A Sunday Drive

 

Double Vision

There were two of them in the car. It was a Sunday drive.

It was an off-season wander into the foothills of the Cascade Range on a gray and drizzly day.  No matter.  They were quite accustomed to the climate.

They bought a take-out lunch and drove until there was a park still open though it was latish in the year. In the park, theirs was the only vehicle. There was always a little frisson of apprehension when parking in these unseen places alone, but so far, so good.  No bears, cougars, or unhinged humans.

The older one, the driver, pulled up to a log barrier marking a parking spot and turned off the engine.

Water dripped out of the evergreens. Silence surrounded the women in the car. There was some soft conversation and some business with sandwiches and cups of espresso.

The driver’s attention was attracted by something ahead of the car out in the nearby bush.  She watched silently. A very large bi-pedal form stood perhaps twenty feet away. He seemed to be around seven feet tall, or more. The hair on his body was longer than a bear’s fur and a rich coffee brown.  His face was leathery, not simian, with eyes that seemed to be brown like a horse’s eyes. He neither smiled nor grimaced. She sensed no immediate threat. But just to be sure she said, under her breath, “Thy will be done.”

He merely observed them in their vehicle.

The driver said to the passenger, “look up.  Do you see him?”

“Where?” said the passenger, glancing all around the car quickly. “What do you mean?  No one is here.”

The driver laid her hands on the steering wheel.  She said, “right out in front of us about twenty feet away.  He is standing there motionless.”

“Now you’re scaring me.  Or you’re messing with me!” said the passenger. “Are you having a stroke?”

“No, I seem to be fully functional.”  She sighed.

The large figure raised both hands open palmed toward the driver. A fraction of a smile passed briefly over his dark face.

“I think we should leave,” said the passenger. “I don’t think I like it here now.” She took a sip of her coffee, and wadded up the sandwich wrappings and stuffed them back in the bag they came in.

“Yes.  I think he would prefer that we go now,” said the driver.

She raised her right hand toward the dark figure and held it for a moment.  Then she started the engine and pulled out of the parking spot.  She backed up and headed forward down the park driveway toward the narrow highway and home.

Mt. Baker Highway