Chapter 1: The Unlikely Discovery
Back in September 1993, I found something in the woods that changed my life. I was 31, living alone on 40 acres near the Cascade Foothills, about 50 miles from anything resembling civilization. I had bought the property cheap—an old farmhouse, a falling-down barn, and logging road access only. It was the perfect place for solitude, a retreat from the noise of the world.
One crisp autumn afternoon, I was out checking an old fence line when I heard it. Something big thrashing in the undergrowth, making sounds I’d never heard before. Intrigued, I followed the noise, my heart racing with a mix of curiosity and apprehension. As I approached a ravine, the sounds grew louder, more frantic.
When I finally found it, I was taken aback. Caught in a rusted bear trap someone had left decades ago was a creature that defied explanation. It was 8 feet tall, covered in dark hair, with eyes that looked right through me. I knew what it was immediately, and I knew if I left it there, it would die.
Chapter 2: The Decision to Save
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Celebrity gossip magazines
Action movie posters
Buckingham Palace
Military documentaries
B-17 model kits
Survival gear
True crime podcasts
Bigfoot hunting expeditions
Sports biographies
Travel guides wartime locations
So, I didn’t leave it. I brought it home, hid it in my barn, and spent the next 30 years keeping a secret that almost destroyed me. I thought the hardest part would be the hiding. It wasn’t. The hardest part was what happened when they finally came.
The first night, I didn’t sleep at all. I had used a come-along winch and every bit of strength I had to get the creature out of that ravine and onto my truck bed, covering it with a tarp and praying I wouldn’t meet another vehicle on the logging road as I drove at 5 mph. The trap was still clamped around its left ankle, the metal buried in infected tissue. It was barely conscious, breathing shallowly, eyes rolling back.
My barn was old, built in the 1920s with thick plank walls and a loft full of rotting hay. I’d been using it for storage—mostly old furniture, tools, firewood. I cleared out the back stall, the one farthest from the road, and laid down every blanket I owned. Getting the creature off the truck took an hour. It was dead weight, maybe 600 pounds—all muscle and matted hair.
I rigged a sling and pulley system, working by flashlight, sweating despite the September cold. When I finally had it in the stall, I looked at the leg. The trap had been on for days, maybe weeks. The flesh was black, swollen, stinking. I knew about field medicine from my time in the service, but this was beyond anything I’d dealt with. I got my toolbox, bolt cutters, a bottle of whiskey, and a first aid kit that suddenly seemed pathetically inadequate.
Chapter 3: The First Connection
The creature’s eyes opened when I touched the trap—dark brown, almost black, with an intelligence that made my hands shake. It made a low sound—not quite a growl, not quite a moan. “I’m trying to help,” I said, my voice strange in the silence. “This is going to hurt.” I don’t know if it understood the words, but something in its eyes shifted. It went still.
I cut the trap off, cleaned the wound with iodine that made the creature shudder, and gripped the stall boards hard enough to leave marks. I wrapped the leg in gauze and hoped to God it wouldn’t die of infection. Then I sat outside the stall until dawn, listening to its labored breathing, wondering what the hell I’d just done.
The creature survived the first week, then the second. By the third week, it was sitting up, watching me with those dark eyes whenever I came into the barn. I’d blocked off the back half of the barn with tarps and plywood, creating a sealed space—no windows, one door that I kept padlocked from outside. I told myself it was temporary, just until the leg healed, just until I figured out what to do. But I was already lying to myself.
I fed it everything I could hunt or afford—deer, elk when I could get them, fish from the creek, raw potatoes, and carrots from my garden. It ate everything. I’d leave the food just inside the stall, back away, and watch from the shadows as it ate with careful, deliberate movements. Its hands— I couldn’t call them anything else—were massive but dexterous, almost human in shape.
Chapter 4: A Growing Bond
The smell was incredible at first—wild, pungent, like wet dog and musk and something earthier—but I got used to it. Had to. The barn reeked of it, and eventually, so did I. By October, it was standing, limping heavily, but standing. It was massive in the confined space, head nearly touching the 12-foot ceiling. Dark brown hair covered its entire body, longer on the head and shoulders, shorter on the face. And the face was the hardest part to process—flat, broad nose, heavy brow ridge, but something in the structure that was unsettlingly familiar.
I started calling it “him” in my head. Whether that was accurate, I had no idea, but something about the creature felt male. Felt like a him, not an it. One evening in late October, I brought dinner—a cleaned doe I’d shot that morning—and found him standing at the stall door, hands gripping the boards, watching me enter. We stared at each other. I held the deer carcass, blood dripping on the barn floor. He made a low sound, almost like a rumble in his chest.
I set the deer down, backed away slowly, and left. When I came back in the morning, the bones were stacked neatly in the corner—every single one arranged by size.
Chapter 5: Surviving the Winter
Winter came hard that year. Snow piled 6 feet deep, and I and the logging road became impassable until March. I was alone with the creature, cut off from the world, and that’s when things really changed. I couldn’t let him freeze, so I rigged a wood stove in the barn, vented through the old loft, kept it burning day and night, burned through my entire wood supply by January, and had to start cutting green timber, which smoked terribly but kept the temperature above freezing.
The creature— I still didn’t have a name for what he was, though the word “Bigfoot” sat in my mind like something forbidden—grew stronger. The leg healed, though he walked with a permanent limp. He started moving around the partitioned space, and I could hear him at night, pacing, making low vocalizations that echoed in the barn. I started staying out there more, brought a chair, a lantern, a book. I’d sit outside the partition and read while he moved around inside. Sometimes he’d go quiet, and I knew he was listening.
One night in February, I was reading about the Lewis and Clark expedition when I heard three deliberate knocks on the partition wall. I stopped, waited. Three more knocks. Same rhythm. I stood up, walked to the partition, and knocked back. Three times, silence. Then a low sound that might have been satisfaction.
Chapter 6: Communication Through Knocks
After that, the knocks became our communication. Three knocks meant he was hungry. Two meant something was wrong—usually the stove needed wood. One knock I never figured out—maybe just acknowledgment that I was there. By spring, I’d fallen into a routine that felt almost normal. Check the stall every morning, bring food, clean up waste, maintain the stove, spend evenings reading while he listened.
The creature became part of my life in a way I couldn’t explain to anyone, which was fine because I couldn’t tell anyone anyway. I was keeping a secret that would sound insane if I spoke it out loud. I had Bigfoot living in my barn, and I was taking care of him like some kind of bizarre pet. Except he wasn’t a pet; he was something else entirely.
Chapter 7: The Outside World Intrudes
Spring 1994 brought new problems. The snow melted, the logging road opened up, and suddenly I wasn’t isolated anymore. My nearest neighbor, Tom Harelson, drove up one April afternoon to check if I’d survived the winter. “Hell of a season,” he said, leaning against his truck. “Lost power for three weeks straight down at my place.”
“I did fine,” I said, positioning myself between him and the barn.
“You burned through a lot of wood. Saw your smoke every day.”
“Just storing some equipment I didn’t want to freeze.”
He glanced past me. “Must be important equipment.”
I changed the subject, asked about his family, the road conditions—anything to shift his attention—but I saw him looking at the barn, and I knew I’d have to be more careful. That summer, I started driving to three different towns to buy food—30 miles to Randall for meat and canned goods, 40 miles to Packwood for produce, 50 miles to Morton for bulk items like rice and potatoes. I spread the purchases out, paid cash, never went to the same store more than once a month.
Chapter 8: The Burden of Secrecy
The creature was eating about 40 pounds of food a day—meat primarily, but also vegetables, fruit, even bread. I was spending $300 a week on groceries, plus whatever I could hunt or fish. My savings were draining fast. I planted a bigger garden—2,000 square feet of potatoes, carrots, squash, beans. I told Tom I was selling vegetables at farmers markets, which explained the size. Really, most of it went into the barn.
I started fishing the creek harder, running lines at night, catching trout and steelhead in season. Deer hunting became a year-round activity, legal or not. I couldn’t afford to follow game laws when I had Bigfoot to feed. And that’s when I started thinking of him that way—Bigfoot, capital B, not the creature or “it.” Bigfoot, the thing that wasn’t supposed to exist, living in my barn, depending on me for survival. The weight of it was incredible.
By 1996, we developed a relationship. I don’t know what else to call it. I’d expanded his space by tearing down the partition and giving him the entire back half of the barn—about 800 square feet, high ceiling, the wood stove in the corner. I built a sleeping platform out of 2x6s and filled it with hay and blankets. He arranged it himself, creating something almost like a nest.
Chapter 9: Understanding Each Other
He watched me work, learned my routines, started anticipating when I’d arrive with food or firewood. Sometimes I’d find things moved around—the water barrel shifted, tools I’d left organized in a different pattern. He was intelligent, clearly problem-solving, organizing, communicating with those knocks. I started talking to him—nothing profound, just narration of my day.
“Got three trout this morning. Creek’s running high. Should be good for another week.” Or, “Need to fix the porch steps; wood’s rotting through.” He’d listen. And sometimes he’d make sounds back—low rumbles, occasional soft hoots, once something that sounded almost like a chuckle when I was complaining about a stuck truck.
One evening in July, I brought in a bucket of blackberries I’d picked, set it down, started to leave, and heard him make a questioning sound. I turned. He was holding up a single berry, looking at it, then at me. “Yeah,” I said. “Blackberries. They’re good.” He ate one, made a sound that was definitely approval, and devoured the entire bucket while I watched.
Chapter 10: The Cost of Care
After that, I brought him more variety—apples, peaches, melons. He liked sweet things. He would eat a whole watermelon in minutes, rind and all. But the cost was killing me. I took a part-time job at a lumber mill 40 miles away, working graveyard shifts three days a week. I’d come home exhausted, sleep a few hours, then spend the rest of the day hunting, fishing, maintaining the barn, keeping Bigfoot fed and hidden. I was living two lives—the normal one people could see and the impossible one locked in my barn.
Sometimes I’d lie awake at night wondering what the hell I was doing—wondering if I should call someone, a university maybe, or a wildlife agency. But I never did because I knew what would happen. They’d take him, cage him, study him, turn him into a spectacle. I couldn’t do that to him.
Chapter 11: The Weight of Time
The years blurred together—1997, 1998, 1999. I got older, grayer, more isolated, stopped seeing people except when necessary. Tom Harelson asked if I was okay a few times. I said I was fine, just preferred being alone. The truth was, I wasn’t alone. I had Bigfoot. He’d grown comfortable with me, would let me come close. I’d even touch him sometimes when I was checking old injuries or cleaning wounds from where he’d scraped against rough wood.
His hair was coarse, thick, warmer than I expected. He smelled less wild now, more familiar. I’d gotten used to it—the way you get used to any smell you live with. I rigged up a hose so he could wash. He figured it out quickly, started cleaning himself regularly. The barn smelled better after that. We had routines. I’d bring breakfast around 7, dinner at 6:00. He’d knock if he needed something in between—three knocks for food, two for water, one for I still wasn’t sure—attention maybe, acknowledgment.
Chapter 12: The Change of Seasons
Sometimes I’d sit in the barn and just watch him—the way he moved, careful and deliberate. The way his hands could grip tools I left. He’d pick up a hammer once, examined it, set it down gently. The expressions that crossed his face—subtle but readable—curiosity, contentment, sometimes what looked like sadness. I wondered about his life before, where he’d come from, if there were others, how he’d ended up alone and injured in those woods.
I’d never seen another one, never heard stories from locals about sightings. He seemed to be singular—the only one in these mountains. That made the isolation worse somehow. He was alone in the world, and I was the only one who knew he existed.
Chapter 13: The Unexpected Visitors
By 2000, I’d spent seven years keeping this secret. Seven years of careful grocery shopping, hunting trips, lying to neighbors, maintaining a barn that looked abandoned from outside but housed something extraordinary inside. The new millennium came and went. Y2K changed nothing for us. No computers to crash, no grid to fail—just the same routine, the same secret, the same strange companionship.
I turned 40. Bigfoot showed no signs of aging. I wondered how long he’d live. If I’d die first, what would happen to him then? I didn’t have answers. I just kept going, day after day, feeding him, protecting him, giving him the best life I could within the constraints we were both trapped in.
Chapter 14: The Cracks Begin to Show
Last week, Tom Harelson died—a heart attack, sudden, no warning. I went to the funeral and realized I’m one of the last people left who remembers this area before cell phones and satellites and federal oversight. The world changed around me while I stayed frozen in time caring for Bigfoot.
That night, I sat in the barn and told Bigfoot about Tom. “He asked about you sometimes. Never believed me when I said there was nothing to see. He knew. He just never pushed it.” Bigfoot made a low sound—not quite sadness, but acknowledgment.
“I’m getting old,” I said. “And I don’t know what happens when I’m gone. I’m trying to figure it out, make a plan.” But he moved closer, and for the third time in 30 years, he touched my face. His hand was rough, warm, impossibly gentle. He looked at me with those eyes that had seen three decades of my life, and I saw something there I’d never quite noticed before: gratitude.
Chapter 15: The Government’s Return
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Three soft knocks echoed in the barn, and I knew, whatever happened, I’d made the right choice all those years ago. I’d saved Bigfoot. And in a way I still don’t fully understand, he’d saved me too, in his own way.
The FBI came on a Thursday in June 2011. I was at work when Tom called. “There’s federal agents at your property. Thought you should know.” I left immediately, drove 90 mph up the logging road, heart hammering. When I pulled into my driveway, three black SUVs were parked in front of the barn. Four agents stood by the barn door. One was a woman in a dark suit, holding what looked like a thermal imaging device. She turned when I got out of my truck.
“Mr. Howell, I’m Special Agent Garrett. We have a warrant to search your property.” She handed me papers. I couldn’t focus on the words. “What’s this about?”
“We’ve been monitoring unusual thermal signatures in this area for several months. Large heat source, consistent presence in this structure.” She gestured at the barn. “We need to see what’s inside.”
Chapter 16: The Standoff
My mind raced. Bigfoot was in there. 18 years of secrecy about to end in the next five minutes. “I don’t consent to this search.”
“You don’t have to. We have a warrant.” She nodded to the other agents, and they moved toward the barn door. I stepped in front of them. “You can’t go in there.”
“Mr. Howell, you need to step aside.”
“There’s nothing in there, just old equipment.”
“Then you won’t mind us looking.”
We stood in a standoff—four federal agents, one exhausted man, and a secret that was about to destroy everything. Agent Garrett’s expression softened slightly. “Mr. Howell, we know something’s in there. We’ve had surveillance on this property for six weeks. We’re not here to hurt whatever it is. We’re here to document it.”
“Document it?” I repeated. “Then what? Take it, put it in a lab, turn it into a science experiment?”
“We’re here to protect an unknown species by locking it up.”
I was shaking now. “He’s not hurting anyone. He’s just living. Leave him alone.” The words hung in the air. I’d admitted it without meaning to. Garrett’s eyes widened. “Mr. Howell, what exactly is in your barn?”
Chapter 17: The Revelation
I looked at her, at the other agents, at the barn door that had stayed locked for 18 years. And I made a choice. “You want to know about Bigfoot?” I said. “Fine, but you’re not taking him. Whatever you think you’re here to do, you’re not taking him away from here.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Then Garrett said quietly, “Show us.”
I unlocked the barn with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. The agents followed me inside, and I could smell it immediately—the wild smell I’d lived with for 18 years, familiar as my own scent. “Stay calm,” I said, not sure if I was talking to them or to Bigfoot. “Nobody’s going to hurt anybody.”
I opened the interior door to his space, and there he was. Bigfoot stood in the center of the area, 8 feet tall, dark hair catching the light from the doorway. He was staring at the agents with those dark, intelligent eyes, and I could feel the tension radiating from him. Behind me, someone gasped. I heard cameras clicking, equipment being adjusted.
“Jesus Christ,” one agent whispered.
Agent Garrett stepped forward slowly, and Bigfoot tracked her movement. She stopped about 15 feet away, and I saw her hand trembling as she raised her camera. “How long?” she asked, not taking her eyes off him.
“18 years since 1993. Found him in a trap, brought him here, kept him safe.”
“Kept him prisoner, you mean?” The words hit like a slap.
“I saved his life, and I’ve been protecting him from people like you.” Bigfoot made a low sound, and everyone froze. He was looking at me now, and I saw something in his expression—not fear, trust. He took a step toward me. The agents tensed, hands moving toward weapons.
“Don’t,” I said sharply. “He’s not dangerous.”
Bigfoot stopped next to me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him. Then he did something he’d never done before. He placed his hand on my shoulder, just briefly—a gesture I’d never seen from him before. It was something like kindness.
Chapter 18: The Significance of Discovery
I felt my throat tighten. “I know. I know you understand.” He pulled his hand back, returned to arranging his bedding, and I sat there realizing I’d spent 18 years caring for Bigfoot, but he’d been caring for me too, in his own way. We were taking care of each other.
The agents stayed for six hours, photographed everything, took samples—hair, scat, water from his bucket, measured the space, documented the routine, recorded measurements of Bigfoot himself from a distance. He stayed close to me the entire time, wouldn’t let them approach within 10 feet. When one agent tried, Bigfoot made a sound I’d never heard—a deep, resonant warning that made everyone step back.
“He trusts you,” Garrett observed. “Only you.”
“I’m all he’s had for 18 years.”
She looked at me with something like pity. “Mr. Howell, you understand this can’t continue. This is a matter of national scientific importance. There will be protocols, research teams, government oversight.”
“No, it’s not your decision anymore. He’s not an object. He’s a living being—intelligent, aware, capable of emotion and communication. You can’t just take him.”
“We’re not taking him, but we need to study.”
“No.” I stepped between her and Bigfoot. “You’ve got your proof. You’ve got photographs, samples, documentation. That’s all you’re getting.”
“Mr. Howell, this is my property. He’s under my care, and unless you’re arresting me, you need to leave.”
Chapter 19: The Standoff
The standoff lasted another hour. Phone calls were made, consultations with superiors, legal discussions I couldn’t follow. Bigfoot stayed silent through all of it, hand still resting on my shoulder—a 700-pound reminder of what I was protecting. Finally, Garrett came back. “We’re leaving for now, but this isn’t over. There will be more visits, monitoring, oversight. You’ve been hiding an unknown species for 18 years. There are laws about that.”
“There are no laws about Bigfoot,” I said, “because officially Bigfoot doesn’t exist.”
She almost smiled. “Not anymore.”
They left as the sun was setting. I watched the SUVs disappear down the logging road, then turned to Bigfoot. He was watching me with those dark eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I tried to keep you hidden.”
He made a soft sound, removed his hand from my shoulder, and walked back into his space. I heard him settle into his bedding, the familiar sounds of his evening routine. I locked the barn and went to the house, and for the first time in 18 years, I felt like the walls were closing in. They knew about Bigfoot now, and I had no idea what that meant for either of us.
Chapter 20: The Weight of Secrets
They came back every few months after that—different teams, wildlife biologists, anthropologists, even a linguist who wanted to study the sounds Bigfoot made. I let them observe from outside the barn, take measurements, record vocalizations, but I never let them inside his space again. That was his, and I wouldn’t violate it. Bigfoot tolerated it, barely. He’d retreat to the far corner when they came—silent and still, waiting for them to leave. Only when I came in alone would he relax, move around, communicate.
The stress aged me faster. By 2015, I was 53 and looked 70. My hands shook, my back ached constantly, and I developed heart problems from decades of overwork and anxiety. Tom Harelson stopped by one afternoon in 2016, sat on my porch, and said, “You look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m serious. You’re killing yourself out here.” He glanced at the barn. “That thing… he’s not a thing.”
Tom was quiet for a moment. “I know you think you’re doing the right thing, but maybe it’s time to let someone else take care of him. Let the government—”
“No.” The word came out harder than I intended. “I found him. I saved him. He’s my responsibility.”
“For how long? Until you drop dead? Then what happens to him?”
I didn’t have an answer. That night, I sat in the barn with Bigfoot, and I could feel the weight of 23 years pressing down—23 years of hiding, feeding, protecting. 23 years of my life given to keeping him safe. He was eating an apple, methodical and careful, still doing everything the same way he’d done since the beginning.
Chapter 21: The Moment of Truth
I don’t know what to do, I said out loud. I’m getting old, sick. I can’t do this forever. He stopped eating, looked at me, made a sound that was almost questioning. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just tired.” He sat down the apple, moved closer, and did that thing again—hand on my shoulder, gentle, steady, a gesture of comfort that I’d seen maybe five times in 30 years. I felt tears on my face and didn’t bother wiping them away.
“I won’t let them take you,” I said. “No matter what, you’re safe here.” Three soft knocks on the floor—the sound that meant acknowledgment, agreement, trust. We sat like that in the silence—man and Bigfoot bound together by a secret that had become our entire world.
Chapter 22: The Reckoning
I’m 62 now. It’s been 30 years since I pulled Bigfoot from that ravine. 30 years of grocery runs, hunting trips, lying to neighbors, fighting with federal agents. 30 years of my life built around keeping one impossible secret. I’m sure the government still monitors the property—satellites probably, maybe listening devices. I don’t know anymore, and I’m too tired to care.
They send someone to observe once a year, always with the same questions: Would I consider relocating him to a facility? Would I allow more extensive study? Would I cooperate with a documentary? The answer is always no. Bigfoot is older now, too. I can see it in the gray that has appeared in his hair, the way he moves a little slower, sleeps more. He still eats 40 pounds a day, still knocks three times when he needs something, still watches me with those dark, knowing eyes.
Sometimes I wonder what his life would have been like if I’d never found him. Maybe he would have died in that ravine. Maybe another Bigfoot would have found him, helped him. Maybe he’d have a family, a community—a life that wasn’t confined to 800 square feet of barn. But I can’t change the past. I can only keep doing what I’ve done for three decades: feed him, protect him, give him the best life I can within the constraints we’re both trapped in.
Chapter 23: The Loss of a Friend
Last week, Tom Harelson died—a heart attack, sudden, no warning. I went to the funeral and realized I’m one of the last people left who remembers this area before cell phones and satellites and federal oversight. The world changed around me while I stayed frozen in time, caring for Bigfoot.
That night, I sat in the barn and told Bigfoot about Tom. “He asked about you sometimes. Never believed me when I said there was nothing to see. He knew. He just never pushed it.” Bigfoot made a low sound—not quite sadness, but acknowledgment.
“I’m getting old,” I said. “And I don’t know what happens when I’m gone. I’m trying to figure it out, make a plan.” But he moved closer, and for the third time in 30 years, he touched my face. His hand was rough, warm, impossibly gentle. He looked at me with those eyes that had seen three decades of my life, and I saw something there I’d never quite noticed before: gratitude.
Chapter 24: The Final Decision
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. Three soft knocks echoed in the barn, and I knew, whatever happened, I’d made the right choice all those years ago. I’d saved Bigfoot. And in a way, I still don’t fully understand, he’d saved me too, in his own way.
The FBI came on a Thursday in June 2011. I was at work when Tom called. “There’s federal agents at your property. Thought you should know.” I left immediately, drove 90 mph up the logging road, heart hammering. When I pulled into my driveway, three black SUVs were parked in front of the barn. Four agents stood by the barn door. One was a woman in a dark suit, holding what looked like a thermal imaging device. She turned when I got out of my truck.
“Mr. Howell, I’m Special Agent Garrett. We have a warrant to search your property.” She handed me papers. I couldn’t focus on the words. “What’s this about?”
“We’ve been monitoring unusual thermal signatures in this area for several months. Large heat source, consistent presence in this structure.” She gestured at the barn. “We need to see what’s inside.”
Chapter 25: The Confrontation
My mind raced. Bigfoot was in there—18 years of secrecy about to end in the next five minutes. “I don’t consent to this search.”
“You don’t have to. We have a warrant.” She nodded to the other agents, and they moved toward the barn door. I stepped in front of them. “You can’t go in there.”
“Mr. Howell, you need to step aside.”
“There’s nothing in there, just old equipment.”
“Then you won’t mind us looking.”
We stood in a standoff—four federal agents, one exhausted man, and a secret that was about to destroy everything. Agent Garrett’s expression softened slightly. “Mr. Howell, we know something’s in there. We’ve had surveillance on this property for six weeks. We’re not here to hurt whatever it is. We’re here to document it.”
“Document it?” I repeated. “Then what? Take it, put it in a lab, turn it into a science experiment?”
“We’re here to protect an unknown species by locking it up.”
I was shaking now. “He’s not hurting anyone. He’s just living. Leave him alone.” The words hung in the air. I’d admitted it without meaning to. Garrett’s eyes widened. “Mr. Howell, what exactly is in your barn?”
Chapter 26: The Revelation
I looked at her, at the other agents, at the barn door that had stayed locked for 18 years. And I made a choice. “You want to know about Bigfoot?” I said. “Fine, but you’re not taking him. Whatever you think you’re here to do, you’re not taking him away from here.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Then Garrett said quietly, “Show us.”
I unlocked the barn with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. The agents followed me inside, and I could smell it immediately—the wild smell I’d lived with for 18 years, familiar as my own scent. “Stay calm,” I said, not sure if I was talking to them or to Bigfoot. “Nobody’s going to hurt anybody.”
I opened the interior door to his space, and there he was. Bigfoot stood in the center of the area, 8 feet tall, dark hair catching the light from the doorway. He was staring at the agents with those dark, intelligent eyes, and I could feel the tension radiating from him. Behind me, someone gasped. I heard cameras clicking, equipment being adjusted.
“Jesus Christ,” one agent whispered.
Agent Garrett stepped forward slowly, and Bigfoot tracked her movement. She stopped about 15 feet away, and I saw her hand trembling as she raised her camera. “How long?” she asked, not taking her eyes off him.
“18 years since 1993. Found him in a trap, brought him here, kept him safe.”
“Kept him prisoner, you mean?” The words hit like a slap.
“I saved his life, and I’ve been protecting him from people like you.” Bigfoot made a low sound, and everyone froze. He was looking at me now, and I saw something in his expression—not fear, trust. He took a step toward me. The agents tensed, hands moving toward weapons.
“Don’t,” I said sharply. “He’s not dangerous.”
Bigfoot stopped next to me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him. Then he did something he’d never done before. He placed his hand on my shoulder, just briefly—a gesture I’d never seen from him before. It was something like kindness.
