Project Hannibal Kathryn Hoff (best free e book reader TXT) 📖

you, then you’re right—you should stay here, and I won’t say a word against it if that’s your choice.”

“I hate being old,” Annie muttered. “I hate having to ask folks to help me.” She gazed out the window, seated in the overstuffed chair where she’d been spending day and night. She looked up, her brow furrowed in grief. “But suppose I go all the way to Fairbanks and die there? Would I be buried there, away from everyone I know?”

At least that was one fear Estelle could ease. She took Annie’s gnarled hand in hers. “I’ll make you a promise, Annie. If for any reason things don’t go well, I’ll see that your body is brought back to Rainbow. You’ll have your funeral here, among all your friends and relatives. They’ll sing the old hymns, and the people who love you will stand up and share their memories. There will be a feast and gifts. And you’ll be laid to rest next to your husband and your son.”

Annie’s eyes blinked away tears. “You promise?”

Estelle crossed herself. “I promise.”

Annie took a deep breath. “All right then. You take me to Fairbanks, and I’ll come back a new woman.”

Sera peeked in the door. “Aunt Estelle? You should see this—they’ve fixed up a parade.”

Lined up before the house were six ATVs and a crowd of villagers ready to see Annie off.

Ready hands took the suitcases and helped Annie down her front steps. Annie led the way, perched sidesaddle behind her husband’s sister’s son, and Estelle and Sera clung to sturdy village lads who carried them to the airstrip with maximum noise.

As a precaution, Estelle dosed both her passengers with ginger capsules to ward off nausea. A final check of the weather with Flight Service and she filed her flight plan, two hours south to Fairbanks. While she completed the preflight checks and stowed the luggage, two dozen villagers joked and laughed and wished Annie well.

Sera helped strap Annie into the copilot seat and showed her how to put on the headset. She snapped photos and promised her new friends that she’d post them to the internet as soon as she got home.

When Estelle was ready, Sera climbed into the rear seat. Estelle revved the engine, and with plenty of bumps and waving goodbye, the Cessna took to the air, only an hour later than planned.

Annie blinked, gazing at her village laid out below. “I pray I’ll live to see it again.”

Estelle took her thin hand and squeezed it. “I’ll do everything I can to see that you do. Now just sit back and relax. We’ll be on the ground again in two hours.”

Wildlife Trooper Kanut had quickly given up on the idea of a posse—the time-wasters at the Cody general store had just been waiting for the bar to open.

Of the various Bigfoot descriptions he’d gotten out of the witnesses, the thin woman’s description of her ravaged garden and the photo of the circular footprint were the most intriguing. It could be a print from one of Major Butterick’s “small, hairy elephants”—or the imprint left by a bucket or a beer keg, for that matter. But it was something to follow up on, so Kanut donned his backpack of essentials and his Browning rifle and set off upstream.

On the way, he got a response from base on his satphone: the names given by “Lou” and “Bran” didn’t check out. The Wasilla address they’d given was a fake. No surprise there.

Hiking upriver following Minnie’s directions, he found Jerry’s homestead without difficulty. He assured Jerry that his woman and child were safe in Cody, got another vague description of “something big,” viewed the ruined garden, and issued Jerry an official warning that his structure on protected land was in violation of federal regulations.

When Jerry had stalked off in a huff, Kanut hiked upstream a little farther, figuring that a big animal, whether bear, elephant, or Sasquatch, would choose to visit water at least once a day.

Two miles from Jerry’s homestead, where the river’s tributary was no more than a stream, Kanut was rewarded with footprints—lots of them.

Kanut was an Inupiaq—three-quarters, anyway—but he was no native tracker. He didn’t need to be: the prints were deep and wide, rough circles as big as his hand with fingers splayed. In a couple of places, he even found imprints of the toenails—nails and not claws.

The animal had left behind other spoor: giant turds of partially digested vegetation, and trees scarred where branches had been ripped off.

No bear or moose had left those signs.

Little elephants. These, I’ve got to see.

Kanut took photos and used his satphone to note the GPS location. It was getting late in the afternoon, but he walked upstream a little farther, driven by an itch to see these animals in the flesh.

He was about to turn back when he noticed the pale exposed wood where a fresh blaze—a hiker’s trail mark—had been chopped into a tree.

Tugging on vegetation, Kanut pulled himself to the top of the bank. A few steps farther in, behind a screen of brush, he came to a flattened rectangle showing where a tent had been pitched within the last few days. From a nearby tree hung bags of the type used by campers to keep their food safe from bears.

He unknotted the ropes and lowered the bags. The heap inside was expensive freeze-dried stuff, enough to keep two men going for weeks. There was even a portable wind-powered generator.

Valuable stuff. Whoever left it would be back.

With satisfaction, Kanut re-hoisted the bags. He settled into a comfortable position beside a nearby boulder. He had a feeling he’d be seeing Bran and Lou again, real soon.

CHAPTER 19

Dominance

Brandon had stalked away as soon as he was packed. Maybe he expects me