~~~
Soon the pair had arrived at the river’s edge and stalled looking up and down the bank. The flow was slow and it was narrow immediately in front of them, particularly in Winter with a lot of the water at the edge beginning to freeze. But just up from them to their right the river took a bend further up its source and through the trees approximately a hundred yards away was a dam formed in front of a broad, nearly lake-sized swell of water.
“So this tree house of yours?” Agent Samuel started to inquire.
Josh merely pointed up. Looking they saw the wooden platform and the beginning of walls that Josh and his friends had started putting up about fifteen to twenty feet above them and a few trees back from the riverside. It wasn’t really much to look at, now that Josh really looked at it. The wood they had used was cast-offs and residual from other, more legitimate projects in the neighborhood and so it had aged and grayed and nearly fit in the trees like a giant bird’s nest.
After a moment of staring, the agent took out his smart phone and snapped a couple shots. “So, you said that after the Yeti grew in size it put its hands on the edge of that platform?”
“Yes,” answered Joshua quietly.
“So his head was maybe a few feet below you?”
He had to think about it, because the sudden appearance of the ginormous beast in place of the little white fuzzball he’d been watching had in fact scared the bejeebers out of him, and his memory did get a little foggy at that point. But he again, quietly replied, “Yes.”
“Hmmm,” Samuel said and then started kicking around at the fresh snow below their feet. “Typical great lakes Squatch then.”
As the agent continued to paw around the ground, apparently trying to separate the fresh snow from the older, crunchier and more solid snow, Josh puzzled over the peculiar and very forward Agent with whom he found himself. He didn’t feel any particular concern for his safety, but it certainly was not where he imagined himself being when the day started.
“I thought you said it was a Yeti?”
As Samuel pulled out some sort of tablet-looking device and started sweeping it over the ground here and there he mumbled, “Mmm, hmmm. That’s right.”
“Well,” Josh said, somewhat irritated, “Which is it? A Yeti, or a Sasquatch?”
The agent stood for a moment, still apparently not chilled at all by the falling temperatures in his black suit and looked a little befuddled himself. He realized he needed to catch Josh up a bit if he was going to maintain the trust he developed with the little boy. Spent so long training inside, I forgot not everyone’s going to believe you right off the bat, he thought to himself.
“Well, the Yeti and the Sasquatch are really all the same thing. They have a tendency to grow out brownish fur when they live in warmer areas and the ones that live further north or high up in the mountains tend to grow white. But it can change. In fact, a lot of the ones that live around the Great Lakes, like in Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and such will turn mostly brown in the summer and white from about November or December to sometimes as late as April or May. Pretty impressive they can change color so easily, really. But maybe not so much when you consider.”
As Samuel went back to sweeping his tablet low around the ground again, Josh had to ask to get the rest of the explanation. “When you consider what?”
Standing upright again, Samuel replied, “Well…when you consider they’re actually faerie.”
“Faerie?” Josh asked incredulously.
“Well yeah…” The agent stared for a moment. “Well, why else would you be talking to someone from the Institute for the Preservation of Magical Artifacts instead of some grumpy old scientist from the natural history museum or something?”
While Josh nodded, still fairly unconfident in the conversation, Agent Samuel returned once more to his scan. On screen, from where he was standing, it looked like the tablet was actually just replaying a stream from a camera on the other side of the tablet, showing the snow and the objects that the agent was pointing it at. But there were a few colors, graphs and words he couldn’t make out at a distance flashing on screen too.
Then, finally, something green swirled into view. Josh stepped closer, as Samuel stood up and said, “Ah ha!”
“You found something?” Josh asked, wrapping his arms around each other in an effort to get a little warmer.
The agent was grinning, full bloom at that point. “Oh yes. Look!”
As the tablet was slowly tilted upwards the little green splosh of color appear to look like a tiny little foot print. And as the tablet tipped there were more indicated on the ground ahead. It was a trail! Agent Samuel had found a trail of Yeti footprints.
“But, hang on,” Josh said. Something wasn’t quite right. “They look too far apart for the little one.”
Agent Samuel grinned a sideways grin. “You were right in your email, the big one and the little one are the same thing. And you’re good to notice these footsteps too. We’ve waited long enough the glimmer has worn off, if the little booger even applied one.”
“What’s a glimmer?”
Samuel rubbed a finger under his nose taking a minute to think. “Well, all faeries use a bit of magic to remain unseen by humans. They’ve evolved as humans spread throughout the world to hide because generally, mankind isn’t.”
“Isn’t what?”
“Isn’t very kind. At least not to faeries,” Agent Samuel grimaced. “But what these little guys do is use a bit of magic to actually scare off or misdirect humans.”
Josh was nodding his head again, still unconvincingly.
“See, if they think someone’s seen them, they might make themselves look really gigantic. Put a scare into you.”
“Yeah. That’s what it did to me,” Josh agreed quietly looking at the ground.
“Well. They do the same with their tracks. They make them appear huge. And typically they make them appear to wander off in some other direction than where they’ve gone. For some reason they can’t totally hide their tracks. They can’t exactly disappear. You know…like the car did. We got that from some other types of faeries. But they can confuse or distract the human mind.”
“Oh! So a faerie taught you how to make your car invisible?”
“Sort of,” Samuel brushed the idea aside. “But never mind that. What we see here on this screen is a trail of the Yeti’s actual footsteps. See how they’re glowing slightly greenish?”
“Yeah,” Josh leaned in close to get a really good look at the tablet.
“Well, that’s the Yeti’s magical aura. And…it will lead us right to him!”
Samuel raised the tablet high enough following the tracks alongside the river, up the side of the dam and across the field to the forest that they could see nearly a half mile away where the creature had gone.
“Why such big steps though?” Josh revisited.
“Oh! Yes. Well,” Agent S replied, “Yeti also have huge strides. It’s how they can cover such great distances in a hurry. I suppose that’s really why no one’s ever caught a Sasquatch before, isn’t it?”
“Hmmm,” agreed Josh, whole-heartedly not agreeing. How a tiny ten-inch tall creature could take a five-foot stride was beyond him, but he supposed the agent’s explanation would likely include some talk of magic again. And truthfully, even though Agent Samuel came at the direction of an agency he had contacted himself, he still wasn’t quite sure he believed everything he was being told.
For good measure, Agent Samuel swept across the expanse of the field. Then the little tablet brought to life more tracks. Coming in from all directions were at least another dozen sets of trails. It must have taken a moment for the tablet to sense and display the trails of creatures other than the one it was already tracking, but they’re they were. Samuel pursed his lips and whistled.
“There’s more of them?” Josh whispered.
“Oh yeah,” Agent Samuel said with awe in his voice.
“There’s a lot of them here in lower Michigan. I knew that. In fact, the only place where there’s more of these Squatch is in the Appalachians. Those mountains are practically swarming with them in several states. But I’ve not really seen them converge like this before. It’s all starting to add up.”
“What?” Josh asked, but Agent Samuel had quickly turned and started marching back the way they’d come from the parked black, stealth sedan. “What’s all starting to add up?!”
Agent Samuel spoke into his inner wrist. “Did you bring the cross-country yet?”
The familiar voice replied back, quietly, but loudly enough Josh heard it as he caught up jogging briskly to keep with the taller man. “Affirmative. Delivered, and your standard issue has been retrieved. Awaiting you now.”
“Dang,” Samuel mumbled. “I need to exchange again. I’m going to need a helicopter, home.”
“Helicopter?” Josh marveled. This guy can make his car disappear, supposedly with faerie magic, and he can order up a helicopter any old time he needs one?
“Negative, sir. Availability presently limited with events in Ohio. Also, the CCV we supplied is AWOL flight capable.”
“Oh?” Agent Samuel sounded surprised for once. “It is?”
“Yes sir. Agent Davison thought you might be needing one…considering past indications with the Yeti subjects.”
Samuel’s stride slowed and he turned his head just enough to catch Josh’s eye again. He seemed to be marveled at the offering. “Are you telling me I have the historian’s own CCV?”
There was a lengthy pause on the other end of the line, as though the pleasant but official voice was pondering how exactly to respond to the question. When it came Josh thought he sensed a bit of a smile, or perhaps a smug attitude. “Yes, Agent Samuel. Your investigation has been given priorities. …Do I need remind you not to put a single dent in it?”
“N-n-no, home. I understand completely. And…thank you.”
“Keep reports regularly. Out.”
“Out.” Samuel stopped and stood near the barrier and the beginning of the street on which they had parked the black sedan. He placed his hands akimbo and looked at Josh for a moment, mouth agape, as if Josh himself had been the one to do something truly amazing. “I’ll be.”
“What’s the big deal?” asked Josh.
“I think I’ve just been given a promotion, so to speak,” Agent Samuel said. But then he was back to business. They hurried to the place where the sedan had been, finding instead a very large indent in the snow, much larger than the car would have made.
Samuel drew out the same curious stone as he had before the pair entered the meadow and headed to the river. This time he simply tapped it on the invisible shape sitting in the street. What appeared was a dark charcoal gray and black object that had a monstrous cab above tires which stood nearly up to Joshua’s chest. The thing, whatever it was, reminded Josh of the tracked snow vehicles he’d seen on shows about Alaska, but it had only four giant tires rather than tracks. And the rear of it seemed to house a shed-sized engine with bulges and apparent cabinets and other items seemingly designed to provide in extremely hostile environments. The windows appeared dark, probably to prevent anyone from seeing inside the vehicle.
“Uh…Mr. Samuel?”
“Yes?” the agent asked casually as he stepped up a small ladder on the side of cab and tossed in their two bags.
“Where exactly are you planning on taking me?”
Samuel hopped down and laughed lightly, then shook Joshua’s hair a bit. “Well…I don’t really know. But if we’re going to track those little bugger’s aura trail through snow we’re going to need to go off road. CCV Auto on and warm.”
With the agent’s last comment a relatively quiet engine in the back purred to life. It was well muffled and could have been the family car, although it had the distinctive rumble of eight cylinders firing. It surprised Josh a little. He was expecting to hear a gigantic diesel roar to life and bring out the whole neighborhood. And then he started smelling something sweet, clearly not straight gasoline exhaust.
“Agent Samuel? Just what does this thing run on?” Josh asked as the agent made a quick check up and down the sides of the vehicle. It seemed a fairly thinly disguised admiring look, but Samuel was intent upon it and kept a straight face.
“Oh!” He replied as he stepped back towards Josh. “It really kind of depends on what mode it’s in. Right now it’s running on nearly pure ethanol.”
He offered his hand to help Josh climb into the passenger side of the cab. As he climbed Josh wondered how many different modes there could be. He’d heard of cars switching between Natural Gas and gasoline on demand. And he thought that if he was remembering correctly about Ethanol being the fuel used in the E85 flex-fuel car his dad had, then that too can be switched on demand. But he couldn’t imagine what variety of “modes” of driving a behemoth like this would be capable of.
The agent ran around the front and climbed up the other side into the driver’s position, but it wouldn’t have been necessary there was so much room inside the cab. If the seats had been a bench seat Josh figured they could probably sit about five or six across. But as it was there were actually three bucket seats arranged about a foot apart from one another and then another row of three buckets behind them, ample legroom between. The steering wheel it turned out was mounted smack dab in the center, so Samuel sat in the middle chair and left one more open to his left. Who the heck builds this thing? Josh puzzled.
And then they were on their way. The vehicle plowed through the barrier to the meadow and then made a bee line to wide spot in the river behind the dam. It didn’t slow at all as Agent Samuel approached the bank and instead plowed right through it to the other side.
“Engage Heads Up Display,” Samuel said calmly. A few gauges and things shown on the windows before them, the largest being a compass just ahead of Samuel’s left hand. “Enhanced exterior feed and filter with Aura trail detected on my mobile.”
Sure enough as they approached the opposite bank and plowed up it, there were green giant-stride footprints they’d found when Josh and the agent were outside on foot. They followed them north and more and more of them joined the trail to the point where the prints were so many it no longer appeared to consist of long bounding prints, but rather short little baby steps all muddled together. The overall glow of the aura tracker was creating one great green line to trace in the snow ahead of them for miles.
Opening the throttle up a bit their speed increased impressively in the thickening snow and with every mile they passed the falling snow increased. Occasionally, particularly as they first started out, they had to drive across a couple roads to continue on into the next field, and though there were few cars out in the storm, Josh had to ask, “How come I’ve never seen one of these before? Even on TV?”
“Oh, yes.” Agent Samuel bent down and placed his palm on a pad to his right, next to Josh’s knee. It seemed to perform a scan, lighting up much like a copier machine if you leave the lid up.
“Active Camouflage engaged,” a male electronic-sounding voice confirmed.
“There,” Samuel smiled at Josh. “All taken care of.”