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I’m honestly just terrified of all things forest, but I want to hear this, so I nod. “I really don’t want to be sacrificed.”
He tilts his head down, and I swear I can feel him smirking behind the mask. “Uh-huh. Well, I shouldn’t have teased you. The truth is, my aunt’s store isn’t doing so great. When the first Bigfoot sightings started last fall, she bought all this Bigfoot stuff to sell in her shop - t-shirts, mugs, signs, hats, pretty much everything she could find. I was already living out here on, um, sabbatical and I knew there was no way a real Bigfoot was in these woods, which would mean her already financially strapped store would be in even worse trouble when Bigfoot disappeared.”
“So you made sure more people spotted Bigfoot.”
He nods. “And it worked. Her store’s doing better than ever.”
My heart swells. I wasn’t expecting to be impressed by this guy and I’m not sure I like it. “Your aunt must be really grateful.”
He looks away, out into the woods, hopefully watching for attack deer or whatever. “She would hate it if she knew. It’s why you can’t tell anyone about me or what I’m doing out here.”
“Don’t you think you can stop now that her store’s doing so well? It’ll be a long time before the tourists give up on finding Bigfoot or stop wanting t-shirts with Bert’s face on them. Years maybe. Catalpa Creek is already getting a reputation as the home of Bigfoot.”
“I’ll stop soon. What about you? How did a woman who grew up around here develop such a deeply entrenched fear of the great outdoors?”
“The normal ways. Come on, we should keep going. Don’t want to lose daylight.”
“It’s ten in the morning. Pretty sure we’re safe.”
I turn and start up the path. “Never can be too careful.”
“That’s okay. I’ll get the answer out of you, eventually.”
We crest a hill that looks down on what’s more of a widening of creek, rather than a true pond. Ferns grow thick and green around it and a boulder rises from the edge. “Does this look like the spot?”
“Little more than a puddle sits at the elbow of a giant,” Mac recites from my grandfather’s riddle. “It could be, but I’d guarantee the waterways have changed in the past sixty years.”
“We should check it out so we can rule it out.” I try not to get my hopes up. There’s no way we’re going to find the treasure our first day out when my father spent nearly a decade looking for it. “In the devil’s eye socket, beneath an X of blood and sweat rests the legacy of my years.” I repeat the end of the riddle aloud. “That sounds like a cave to me.”
“I agree. But it seems too obvious for a riddle.”
“I doubt my grandfather was a professional riddle writer.” I start off the trail, but my feet sink into dead leaves and loamy earth. “What do you think lives under these leaves?”
“Nothing stupid enough to wait around to find out who we are with all the noise we’ve been making.”
“That can’t be true. Anything could be hiding under all these leaves. What if there’s a snake under there?” Logically, I know there can just as easily be snakes in the fields at the farm, but there’s something about the deep leaves that makes them seem scarier. A snake would stand out against green grass in a way it wouldn’t against leaves.
Plus, forest snakes are probably bigger. They have more room to grow.
He sighs and steps around me. “I’ll go first and take the bite if there’s one hiding in here.”
He takes a few steps down the steep embankment, but I’m frozen in place. “What if you just wake them up and it’s me who gets bitten?”
Without a word, he walks back to me, crouches, and scoops me up in his arms. “Um, what are you doing?”
“I’m protecting you from snakes and giant insects.”
Wrapping an arm around his furry shoulders, I hold on tight because I don’t want to be dropped on my butt in the leaves. “Thank you.”
“Hey,” someone yells. “Put her down, you monster.”
“Oh, shit,” Mac mutters. “Hide your face.”
With me tight in his arms, Mac runs the rest of the way down the hill, slipping and sliding at the bottom. Once there, he looks over his shoulder.
“I’m calling the park rangers,” the voice, clearly female, shouts.
“I’m fine,” I yell.
