#9

Little Brave’s belly rumbled. He shot from his pallet, dove through the teepee’s door flap and raced to the trees. Once he took care of nature’s urgent requirement, he watched as a blue-white cloud floated dream-like across the face of the full moon. Insects, frogs and an occasional owl sang their night songs.

     The full moon always captured the young brave’s imagination. For one thing, he could walk at night along the edge of the forest, the moon lighting his way. The blackberry flowers waved in a gentle breeze, white as snow, with just a bluish color to them. His mouth watered as he thought of plucking the plump warm berries and popping them into his mouth come end of summer.

     The owl said “Whoooooo, whoooooo.” Little Brave stopped. What else was he hearing? It was not just the owl he heard. It was not the far off crying sound a cougar made. What was it? The strange sound seemed to be near. He kept still. He breathed as quietly as he could.

     “Oh no, oh no!” he said aloud. Belly noises rumbled and the familiar pain struck. “So much for me keeping quiet,” he grumbled to himself. Once again he tied the leather drawstring at his waist, and straightened his leather britches. He made sure he stepped away from where he squatted so not to step in the smelly stuff.

     A puffy cloud blotted out the light of the moon. And, he’d just stepped into the deep shadow of a low to the ground pine tree. The darkness was that of a cave. Something was following him. “Run, run!” his inner self shouted. But, no! He could not make himself run, for the sound was also of something crying, wailing even.

     Next, a fuzzy, sticky, pitch-sticky, animal embraced his bare legs, a powerful hold it had on him. Little Brave lifted with much might, first one then another hard stubby finger from his sore flesh, but his effort did not work. Whatever the animal was, it was really strong. The two of them now, stood out of the shade of the pine; the full moon again shown bright. Finally, he could determine what had him caught. It was a baby bigfoot! And it wailed still. From Little Brave’s right, a huge dark shadow emerged. In a rushing-air “swoosh” it snatched up the young sniffling bigfoot and broke several short-whippy trees to splinters as it rushed headlong into the black forest.

     In awe, Little Brave walked briskly in the direction of his family’s tepee. It was his intention to tell whomever he would find awake of his adventure. To his delight, here coming to meet him was one of his cousins. But instead of stopping when she reached Little Brave, she raced on to the privacy of the forest, clutching her rumbling belly.

     Little Brave laughed and patiently waited for her to return.

The End