#mountainwhales

Being a forest ranger in the mountains around Kepler was not, by and large, a particularly glamorous job.  Mostly you found yourself on your own – either in the quiet ranger station, filling out paper work, or hiking through the sprawling range  of the Monongahela National Forest.  Sure there was human interaction now and again – working along side his fellow rangers, helping orient tourists, or chasing the occasional teens out of the woods when they decided to light up a camp fire for their wienie roast – and sometimes statements even had to be made, regarding bear or mountain lion sightings, weather warnings, fire risk, things like that. But mostly it was quiet, local, and inconspicuous, the way Duck liked it.

When the woman had first come to him clambering about seeing Bigfoot, it had mostly seemed like that. Small, local, a little ridiculous but mostly inconsequential.  You got them every so often, folks who had read one too many stories written in those cheap, trashy “local legends” gas station books – the sort people like Ned kept well stocked up for the bored or the gullible.  People like this, they had watched all the blurry Youtube videos and tended to think anyone in a somewhat federal position had something to hide. Of course, Duck did have something to hide,  but most of the low rung federally paid pencil pushers he knew didn’t have prophesied destinies or talking swords stuffed under the bed.  Still, the Cryptonomica ensured there was a steady trickle of people like this in region.  Luckily most of the people that fell into Ned’s tourist-trap were just the sort that were here for a laugh and maybe a harmless thrill; they mostly didn’t believe a thing or wouldn’t admit it if they did.  Every so often though, you got a nut.

Which was perhaps a little unfair, given that Duck had in fact had coffee with Bigfoot last Friday, but they didn’t know that.  These people just needed something to believe in and mostly Duck was fine with that – if that was their excuse to go out and enjoy nature, who was he to fret it – until you got the vocal ones.

And this one here, she was ‘bout as vocal as they came ‘far as Duck could tell.

Wearily, Duck stare down at the newspaper headline that had been shoved rather smugly into his hands by the woman, like she had been revealing a secret weapon to him.

“‘I lost 125 pounds and decided to get a divorce’: Woman who changed her life after she ‘saw a bigfoot’ is SUING West Virginia after national park officials say it was just a bear”

It had taken him a couple stabs at it before this Boggle assortment of words had even made enough sense for Duck to do anything more than stare dumbly at the page.

“Ma’am,” he started, but she immediately cut him off.

“I’m serious,” she warned. “I mean it.  I’ll bring it to court, have the whole world see how you neglect these beautiful creatures.  Just ‘cause the government doesn’t want to pay to have them protected…”

Duck closed his eyes. He could still hear Aubrey’s giggling when she’d first seen the newspaper article.  It had been amusing enough… until it had become Duck’s responsibility.  Now, with Duck standing in front of a very loud, angry woman (who may or may not be attracted to an eight foot tall, hair-covered cryptid with legendarily large feet), a handful of intrigued reporters (both from the local and friggin national papers), and a gaggle of Kepler citizenry interested in a show, it was feeling a lot less funny.  At the moment he’d even be willing to take Beacon out for a walk if it meant not being here.  The rest of the staff at the station though had been more than willing to hand off this job to Duck, seeing as it was “his fault” it had all gotten started in the first place.

All he had said was that it was a dang bear.  The woman had been waving a phone in his face, insisting her kids saw a gosh darn Bigfoot and he had been late as it was for a shift so he had done his best to assure her that of course the big, hairy creature in the woods was a bear before grabbing his coffee thermos and slipping out of the ranger station to hop into his jeep.  It had felt perfectly open and shut at the time, and he’d been happy to drive off in peace.  Of course it came back to bite him in the butt.

"Ma'am–” he said, as soothingly and patiently as he could manage, desperately trying to pitch his voice over hers as the news reporters watched on with bemused interest.  “Ma'am it was a– ma'am, I can assure you it was a bonafide bear–  Yes, I know you said it seemed too tall, but sometimes they do lift up on their hind legs, especially in the spring hereabouts, see they’re trying to… trying to scratch off their winter coat and– Yes, ma’am, I heard you, but you can’t go ahead suing the state for not protecting a species that we have no evidence even exists and–  Ma’am, I guarantee you I would love to discover that such a, a, a majestic creature did live in our forests, but there is just no solid evidence, no body, to even suggest it and–  I am very happy that you felt so inspired by the beauty of, of nature, whatever that nature may be, that you decided to, uh… lose weight and… leave… your husband?  And, uh…”

-

“Mama, I am so sorry,” said Barclay for the umpteenth time.

Mama placed a cup of tea down in front of Barclay with some force – she had been walking a very thin line between soothing and royally pissed off.  Not many people could manage it, but Mama had an almost terrifying capacity for it.

“What were you thinking, changing like that were anyone could see you!”

“Sorry,” he moaned.  “I didn’t think anyone was there though…”

“That close to the hiking trails!  God, this is going to be like Ned all over again, isn’t it?”

“Now to be fair,” said Ned from where he was sat next to Barclay, “I was about to be eaten by Satan’s kitty cat.”

Mama rubbed the bridge of her nose and just sighed.

“Besides, Duck will have this wrapped up in no time.  If anyone’s good at avoiding being pinned to anything remotely supernatural, it’s Duck,” said Ned.

“Your little shop doesn’t help any,” said Mama sternly.

Ned shrugged.

“It could be worse,” called Aubrey from behind the newspaper she had opened in front of her.  Her voice was every so slightly muffled, on account of the words needing to escape not just from behind the cheap paper, but also because she’d been giggling to herself on and off for the past few hours.

“Don’t see how,” said Barclay.

“His naked, furry ass is plastered all over the internet,” said Ned.

“Thanks,” Barclay grumbled.

“Well, she did call you an–”  Aubrey had to stop for a moment, to compose herself.  “An ‘alpha-male’.”  The attempts at composure failed, and Aubrey broke down in laughter – which was only slightly masked by Ned’s booming guffaws and the sound of Dani sniggering from the other room.

“I mean, she was apparently really into you scoping her out from behind a tree!  Enough to go and dump her husband -- you must have some serious sasquatch mojo going on there, I don’t suppose you’d--”

“I wasn’t scoping her out!” Barclay wailed.  “I was hoping she would leave without seeing me!”

“He’s not denying that he’s a definite alpha-male though!” said Aubrey.

Barclay moaned, and buried his face in his hands.  “If an Abomination wanted to come eat me right now, I’d be fine with that.”

“Eat a big, strong alpha like you?  Perish the thought,” said Ned.

“Couldn’t be done,” sang Aubrey.

“Consider this the lesson that will remind you to be more careful in the future,” said Mama dryly.