Willow Creek

By Ric Daly

It was a low-pitched growl, without tone and sounding almost like a rapid series of clicks, as if saying, "I belong here and you don't." They turned and looked but couldn't see anything-no creature, no shape or form. Just an unfocused image of space. Unseen things, like the things that go bump in the night, can run away with our perceptions and nurture imaginations and feed fears. The situation in which he now found himself was unnerving, to say the least. Wil realized they had come up against the very thing he'd been looking for while fearing he'd find it. The African Rift wasn't just the site of a horrifying discovery; it's the gulf between belief and unbelief, the division between accepted "fact" and fundamental truth and a challenge to understand who we are. In this second installment in the Rift hominid series, the action moves from the African Rift to northern California. And we are brought to new discoveries-discoveries that lead our team into tragedy and a deeper understanding of where they fit into God's creation, of learning that unbelief doesn't change what is. And that Truth, indeed, trumps popular "facts."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 27, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642987379

Ric Daly

Ric Daly wrote "The Rift", "Willow Creek" and "Cold Trail" following a thirty-year career teaching high school sciences (physics, chemistry, earth/space, oceanography, biology, research), geography and algebra in Minnesota, Arizona and Florida. He has been recognized as a leading authority on science education, presenting workshops in that capacity at national, state and district levels. He is also an accomplished artist in various mediums and photography and has displayed his work in galleries in Arizona, Florida, Iowa and Minnesota. When he’s not writing or painting he may be found riding his bicycle or in his car traveling America’s highways. While home is the Florida coast, he currently resides in northern Minnesota. He is a committed Christian and is currently writing an inspirational collection of autobiographical essays, "The Road Behind Me".

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Willow Creek

Ric Daly

Copyright © 2018 Ric Daly

All rights reserved

First Edition

Page Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64298-738-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64298-858-1 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-64298-737-9 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

This work of fiction is dedicated to Quinn K., Josiah C., Stefan C., Ben B., Jeyshua B. and all those readers who stand in awe of creation and have a drive to understand some of its mysteries, knowing that the truth is always there, and to the Munns household, to Mike and Martha Tifft and to Zachariah Price for their enthusiasm and encouragement.

In 1960, Dr. Jonathan Leakey discovered, in the Olduvai Gorge of the East African Rift, a fossilized jaw fragment—the first specimen of what is now known as Homo habilis , an anthropoid (humanlike) creature that some think may have been a human ancestor—a debatable point at best. H. habilis is thought to have lived around two million years ago.

In The Rift, a team of paleoanthropologists went to an area near the Olduvai Gorge, to a site known today as Lake Eyasi, to do some routine research relating to the supposed connection between H. habilis and H. sapiens (modern man), with a plan to study a creature that had been extinct for 1.4 million years. Or so it was thought.

What they found there was nothing short of a nightmare—one in which they found themselves facing a mysterious and dangerous being, an ancient creature existing in a modern world to which it did not belong. They were left examining their faith and its interaction with what science thought it knew.

It wasn’t just the site of a horrifying discovery; it’s the gulf between belief and unbelief, the division between accepted fact and fundamental truth and a challenge to understand who we are.

Willow Creek, as the second book in the Rift hominid series, continues that story, moving our characters from the African Rift to northern California. And in that process, our characters are brought to new discoveries—discoveries that lead them into tragedy and a deeper understanding of where they fit into God’s creation, of learning that unbelief doesn’t change what is. And that Truth, indeed, trumps popular facts.

Prologue

Trinity River Valley, California, 8,500 years Before Present

Walking along the ridge as twilight began to darken the sky and hide things in the uncertain landscape, the walker heard the soft but unmistakable rustle of the dry grass somewhere behind him. He stopped and turned around, but saw nothing. The sound had stopped. He studied the deepening shadows, intent on seeing what might be there, but after a moment of nervous hesitation, he turned back around and started walking, edging slightly away from the trees. Again, he heard the telltale sound of something moving through the grass, sounding closer now, and he hurried on, into the deepening shadows cast by the trees under the rising moon. Then he stopped and listened again, raising his face to the still air, searching for a scent, a sound, any clue that could speak to his senses. He heard nothing—no rustling grass, no breeze—and he saw nothing but the dark form of the trees—no movement, only the shadows. But as he sniffed the air, he picked up the clear scent that told him of danger, a danger lurking in the darkness. Unseen. Unheard. Deadly.

He gave no thought to his role as prey—only that the danger he smelled threatened his survival. There was no emotion beyond this awareness and his need to survive. He took one more look around him, and then, as he started to walk, he heard it. Barely audible, a shuffle in the grass, a rock sliding, perhaps a twig snapping. He froze, every muscle in his powerful back and shoulders taut, strained, poised for flight. He heard for only the briefest of moments the expelled breath behind him before the darkness consumed him, sudden, unanticipated, and complete, giving him no time to feel the blow that crushed the back of his skull. Falling in the dry grass, his blood spilling onto the ground, the walker lay still as the hunters gathered around him and began their grisly work, without ritual. The death of the walker meant bounty for the hunters—small hominids that had shared this land with the walkers since both had crossed the Bering land bridge, perhaps twelve thousand years ago. But the creatures had no concept of such time. They lived in the present. And the present for them was to survive.

The night passed and the moon set. The crimson trail, dark now, had stood out in stark contrast to the light dry grass that covered the ground along the edge of the forest, now soon to be freed from the shadows. Still visible in the growing light was the evidence of the encounter in the soft damp soil—the tracks of the prey, clearly two-legged, ending abruptly, surrounded by several other sets approaching from the woods and meeting them in an explosion of activity and blood. The body had been dragged into the woods, leaving the trail to announce the violence of the night before.

Now, having eaten their fill, the hunting group watched the sky as the horizon to the east of the hills began to show a hint of pink in a soft orange glow with the approaching dawn. It had been a clear, cold night, but now it looked like it was going to be a warm day with sunshine. Any sunshine and warmth would be welcome. Here on the western flank of what would come to be known as the Cascade Range, cool air and rainfall were plentiful. Lengthening days, coming now near the end of a long, cold winter, would bring more sunshine, more warming, and a more plentiful supply of fresh meat, like last night’s bounty.

This morning, the small band of hunters stood, as on most mornings, on a rise overlooking the stream below. The water was flowing swiftly over the rocks that occasionally broke the surface in a series of rapids. A short distance away, this small stream joined a wider and deeper one. The hunters lived among the trees that lined these stream valleys, sharing the land with mountain lions, bears, antelope, and humans. The humans were the easiest prey of all, like the one last night.

Then, as the sun edged above the horizon, one of the creatures, perhaps a leader of sorts, due to his larger stature, turned to walk along the ridge and down into the valley of the larger river. The others followed silently, leaving a trail of crushed and broken grasses. They occasionally stopped, raised their faces into the breeze, and sniffed the air, remaining alert to the presence of danger or of a potential kill. Then, as they turned to walk back up into the forest, one of them carried the length of wood used as last night’s weapon over and began to hit one of the trees with it. A series of wood-on-wood knocks several seconds apart echoed along the tree line. After a dozen or so of these knocks, the hunters walked into the forest, still carrying the club, having announced their presence here.

Chapter 1

Thirty miles north of Willow Creek, California, 1938

Stanley Curtiss stood and looked along the length of the road, taking out an oversized handkerchief and wiping his brow. The day wasn’t particularly warm, but the work was hard and he was sweating. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thinning brown hair. At forty-four, though that hair was tinged with gray, Stanley still had the stamina for the work he was doing here.

The narrow road heading north from Willow Creek, along the Trinity River, had been built about twenty years earlier, and the crew here now were making some improvements to the small bridge spanning Bluff Creek. The road didn’t carry a great deal of traffic, but Stanley figured it had merited the upgrades because it was the only one winding its way through the area.

Just below the bridge, Bluff Creek emptied its shallow flow into the Trinity River, following a section of small rapids. The terrain here was rugged, densely forested, and remote. Very remote. Isolated. Stanley continued to look around the area, considering the remoteness, until he heard a call behind him. Turning around, he saw one of his coworkers, Geoffrey, walking toward him. When he was close enough to be heard, the other worker said, I think it’s time to knock off for the day. Let’s lock up the gear and head back to town. The other guys’re finishing up over there. He nodding his head in the direction of another group of men putting equipment into the back of a truck. I could sure use a beer. Wha’d’ya say? I’ll buy.

As they made their way back the thirty miles or so to Willow Creek, Stanley sat watching the scenery out the passenger-side window. Sure is lonely out this way, huh? I mean, really remote. Makes me kinda glad I live in Redding. Then, after a short pause, Not that Redding is a big city.

Geoffrey, without taking his eyes off the road, answered, Yeah. I hear there’s some things up here no one really knows about. Don’t think I’d live in a cabin out here.

Stanley looked at Geoffrey, still driving, still watching straight ahead. Things? Like what?

Don’t know. Guess there’s mountain lions around here. And bears. Heard there’s some mean bears in these parts. Ain’t never seen one myself, though. He stopped speaking and took a quick look in Stanley’s direction before going on. Fact, t’day, I had the feeling I was bein’ watched. Like someone was hidin’ in the trees just watchin’ us. Sorta gave me the creeps, y’know what I mean?

Nothing more was said for the remainder of the drive back to Willow Creek, but Stanley was thinking, his imagination forming unnerving visions. They pulled the truck up in front of a bar on the edge of town and Stanley said, I think I’m ready for that beer.

* * *

The next morning, they were the first of the crew to arrive, and they pulled the truck up to the work area before the bridge, parking in a cleared area just off the road. As he got out, Stanley was suddenly very much aware of his surroundings. Looking over the tall grass, the trees, and the embankment down to the river, he was remembering the images of what he’d been told the previous day. But after a few moments of thought, he dismissed it and they went to work.

But then, throughout the morning, Stanley’s thoughts kept wandering back and he wondered about what Geoffrey had said yesterday, about the things here that no one knows. What things? And where? Perhaps it was just the power of suggestion from Geoffrey, but Stanley had the strange feeling that he was being watched now too, and he kept looking over toward the trees above the embankment, seeing nothing unusual, though wondering. But as he wondered, images kept creeping in. And on the opposite bank, hidden by the trees, three pairs of eyes were looking back, also wondering. The humanoid creatures silently watching sat on their haunches, not moving. They watched.

Around midday, Stanley was standing, leaning on his shovel, when he happened to look across Bluff Creek to the hillside just below the trees, where he thought he detected a movement. He called over to Geoffrey. Geoff! You see something?

Where?

Over there. Stanley pointed to the area where he’d been looking.

Don’t see anything. What was it?

Can’t say. Just thought I saw something. That’s all. Looked like maybe something moving in the grass, just below those trees. He thought for a moment. Prob’ly nothing, trying hard to convince himself of that.

The two men turned to get back to work. As they did so, their attention was drawn to a sound coming from the trees, a sound of something striking wood, rhythmic, every few seconds, like an axe chopping a tree. They turned back to look toward the grassy area below the trees. As they watched, three creatures stood and looked back. The knocking sound stopped.

Stanley instinctively took a step back. "What the hell are those things?"

Look like some kinda ape. But there ain’t no apes out here, is there?

The three strange-looking hominids turned and walked into the trees, with no further interaction, other than leaving a California Highway Department work crew shaken and wondering just what it was they were seeing.

Chapter 2

Lake Tanganyika, Northern Rhodesia, 1938

Life came as part of a remarkable creation somewhere in the shadows of earth’s history. Scientists, philosophers, and theologians have long debated where and how that life first appeared. Anthropologists have observed and interpreted the human part of that life, studying what the earth has revealed. Those revelations have often challenged what man has thought he understood about himself—how he came to be, where he’s come from, and perhaps most challenging of all, who he is. With the discovery of the jawbone in the Olduvai Gorge, part of the East African Rift, in 1960, wonder and speculation about early man—or at least, people’s imaginations—had been fired up. A new creature, known to anthropologists as Homo habilis , suddenly was seen as an early human and with it, new perceptions about man’s supposed evolution.

Life adapts. It changes. What many scientists refer to as natural selection is the process by which those creatures best suited to adapt and survive—those with the most strength, cunning, aggression—will pass on their genes to a new generation. As ensuing generations pass, perhaps over a thousand millennia, those creatures can attune themselves to ever-changing environments, being what they have to be to survive and, if adaptation is not working fast enough, moving on to new environments, to new worlds, new ways of doing things. Creatures will learn to use their resources to do things, often creatively, sometimes brutally, always effectively. A resourceful survival can include secrecy, remaining unknown, even relegated by modern man to the dark obscurity of history or pre-history—or legend. Central Africa was a place of mystery, where legends grew, where the myths could not be discerned from the facts. Sometimes the facts would change, but the truth remained, and tales whose origins blossomed out of a fertile blend of truth and imagination could build those stories into the legends that would intrigue, perplex, and terrify.

Lake Tanganyika, extending along the western edge of the East African Rift, is one of the African Great Lakes—long, narrow, and deep. It was a mysterious place of legends. Over the past ten or twenty millennia, the eastern shore near the southern end of the lake had seen the passage of a progression of animals and peoples, all of them leaving an imprint on the topography. Some of them changed the land and others were changed by it. Africa had seen the rise to prominence of several species over its long geologic history, particularly in the land stretching eastward from the lake to the Olduvai Gorge and Ngorongoro—along the Great Rift, where the continent was slowly and inexorably splitting apart. According to many anthropologists and others whose lives were spent studying and interpreting the past, two million years ago, the Rift had been home to several groups of hominids, now thought to be long extinct. Some of these creatures moved in migrations between the shore of the Red Sea and the Congo Valley. Creatures interpreted by some to be man’s earliest hominid ancestors left evidence of their obscure existence in the Afar Depression and the Olduvai Gorge. In more recent times, legends had grown of a mysterious creature, known locally as Kilomba, that lived between the Congo and Lake Tanganyika.

In 1999, a team of anthropologists came to Lake Eyasi, Tanzania, and encountered an aspect of creation that was not expected—a surviving hominid from the distant past. Another team returned to the Olduvai Gorge in 2012 and experienced another encounter, seeking to know whether this hominid is a human ancestor or a creature that missed its call to extinction. Nearly eight decades before that earth-shaking, mind-numbing discovery, along the shore of Lake Tanganyika, the thread that connects seemingly disparate but intimately interwoven events laid out a determination to bring the team back to central Africa and to a destiny none of them could have foreseen.

* * *

One day in 1938, a trio of local men walking along the peninsula had stopped to watch a fishing boat between the point and Mutondwe Island, just a mile offshore to the west. After several minutes, one of the men pointed along the lakeshore and said, Hebu kwenda, a reminder to the others that they should get going. It would soon be dark, and terrifying things can happen in the dark. With that, the three men resumed their walk southward toward the town of Mpulungu, still two miles distant, skirting vegetation that transitioned from the lakeshore reeds to grasses and scrub and back to reeds, with an occasional acacia tree just beyond, in the near distance. This time of year, the grasses around the lake were tall, green, and thick, and the men were aware that such growth could conceal wild animals. They became acutely aware of this as the late-afternoon shadows grew longer.

As they passed an area of dense reed growth a few yards from the lakeshore, one of them pointed out the tracks in the soft earth, suggesting a group of individuals had gathered there recently. The hunters stopped to examine the prints. They were unusual and not like the tracks of the animals they knew. These prints looked oddly like small people, but with the big toe extending out at an angle. Curious, the men followed them very briefly toward the vegetation, conscious of the time but unaware that they were being watched intently and silently through the reeds by five pairs of eyes just a short distance away. Looking along the line of footprints leading off into the reeds, they saw the out-of-place rocks lying at the edge of the growth and wondered what they were doing there. It wasn’t that the rocks were unusual or didn’t belong there, but they’d walked this shoreline many times and had never seen rocks like that lying here. They were simply out of place, which wasn’t so much a problem as a curiosity. There were groups of Europeans in the area between here and the Congo valley exploring for copper. Maybe they’d moved them there in their search. Or maybe some children had been out here playing, though people knew it was dangerous for children to be out here, away from town. There’d been reports in the past about people mysteriously disappearing from around the lake, probably taken by wild animals. Kilomba was also said to live somewhere in the area. Kilomba. Perhaps the mysterious man-ape had left them, maybe playing a joke. One of the men laughed at that thought, as though he was one who didn’t believe the legend. And then, again, maybe they’d always been there, and the men just hadn’t seen them before. Maybe they’d even rolled there during one of the earthquakes that occasionally shook the area as part of the Rift geology. There were many possibilities to explain it, but it didn’t really matter. It was just rocks. Maybe. But there was still the danger from wild animals, Kilomba notwithstanding.

As they stood there contemplating all this, they heard a sound, a huffing, from the dense vegetation and, thinking there could be a wild animal there, turned around to resume their walk toward the town. A few yards farther down the lakeshore, one of the men turned around to call the dog that was walking with them. But he didn’t come. Instead, he’d stopped and had begun to growl at something the men couldn’t see. They looked at each other, imagined something in the reeds and headed on toward town at a little bit faster pace. There was a rustling in the tall grass nearby, and one of them stopped and turned again to call the dog. The dog didn’t follow, but kept up the growling and barking until there was a single sudden yelp. After that they heard only an intense silence shared by nothing but the soft breeze brushing the reed tops. They stood there. An uneasiness began to grip them. A moment later, the tall grass near the men erupted with activity, and the men turned around to see the three ape-like faces with rocks held high overhead by long powerful arms.

Chapter 3

Yuma, Arizona, 2015

Dr. Corey Timms was just finishing breakfast with Kelly, his forty-five-looks-thirty-five-year-old wife on the patio, enjoying a sunny and relatively cool late winter morning, when the phone rang.

You can get that while I clear the table, Kelly told him. Corey, known by his colleagues simply as Timms, was teaching anthropology at the Yuma campus of Northern Arizona University and had done some research on the ancient hominids of the East African Rift, which held his special interest since the 1999 expedition to Eyasi. His work kept him in touch with Dr. James Marshall, Andy Stevens, and Nate Brandley at Minnesota State University and Scott Norwood at the University of California, Los Angeles. This time the call was from Nate. Nate was a twenty-five-year-old hominid researcher. He had been with Timms and the others when they were at the Olduvai Gorge three years previously.

He picked up with Hey, Nate. What’s up?

Timms, my man. I was just going through the files we brought back from Arusha—the ones Ostesa gave us when me and Wil were there to check out the stuff we’d heard about the Olduvai hominids last year.

And?

Man, there’s a lot of pages in that file. I’ve been going back through it all to put together a pattern of migration of the hominids—if there even is a pattern. And I’ve been looking at the timing and geographical spread of the sightings, going back as far as the records will go. And up to the present.

And what’ve you seen?

Well, it’s interesting, to say the least. The most recent I have actually happened after me and Wil got back this last time. Ostesa called Marshall from Arusha.

Sergeant Ostesa was the Tanzanian government official who oversaw the Ngorongoro Conservation Area from his office in Arusha and who’d been giving Dr. Marshall the unofficial versions of the government’s official statements regarding sightings of the unknown hominids in the East African Rift. As was so often the case, official reports didn’t necessarily translate to factual accounts. Nate and the others didn’t understand why so much information was withheld, under the guise