Page 2 of Savage Giant

His hands trembled and he shook his head in a manner of disbelief. An action I’d seen humans do many times when confronted with one of my kind.

“Sas-sasquatch!” he said. “Oh God, help me. It’s a Sasquatch. Bigfoot.” A string of curses followed.

I paused in my circling and tilted my head at him. “Actually, my people are called Montikaan, and my particular tribe is known as the Starblessed. We have occupied these mountains for thousands of years. You are trespassing in our lands.”

The man’s eyes widened. “You can talk. Holy…” His voice trailed off. “I-I am sorry for trespassing. I’ll leave the mountain and never come back. I promise. Just let me go.”

“You promise? Let you go?”

“Yes, let me go and I won’t tell anyone I saw you.” Cautious hope flickered in his gaze.

“The elderly man you left bound on the forest floor begged you for mercy, yet you planned to show him none. Why should I show you mercy? You are a wicked creature deserving of death.”

“I’m not wicked!” he said in an adamant tone. “It’s just that the old man was going to lie to the authorities and try to get us thrown in jail for something we didn’t do!” His eyes darted in the direction from which he’d just run, and I sensed the severity of his lies as a twisting sensation in my gut.

Another gust of wind ruffled my thick fur, and I peered to the south, where the second would-be murderer had run. I could hear his rapid footsteps in the distance, as well as his ragged breaths.

When I returned my gaze to the dark-haired man, my rage boiled so hot that I nearly strangled him on the spot.

Too many human males who ventured into our territory tried to harm my people. Some tried to capture us, while others shot at us. There were accidents, too, when a hunter might mistake a Montikaan for a bear or an elk, or when a metallic air vessel piloted by humans crashed in our forest and ignited a blaze.

A growl left me as I recalled the last time a vessel had fallen in our lands, when it crashed near our settlement, starting a fire that killed twenty-five of our people, most of them females. The dark memory haunted me, and I saw the flames in my dreams each night.

I reached out to strangle the dark-haired man, but quickly thought better of it.

He deserved to suffer.

He would perish by my hand, but he wouldn’t receive a quick death. Neither would his comrade, who was currently crossing the Skagit River.

Even as the yellow-haired man put distance between us, I could detect the scent of his sweat combining with the river water, the moisture clinging to his hair, as well as the coldness of his terror.

I knelt before the dark-haired man and divested him of the knife in one quick movement. He barely tried to defend himself.Pitiful. His lips quivered and he scooted backward, but his actions were clumsy and slow.

“Please.” Tears glittered on his eyelashes.

But his begging wouldn’t sway me. I’d already decided to end him. I told myself I wasn’t doing anything wrong, that I wasn’t disobeying my eldest brother Chief Brutus’s rules regarding human trespassers on our lands.

Though the men had planned to flee the area, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t run into one of my people during their journey north. They could very well try to harm a member of the Starblessed tribe. It was a risk I couldn’t take.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” I told him, “just as you shouldn’t have harassed that old man. I can sense his innocence, just as I can sense your lies, your depravity. Your death will bring justice to those you have wronged.”

He held up his hands, a vain attempt to ward me off, but I plunged the knife into his stomach. It was a deep wound, though it would take him a good hour or more to die. The slow, agonizing death he deserved. His blood was warm on my hands.

The man emitted a gurgling scream and slumped on the ground, his legs and arms twitching. I rose to my feet and loomed over him, watching as he struggled against death. Against his inevitable demise. I cast a brief glance toward the river. I longed to stay and watch as he bled out, but I needed to capture his comrade before he got away.

“I hope you die,” I said, “thinking of all the wrongs you’ve committed. I hope you die filled with fear and regret, and that your soul will never know peace.” I tossed his knife aside, then knelt next to him and searched his pockets for a communication device. Aphone.

When I pulled out a rectangular-shaped gadget, I quickly smashed it with my fist, and I took great satisfaction in the mournful cry that left him once he realized what I’d done, oncehe realized I’d taken away his only hope of leaving the mountain alive.

My cousin, Axxon, who was an expert in all-things human, had instructed everyone in our tribe to always ensure the humans we encountered couldn’t call their own kind for help, couldn’t report that they’d glimpsed aSasquatchorBigfootbefore we managed to alter their memories of the meeting. This wasn’t the first phone I’d smashed, and I doubted it would be the last.

After one final glance at the dying man’s pale, sweat-drenched face, I took off through the forest. As I ran after the second would-be murderer, my thoughts went to Sashona—the female I’d been courting until a few moon cycles ago. She was one of the females who’d died when the air vessel had crashed near our settlement. I still grieved her untimely passing, and whenever I thought of her, another layer of granite encased my heart.

Ever since that fateful day, each time I came into contact with humans, the painful memories would resurface to the point that I felt the heat of the flames singeing my fur.

Logically, I knew the crash had been an accident, but there was a part of me that wanted to blame all of humankind for Sashona’s death. A part of me that longed to kill every human male that set foot on the Starblessed lands.

A part of me that foolishly thought I might bring her back if only I killed enough human males.

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