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“Y-y-yes, sir.” Victor’s eyes are wide, his chin wobbling. “I’m sorry, but they wanted me to watch. They were putting on a show and—”
Noah steps back. “Wow, I’ve never left a man to die in the woods before, but you sure are making it tempting.”
“Please. I don’t deserve to die.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Noah looks around and bends down to pick something up. A small pack. He pulls something out of a side pocket. “I’m going to take a picture of your ID, Victor Nichols, so we can monitor you. Somehow, I doubt this is the first time you’ve spied on women or posted videos without their permission. I’m going to make it my full-time job to find the evidence to put you away for the rest of your life.”
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” Victor whines. “I swear. I’m not a pervert.”
“Do you really want to lie to the only guy who can save you? We’re pretty far from the trail and a storm’s coming. I doubt anyone else is going to hear your screams.”
“Fine,” Victor yells, his face bright red and twisted in anger and fear. “It’s not the first time. I like to watch women and sometimes I take videos to share with other people. Women love the attention, they just don’t want to admit it. They don’t want to admit what kind of sluts—”
“That’s enough.” Noah returns the ID to the pack after taking pictures of the front and back. “What’s your license plate number?”
“What?”
“I’m banning you from this park, Victor Nichols. I need to be able to spot your vehicle in case you ever try to return.”
“You can’t do that. I’m getting close to finding Bigfoot. I can’t go home now.”
“It’s home or jail,” Noah says. “Keep talking and it’s going to be death by starvation in the woods.”
“Fine. I’ll leave. Please, just untie me.”
Movement out of the corner of my eye makes me turn. Bigfoot steps out from behind a tree to my right. He waves and puts a finger to his lips.
I’m so frozen with fear, I can just manage to nod my head.
Noah looks back at me as though he can sense the shift in my posture. I cut my eyes to the right and Noah looks that way, his eyes widening. I don’t dare turn my head to see what Bigfoot does, but Noah swallows hard and turns back to Victor. “I’ll untie you now and there will be someone back at the trailhead to make sure you leave. You won’t see him unless you hassle those women or try to stay on National Park Land. You do either of those things and he’ll be taking you into custody. Understand?”
“Yes,” Victor says. “I’m not an idiot.”
Bigfoot steps into my line of sight, but he’s moving away from me, behind Victor and around to the other side of him.
Noah unties Victor and waits, glaring at the man, as he pulls his shoes on and puts his pack on his back. “Do you have anything I can wear?” Victor asks. “I can’t go back to the trailhead naked.”
“Sorry, but that’s your only option,” Noah says.
“Come on, man.” Victor’s clearly in the mood to press his luck now that he’s been untied. “You can’t expect me—”
With a roar and a shriek, Bigfoot leaps out from behind a bush and charges. Victor screams like he’s been kicked in theballs and takes off through the brush at a near sprint, tree branches slapping him on the face and body as he runs.
He trips and falls just past me and Bigfoot roars again. Victor screams, scrambles to his feet, and takes off toward the trail.
“I’ll make sure he doesn’t come back,” Bigfoot yells as he runs past me after Victor.
I watch Bigfoot’s over-sized, fluffy butt jiggle as he races through the underbrush, a small goat tucked under one arm. He does a much better job of dodging branches and bramble bushes than Victor does.
“Did Bigfoot just speak?” Noah asks, stepping up beside me.
“Uh-huh. And that goat looks an awful lot like Barley Hopper.”
Noah’s eyes widen. “You think Clover gave Barley Hopper to Bigfoot?”
I can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up out of me. It’s all too ridiculous. “Were there ‘shrooms in that coffee you made this morning?”
∞∞∞
