisions about damaged structures, the others looked at me. I knew enough to recognize things that were unsafe. That didn't mean I knew how to make them safe. Martin organized the trip. He'd been organizing things for us since we were teenagers, mostly because the rest of us were willing to let him. He kept receipts, made reservations, and remembered whose truck needed new tires. His wife had left the previous winter. He didn't discuss it much, but he had spent a surprising amount of time on our itinerary, and I understood that filling fourteen days gave him something to do with the months before them. Audrey was a nurse at an outpatient surgery center. She could be patient for exactly as long as patients remained useful. After that, she became very direct. Beth owned a small bakery with her sister and had arrived at the trailhead with a tender burn across her wrist. Felix maintained industrial refrigeration equipment. He was the only person I knew who could spend an hour describing a bad compressor and somehow make the story worth hearing. Wes had worked at a lumber mill until that summer. At the time, most of us believed he still did. We'd met through an outdoor equipment shop, where four of us worked in our late teens. Audrey came in because she was dating one of the employees. Beth was Felix's cousin, and kept showing up around closing time with whatever hadn't sold at the cafe where she worked. The relationships that formed around that shop lasted much longer than the shop itself. We moved, got married, separated, took jobs we hadn't expected to take, and still managed a few weekends together each year. This was supposed to be our first long trip since our 20s. We started on a Monday, the 9th of September, on the southern side of the Olympic peninsula. I'm leaving the exact route out, because two of the locations I describe are genuinely dangerous, even without what happened to us. The country around them includes old logging land, national forest, and long stretches, where paths have become little more than suggestions between the trees. Our intended route wasn't especially complicated. Two days in, five nights at a creek basin, then a longer loop through higher country before coming back to the trucks on the 14th day. Martin had checked the maintained portion of the route. The final part of our planned loop was rougher, but we had extra time, paper maps, and enough food to finish without needing a resupply. Martin had also packed a climbing rope to use as a hand-line on an exposed section of the loop. Audrey's partner had our itinerary, and knew when to report us overdue. Wes carried a satellite distress beacon. It was the simple kind that sent an emergency signal, not a device for keeping up a conversation. He showed us the protected button before we left and clipped it inside the top pocket of his pack. Each of us had a phone, but none had service at the trailhead. We turned them off to save the batteries. We also had three cans of bear spray. Audrey carried one, Beth carried one, and Wes carried one in a pouch on his hip belt. We discussed all of that beside the trucks, while we still had clean hands and dry socks. I remember it clearly because I need people to understand we had thought about the possibility of needing help. The first day was mostly work. Our packs were heavy with food. Martin had persuaded us to carry individual food canisters, and fitting 14 days of meals around the rest of our equipment, had required more compromise than anyone wanted. Beth had removed a sweater to make room for a bag of coffee. Felix carried the sweater for her and mentioned it every time we stopped. The trail rose through close timber, crossed several small streams, and leveled out near a ridge where the ground stayed soft despite the dry week. We covered about eight miles. There was nothing remarkable about the forest except its size. Trees that would have been local attractions at home stood among hundreds of others just as large. We could walk for 20 minutes without seeing more than a few yards into the undergrowth on either side. Wes stayed near the back with me. He'd been quieter than usual at breakfast, and I assumed he was tired. We stopped once while he adjusted his hip belt. There was an old tear in the padding, repaired with a strip of cloth that kept coming loose. I offered him some tape. He said he'd do it at camp. Then he asked what the water district paid its maintenance people. I told him, and he nodded without answering. I could have asked him why. It's a small thing, but it comes back to me often. There were plenty of chances to learn what was going on with him before we were frightened enough to say things plainly. I let that one pass because he started walking again. Our first camp was a level patch beside a narrow stream. Three tents went up in a loose curve. Martin and I shared one, Audrey and Beth another, Felix and Wes the third. We'd settled that arrangement weeks earlier. There were no couples among us, and everyone already knew who snored. Beth cooked the first dinner. Wes washed the pots. Martin checked the next day's route while Audrey dealt with a blister on Felix's heel. I sat on my rolled sleeping pad and listened to them argue about a restaurant that had closed 15 years earlier. The argument wasn't serious. It was the sort of disagreement old friends keep because everyone knows their part in it. That's what the first evening felt like. Familiar people, unfamiliar woods, nothing wrong. We didn't have a fire. The ground was dry beneath the surface, and nobody wanted to spend time gathering wood after the climb. When it got dark, we put the food away, pulled our boots inside, and went to bed. I woke once because Martin was sitting up. The tent was dimly lit by his headlamp. He had one hand resting on his sleeping bag, and the other around his water bottle. He wasn't drinking from it. I asked if he was okay. He said something had leaned against his side of the tent. There was no panic in his voice, mostly irritation. He thought Felix had tripped over a guideline on his way to the stream. I listened for movement outside and heard water and occasional drops falling from the branches. Martin unzipped the door, shone his light around, and found nobody there. In the morning, Felix denied getting up. West said the same. Audrey had gone out earlier in the night, but she had stayed on the opposite side of camp. Martin showed me a place where the side of our tent had been pushed against his shoulder. There was a wet smear on the outer fabric. I touched it and came away with brown grit. The ground around us was churned up from setting camp, so there was nothing useful to see. We called it a deer. That was the only discussion we had. On the second day, we crossed the bridge that would eventually stop us from going home the way we'd come. It was a narrow wooden foot bridge over a steep creek. The water below was clear and fast, broken by large boulders. A maintenance tag had been fixed to a post, and several deckboards were newer than the rest. We crossed one at a time because there wasn't room to do much else. Felix stood in the middle long enough to complain about the height, then hurried when Beth started rocking her end with one foot. West waited for me on the far side. He was looking down toward the roots of a tree that had come out of the bank above the water. The roots held a lot of gravel. Beneath them, the bank was undercut. He said it wouldn't take much more water to bring that tree down. I agreed. We didn't mean that day, or that week. It was the kind of observation people make when there's nothing else to talk about. About a mile beyond the bridge, an old side trail joined ours from the west. Martin pointed it out because it appeared on his map. The route followed a creek, crossed a low pass, and eventually connected with an abandoned logging road that led back toward a maintained access road. It was much longer than our return route and hadn't been part of the plan. He mentioned it, folded the map, and put it away. We reached the basin late that afternoon. The camp was above the creek on a broad terrace with a low rock face behind it and a steep drop at the eastern end. Water was close enough to be convenient without putting the tents beside it. The open ground held evidence of earlier camps, compressed soil, cut ends on a few old logs, and a small circle of blackened rock that had partly filled with leaves. Somebody had camped there that season. There was a green plastic buckle half buried beside the largest tree. Felix pulled it free, turned it over, and added it to the little pocket where he kept other people's litter. We chose the terrace because it let us put the tents together. Martin and I took the center. Audrey and Beth set up closest to the rock face. Felix and Wes went on the creek side, near a log that was flat enough to sit on. After dinner, we explored the immediate area in pairs. Audrey and I followed the creek downstream until it entered a narrow cleft in the rock. Beyond that point, the water couldn't be followed safely without getting in. We turned around. On the way back, I noticed a patch of flattened vegetation on the slope above camp. It was too high and too far into the brush to be a place anyone would choose to sit. I could see pale stems where ferns had broken. Something had been lying there, or standing there for a while. Audrey looked when I pointed. She said we'd picked a spot the deer liked. It was an ordinary answer. There were deer in those woods. We had seen fresh droppings on the way in. I had no reason to give the patch another thought. That night, while the others were getting ready for bed, I walked down to fill the cooking pot for breakfast. Our water filter was hanging from a branch near the bank. We had agreed to use the same little shelf of rock because it was the easiest place to reach the creek without getting muddy. I knelt and lowered the pot. Across the water, something moved behind a fallen trunk. I saw the vegetation shift in a dark piece of whatever was behind it. It was low to the ground. I couldn't distinguish fur from wet bark and I couldn't tell how far back it was. I stood with the pot half full and waited. Nothing moved again. I called west over because he was closest. He came down with his headlamp, although there was still enough light to see. Together we watched the opposite bank. He thought he could make out part of an old root ball. When I bent to finish filling the pot, the fern above the log moved sideways. It stopped when I straightened. West saw that too. He picked up a branch and threw it across the creek. The branch landed well short of the log. We waited another minute, then went back up to camp with the water. I mentioned the movement to Martin. He said we'd be careful with food and offered to move the canisters farther from the tents. That was sensible. It made me feel better. Before bed, I looked once more at the slope above us. The flattened patch had become difficult to distinguish in the remaining light. I couldn't tell whether it was empty. The third morning started with a missing boot. It was one of Felix's. He'd left both under the outer flap of his tent, where they would stay dry without bringing mud into the sleeping area. One was still there. The other lay near our watershed, upright, with its laces trailing into the creek. He blamed Beth. She told him that if she were going to carry his boot down a hill, she wouldn't stop before throwing it in. West found a puncture in the padded collar. It could have been a toothmark, although there wasn't a matching hole on the other side. An animal had probably carried it. We had all heard stories about creatures taking things that smelled of salt. Felix rinsed it, dried it near the stove, and spent the next hour complaining about having one damp sock. I wouldn't have remembered any of that if we hadn't found the deer. Our plan for the day was to follow an old path up the western side of the basin, see where it connected with the ridge, and return before lunch. We took light packs. West brought his main pack with most of the contents removed because his distress beacon and spray were attached to it. Audrey brought the medical kit. Martin carried the map and compass. We were less than a mile from camp when Beth stopped walking. The smell reached me a moment later. It was strong, but not rotten. There was a fresh, thick quality to it that I associated with cleaning fish, mixed with an animal smell I couldn't place. The deer lay below the trail, partly hidden by salmon berry canes. An adult doe. At first I thought its back leg had been caught in something. One leg pointed uphill, and the rest of the body had twisted away from it. Then West moved a branch, and I saw that the skin had been pulled back from the upper thigh. The meat beneath had been removed in irregular pieces. The exposed bone was bright and wet. There were no insects on it yet. More of the hide had been peeled down over the lower leg, bunching around the joint. The abdomen was intact. I don't know enough about predators to claim that meant anything by itself. What frightened me was the neck. The head had been bent back so far that the lower jaw touched the shoulder. It hadn't been neatly severed or broken in one place. There was a deep fold in the skin, and the front of the throat had split under the strain. Nobody went closer after that. Audrey said we needed to move away. Whatever had killed it might still be nearby. We backed up the path, stayed together, and returned to camp. Martin wanted to relocate before night. West thought moving our tents half a mile would achieve nothing if there was a bear in the basin. Their disagreements stayed calm for a while. Then Martin brought up West's pack belt, and said he was tired of having to account for things other people didn't maintain. It was a strange thing to say. The pack belt had nothing to do with the deer. West told him to leave it alone. Beth took the pot off the stove and asked them whether the argument was going to improve lunch. That ended it, but not cleanly. West went down to the creek. Audrey followed him, and the two of them came back several minutes later carrying water neither had gone down for. I asked Martin what that had been about while we were gathering the food canisters. He said West owed him some money. Not a huge amount. Enough that he wished West had told him he couldn't pay it back before buying two weeks' worth of camping food. That was when I learned the mill had closed its second shift. West hadn't been working since July. Martin had helped him with rent and had assumed the situation was temporary. West had kept pretending it was temporary, too. I told Martin this probably wasn't the place to settle it. He looked at me for a moment and said it was never the place, according to me. He was right. I was usually the person who kept things pleasant until the disagreement belonged to someone else. We stayed on the terrace. It was open. We knew its edges, and the alternative sites we'd passed were tighter and farther from water. We moved the food, checked every pocket for snacks, and agreed nobody would go off alone. The afternoon was warm. Felix mended a split seam on his pack. Beth washed a shirt and hung it where there was a little sun. For an hour or two the deer stopped being the center of everything. I even slept on my mat beside the tent. When I woke, my cup was gone. It had been next to my head. I remembered putting it there because I had worried about knocking it over. I sat up and found it beside the rock face, maybe 15 feet away. It was on its side. There was no water in it. Everyone was in camp except West and Audrey, who were down at the creek together. Martin said he'd been reading. Beth hadn't touched it. Felix made a joke about my drinking problem. Then stopped when he saw I wasn't laughing. I assumed somebody had moved it without remembering. There were five other people there. That explanation should have been enough. What bothered me was a smell on the handle. I couldn't describe it then except as dirty hair and spoiled fat. It was faint. I scrubbed the cup with sand and rinsed it twice. Afterward, I couldn't decide whether I had really smelled anything. We ate early and spent the evening in the open space between the tents. Audrey had her spray beside her knee. I remember noticing it and feeling embarrassed that I hadn't thought to get mine. Then I remembered I didn't have one. We decided three for six people was enough as long as we stayed together. At some point, Martin apologized to West. He didn't make a speech. He said he'd been out of line and West nodded. It wasn't a repair exactly, but it gave us a way to get through dinner. The light went from the ground before it left the tops of the trees. Felix was describing a job where someone had installed a freezer door backward. I heard him reach the part where the owner insisted the delivery crew was at fault. Then I realized he had stopped speaking. He was looking behind Martin. Our three tents stood close enough that the two outer ones partly blocked the view of the slope. Between my tent and Audrey's, there was a narrow gap. Something dark had filled it. For a second I thought another person had walked into camp. I could see a shoulder in the side of an arm. The arm hung down past the height of the tent. The hand was obscured by the fabric. Above the shoulder, the dark shape continued beyond the little opening I could see through. Martin turned. The thing withdrew uphill. It didn't hurry. A bush moved against the outer fabric and then the space between the tents was empty. All six of us stood up. Nobody spoke for several seconds. Audrey raised her spray, West pulled his can from its pouch. Martin called out that there were people in camp. Nothing answered him. We gathered in the center and looked uphill. I could see sections of trunks, wet leaves, and a patch of exposed soil. Whatever had been behind the tents had moved out of sight without coming through any open ground. Felix said it had been standing. West told him bears could stand. Felix shook his head. He had seen more than I had, but when we asked him what, he struggled to explain. It hadn't been a clear look. He kept coming back to the arm. We stayed together until full darkness, then decided to take turns remaining awake in pairs. Nobody wanted to start packing in the dark with an animal nearby. We would assess the situation in the morning and leave if there was any sign it had stayed. At that point, leaving meant two days back along a trail we'd already walked. It wasn't a difficult decision. We weren't protecting the vacation from a minor inconvenience. We simply hadn't understood what we'd seen. My first watch was with Beth. We sat against the rock face with Audrey's spray between us, and the stove turned off. Beth kept looking at the empty space beside Felix's tent. She had become very still. I had seen her handle a kitchen fire once. She hadn't been still then. After a while, she asked how high the shoulder had been. I told her I wasn't sure. She said she'd been looking straight at the same gap when Felix stopped talking. She hadn't seen a head. Whatever it was, the head had been above the lower branches of the tree behind the tents. Those branches were too high for any of us to reach without jumping. I didn't know what to say. I told her darkness made distances difficult to judge. She let me say it. Then she asked me to keep looking at the trees, while she closed her eyes for just a minute. On the fourth morning, we found a place behind my tent, where a heavy body had pressed the plants flat. It was closer than the patch Audrey and I had seen on the slope. Close enough that someone lying there could have reached beneath the back edge of the outer fabric. The soil was damp and disturbed, but it held no clean print. There were several coarse hairs caught on a broken stem. West touched one with the tip of a stick. It was dark brown, lighter near the end, and longer than the hair on a bear hide he'd seen at a hunting shop. That comparison meant nothing. We all knew it meant nothing. We stared at the hairs anyway. Martin said we were going home. We ate quickly and started taking down the tents. It was early enough that we expected to reach the bridge before evening. Rain had begun overnight, lightly at first. The trees kept most of it off us, but the ground was getting soft. Before packing the water filter, four of us went to fill everything we could carry. Martin and Beth stayed with the tents. West, Audrey, Felix and I took the bottles down to the shelf. That's where we finally saw it. I had the filter bag open beneath the surface. This was to my left, leaning over a deeper pocket of water. Felix stood behind us holding the empty bottles. Audrey waited a little farther uphill. There was a movement on the opposite bank, directly behind the fallen trunk. An arm came over the wood. The hand settled on top first. I saw four broad fingers and a thumb against the pale broken surface. The nails were short and dark. The skin around them was gray, cracked, and almost bare. Hair covered the back of the hand, but thinned at the knuckles. Then a head rose behind it. I remember a low forehead, deep eyes, and a mouth held slightly open. The nose was broad and flattened across the end. The skin below the eyes had the same rough gray appearance as the hand. Most of the face was hairless. But hair there was grew along the jaw and down the neck in dirty clumps. It looked at the filter bag in my hands. I didn't move. I couldn't seem to decide what movement would help. The creature stood up behind the trunk, and I understood how little of it we'd been seeing. Its chest was wider than the opening between two trees beside it. The head sat forward between thick shoulders. One ear had a deep split in its upper edge. The middle finger of its right hand bent outward at an old injury. The distance across the creek was small, maybe 12 feet. I had been kneeling there twice a day. West said my name. The thing moved before I could turn toward him. It came over the trunk, down the bank, and into the water with a speed that made its size difficult to understand. There wasn't a charge from a distance. One moment it was looking at us. The next water hit my face, and West disappeared sideways. It had caught the top of his pack. West went down on his knees and was dragged off the shelf. His chest hit the edge of the rock. The pack twisted high between his shoulders, forcing his head forward. He got one hand around a root near the water, but the thing pulled again, and the root came free. I dropped the filter bag onto the rock and grabbed his wrist. Westics caught the back of my jacket. For a few seconds, all three of us were connected, and none of us could stop West from moving. The water was deeper immediately below the shelf. It filled his open mouth when his face struck the surface. I could see the creature's hand buried in the straps above his shoulders. It wasn't using its full body. It stood with its knees bent in the creek, and pulled with one arm. Audrey came down beside us and fired her spray across West's back. The animal stopped pulling, jerked its face away, and made a harsh choking sound. I breathed some of the spray and lost sight of everything for a moment. Felix pulled me onto my side. West remained attached to the pack, which the creature still held by its upper handle. He was trying to reach his hip buckle. The pack had twisted too far. I took the small knife from my belt and cut the strap at his shoulder. It required more than one attempt. He got the hip buckle open while I sawed through the webbing, then slipped his other arm out of the remaining shoulder strap. He was loose, rolling against me in the shallows. Audrey sprayed again. The thing backed into the deeper channel with West's pack hanging from its hand. Its struck at the air in front of its face, took another backward step, and dropped out of my view behind the trunk. Felix and I pulled West uphill. Audrey backed after us, gathering the filter bag, and the bottles from the rock, without taking her eyes off the opposite bank. Martin arrived carrying a trekking pole. Beth was behind him. I tried to explain, but the words came out broken and too loud. West was coughing up creek water. There was blood running down his chin from where he'd bitten his lip. The pack moved downstream while we were getting him onto the terrace. I saw it once between the banks. It had come loose from the creature, and was rolling in the current. One shoulder strap caught briefly on a branch. Then the pack turned over, and went into the rock cleft we'd inspected two evenings earlier. The distress beacon was still in its top pocket. West's spray was still on the hip belt. We watched the place where the pack had gone, until Audrey told us to help her with him. His ribs weren't visibly deformed. He could breathe, although every breath hurt. There were dark marks across his shoulders, already beginning to swell. Audrey checked him, wrapped him in dry clothes, and made him sit upright while he coughed. Rain began falling hard enough to come through the trees. Martin asked whether anyone had seen where the animal went. Nobody had. Felix sat down on the bare ground. He put his hands over his face, then lowered them and looked at me. He said very quietly, that it had fingers. I'd seen them too. I'd seen the thumb changing its grip while it pulled West into the water. I'd seen the skin crease across the palm. It had held him by something he'd chosen to wear, and when that stopped working, it had kept the object instead of the man. We were still frightened of an animal then. By the end of the next week, what frightened us most would be how quickly it corrected mistakes. West wanted to go after the pack. He knew better than any of us what was in it. He had brought the beacon, shown us how to use it, and accepted the responsibility without anyone needing to ask. Losing it made him frantic in a way the attack hadn't. He tried to stand while Audrey was checking the swelling across his back. She made him sit down. Then she asked him to describe what he would do when he reached the cleft in the creek. He didn't answer. We knew the water disappeared between rock walls. We knew there was no bank to walk. Even if the pack had caught somewhere inside, retrieving it would mean entering a channel where we couldn't stand. There was also the animal, which none of us had seen leave. West sat with his head down, while Martin told him that getting him out had been more important than getting the beacon. It was the first useful thing anyone said after the attack. We redistributed what remained of West's equipment. His sleeping bag, folding saw, and most of his food were still at camp because we'd been packing. He had lost his rain shell, several smaller items, and the empty water bottles he'd taken down with him. Beth gave him her spare shirt, and Martin lent him a fleece jacket. I put his sleeping bag in my pack. Martin carried his food. We made a hooded covering from a spare groundsheet, and tied it loosely enough that Audrey could still check his breathing. For the next few hours, he couldn't walk without stopping to cough. While Audrey watched him, we tried our phones. None could connect an emergency call from the basin. Audrey kept checking his breathing for changes she didn't explain until later. At the time, she simply said she wasn't taking him onto a steep trail until she was satisfied he could breathe on it. We left after midday. By then the rain was steady, water ran down the trunks and filled every depression on the path. We moved with Audrey at the front and Beth at the rear, their spray where they could reach it. Felix stayed beside West. Martin and I carried the extra weight. I looked back at the terrace when the tents were down. Without them, the camp seemed smaller. I could see every place we had sat, eaten, changed clothes, and bent over our bags. From the slope above, there would have been an unobstructed view of nearly all of it. We covered less than two miles that afternoon. West could walk, but climbs heard him and descents made him cough. The path crossed exposed routes that had become slick. Nobody wanted to risk a fall. When the light began to go, we stopped beneath a shallow rock overhang, large enough to keep most of the rain off two tents. We slept crowded together, leaving the third tent packed. Two people remained awake at all times. Our wet clothes hung between us, and every surface smelled of soaked fabric and the sharp residue of the spray. Around midnight, Martin woke me for my turn. He was crouched just inside the opening. His face looked pale in the headlamp, and he held Audrey's cans so tightly that his thumb had gone white against the safety clip. He pointed outside. Across the path, beyond the reach of the overhang, stood the animal. It was maybe 30 feet away. Rain ran through the hair on its chest. The face was angled downward, but I could see the split ear and the wide flat nose. Its eyes didn't glow. They reflected a little light when it moved its head, then became dark again. It stood where we would have to go to continue along the path. Martin said it had been there for several minutes. I called Audrey's name. She came out, saw it, and told everyone to get their shoes on. We assembled beneath the overhang with the cans in front and west between us. The creature lowered itself slowly until its hands rested on the wet ground. It wasn't crawling. It remained supported on its feet, with the hands set forward. Its head stayed high enough to look directly at us. I could see its nostrils widening. Martin raised his arms and shouted. The creature didn't react. Audrey shook the can once, checking its weight and brought it up. The creature stepped backward, not far. Just beyond the place where the beam showed it clearly. Then it turned and went into the brush on the uphill side of the trail. Nobody followed it. Nobody slept properly afterward. We reached the bridge on the fifth morning. The creek had changed so much that for a moment I thought we'd reached a different crossing. The clear water was gone. A broad brown current struck the boulders and threw spray high against the banks. Entire branches turned in the pool below. The bridge hung from the opposite side. Its near support had been pulled out with the bank. The uprooted tree west had noticed two days earlier, lay partly across the channel, tangled with another trunk. Several of the bridge's boards were trapped beneath them. The rest tilted down into the current. Martin stopped at the end of the trail and stared. There wasn't a gap we could jump. There was no secure trunk reaching both sides. What remained of the bank on our side was already breaking away in pieces. While we watched, a section of soil larger than our largest tent dropped into the water and disappeared. We spent nearly an hour looking for another crossing. That needs saying too. We didn't glance at the bridge and choose the long way because it suited the story. Audrey and Beth stayed with Wes while the rest of us examined the bank with insight of them. Upstream, the creek ran through the same steep channel. Downstream it grew wider but no shallower. The water was too fast to enter and the trees close enough to reach across had unstable roots. We could wait for it to fall. But the rain hadn't stopped. The banks were still collapsing and a large predator had followed us to our last camp. We had no way of knowing whether waiting one day would help or simply use up a day we needed. Martin unfolded the map beneath his jacket. The western side trail we'd passed on the way in was our only marked alternative. It led away from the main creek over a low pass and down toward the old logging roads. From there, if the road network remained passable, we could reach an access road north of the trailhead. It was more than 30 miles. Some sections were no longer maintained. The map showed an old vehicle bridge near the western end. I asked Martin how old the map was. He told me. I wish I could remember the number. What I remember is that he didn't try to make it sound better. We chose the western route because it was a route. We marked the damaged crossing and our change of direction on a flat piece of wood, using a thick repair marker from Felix's kit. Martin wedged it beneath a rock at the junction. If anyone came looking along our original itinerary, they would know where we had gone. We were perhaps half a mile down the side trail when Felix was hurt. The path ran across a steep slope beneath a fallen tree. The trunk had been there long enough for people to make a passage under it. Audrey went through first, then Wes and Martin. I followed, bent almost double beneath my pack. Felix was behind me. Beth was last. I heard Beth shout and I turned while still crouched beneath the trunk. The creature's arm came down from the uphill side. It had been lying above the path, hidden by the trunk in the bank. The hand closed around Felix's lower leg before he could straighten. He fell forward, striking his forehead against the packed soil. The thing pulled him backward under the tree. His boot caught between two roots. I heard the joint give. Felix made a sound I had never heard from him before. His upper body kept moving while the foot remained trapped. He reached for me with both hands. Beth discharged her spray up the slope. The creature let go, but Felix couldn't get free. I crawled toward him. The gap beneath the trunk was too low for me to lift my pack, so I backed out of its straps and pushed it aside. His boot had twisted almost sideways. I couldn't pull it without moving his leg. Above us, the animal shoved against the fallen tree. Lose soil rained onto Felix's face. I pressed him down and heard wood shifting against the roots. The whole trunk didn't move far, but it moved enough to convince me that we were about to be pinned beneath it. Beth sprayed a second time. Wes came through the gap beside me with his folding saw. He cut through one exposed root while I held Felix's boot still. Martin caught Felix beneath the arms from the other side. When the root gave, the boot came loose, and we dragged him forward together. Wes shoved my discarded pack through the gap after us and brought it along. Audrey was waiting with a ground sheet. We pulled Felix onto it and kept moving until the trail widened. Beth came last. Her eyes were streaming from the spray, and she had a streak of blood on one cheek where a branch had caught her. The animal didn't pursue us into that open stretch. Audrey cut Felix's trouser leg above the ankle. She left the boot in place, until we could hold his leg still and support it. The shape beneath the fabric was wrong, and the swelling was spreading quickly. There was no bone through the skin, which she said was good. I remember being angry at that word, before I understood how much worse the alternative would have been. With Martin holding the leg steady, Audrey loosened the boot completely, and eased it off without twisting the ankle. We patted the leg and secured it with the straightest pieces of wood we could find. She wrapped the foot for warmth, leaving the toes accessible so she could check their color and feeling. Felix watched her hands. He had stopped crying out, but sweat ran. ran down his face despite the cold. Martin took the map out again. Nobody asked why. We all knew the distance had changed without the numbers on the paper changing at all. We made camp less than a mile from the junction. There was a patch of higher ground with two large trees behind it, and enough open space to see anything approaching from below. We put Felix in the middle of the larger tent and moved everything he needed within reach. Wes took his wet outer covering off and knelt beside him. Felix caught his sleeve. He asked Wes to promise we wouldn't leave him. Wes looked offended, not loudly. Just hurt that Felix had needed to say it. He told him he could stop worrying about that part. Later, while Audrey checked the splint, I walked to the edge of the open ground with Beth. She held her spray can against her jacket and tipped it from side to side. It was noticeably lighter. We had used it to get one man out from under a tree. Ahead of us lay more than 30 miles of woods. The sixth day was when the trip became a job we had to keep doing. We built a carrying sling from a ground sheet. Two poles Wes cut with his saw and flat webbing straps we'd been using to secure gear to the packs. It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't especially strong. Four of us could move Felix over level ground, but the path rarely remained level for more than a few yards. On climbs, he helped with his good leg while two people supported him. At fallen trees, we set him down, moved the packs, lifted him separately, then put everything back together. Audrey made us stop off into check his foot. The toes stayed warm and had feeling. She kept repeating that fact whenever the rest of us became too quiet. Wes's chest still hurt, so he couldn't take a full corner of the sling for long. He carried extra supplies instead and went ahead a few yards to find the clearest line. Beth and Martin took the heavier end. Audrey and I changed places whenever one of us started losing our grip. We made a little over three miles that day. It felt like a long distance until Martin showed us the map. Felix insisted on seeing it too. We let him. Keeping it from him would have required a conversation none of us wanted to have. He studied the Mark's Martin had made, then folded the paper carefully along its old creases and handed it back. That afternoon we learned the creature didn't need the trail. We were resting beside a small stream when Wes looked uphill. I followed his gaze and saw a section of dark shoulder moving behind the trees. It crossed a patch of open ground, stopped beside a stump, and looked down at us. The split ear was visible. So was the crooked finger on the hand resting against the stump. It was the same animal. We would keep identifying those injuries because otherwise the speed with which it appeared ahead of us would have been harder to explain. Beth raised her can. The creature stepped behind the stump. We could still see part of its arm. It remained there while we drank, adjusted Felix's splint and prepared to move. I had the unreasonable feeling that we were wasting its time. That was my fear, giving it a human intention. I know that. I can't tell you what it thought. I can tell you that it began moving again when we did, and stopped on the slope when we stopped below. Near evening we found a rock shelf set back from the trail. There was only one easy way onto it. The drop below wasn't high enough to kill us, but it was steep enough that we didn't want to carry Felix down it. We set the tents close to the wall and placed the packs across the opening. Yes and I took the first watch. For a while we sat without speaking. Then he asked whether Martin had told me about the money. I said yes, he nodded. He told me he'd almost canceled the trip. He had been afraid that once he started canceling things, everyone would notice how little remained of the life he kept describing to them. I wanted to tell him he could have talked to us. It would have been true, but only partly. We'd all been busy. We'd accepted short answers because they let us move on to our own problems. Instead, I told him about the opening at the water district and said I'd help him apply when we got back. He asked whether I meant it. I said I did. He kept his eyes on the entrance to the shelf. After a minute he asked whether the uniform shirts came in his size. I laughed, quietly enough not to wake Felix. It was the first time I had laughed since the creek. Then Wes reached across me and picked up the spray. At the bottom of the approach just beyond our packs, a hand had appeared against the rock. The crooked middle finger moved along the surface, testing for purchase. The rest of the animal remained below the ledge, out of sight. Wes leaned forward and raised the can. The hand withdrew. It came back several minutes later farther to the left. We woke the others and stayed together until morning. The hand didn't come back a third time. That should have reassured us. Instead, I kept thinking about the places we couldn't see from the entrance. When daylight reached the shelf, we found fresh gouges in the damp soil above it. The creature had climbed around the side after testing the front. It hadn't reached the top of the overhang. There was a section of bare sloping rock with nothing to hold. But it had tried. A broken fern lay almost directly above the place where Felix's head had been. We left early on the seventh day. The rain had eased to a fine, steady fall that didn't make much noise, but soaked anything left exposed. We had stopped pretending our clothes would dry. Audrey made us keep one layer sealed for sleeping, and that meant putting cold wet shirts back on every morning. Felix apologized each time we lifted him. At first we told him to stop. Then Beth pointed out that ordering him not to apologize was giving him one more thing to fail at. So we let him say it and kept carrying him. He started helping in other ways. He checked the knots in the sling, redistributed the things in our packs, and kept track of how much stove fuel remained. He also noticed something the rest of us had missed. We'd begun using the same order whenever we moved. Audrey went first to check the path, then returned to lift beside me at the back. Martin and Beth took Felix's front corners. Wes carried the extra pack until we reached a difficult section. Then we'd stop, set everything down, and rearrange ourselves. Each time for a few seconds, Felix remained on the ground while the rest of us faced away from him. He didn't accuse us of anything. He simply asked whether one person could keep looking behind him during the change. After that, someone did. Late that morning, we reached a patch of open ground where a large tree had fallen years earlier. The trunk had decayed enough to break apart under a boot. Ferns grew through the loose wood. Beyond it, the trail narrowed between two boulders. Audrey stopped before the gap and held up a hand. I could see a strip of brown hair against the gray stone on the left. The creature was standing behind the boulder. Most of its body was concealed, but not enough. A piece of its upper arm showed when it breathed. We didn't go through. Martin found a way around the fallen tree, and we moved Felix across the open ground in short lifts. The animal remained where it was until Audrey and I, the last two, began following the others. Then it stepped out. I saw its whole body and daylight. I won't pretend I measured its height. It was taller than any man I'd ever stood beside, and much wider through the chest. Its legs were shorter in proportion to its torso than ours. The arms reached well below the knees. There were thin areas in the hair across its stomach and along the inside of one thigh, exposing gray skin with old pale scars. It didn't look clean or healthy in the way a drawing of an animal usually does. The hair on its lower body was matted with mud. There was a raw patch beneath one arm. Its lips were cracked. When it breathed through its open mouth, I could see worn yellow teeth and one broken tooth near the front. For one absurd moment, that made it worse. An animal could look like that because it had been alive a long time, dealing with cold, hunger, infection, and injuries in a place where we were struggling after a week. Audrey raised the spray. It looked at her hand and stopped. Then it moved sideways, keeping the boulder between its face and the can. We backed away until the others were close enough to help. Audrey never sprayed. There was no point wasting what remained on rock. By midday, nobody was still using the word "bare". Beth said bigfoot while we were heating water. She said it reluctantly, almost angrily. Saying the word connected what we'd seen with every ridiculous argument any of us had heard about it. It also gave us a short way to refer to the thing, instead of continually saying "animal" or "creature". Martin asked whether naming it changed what we should do. Beth said no, but she was tired of acting as though we didn't all know what we meant. We didn't discuss legends. None of us knew much about them. We knew it could be hurt by the spray that it used its hands and that it was strong enough to pull an adult through water with one arm. Those were the facts we could use. That afternoon, Australia. on Martin's pack tour. He had been carrying more than his share since Wes lost his pack. The strap came loose while we were lifting Felix over a low bank. Martin fell backward and two food canisters rolled out of the top. One lodged against a tree. The other went down the slope and disappeared into the brush. It wasn't far. We could see where the plants had bent. Wes started to go after it. Audrey caught his sleeve. The creature stood below the canister. It had come close enough that I could see water collecting at the bottom of its chin. Its head turned toward the fallen food, then back to the group. The canister was no more than a few steps from its feet. Felix was on the ground between us. His splinted leg rested on Beth's folded jacket. The animal lowered its head and looked past Wes toward him. Wes stepped back. So did I. We closed the space in front of Felix while Audrey brought the spray up. The animal remained still. We left the canister. We had enough food distributed among the other packs to manage, and getting it would have meant walking directly toward the thing. As we moved away, I looked back and saw it standing in the same place, facing the direction we had taken. It hadn't touched the food. Maybe it didn't understand what the container held. Maybe it had already eaten. I can't turn one moment into proof of an intention. But after that, none of us believed leaving our meals behind would make it stop following us. We spent the seventh night on a broad gravel bank above a small tributary. There wasn't much shelter, but we could see farther than we could among the trees. Wes and Martin repaired the damaged pack while Beth heated dinner. Felix ate only a few mouthfuls. Audrey sat with him until he managed a little more. I took the first watch alone while everyone else slept within arm's reach. With five people needed to carry, scout, cook, and treat Felix, we had stopped getting enough rest to keep too awake all night. We shortened the watches and kept the person on duty beside the tent opening, where they could wake everyone immediately. It was a compromise. We knew that too. I stayed awake by counting the things I could see. Our packs. The edge of the water. The bare gravel between camp and the brush. I kept Audrey's can in my lap and Beth's within reach. Near the end of my watch, I heard something scraping stone upstream. There was no sudden noise. Just a slow, heavy scrape, followed by a small splash. I aimed my light along the bank. The animal was crouched over one of our food canisters. It was the one we'd left behind. I recognized the orange repair tape around its middle. Martin used the tape to distinguish his supplies from mine. The creature held the canister between its feet and one hand. With the other, it turned the lid a little, released it, and tried again. The lid didn't open. I woke Wes without taking the light off it. He sat beside me and watched. After a while, the animal struck the canister against a rock. It did that several times, hard enough that we could hear the plastic cracking. Then it dropped the container, raised its head, and looked at us. It had brought the food almost all the way into our camp before trying to open it. Wes told me to wake Martin. By the time all of us were sitting up, the animal had gone. The damaged container remained on the gravel. We left it there until morning. Inside, most of the food was wet, crushed, or scattered around the broken edge. A few sealed meals could be saved. What bothered Audrey was how close it had come while everyone except me was lying down. What bothered me was that I had been watching the trees, and it had approached along the water. Wes died on the eighth day. I've tried writing that part several different ways. None makes it easier to get through, and none changes what happened. I don't want to prepare you for a surprise. I want you to understand that he was alive when we left the gravel bank, sore, and tired, and worried about his friends. And by the afternoon, he wasn't. The trail climbed out of the creek valley onto a narrow bench cut into the slope. In places there was a drop on one side, and a wall of dirt on the other. We took the sling apart, because carrying Felix with someone at each corner was impossible. Martin supported him from the front. I held him beneath his arms from behind. He used his good foot when the ground allowed it. We progressed a few yards at a time. Beth went ahead with the packs, never farther than the next bend. Audrey stayed close to Felix. Wes remained behind us, watching the slope, and bringing the poles we'd removed from the sling. Before entering the narrow section, we stopped and looked as carefully as we could. The trees above were thin enough to see through in places. Below, the ground fell into dense brush. We saw nothing moving. The creature came from below. I heard Wes exhale sharply, not a shout. The sound of someone having the air knocked out of him. I turned and saw him sideways at the edge of the bench, with one arm pulled straight behind him. The animal had reached up from beneath the path and caught his wrist. Wes struck at the hand with one of the poles. The wood broke across the creature's forearm. It didn't release him. Its other hand found the edge of the trail, and then its head rose level with his waist. Martin took all of Felix's weight. I let go and lunged toward Wes. He was only a few yards away. I remember thinking I could reach him. I remember being completely certain of it. Wes had taken his knife from his belt. The creature pulled him against the bank, bending his captured arm at an angle it shouldn't have bent. He drove the knife toward its face. I saw the blade enter the hair just above the left cheek. The animal jerked backward, and Wes pulled free for an instant. I caught his jacket. The fabric tightened in my hand. His face turned toward me. There was blood at the corner of his mouth from the injury at the creek. Re-open because he had bitten down hard. Then the animal struck him. It used an open hand. The blow caught the side of his head and drove him into the rock beside the path. My grip tore through the back of his jacket. His body folded without anything in it trying to stop the fall. He went over the edge. I was still holding a piece of his jacket. Beth came past me with her spray already discharging. The creature had climbed onto a lower shelf beneath the trail. It raised its head as the spray struck its face. Blood covered the hair around its left eye. It made a deep rough sound and retreated sideways into the brush. Beth emptied the can after it. When the spray stopped coming, she kept pressing the trigger. Wes lay on the lower shelf about eight feet below us. I climbed down before anyone could stop me. Audrey followed. The stone was slick and I tore both palms getting to him, but I didn't feel that until later. He was on his back. One arm lay across his chest. The other pointed beneath him. Audrey knelt beside his head. She checked him while I kept saying his name. I thought if I stopped, we were accepting something neither of us was allowed to accept. She tried to help him. I need that written down. She didn't look once and decide it was over. She worked on him while Beth stood above us with the empty can and Martin held Felix on the narrow path. But the injury was too severe. After a while Audrey took my wrist and made me look at her. I understood before she said it. I still asked her to check again. We couldn't carry him with us. Even now, that sentence makes me feel sick. We could barely move Felix. The bench ahead remained narrow. The animal was somewhere below and lifting Wes back onto the trail would have required us to expose everyone for much longer than we could protect them. We moved him beneath a rock projection on the lower shelf. We covered him with the spare ground sheet he'd been wearing for rain protection. Audrey secured it so the wind wouldn't pull it away. I put the piece of his jacket beneath it beside his hand. Martin marked the location on the map. There was a forked dead tree opposite the shelf and a pale seam running across the rock above. We made sure all of us could describe the place. Then Audrey and I climbed back to the path. Felix was crying. Beth stood with her forehead against the bank. Martin had begun shaking so badly that I took Felix from him and made him sit down. We stayed for as long as we could bear to stay. Then we left Wes there. That evening, we reached a wider section of trail and stopped without discussing it. Nobody could take another step. We put up one tent for Felix and Audrey. The rest of us huddled beneath the second tent's outer cover. Too exhausted to care that it hadn't been properly pitched. Martin kept trying to unfold the map. His hands wouldn't do it. I took it from him. He looked up and for a moment I thought he was going to be angry. Instead, he asked whether Wes had been conscious after the fall. I told him no. He asked whether I was sure. I said I was. It was one thing I could give him that was true. Much later, Audrey came out of the tent and sat beside us. She placed the remaining spray can in the middle of the ground sheet. There was some left, but much less than we'd started with. She told us we'd have to decide who carried it each time we moved. We couldn't keep passing it at random. We couldn't forget whose pocket it was in. We couldn't let the next person hurt disappear from view, because everyone assumed someone else was watching. Nobody argued. We assigned jobs for the morning. We divided Wes's remaining food, and moved the things he'd been carrying into our packs. His saw had been recovered from the path, with the unbroken carrying pole. Martin used it to cut a replacement for the pole that had snapped. The practical work was almost unbearable. It felt too close to getting used to his absence. When it was my turn to remain awake, I found the job application I'd promised to help him with repeating in my head. Not a memory of his last seconds. Not the sound of the blow. Just the two of us sitting on the rock shelf talking about uniform shirts. I couldn't stop hearing his question, whether I meant it. We climbed to the low pass on the ninth day. By then we'd abandoned one tent, most spare clothing, and anything that didn't keep us warm, fed, or moving. We kept both ground covers that remained, the stove, the medical supplies, and every length of cord we had. The food canisters were too heavy to enjoy carrying, but leaving our meals exposed overnight would have created another problem we couldn't afford. There were five of us now. Four could carry. That meant nobody could walk beside the sling while all its corners were lifted. We moved in shorter stages, and put Felix down whenever we needed to look ahead. He had stopped apologizing. He gave us directions instead. Left corner higher. Put me down before the root. Let me use my good foot here. His voice had become very calm, and I think all of us understood how much work that cost him. Near the top of the pass, the trees thinned enough to show the surrounding ridges. Martin took out his phone. The rest of us did the same. We waited while they started and tried for a connection. There was none. Martin tried an emergency call anyway, then held the phone higher and tried again. Nothing connected. The next ridge blocked the view west. Beyond it were more ridges. We were higher than we'd been at camp, but there was no town or road visible in any direction. We turned the phones off again and packed them where they would stay dry. While the others drank, I studied the map. The old road lay below us on the western side. Reaching it would mean leaving the narrow trail behind. Even if it was overgrown, it should offer a wider surface for carrying Felix. The vehicle bridge near the far end crossed a deep tributary gorge. Beyond that, the road continued a few miles to a maintained access route. I circled the bridge with Felix's marker. We needed something specific to work toward. Martin asked to see the map when I finished. He checked my mark, nodded, and handed it back without correcting anything. We sat together for a few minutes while Audrey examined Felix's leg. Martin said he'd spent the entire previous evening remembering the argument about money. He hadn't meant to tell me. The words came out while he was tightening his pack strap, and afterward he kept looking at the buckle. I told him west had known the difference between an argument and 20 years of friendship. Martin asked how I could know that. I said I didn't know everything west had thought. I knew he'd told Felix we wouldn't leave him. I knew he'd kept carrying our equipment after being nearly drowned. I knew he'd been talking about work when we got home. He had still expected a life that included us. Martin kept working at the strap until Beth put her hand over his and told him it was tight enough. We saw the creature on the descent. It was on a slope below the next switchback, resting one hand against a tree. The left side of its face had swollen. Dryed blood had stuck the hair together from the eye to the lower jaw. The left eyelid was closed completely. Its split ear and crooked finger were unchanged. West had heard it badly. I felt a rush of gratitude so fierce that it almost made me sick. He'd been fighting to live. He hadn't known he was giving us anything. But there it was, a damaged eye, a weakness that hadn't existed before he used the knife. The tree raised the can. The creature turned its head to put its right eye toward her. Then it moved back into the timber. Beth watched the place where it vanished. She said it hadn't noticed her until Audrey moved. Beth had been on its left side. We tested nothing then. Nobody wanted to walk closer for the sake of an idea. But we remembered the way it turned its entire head to see her. We reached the old road in the late afternoon. But first I recognized it only because the trees grew in two uneven rows around a strip of level ground. Alder had taken hold along the edges. Moss covered loose gravel. In several places, small trees stood right in the old wheel tracks. But the surface beneath remained wider and more predictable than the trail. We got Felix moving faster immediately. We used the sling where we could, and let him hobble between us where the road tipped gently down hill. It still hurt him. The sweat on his face told us that even when he said he could manage. But we covered more ground in the final hours than we had during the whole morning. For the first time since the bridge, the map showed progress I could believe in. We camped on a raised stretch of gravel with a steep bank behind it. There was enough room to put Felix's tent away from the brush. Beth cooked a thin meal from several damaged packets we'd saved. We made us drink before we were thirsty, and eat even when our stomachs resisted it. I took first watch, Martin took second. Before lying down, each of us repeated who would be awake next. We kept the spray clip to the same bright strap beside the tent opening. Nobody had to search for it. I slept for almost three hours. It was the longest uninterrupted sleep I'd had since the basin. When Martin woke me to help move Felix, I couldn't immediately remember where we were. Then I saw the empty place where Wes's things would have been, and everything returned at once. The tenth day began with sun reaching the road. We laid our wet clothing on the gravel while we ate. Steam rose from one of Beth's shirts. Felix sat upright and extended his good leg into the warmth. His beard had grown unevenly, and there was dirt along one side of his nose. He asked whether anyone had a mirror, then said he didn't actually want to know. It was a small joke. We laughed more than it deserved. The warmth helped. So did the wider ground. We made several miles by early afternoon, stopping at collapsed sections where water had cut across the old road. At one of those breaks, we had to lower Felix down a short bank and lift him on the far side. We used the rope Martin had packed for the exposed section of our planned loop. None of us was trained to build a proper hauling system, so we used it only as a hand line. It gave us another point of contact while the others did the lifting. Afterward, Felix inspected it, and found a worn place a few feet from one end, where it had rubbed rock. He cut that section out. I remember resenting the loss of a few feet until I saw the strands coming apart in his hand. The road began to follow a deeper valley. We passed rusted bolts fixed into old concrete, the remains of a gate, and several places where side roads had disappeared beneath young trees. At one junction, a faded arrow had been cut into a board, but there were no words left to read. Martin compared every junction with the map. We couldn't afford to take a wrong branch and discover it a mile later with Felix between us. Just before evening, we found a large metal culvert beneath the road. The pipe ran through a raised bank and carried a thin stream down toward the creek below. It was wide enough for us to enter bent over. The middle was dry except for the water at its lowest point. Both ends were open. From the center, we could see a strip of sky at either entrance. We discussed it before going in. The weather had cleared. The stream was shallow and falling. There was no rain moving over the ridge, and Audrey made us check the channel above for signs it might rise quickly. We could leave from either end if necessary. The pipe was ugly, cold and uncomfortable, but its walls couldn't be pushed aside. The animal's shoulders would not fit far inside. We chose it over another night in fabric. We placed our sleeping pads on the higher side and kept everything packed. Felix lay between Beth and the medical kit. When and I faced opposite entrances, Audrey sat where she could reach everyone. For a while it felt safe enough that I became hungry. Then a hand entered the upper opening. The fingers spread across the corrugated metal. Dirt fell from the nails into the little stream. The hand withdrew, and the creature's face appeared outside the pipe. It turned its head to bring the good eye level with the opening. I had seen its face from farther away. In that narrow circle, framed by metal, I could distinguish the deep folds beside its mouth and the pale tissue along the injured eyelid. Wes' cut crossed the upper cheek. One section had reopened. The smell reached us even with the cool air moving through the pipe. Martin lifted the spray. Audrey stopped him. In that confined space, using it from where he sat would hit all of us. He needed to wait unless the animal came far enough in to leave no choice. The creature pressed its face closer. Its mouth opened. I saw the broken tooth, the broad tongue, and strands of thick saliva stretching between the teeth at the back. It pushed one shoulder into the opening, then the other. The pipe rang under the pressure. It couldn't get both shoulders through. We moved farther back without being asked. The animal reached with one arm, stretching until its cheek pressed against the rim. Its fingers closed on empty air several feet short of Martin's boots. It withdrew. We waited. Something moved across the bank above us. Soil rattled down the metal. Then the good eye appeared at the lower opening behind me. It had gone around to check the other end. I brought the trekking pole up between us. The creature reached, caught the end, and pulled it from my hands before I had a chance to release it. Metal struck metal as the pole came out. The thing turned it awkwardly in its hand, let it fall, and pushed its arm in again. I moved back until my shoulders touched Felix's good foot. The fingers searched along the bottom of the pipe. They found the edge of the sheet we'd spread beneath our sleeping pads, and closed on it. The separate sheet we used to carry Felix was rolled up with the poles. Beth was sitting on the other end. She slid toward the opening with a speed that made her scream. I caught the back of her jacket. Audrey grabbed her belt, and Felix rolled onto the loose fabric with his full weight. The creature pulled once more, tearing the ground sheet along an old seam. Beth stopped moving. The hand withdrew with a strip of fabric clenched in it. After that we kept everything away from both entrances. It sounds obvious. We had been tired enough to stop thinking about how objects could connect our bodies to its hands. It had learned that at the creek before we had. For the next hour it worked around the culvert. It clawed at the soil beside the upper mouth. It pressed against the lower rim until flakes of rust fell inside. Once it shoved a broken branch into the pipe and pushed it toward us. The branch was too short to reach the middle, but the bear end scraped along the metal toward Felix while all of us pulled our legs in. Finally a stone came through the upper opening. It wasn't thrown with accuracy. It was pushed into the pipe where the slope brought it toward us. Martin caught it against his pack before it could strike Felix. Another followed. Then a third scraped past us and lodged in the channel near the lower opening. Water began gathering behind it. We weren't in danger of drowning. The pipe was too large and the flow too small. But the dry strip beneath our bedding gradually vanished. Cold water worked under our clothes. We couldn't reach the stone without going within reach of the arm. We sat upright, packed together and waited for morning. At some point the animal stopped digging. Its absence was impossible to distinguish from its waiting outside. We kept our lights off to preserve the batteries, turning one on at intervals to inspect the openings. When we first saw Dawn, Martin was crying silently. He didn't seem to know it. His eyes remained fixed on the upper mouth while tears ran through the dirt on his cheeks. Audrey put a hand on his shoulder and he leaned into it without turning. We had kept the animal from reaching us. It had kept all five of us awake and wet through another night. Getting out on the 11th morning took almost an hour. We could see no sign of the creature from inside. That didn't mean the bank above was clear. Martin and I moved toward the opposite openings while Audrey stayed in the middle with the spray. We checked as far as we could, returned to one another and tried again from different angles. Eventually we had to choose. Martin came out at the upper end while I watched through the pipe. He moved slowly, holding an empty food canister in front of his chest. Nothing reached down for him. He checked the bank, then stood where he could see both approaches while we brought Felix out. The creature had left deep marks in the soil. There were several large depressions where it had knelt. Behind a tree above the lower entrance, a flattened patch of vegetation showed where it had rested. It hadn't spent the whole night working. It had lain down close enough to hear us inside. We walked until the road reached a bare patch of gravel, then stopped to dry what we could. Audrey checked everyone for cold injuries and made Beth change into her sleeping shirt. Beth's hands had become too clumsy to manage the buttons. I closed them for her while she stared past me at the culvert road. For breakfast we split the last of the coffee. Martin gave his share to Beth. She drank it without making a joke about what that must have cost him. Then we packed and moved on. The road was easier that day. Long stretches remained level, and we could carry Felix without setting him down every few yards. We had fewer supplies and less shelter than we'd started with, but our packs were lighter. We made several miles before stopping beside a concrete structure that had once supported a roadside water tank. Only three low walls remained. They offered some cover from the wind and a clear view across the road. We used one wall to support the tent cover and arranged ourselves inside it. The attack came while Martin was helping Felix change position. Audrey had checked the road. Beth had checked the slope behind the walls. I was heating water on the stove, facing the open side. Martin knelt beside Felix with his back to the lowest section of concrete. The creature rose from the ditch beyond that wall. It had approached below the road surface, where none of our checks had reached. Its hand closed on the back of Martin's jacket. Before any of us could react, he was lifted partly off the ground and slammed against the top of the wall. Audrey sprayed directly into the good side of its face. The animal turned away but kept hold of Martin. He had one hand on the concrete and the other caught beneath his body. The seam along his shoulder tore. I heard him trying to draw breath. I grabbed the hot pot and threw the water across the arm. It wasn't a full pot and most splashed against the wall. Enough hit the bare skin around the wrist to make the hand open. Martin dropped back inside, dragging a strip of torn fabric after him. The creature lunged over the wall. Audrey stood in front of it and held the spray on its face until the stream weakened and broke apart. It struck the concrete with one hand, pushed backward and dropped into the ditch again. She kept the empty can pointed at the place where it had gone. We moved before treating Martin properly. Felix pushed himself onto his good foot and we helped him out through the open side. Audrey walked backward with the can raised. Beth took Martin's good arm. I carried the loose supplies, leaving the stove behind because the fuel fitting was still too hot to handle quickly. We stopped several hundred yards down the road. Martin's right shoulder was swollen and bleeding where the fabric had torn across it. Audrey cleaned what she could and checked his arm. He could move his fingers. Raising the arm made him sick with pain. She supported it against his body and told him he wouldn't carry anything on that side. That left three uninjured people to move two injured ones. Beth took the empty can from Audrey and waited in her palm. She didn't throw it away. When we saw the animal farther along the slope that evening, she raised it. The creature stopped and turned its face away. She kept it pointed until we had moved beyond the next bend. It still remembered what the can did. We used that mistake for as long as it allowed us to. On the twelfth day, we found a place where the road had been cleared within the last few years. The cut ends of small trees were still paled beneath their weathered surface. There were old tire depressions in the softer ground. Nobody was using the road regularly, but someone had come through after it was abandoned, and the route ahead looked wider than the route behind. Martin checked the map with me. We were nearing the last long bend before the gorge. If we could cross the old vehicle bridge, the maintained road would be within a few miles. I let myself imagine a car. Not a rescue team. Not a helicopter. An ordinary car with a heater, room to sit, and a person inside who had slept through the previous night. I imagined handing that person a problem and having them do something about it. Then Felix asked to be put down, and I stopped imagining long enough to help him. We had changed how we moved him. On the best sections, he could manage short distances between Audrey and me, using his good leg and keeping the splint clear of the ground. On rough sections, Beth and I carried the front of the sling while Audrey lifted at the back. Martin steadied it with his good hand and watched behind us. We couldn't do it for long. We did it repeatedly. Around midday, Beth noticed that the animal was avoiding the empty can less quickly. It had She'd come onto the road well behind us. She raised the can, and it stepped to one side, but it didn't retreat into the trees. It watched her hand. When she backed away, it moved forward the same distance. She shook the can. She raised it higher, keeping its nozzle pointed at the animal. The animal stopped, angled its face, and waited. Beth didn't press the trigger. She knew the bluff would be finished if she did. She held the can up while the rest of us moved Felix around the bend, then followed without turning her back. We didn't see it again for several hours. That gap frightened me almost as much as seeing it. Every time a section of road passed beneath an overhanging bank, I expected an arm to come down. Every ditch looked deep enough to hold a body. We slowed to inspect each obstruction, then pushed too hard across the open stretches to recover the time we'd lost. The mistakes were accumulating in us. I put Felix down too abruptly once and hurt his leg. Audrey left the medical bag beside a tree, and had to go back a few yards with Beth to collect it. Martin kept asking whether anyone had seen his compass while it hung against his chest. Nobody criticized anyone. We didn't have the strength for it, and all of us knew we were next. Near evening, the creature came onto the road ahead. Beth stood where the trees closed over a narrow section. The left eye was still swollen shut. The skin at its right wrist had reddened where the hot water struck it, and it held that hand slightly away from its body. Beth raised the can. The creature bent at the waist, putting its face behind its forearm. Then it came toward us. We backed away together, moving Felix by his shoulders and good leg. There was a steep cut in the bank nearby where runoff had carried away the soil. The remaining rock formed a narrow slot. Audrey went in first, and we pushed Felix toward her. Martin followed. Beth and I stayed at the entrance. The creature reached the place where we'd been standing. It lowered its arm. Beth kept the empty can pointed at its face. I held my small knife beside her. We were close enough to see the mucus around its nose, and the wet skin inside its lower lip. It looked at the can, then at Beth. For a few seconds, nothing moved. Then it reached for her hand with its right, the one with the crooked finger. She pulled back. I struck at the fingers with the knife, and felt the blade catch along the palm. The creature jerked away, spraying blood onto the rock between us. It didn't come into the slot. Its body was too broad to enter without turning sideways, and doing that would put its face within reach of both our hands. It stayed outside instead, shifting from one foot to the other, while blood dripped from the cut. Beth lowered the can at last. We spent that night in the slot, sitting upright around Felix. The animal remained nearby for part of it. We saw its head whenever we used the light, always outside the narrow entrance, always turning the good eye toward us. By dawn it had gone again. The empty can lay beside Beth's boot. She left it there when we moved. We reached the gorge at the end of the 13th day. Getting there used everything we'd managed to preserve. Martin kept slipping out of the support Audrey had made for his arm, because he wanted to help lift Felix. She kept putting it back. Beth had open sores where her pack belt rubbed her hips. I had begun to stumble on level ground. Felix asked once whether we could rest longer. We did. None of us could bear to hear him ask twice. The creature appeared only once before we reached the gorge, on the road behind us. It stood while we stopped to examine a washed-out section, then moved out of sight when we began carrying Felix around it. The injured hand hung partly closed. Its other arm moved normally. I had stopped trying to decide why it hadn't simply killed all of us. There had been chances when it could have tried. There had also been knives, spray, hot water, narrow spaces, and five people close enough to hurt it. It wasn't fearless. It wasn't invulnerable. It waited when waiting cost at less than approaching. We couldn't wait. That was the difference that kept giving it another chance. The gorge cut across the old road in a steep, narrow break. Water moved over boulders far below, audible before we reached the edge. On the opposite bank, perhaps 30 feet away, the road continued through younger timber and curved out of sight. Between the banks stood what remained of the vehicle bridge. Two steel beams about 5 feet apart, still crossed from one concrete support to the other. The wooden deck had once extended past them on both sides, but most of it had rotted or fallen. A strip remained along the northern beam, dark with moisture and sagging between supports. The southern beam was mostly bare. There was no railing on either side. Below it, the gorge dropped several stories to stone. I walked to the near support and knelt. The steel was heavily rusted on the surface, but it hadn't separated from the concrete seat. I could see sections of the beam's side and several cross pieces beneath the missing deck. I couldn't certify any of it. I could only compare it with the alternatives. There was no safe descent to the creek for Felix. Following the gorge upstream would mean abandoning the road and pushing through steep country without a marked crossing. Following downstream led toward a series of rock drops we could see between the trees. The remaining bridge was our way across. By then the light was leaving the bottom of the gorge. Beth asked whether we should try before dark. Audrey looked at Felix, then at the bare beam, and said we needed to be able to see what we were putting his weight on. We camped back from the eastern end on an open section of road. Nobody took their boots off. I loosened my laces because my feet had swollen against the leather. We laid out the rope and the webbing from the carrying sling. Felix examined every inch we meant to use, pulling hard at damaged places, and making us discard one strap whose stitching had begun to part. Martin held the light with his good hand. We worked out in order. Beth would cross first with the rope. Audrey would follow close behind Felix as he moved seated along the bare beam, with the rope supporting him from the far bank, and me helping from this side. We would take the packs and carrying poles across separately, then return the harness for Martin. Once he was over, they would send it back for me. I would be last. Felix insisted that I use the harness too, even though sending it back one more time would take longer. I started to say I could manage without it. He looked at my torn hands, then at the gorge, and waited until I stopped talking. The webbing could be arranged around a person's hips and upper legs, so a fall wouldn't leave all the strain on the waist. It wasn't a proper climbing harness. It was what we had. Felix made us adjust it several times before he was satisfied we weren't relying on a single damaged fastening. I asked what we would do if the animal came while we were crossing. The answer immediately, then Beth said we would keep moving the person who was on the bridge. We wouldn't all turn around. We wouldn't put Felix down in the middle and run back together. Two people would keep working, while whoever remained, dealt with the animal. That was the hardest agreement we made in the woods. Every time someone had been hurt, we'd all move toward them. Most of those times we had needed to. At the bridge, all of us rushing to one point could put everyone over the edge. Martin said he would stay until I was across. I told him his job was to get to the far bank and help from there. He looked at me for a long time, then nodded. We took short watches through the night. I saw the creature once, standing at the edge of the road behind us. Its good eye followed the light. When Martin stood beside me with one of the poles, it withdrew into the trees. I didn't sleep after that. Instead, I kept watching the place where it had been, and thinking about its injured eye. It had to turn to see anything on its left. It favored its cut hand. It used cover until it thought we couldn't reach it. Those things didn't give me a plan I trusted. They gave me a few facts to hold on to while I waited for daylight. The 14th morning was cold and clear. Our last planned day in the woods. The day Audrey's partner expected us to come home. He would have been looking at the clock by afternoon, wondering whether the drive was taking longer than we'd thought. We ate the remaining food that didn't need cooking, and filled our bottles from a small stream beside the road. I tightened my laces again, leaving the upper sections loose enough not to hurt. Nobody spoke about what time we might be out. We had stopped making promises that depended on the next mile. Beth crossed first. She moved seated along the southern beam, pushing herself with both hands and keeping her weight low. The rope trailed behind her. She stopped twice, looked ahead, and went on. When she reached the far support, she crawled onto the road and stayed on her hands and knees for several seconds before standing. She found a stout tree, a little back from the western bank, and passed the rope around its trunk. That let her take in slack, while the tree carried the strain if someone slipped. We kept the line clear of exposed metal, and covered the rough concrete edge with folded fabric. None of that made the bridge safe. It gave us a way to stop a slip from becoming a fall to the creek. Felix came next. We settled him on the beam with the injured leg held clear. Audrey stayed behind him, close enough to help each time he moved. Beth took in the slack from the far side while I kept the near part from catching. It took a long time. Felix could move himself only a few inches before stopping to breathe. Several times the splint touched steel, and he made a low sound through his teeth. Audrey waited, told him where to put his hands, and moved with him again. Halfway across, he froze. His good foot had slipped off the edge, and he had looked down while trying to bring it back. He clamped both hands on the beam, and stopped answering us. Beth sat at the far end and began talking about her bakery. Nothing inspirational. Nothing about courage. She told him about a mixer that kept stopping under load, and asked whether he thought the motor was failing. Felix had looked at it before the trip. He knew exactly what was wrong with it, and after a while he corrected her. Then he moved his hand forward. She kept describing the problem incorrectly until he reached her. When she and Audrey lifted him onto the road, I had to put a hand over my mouth. I hadn't realized how much of my hope had been waiting on that one crossing. We sent the packs and carrying poles across with the rope, one at a time. Felix helped from where he sat, keeping the line clear while Beth pulled. We used a lighter length of cord to bring the harness, and the end of the rope back across the gap. I helped Martin into it. Martin stood beside me, holding his right arm against his body. He asked whether I was ready. I said yes. Then he crossed. He could use only one hand comfortably which made every movement awkward. He went slowly, bracing his injured arm against his stomach. Audrey waited at the far end while Beth managed his rope. Felix sat behind them on the road. When Martin reached her, Audrey helped him off the beam and removed the harness. They sent it back to me on the cord. I fastened it around myself and checked it the way Felix had shown us. I was checking the final fastening when the animal came out of the trees behind me. There was no noise to announce it. I turned to check the road, and it was there, walking toward the bridge with its head low. It had waited until I was alone on the eastern side. I stepped onto the bare beam. Beth saw my face change and took in the slack. Audrey moved beside her to help. Martin stayed at the western support, where she just helped him sit. Nobody abandoned their position. The animal reached the eastern support. Up close, it smelled worse than it had at the creek. There was fresh blood on the injured hand, and fluid had dried beneath the closed eye. Its mouth moved slightly as it breathed. The good eye fixed on me. I backed along the beam. I couldn't move backward fast enough while seated, so I stayed on my feet, turning one boot sideways at a time. The rope pulled lightly against my hips. I held the knife low in my right hand. My left arm was out for balance. The animal placed one foot on the remaining wooden deck. A board broke beneath it. It pulled the foot back immediately. For one moment I thought the damaged bridge might stop it. Then it put a hand on the northern beam, tested its weight, and stepped around the broken wood. It used the remaining deck where it held, and the steel where it didn't. It was coming across the other side of the bridge. I was already several feet over open space. Between us were the gaps where boards had fallen, and a few narrow crosspieces beneath them. The creature moved low, using its hands. Its weight made the loose wood shift, but the steel remained in place. Audrey called my name. I didn't look at her. I could see the western bank behind my shoulder. Too far away. I took another step and felt the edge of the beam beneath half my boot. The animals stopped directly opposite me. We were separated by the gap between the beams. It turned its head to keep the good eye on my knife. The injured hand rested against the steel. Its fingers were flexing, leaving wet marks where the cut palm touched metal. It reached across. I moved backward. The fingertips passed in front of my chest and caught the loose front of my jacket. I heard fabric stretch. I dropped the knife hand toward the wrist and slashed. The blade caught hair and skin. The grip opened, and I pulled away so hard that my heel went off the beam. The rope tightened. Beth and Audrey pulled me toward the western bank while I scrambled for steel with my boot. Martin leaned over the end of the bridge, reaching with his good arm even though I was still beyond him. The creature moved with me. It had understood that I couldn't get away sideways. It kept pace on the other beam, reaching whenever I tried to straighten. I had to watch its hand and my feet and the holes between the boards. I couldn't do all three well enough. My left boot slipped again. This time the animal caught my left forearm. The pressure was immediate and enormous. My fingers opened. I couldn't feel the last two. It pulled me across the gap between the beams, lifting my feet off the steel. The rope caught beneath my hips and went tight toward the western bank. For a moment I hung between the animal and my friends. It pulled harder. The webbing bit into my thighs. I heard Beth shout. Heard Felix say something about the rope. Heard the scrape of clothing against gravel. The tree held. The line held. I couldn't tell whether my arm would. I still had the knife in my right hand. The animal drew me closer, turning my captured arm so my face came toward its mouth. I could see the broken front tooth. I could see pieces of old food caught against the gum. Its good eye moved from my face to the blade. I tried to strike it. It jerked its head back before the knife reached the eye. My arm wasn't long enough. I hit the cheek instead, opening a shallow cut. The creature shook me once, hard enough that the world below the bridge became a blur of white water and stone. Then it changed its grip. Its cut right hand reached for the webbing around my body. To do that, it lifted the hand that had been supporting its weight against the beam. I don't think I would have noticed without the days before it. The creek, west's pack, Beth's ground sheet. It kept finding something it could pull. Now it wanted the harness because my arm wasn't bringing me close enough. The animal's head turned with the reaching hand, taking its good eye away from Martin. He had come onto the western end of the northern beam. I didn't see him get there. I saw only the long wooden pole in his left hand. He shoved its end against the side of the creature's head. On the side, west had already injured. The animal flinch toward him. Its grip on my arm loosened just enough for me to turn my body. I drove the knife into the good eye. There was no calculation in it. The face came within reach and I struck as hard as I could. The blade went in, the creature released my arm, and I fell against the tightened rope. It made a sound so loud that I felt it through my chest. Its hands struck at its face. One foot slid from the narrow steel. It reached down, caught the edge with the damaged hand, and hung partly beneath the bridge, its body twisting over the gorge. I was hanging too, closer to the western end, with the rope holding me below the level of the beams. Above me, Martin had dropped onto his stomach. He held the steel with his good arm. Audrey was dragging at the back of his jacket while Beth kept pulling my line. Felix had braced himself against the tree and was feeding the rope around it so they wouldn't lose the distance they gained. The creature's free hand found my left boot. It didn't see me. It found me by contact, caught the heel, and closed its fingers around the leather upper. The extra weight hit the harness so hard I thought it had torn. Beth fell forward onto the gravel. The rope moved across the padded concrete and stopped. I couldn't breathe. I could hear Felix shouting that he had it, that they should pull, that he had it. The animal was trying to climb me. I looked down and saw its face beneath my leg. Both eyes ruined, mouth open. The hand on the beam was slipping. Blood had spread across the steel beneath its fingers. It tightened its grip around the boot and hauled its chest upward. My knife was gone. I had left it in the eye. I kicked with my free foot. I hit its wrist, its forearm, the side of its head. It kept pulling. My injured arm hung uselessly and the harness had begun to turn me sideways. With Audrey holding the back of his jacket, Martin released the steel and reached down with the pole in his good hand. He struck the hand holding the beam. Once, then again. The second blow hit the already crooked finger. The creature's grip shifted to the edge of its cut palm. calm. Beth pulled again while Audrey kept hold of Martin. I rose a few inches. My trapped foot didn't. The boot began to come off. The upper laces were still loose. My heel moved under the strain. I pushed with my other foot against the creature's wrist and felt the boot slide past my ankle. It came free. At almost the same instant, the injured hand lost the beam. The creature dropped with my boot still clenched in its fist. I saw its back strike a projecting rock. Its body turned, hit again and fell into the shallow water at the bottom of the gorge. The final impact was heavy and abrupt. One leg folded beneath the torso. The head came to rest at an angle no living neck could hold. It didn't move. For a few seconds, I watched it from the rope, unable to understand that nothing was pulling at me anymore. Then Audrey caught my wrist. She held the un-injured one. Beth got a hand beneath the webbing at my hip. Martin crawled back to the support and caught my shirt with his good hand. Felix kept the line from slipping while they brought me up. I came over the concrete on my stomach. For a while, the only thing I could see was gravel. Somebody turned me over. Audrey was speaking, checking my breathing, touching my face. I tried to tell her where the creature had landed. She said she'd seen it. I tried to tell her again. She put her forehead against mine and told me I was a cross. All five of us were a cross. We stayed on the western bank for nearly half an hour. Part of that was because we couldn't stand. Part was because I kept needing to look over the edge. The animal remained where it had fallen, half in the water, and half on bare rock. The current moved the hair on one arm. Nothing else moved. Beth looked with me each time. On the last check, she took my hand and brought me back to the others. We wrapped my bare foot in pieces of sleeping pad and secured them with the last of the repair tape. Audrey examined my arm, supported it against my body, and told me we'd have to deal with the rest when we reached help. My fingers had feeling again, although I couldn't close them properly. Felix asked whether anyone could see the maintained road. We couldn't. It was still a few miles away, so we got him up and kept going. There was no final pursuit. No second animal. We stopped expecting an attack only gradually, after several bends had passed without anyone needing to look back. Once, a branch fell somewhere down the slope, and all five of us froze. Then we listened, understood what we'd heard, and moved again. By early afternoon, the road surface had become firmer. Fresh gravel appeared near a repaired culvert. We reached a metal gate standing open across the old road, and beyond it was a wider root with clear tire marks. Martin's phone connected there. He stared at the screen while messages began arriving. His hand shook so badly that Audrey took the phone and made the call. She gave the junction shown on our map, described our injuries, and asked the dispatcher to stay with her while we confirmed where we were. I remember her voice changing. It was still Audrey, but she could speak to someone who knew what to do next, and she no longer had to make every decision by herself. I sat down beside Felix and cried, while she answered ordinary questions about our names. A pickup reached us before the ambulance did. The driver had been coming down from another trailhead. He stopped well back when he saw us, then got out and asked how many people there were. Beth said five. She had to say it twice. He gave us water and blankets, and let us sit in the truck with the heat running. He didn't ask for the story. He stayed beside Audrey until help arrived, and when I kept checking the road behind us, he stood where I could see him looking too. We were out before the time we'd been due to return. It was Sunday, the 22nd, our 14th day. Audrey's partner had been preparing to call, but we reached him first. The recovery team found Wes two days later, beneath the rock projection where we'd left him. Our marks on the map were accurate. His family was able to bring him home and bury him. We didn't leave him in those woods permanently. I want that understood as clearly as anything else I've written. The animal was recovered, too. It hadn't vanished. There was no empty patch of ground at the bottom of the gorge. The people sent to examine the crossing found a large dead male animal with an injured left eye. A knife wound through the right, damaged to one hand, and a split in the upper edge of its ear. My boot was beside it. The fall had broken its neck and caused injuries it couldn't have survived. The early account that called everything a probable bear attack was corrected. What the people studying the remains eventually choose to call the animal is their work. Identifying the thing that killed Wes didn't depend on a name. Its body was there, and the injuries matched what all five of us described separately. Felix needed surgery and a long recovery. He walks without a cane now, although cold weather still hurts the leg. Martin had surgery on his shoulder. My arm wasn't broken, but there was damage that took months to improve. Beth and Audrey had their own injuries. Some we'd been too occupied to notice until a doctor started asking them where it hurt. We all needed help afterward. We got it. There wasn't one conversation that settled what happened to Wes. There were dozens, with long silences between them. Martin told Wes his family about the loan, because he couldn't bear to keep anything back. His older brother asked whether Wes had known we loved him. We told him yes. Nobody had to invent an answer to that. I told them I'd caught his jacket. I told them I hadn't been able to hold him. His brother listened without trying to make it into something better. Later he asked me about the job Wes had wanted. I told him about the uniform shirts. It was the first time during the whole visit that any of us smiled. We still see each other. More often now, although we don't pretend that's compensation for what happened. Felix fixed Beth's mixer from a chair in the back of the bakery. Martin helped Audrey repair the fence behind her house once his shoulder was strong enough. When someone asks how things are going, the rest of us wait for the actual answer. The first time all five of us stayed together after the hospital, we went to Audrey's. Nobody announced that we'd be spending the night. Beth brought food, Martin brought extra pillows, and Felix arrived with an overnight bag balanced across his knees. I brought breakfast for the next morning. We talked until we were tired. Then Audrey showed everyone where they'd sleep. I woke once in the dark and sat up before remembering the room. Felix was asleep in the recliner across from me. I could hear Martin through the open doorway. The house was warm. My shoes were on the floor, exactly where I'd left them. For almost two weeks, someone had needed to stay awake whenever the rest of us slept. That night, nobody did. [Music]