Read Online Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free by Randy Henderson - Free Book Online Page A

that year.
    Dawn promised it would get better around 1991, but that was a whole two months away.
    Not that I wasn’t already exposed to stuff from later years here and there of course. And wild horses couldn’t have kept me from watching Lord of the Rings . But despite wonders like hand-held computers and the Internet, the world itself hadn’t really changed much. The Russians had never invaded or started World War III, no doubt daunted by the prospect of facing Rambo and the insurgent Wolverines. We weren’t driving fusion-powered hover cars or teleporting, thanks, in Dawn’s opinion, to oil corporations; and we weren’t able to transport into virtual computer worlds, or create computer-generated lovers by wearing bras on our heads and hacking NORAD Satcom (which was actually a good thing, probably).
    So taking time to truly grok each year seemed like a decent plan, especially if I wanted to be able to talk as if I’d been there, and really understand pop-cultural jokes. Which, when hanging around people like Dawn’s friends, seemed an important skill to have.
    *   *   *
    It took an hour and a half to drive from Port Townsend to Port Angeles along the northeastern edge of the Olympic National Forest, and from there up into the Elwha River campground. Early summer sunshine glistened off the melting snowpack of the Olympic mountains, and a light breeze caused the spruce and cedar trees to sway gently.
    I parked and made my way along a hiking trail to the viewpoint for the Elwha Dam, a small hydroelectric structure of concrete and great steel tunnels that spanned a choke point in the narrow river ravine and filled the air with a deafening whirring sound.
    I left the main hiking trail, and made my way up to a hidden path that paralleled the river.
    Sal stepped out from behind a giant cedar tree, his red-brown fur matching the color of the tree’s bark, his head brushing against branches I would have to stretch to touch. “Youself late, Finn-mage.”
    â€œSorry, Sal. I had a bit of ARC trouble. Ready to go find your soul mate?”
    â€œIself ready to try.”
    â€œCowabunga!” I held up the map and compared it against what I could see of the river’s path. “It looks like we should find your true love about two bends up the river.”
    Sal nodded. “That is near Silver steading.”
    â€œOkay then. Shall we?”
    I put on the saucer-sized women’s sunglasses of Protection Against Stonegaze, despite the −5 hit to my Charisma, and we hiked upriver, leaving the man-made trails and the whirring of the dam behind. I followed Sal, who better knew how to find those feyblood trails invisible to the untrained or, in some cases, unmagical eye. Whenever our path brought us close to the river’s edge, my stomach began to churn, my knees felt a little wobbly, and I walked as far from the water’s edge as possible. Ever since I’d drowned while escaping my grandfather’s underwater super-villain lair, I’d had difficulty with large bodies of water, or the thought of being submerged.
    â€œStop!”
    A faun stepped out from behind a tree. He looked like a tan little man with goat legs, and wore a camo vest, a Utilikilt that hung down to his furry goat knees, and a Budweiser baseball cap that didn’t quite cover the nubby little horns on either side of his forehead. He held a crossbow loosely in his hands, and he spit to the side of the trail.
    â€œWhere do you two think you’re going?” he asked.
    â€œUh, hi,” I said. “Do you know where they keep the nuclear wessels?”
    He frowned, and raised his crossbow. “Nuclear what?”
    I raised my hands. “Sorry. We’re just heading up the river a bit. We think my friend here might have a, ah, connection with someone there.”
    â€œGood connection or bad?” the faun asked, lowering the crossbow again, and looked at Sal.