SIERRA THE FIRST CRIME
 by P.R. Sherman

Dulcet tones of Christmas carols swept through the streets full of package-laden shoppers.  Snow fell delicately, decorating shopper’s hats and coats with tiny frozen crystals.  On the street corner I could see the back of a very tall Santa Claus ringing a bell.  He wore the typical red, white and black Santa suit, but he was huge wearing monstrously large black boots.  A large red pot hung from a tripod that sat next to him.  As I moved closer to him, he turned towards me.  Although he had a fake white beard, he had white curly hair peeking out from his red and white hat.  There were also white wisps of hair on his face.  In that moment I realized that this was a Bigfoot in a Santa Claus costume.  I had to close and open my eyes it was so unbelievable.  Then I became aware of the people on the street around me.  Some of the shoppers were Bigfoot dressed in winter hats and coats, their children in tow who were equally dressed for winter.    They wore fur coats, wool coats, winter hats and monstrously big boots.  They also wore gloves and mittens.  I was stunned.

I continued walking down the snowy street, the snow wetting my face.  To the right of me was a toy shop.  The window display grabbed my attention.  The doll display was a landscape of snow, and glistening hills.  Everything was white; white lights, fake snow, little dolls dressed in white, white running throughout the display, white cars sat at the railway stops with white blinking lights on the side of the intersection.  On top of the center hill sat a large Bigfoot doll.  She also wore a white silk dress with white taffeta ribbons that matched the bows in her cropped short blond hair.  She was about 3 feet tall.  Her eyes were large and green with long eyelashes.  Her lips were painted pink as was her cheeks under white wisps of hair. Her legs were covered in white stockings and stuffed in large white patent leather shoes.  Her arms and hands protruded with little wisps of blonde hair from its puff sleeves that tied on her forearm.

Inside the store a male Bigfoot clerk watched me with a jolly smile.  He was a large brown Bigfoot about ten feet tall.  He was dressed in a red and green Christmas sweater with grey pants.  The hair on his head was puffed into a spiky punky look.  When I became aware of his eyes on me, I looked up.  He waved for me to come inside.  I opened jack-frost imitation on the snow-white decorated door to see both Hairless Ones and Bigfoot shopping.  It was magnificent with flashing tiny colored Christmas lights lining the baseboard of the floor and ceiling.  Dolls looked at me from every corner.  Behind the check-out counter was a large glass case.  Inside were families of Bigfoot and Hairless Ones dolls each representing different characters, clowns, soldiers, nurses, princesses, princes, kings, queens and firemen.  The room sparkled from the lights giving everything that Christmas glow.  Toys of all kinds sat on displays.  In front of the shelves were large trucks and huge stuffed animals. All the adult Bigfoot were dressed stylishly for the season in fur coats and hats.  The Bigfoot Clerk took the big doll from the window and brought it to me.  His feet were covered in huge black shoes.  I could hardly take my eyes off them.  They reminded me of Herman Munster.  I had never seen shoes so big in my life.

“She is a beautiful girl, isn’t she?” he said in his deep husky voice.  He held her out for me to examine.  I was stunned.  He continued talking.  “We also have her available in other colors.  We have red hair, black hair, brown hair and various skin tones, but this one seems to be our most popular model.”

I looked around the store still unable to grasp what I was seeing.  A Bigfoot girl of about seven picked up from a shelf what appeared to be at first glance a Barbie Doll.  Barbie was dressed in a tight-fitting red dress, but she was a curvy Bigfoot.  The black hair on her head was curled and she had red polish on her nails.  Her dress was short revealing her black hairy legs.  Her feet were pushed into large red heels.  “Mommy, please let me have her.  She is beautiful!”

The mother took the doll and put it back.  “You have to ask Santa.  If you’re a good girl, maybe he’ll let you have her.”

I noticed a GI Joe Bigfoot they dressed in fatigues, with combat boots on his feet carrying a gun.  Overwhelmed with what I was seeing, I ran past the clerk out into the street where the carols playing and Santa ringing his bell were heard.  Snow continued to fall.  As I was about to cross the street, a car stopped for me to cross.  Inside was a male Bigfoot driving.  The car was large accommodating his large size.  The height of the roof was at least two feet taller than an ordinary car.  Again, I was staring.  Also, in the car was a female Bigfoot with a large knit winter hat on.  Two Bigfoot children dressed in winter clothes jumped up and down behind them.

From behind me appeared a Hairless One policeman.  He motioned me on.  “Go on now.  Move along.”  He startled me.  I walked across the street still amazed by the size of the car and all I had seen.

I was lost.  I didn’t know where I was.  The snow veiled the buildings – nothing looked familiar.  I didn’t know how to get home.  I saw a bench at a bus stop.  I sat down on it.  I began to cry.  I couldn’t understand what had happened.  A huge bus pulled up.  It was filled with Hairless Ones and Bigfoot, all dressed for the holidays and many carrying packages.  A group composed of both Hairless Ones and Bigfoot got off.  When they had each gone their way, the Bus Driver, a Hairless One, leaned out of the door, “You coming?”

I looked up at him.  “Where am I?”

“This is the Third Street Line.  I make all stops.”  He chewed his gum impatiently, “Coming?”

I shook my head, unable to ask another question.  But as he started to close the door, I stood up.  “Third Street, where?”  The door closed.  He didn’t hear me and drove off.  From behind me a small Hairless One man said, “Franklin.”  I turned around.  A man in his late sixties dressed in a long brown wool coat with a brown hat and a necktie that peeked out from the top button of the coat sat on the bench.  He lit up his pipe.  I sat down next to him.

“Sir, where am I?”

“Third and Franklin.”

“But what is this town?”

He looked at me incredulously and puffed, then said, “Boulder.”

I didn’t understand anything.  Nothing made sense.  I just wanted to go home.  I got up from the bench and began running, running past shoppers, past stores, lights and Christmas Carolers.  I ran down the entire block.  As I stepped off the curb my foot slid on a patch of ice.  I went down. My head hit the curb.  All went black.

 

I heard the wails of a baby crying.  It was faint, but enough for me to hear.  There was talking too, but as faint as the baby crying.  My eyes weren’t ready to open yet.  Pain dug through my back spreading its tendrils inside and over me.  Another stab of pain reached out from my thigh, spreading itself up and down my leg.  I felt myself sinking further and further into an inky hole where nothing could touch me.

 

The cold air froze me to the bone.  I opened my eyes.  I lay on the floor of a huge granite cave.  I was naked.  I sat up wondering where I was and how I got there.  Why didn’t I have any clothes on?  My vision cleared.  I looked down at my naked feet.  They were bigger than I remembered and covered with hair.  As I examined my body, I realized it was not my body as I remembered it.  This body was covered in thick hair.  I felt my head.  My hair was no longer long, but short.  It spread over my cheeks and neck.  Alarmed, I stood up on my massive feet.  I was tall!  What has happened to me?  I was terrified.  The thought that somehow, I had become a Bigfoot was terrifying.  I thought of Oak, Winter and Daddy.  Why should I be afraid?  I loved them and all of them were Bigfoot.  It didn’t seem to matter.  I wanted to be who I was born to be.

Thoughts ran through my brain.  What about Ed?  We could no longer have a relationship.  What would Grey Claw and Horse think?  I looked around the cave.  Is this going to be my new home?  I started crying.  My body shook from tears and cold.  Then a horrible thought came into my head.  I’m a vegetarian and always plan on being one.  What if my body won’t let me?  What if this body takes over and kills animals for food?  It was too much to bear.  I couldn’t live my life as a Bigfoot.  Fear drove me to run through the cave.  It was Daddy’s cave.  Suddenly I found myself looking down from one of the cave entrances to the hills below.  I continued crying my arm stretched to the side holding onto the sides of the cave.  In that moment I felt that life offered me nothing.  I flung myself out of the entrance.  My body soared through the air, blue skies above, snowy rocks and trees below.  I floated for what seemed an eternity before my huge body hit and the lights went out.

 

There was smoke in the air.  I recognized it.  It was sage.  It permeated my nostrils.  There was something soothing about it.  Then I heard whispering.  It wasn’t clear what was being said.  It was perhaps two or three people whispering not far from me.  My eyes would not open.  I lay there trying hard to understand what was being said but the pain choir sang too loudly, shouting it out.  I lay on my stomach.  I could feel hands around my back’s pain vortex.  They were gentle.  I felt these hands spread something soft across the hole of death.  That’s what I thought it was.  Death sat next to me.  Death was a shadow of myself who had emerged from the hole of death.  She was waiting, sure I would be going with her.  Whatever the hands applied minimized the hot pain that shot like lightening through my body.  It had a cooling effect giving me somewhat relief.  Death scowled.  I didn’t see, my eyes were closed, but I knew her, everything about her and what she did.  She wanted me to go with her.  She held out her hands to me urging me to take them.  I would not.  Inside my head I screamed, “No!  I won’t go!”

The hands moved down to my thigh and again spread the coolness over my heated pain.  The sage gave way to another smell.  It was pungent dark and bitter smelling.  The smell seemed to be getting stronger and stronger.  It seemed to envelope me in a dark cocoon.  Then the smells created a vortex within itself, spinning around and around, making me smaller and smaller until I seemed to disappear.

 

I found myself in a large room.  On the walls were pictures of my Bigfoot friend Oak dressed in a suit.  The posters read “Oak for President.”  I walked out of the room onto a balcony.  A band was playing below.  Oak and the beautiful Bigfoot, Winter, were in a convertible waving to a crowd of both Bigfoot and Hairless Ones.  They were both dressed professionally, Winter looking like Jackie Kennedy of the Bigfoot.  It was a parade.  There was a lot of screaming and shouting with confetti flying through the air.  Oak looked up and waved to me.  Suddenly there was a shot.  Oak fell forward in the car.  Another shot went off.  Winter had been hit, toppling over Oak’s body.  The car stopped and Hairless Ones and Bigfoot surrounded them.  Then the car sped off at high speeds with Oak and Winter surrounded by security.  I yelled to them.  “Wait!  Oak!  Wait!”  As I leaned over the balcony trying to get their attention, I leaned too far.  Down I went into the well of darkness.

 

There was a knocking at the door.  It was a monstrous wooden door with engravings of gardens.  It took all my strength to open it.  Behind it stood Death.  This specter had grown as large as the door.  In a booming voice I heard, “Your time is up!  You must come with me now!”  I tried pushing the door closed but it was too heavy.  Then somewhere came the voice of Ed.  “You can’t leave me!  Jill, I love you!  Please fight it!  I love you!”  Something in those words gave me strength and I slammed the door shut and locked it with a large bolt on the door.  “No!”  I shouted to Death.  “I’m not going with you.  It’s not my time!”  There was a great swoosh sound and I felt myself going somewhere, like I was flushed down a toilet.  Then I felt someone holding my hand.  They kissed it.  His lips were warm and they seemed to bring strength into me.  Pain still ran through my body like an electrical storm, but the kisses muted the pain waves.  I felt something else – an energy – life started to return to my body.  My heavy eyelids didn’t want to open.  I fought my eyelids.  I demanded they open.  I demanded life to surge through my body.  Another kiss this time on my forehead.  His smell so close, so invigorating.  Life broke through the wall, that building between me and it, and suddenly my eyes opened.  I tried to find my voice, but it wasn’t there.  I looked at him as he sat back unaware of my presence.  I watched him as he hung his head and wiped away a tear.  Then I heard from the other side of the room, Grey Claw.  “She’s back!”  Within a minute my bed was surrounded by Horse, Snowbird, Oak, Grey Claw, Winter, Mountain Rose, Hawk Eyes and Emmee and of course, Ed.  They were all smiling.  I think I must have smiled too.  Ed clutched my hand in his, tears streamed down his cheeks.  He wasn’t the only one crying.  I could see tears on most of their faces.  I still lay on my stomach with my head at the foot of my bed.  My line of vision was limited but they all crowded around me until Mountain Rose yelled.  “Get back!  She needs to breathe!  Come on, everybody, out!”  I could see that neither Ed nor Grey Claw were going anywhere.  The others slowly made their way out the door.  Mountain Rose stood between Ed and Grey Claw.  “She needs rest.”  Ed continued holding my hand.

“Father Sky says you’ll be okay.  Rosie, Ed needs to stay right where he is.”

Mountain Rose and Grey Claw walked slowly towards the door.  They took one last peek at me before walking out the door leaving Ed and I alone.  His love surged into my body but my body was still too weak.  My lids came down but before drifting off into sleepland. I was aware of everything in the room and everything that was going on in my body.  I fought to stay awake to see Ed, but my body wouldn’t let me.  The lids came down and once again another world took me.

 

I looked up and T-Rex stood over me grimacing.  The huge evil Bigfoot growled, “I am going to destroy all Hairless Ones.  Since you worked so hard to educate me.  I will let you watch.”  My hands were in manacles as were my feet.  He pulled the chains attached to my wrists and led me through the huge cavern.  In some of the cavern rooms I could see Hairless Ones being beaten and raped by T-Rex’s men, Buzzard, Slims and Howler.  It was horrible.  He took me to another room where Oak, Daddy, Horse and Ed were sequestered and manacled.  T-Rex turned to me, “They are not of our tribe – they look like us, but they are part of your tribe – they must die!”  One by one his men took them out.  We followed.  I was terrified.  The chains clanked as we walked up a tunnel to the top of the mountain.  When we reached the top, his men led Oak, Daddy, Horse and Ed to the edge and one by one they pushed them out to the valley below.  I screamed in horror, “No!”  T-Rex laughed.  I moved to the edge and threw myself after them.  Suddenly I found myself in a red sleigh like Santa Claus with eight reindeer.  The driver in a Santa suit was Grey Claw.  He had caught Oak, Daddy, Horse, Ed and I and drove us away up into the sky.  T-Rex and his men shouted threats from the cave entrance as we flew away into the blue sky with the fluffy clouds.

 

There was the sound of a baby crying again.  I realized I still lay on my stomach.  The pain in my back nudged me further to wakefulness.  My eyes opened.  Ed and Grey Claw sat next to my bed.  Both men’s heads hung down.  They were asleep.  I looked up behind them.  Horse stood there smiling at me.  He put his hands on Grey Claw’s and Ed’s shoulder, waking them.  They both looked at me and smiled.  I went to turn over and the pain in my back shot through me.

“Stay where you are!”  Grey Claw commanded.

Ed could see my dry lips and was quick to give me a glass of water with a straw.  He put it up to my mouth.  The water refreshed me as it flowed down my throat and into my body.  I looked up at my favorite men and croaked out, “What are you staring at?”

They all laughed.

“She’ll be okay,” announced Grey Claw.  Then I noticed Mountain Rose, Winter, Oak and Snowbird with her baby, standing on the other side of the room.  Winter walked closer.

“Jill okay?”

“Jill okay.” I said softly.  There were smiles all around the room.  I was lost.  I didn’t know why I was in my bed on my stomach with a pain in my back and thigh.  Although I told Winter I was okay, after thinking again, I wasn’t sure.  The pain pierced my back radiating across my whole body.  I looked up at Ed and Grey Claw.  “What happened?”

Grey Claw spoke.  “Remember Ransom?”

Oak stepped forward, “You remember.  Daddy killed him before he killed you.”

My mind was slow but memories of that night were vivid.  I remembered running to the ravine with Ransom right behind me.  He wanted to kill me for not revealing that he had seen a Bigfoot.  Daddy was there and had seen my peril.  He pulled up a tree and threw it at the horrid man, knocking him into the ravine.  I remembered his crumpled body lying there.

Grey Claw continued.  “Apparently, he had a brother, Grover, who lived up here.  He shot you with his bow and arrow in the back and thigh.”

I started to remember it.  I had been in the garden when I felt the first arrow hit me in the back and then the second hitting me in the thigh.

“Why?” I asked.

“We can only guess he felt you were responsible for his brother’s death.”  Grey Claw patted my hand.  “Don’t think about that now.  Snowbird saved you.  She shot him.  He’s dead.”

I stretched my head to see her and her baby.  “Thank you, Snowbird.  I see you had your baby.  Come closer so I can see.”

Winter quickly followed Snowbird to my side.  “I helped!”

Grey Claw and Ed moved so Snowbird could kneel next to me.  “Yes, Winter was a great help.  She still is.  She is a great babysitter.”  Winter smiled feeling proud of her compliments.  Snowbird pulled the blanket back so I could see the baby’s face.  It was adorable.  It had dark hair just coming out with tiny wisps on its face and arms.

I looked up at Snowbird.  I could see she was proud of this half Bigfoot/half Hairless One despite his obvious Bigfoot features.  I smiled.  “Girl or Boy?”

“He’s a boy!” beamed Winter.  “Isn’t he the most beautiful baby ever?”

I nodded, “yes”.  I could see Winter was as bonded to the baby as Snowbird.

“Have you named him?”  Snowbird looked at Horse.  I could see their relationship had deepened since my accident.  Horse took her hand.  She turned back to me.  “We wanted to wait till you were well and we would have a proper naming ceremony.”  She looked at Grey Claw.  “He’s a very special boy, being both Bigfoot and Native American.”

“Very special.” Echoed Winter.

I suddenly remembered the Bigfoot Nation Cave and the police that had been organized to free the abducted Bigfoot from T-Rex.  “What happened at the Bigfoot Nation Cave?”

Grey Claw stepped forward.  “That will wait till later.  You need to rest.  We’ll talk later.”  He ushered everyone out of the room, but Ed.  Ed took my hand and kissed it.  “I just wanted a moment before you go to sleep.  Thank God, you’re going to be alright.  I don’t know what I’d do without you.”  He bent down and kissed me on the lips.  I love you, Jill.”

That was the most powerful medicine anyone could give me.  “I love you too.”  He kissed me again and then stood up.  “Sleep.  I’ll be back later.”  I watched him leave and then closed my eyes.  I couldn’t help my thoughts of some stranger wanting to kill me.  I was grateful Snowbird saved my life, but I felt sorry this person died and the fact that he blamed me for his brother’s death.  Although Ransom was evil personified, he had to be a sick person to do what he did.  Perhaps his brother also suffered from the same sickness because Ransom was clearly mad.  Luckily my body wouldn’t let me think anymore and took me back to Slumberland.

 

When I woke, Mountain Rose was by my side.  She gave me one of her toothless smiles.  “Grey Claw, Ed and Horse are sleeping.  They hadn’t left your side since we found you.  They needed sleep.  How about a little food?”

Before I knew it she had returned with a bowl of vegetable broth and bread.  She helped me sit up, arranging my pillows so I could lean back.  It hurt, but I had to sit up.  Before I leaned back, she checked my wound.

“Healing nicely.  You’ll be alright.  I’ll check your leg after we get some food in you.”  I looked at the bowl before eating.  She smiled “Don’t worry, it’s all vegetable broth.”  She knew me well.  I am a vegetarian and would never change that even for an arrow in the back.