Stone and his wife exchanged looks. Then he poured out another shot. “Why not? Its head was wrong.”
“Oh?” Jason became very still. “Deformed, maybe?”
“It didn’t hit me till later, when I tried to describe it. I think its head was a different color from the rest of it. ’Course, I only saw it two seconds, so I can’t say what color the rest of it was. The hair was different. Longer. I think.” He looked at his wife, turning his whole body so he didn’t have to turn his neck. “But that’s not the big one. You heard the news saying the thing had thrown a tree at me?”
“No,” said Jason.
“Well, it’s a load of bull. Some snotty kid made that up for some snotty, crappy paper.” He touched his bandage. “Somebody cold-cocked me just as I was about to shoot it, Mr. Jason. It wasn’t that ape. How could I get the back of my head hit when he was in front of me?”
Jason’s mind lurched. He glanced out the tiny curtained window to the slope and woods. “Cold-cocked by whom?”
“I don’t know. He was real quiet about it. I didn’t hear a thing.”
Stone’s wife said, “That’s what’s so bad about this business, Mr. Jason. Somebody must have been trying to break in here when the ruckus started and Frank and his gun and that ape scared him off. It all happened at once.” Her lips trembled slightly. “Maybe that thing saved our lives.”
“Oh, come on, Joyce . . .” Stone shook his head, the pain making his wince. “Jesus, what a night!”
“Did anybody see who hit you?”
“Nobody saw nothing!” grumbled Frank P. Stone. “Real good neighbors. Just me and Perkins’s shepherd. I thought he’d bark himself into a cardiac. Dumb city dog, scared shitless of everything.”
Jason found a squashed-up paper bag lying near the trailers, close to the woods. The top was stapled with a receipt from a store called “The Picnic Place.” Someone had been up there.
He held the paper under the dog’s mouth, keeping a good grip on the leash. The dog sniffed, then growled and tried to pull away. Obviously, the bag belonged to a stranger.
Within the woods was a rocky canyon, the floor littered with fallen leaves. Here they had more luck. The dog growled unhappily and tugged at his leash. Wedged in the rocks, next to a small pile of dog feces, was a plastic wrapper for sandwich meat.
The feces were not Buck’s; the Perkinses did not allow the shepherd off his chain. Jason poked at the feces with a stick. The outside was a crust, the inside still moist. Very recent. No more than twelve hours old.
He looked around the cliffs and saw a cave high up near the top, accessible by a slanting ledge leading up from the floor. “Let’s go, Buck.”
The dog did not want to go onto the ledge. Jason dragged him, snapping and howling, up to the cave, then tied the leash to a boulder by the entrance. He slapped at mosquitoes swarming about the cave threshold.
It was small and empty of even insect life. The floor was silted with mud. Leaves had been piled into the back wall, then depressed downward by great weight. Jason scooped up a handful of these leaves and carried them to the dog.
He shoved them under Buck’s nose. Buck went crazy with rage and almost bit Jason’s arm. He soothed the animal with a silky, stroking rub behind the ears. “It’s them, isn’t it,” he whispered to the animal. “And you’ve got the scent, haven’t you.”
That afternoon he bought the dog from Perkins. He paid exactly one thousand dollars for him, in hundred-dollar bills peeled from a roll he carried in his pocket.
He pulled the rented car up to The Picnic Place and let Buck out, still holding the leash.
The woman behind the counter looked up as the bell tinkled. “How do?” she said to Jason. “Come to find the Bigfoot?”
“Isn’t everybody?” Jason looked over the counters, uncertain about how to get her to talk without sounding like a private eye.
“The real nuts all went home already,” said the woman. “Some folks say it tried to rape some woman down on Route Nine.”
“People are crazy,” murmured Jason.
“Well, it was down at George Fraser’s apple orchard,” she protested. “George found his trees stripped about an hour ago. Good thing the nuts are gone, or they’d all be down there too.”
Jason laughed politely. “Where’s this orchard?”
“It’s about four miles down that way.” She pointed down the highway toward the trailer park. “He run through the woods after he got to the park and spent the night eating there. They say.”
“How can anybody be scared of a gorilla that eats apples?” Jason laughed with an effort.
“The things that happen in this county. There was an Indian in here yesterday morning . . .”
It came down on Jason’s head so fast that he could barely coordinate moving the mustard and the sandwich meat on the counter.
“. . . scariest man I ever laid eyes on. He weighed about twenty pounds, and every ounce was plain meanness.”
“No kidding.”
“Had an Army jacket and a mangy little dog. Bet his pockets were full of razor blades. He was on the run, if you ask me.”
“What from, I wonder.” Jason opened a bag of potato chips and shoved several into his mouth. He had forgotten the dog until now. So it belonged to the Indian after all. He had wondered if it was wild or not.
“He said he was from Stevensville, Montana. That’s up at the Flathead reservation, you know?” She counted up the food and rang the prices on the register. ‘That’s fifteen seventy-five with tax. Going camping?” Jason had bought a carton of food and sandwiches.
“I might. Your sign says you sell bullets. Do you have any three fifty-seven Magnum shells?”
“Nope. All the Bigfoot nuts bought them.” The woman shuddered. “Try Springer’s, in town.”
4
The Indian had awakened before dawn that morning. He wanted to get clear of the orchard as quickly as possible. A pink line separated the night from the eastern horizon as he munched an apple from the trees.
The dog tried to follow him to the road, but he threw an apple at it. “Fuck you!” The dog barked furiously, trying to get him back to the orchard.
The Indian found a road sign pointing out directions to Spokane, Seattle, and a host of small towns unknown to him. He was vaguely interested to learn he was in Washington. Very vaguely. He had no friends out here, and had never been to Washington in his life. Glumly he trudged down the highway, watching sunlight fill the air.
The dog was extremely upset by this change in routine. It was not bold enough to approach the Indian and not smart enough to leave. It dogged the Indian’s footsteps, yapping in outrage, dodging rocks thrown at it.
The Indian skewered a rabbit dashing across the road with an arrow, then took it into the trees to skin and roast it. The dog wagged its tail, expecting a piece for the spirit. Instead, the Indian ate the entire animal with deliberate thoroughness and threw bones at the dog. When he washed his hands in a stream and headed back for the road, the dog unleashed a thunderstorm of barks.
“I know he’s sleeping!” the Indian roared. “I don’t care if he don’t wake up.”
By seven the sun was high. The cold night was turning into a reasonably warm day. The dog became hysterical, walking in circles, making little jumps in place, rolling on the ground. The spirit was being left far behind. The road was a twisty ribbon that crossed streams. Finally the Indian rained rocks at the animal, with such ferocity that the dog ran yelping into the woods.
And did not come out.
Good, the Indian thought to himself.
The Indian had hoped his disillusionment would give him a sense of freedom. Instead, he was more tired than he had been on the entire futile quest. He still felt the heavy presence of the spirit, and it was not pleasurable any more, rather like an unwelcome intruder watching him.
Produce trucks hurrying food to market appeared on the road. They sped up at sight of him.