The
eyes were black, it's teeth fanged, and a reptilian tale slowly swished the
snowy ground. The deputy sheriff put his hand on his service automatic and
approached cautiously.
“Set me free.” The creature said in Rick’s mind, not making
a sound as it looked at the deputy with dark eyes. Rick hesitated and waved at
the couple on the road who had called 911, reporting a Sasquatch snared in a
bear trap at the edge of Coconino National Park outside of Flagstaff, Arizona.
A few weeks before an Arizona highway camera had caught furry objects on SR 260
near Heber, Arizona. Rick assumed local hunters or teenagers had set the bear
trap just in case the things roamed in the Flagstaff direction.
“Set me free and I am in your debt.
Good fortune will follow.” The voice sounded again in Rick’s head, who then
decided on a course of action.
“Hold the trap steady and I’ll open it
with both hands.” The deputy said to the trapped beast.
“If trapped by man, then I must be
freed by man. You must release me by yourself.” The creature replied.
Rick stood and stamped his feet in the
frigid January afternoon air, the western sun casting shadows on the patches of
snow. They were standing on the edge of the vast ponderosa pine forest that
stretches from Northern Arizona to the Apache Reservation in the southeastern
corner of the state.
The
creature was cloaked in a large shaggy coat with a hood, giving the appearance
of a furry being. Rick walked back to the couple who had discovered the trap
and sounded the alarm. They stood wide-eyed by the deputy sheriff’s cruiser.
“Why don’t you shoot it?” The willowy
girl with a pony tail asked.
“Can I help?” Her wispy haired
boyfriend queried.
Rick advised them the trap had caught
an Iraq army veteran in a greatcoat who‘d drunk too much wine. He told them to
stay by the car, and then he retrieved his nightstick. The deputy returned to
the trapped beast and knelt in the snow, putting his foot on the trap, then
inserting the club between the sharp teeth and leveraging it open.
The creature stepped free and limped
away as Rick watched, then paused and looked back at the deputy, “I won’t
forget.” It said soundlessly, and then vanished in the dense pine woods.
It was a
month later on a dark, bone-chilling February night when Rick pulled over a
black Escalade with the license plate light out on Route 66. The driver lowered
his window and then pointed a revolver at the deputy. Suddenly the window went
up trapping the driver’s gun barrel. Rick pulled out his automatic and heard a
metallic click as he watched the front passenger furiously working his gun.
Then the rear door flew open and a shaved-head man with a tattoo on his neck
jumped out and racked a shotgun. The man reached for the trigger with his right
hand, but he slipped on the ice and stumbled backward. The shotgun discharged.
Four
months later on a spring evening, Rick was gathered with his deputy friends at
Buster’s Restaurant to celebrate his commendation medal for “Extreme Valor”. There
was lively chatter as his friends relived Rick’s encounter with the deadly Mexican
Cartel trio on Route 66 that frigid night.
At the end of the table was Joe Don, a new deputy
recruit who Rick had mentored. He watched the gaiety with a sour face as Joe
Don was innately dour and still bedeviled by intolerance.
“Ricardo was just lucky.” Joe Don said and the table
quieted.
“Think about it.” Joe Don continued. “The driver’s
window malfunctions. The passenger’s gun jams, and the Homey in the back slips
on the ice blowing his head off. All Rick did was stand there.”
The table murmured, and then Carol, a
religious deputy, bowed her blonde head. “It was divine intervention.” She said,
her hands clasped in prayer.
Bobby, sitting across from Carol, nodded.
“Rick must have been an angel.”
Joe Don laughed and looked down the
table at Rick, asking.” What’s the name of your guardian angel, Deputy Ricardo?”
Rick cocked his head, gazing around
the table at his friends. “I don’t have an angel.” He replied, and then added:
“But I do have a demon.” And Rick recalled that afternoon in Coconino National
Forest where he met something in the woods.
