With the memory of Raven’s story having faded after a nights sleep, we set off the next morning to find our treasure. Bill took us and our gear over to Boat Basin in one of the boats the band uses for their whale watching tours. It took a full day to get there.

When we got there, Bill tells Raven to mind Jack and be respectful, which we were all prepared to do after Raven’s little campfire story the night before. Then he says to Raven, ‘You’ll know what to do.’ Raven just nodded to him, and Bill leaves us standing on the shore with our gear and supplies.

‘Well, where do we go?’ I asked Bubba.

‘There’s a trail a little North of here. We follow it West about five miles, then cut North along the foothills for another five miles, ‘Bubba says. ‘Once we get there, we turn East and head into the mountain region. It will probably take us a few days to get to the location once we reach the foot of the mountain. 4 or 5 days hiking at most’.

‘The day’s almost done. Should we camp here overnight and head out in the morning?’

‘May as well,’ Bubba says. ‘That boat ride kicked the shit out of me.’

Raven kind of sneered at us, seeing as it was only 3:00 PM and we were ready to call it a day. We set up camp regardless of Raven’s opinion. We didn’t tell any campfire stories that night. We were all pretty tired, due to the fact we don’t do anything all day on the commune, and even a boat ride was enough to exhaust us in.

The next morning, off we go at the crack of dawn. Raven and Tasha in the lead, me and Bubba behind them, and Jason and Andy behind us. Jason and Andy took turns pulling an off road cart we bought to carry the heavier gear.

‘Do you think Raven’s bullshitting us about the Sasquatch’, I asked Bubba.

‘Probably. You know Raven. He’s always yanking our chain, but he did sound pretty serious about it. It was almost like a warning that this treasure hunt might turn out to be more than we expect’.

‘Yeah,’ I agreed.

‘I don’t know,’ Bubba continued. ‘I’ve been close to these mountains most of my life. I’ve never heard such an involved story about Bigfoot before. If anything, I’ll bet it’s a tale to scare the children’.

‘It managed to scare the crap out of Andy. He’s looking over his shoulder everytime someone takes a step’.

‘Yeah, well, Andy has his issues’.

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘I hope we don’t run into that Jack guy just the same. Let’s just find our treasure, and go home.

‘It’s cargo,’ Bubba insisted.

‘Whatever, let’s get it and get out. Shouldn’t we be stopping for lunch soon’?

‘We’ve only been walking about an hour,’ Bubba replied.

‘Yeah, but we had to take down camp after breakfast. That took awhile. It must be around noon’

‘It’s 9:32’

‘Hm. I’m starving. Why do you think it’s so dark today?’

‘It’s the middle of winter,’ Bubba says. ‘What did you expect? It’s the shortest days of the year. It’ll probably be cloudy and rainy the whole time we’re out here.’.

Sure enough, as soon as Bubba says rain, it starts raining.

‘Hey Raven! Shouldn’t we pull over and wait out this rain?’ I shouted, but he basically ignored me and kept walking.

Long story short, we set up camp on our first day of hiking around the same time we did the day before. We didn’t get anywhere near our goal of reaching the place where we turn into the mountain. Of the 10 miles, we maybe made 6. Everyone was generally miserable by then. We were soaked, tired, and had blisters on our feet.

‘Listen you guys, we’re going to have to pick up the pace if we plan to get there anytime before spring comes around,’ Raven says.

‘Well, we have to work into it,’ I replied. ‘You and Tasha are the only two who hike’.

‘Or engage in physical activity whatsoever,’ Bubba added.

‘Yeah, well you’re the ones who wanted to do this,’ Raven says.

‘You just watch us tomorrow,’ I said. ‘We toughen up fast’.

The next day we completed the 4 miles that took us to the entrance of the mountain range and just far enough into it to find a little clearing to set up camp. No-one, meaning everyone but Raven and Tasha, could walk. Our blisters from the day before were so sore we limped the entire day, and it was raining worse than the day before.

Raven didn’t push things about our lack of progress. He saw he’d have to wait until we started to toughen up a bit, and even the next day we were a lot better. The blisters still hurt, but we were tending to them, and grew accustomed to the pain. Pretty soon we were making steady progress through the heavily wooded area.

We were starting to feel like adventurers. Of course we were still achy, but our muscles were starting to respond too, nor were we fatigued all the time. By the time Bubba figured we were only a day from the treasure, we were feeling good. Even though we spent a full day hiking, we were sitting around the campfire telling stories and in good humour.

‘I almost broke my ass on those rocks crossing that brook’, Jason said, munching on a hotdog, of which we had brought at least 300.

Everyone had their own stories about the day’s journey, and we were having a pretty animated conversation, when all of a sudden Raven lifted his head as though he heard something. He stands up looking out into the forest.

‘Get into the tent,’ he tells us, which we all did except Tasha who stood up like Raven and started scanning the woods at the edge of the glow of our campfire.

The rest of us got into the tent and watched from the opening, wondering where we had left our Bowie knives.

For the next few moments, I saw nothing. I didn’t even hear anything, but Raven and Tasha stood on alert and ready. Then, reflected by the fire I saw eyes appear. Two here, two there, and soon tens of pairs surrounding the campsite.

Raven and Tasha held their ground, not moving, just watching. Raven had no weapon, Tasha had two Bowie knives holstered to her hips. They remained sheathed. The eyes edged closer, and the faces of wolves appeared, then their bodies. They were big wolves. Bigger than I have ever seen. Still, Raven and Tasha stood unmoving.

Fully visible now, the wolves stopped. The hair on their backs was not raised in aggression. They calmly stood there, sometimes glancing towards the rustling sound coming from the forest.

Moments later, a man appeared. He was aboriginal, and accompanied by the biggest wolf of them all. An albino wolf, with glowing red eyes.

He wasn’t a big man, which I felt unsettling, assuming he was Wild Eyed Jack. In fact he looked a little rickety like the years had broken him down. He and his wolf walked into the campsite. The other wolves remained where they were, nonchalantly taking in the surroundings.

Raven walked to meet the man, and they spoke for a few minutes. The man was rather animated, gesturing here and there, and doing most of the talking. When he finished, Raven looked past him, then without a word, he, the man, Tasha, and all the wolves ran into the forest.

We didn’t sleep the remainder of the night, which should come as no surprise. We remained in the tent though. It was later in the morning, when the sun was fully up, we felt it safe to emerge. There was no sign of Raven and Tasha.

The first thing we did was rifle through the supply cart looking for our Bowie knives. Once we found those, we felt a little more prepared, but not much. Then we started talking about what we should do now that our team had been broken. We had talked the whole night about what was going on, but could come up with no conclusions.

‘I think we just wait,’ Bubba says.

‘Yeah, they’ll be back,’ I replied. ‘Then we’ll continue’.

So that’s what we did. We waited. We waited all that day, and all the next. Still no sign of Raven and Tasha.

‘We’re going to starve to death if we wait much longer,’ Andy said, which was true. Not having anything else to do while we waited, all we did all day long was chew on hotdogs like they were pepperoni sticks. We also had a bunch of canned supplies like beans and stew, but they were getting eaten fairly quickly too. We had even eaten some of the protein bars, which no-one particularly took to.

‘The way I see it,’ Bubba says, ‘is we can head back or keep looking for the cargo. We can’t just sit here anymore.

We all pretty much agreed to this. We weren’t afraid to proceed on our own, or anything like that and supplies were dwindling. I wanted to keep looking for the treasure, seeing as we were only a day or two away now. We figured Raven and Tasha would find us when they were finished with what they were doing.

‘They know where we’re going,’ I said. ‘They’ll meet up with us sooner or later’.

‘Yeah,’ Bubba agreed. ‘What do you say boys? Keep going’?

We decided to head out the next morning, wanting to give Raven and Tasha a little more time to get back. That night Andy looked up and noticed it was the full moon.

‘Maybe it’s a good thing, they’re not around,’ Bubba half-joked in reference to Tasha.

‘Maybe she’s going to turn into a werewolf,’ Jason couldn’t help but speculate.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I hope they’re doing okay’.

Having had a couple of days rest and pretty much nonstop eating, our bodies were fully recovered from the past days of hiking, and we were moving and working well with each other. I’d say we made fairly capable hikers that day. We covered over 12 miles, and when we set up camp, Bubba said we’d find the site the next day. We were kind of hoping we’d find signs of Raven and Tasha along the way, or they’d show up, but nothing like that happened. There were no signs but forest life the whole day.

The next morning, we found the site. It was pretty obvious when we found it. It was an opening in the woods of about 50 by 50 feet.

‘This is it,’Bubba says.

‘Yeah, but where?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Bubba replied. ‘Here’, he said gesturing at the opening.

‘There’s nothing here,’ I said.

‘I see that’.

‘Well what are we supposed to do now?’ Jason asked.

‘Go home’ Bubba answered. ‘There’s nothing here’.

‘What were you expecting Bubba,’ I asked. ‘Just a bunch of treasure sitting here on the ground waiting for us to walk up to?’

‘Yes. The journal entry said they left the cargo in the clearing’.

‘Yeah, but wouldn’t they buried it or something’.

‘I don’t know why’.

‘Because it’s treasure, like I said it would be. Were not coming all this way and not digging around a little bit. You guys,’ I said to Andy and Jason, look around the perimeter and see if you can find anything unusual. Maybe an arrow carved on a tree pointing somewhere. Something like that. Anything that looks like it’s been altered by humans’.

Bubba and I started removing the debris from the floor of the clearing to see if we could find any signs underneath all the fallen leaves and twigs leaves. We used little collapsible camping spades we had brought. It was going to be a lot of work. The entire area was covered with a thick layer of forest debris.

We weren’t at it more than 5 minutes, before our spades started bumping against something like a root or something just under the debris. I kind of just worked my way over them and kept going, but Bubba took a closer look.

‘These are bones,’ he says.

Sure enough, they were bones, and no matter where we looked, there were half-buried bones just under the debris.

We decided to clear the area completely and try to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t long before it became apparent what we found was a burial site of some kind.

‘What do you think this means?’ I asked Bubba.

‘I think it means, we found our cargo,’ he answered. ‘It was humans’.

‘Humans’?

‘It wasn’t uncommon to transport humans as cargo in those days. Those are human bones we’re looking at. I guess this answers how they got the cargo all the way up to this isolated location.

Just then Jason calls out, ‘Hey, there’s a ring on this hand. I think it’s a diamond’.

‘Leave it and get out of there,’ came a voice from the perimeter of the clearing.

It was Raven. Tasha was standing beside him. Both were injured. Raven was leaning heavily on a crutch fashioned from a branch of a tree. It looked like his whole left side was damaged. The leg was damaged, his arm hung uselessly by his side, the whole side of his face was bruised and swollen. Tasha didn’t look much better. Her right arm was in a sling, and her head was bandaged. Blood had seeped through the bandage at the back. Both were filthy.