Episode 10: Incident at Ape Canyon

Incident at Ape Canyon

by Adam Copeland

Portland, Oregon 1950

It’s strange how at times the days can roll into another without incident. Day after day, with little to no break in the monotony, chafing at one’s sanity. For regular folk, this is merely annoying. For a journalist, whose livelihood depends on interesting events, this is intolerable. This fact is all the more punctuated in Portland by the pervasive gray skies and unrelenting drizzle that makes even distinguishing one uneventful day from another difficult. 

What’s even stranger is that all of the above can change in a heartbeat—with one phone call. It was one such phone call, even an improbable one, that prompted Cooper “Coop the Scoop” Smith to make a call of his own. Cooper would take improbable over monotony any day, however slim. 

He could see the recipients of his call fighting their way through traffic towards him where he stood on the corner of Broadway and Burnside. They hadn’t had to come far, but the traffic made Cooper’s wait for them in the rain longer than he liked. With one hand he clutched his jacket collar about his neck to keep out the cold. The other was stuffed in his pants’ pocket, fiddling with the Zippo lighter he wished he could whip out to light a cigarette. The amount of rain dripping off his Fedora hat and the spray in his face from passing traffic suggested he was better off waiting for his ride before lighting up. 

Eventually, the ’41 Studebaker Champion pulled up to him at the sidewalk. Its inconspicuous tan color—even the ubiquitous dent in its front driver side fender—were meant to make the vehicle nondescript and blend into traffic. To Cooper, however, it just screamed “unmarked police car.” 

“Hey buddy, need a lift?” said an expansive and ruddy face that popped out of the driver side window with a sarcastic grin. Detective Harry Reese was not known for his gentle sense of humor.

“It’s about time you clowns showed up,” Cooper grumbled as he moved towards the rear door behind the driver. He unslung his leather satchel from around his neck and threw it in the backseat ahead of him as he entered. 

There were already honks of protests at the Champion that had suddenly stopped to pick up a passenger, so Harry wasted no time returning to the flow of traffic with a lurch.

“Well, it is rush hour,” Harry responded to Cooper’s indignation at having to wait. 

“Yeah, you couldn’t have picked a better time?” said a smaller man in the passenger seat turning halfway towards Cooper. Unlike Harry, Detective Sal Raczynski was known more for his whining than his sense of humor. Regardless, both made for good police. 

“I hope this doesn’t take long, I gotta take my Boy Scout Troop to the movies tonight,” Harry said, glancing at Cooper in the review mirror. He was a big guy. Big enough that his buzz cut brushed the ceiling of the car, explaining why his Fedora rested on the front seat between the occupants. 

“Yeah, I got plans too,” Raczynski added, facing back towards the windshield. His straw Pork Pie hat had no trouble clearing the car ceiling. 

Cooper shook out a cigarette from the pack, snatched it up with his mouth, and returned the pack to his coat pocket. “I tried to arrange a better time,” he said, cigarette wagging on his lips, “but the guy is squirrelly. Wants to talk now. I was afraid he was going to bolt so I agreed to a place and called you as soon as possible. Besides Raczynski,” he addressed the smaller man, “you haven’t had plans since 1947.” 

Raczynski turned again in his seat just long enough to squawk, “Wise guy, eh?” 

Smiling, Cooper took off his hat and shook the moisture from it before laying it on top of his satchel. A couple stray bangs escaped from his normally slicked-back hair and hung in his face. With one hand he swept them back with annoyance, and with the other he took out his Zippo and lit up. 

Cooper looked around and found the overflowing ashtray on the back of the front seat. He tapped his initial ashes into it and noted the stuffing coming out of the ripped lining of the upholstery. The seats were stained and smelled vaguely of vomit and urine. He shuddered. A cop car, alright. 

“Criminy fellas, I think this is the same car Eisenhower toured Europe with during the war. Ain’t it about time you got a new squad car? Maybe put in for the new Champion, the Starlight Coupe?”

“Sorry, the taxpayers don’t pay Portland’s Finest that well. What you driving these days, Scoop?”

“The Oregonian don’t pay very well either. Besides, the ex got the car in the divorce. Hence the taxi service.” 

“So you think you may have a break in a missing persons case from earlier this year?” Harry asked, again glancing at Cooper in the rearview mirror. “After your call, I pulled the files and looked up as much as possible about the case, which isn’t much—mostly interviews with Portland-based relatives of the victim. Sal here knows even less, seeing he was giving a deposition in court when you called. I haven’t had time to fill him in yet.”

As they headed westbound on Burnside in the stop-and-go traffic, rain steadily beat down on the windshield, just to be beat back by the rhythmic swipe of the car’s wipers. 

“Missing persons?” Raczynski’s feathers ruffled some as he addressed his partner. “I hate to tell you this Harry, but we’re not Missing Persons. We’re Vice...and I really do have plans tonight.”

Harry waved his partner off and replied, “So? Everybody is considered Vice these days since our illustrious mayor declared war on the gambling joints in Portland. She’s pulled manpower from every department to make good on her campaign promise to ‘Clean up this town.’”

“That’s true,” Raczynksi conceded and turned in his seat towards Cooper. “The crazy broad even has us busting pinball arcades. Pinball machines! Says they’re a corrupting influence. A ‘gateway device’ to slot machines. Can you believe it?”

Cooper blew a cloud of cigarette smoke. “That’s precisely why I called you guys,” he started. “How would you like to do some real police work? Especially if the missing person’s family has the ear of said crazy mayor. Solve the case and you can come out looking like heroes and get a real assignment.”

Raczynski’s mug screwed up into an exaggeration of thoughtfulness. “Okay, I’m sold. What case is this again?” he asked pointedly. 

The smell of Cooper’s smoke invited Harry to light up his own. He spoke around the cigarette in his mouth as he held the car’s dash lighter to the tip.

“About six months ago, a world champion skier named Jim Carter went missing in Ape Canyon on Mount Saint Helens,” Harry began the tale, catching his partner up to speed. “Carter separated from his buddies to go take a picture.”

“Sounds familiar now—from the news,” Raczynski said, but his feathers became ruffled again as realization dawned on him. “Mount Saint Helens? That’s Washington, not even our jurisdiction.”

“Like I said, the missing guy has family in Portland who is close with Ms. Dorothy McCullogh ‘No-Sin’ Lee, our mayor, which makes it your jurisdiction,” Cooper rationalized. 

Harry grunted in agreement. “So long as we come up with answers, nobody is going to care where they came from.”

Raczynski still didn’t sound all that convinced. “Disappeared while skiing? How is that a crime? Sounds like a job for Smokey the Bear to drag his body out from the bottom of a cliff.” 

Cooper took out a flip notebook from his satchel, turned to a page and brushed away cigarette ashes that fell on the paper. “Circumstances were suspicious. The initial search showed that his ski tracks in the snow were erratic, zigzagging in and out of rocks, and traveling at high speed away from his friends.”

Racznski shrugged. “World champion skier skiing fast? Big deal.”

“Hauling ass away from his friends?” Harry pointed out, raising his eyebrows.

Cooper offered more. “And they found his camera case. No camera. No Jim Carter.”

Raczynski’s cop-mind didn’t waste anytime asking, “Do his buddies look good for it? An argument or a grudge gone bad?” 

Harry pulled long on his cigarette, the tip momentarily flaring in an orange glow as he said, “They were looked into thoroughly, nothing came of it.”

“Doesn’t mean they don’t know something. Does your mystery caller have some sort of connection to them?” Raczynski asked.

“That, gentlemen, is what I hope to find out,” Cooper responded, gazing out the passenger window at the pedestrians on the sidewalk. Cooper, a transplant from the Midwest, never quite understood why few people in Portland—one of the rainiest towns on Earth—owned umbrellas. Hats and raincoats galore, but few umbrellas. “He’s not one of the friends who was there when Carter went missing,” Cooper continued. “Either he heard something second hand, or he was a witness.”

“Witness?” Harry raised his eyebrows again.

Cooper turned away from his cultural observation of Portlanders and flipped through his notebook. 

“Yeah,” he started, “I pulled reports from the Post-Intelligencer on the investigation and found that the Seattle Search and Rescue Unit who did the original search said, ‘They felt watched’...their words, not mine. Maybe this guy spends a lot of time in the area. Not only saw the search teams, but saw Carter and what happened to him from the start.” 

“Maybe he tucked Carter into a dirt-nap himself and wants to confess?” Raczynski’s suspicious cop-mind mused out loud. 

Cooper blew cigarette smoke. “Maybe.”

The Studebaker approached Twelfth Avenue where the brick monolith of Henry Weinhard’s Brewery took up the entire block. Its giant steam stack billowed vapor whose whiteness contrasted sharply against the gray of the rainy day. The entire neighborhood was saturated with the heavy, malty aroma of the beer-making process. Many residents complained incessantly about the smell. Cooper loved it.

“‘Ape Canyon?’” Racynski complained, continuing to agitate in his seat. “What kind of name is that for a landmark? Everything about this case sounds fishy.”

Harry chuckled and shook his head. “Has something to do with one of them Sasquatch sightings back in the Twenty's. My Scout Troop has always been bugging me to take them exploring out there in hopes of seeing one for themselves.”

“There’s no ski resort on Saint Helens right? Just wilderness?” Raczynski asked.

Cooper replied, “Right. Carter and his buddies were roughing it off the beaten path.”

“How do we fit in? How can we help?” Harry asked.

“I’m going to talk with this guy and see what he offers up on his own. The ‘carrot’ so to speak,” Cooper said. “If it sounds like he might actually know something, but is holding back, I’d like you guys to step in and use the ‘stick,’ see?”

Raczynksi grinned. “We’re good for that. We can take him down to Second and Oak and convince him to be more...forthcoming.”

Cooper smiled. He knew he called the right cops for the job. The would-be informant wouldn’t be the first unlucky sap who got slapped around at Police Headquarters on the corner of ‘Second and Hardwood.’

“Well, we’ll book him overnight for jaywalking, then dialogue stringently with him the following morning,” Harry suggested. “Like I said, I gotta get my Scout Troop to the movies.”

“What movie you seeing?” Raczynski asked.

“Rocketship X-M,” Harry replied, using a movie announcer’s dramatic voice.

Raczynski made a face, and said skeptically, “A science fiction cheese-fest for Boy Scouts?”

Harry shrugged, replying, “It’s what kids like these days.”

“You need to take them to a real movie. A man’s movie. Like the latest John Wayne flick, Rio Bravo.”

Harry shrugged again. “I’m telling you, kids are into different things these days: Martians and Sasquatch.”

Cooper agreed. “Ever since those flying saucers were seen over Mount Rainier a couple of years ago, it’s been ‘flying saucer this’ and ‘Martian that’ on TV and the movies.”

“I just don’t understand all that nonsense, based on unreal stuff,” Raczynski said, shaking his head.

Harry laughed, “What, you don’t believe in flying saucers?”

 Raczynksi scoffed. “I don’t believe in anything I can’t see, shoot or smack around.”

Traffic cleared up long enough for the car to finally make some progress, traveling without obstruction for a good stretch. The brewery filled their rearview mirror and the office buildings and hotels started to give way to smaller, but more prolific shops, restaurants and bars. The West Hills loomed ahead into which Burnside Boulevard disappeared. 

“The Silver Moon, right?” Harry asked. 

Cooper winched on the window handle and threw his cigarette butt out the crack. “Yep, Nob Hill District.”

Harry hit the blinker and turned right on Twenty-first Avenue. Shops crowded together even more and the neighborhood suddenly was a trip back in time. The pavement gave way to cobblestone, where there was paving at all. Public Transit Rail tracks crisscrossed the intersections as they travelled north. Phone and power lines were situated lower on their wood poles, and it wasn’t hard to imagine that ice and milk could still be delivered by horse and wagon in this area.

As they approached Glisan Street, Harry veered right, made a lumbering U-turn at the intersection and then pulled to the west curb of Twenty-first Avenue.

The trio peered out the windows to an establishment across the street. 

A plywood sign hanging above the door, shaped like a moon painted bluish-silver, had the words “Silver Moon Tavern” stenciled in its center. The location was a two-story building, but it appeared the upper story was purely residential. Blue paint peeled from the paneled sides. White-trimmed windows advertised the establishment’s libations, which included a brightly lit neon Olympia Beer sign. 

“How you want to play this, Scoop?” Harry asked. 

Cooper started to gather his things. “Give me about five minutes to ID the guy, then I’ll sit with him. You mugs come in after me and sit as close as possible and listen in without tipping him off. If he turns out be a crackpot I’ll make a slashing signal across my throat like this,” Cooper demonstrated. “If that happens, we pick up and leave,” he continued. “If, after listening to him, I think he has more to offer and needs to give it up with some help, I’ll lift my hat like this,” again he demonstrated, “then you move in and arrest him for jaywalking.”

The cops snickered grunts of agreement.

The rain finally relented as they simultaneously exited the car. Cooper donned his Fedora and slung his satchel across his neck and shoulder. Harry flicked his cigarette away just as Raczynski was lighting one up.  

“Five minutes,” Cooper reiterated as he moved towards the Silver Moon. “Oh, and I know this is hard, but try not to look too much like cops.”

The pair looked themselves up and down. Their mid-priced trench coats and rumpled suits and ties may as well have been uniforms. 

“What’s wrong with the way we look?” Harry protested.

Cooper grinned. “All this talk of Sasquatch reminds me of something: what do you call a monkey in a suit?”

Against his better judgment, Harry took the bait. “What?”

“‘Detective.’”

“Wise guy, eh?” Raczynski called after him.

Cooper laughed briefly before putting on his game face and entering the tavern though a creaky door. 

The room was dimly lit inside. A pastel day glow from the windows gave a pearly opaqueness to the cigarette cloud filling the air. One corner of the large room was lit up by a multi-colored jukebox from which Red Foley warbled "Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy." Bright lights glowed through bubbling oil from bulbs embedded deep behind chromatic arches and columns of the nickelodeon, competing with the neon Olympia sign to add color to the otherwise dark room. 

The place reeked of cigarettes, stale beer and sweat, but this quickly diminished as the senses adapted. 

Burly bearded men, wearing mostly canvas pants, wool shirts, suspenders and stocking caps gathered in groups at tables and at the long bar that took up much of the back of the establishment. Their conversations, though not loud, still regulated Red Foley to mere background noise. 

Black and white photographs that adorned the wall behind the bar and the columns holding up the ceiling depicted scenes mostly from the fishing industry and dock work. Between the clientele and the photographs, Cooper realized the rumors were true that the current owner of the Silver Moon was a former sailor. Probably the very man behind the bar who was cleaning a beer mug with forearms the size of hams. 

Cooper made brief eye contact with the bartender, gave a manly nod and then perused the room for his contact.

It didn’t take long.

The only person sitting alone in the place was a middle-aged man sitting with elbows on the table, chin resting on his hands. He had been staring straight ahead until he noticed Cooper looking around. He lifted a hand.

Cooper raised his chin in acknowledgement and came over to the simple diner-style table with a red Formica top held up by curvy aluminum legs. 

“You Cooper Smith, from the Oregonian?” the man asked.

“The one and only,” Cooper responded, touching the tip of his Fedora. “May I have a seat?”

The man nodded. 

He was an unremarkable looking fella with no memorable attributes. His plain brown hair was receding and slicked back. His eyes just as brown. Crow's feet about his eyes and smile lines around his mouth indicated he probably spent a lot of time outdoors. The hand he extended to shake with Cooper was calloused and his checkered flannel shirt fit right in with the clientele of the Silver Moon. He probably was, or had been, a sailor or longshoreman himself—which explained his choice of meeting place.

Cooper pulled out a chair with foam poking out the green vinyl cushion. He set his satchel on a spare chair as he sat and pulled out his notebook.

“So,” Cooper started, making eye contact, “can I ask your name?”

The door to the Silver Moon creaked open at the man’s back, temporarily flooding the place with light as Harry and Racynski shuffled in, still looking like cops. Between Harry’s height and Raczynski’s shortness and round baby face, it wasn’t hard to see why their colleagues often referred to them as “Abbot and Costello.” 

Cooper looked away quickly, avoiding tipping the man off that there was any connection between him and the new arrivals. Still, Cooper was aware that the detectives sat at a table right behind the man. Perfect.  

“Exley,” the man said, “Hollis Exley.”

Movement at the corner of Cooper’s eye announced the arrival of someone standing at his side.

“Whatcha gunna have hun?”

A waitress stood above them holding an order pad. Her impatient stance and ruby red lips, frenetically chewing gum, indicated he should order quickly. Her full figure and straight dark bangs over sparkly blue eyes made him flash his pearly whites instead.

“What do you recommend, doll?”

She gave a career waitress’s smirk. “People have been coming down with a case of corn dogs and fries lately, Romeo.”

Cooper waved the suggestion off. “I’ll just have a pint of Henry’s. You having anything Exley? It’s on the Oregonian.”

“Your buddy is strictly a water man,” the waitress said over her shoulder as she pulled away, probably annoyed at the prospect of not getting a tip from Exley. “On his third glass waiting for you.” 

There indeed was only a glass of water in front of Exley. The ashtray keeping company with the condiments at the center of the table was empty as well. Both were actually good signs. A man who drank or smoked excessively just before divulging important information was a nervous man. Strictly speaking, nervous men weren’t reliable sources.

“So,” Cooper cut to the chase, “you say you have information about the Jim Carter disappearance?” 

Exley took a deep breath, looked aside, and uttered softly, “Yes.”

Cooper begun his ritual of lighting up a cigarette while he patiently waited for Exley to elaborate.

“He’s dead,” Exley said simply, making eye contact.

Cooper froze in the process of lighting his cigarette. Just over Exley’s shoulder he could see the detectives freeze as well. 

A loud “thud” shattered the silence as the waitress returned with a tray, depositing a foamy pint of dark beer on the Formica in front of them before moving on to the table with the detectives.

The journalist shut the Zippo with its characteristic aluminum “snap.” He puffed out a cloud of smoke. “You know this how?”

Exley fidgeted in his seat. “Because I know the area. I know what’s in there. I’m certain he’s dead. It’s just better that the family accept this and move on.”

Cooper took a gulp of the Henry’s. Harry and Raczynski sipped at pints of something piss yellow, probably Oly or Budweiser, while they kept their gaze on the back of the man’s head.

“I’m going to need a little more to go on than that,” Cooper said.

Exley bobbed his head in acknowledgement. “This is going to sound hard to believe, but it’s very important that you do. For the sake of the family, they must stop looking. I know what it’s like to cling to the past. They need to move on and not send more people into that place and stir up trouble.”

Cooper tapped his pen impatiently on his notepad with one hand, flicking ash off his cigarette with his other into the ashtray—still waiting for the revelation of revelations to come forward.  

Exley took another long breath and said, “The Apemen got him.”

Cooper stopped the rhythmic flicking of his cigarette. 

His stomach fell out of his gut. In the span of a heartbeat, any notion of getting a Pulitzer—or even having the start of a good weekend—flew out the window. Disappointment crept into his soul like the stench coming from a backed-up toilette. 

Without words, without looking Exley in the eye, Cooper started to rise and move his hand to his throat to make the signal. Abbot and Costello watched him intently.

Almost as if Exley knew there was such a signal, his hand shot out and grabbed Cooper’s forearm. Cooper froze, fear superseding disappointment.

“They found something, didn’t they?” Exley almost shouted. “A personal belonging, hanging or wrapped around a tree?”

The man suddenly had Cooper’s full attention.

The journalist gave a quick shake of his head to the detectives who were halfway out of their seats, leaning towards the seemingly crazy man. Raczynski actually had his hand inside his coat, no doubt gripping his .45.

Cooper slowly sat down, as did the detectives. Exley gradually relinquished his hold. 

Cooper figured the man was crazy, but he also thought that maybe this was Exley’s way of confessing to murder. Or, maybe he was a crazy hermit who lived on the slopes of Mount Saint Helens and had witnessed what happened to Carter, and again this was his way of telling authorities in the outside world. Either way, Cooper was going to give him the benefit of a doubt and listen. Give him the carrot, and see where it went.

“Okay Mr. Exley,” Cooper said. “I’m listening, but you have to understand how ‘The Apemen got him’ sounds.”

Exley bobbed his head again. “I know how it sounds, believe me. I’ve spent most of my life in denial. Denial of what I’ve personally experienced. It damn near drove me crazy. It wasn’t until I heard the news stories about that poor man that I knew I had to come out with the truth.”

“And what, exactly, is that?”

Again Exley fidgeted and took his time responding. “They call it Ape Canyon for a reason.” 

Cooper struggled to keep from rolling his eyes, reminding himself, the carrot, the carrot, then said, “I know, because of those miners in the Twenty's who said...” 

Then it clicked. Cooper looked the man over, judged his age and put two and two together. 

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?” he said. “One of those miners who said their cabin was attacked at night by Sasquatches.” 

Exley shook his head. “No. My group came along a year later. We heard about the original incident in the papers just like everyone else. Except we didn’t believe there were any ‘Mountain Apes’ involved. We thought they had struck it rich in their mine, and  the Apemen story they came up with was only to scare people off. Or, we figured an argument broke out among the miners, someone got killed, and they tried to cover it up with a far-fetched story. Well, whatever the case, it backfired because next thing you know the woods were crawling with reporters, investigators and hunters trying to bag their very own ‘Mountain Ape.’”

“But they found no gold, no crime, no body...human or otherwise,” Cooper pointed out.

“Right, but someone I worked with at Longview Fibre knew one of the miners and was absolutely convinced the guy had struck it rich and disappeared. Said he had proof. I told him the guy probably coincidentally inherited lots of money from a dead relative, and did the smart thing and got out of town before he could be embarrassed anymore about the Ape Canyon incident. My co-worker, however, could be...convincing.” Exley took a long drink of water, licked his lips and continued. “McHale, my co-worker, rounded up a group of associates—a shady bunch—to go to the mountain in search of gold. I was much younger than the rest, but because I had a truck that could haul all our equipment, I was recruited as well. I didn’t know what we’d find. I certainly didn’t believe in Apemen,” Exley explained, sneering at that last part. “But I did believe McHale would beat the tar out of me if I didn’t let him use my truck,” he continued. “In any case, anything sounded better than working Fifth-Hand on Number Four Machine at the paper mill.”

By now Cooper had stamped out his first cigarette and lit up another. Harry and Raczynski were smoking their own, alternating between frowning and showing interest in the story. 

“What does any of this have to do with a missing guy’s personal effect lying out in the open?” Cooper asked impatiently, trying to steer the conversation back to something pertinent to the missing man. 

“Not lying out in the open,” Exley insisted. “Hanging or wrapped around a tree.”

Cooper tried not to blink, or smile for that matter. That had been a minor detail he had extracted from a contact in the Seattle Police Department. Yes, it was common knowledge in the papers that Jim Carter’s camera case had been found, but not how. Cooper had deliberately phrased his question to bait Exley into saying exactly what he did for confirmation. The carrot was paying off. 

“You see, that’s what they do,” Exley became a little more animated now that he saw that Cooper was taking a genuine interest. “They take something of yours and put it on display to scare others off. It’s a warning. This skier did or saw something he wasn’t supposed to, and they killed him for it. Then they put something of his on display to warn the others off. Except to us, it’s evidence and actually draws us in more...has the opposite effect. That’s why I’m here telling you this. You need to tell them to let it go, leave that place alone so no one else gets hurt.” 

“Um, well, it’s going to be a little difficult to convince the family of that,” Cooper said, blowing smoke out his nose, his mind racing as to how he could get this guy back on track. 

“That’s why I called you. You’re a journalist. You can take the most complicated information and distill it down to the important aspects, and create a convincing story that can sway public opinion.”

Cooper let out a boisterous laugh, almost blowing beer out his nose. “Well, Mr. Exley, you certainly have much more confidence in my abilities than I do. How can I convince others, when I’m not convinced?”

Exley smiled as if he saw this coming. “Let me start from the beginning, then I think you will feel differently.” 

There was a long pause. Exley was calm now, like someone resigned to telling the truth and feeling liberated because of it. He was sober as a vicar—no twitching, eyes unwavering. He looked like an Average Joe off the street, not a crazy person. It was obvious he felt he was being honest.

Cooper returned his steely gaze. Going against his better judgment, he thought, Maybe, maybe there’s something to this.

“Alright, start from the beginning,” Cooper said as he hovered over his notebook with pen. “What is the beginning?” 

“Thrown pebbles.”

“Thrown pebbles?”

“Yes.”

Mount Saint Helens, Northeastern slope, 1925

Hollis Exley was twenty-five years old and did not believe in the boogeyman. He did not believe in monsters. He wasn’t even sure if there were wolves left in this part of the country. Indians were the first thing to be eliminated as a threat in the region close to a hundred years ago. In short, there shouldn’t have been anything to be afraid of in the woods.

Except for other men. 

That was the first thing that had crossed his mind when small pebbles started to pelt him from the woods. What else could it have been? 

He and McHale had meandered their way down the trail to the essay site to take their turn chipping away at the narrow crack in the mountain. McHale, as usual, had outpaced Exley with long-legged strides, leaving him lagging a short distance behind. That is when the first pebbles hit his backside. 

When he turned to see what had caused it, he saw nothing, assuming pebbles had naturally tumbled off the cliff to their left, bounced off some logs in the woods at the base of the cliff through which the trail wound and struck him. He didn’t hear any bigger or more dangerous rocks tumbling, and so he thought nothing more of it.

When it happened again almost immediately, he knew it wasn’t an accident and assumed, somehow, one of the other guys from the cabin had raced up a hidden trail to the side and was giving him a hard time.

“Knock it off!” he had called out. “Get back to making dinner. We’re going to be hungry when we get back.”

“Who you yelling at?” McHale shouted at him from up the trail.

“Those assholes are screwing with me, throwing rocks at me. They should be making us dinner.”

“Who?”

“Probably Thompson and Frenchy.”

McHale scowled at Exley, looking around dubiously. “You nuts? There’s no way for them to do that. There’s no other trail. Quit goofing off and come on.”

“But...” 

McHale was already moving on, and Exley knew the man wasn’t someone to cross. 

Exley shot a final glare into the woods and moved on himself.

The second he did, another pebble hit him between the shoulders.

He spun around.

“Alright, dammit! That’s...”

He froze. A jolt of adrenaline shot through his body like electricity, stinging the surface of his skin like a thousand pinpricks. His heart stopped and his legs turned to jelly. It was like the sensation a man has in a nightmare when trying to run, but can’t because a molasses-thick fear paralyzes every step.

Something was there next to a tree with a raised arm, readying another pebble to throw. Exley’s mind twisted with disbelief and nearly collapsed under its own attempt to rationalize what he was looking at. A bear on its hind legs? A bear with a face—an almost human face? 

The creature turned and ran with unbelievable speed, making only the slightest of sounds as it disappeared into the dense thicket of ferns, logs, branches, moss, rocks, and brambles among the fir trees. Only a couple of swaying branches gave evidence that the thing had even been there. 

Exley turned and ran as fast as he could until he caught up to McHale, out of breath and white as a ghost. 

He did his best to explain what he saw, but McHale wouldn’t have any of it. In fact, McHale threatened to slap the bejeezus out of him if he didn’t shut his pie-hole.

“Don’t you see, it’s those guys who originally laid claim to the mine,” McHale reasoned. “They found out we were coming up here, and now they’re using their stupid monkey story to try and scare us off!”

“We should leave then. It’s their claim after all,” Exley said. “Besides they could bring the authorities up here?”

“Hell no! This proves they found gold and probably killed someone over it. They don’t want the authorities up here anymore than we do. The fact that one of them is running around in a monkey suit, trying to scare us off, means they probably don’t even have guns,” McHale said as he hefted his Winchester .30-30 and racked a round into the chamber with the lever action. “Bad news for them! Let’s go!”

McHale was jubilant and insisted on continuing to the essay site. He set Exley to work, taking the pickaxe at intervals all up and down the crack of the cliff and collecting the bits of rock holding promises of gold into two buckets. While he did so, McHale stood guard with the Winchester. 

Just about when Exley was waddling his way out of the crack with the heavy buckets and twilight was upon the canyon, the booming sound of the .30-30 bounced off the rock walls, setting Exley’s ears to ringing and filling the air with the sharp smell of spent gunpowder.

Exley dropped the buckets and ran to McHale’s side. 

“There!” McHale shouted as he pointed the barrel of the gun to the nearest cliff. He fired again, the percussion moving the hairs on Exley’s head like a breeze. 

Exley looked in the direction of the shooting and saw a large, hairy shape moving along the top of the cliff at the tree line. It ambled along with long strides, covering a lot of ground in a short period of time. 

“You see, just a guy in a fur coat,” McHale smiled.

Exley almost believed it. His mind was already playing games with him, trying to convince him what he had seen earlier had indeed only been an elaborate costume. 

But then the boulders started to tumble down, and Exley noticed even McHale was short on words and action. 

The thing on the cliff was picking up rocks much too big for any normal person to lift, and throwing them as if they were made from paper mâché. Unlike paper mâché, they rocks rumbled like thunder as they crashed to the bottom of the canyon that funneled them towards the hapless claim-jumpers. The first two boulders barely missed them, the second hitting with more accuracy than the first. The thing picked up a third and howled with an ear-piercing sound that could only be described as a demon with its tail caught in the gates of Hell as they slammed shut. 

McHale took aim and shot.

The thing tumbled over backwards and disappeared into the endless jigsaw of rocks and crevices on the slopes of the mountain. 

They ran then, as fast as the dimming light would allow on the trail. The snow-capped glory of the mountain at their backs glowed against a sky that had almost completely turned from blue to black. Exley made sure he stayed close to McHale and his gun, casting furtive glances constantly at the menacing trees that came alive with his imagination every step of the way. 

It felt like an eternity before they finally came to the cabin, though it probably had only been twenty minutes. They stumbled into the building as their partners were preparing dinner. The smell of stew boiling in a pot over the fire would have been comforting, but now McHale and Exley only had time to lean over and catch their breaths. 

In between gasps they explained what had happened. Men scrambled for guns in the small confines of the cabin, bumping into each other.

“I don’t understand,” Frenchy said, searching for his weapon. His French-Canadian accent became more difficult to understand as his stress level rose. “Was it a claim-jumper wearing a bear skin, or a real Mountain Ape?” 

“It was a monster alright...” Exley started, fumbling with the .38 pistol he normally kept in the glove box of his truck. It was parked at least a mile down another trail at the edge of a logging road, but fortunately he had brought the pistol to the cabin.

“Stop that nonsense!” McHale shouted. “We don’t know what it was. But it sure died just fine. If it was a claim jumper, then there are probably more of them out there and we should be ready.” 

“What if it’s a Mountain Ape, like they said before?” Thompson asked nervously, a lanky fellow and the second youngest beside Exley.

McHale just shot him a scornful glance.

"You heard that thing," Exley addressed McHale. "No human could make that sound."

McHale just grumbled as he fed fresh rounds into his Winchester. The rest of the men in the cabin looked at each other with mounting trepidation. 

All except one. A man just as large as McHale, sitting in the shadows who had remained calm during the excitement. He now leaned slightly forward, showing interest.

"What kind of sound?" the man asked. There was a hint of a husky accent in his halting manner of speech. 

Exley turned toward the shadowy figure. "I dunno, nothing I've ever heard. Maybe like a wild cat with its paw caught in a trap. Started out with a creepy, deep moan that  rose to a crazy shriek."

The man stood and stepped into the firelight, concern in his dark complexion. Seeing the big Indian with anything that remotely resembled fear frightened Exley and the others.

Robert "Injun Bob" Thornton (of course no one called him "Injun Bob,” except his drinking buddy McHale) was a fearless brawler who had experienced every hardship, from life on the Cowlitz Reservation, to a short stint in Alcatraz. His immense stature, stoic expression, and the large knife hanging in a buckskin sheath from his belt made him an imposing figure even McHale respected. But now the quiet urgency in his voice was nerve wracking. 

"It is the Skoocum, the Mountain Devils," he said solemnly. "They are the guardians of the white peaks, which are sacred to the spirits. They do not tolerate trespass. They will take offenders to the top of the mountain and eat their flesh." 

This statement was followed by much agitation among the men. Except for McHale who racked the lever action on his rifle and shouted, "Enough of that witch doctor malarkey! It's just a bunch of guys in fur coats and an air horn!"

Bob scoffed. "You will know it is the Skoocum by their smell. It cannot be faked. It is the smell of death."

"The Hell with this!" Thompson exclaimed and picked up his canvas sack. He slung it over his shoulder and headed for the door. 

"Now just wait a minute...!" McHale bellowed.

"I'm not getting ate by a bunch of angry mountain monkeys!" Thompson’s voice cracked.

"There ain't no such thing, and if there were, both barrels of that shot gun you're holding would take care of them," McHale reasoned.

"I'm not taking that chance."

With that, Thompson disappeared out the door. 

"Now what do we do?" Frenchy asked.

McHale rested the barrel of the Winchester on his shoulder, sneering "I say the best defense is a good offense. At first light we go find their camp and give them a good what for."

Skepticism crept into Frenchy's accent. "And if they really are apes?"

McHale started to answer angrily when what sounded like boulders bombarded the exterior of the cabin along with a cacophony of howls—the same that McHale and Exley had heard earlier. But more of them. Their unearthly shrieks froze the blood and chilled the souls of the men in the room. An overwhelming odor that was best described as the musky scent of a rotting skunk carcass filled the air as the men pointed weapons at every wall of the cabin, uncertain where the main assault came. 

The walls shook and buckled, causing filler material between the logs to crumble and fill the air with dust. What sounded like giant fists beat on the walls like drums. 

The sturdy little building held. It was essentially a square, each wall made with only four massive logs, each notched and interlocked. How the original miners managed to assemble it, Exley had no idea. Those miners had said they made it sturdy enough to withstand earthquakes, and that was the only reason they had survived the attack of the Mountain Apes. Exley believed that now. The roof, though made from planed boards and probably the only part not made from local materials, was just as solid.

This was fortunate, because something heavy landed on the roof and began to tear at the boards. They groaned in protest as the nails holding them in place only grudgingly relinquished their hold.

Instinctively, McHale started shooting into the ceiling, fanning the lever action as fast as he could, filling the room with muzzle flashes and the smell of gunpowder. Frenchy followed suit with the bolt action rifle he held, and Bob was just starting to raise his large revolver when a howl of a different pitch resonated and the sagging beams suddenly bounced back to their normal position. 

"Exley!" McHale cried, pointing to the door. "That fool Thompson didn’t lock it when he left!"

Without having to be told, a frightened Exley moved to the door to throw the deadbolt. But before he could, the door exploded open, throwing him back. 

McHale howled like a beast as he ran forward, working the rifle’s lever action as fast as he could.

There was a screech just outside the door, what sounded like a thundering herd of buffalo retreating, and then silence. 

"That's right!" McHale shouted into the night from the door. "You better run, you damned monkeys!"

The others gathered around McHale.

“You saw them?” Exley asked, excited.

“Yeah,” he responded grudgingly. “I didn’t get a real good look in the dark, but you’re right, they’re animals for sure. I could tell that much. But animals that bleed and die.”

“What is that?” Frenchy whispered, as he squinted into the dark. “There, hanging in the tree.”

Exley turned into the cabin and came back with an electric miner’s torch. He flipped the switch on the battery-box and pointed the light towards the tree in question. 

There hung what looked like Thompson’s backpack.

“Keep the light on it,” McHale commanded, and to everyone’s shock fearlessly strode out into the darkness towards the tree. When he got to it, he paused long enough to scan the woods down the barrel of his rifle. He then returned his attention to the sack. “It’s Thompson’s alright,” he shouted back to the cabin. “It’s held to the tree trunk by his shot gun that has its barrels twisted around it like a pretzel.” He tugged on the sack. “There’s something wet inside...”

He jumped back as something fell out. Exley shined the light beam on the object that bounced out and rolled along the ground, then came to a stop. 

There was a collective gasp as Thompson’s lifeless eyes peered from his decapitated head. Wet strands of gore trailed from his neck.

“McHale!” Exley shouted, shining the light on the big man. Behind McHale suddenly came a multitude of shimmering eyes—the sort animals give off when their eyes are caught in a car’s headlights.

McHale turned just in time for what seemed like the very darkness to reach out and swat at his head, knocking it clean off in a manner that certainly must have been the same fate as Thompson’s.

The horror-stricken men standing in the door barely had time to see the gushing arterial blood from McHale’s stump when the smell of skunk-death and the howls bored down on them again. They retreated into the cabin, bolting the door behind them.

Frenchy was cursing nonstop. Exley turned white and was babbling nonsense. Bob calmly started to chant, crossing his arms over his chest with the revolver in one hand and the big knife in the other. He started doing a little shuffle dance.

“Bob, what are you doing?” Frenchy yelled, not believing his eyes. “Help me move something heavy in front of the door!”

“It is no use, they will take us to the top of the mountain,” he responded quietly, then continued his chant.

“If you knew about these things, why didn’t you warn us? Why did you come?” Exley shouted, as he managed to raise his shaking pistol to the door in anticipation of the inevitable onslaught. 

Bob smiled ironically. “Because I was greedy. I lusted for the yellow metal. Now, I will pay the price. The Skoocum will eat my flesh, drink my spirit and wear my skin like a cloak.”

The walls began to shake, and dust filled the air as the pounding commenced. The door started to rattle and buckle. Exley shot through the wood, but this only seemed to embolden the assailant on the other side.  A huge, harry arm broke through a board. Exley turned to run, but the enormous hairy arm gripped the back of his shirt and suspenders. He fought against it with all his might, but he was steadily being drug to the opening. 

Bob tried to aim his revolver around the struggling man, but he couldn’t get a clean shot. Frenchy picked up an ax near the fireplace and attacked the arm. A few swipes of the blade, followed by a mewling cry, and the arm retreated through the six-inch lateral gap in the door.

Exley lurched forward. 

Frenchy stood triumphantly, holding the ax above his head. In the heat of the moment, he turned his back to the door and addressed his partners. “Merde! Nothing is going to eat me!”

No sooner had he said the words than a leathery hand grasped him about the neck and pulled him through the gap with such speed that he was gone in the blink of an eye. The only evidence that Frenchy had even been there was a spray of red mist and a few bits of clothing and flesh on the edges of the door. 

Bob shot the revolver into the gap.

A crashing noise drew Exley’s attention to the back of the cabin. Another harry arm was busting through the mud filler of the logs, casting about and knocking equipment over. 

Exley’s stomach twisted into further knots when he saw their box of dynamite get knocked over. Without thinking, Exley rushed forward and shot wildly into the ever-widening hole between the logs until his pistol clicked empty. The arm retreated. 

Out of ammunition and seeing the sticks of dynamite lying around his feet, he got an idea. He reached down and snatched a stick off the floor.

“Hey Bob...” he started to say, turning to his last comrade, but froze.

Bob chanted at the top of his lungs and held the tip of his knife to his eye. He had already cut a slit in his cheek beneath his right eye, and he was now completing another under his left. Blood spilled down his face like tears.

Suddenly, Bob calmly unbolted the door and stepped outside, knife held high.

“Bob!”

The creature or creatures that had been moving around the back of the cabin must have sensed this, because Exley could hear them suddenly move towards the front. 

As Bob’s hideous cries filled the air, Exley decided to gamble on an escape through the space between the logs. He grabbed the minor’s torch and wiggled through the opening. 

He hit the moist carpet of fir needles that made the forest floor around the cabin and ran on nightmare-weakened legs. The electric torch cast wildly about the forest, turning every tree into a shadowy giant that reached out for him. His breath came in suffocating gasps as he stumbled through the brush and rocks trying to find the trail down to the logging road where his truck was parked. He rationalized that once he was inside the metal and glass cab of the Twentieth Century vehicle, he would be protected from these throw-back monsters from a different time.

He came to a stop and his stomach filled with utter dread when he realized he was nowhere near the trail. He somehow had come to a tangle of fallen, moss-covered logs that blocked his path. 

He heard a shrill howl bellowing behind him, accompanied by heavy footsteps and breathing. 

“No!” Exley railed against the pile of logs blocking his path. He bent over to lean on his knees, exhausted in defeat. When he did so, he realized he was still holding the miner’s torch...and a stick of dynamite. 

Not wasting any time, he climbed the nearest log, turned towards the lumbering hulk coming at him, and held the wick of the dynamite to the bulb of the torch.

He watched in agonizing slow motion as a small tendril of smoke curled from the naked bulb. The footsteps pounded closer, only paces away. 

With a flare and a cherry glow, sparks started eating their way up the wick.

“Yes!”

Exley cocked back his arm to throw the instrument of his salvation, but cried out in disbelief when the waxy baton slipped from his hand and flew behind him, disappearing between two logs.

He instinctively crouched and covered his head, not sure if it was more from anticipation of the explosion or to fend off blows from the huffing creature standing over him.

There was a flash of light and then a deafening explosion that sent Exley’s already gunshot ringing ears to numbness. And then the logs heaved upwards.

Oddly however, he was not projected upwards or outwards, but rather he experienced a falling sensation as large chunks of wood, earth and rocks collapsed around him.

At first he thought he was buried alive, but the still functioning torch perched on a mound of debris nearby. It shined a beam of light on his chest revealing that he was only covered with a dusting of rocks, dirt and moss-covered splintered wood. 

Dazed and hearing still muffled from the blast, he reached for the torch and inspected his surroundings.

He was in a sinkhole opened up by the blast—a cave with no ceiling. The walls were curved and made from jagged black and gray volcanic rock. A jumbled mass of boulders and loose scree at one end of the cavern trailed down from the opening, and Exley lay at the edge of this pile at the center of the hole. 

His attention was drawn to scree falling down the pile, and as he pointed the light in that direction the beam picked up a gigantic leathery foot-and-hair covered foot step into the hole.

Exley backed up like a crab, expecting to run into the cave wall. 

But he didn’t.

He just kept going, and the rock-covered floor gave way to mud and puddles. He turned and shined the light to reveal that it wasn’t just a sinkhole, but a tube long enough that the torchlight didn’t reach its end. 

His hearing had returned enough that he heard the creature’s heavy breathing coming his way. 

Exley stumbled in the only direction offered to him, splashing through puddles, torchlight bouncing over the curved walls which began to narrow the further he journeyed. Soon he was crouching, and the puddles gave way to a single trickle down the center of the tube. The breathing grew heavier behind him.

Up ahead the tunnel came to a claustrophobic close, terminating at a dark spot.

“No! Don’t end!”

Maybe he could ball up in this crevice and the monster’s bulk wouldn’t be able to reach him. Maybe he could wait it out. Maybe.

On hands and knees he pushed the electric torch box ahead of him as he willed himself to get smaller.

The closer he got to the dark spot, the more he realized there was a reason the light wasn’t shining on it: it was a tiny opening, just big enough to fit his head and shoulders through and therefore an escape. 

He pushed the torch ahead too far and lost control of it. It tumbled out of reach and aimed into the ground, creating instant darkness. Exley became blind just as he squirmed his torso past the opening.

He thrashed about trying to reach the torch, feeling loose rocks of all sizes and what felt like sticks that rattled with a peculiar sound when disturbed. 

His hips cleared the opening and his hands finally grasped the torch box. He righted it and the beam made a shocking revelation: a grinning human skull. He was lying on a bed of bones of all shapes and sizes, which included horns, antlers and many animal skulls.

He only had a moment to ponder this horror when something grabbed his pant leg and started to drag him back.

He cried out and frantically pulled himself forward on forearms, temporarily dislodging himself, only to have the monster regain the fabric of his baggy pants and pull him back with renewed intensity.

In desperation, Exley pointed the torch directly into the hole.

The blinding light showed a muscular, harry arm attached to a shoulder and head that had forced its way through the opening. The creature was straight from a nightmare, with a sloping brow, a head that came to a point and a simian face with flat nostrils. The teeth were bared, exposing snarling canines dripping with saliva. But the most terrifying features were its eyes. They were not that of an animal, but more human than anything else. Intelligent eyes with malice and intent which matched the crazed howl that filled the cavern. 

Blinded by the light, the creature let go of Exley’s leg and covered its eyes. Its flailing  actions knocked the light from Exley’s hand, but he didn’t waste any time to turn and crawl away. He didn’t get far when the monster grabbed his ankle, squeezing it with a crushing grip.

Exley latched onto a flat jagged rock, but it just got drug along with him. His ankle screamed in pain.

He turned and lifted the rock above his head, noting in the dim torchlight that the creature’s wrist moved over the hard surface of the cave floor as it drug him along. Exley bore the rock down on it like the blade of a guillotine, connecting with a satisfying crunch. 

A howl of rage that exceeded all previous howls filled the cave and ended in an ear-piercing screech. Exley continued to hack at the limp wrist that still reached for him. 

Warm spray hit his face, and he could barely make out the harry stump that withdrew into the darkness.

Exley scooted backwards away from the hole as fast as he could.

The further he went, the bigger the rocks got and he encountered moss and ferns. He turned and saw a lightness in the dark that was really just a different shade of black. Pausing for a moment, his eyes adjusted and he could make out stars. 

He ran.

Silver Moon Tavern, 1950

“Turns out I wasn’t that far from my truck,” Exley finished.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about this?” Cooper asked. His beer was empty, and his notebook was almost as full as the ashtray.

Exley sighed heavily. “Because we were claim jumpers, breaking the law. I’m certain the authorities would have thought that we fought and I killed them, and I’d go to prison. Plus, I didn’t want to be responsible for sending more people in there who might get hurt. I got the message loud and clear. Stay out. Searchers wouldn’t have found bodies anyway. The Apemen would have made sure of that. Just like they won’t find this skier fella.”

Cooper flexed his hand to work out a writing cramp. He looked to the detectives and noted that they were impatiently waiting for a resolution.

“I’m certain with enough people with guns they can find his body safely. So, you think maybe his body is hanging in a tree where his camera case was found, or maybe in that cave?”

“Oh no,” Exley said matter-of-factly as he took a sip of water. “I’m certain the flying saucers took it.” 

“What?” Cooper said, blinking with surprise. 

“Flying saucers,” Exley explained calmly. “You know, like the kind that were seen over Mount Rainier a couple of years ago. They’re connected, you know, the Apemen and the flying saucers. Working together. They sanitized the area, taking the body.”

The bottom fell out of Cooper’s stomach. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his temples. He couldn’t believe he fell for this. Exley had been so convincing, so sincere.

“Flying saucers are piloted by Sasquatches?” Cooper all but growled.

Exley scoffed. “Oh no, don’t be silly. The Apemen aren’t that sophisticated. It’s like Bob said, the mountains in the Cascades, from Rainer to Saint Helens to Shasta and beyond are centers of mystic powers that shouldn’t be disturbed and are guarded by all manner of strange and wondrous creatures. As more people invade their space, I think we will be having more Sasquatch and flying saucer sightings.”

Harry and Raczynski were standing and throwing a tip on the table, looks of disgust on their faces. They didn’t waste any time leaving. 

Cooper stood and gathered his things. If he didn’t hurry, he was certain he would be left behind.

Exley became distressed and grabbed his arm. “You have to tell the story. You can’t let more people go in there. They won’t allow it. Something really bad will happen. There is already too many people trespassing. I heard they’re thinking about building houses up there someday. Houses!” 

Cooper tried to shake off the grip without making too much of a scene and only succeeded after prying the man’s fingers off. 

“With flying saucers, who knows what they can do with that kind of technology! They may just blow up the whole mountain to keep people out!”

Cooper cast one last long glare at the crazy man—wanting to vent his frustration—but thought better of it. He turned towards the door. 

“Mr. Smith, look,” Exley appealed one last time. 

Cooper couldn’t help but look. 

Exley pulled something out of his shirt that was hanging from a string.

It was a desiccated finger. Very long, ending in a claw-like nail. 

“You can have this one,” Exley said. “I have four more.” 

THE END