Monstrous Denial

The Hunted

We were riding hard, as hard as we dared push our tired old crowbaits. But the palomino Zane Wilson had stolen was the fastest horse in the territory, and he was pulling away. We wouldn’t give up, but our chances of catching the outlaw were fading with every hoof beat. We were too focused on trying to catch him to talk, but I suspected Xavier, same as I, was already trying to figure out how to tell Sheriff Becker we’d lost our prisoner.

Then we had the best stroke of luck we could have hoped for. At least that was how I saw it at the time. The palomino suddenly went lame. We were too far back to see exactly what happened; maybe the horse stepped in a hole. It appeared he’d broken a leg. Can’t say for sure though; we never got a chance to really look at him. But when the horse went down, Zane was off him in a flash, almost as if he’d expected the animal to fall. He lit off for the big forest of conifers about fifty yards to his north. We hoped to catch him before he made it into the trees so we wouldn’t have to follow him afoot. But with the lead he had, catching him before he found cover in the dark forest seemed unlikely. Sure enough, he ducked into the woods, probably ten steps ahead of us. We leaped off our horses, and Xavier lit off after him while I tied the horses to a tree and then quickly followed.

Zane was fast, but he was no match for Xavier. Being half Zuni and the other half a cornucopia of as many European nationalities as the finest school teacher could name, Xavier had inherited the strongest qualities from all his forebears—especially the ability to run.

Normally a thick forest, as this one had been for as long as anyone could remember, would be the perfect place to hide, notwithstanding the fine tracking skills Xavier possessed, and my skills, too, to a lesser degree. But even the forest had not fully escaped the two locust plagues of 1874 and 75 that had begun on its fringes and fanned out eastward like biblical pestilences, devouring nearly all plant life in their paths. The voracious insects had spared the conifers, but cottonwoods, aspens, and even scrub oaks had been denuded of all leaves and even many limbs. Leaves and grass were just beginning to re-emerge.

The normally impenetrable forest, while still the best hiding place in that part of Colorado, would not deny us our quarry—and our bounty for returning him to face justice.

I suppose, before I proceed with the story already begun, I should give you, dear reader, the background necessary to provide context to my narrative.

My family had moved west, to Kansas, in 1862, when I was a lad of ten years. The twenty-five acres my father managed to buy there were beginning to take shape as a farm two years later when Titus, my seventeen-year-old brother, was killed in The Battle of Spotsylvania. Mother was devastated. Then, the following year, when fourteen-year-old Sarah, my only sister, died from pneumonia, Mother refused to continue; she insisted Father buy her passage back to her family home in Pennsylvania. With her departure, only Father, nineteen-year-old Timothy, recently returned from his soldiering, and I remained to try to make a go of the farm.

Two years of dodging bullets and dread diseases while enduring great privations and watching young men all around him fall like hay before a reaper’s scythe had given Timothy a melancholy demeanor and more than enough adventure; he was happy to settle down to assisting Father in the hard but methodical life of operating a Kansas farm. I, on the other hand, detested the drudgery of farm life. Routine was a balm to Timothy’s war-weary soul, but to me it was as close to hell on earth as I could imagine. So in 1871, after enduring nine years of hell in Kansas, I saw an opportunity for adventure, and I sought it for all I was worth.

In that same year, the great explorer Major John Wesley Powell was preparing to make his second investigative exploration of the Colorado River and the surrounding lands. I determined it would be my great joy and, I thought, my manifest destiny, to accompany the major. So, like the biblical prodigal, I entreated my merciful father for my inheritance so that I might pursue my dreams of adventure out West. Father indulged my haughty request, with the little he could supply, much to Timothy’s vexation.

I was in the newly formed city of Colorado Springs, within the Colorado territory, on my way to Green River Station in Wyoming Territory, where the expedition was set to commence, when I learned that the major had the full complement of his crew and would accept no other explorers. I would have to seek another avenue to satisfy my longing for adventure—and to provide for my daily needs. Paying work being hard to obtain, apart from laying railroad tracks, I considered but for a moment, violating the laws of both man and God in order to make my way, but quickly thought better of it. Then came to my mind this revelation: If I’d considered going the way of the reprobate in those hard times, so had others, and many probably had acted and would act on such unwholesome considerations. Why not seek to make a living on the right side of the law, I deduced.

So I introduced myself to Sheriff Peter Becker, in Colorado Springs. The town being still so new could not then afford more than one full-time lawman, but the good sheriff said he would keep me in mind if and when the budget and the need arose for deputies. Soon after that I managed to find employment at a nearby cattle ranch. That was where I met Xavier Garza, a man two years my senior, with a wife, Elana, and a young son, Pablo. Xavier worked hard and earned every bit of the meager salary the struggling rancher, Mr. Clyde Langston, could afford to pay him. I followed Xavier’s example of diligence and industriousness, despite finding myself in a routine much like the one I’d fled not long before in Kansas.

Fortunately for me, and for Xavier as it soon turned out, the plague-battered economy did indeed prompt an ever-increasing number to turn to crime. The sheriff couldn’t hire me as a full-time deputy, but when the need required it, and it did so with increasing regularity, he paid me to help out, often transporting prisoners. Eventually the need became so great that the sheriff asked if I knew anyone who could help with such duties. I introduced Xavier, an experienced tracker, to the sheriff, and the two became fast friends. Xavier and I became compadres as well as working partners, on the ranch and as part-time deputies.

The sheriff had called on Xavier and me that morning in late May of ’76 to transport Zane to Denver, the county in which he committed his misdeed of cattle rustling. But when we got to town, the sheriff told us Zane had escaped and stolen a horse—the big, swift palomino—and fled. The sheriff as well as Constable Durfee had more pressing matters to attend to, so they sent us to track down Zane and bring him to justice.

Sheriff Becker told us Zane had gone north in his escape. That came as no surprise; he’d have been foolish to go east or west, as any settlements of consequence in either of those directions were beyond the range one could reach with no provisions. He might have gone south, toward Pueblo, but he’d have had a hard time losing himself among so sparse a settlement. He had to be headed for Denver, where he might blend in among the large population for a time while amassing provisions, legally or nefariously, for the next leg of his escape.

Fortunately for us, Zane’s confidence—and his hunger—got the better of him. We came upon him in the late afternoon, sitting alongside a creek, with a crackling fire he’d made, apparently to roast some fish he’d caught. Unfortunately, he caught sight of us at the very moment we spotted him. Forsaking his meal, in a few quick steps and a leap, he was astride the palomino and the aforementioned chase was on.

So there we were, deep in a large stand of magnificent Douglas Fir trees—one of the last of such forests in the lower elevations following the logging boom of the preceding decade. It was, by then, early evening; the sun was still well above the horizon, but darkness would soon prevail in the dense canopy of trees. A spring shower the previous afternoon had left the forest’s shaded ground moist enough to retain some tracks, which Xavier was resolutely following, rope in hand, and I directly behind him. We heard a limb snap before we saw Zane dash out from behind a tree, no more than twenty feet before us. The chase was on again. Seeing that the forest’s east edge was no more than one-hundred yards ahead in the direction Zane was running, I guessed he’d soon veer to his left to stay under cover of the trees. So while Xavier was hot on Zane’s heels, I swerved to the left to intercept the outlaw. He did exactly as I’d anticipated, and I was ready. I tackled him to the ground, and quicker than a snake strike, Xavier had a rope bound around his wrists.

We were breathing hard, but felt great relief, as we led our prisoner back to the forest’s southern edge, where our horses waited—or should have been waiting. Neither Xavier nor I were prone to swearing without great provocation, but we both—me especially—deemed this vexing turn of events as sufficient inducement to send blasphemies booming about the forest like sparks flying from an agitated bonfire. “Did you forget to tie the horses?” Xavier asked, his nostrils flaring and eyes bulging. I protested vehemently that I’d committed no such error.

Pueblos were not known as horse thieves, and neither Utes nor Commanches, nor even Apaches or Kiowas, had been seen much around there lately, so thievery seemed unlikely. Besides, if thieves had stolen the horses, why would they have taken the lame palomino? And basically the same question applied to the theory of my having forgotten to tie the horses. How would the lame palomino have followed the other two in wandering off? The prospect of a bear or a mountain lion killing the horses seemed a remote possibility, but neither species was capable of hauling them all away without a trace—and leaving no blood on the ground. It was a mystery indeed, one we’d have plenty of time to ponder as we’d spend the next twelve to fifteen hours walking our prisoner back to town. Fortunately, I was wearing a sidearm, for both of us had left our rifles, along with our canteens and bedrolls, with the suddenly missing horses.

As we had no bedrolls, water, food, or matches to start a fire, trying to bed down for the night seemed pointless. The sky was clear and the moonlight would provide illumination sufficient to make our way, so we chose to begin our march through the evening and approaching night, all the while dreading the harassment—and financial debt—we faced over the loss of our horses. At least we had our prisoner, whose laughter at our predicament provoked from me a swift kick to his posterior. “Move,” Xavier and I commanded him in unison. We’d taken no more than a few steps when we all stopped short as we heard two distinct, successive knocking sounds—wood against wood—coming from deep in the forest. Those two knocks were quickly followed by two more knocks, somewhat more distant, apparently coming from the northern end of the forest. Xavier looked toward the sound, then down at the ground.

It seemed we were not alone. Perhaps whoever made the knocking sounds might be prevailed upon to lend us horses to convey our prisoner back to the sheriff—or even on to Denver. “Hello!” I shouted. “Who’s there? We’re duly appointed deputies of the El Paso County Sheriff, and we’re…” Before I could finish, Xavier poked me in the ribs, wide-eyed and shaking his head, telling me to hush.

Xavier yanked the rope attached to Zane and began walking south, swiftly. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, with his brow furrowed and his face as pale as any half-Indian could possibly appear. “We don’t want to be anywhere near this forest when darkness arrives,” he said as his walk became something closer to a full-on sprint. I hesitated for a moment, still hoping to persuade our potential benefactors to come to our rescue.

“Now,” Xavier growled as he tugged the laughing Zane behind him. Reluctantly, I joined the hasty retreat from the forest.

We probably traveled a mile before Xavier, half dragging Zane, slowed down to a fast walk. I grabbed Xavier’s shoulder, bidding him to stop. “What are you afraid of?” I asked.

“I’ll answer,” he replied, “but we keep walking.”

“Was there something about those knocking sounds? What was it?” I asked again.

“Atahsaia.”

“What?”

“Atahsaia. My mother’s people, the Zuni, call them Atahsaia; it means cannibal demon.”

Zane began to laugh raucously, while I tried my best but failed to stifle a chuckle. “Cannibal demons? You think cannibal demons made those knocking sounds?”

“Next you’ll be telling us the devil himself is after us,” Zane snorted before breaking into another round of laughter.

I gave Zane another boot to his backside before placing my hand on Xavier’s shoulder and insisting we talk the matter out. “Look, amigo,” I said, “we’re not in some backward Zuni village. This is modern America; we don’t believe in monsters. The only monsters are bad people, like this scalawag,” I said as I again let Zane’s backside feel the point of my boot.

Xavier scowled, shook his head and continued his race to be free of the “demons.”

“Well, what exactly are these cannibal demons,” I asked. “What do they look like?”

“I’ve never seen one.” Xavier shrugged as he continued his anxious pace. “I only know the stories—the legends.”

“Okay, tell me the legend.”

“The Atahsaia are like men, but giant men. Giant, hairy, unbelievably powerful men. But not quite fully men. They’re as big as any grizzly—even bigger. But they walk upright, like men. They have human-like faces. But they’re not like other humans. They live in the wild, like wild animals. They eat deer and antelopes and elk … raw. They eat fish … and sometimes small animals like rabbits and beavers, when they can catch them. But when game animals become scarce, they eat people,” Xavier concluded matter-of-factly.

Zane didn’t laugh. He took a brief glance back over his shoulder, in the direction of the forest and picked up his pace, leaving some slack in the rope Xavier held.

“Why do you think these Atahsaia are out there in the forest,” I asked.

Xavier shook his head but resisted correcting my hideous mispronunciation of the Zuni word for the hairy giants. “The wood knocks … that and the mysterious disappearance of the horses. The legends say that the Atahsaia communicate over long distances by banging large tree limbs against tree trunks.”

“Sure,” I interrupted, “but why couldn’t people have made those noises in the same way?”

“Yeah,” Zane added, probably trying to assure himself that cannibal demons were not stalking us.

“The missing horses,” was Xavier’s cryptic reply.

“What makes you think people didn’t steal our horses?” I asked.

“And people led away a three-legged horse … leaving no hoof prints?” Xavier shook his head again.

“Well, the same question could apply to the Ata… the demons,” I countered. “How would they have led them away without a trace?”

“They didn’t.”

Now he really had me addled. “Wait; now you’re saying the demons didn’t take the horses?”

“No.”

“What?”

“I’m saying they didn’t lead them away without a trace. They left footprints.”

“You saw footprints? What’d they look like?”

“Like yours or mine … if we were barefoot … but much bigger.” Xavier finally stopped, so abruptly that Zane nearly ran into him. “Much bigger,” he said, staring directly into my eyes.

I was glad he stopped, and not just because I wanted to rest; I also needed time to contemplate Xavier’s words. “So you’re saying that you saw giant human footprints but no hoof prints leaving the tree I tied the horses to.”

“Yes.”

“So the giant cannibal demons carried away three live horses?”

“No.” Xavier resumed his march. “They killed them first.”

“But there was no blood,” I protested.

“They kill by breaking their victims’ necks.”

Zane glanced over his shoulder again.

“They carried away three dead horses … that fast?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Same as you’d carry a dead lamb from out on the range, over their shoulders.”

I stopped again. “A horse weighs more than half a ton!”

Xavier trudged on with Zane in tow. “So does an Atahsaia.”