The Ridgewalkers: When Legend Becomes an Encounter

By Greg Walter

Life-saving Coast Guard missions. Hunting for a century-old treasure. Exploring the Pacific Coastal mountains. The legend of Bigfoot—and an astonishing showdown involving hired hunters, a sinister collector, the U.S. government . . . and a magical, otherworldly twist. High adventure, legend and magical realism sweep together in The Ridgewalkers, the riveting novel of Alex Boldway, and his actions that lead to a climactic showdown rife with danger, rescue, heroism . . . and an enduring environmental message from the beings he protects.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Books Press
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781941799826

Greg Walter

GREG WALTER is an entrepreneur, research historian and U.S Coast Guard and Merchant Marine veteran who spends most of his time hiking trails throughout the Pacific Coast. He has a keen interest in the history and mapping of our public lands. His historical collection numbers into the thousands. The Ridgewalkers is his first novel.

Book preview

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Darkness descended from the last minutes of light. It is the time of power, the thin red line. The hunter reloaded after firing several rounds into a fast-moving shape holding a child. Cynthos was hit with a dart while shielding the child, protecting him as she collapsed in a small thicket of brush.

Myceium was also injured when a bullet ricocheted off a rock and hit her. The attackers on the ridge held a tactical advantage.

Curt, directed his men with clear commands. He still had two tranquilizer darts he could fire from his rifle.

Saxono wove through the forest and brush, quickly approaching the ridge. He sprinted across an open area, closing in on the rock outcrop above him where the gunmen were. Suddenly, he felt the sting of a dart and then a second. Curt’s aim was true, yet Saxono kept approaching until Kelly fired off several rounds, grazing his head and hitting both legs.

Saxono was pinned next to a log as the drug slowly began taking effect. He used his last remaining energy to get to a hidden place before he collapsed.

Pat pressed his mike. Jed’s KIA, approaching threat, out.

I jumped up, ran and grabbed the Glock pistol laying on the ground. My Coast Guard training came back to me in a flash. I flattened out, shooting in the direction of the attacker in military gear, forcing him behind cover. I fired two more rounds, pinning him down.

On the ridgeline, Curt and Kelly momentarily hung back because of limited visibility. The thump, thump, thump of rotor blades from a helicopter whirled in the distance, getting louder as it approached. The full moon sat above the ridgeline, rising into the night sky.

Back on the ridge, Curt talked excitedly in his headset. Secure perimeter, and prepare for package lift in five minutes.

I never thought I would find myself again in a survival mode from the recent boat incident.

—From Ridgewalkers

the

Ridgewalkers

The Story of a Man, a Sasquatch, The Little People,

and the Portending of a Global Calamity

A Fictional Story based on True Events

Greg Walter

Open Books Press

Saint Louis, Missouri

Copyright © 2020 Greg Walter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Open Books Press, USA

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An imprint of Pen & Publish, LLC

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Print ISBN: 978-1-941799-81-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-941799-82-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020913743

Illustration on page v from The Fairy Mythology by Thomas Keightley (George Bell & Sons, 1892).

All other illustrations by Greg Walter.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to give special thanks to all that encouraged me to accomplish this.

Extending special thanks to Robert Yehling and Alexa Black Tabor at Word Journeys Literary Services for their careful eye to detail and literary experience in making the whole process seamless and successful. My deepest gratitude.

A salute in thanks to Andreas and the U.C. San Bernardino Veterans Writers Group.

I also want to extend a special thanks to the Illinois Valley community in Southwest Oregon, my place of inspiration.

To Mom, who worried, with pride.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to those with a deep love of the natural world.

Also, I extend this to all of our native brethren and their timeless wisdom towards giving thanks and caring for the land.

The Fairy Mythology by Thomas Keightley

Contents

Chapter 1     To Ma, Who Worried

Chapter 2     Growing Up

Chapter 3     Boot Camp

Chapter 4     Road Trip

Chapter 5     Spirit Quest

Chapter 6     The Coast Guard

Chapter 7     Deanna

Chapter 8     The Friday the 13th Storm

Chapter 9     Ben

Chapter 10   On My Own

Chapter 11   Mushrooms

Chapter 12   Flashback into a Lead

Chapter 13   Treasure Story

Chapter 14   The Treasure Hunt

Chapter 15   Deanna Joins the Quest

Chapter 16   Fishing Boat

Chapter 17   Alaska

Chapter 18   State Prison

Chapter 19   Lazarus

Chapter 20   Options/Planning

Chapter 21   The October Hunters

Chapter 22   Lazarus Meeting

Chapter 23   The Ridgewalkers

Chapter 24   Decisions, Planning on TeeGarden

Chapter 25   Alaska Fishing Change of Heart

Chapter 26   Jeh-Geh-Oh, The Small People

Chapter 27   Change, Walking Ridges

Chapter 28   Native Peoples: The Spirit Doctor

Chapter 29   The Journey, The Salamander

Chapter 30   The Hunters

Chapter 31   The Encounter, Part Two: The Ridgewalkers

Chapter 32   Apprentice Runners

Chapter 33   The Full Moon

Chapter 34   Fight

Chapter 35   Skelons

Chapter 36   Meltdown

Chapter 37   TeeGarden

Chapter 38   The Encounter: Aftermath

Chapter 39   Sygnos

Chapter 40   Ashland Run

Chapter 41   Portal

Chapter 42   Suburban Left

Chapter 43   Six Months Later

Chapter 44   Passing the Bottle

Chapter 45   Treasure

Epilogue       Message and Engagement from a Kilwe

chapter 1

To Ma, Who Worried

Abyssal darkness lay beyond the back deck floodlights of the fishing trawler Rebecca Irene as it worked near Unimak Pass, which separated the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea. We were headed north, back to Dutch Harbor, just after midnight. While finishing my duties in the galley, I wanted to check in with the skipper. I ascended the stairs leading up to the wheelhouse and found him seated in the Captain’s chair, looking tense, the lit end of a cigarette between his crumpled fingers. The cigarette appeared pointed at me as sheets of rain pelted all the windows, the wind a persistent, deep low howl. The dark wheelhouse moved in the fits and rolls of an unruly ocean, illuminated only by an array of electronics around the radar screen, which displayed our position.

I poked my head above a cabinet on the upper steps. Cap’n, got a plate for you down here if you’re hungry.

Thanks Alex, be down in a few minutes.

The orange cigarette end brightened as he pulled from it in the darkness. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air. The skipper was always on edge, especially on nights like this. He was thin, about five foot five, with curly black hair. He needed a shave.

Before I stepped back down, I noticed the outside mast navigation lights displayed the green over white, trawling at night light configuration. The seas were thirty feet, and the wind blew from the north at sixty knots. Rough seas were not ideal conditions for bottom fishing, but the 1995 cod season was closing the next day in the area we trawled, so we would be required to move.

A new first mate came aboard, relieving the Captain of the watch. He went downstairs for a late dinner and some much-needed rest. I handed the skipper his plate and he thanked me and stepped into his stateroom. I still had cleanup duties ahead.

An hour later, around midnight, the deckhands tried hauling in a large net bag of bottom fish, but the net got stuck on something along the sea floor. The straining cables could be heard and felt on the back deck as the waves under the boat first slackened and tightened the cables, pulling into the winch drums. It began dragging the boat backward, right into a large swell. The back hatch was open after crew members dumped a net of fish below deck; the processors are working hard and fast to get the load put into the freezer on the lowest deck, running athwart from port to starboard.

Earlier, Gina, the factory foreman, met with the processors and was showed how to do this. Do a good job and speedo, dammit! It’s important to stack the frozen fish boxes in the freezer hold a certain way once they were gutted, cleaned and plastic wrapped. The boxes must be distributed evenly, port and starboard so nothing could shift, causing the trawler to list, or lean to one side or the other, increasing the chance of capsizing the boat and we become food for the fish, not the other way around. You morons don’t screw this up, or we die! Then my ghost will come back and haunt your ghost hard, you hear me! Crystals of ice clung to her lips and hoodie. The freezer hold was a bone cold place.

She sure knew how to drive a point home, adamant with anyone working in the freezer hold. That amounted to everyone new to the boat, except engineers and the skipper.

I was finishing up in the galley. The back-deck access door was also open, so deckhands could grab a snack if there was time. I heard splashing that sounded close, so I dogged the door closed in case water splashed up and into the galley. No sooner had I closed it when a wave rushed forward, the door preventing water from entering the upper deck into the galley and staterooms. This wave was just the leftover water; the main swell rushed into the open aft hatch and flooded the lower deck into the fish processing area. The boat began listing to one side, everything flying at me, the lights flickering as the vessel started to flip. I stood sideways on a bulkhead, hanging on inside the galley.

Everything went dark. My life flashed before me. I had been in a similar situation years before while in service for the country off the Oregon Coast.

This is it.

chapter 2

Growing Up

Istood five feet and growing, another wave of the baby boom in Southern California with shoulder-length dark hair, bleached slightly from years on the swim team. Living in that great social experiment called suburbia, I developed a love of our natural world, brought on by my mother, who took both my brother and me on weekend Audubon field trips. My favorite pet among many was a Pacific Giant Salamander. His mottled gray-brown color and calm, beautiful eyes drew me in. There was at least one time where he looked right into me as if saying, I see you. It was unnerving and beautiful at the same time.

Outdoor schools gave me more exposure as I grew an even deeper love for all things in our natural world. Among many skills, I really took to interpreting topographic lines on a map and an innate ability to read landscapes. This skill would help me to never get completely lost, anywhere. Within this was a skill set of being able to find and follow the faintest of trails, spotting trail cairns or stacked rocks, and how the trails traversed the landscape tied with interpreting maps, bringing it all together.

My other early skills included the art of making very small fires with a single match in a carefully made fire ring, if a fire was even necessary. Scotty, one of my instructors during the Outward Bound Schools, taught, "Bedding at the nighttime arrival and getting up slightly before daybreak also gets you into the rhythm of nature and making a fire unnecessary. It’s an old adaptation to get up with the birds. Scotty also pointed out, A fire lets every living wild creature know you are there because they can smell smoke from a long way off. It’s best to blend into the natural surroundings rather than stand out, especially at night. Yet, in some places and situations, a fire is good."

Another practice I learned was to never camp near open water sources, especially springs. Not only can they be considered sacred, but there was the importance of not polluting or disturbing the spring. Following these guidelines and sage advice aided me on the footpaths of many trails, with camping and survival skills used regularly.

I had a companion during my junior high school years, Curtis, my older cousin by four years. Curtis lived with us while his parents worked on offshore oil rigs in Alaska. Curtis stood a head above me, his frame lanky, his hair dark brown. We became friends, with a streak of a family rivalry. We both shared a love of the great outdoors, hiking, and exploring the nearby mountains and deserts. Curtis’s camping experience was different from my own. It came from his father, who served in the Army in Korea, then the Marines, then back into the Army. Perhaps this was why Curtis seemed to love hunting or killing, while I preferred to enjoy and learn from nature.

I felt much different from Curtis. I was the one who always carried a bit of a paunch belly, slightly overweight, but still able to move with grace and purpose on hikes. Curtis was in better muscular shape, but didn’t like roughing it in the woods.

He did like to shoot, though. One time, I protested when Curtis tried to shoot an owl. I pushed his arm when he was pulling the trigger, allowing time for the owl to take flight. Curtis decked me and pointed the gun at me. I do what I want. Don’t ever disrupt my shot or tell me what to do!

I stood up, brushed myself off—and stood my ground.

Oddly, at that moment, from behind Curtis, an odd, large dark shadow with ice-grey eyes moved past . . . then was gone. It was so fast, a fleeting vision of something . . . something I somehow thought I might see again.

The attempted owl killing caused a rift between us. I knew I never wanted to confront him with a gun in his hands. I was hurt. I took it with stride, though I don’t think I ever forgave him. He loved to fight, and it just seemed like the rest followed. After those months, we fell out of touch. While I was starting high school, Curtis enlisted in the Army at age 17, like his father before him.

A few years later, during my own senior year, I was going nowhere with my life. My father, George, stepped in and decided that it was in my best interest to join the U.S. Coast Guard.

On the drive to the recruiting office in Long Beach, outside Los Angeles, I realized my father wanted to instill pride in me. I was a bit of a feral kid, having politely dumped my girlfriend and getting in over my boundaries, so a nudge towards patriotism was in order.

I enlisted in the Army in December 1945 when I turned 17 years old, my Dad said. Your uncle Leo joined the Army at age 17 in 1950, stepping into Korea, part of the 24th infantry. Your grandfather enlisted at age 16, serving 26 years in the U.S. Navy through two world wars and a nationalist uprising in China. Alex, my own veteran’s story don’t amount to much as I was 17, just like you, but I joined up right after World War Two in December, 1945. Hiroshima was bombed five months before, and my time in the Army was spent mopping up from past battles on Okinawa and elsewhere in the Pacific.

He paused. However, do you know much about your Grandpa? His voice was crisp.

No, grandpa never told me, but maybe I just never asked, not sure why. I paused to wonder just what did he see in that World War Two?

As he was driving, Dad recalled what he knew, creating in me a new sense of pride in the service to which I was about to commit the next four years of my life. Your grandpa, after twenty years of naval duty, was called back from the reserves to sign up for the duration of the war starting in 1940, he said. "Throughout his entire career, he mostly served aboard destroyers. This continued because old veterans like him were needed to show many new officers the skills