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Title: Cryptid: The Lost Legacy of Lewis and Clark
Published by: iUniverse
Paperback: 312 pages
ISBN: 0595359744
$18.95
Available from your favorite bookseller
About Cryptid
Uncover the secret evidence of Sasquatch within Lewis and Clark’s lost journals in Eric Penz’s Cryptid, a cryptofiction award-winning novel.
The line between history and legend can be deceptively thin–too thin perhaps to maintain the claim that one is exclusively fact and one fiction. Such may be the case with the history of Lewis and Clark. For the fact is that two hundred years after they were handpicked by Thomas Jefferson to lead an extraordinary expedition to the Pacific coast legends still persist regarding unexplained gaps in the explorers’ field journals.
Call it legend, call it history, Cryptid tells the riveting story of conspiracy theorists who have new evidence of a centuries-old cover-up. When a cryptozoologist, a paleontologist, and a descendant of Jefferson begin connecting the dots, they threaten to do more than unveil the well-guarded scientific discovery that lies at the heart of the ancient secret; they threaten to rewrite American history. That is if they can survive a conspiracy that dates back to the Founding Fathers-the very same that haunted Lewis to his grave. It may be that one of our nation’s first secrets is still being kept.
Cryptid illustrates how the human act of seeking the truth can be the very element that destroys it. Two centuries in the making, Cryptid is the final chapter of the Lewis and Clark story. As with any good tale, the best secrets have been kept until the end.
About the Author
Eric Penz is a partner in an insurance and financial services agency. He earned his bachelor of science degree in environmental biology from Eastern Washington University in 1995. His postgraduate work was done at the University of Washington where he completed a two-year literary program in commercial fiction. Between managing his clients’ portfolios and writing, he spends his spare time as an amateur adventure athlete. He and his wife and their two boys make their home in Sammamish, Wash.
Photo: Author Eric Penz at Camp Sherman, the base camp located at 10,000 feet on Mount Rainier in Washington State. Photo by Wayne Waldroup.
Excerpt
Jefferson looked up from the letter with intent, to the object lying concealed beneath white linen amid his desk and then to the sheet of paper next to it. He picked up the one page inventory of all items brought back by the Expedition and slid it atop Lewis’s letter. Holding them as one, he searched down the invoice until he found the single item noted near the bottom: One large & complete male prymate skul.
He had no answers for his friend, for he too doubted, had been struck deeply by Lewis’s account upon his return. The same evil mix of emotions whirled in his own soul. Staring into the skull’s empty, unseeing eyes was haunting enough, but to think of the animal alive and peering into its soul would chill the heart of any man, make him question his deepest beliefs. The fleshless skull had been more than enough to cause Jefferson to do the same. And that was this new animal’s power, its value to men. It forced them to see the world as it truly existed, not the lie men lived in their own minds. It shed light on the full evil of man’s selfish corruption. The very motive behind the actions Jefferson was about to commit.
He surveyed his now cluttered desktop: the veiled skull, the two small chests containing the journals, and the letter and invoice he set down next to them. In spite of assurances he would make to the contrary, this bit of evidence still existed, and that gave him heart. Perhaps he was not yet the same as them. Those with wealth, power, influence. Those who had not yet surrendered to the principles of the Revolution, who mortgaged public resources for private gains. But he also could not as yet honor Lewis’s request to publish it all. No, he had to stay the course, for the sake of the Union, for the dream.
Patience and wisdom was what was needed. A time would come when the nation would be strong enough, and the hearts and minds of the people willing to hear the truth. For if the truth came out now it would not survive long enough to find its way into history and be preserved. Until then they would believe the truth destroyed, for that’s what he would tell them when they asked, for certainly they would. He would simply lie. A thing any good president becomes skilled at.
He reached out and eased open the lids of the two chests containing the two sets of Lewis’s field journals. The question then became, what was he to do? But as soon as he thought it, he already knew the answer, had indeed been planning it for months now. Only now he was not dealing in theory but in practice, and he found it much harder in the doing.
His fingers were on the leather-bound spines, walking along them as he took inventory, assuring himself they were all there. And they were. It was Clark, after all, who had retrieved them along with the letter. Nothing less would be expected.
Jefferson paused, fingers resting on the spine of the last volume in the chest, and waited for the resolve. These were not after all personal journals, though that would be ill mannered enough. No, these were the property of the government of the United States of America, official military records, proprietary documents protected under the Constitution. And he was no common citizen ignorant to his actions. He was a founding brother of the Revolution, author of the Declaration of Independence, and third President of the Union. But then, this would not be his first unconstitutional act, nor, for that matter, was he any longer president. And so, he held a deep breath and gently lifted out the last volume in the chest. Confirming he had chosen correctly, he set it atop his desk and then selected out another, and another, each being easier than the last, until there was a small stack in front of him.
Breathing freely now, he eyed the volumes still inside the chests. And then with a sigh he closed the two lids, locked them, and set both chests next to the stairs for Clark to pick up in the morning to take to Philadelphia for publication. From a bottom desk drawer he retrieved a lock box, placed it on his desk, and opened it. Surveying what remained—the skull, letter, invoice, journals—he felt shameful for not including more, for there was so much more he could. But it was all he could afford. Any more and the enemy would know of his actions. Besides, nothing more would fit in the box. Not that the skull fit, but that was a minor detail he would certainly resolve.
So this was it then. These were his crumbs of bread to be left along the trail for a generation yet unborn to follow, that is if they know their history. But where should he begin? The end, of course, where it would be most painful, the punishment most just. And with that he took out his ink and quill, opened a volume from the stack of journals, and on its few remaining blank pages began composing his confession.
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