Language in the Shadows

The fire crackled low, throwing sparks into the chill Sierra night. The sky above was so thick with stars it looked like it might spill light into the forest. I’d hiked all day, pitched my tent in a clearing, and now sat alone with the kind of stillness that only mountains can make.

Then I heard it.

At first, it was faint, like the wind carrying sound from a great distance. But it wasn’t wind.

There was a rhythm to it. A cadence, voices.

They were deep, rolling through the trees like thunder, but speaking softly. Not English.

Not anything I recognized. There were sharp snaps of sound, almost like barks, and long, humming vowels that seemed to vibrate in my chest.

Entity 1: “Nüü-ʔa… tü-pa…”
Entity 2: “Grr-rah… süü-ʔi…”

The tones were low, deliberate, almost conversational. The first voice seemed to be pointing something out, maybe my fire or tent. The second replied, deeper, uncertain.

I froze. The forest around me was still, but then came the crack of a stick, followed by a heavy thump.

Then another. Whatever it was, it was big, and it wasn’t alone.

They moved with purpose, circling. I could feel the vibration of each step through the ground. My mind ran through the usual suspects.

Bear, elk, the wind. But nothing I knew of in these mountains made voices like that.

The sound continued for a few minutes, low and rough, like two beings trying to make sense of what they saw. It was me, my fire, the human intrusion into their dark, then silence.

That’s when my brain caught up with what my ears had heard. Those sounds, those deep, breathy syllables, had a strange familiarity.

They reminded me of the Paiute language I’d once heard spoken near Pyramid Lake: earthy, resonant, full of rounded vowels and deep throat tones that seemed to echo the land itself. The resemblance was uncanny.

The same pulse, the same rhythm, but coarser, more primal. Like someone, or something, was imitating the Paiute, but through a mouth built for growls, not words.

The sound was not unlike the Yurok, Hoopa, Terwer, Tolowa, or Kurok, the native languages I grew up hearing as a child and youth. And that’s where my wild idea was born.

What if Bigfoot, the old stories’ hairy giants of the forest, weren’t just silent watchers? What if they spoke?

And what if their speech sounded like the Paiute because, long ago, they met the Paiute? Maybe the two shared these mountains for centuries.

Maybe the Paiute picked up traces of their wild, rumbling speech and shaped it into something human, or the Bigfoots learned to mimic the Paiute’s words to stay hidden, to blend in, to listen without being seen. Those deep “kuh” sounds, those humming vowels, they felt like a fusion of both.

Human-like, but not quite human. A language that belonged to the Sierras themselves.

The fire hissed as a log fell inward, jolting me back. Whatever had been there was gone now, leaving only the echo of that strange conversation in the trees.

The forest seemed to release its breath, as if nothing had happened at all.

By dawn, I had nearly convinced myself it was imagination, just the mind’s tricks in the dark. But when I stepped beyond the fire ring, I saw impressions in the dirt: huge, flat, and spaced far apart.

Bare footprints, each one the size of a frying pan. I never told anyone officially.

Who’d believe it? But sometimes I think about those voices, those deep, measured syllables that sounded both ancient and alive.

Now, when I camp in the Sierras, I listen closely. The forest isn’t silent.

It’s just waiting to be understood. And if you’re quiet enough, and lucky or unlucky enough, you might hear it too.

Bigfoots, maybe. Speaking in the mountain’s oldest tongue, a rough, whispered echo of the Paiute, carried on the breath of the trees.