Burkett Thunderfoot and the Timber Giant

[Lord Zombiac]

(for my daughter, Lulu)

It happened on an uncommonly cold spring night a few years back, right after the big flood that took out eighteen bridges and swept a small cabin down the “river,” which amounted to a pretty substantial creek most of the year. Although the whole affair left an uncanny impression on me at the time, it gets harder and harder for me to remember it, as though none of it had really happened.

Middle aged, comfortable, and single, I have often spent the small hours of the morning reviewing strange events and remarkable things that my mind had quietly allowed to slip from me, impressive as those events had been. I had to remind myself, for example, that I’d seen some very faint lights one night, moving like bugs, far up in the sky. Most of the time, when UFO’s were brought up in conversation, I felt envious of those who could recount epic encounters and swear to the veracity of them. I tended to forget curious observations I myself had made. Sometimes I have shared remarkable experiences with others and remember them only when those persons bring them up in conversation.

The mind is a funny thing and sometimes a mundane mind will fixate on the mundane regardless of incredible events and memories.

Perhaps these are signs of dissociative personality disorder, but my mind tends to run through the clinical explanations first. That is an occupational hazard-- self psychoanalysis. In all likelihood it is just due to stress and repetition that my mind stubbornly clings to the ordinary and dull things of life. After all, ordinary life is stressful enough without pausing to realize the earth shattering implications of things one has experienced!

Why meeting Burkett Thunderfoot should seem so unreal and distant now continues to baffle me. I often review the whole event and assure myself that everything transpired in the remarkable way that it had. I am secure that I will not forget this wonder-- that is, until I put the whole affair aside and get up to wash dishes or make a run into the village for cat food, or any of the other mundane affairs which seem to have tapped my mind of any sense of wonder.

So I decided I had better write it all down, so that somebody else with a more vivid imagination, a more keen sense of curiosity, or a better perception of outright novelty can figure it all out themselves.

I work for the sheriff’s department as an on call psychologist, in order to sort out crisis events and evaluate the perpetrators. I was seldom called upon off hours and spent most of my time filing routine papers and corresponding on various missives sent back and forth between the county hospital and.the sheriff’s office. But at any time some crisis might come up and I’d be asked to evaluate some oddball character to determine whether that person aught to be taken to the hospital or to jail.

I remember that this all happened after the flood because I remember being surprised to learn that our little mountain village even had eighteen bridges to wash out in the first place. As luck would have it, I had wound up with a considerable number of building plans and documents that were being thrown away at an estate sale. These papers would have been of considerable interest to historians and civil engineers, but was nothing but junk to some poor architect’s daughter, who had lost her old dad and was overwhelmed by so many more important possessions of his.

It had suited my interests at the time, so I saved these old papers from the dust heap and barely gave them a second thought until the flood. It was after the flood that I’d come to the realization that in spite of my eighteen years here in Lincoln County, I had very little knowledge of the history and layout of this village. Even still, it was not until the following spring that I actually brought myself to study those papers one unseasonably cool spring night.

A review of the plans, once I’d been able to sort out how information had been indexed, proved far more engrossing than I had imagined. In these plans I saw the roots of the county’s first settlements, and places that had formerly been reserved for the native Apaches. I found surveyer’s charts to mining and logging camps, the old names of streets and well known old mills and ranches, and the original names of various mountains and canyons.

I had certainly picked a bad time to become engrossed in this stuff. The cool weather threw me off. The race track was open and tourists had come to bet on horses. The power went out, as it usually does at least once a year when out-of-towners overtaxed the grid in their rented cabins, hotel rooms, and vacation homes. So now I found myself hunched over by flickering candlelight, engrossed in the records of a time when Moon Mountain had been called Sackfurt mountain. It seemed to have an even older name than that-- in the margins I could see a handwritten scrawl, reading “Elber’s Mountain?”

I felt almost as though I were in a trance while studying the maps of the nearby peak. In the candle light rustic images from frontier days played in my mind like ghosts. Each tall tale that I’d heard about these mountains played in my mind with the vivid character of an opium dream.

It was spring, but it felt like winter, and if you don’t let your mind wander a bit in winter you could get cabin fever in these mountains.

It was exactly while noting that a cave on the mountain had been used tactically by some Apaches during one of the more bloody territorial disputes that I heard a knock on my door and took down a flashlight to go see who it was.

When I saw Deputy Hanks standing at my doorstep, I was actually more impressed by the realization that my phone had been off and charging during the blackout than by the odd little man Deputy Hanks had with him.

Bearded, oddly dressed, smelling of campfires and dirt, this was my first glance at Burkett Thunderfoot, whose moccasin garbed feet seemed half again too big, and whose nose seemed like a woody knob on some tree. The short fellow was about my age, but seemed somehow older, owing to his rather strange and antiquated clothing. The lines in his ruddy face seemed deeper than mine, and his deep set hazel eyes seemed to glimmer like nuggets of gold.

Feeling the need to compensate for lack of professional candor I said,“Sorry, my phone was nearly dead and I’d put it on the charger... what’s this all about, Doug?”

“Mushrooms,” replied Deputy Hanks, “enough magic mushrooms to gas out the whole county six times over. This guy seems pretty confused. Right off the bat, I’m thinking he’s dealing but he has no money and doesn’t seem aware of his surroundings.”

“So I’m to determine if he’s up to something, or just some confused hippy taking advantage of the State’s extremely tolerant laws on ceremonial hallucinogens,” I guessed. New Mexico is one of four states where natural psychedelics are legal for personal religious use, and the only state whose courts had ruled that you could cultivate them too, as long as they were strictly for personal use.

“Do you want to get dressed and accompany him to the hospital, or would you rather evaluate him here?” asked the Deputy, “I know you prefer staying at home, but the blackout...”

“He’s not violent, is he?” I asked.

“Well, actually, he’s been pretty mild mannered and doesn’t seem to have a clue as to the kind of trouble he could be in.”

“You’ll patrol, of course?” I asked, knowing that with the power outage, asking for a patrol might be overworking the poor deputy.

“Yeah, it isn’t as crazy out there as you might think,” responded Deputy Hanks, “This might sound a little funny but I feel a shocking lack of professional concern as to what happens to this guy. Well, really, take my word for it-- there’s something about him. I really could use a good opinion from our resident head shrinker.”

“Of course,” I replied, “I’m only too happy for the company. Mr. Thunderfoot, won’t you come in?”

The detainee flashed a big toothy grin at me and muttered some vague pleasantry as he lobbed his immense feet over my threshold.

“I’ll keep a tight patrol,” remarked the Deputy, as he turned to leave, “just in case.”

I thanked the deputy, closed the door and invited the guest into my study.

After calling him “Mr. Thunderfoot” a second time I got the expected reply of, “Ye can call me Burkett, thar, Mister!”

“Adam,” I replied, “Adam Griego, please call me Adam.”

When we had entered my study, and Burkett Thunderfoot took a seat, the lights came back on, as though they had been timed to do so. I looked at this guy. He could not have been more of an anachronism. I Almost expected him act startled-- like a person who had never seen an electric light before. Instead he wore a mused smile on his great bearded mug, as though he had thrown the power switch himself, for dramatic effect.

I flashed him a quick, uncertain smile and nudged open the bureau drawer to retrieve my pen and pad for notes.

“So,” I said, “let’s get started, can you tell me where you live or where you come from?”

“I live up top un thar mountain... suppose ye call it Sackfurt hill these days, I got me a farm in a southward ravine with a pool un lillies an a Injun princess fer a wife.”

“Can you give me a street address? You seem a bit out of the ordinary, for a local.”

“We never had no address up un thar,” Burkett replied, “ye can lookt it up somehow, I suppose, but ye won’t find it on thar maps. The whole mountain’s been pullt up. We took it off thar maps an hext it plum off un thar world.”

“Pulled up?” I asked, “what do you mean?”

“I mean zackly what I said, Adam. We pullt it up. We didn’t like thar way thar world was going an knowed we needt to leave it be fer other folks to sort out. We had ever thing we needt up thar, so we pullt it up with one un moh dear Firefountain’s Injun hexes.”

I began to note a few trends-- fantasy ideation, role transference and the like. I knew I’d have to translate his imagery into workable models in order to get behind his mask and find out who this man really was. In the meantime it seemed almost too pleasant to chat with him to bother with notes. I would use a little intuition and try to lead.

“Is Firefountain, your wife’s name?” I asked, “the Indian Princess?”

“Firefountain Skylake!” Burkett said solumnly, “near thirteen hunnert years old when I met hur. an still fresh as thar mornin dew. She’s a mute, but I come to unnerstant that she can talk when she don’t talk. I come to unnerstant hur gifts an powers. Hur people dite out long ago, some time before un white settlers ever come to hur people out Minnesota way. They whar weavers un fine cloth an thar folk kep mountain rilers fer pets. a delicate people they whar, deepy burgundy a hue, flesh, hair an all.

“Time way back she whar kitnapt by thar old timey folks from thar lost city in thar jungle down old Mexico way. They aimed to make hur a sacrifice, but a warrior un Cheery-Cowy Injuns happened to glance on hur and took to hur hart with a love as deep as moh own. He made a good showin, trying to rescya hur, but them whar thar times un thar walkin dead and he furfit his un life to get hur out un thar mayhem.”

“How did the dead come to rise up?” I asked, “her powers?”

“No,” replied Burkett, “It warnt nothin like that. Them folks a callt it up on thar selfs. It whar all thar years un murderin warrin an sacrifice that lef a haint on thar land. Come a day them ants ate an plum hollart out all thar dead bodies lef behint in thar woods, made thar hollar skins crawl an march an advance. Thar ants ain’t none too smart, Adam, but when a mess un them swarm, thar comes a bigger mind to em an a bigger un purpose. As thar bad Injuns sowt, thar lot un them reapt. Thar ants made them hollar bodies rise, an thar ants whar thar to guide them to proper rewards fer thar evil ways.”

I shuddered, thinking of how oddly anachronistic his knowledge was. Not for the first time would I pause in my note taking to wonder at some spell binding image. Only recently had scientists guessed at the complexity of the hive mind. I vividly imagined ants taking up in hollowed corpses, then animating those voiceless victims of tribal violence. The shock of the living dead and retribution on such a scale discomforted me. It is an uncanny feeling when something as overlooked as death filled jungles and hive minded army ants can make the walking dead seem plausible.

He continued, “Somewhar on hur way home she got lost, jest like me, lost in places nobody heert of, wanderin’ years, larnin’ mysteries an findin’ mighty powers. When she returnt home, she warnt ever thar same, mute, pale fleshed, an tetched with life everlastin!”

“Lost as you were?” I asked, noting a dynamic in his conversation from which I could draw no immediate implication, “how does one get lost in such a way?”

“That’d be thar work un thar yeller gills,” he replied, “ye eat thar wrong mushroom out in thar woods an ye can wander fer years, never to return or never thar same when ye do.”

“So are you immortal too, Mr. Thunderfoot?” I asked, leaning forward and reverting to a more formal way of addressing my guest.

He scowled. I guessed right away that I’d betrayed my intention of seeing past his incredible story. Try as I might to put my “patient” at ease, every sceptic can have a condescending moment.

“Ye would be dead wrong thar, mister!” he spat out, “when I come up from thar wanderin I fount I could do moh thunder-dance, from whar I got moh name! If ye want to see it, I can show ye. It whar thar first hexin I knowed an we can just walk outsite right now, if ye want to see fer yerself what I larnt.”

“I’m sorry, Burkett,” I said, “you needn’t give me a demonstration. How long ago was it you pulled up your mountain, may I ask, and why?”

This hit a nerve and Thunderfoot’s brow creased with some deep inner turmoil as his golden eyes seemed to mist over.

“We had a worter calendar and we seent things in it better not to have seent.”

“A water calendar?” I asked.

Thunderfoot pointed at my laptop, which had remained powered during the blackout and which still had a display up.

“By moh reckoning thar contrapshin are near thar same thing, only ours is made from shiny rocks in clear worter, shadows un special trees markin numbers such as I may conjur by workin cyphers and spells. a worter caldendar tolt us thar world whar changin. It whar nineteen hunnert an twenty when we knowed we couldn’t stay in thar world no more. Thar whar a deemond whar done conjured. Way back un Roman days it whar conjured but now it growed too strong. Contrapshins an industry. A seducin’ lie that whar whispered to folks long ago-- and they ain’t never been right since! Ye believe these contrapshins serve ye, but they don’t. They control ye, Adam! They put ye to work fer them! They promise ye more than ye could ever want an spoon feed ye thar dregs un what they can purdoose. They killt thar woods an made all thar wondrous critters hide. They kept away thar true spirits fer thar false one, thar spirit ye toil fer, Adam, did ye but knew! And a right spirit it is too, though folk had long fergotten its name, so deeply did they foller thar lie callt progress!

“Adam, moh pore lost child, who lives so close to thar woods but ain’t can’t tell thar wampus tracks, or reckon proper thar sound un thar teakettler! I had me a cabin up thar, with a cat un named Kersnash an a wellspring un sweet, pure worter. I had many visiters most folk ud never seent in a hunnert hunnert years, man, critter, an spirit! We even larnt thar name un yore slavemaster, who spoilt thar Arth and made its wonder and magic take run! Thar spirit is un named Gridshattler, an it shits poison an breathes fire! It steals chiltruns an orphinks! It murders thar holy ones, blinds thar eyes to thar signs un a dyin Arth, a bleak Arth to come whar ever face is a stranger’s. Whar food only kills ye real slow an makes ye more stupid an fat an slave-like. Ye all whar chasin thar bobbuls that Gridshattler placed before ye. With narry a complaint, ye solt off un yore souls to claim such cheap things!”

Thunderfoot’s emotions were high now. His eyes had a lost, forlorn look.

“It sounds as though you were very wise to pull up the mountain, Burkett. Why did you come back? How did you get here? Did you pull your mountain back down?”

This meant more to Burkett than he was telling. I didn’t care what impression I made on him. I leaned forward very obviously. Loss resounded in his eyes when next he spoke.

“Once ye pull up a mountain, it ain’t can’t never be pullt back down,” he muttered. I could have sworn I saw a puff of frost on his breath. His hands and his body grew still, and his eyes showed the signs of a deep trance.

“Thar caves-- now theys under ground so them don’t count. Ye can always travel a cave, foller it ever-whar, like thar Injuns an thar timber giants done. Surely folks still talk un timber giants, I reckon?”

I got the idea to turn quickly to my laptop. The word struck a memory of something I had read. I did a quick search and presented my guest with an artistic rendering of a saquatch.

“This?” I asked.

Burkett nodded. Evidently he was displeased at the depiction of sasquatch among other cryptids.

“Timber giants ain’t critters. They’s people. thar Injuns say they go int caves nobody knowed of an travel coast t’ coast all under are feet!”

I had another one of those uncanny moments. Science had recently discovered that many deep cavern systems were actually connected, from as far away as Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave to New Mexico’s own Carlsbad caverns. I’d always thought that the most obvious proof that sasquatch didn’t exist was a lack of dead bodies and no evidence of a sustainable population. Now I could imagine some cleaver hominid ape taking their dead deep into sacred places beneath the earth, The image of a subterranian race of giants under my feet seemed somehow quite possible.

“Chilliwhack whar a timber giant,” said my entranced visitor, his voice heavy and eerie, “an nobody knowed what made him so mean or why he whar trapped in Apache country. Maybe some miners blowed up his un way out. Well he stayed here in are mountains, an he hates me. Oh he hates me powerful an ud killt me if he ever gets thar chance. So when I saw Parlee’s eyes get clouded an blind I knowed it whar time to pull up thar mountain, an try to keep Parlee with us.”

I’d seen the expression on his face before, that heart wrenching face of utter loss that made me glad I was single and never settled down with a family.

“Pearl... is that her name? Pearl was your daughter?”

“My Parlee...” he whispered, “oh she’d been dullt up by Gridshattler an got all cloudy eyed. She could no longer see thar youth un hur mother or mohself, nar see what I larnt hur to see in thar woods. I begged hur stay with us. I tolt hur as much as she could unnerstant, but it seemt to go past hur. Can’t ye see I’m over a hunnert years old, child? I cry’t, Oh Pappy, she said as she turnt to leave, if yore right, then I need to be in thar world, here with un my friends, to try to save thems. If it turns out yore true, I’ll be back an I’ll bring em here to live as folks whar meant to live on this Arth. Of course now, when she said it, it done sount more like yore way un talkin.”

One of our famous gusts of early spring wind shook the house a little while the grave little man sat completely still and spellbound.

“I didn’t have thar heart to tell hur thar only way back whar thar cave that whar home to my only enemy, that God damnt Chilliwhack! A curse on thar timber giant!”

“So,” I proceeded cautiously, “how did you manage to use that cave to return to our world... and why? It seems as though you’d found Eden on Sackfurt mountain... why leave? It has been nearly a hundred years since you relinquished your daughter, surely she must be...”

I caught myself and buried the word “dead” deep inside.

“...very old, Burkett. She must be too old ever to return.”

For his part, Burkett did not seem to notice my question. He went on with his tale, although his opening words did indicate he had heard something of what I had said.

“Near a hunnert years its been,” he said, “in that time I whopped and wrastled Chilliwhack down three times, but plum near whar killt each an ever time. Mr. Adam Griego, I can unnerstant ever word a mute Injun princess says. I can holt conversation with man, critter, or spirit. I can find rare mushrooms like rude custard worts or barber’s poles. I can do moh thunder-dance an plenty un other hexin I larnt... but I reckon thar one thing I ain’t can’t do is lick a timber giant in a fiss fight.”

I remembered the decanter of Wild Turkey 101 I kept in my study and reminded myself that this man, strange as he appeared, was effectively my houseguest, and perhaps could use a stiff drink at this point.

“Whiskey, Burkett? I must caution you, it is very strong.”

Burkett Thunderfoot shook off his gloom and reached for the shot I’d poured him.

“It’s been many a year I ain’t tasted thar whisky. Thank ye!”

“You miss it, no doubt,” I said, watching him down the shot and pouring myself one, just in time to refill his shot glass.

“I miss it scant little, but I miss it enough to be mighty happy fer thar taste. My spotted-redbonnet tea gets my goat out considerable better than this here moonshine.”

I took my shot. No doubt a “spotted redbonnet” was some sort of herb or mushroom.

“Just to let you know,” I said, “those mushrooms of yours have been confiscated. You can’t get them back. In most of the country it is against the law to even possess them.”

Burkett seemed surprised for the first time, “Against thar law to have a mushroom? Why them blue-gently-nows are thar surest barter a traveler might have handy!”

“Yes, I’m afraid they are quite frowned upon in our society today,” I said.

A look of agony overwhelmed Burkett’s features, causing his lower lip to tremble. It looked as though this “deemond” Gridspattler had struck his very heart with a cold and bitter dagger.

“A beautful thing like that?” he cried in pain and bewilderment, “ a natural thing un such wonder as a blue-gently-now? Ye see thar? Thar’s a powerful sign that old Gridspattler’s not let up an inch un his hold on thar world! Ain’t nobody even questioned why thar Arth should be so dark an miserble? Why there should be war an race prejudicst? Why some folks ud whoop a mollycoddle half to death, an not even ask if they was themself so differnt from that mollycoddle they done killt? ”

“Some have,” I said wearily, thinking of my sister the hippy, who had vanished many years ago on some idealistic quest. I mused for a moment if it could be true that man in fact had no lower nature? That perhaps these injustices were all inspired by some horrendous devil conjured by man when he had first attempted to tame nature with machinery?
To be certain, I restated my case that psychedelic mushrooms were by and large against the law and he could by no means use them to barter with. This somehow caused an unexpected twinge of loss in some distant part of my soul.

Burkett remained unperturbed.

“No matter, I made moh way in thar world before an I can do it again, sure!”

“I still don’t understand why you left all that behind,” I pressed.

“Oh that,” he moaned with a degree of weariness, “well t’whar a fortnight ago we seent some cow-goose tracks an moh darlin Firefountain set off to see if it would give hur a little un thar goose milk fer cheeze an butter an such. Well she turnt up mighty quick from thar hike! She whar plum too excited fer me to even unnerstant hur. I just follered hur to thar other side un thar ridge until I could see fer myself what got hur so workt up. It whar thar trumpacoot tree, that whar growin all by itself, young an strugglin fer many a year. Well, it done sprouted a branch, pretty as ye ever could see. Now trumpacoots is very rare and seldom ever grow a branch. But when thar do, ye couldn’t ask fer no better weapon than a trumpacoot branch! One thunk on thar noggin an most folks is too dazed to do nothin’ but sit and collect thar wits fer days. Fer timber giants, it’s even worser. One thunk an thar lucky if they can come to thar senses in even a year! By that time, anyone can give em another whack anytime they please. It right petrifies em!”

The whiskey put me in a more playful mood, “No that, I’m sure, is a figure of speech! It would not literally petrify one.”

“Right ye are!” he said with a wink and a happy sigh.

“So you chopped down this branch...”

“No, no!” muttered Burkett, “ye should never take an axe to a tree as rare an wonnerful as thar trumpacoot! Ye got to sing fer it. Sing a song as ud move thar tree to gift ye it’s branch, such as it drops like a mighty wooden teardrop, fer all thar woods to share.”

“So you sang it, your great sorrow, your loss... oh but don’t you know? Surely she must be... very old indeed!”

“Maybe,” replied Burkett, “ye see, ever year when I get thar strongest spotted redbonnets I make such a fine sun tea as many spirits come from distant worlds to have a glass with Jolly old Burkett Thunderfoot an his wonnerful wife Firefountain Skylake. Well, one year I had a sprite come to share moh cups-- a sprite that lives in thar sky an travels with a flash un colored lightening. This warnt no ordernary sprite none, neither but t’was old Elber hisself, whar thar mountain un got its earliest name from. Elber shairt are company an made merry with us. We feasted an drank an he had no better a time ever, had he consented to step on thar Arth. So then come Elber a great sprite king so well pleased he promised me anything in his power to grant.

“Well right away I think un thar star cup, a mushroom so rare maybe four ever been seent by human eyes in all thar Arth’s lifetime! But not so rare would thar star cups be to sprites, that live in thar sky an many times travel to far worlds beyond thar stars.

“Now a star cup comes out on un moonless night, whar fairy folk dance an worter is so lively it can run uphill. Thar yarrow must be in bloom and thar owl must be asleep at night! Only then will thar pale blue stem peak from thar arth, an thar sparklin, cracklin fiery cup spread out to catch thar song un thar nightingale.

“Well, sir, should ever a human being taste un thar star cup, they’ll turn to chiltruns again, an never grow old an never ever die. This whar long ago and I thought maybe Parlee had already gone to hur reward. Still I asked it. Elber, fine an mighty king un thar sprites that live in thar sky! Would ye look to moh Parlee, wharever she be, and show hur to thar star cups... let hur remember, however old she may be and however thar Gridspattler may have done killt hur soul, to remember just one thing that I larnt hur and let hur eat of thar star cup!”


“So you’re here, now that you’ve presumably bested the timber giant, to go searching for your daughter Pearl.”

“It whar a long fight, mister. It took a bit un moh strength I may never get back, but I done it. I licked Chilliwhack. An as long as there’s call to come int thar world again, I’ll keep him licked an keep him petrified until he gets old an white an blows away in thar wind like a no good heap un sun parched thistledown!”

I poured us each another drink and raised my shot glass in a toast, “Here’s to Chilliwhack, then, Burkett! May he dry up and blow away in the wind!”

“Salut, Senior Griego!” said Burkett, surprising me with his Spanish, that was considerably better than his English, “Chilliwhack puede secarse!”

We drank our toast and I looked at my notebook, long since unmarked, but bearing a few rather unkind remarks such as “paranoid schizophrenic.” It seemed wrong somehow to look at this brilliantly mad person and not humor him a bit more.

“Perhaps I can help you search for Pearl with my water calendar,” I indicated my laptop with a gesture, “will you permit me to do a quick search?”

“Yessir, ye may!” said Burkett, “an ask it to look fer Skylake-- fer thar Injun maidens un Firefountain’s folk passed down thar family name from thar mother’s side.”

I did an image search, using the term “Skylake” and was surprised to get a good match to a group of young hippies sitting on a grassy hill beside a painted van that they had likely lived in.

I hadn’t looked closely at the picture yet, but gestured for Burkett to examine the image himself.

There this rough hewn mountaineer let out a gasp and tears fell from his cheeks.

“moh girl! moh Parlee! Young an rosey cheeked as ever a sixteen year old may be! Oh them sparklin black eyes an thar sweet red skin, red as hur mother’s should have been afore she whar changed pale! Oh thar happy child so full un song an wonder! Restored to me! moh child! moh child that made hur way in thar world an went about to doin what she done promised she’d do.”

The poor man returned to his seat and quietly fought to keep from weeping his joy in anything louder than a low murmur.

But I felt it, I felt as though he might as well be wailing with all his heart in great peels of joyous sobbing. I felt it myself, for in examining the picture, I saw the face and confirmed the names-- Zack, Shyla, Skylake, Dunce, Rose-Hip, Marie, and Pill-bug!

Pill-bug! Her’s was a face I scarcely believed I was looking upon that night.

“Pilar!” I sighed, “me hermana Pilar!”

How happy they all looked, all steeled against the establishment, ready to topple Gridspattler himself with their love of all things green and natural, ready to take on the world, ready to find their hippy garden.

The profundity of the experience shook me. I had to think this through repeatedly. I had to let it sink in that his daughter and my sister were friends. I could not help, at least for the time being, but to believe every word that this mentally unbalanced vagrant had told me.

“Listen,” I said, “you’d better turn in and get some sleep. I think I can get my friends in the sheriff’s department to let you go on your way-- but no mushrooms! It isn’t safe to travel with them! There are places where the authorities won’t be so understanding, and you’ll rot in some prison, in the bowels of that devil Gridspatter himself! If what you say is true than all the prisons of the world are his intestines. If what you say is true, there isn’t much time left for any of us before we all become part of the machine.”

Burkett nodded, a bit more steady now. I gasped a few deep breaths to steady myself, surprised at how much I’d been carried away.

“I plum fergot how sleepy thar whisky makes me, moh friend Adam. If ye would show me to bed, I’ll get started on moh search tomorrow.”

Still a little out of my wits and doubting my reason, I led him to the guest room and stood in the doorway until he was supine and ready for bed.

“Burkett,” I whispered to him, “if you find them, and if there is someone there named Pill bug... will you come back and let me see her?”

Burkett didn’t care to guess why I’d have asked this, he simply nodded groggily and muttered his agreement to do this for me.

I stayed up a little later than Burkett Thunderfoot did that night. I had to put some distance between the story I’d been told and what the facts had surely been. Transference. He had projected the persona of his daughter Pearl onto this group of hippies. It was mere coincidence that my sister had been among those nature children. I had already forgotten such inconvenient facts such as this “daughter” calling herself “Skylake,” a name which the crazy wanderer had uttered many times. Skylake seemed like something maybe a hundred hippies might call themselves. The young girl in the picture was probably a plump old hen right now, working in some animal shelter and shopping at whole foods to entertain artist friends who may have already given up many of their high minded, youthful dreams.

When I had convinced myself-- to a bare thread of reason-- of what the truth doubtlessly was, I took my phone off the charger, powered it up, and called Doug Hanks.

“Doug, he’s asleep now. I let him think he’ll be free to go about his way tomorrow. I don’t think he’s dangerous, but I think he’d better be put under observation at the hospital and medicated until we can find out where he lives and send him home.”

“Well do you want me to pick him up now?” asked Deputy Hanks.

“That won’t be necessary. I think he trusts me, and he got pretty tipsy and conked out. I say leave him to whatever wonderful magical dreams he may be having. You can pick him up in the morning... but keep patrolling,” I added, “I wouldn’t want any harm to come to this old crackpot.”

“Don’t tell anyone I said this,” remarked Deputy Hanks, “but he’s kind of a lovable old coot, ain’t he?”

“He is at that,” I replied, “I almost wish I could believe him.”

I went to bed rather taken with weariness myself, such as good company, strong drink and fabulous tales are wont to cause. It had been thrilling to see how strong the effect of this story had been and how close I had come to believing something so brilliantly mad...

Still there was my sister, Pilar to think about. I would search for more now that I knew her “hippy name.”

So I sank into a dream filled slumber full of mushrooms, fairies, and Native American women. I could hear, in my dreams, the striking of axes on logs and see the lush green of the forest floor. I could smell yarrow and touch the cool dewy leaves of mullein. Birds thrilled their life’s song into a pristine sky and I stood on a mountain to see a wondrous world. Below my gaze in all directions the earth had been freed of the tyrant called Gridspattler. There they laughed and frolicked in sparkling cool rivers and under kind sunshine or on thick mats of dewy grass in rocky woodland grottoes. People of all races and creeds, happy and loving.

It was a wonderful dream. It shocked me to awaken from it so sharply as I did; to the sound of an incredible blast. The turmoil shook my windows like a sonic boom and made my heart race as though it had been a gunshot. It rumbled quietly in the distance like... thunder.

Alarmed, I sprang out of bed and went to the guest room, only to find an empty bed. Before I had time to think, I heard a knock on the door.

Running briskly to the door, still trying to assimilate my dreams while desperately trying to get a hold of the situation, I opened the door and saw Louise Cheboi. Deputy Cheboi stood there with a look of concern on her dark, brassy face. Deputy Cheboi had relieved Deputy Hanks of his patrol, apparently, and was here to respond to the blast.

“Is everything alright, Mr. Griego?” she asked me, hardly a trace of Kenyan in her accent.

“No,” I muttered, “that crazy vagrant that was picked up for mushrooms is not in bed and I only just got up to check.”

“The sound came from behind your house,” the deputy said, “is there a chance he might have taken a fire arm from the premises?”

“No,” I said, “I keep them locked up unless there’s a few known trouble makers looking for me. Sheriff Garret insists that I keep them. Nasty things, guns. I’d sooner do without them.”

“We’ll go look behind your house,” said Deputy Cheboi, “let me go first.”

She unsnapped the clasp on her holster and took out her gun, returning it loosely to the holster after taking off the safety. Her hand never left it and she gestured with her head for me to follow. I left the door open. My heart was pounding and I still hadn’t properly oriented to the early morning world outside of dreams.

I seemed to float in a partial daze until we found our way behind the house where I saw the oversized footprint stomped fairly six inches into hard earth, smoke still wafting from within.

An odd thought struck me. How lucky I had been not to insist Burkett demonstrate why he was called “Thunderfoot” last night. I might have missed so much of his story had he simply taken my scepticism as an insult and left.

“Do you have any idea what that is?” asked Louise.

I shook my head solumnly.

“I’m inclined to say no, although I have some inkling what’s going on. There’s no point in looking for Burkett Thunderfoot, deputy. He’s gone, and I don’t think we’ll see him again.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. Every time I think about what happened, I’m astonished that I saw what I saw and learned what I had. There will always be things that I can never guess at, and it shakes me to my foundations every time I try.

But the mind is a funny thing, so I carry on as though my life was devoid of any wonder or magic, as though all the incredible things that happened in my life were just afterthoughts. I’d marvel for a time or two, and to be sure I have often pondered what had become of Burkett Thunderfoot and why he had never returned. Perhaps he never found my sister, but everything else had gone as planned. Or perhaps he had failed. I would never know.

There is one thing I do, from time to time to try to keep from forgetting, to try to keep that sense of awe alive. I’ve looked into demonology and know there is power in the names of spirits, if such things exist. Every time I try to keep reminded of how incredible that encounter really was, I’ll call out “Gridspattler.”

Sometimes a light will flicker or a car alarm will go off. These things could all be coincidence, but I thought I’d better put it all down here, so that you can decide for yourself.

[Linna Heartbooger]

I LOVE the character of Burkett Thunderfoot!
(Can I make my own pun and say, "What a FUN GUY to hear from"?
I enjoy his rustic voice - I love the way he talks as though he expects various things he says to be obvious.

“I mean zackly what I said, Adam. We pullt it up. We didn’t like thar way thar world was going an knowed we needt to leave it be fer other folks to sort out. We had ever thing we needt up thar, so we pullt it up with one un moh dear Firefountain’s Injun hexes.”

A lot of Adam's decisions as he's having the counseling session with Burkett (and how he thinks about it afterwards) make him a plausible POV-character. The rationalizing away the whole experience when he's away from the old dude... isn't that just what people do?

I think I got so attached to "the way things were going to go" that this surprise betrayal was like a knife being twisted in the gut.

When I had convinced myself-- to a bare thread of reason-- of what the truth doubtlessly was, I took my phone off the charger, powered it up, and called Doug Hanks.

“Doug, he’s asleep now. I let him think he’ll be free to go about his way tomorrow. I don’t think he’s dangerous, but I think he’d better be put under observation at the hospital and medicated until we can find out where he lives and send him home.”

There's more that I love in this story, and I do have some suggestions for things to change - if you're interested in hearing more, let me know, LZ!