Late this summer in the quest for gold ...

Simian Songs In the crystalline quiet of the black, a voice of questioning, melancholy, power and size. “Aahhhh ooooooOO, hoo, Ooh, Hoo” It is a long sound, lasting 50 seconds or more, ending in a deep note which no forest animal can have. The sound is pure, in perfect pitch, like the sound of an alien horn, cutting through the night like a knife. The dog erupts out of the tent like a shot, at first running to the camps edge, the black wall at the limit of light, then back between my legs. I feel the call is a question, as in, “Who are you?” But also a veiled threat, “This is my place. You are the intruder.” And yet, in the song of sound … is sadness. It is the knowledge that we are somehow the same animal, separated by the grief of genetics, without which we could be brothers. The obvious human qualities to the voice has every hair on my body sticking straight out. I am deeply frightened. Will this hairy arthropod charge in here and demand something? The dog? Sex? My life? Visions of yellow fangs and beady eyes course my brain, with continuing thoughts of this giant sub-human tearing my limbs off. A reverse Grendel story. But I trust the Indian tales, that this is a peaceful creature. “The Man of the Woods” they called him. Never-the-less, I don't trust the Indian tales that much. I get out the SKS, the Chinese assault rifle that will discharge 12 rounds in 30 seconds. This I lay across my lap, the dog cowered beneath. Should I fire off a shot in it's direction? A warning scare shot? It seems so crass. It's everything I hate about white men. Instead, I choose to answer. A single loud “YO” I bellow into the blackness. The silence closes over my sound like a heavy quilt on a baby. The anthropoids song seems to linger in the valley, a sound persisting like the ringing in the ears, this call, communing with the neolithic noises of a hundred thousand years past. For over an hour I sit at the fire, built up now, beside the hissing gas lamp, clutching the rifle. I am expecting a pair of red eyes to glow back at me from the dark … but nothing stirs. Not a breath of wind, a creaking branch, a squirrel settling in, the chirp of a bird. Nothing. It is the unnerving void of space. Here, I with my dwindling fire and gas lamp, am the space ship. Tiny. Insignificant. Vulnerable. Eventually my pounding heart slows enough to where sleep might be possible. As if the goddamned night wasn't ridiculously long already. Would that this cursed phenomena of night be abolished. I'd rather go nuts from lack of sleep than suffer this inky horror. Now in the bed, tent zipped, dog piled on top, reading the boring engineering book. Eventual sleep. Weird dreams. Torn instantly from a dream, I snap to sitting in raw fright. The whole valley is filled with screaming and hooting. The dog is leaping around the tent like he's on fire. Oh God, we are surrounded by a hoard of monsters! Two, three, four or more voices are going at once. There seems to be competition for who is the most vocal. It is more varied also, starting soft, going to a high note, and drifting out to a deep resonate “ooOOO” of base. Terror is all over me like a cold water bath. But what can I do? I'm out here near the divide in the remotest place in America. The songs and howling continues on and on. It is 11PM. The moon has just come up over the ridge. As soon as one song ends, frequently with hoots and oots, another begins. At times when three or more are going at once, one will set up a Ki Yi Yi, similar to North African women wailing their group cause of grief. I am trapped in this saran wrap bag called a tent with 5 to 50 monsters out there. The main ruckus sounds about a ½ mile down the valley, whereas the first fella was a ¼ mile up stream where I had been digging Apparently he hooked up with the gang and ratted me out. If this Neanderthal meeting is a prelude to shredding the invading white man, I am toast. All that's missing are the drums. I may get a clumsy shot off or two, but they are fast and quiet and insanely strong. I'm the pit-bulls rag doll toy. My limbs will be strewn about the valley as if I exploded. But wait … what exactly do I need to fear? These peaceful people of the woods are gathering for what to them is a family barbeque. Who am I to be concerned with their society? Pass the mustard please. To be molested to death by their mighty prehensile paws, is surly a more romantic way to go than being in a 3 car rollover on the freeway. Here I am, pursuing my dream in the wilderness ... as are they … what could be a more natural way to go? “YaaahaaaAhhhhooooOOOO, Who, Who”. On and on they persist. Must be 15 minutes now. My mind, unable to come to terms with a furry simian sing-a-long in the midnight woods, conceives a new idea. These are not Abominable Snowmen, these are wolves! Yes .. that's it. Moon up over the ridge and all. The eco-assholes relocation/reintroduction plan for all the extincted creatures. That's who they are. Dogs. Probably woolly mammoths out here too. If the wolves come around here to tear me apart like in the movie “Grey”, I'll empty the assault rifle into the buggers with more alacrity than the first showing of “Dark Night”. I can settle the issue. I'll record the songs on the camera with movie mode. Then some expert from a prestigious university can tell me if it's wolves or Sasquatches. Now, where's the camera? In the pack. Where's the pack? Outside under the tree. Outside where the yellow toothed shredders are! OK, OK, I have the LED light. I make a dash for it. Outside into the howling horror. I always wonder why in the movies they go into the place where the monster is. Yet, here I am. There is no pack under the tree. Scan the whole camp. No pack. Where the hell is it? Flash the light around in the tent. No pack. Scan around the tree and camp again. Gone. The Sasquatch has taken my pack. They are known for such thieving behaviors. They must be from central America. The son-of-a-bitch snuck in here … right in front of us, and snatched it. My wallet’s in that pack. What's the Squatch gonna do with a debit card and no PIN number? Every dime I own in the world is in that wallet. I can't just go eating squirrels or roots or campers as they would do. I need cash. I'm panicking. The singing continues, the voices calmer now with more time between songs. Fuck it! They stole my wallet, I’ll blast em! I barge irrationally into the tent for the war weapon. Grab it up. It's been laying on the pack. The pack with the wallet. Hmmm … disconnect. Maybe they're not such bad chums after all. Well, at least I can take the safety off the trigger. Ok, here's the camera. The screen is a mass of pixels since I dropped the rock on it, so I can't read the menu and change to movie mode. Mash some buttons. Think this is it. I snap some pictures of the tent ceiling. Nope. Not it. In the ethereal distance, only one animal sings a mournful howl. No Hooting after shots. Obviously wolves. Wolves with uncommonly sounding human voices. Wolves with a trachea the diameter of a bean can. A trachea that can reverberate 30 Hz at 80 dB for 70 seconds. Wolves with 20 liter lungs. 8 to 10 foot high wolves. Yes. Now. Finally got the camera ready. I'm not going outside for purity of sound, fuck that. The experts will just have to unscramble it like a bad UFO photo. Always the techno problem with this sort of thing. I raise the tiny gizmo to the top of the tent as the last melancholy song fades softly into the night. I wait for the next one. It's been fairly continuous for 20 minutes now. Maybe it's 10 minutes? Maybe 2 hours? Seems I've been doing this all night. Silence. Not a sound. The battery icon is empty … red … blinking it's desperate warning. After flashing the roof three times, there's not enough juice to record anything anyway. In a few minutes, the camera shuts it's self off. So it is with these things. Might as well go back to sleep. Another 8 hours of black and monsters before the dawn. Only one way to get there. Unconscious.