INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
About the Author
INTRODUCTION
The novel Kneel and Kit: Magnificent Brotherhood is the story of the amazing, mutually rewarding friendship between two wilderness 10-year-old kids: a Bigfoot and a boy, Kit Warner. You’ll laugh as Kit tries to teach Kneel English; and you’ll be jealous as Kneel, who can converse with all animals, convinces animal mothers to let Kit and his younger brother, Marcus, play with their cougar kittens, bear cubs, baby raccoons, and others.
Throughout the novel a cruel, massive grizzly bear named ‘Angry One’, who has tasted young, human flesh, wants to repeat the delicious experience by having Kit and Marcus for lunch. Angry One got his name from the Alberni First Nation Indians after he attacked and destroyed much of their village in retaliation for failing to capture one of their children. The big bear learns where the Warner boys live and lies in wait for them to make a mistake. His usual diet of finding baby deer that their mothers have hidden in the grass is good, but Angry One would consider young human meat a great change, even a great dessert. “Fawns make a great meal,” Angry One has said, “but with little humans there’s no hair balls I have to spit up, and that’s a real treat.”
Together Kneel, Kit and Marcus, all in costume, have a wonderful time visiting Victoria’s Inner Harbour, Empress Hotel at Teatime, the provincial museum, Craigdarroch Castle, and riding the double-decker bus, until Kneel is discovered to be a real Bigfoot, not just a man in costume. Shot and seriously wounded by cops after a police dispatch mistakenly reports that Kneel has hurt two policemen, top cops make matters worse by trying to hide the fact that Bigfoot exists. They think they can cover up their mistakes by using wounded Kneel as bait to attract his “Monstrous and dangerous” father, Thunderhead, into a trap. They hope to ultimately destroy the entire Sasquatch family.
CHAPTER ONE
Ten year old Kit Carson Warner got most of his name when his father, Jack, checked to see what famous people were born on Kit’s birth date, April 2, 1974. Jack chose Kit Carson, the wilderness explorer and guide, and young Kit Warner has emulated his namesake for at least half of his first decade on Earth.
Kit was everything his parents--especially his dad--could hope for. Living on a 25-acre hobby farm nestled amongst the Coast Mountains in British Columbia’s Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island, Kit, honest and responsible, excelled in all sports and was popular with classmates and teachers alike. Although he viewed his school work as a necessary evil, his reading kept pace through an outside interest. This ‘outside interest’ engaged all forms of wildlife, to such an extent that the boy carried wildlife books almost everywhere he went; whether for reading in cars, or while examining bugs and animal habitats.
“He’ll be a vet one day,” his mother, Laura, would tell friends. “He knows everything there is to know about animals. He reads everything he can about them.”
Jack was sure that Kit would be a zoologist or, as the lad himself often said: “I just want to be a zoo keeper.”
His parents would also tell friends of the many birds, even mice, which Kit had saved from the clenched jaws of the family’s many barn cats. Several times he had been either clawed or bitten by either or both the victims and the felines. They told these stories because they wanted to convey the special love this exceptional boy had for all animal life.
Kit spent hours at the large pond near the farm house. Often he would have one of his animal encyclopaedias with him for reference on the bugs, or fish, or reptiles, or visiting water fowl. Always, he would have a jar or a tin can to catch and study the habits of smaller specimen; and always he would let them go when he was satisfied with his familiarization program.
“Kit, hurry up, you’ll be late for school,” Jack would holler almost every morning. “Laura, we’re going to have to move that chicken house further away from the pond.”
One of the youngster’s chores was to feed the chickens and gather the eggs. Since he had to go past the pond every morning to get the job done, you can imagine what happened on his return trip with two empty chicken feed cans and the water’s edge beside him. Every morning the allure to inspect the pond was too great. He didn’t mean to stay there so long.
“You heard me, Kit. Get back here,” Jack would often tell the disappointed truant. “You can do all of that after school.”
Teachers had too often complained about the boys arriving late for classes. Jack didn’t want to further abide such daily distractions.
The Warner’s farm was situated two miles from beautiful Shawnigan Lake. Originally a resort lake twenty miles from Victoria, BC, Shawnigan now sported year-round residences on its shores and in the subdivisions in the hills around the lake. Easy commuting had changed the character and extended the use of the large, popular lake. New stores and new schools were hastily erected to serve its growing population.
The Warners were lucky, however. They could take advantage of the modern conveniences and yet maintain the ages-old solitude of life on their farm on Silvermine Road. With only three other families living near them on Silvermine, and thousands of acres of unused logging property to the north and east of them, no vehicles ever went past the Warner home.
The farm itself was like something out of a picture book. The old and large home was almost hidden from the road by the several huge, mature apple trees in the front yard. Between the road and the home was five acres of pasture, and then a spacious acre lawn where the fruit trees yielded their tasty abundance.
The house was not particularly attractive on the outside. Sporting its original wall shingles--a ploy to keep the tax man from knowing how beautifully the house was renovated inside--it couldn’t hide its age. But together with the old wooden water tower, the detached garage and large woodshed; that cluster of buildings around the house added warmth and dimension to the home’s setting.
Other features on the property were the gardens (flower and vegetable) that Laura tended near and around the house. Also near the house were a small pig barn, the pond, and fifty yards south, a chicken house. Twenty-five yards west of the house was a large gate that opened up to another five acre pasture and a huge, old, weathered barn that sheltered a big Red Angus bull, and three Hereford cows.
Through the property, from the edge of the pond to the lower northwest corner ran a small creek with ten inch trout , and the entire property, except that portion fronting Silvermine Road, was rimmed with a forest of fir, arbutus, and cedar trees. About 200 feet due west of the barn, on a small knoll, sat an old, circa 1821, log cabin. Still in good shape, but missing a door, the unused cabin was a favourite haunt of the Warner boys.
Both Kit and his eight year old brother, Marcus, led active lives. They were members of soccer teams, swim teams, and Little League baseball teams in Duncan, a small city about ten miles from the farm by good highway.
Theirs was a busy time outside the home; as was driving them for their parents. At home, the boys showed little interest in television and spent most of their spare time outside either playing with an abundance of sports equipment or exploring the property and adjoining woods with their big German Shepherd/Irish Setter cross named Shadow. This wonderful beast followed the boys everywhere they went, and if Jack or Laura ever wanted to see where they had wandered, they just watched for Shadow’s large feathery tail waving above the tall reeds and bushes that followed the creek and spread out on about five acres of rich, dark-soiled lowlands in the northwest. Another reason the boys spent so much time outside was because they had built a fort in a huge (28 feet around the base) cedar tree near the pond. The pond, quite clean because of its clay bottom, was great for swimming, and had a well-situated trampoline at the deepest end for diving and cannon-balling. The boys were lucky that two other boys, Jay and Tommy Bates, lived directly across from them on Silvermine Road. Jay was ten and Tommy eight; the same ages as the two Warners.
Kit loved all the activity at the farm, but best of all for him was the way that Mother Nature had revealed so many of her wonders to him. Deer were abundant both on and near the farm, and often came to the pond or creek to drink. In Autumn, black bears would come at night and shake the apple trees and munch on the apples that fell. Raccoons were other night visitors scurrying about looking for something to eat from the pond or creek. A year ago, Kit had been chased by a hungry cougar while he was feeding the chickens. Though he had been frightened by the big cat, he cried when Jack shot the animal. But then he also cried when he and his dad found what little remained of their only house cat, Marble, who had been eaten by the cougar.
Seeing rabbits was a daily occurrence on the farm. Shadow tried in vain to catch them. What was especially fun for Kit was catching the baby ones, petting them awhile, showing them to his friends and parents, and then returning them to their hiding place.
What Kit wanted most in life was a pet bear cub. There were many black bears in the area, and his father had foolishly suggested a couple of years back that Kit’s fondest wish was not just a pipe dream.
“It’s quite possible that we could get a bear cub for you one day,” Jack had said, pulling the bed covers up to Kit’s neck one night. With that, he rubbed the boy’s hair, kissed his cheek, and turned out the light.
What he didn’t see was that he had turned the light on in this loving youngster’s mind, and for the rest of his boyhood he would likely yearn for the day that he and his dad would bring home a young bear as his playmate.
CHAPTER TWO
Patches of wet melting snow dotted the higher ridges of the Coast Mountain Range in late March in the Cowichan Region of Vancouver Island, but Spring buds, grasses and flowers flourished in the valleys below. Because the moist, lush valleys glistened in the warm sunlight, deer made their way down to the meadows all over the range. There they searched out longer grasses that had had a month or more without snow cover. A gentle north breeze wafted uncertainly through the valley at the base of Goldie Mountain in the area of the Warner farm. The breeze seemed to stop and start again, not sure how to get out of the valley, nor whether it really wanted to leave. For this was a warm and peaceful scene; one which portrays what nature should be all about. However, the breeze did escape the serene valley floor and carried the delicious scent of tasty venison high up Goldie Mountain where the violent side of nature was smacking his lips as he looked down from his perch, a high, rocky crag overlooking the valley, trying to spy an easy victim.
He was an eight-foot tall Grizzly bear named Angry One. He got the name from the Alberni Coast Salish Indians because of the destruction he had caused in their village after they had saved one of their children from his attack. For three nights after that rescue, the angry bear returned to the village and damaged lodges, knocked over totem poles and ravaged the insides of two homes. “Angry One, that’s a good name for him,” they decided. The tribe sent out search parties looking for Angry One, but they were soon convinced, and quite happy, that he had left the Alberni Inlet area. They were mistaken however when they thought he had left the area because he feared their reprisal. No, this gigantic grizzly, who had already feasted on human flesh, feared no man. There was another reason that he moved to Goldie Mountain, and it wasn’t because of the excessive numbers of deer there. In fact he hadn’t even known these extra meals would be on the menu.
As he viewed the valley from far above, Angry One’s thoughts coursed the current situation.
“Too early yet for fawns,” he thought. “Pregnant does are too skittish and fast. Rumour has it that Old War Horns is in this area. Where is he? If he’s lasted the winter, this will be his last Spring.”
That was the reason the big grizzly had moved to Goldie Mountain. He wanted to feast on Old War Horns.
Angry One squinted and carefully surveyed the valley for a glimpse of Old War Horns. That tired old buck had sired most of the mature deer for miles around. Inactive now, he was tolerated by the powerful young bucks in all surrounding valleys. He was a grandfather to most of them and they knew it. He was on his last legs, but still he possessed the best trophy head and antlers in all deerdom. Angry One stood tall on his hind legs to get a better look. His gaze scanned all of the feasting deer in sight, but none was Old War Horns. He cursed his bad luck. “I’d eat for a month off that sinewy old carcass,” he thought. “By that time the fawns would be here. Ah, I can hardly wait for that tender dessert.” Angry One took a last glance at the deer below.
“Too fast, too cautious for me to catch,” he grumbled.
He then moved to the far left of the crag and his gaze wandered across a new portion of the meadow. It was more out of lazy curiosity in the warming noon sun that he gazed aimlessly at the far corners of the grassland. The aimless gaze ended abruptly when he spotted, in the far northwest corner of the lea, a single deer. “Could it be…? Could it be Old War Horns?” Angry One thought, as he squinted hard.
It looked like him. Angry One snorted joyously. It was him! And alone; far from his cautious, spry descendants. Old War Horns was nibbling near the edge of the forest. Angry One snorted excitedly.
“He’s being handed to me on a platter,” thought the grizzly, “but why is the old one so far apart from the safety of his more alert fellows?”
Angry One looked again to make certain he hadn’t made a mistake. It was no mistake. There, far down in the valley’s corner, next to a wooded clump, the old stag nibbled feverishly.
“Today’s my lucky day,” bellowed the hostile bear. He moved hurriedly down the crag in expectation of ambushing his lunch.
As Angry One moved into the valley, he circled the wooded area so as to keep Old War Horns from viewing him. His mouth watered steadily at the thought of sinking his three-inch fangs into the old stag’s neck. He raised his nose to test the direction of the breeze. He must keep downwind from the cagey buck, he thought. He remembered his mother’s teachings many summers ago: “If you can keep an old deer’s scent on the breezes, then he’ll never detect yours.” Angry One caught the buck’s scent and though it excited him greatly, he moved cautiously towards it. As he rounded a bend at the forest’s edge, the big bear spotted his quarry a hundred yards ahead of him.
Angry One stopped and studied his unwary prey. Crouched behind the tangled vines of a blackberry patch, the huge bear edged carefully in the buck’s direction. Seventy-five yards to go and the stag raised his head. What a magnificent set of antlers. The old deer hadn’t spotted him, and simply went back to his munching. Fifty yards to go and Angry One began to worry about the old deer’s ability to elude him. Old War Horns was nearing an impenetrable thicket. Angry One concluded that if he could get close enough--say, ten to fifteen yards--he could force the buck into the thicket and would have him trapped. Good plan, he thought. Twenty yards away. The big bear couldn’t believe his luck. He was almost on top of the cagiest -though slowest- deer of them all. This was the moment when no mistakes must be made. His prey was almost within grasp. He had waited years for such an opportunity as this to eat the trophy buck’s heart. It was the moment of truth.
Then Angry One’s wry smile turned to bewilderment. What was this new cut hay doing lying about? So that’s why Old War Horns is eating here. But where did the new cut hay come from? Has man set a trap for the trophy stag?
Nose raised, the confused grizzly caught the scent, not of man, but of his greatest enemy, Thunderhead, the Bigfoot. How? Where? The big bear was in a quandary. Unsettled and anxious, Angry One suddenly felt his prey might be lost to the Bigfoot.
“Is Thunderhead after Old War Horns, too?” he snarled. “He’s mine. He’s not going to…”
Angry One’s deliberation was cut short by a thunderous crash in the bush beside him. Startled, he instinctively leapt back. Then remembering his prey, he moved quickly and angrily from his cover with a deafening roar.
His challenge was met by Thunderhead’s return roar, and again Angry One leaped back.
Thunderhead, his old nemesis, a towering eight-foot Bigfoot had laid hay along a stretch at the forest’s edge as a trap to catch Old War Horns. When the old stag got close enough, Thunderhead had crashed from near the thicket and, with one blow of his massive fist behind the deer’s head, had felled the animal. With Old War Horns lying dead at his feet, Thunderhead had roared his disapproval of Angry One’s intrusion. Now the two beasts faced one another in bitter challenge.
“This is my new territory, Thunderhead. Go back to Bow Ridge or I’ll wipe out your little family,” roared Angry One.
“You’ve wiped out all of the young deer on Alberni Inlet, Fawn Killer. The rest have scattered,” Thunderhead roared in perfect grizzly language. “You’re not going to ruin this area too. What will be wiped out, Death Dealer, will be you.” Angry One hated the name Fawn Killer almost as much as he hated Thunderhead.
He remembered too well their encounter on Bow Ridge almost two years ago. Thunderhead had spotted Angry One sniffing in a grassy knoll searching out a hidden fawn, From his vantage point, Thunderhead could see the fawn motionless, but with fear enveloping its visage, and then its fragile frame beginning to tremble. Pitying the fawn, Thunderhead strode quickly to the knoll and picked it up, seconds before the startled grizzly would have done the same. However, the difference was that Thunderhead had picked it up carefully in his arms, whereas the wrathful bear would have picked it up in his powerful jaws and shaken it mercilessly--as he had done to two fawns already that day.
Spring was Angry One’s favourite season, and baby venison his favourite meal. This occasion at Bow Ridge had been the first time that Thunderhead had crossed swords with Angry One. Before that each had given the other wide passage. Enraged, the grizzly had bellowed a deafening challenge to Thunderhead, and was taken aback when the massive Bigfoot bellowed back in perfect grizzly: “Try to take it from me, Fawn Killer.”
It was a challenge long ago, but still the grizzly wished he hadn’t taken it.. Each time he swiped at Thunderhead’s head with his razor-sharp claws, the Bigfoot would duck, and then one of his huge clenched fists would deal a shattering blow on the bear’s nose, or neck, or chest.
Angry One in that old encounter had failed to land a single blow. He was in great pain when he hobbled off defeated. It was two months, well into the Summer, before he had fully recuperated from that severe pounding. During his convalescence he had pondered a great deal on what had gone wrong; why had the Bigfoot beaten him so badly? He concluded that the answer is to fake a head swipe, and then swipe down to get the Bigfoot when he ducks. Follow that with a quick upswing to the face. Those moves will kill him, the big bear had concluded. “Yes, that combination will work,” Angry One had often told himself. “Now, all I need is my chance to use it.”
Well, his chance had finally arrived. After having deliberated so often on his new defensive strategy, and desired so often to have a chance to try it out on Thunderhead, the opportunity had finally arrived. He now stood face to face with his greatest enemy who had called him ‘Fawn Killer’ and ‘Death Dealer’.
“He even stole my buck and tried to challenge me,” Angry One thought, looking at the carcass of Old War Horns. Then he said to himself: “Killed with just one blow; what’s my next move?”
He remembered what his mother had told him when he was just a cub: “If you ever have to fight another bear that’s as strong as you, start out with the element of surprise.”
Staring by turns at Thunderhead’s defiant visage and Old War Horn’s carcass, and remembering the pain of Thunderhead’s many blows to his body at Bow Ridge, Angry One slowly turned and grumbled softly that the old stag’s meat “would probably be too sinewy for a good feast, anyway.”
Recognizing the cowardice in the grizzly’s feeble attempt to save face, Thunderhead smiled, threw the buck’s limp body over his back, and left.
CHAPTER THREE
There are some deer that get so tame that you actually have to give them a slap to get them out of your garden. The majority however are genuinely wild and although you see them crossing roads, they run at the slightest hint of approach. These, and the deer which seldom cross roads, are truly wild; yet there was something about Kit’s approach to those wild deer that had them standing and watching much longer than they would for the rest of us. Although Kit couldn’t actually touch these wild ones, he could get very close before they darted off instinctively
Because he could get so close to the deer, and because Grandpa gave him a camera for Christmas, and because he heard that the meadows on Goldie mountain were green with new grass and “loaded” with deer, Kit wanted to go there to take pictures. He set off one Saturday morning in March armed with his camera, his big dog, Shadow, and a lunch that his mom had packed for him. He thought that if he could get close enough to include several deer in single photos, he might really get rare enough pictures that wildlife magazines would be interested in using them.
Kit rode his bike for three miles along the logging trails that began where Silvermine Road ended at the edge of the Warner’s property. He and Shadow then had to hike another three miles through bush trails and hunter’s trails --uphill--to get to the lower meadows on Goldie mountain. He had been there before, but never alone. However, he was satisfied that Shadow would keep any black bears away, so he was only a little worried about the journey.