Truth to the Rumors, part 1

It was early. Too early for me on a Saturday. Normally, I would sleep for another two hours, but the heat of the summer had finally arrived and after yesterday's downpour, the air would be hot and muggy. I wanted to get going while the day was still relatively cool.

Mike and I were standing on the front porch waiting for Jack. Always late, we figured we would have to wait. I took the moment to take in the view of our destination.
The craggy mountain was looking even more menacing with the early morning sun heating the trees and causing foggy clouds of steam to obscure the treetops. It looked like how I would imagine a swamp would look in the early morning but this was no swamp. I imagined we could get a little muddy, but I was far more worried about falling and getting scraped up. To the east was Heber valley and the foothills that led toward the Uintah Mountains. The Wasatch Mountains were to the west and looked more foreboding. Even Deer Creek Reservoir which was just barely visible from here, had steam rising from its surface.

"Hey, are you two going to make me wait all day?!"

I snapped back from my reverie and looked to my right. Jack was standing there in his cutoffs and Pac-Man t-shirt. His BYU hat was the dingiest, dirtiest thing I had ever seen. I had nothing against the Cougars, but Jack seemed to have used his hat for everything from shading his forehead to digging ditches. Still, it fit his personality. Fourteen years old and still a kindergartner looking for any way he can get dirty and have the time of his life doing it.

I walked down the front walk and opened the gate. The crunch of gravel on the road seemed unnaturally loud in the early morning quiet. Not having many treesnear our house, there weren't a lot of songbirds. I had only heard a peep or two since coming outside.

Jack stood by our old Blazer  that was parked just past the mailbox. It hadn't run for over a year but my dad kept saying he'd get to it. Seeing it and Jack stand side by side was almost comical. I smiled a little as I thought how they matched.

I adjusted my Utah Utes cap, clean and unsullied, to see Jack better. He was holding out his arm as as if to say, 'What's taking so long?'

"Mike is still wolfing down breakfast," I started. I set my pack down on the ground next to my foot. It wasn't that full, but carried all the essentials I laid out the night before. In the blue canvas bag  was a poncho, gloves, flashlight, batteries, and a bump cap in case we did any light climbing. Mike had the food.

"Did you find the map?" he asked.

I held up the piece of paper in my hand. I had gone on the internet the night before and printed a topographical map of the ridge we were headed to. It was a couple of miles away and with luck, we would reach it before the sun got too high so we could spend most of the day in the shade of the trees.  There was still a risk of thunderstorms that night and I planned to be home by then.

"Do you think we'll find anything?" Jack asked.

"I hope so," I answered. "Did you watch the news report?"

"Yes. Last night while I was packing."

"Good. I watched Channel 2, which one did you watch?" I asked, thinking I already knew the answer.

He rolled his eyes at me, confirming my suspicion. KSL channel 5. He was a die-hard BYU fan.

Not being very well off, he couldn't spend a lot of money on BYU gear so his hat had been the mainstay of his apparel. He got it from his dad a few months before he died.

"What did they say?"

"Nothing much." he answered me shrugging. "Just that a hiker found the footprint and that before he could get back with this camera and take a picture it had started raining so it had been washed away."

"Anything about how big it was?" I pressed.

He crinkled his eyebrows and tried to remember. "Well, he said it was about as long as his arm, from fingertip to bicep" he said. "I think the news reporter had said they measured it out and it was like a size twenty-five."

We both laughed a bit at the thought of a foot that big. I had only hear one other thing and that was it had been a shoe or boot print, no toes or anything so this wasn't Bigfoot per se. That is what piqued my interest.

Mike finally opened the door and called out to me. "Jade, Dad wants to know when we will be officially home?"

"Tell him we should be home for the barbecue at six or earlier." I replied. Dad knew where we were going but he didn't know why. As soon as the weather was over he had left to finish the dinner dishes. He didn't hear the news report which, not being taken seriously left as a time-filling oddity at the end of the newscast.

Mike relayed the message and finally came tromping out in his denim jacket, jeans, boots and miners helmet, complete with headlight. I sniggered a little at his appearance but he was my brother and he was, well 'mostly' normal. His backpack was also bulging with the food he packed.

"Ready to go?" Mike asked the pair of us.

"Yes," Jack said to him a little incredulous at Mike's appearance.

We turned and began walking toward the highway. it had a wide shoulder and we would only be walking on it for about half a mile. it was often how we would walk to school if the fields were muddy.
Mike and Jack were in full flow about the sports cast from the last night and they were deep in conversation by the time we had hit the highway. I was deep in thought about the guy was saw yesterday at the sheriff's office. He looked normal enough, but shaken. He really looked like he had seen something and had tried to prove it. The sheriff hadn't taken him seriously though and the guy looked disappointed that no one would listen. Still how could anyone ignore a description of a boot print that big and a crashing sound moment earlier that sounded like a massive bear in the woods. I couldn't and my insatiable curiosity drove me to look. Besides, I had gotten exact directions from the man, something even the cops didn't bother to get from him.
It was my biggest weakness. I loved mysterious things in nature. Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Abominable snowman, the Loch Ness monster. I was convinced they were all real and that they were just really good at hiding, aside from the fact that humans were not really observant. Being fifteen, I may be a little naive, but I loved every bit of it.