Have any of you guys ever felt like a third wheel? That’s me. Every day. I thought it would be fun to go on this all-summer road trip with my brother and his fiancée, but it’s getting really old halfway through the summer.
We’ve been to the craziest places. We met some monks at the Grand Canyon and hiked with a guru in Yellowstone. We even fought off a witch in Glacier National Park. But at the end of the day, Ray and Ciara always want to take pictures by the best views. And me? I’m always the one holding the camera.
I’ve got to put aside my hurt feelings, though. Today was…well let’s just say it was a bad day. Do you remember that motorcycle gang we ran into at Zion? Remember their leader, that absolutely ripped biker named Van? Yeah, that creep is back, and his little crush on Ciara isn’t so little anymore. The guy’s a total psychopath. Here’s what happened.
We’re hitting Grand Teton on our way back south, right? We stopped at this AirBnb with a gorgeous view of the mountain range in the distance and a forested valley right below our cabin.
I thought we were all going to stay in the cabin for the night and hang out, maybe play some cards, but Ciara and Ray started getting all moony-eyed. I knew I was going to be spending the night updating the blog while they went on a hike through the stars or whatever nonsense couples do.
It got weirder, though. Ciara was standing on the porch looking at the valley, and I was transferring the camera photos to my hard drive at the table behind her. The sun was setting, so the sky was absolutely gorgeous with oranges and purples.
Ciara made this strangled gasp. “Look, I think—I think it’s Bigfoot!”
“Bigfoot isn’t real,” I grumbled, but I stood up to look over her shoulder.
She pointed at something in the trees. “Do you see it?”
I squinted. It was pretty far away, and the dusky lighting acted like a fog. There was definitely something large and dark moving through the trees, but there was no reason to assume it was Bigfoot. “That’s gotta be a bear or a moose,” I said.
“I swear it had a face,” Ciara claimed.
Ciara’s smart. You guys know that. I love her, really, even if I complain about being left out. I didn’t doubt that she saw something unusual, but as the saying goes, when you hear hoofbeats, think horses and not zebras.
“What are we looking at?” Ray slipped through the glass door onto the porch.
“Bigfoot!” Ciara said.
“What, really?” Ray grabbed the camera from the table and leaped over the porch rail.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To get a picture!” He winked at Ciara. He’s always trying to impress her, like when he tried to feed that bison in Montana. Stupid. He zipped up his Patagonia jacket. “You two stay here.”
He marched downhill into the forest.
I couldn’t believe he actually left to go look for whatever giant animal was in the trees. Ciara seemed to come to her senses, too.
“Aren’t you going to follow him?” she asked.
“And do what?” I asked. “He told us to stay here.”
“What if it really is a bear?”
After she asked that, Ray’s scream echoed through the valley. I hadn’t heard him scream like that since he broke his arm when we were kids, and it’s a chilling sound.
Fear rippled through me like electricity. I grabbed Ciara’s shoulder and tried to pull her inside.
“Laki!” Ciara pleaded. “You have to help him!”
“Okay. Okay.” I couldn’t let my brother get mauled. “But you have to stay here, and if we don’t come back, call the local police.”
She nodded her agreement, and I vaulted over the railing to follow my brother’s shouts.
It didn’t take long to find him.
He was wrestling with some bear-sized dude in a black leather jacket and one of those goofy gorilla face masks.
I tackled the burly guy off of him, and he backed off. I recognized the busted skull patch on his jacket. He was definitely in the motorcycle gang from Zion.
The gorilla boy laughed. “You two are so stupid,” he said. He saluted us with two fingers and ran into the woods.
I helped Ray up. His lip was bleeding. “The goon just jumped me,” he said.
“You think they’re following us?” I asked.
Then, a feminine scream ripped through the trees: Ciara.
“You don’t think—” I started, but Ray had already taken off up the hill.
By the time we got back to the porch, Ciara was gone, and a gruesome skull sticker had been slapped on glass of the screen door.
Ray slammed his hand into the table and nearly knocked my laptop off. “That loser Van took her!” he roared. “What a misogynistic, dumb-witted piece of—”
I buried my head in my hands. “This is my fault,” I groaned. “I shouldn’t have left her.” My brother was heartbroken and my closest friend was in danger all because I couldn’t protect them both.
Ray’s rage softened. He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Hey man, you didn’t do anything wrong. You were ready to charge Bigfoot for me. How could we have known it was a trap?”
“But Ciara—”
“We’ll find Ciara,” Ray said. “Van picked the wrong brothers to mess with.”
And that was Day 47. Hopefully Day 48 will be better. If any of you guys know a motorcycle gang that uses a half-crushed skull for their symbol, let me know. We’ve got to find their hangout and rescue Ciara. But really, she’s going to be hacked off enough that maybe we’ll have to save Van from her wrath. Either way, the national park tour is on hold until the gang is back together.
–Laki
Author’s Note:
This story is based on the part of the Ramayana where Rama goes after the golden deer and Sita is kidnapped by Ravana and his minions. I read the Tiny Tales version, and in it, I was really captured by Lakshmana, who’s really this sidekick character that shows a lot of heart and doesn’t get enough credit. I decided to tell the story from his point of view, through the character of Laki. Laki feels like a third wheel around his brother and his brother’s fiancee, and when things go wrong, he feels at fault. He’s also the voice of reason of the group, and I love voice of reason characters. In the original story, Lakshmana tells Sita there’s no such thing as a golden deer, and in this story, Laki tells Ciara that there’s no such thing as Bigfoot. Of course, no one listens to him.
My version of the story takes place with the Ramayana trio being a team of 3 college-aged kids taking a summer-long road-trip through the national parks of the west. This is meant to be similar to Rama, Sita, and Lakshmana being in exile in the Indian forest. I even implied that they’ve had some supernatural incidents and met some wise travelers just like the original trio do. I wanted to experiment with a different voice, so I wrote it in an informal “travel blog” style.
Ravana also appears (indirectly) in this story as Van, the leader of a rough-and-tumble motorcycle gang that has made it their mission to terrorize Ray and his friends.
Bibliography:
Tiny Tales from the Ramayana, Part B, by Laura Gibbs. Source.
Featured Image: Schwabachers Landing in Grand Teton National Park. Ken Lane. Source: Flickr.
Image 1: American Black Bear. C Watts. Source: Flickr.
Image 2: A crushed and discolored skull. Source: Wikimedia.
