“No!”
Jason opened the folding door to kick out a beer can. “And get this, Kimberly. I think the Bigfoot’s from around here. He knows these rivers too well.” Jason explained about the five rivers leading to the Little Harrington.
“It doesn’t sound like he knew about this trailer park.”
“The hell he didn’t! He went right for a vegetable garden. After that he made a beeline to an apple orchard. He takes chances, Kimberly, like he did at the farm in Canada.”
Kimberly said dubiously, “Maybe you’re right, maybe not. I can’t poke any holes in it yet. What about this Indian?”
“Oh, he’s still around. I found out he’s a Flathead from Montana.”
He heard the frantic scratching of Kimberly’s pen on paper. “Splendid, Mr. Jason! I’m off to the library first thing in the morning to see what I can dig up on Flathead Indian lore. Maybe I can find out why the Indian’s following him.”
“That still leaves me with the big one. This ape’s traveled a good thousand miles on foot. And five hundred of those miles since July. Can you tell me why he would be running around like this?”
Kimberly mulled it over, then grunted. “You’ve got me there, Mr. Jason. It makes absolutely no sense. Has he killed any more animals?”
“I don’t know. I imagine he has.” Jason slipped more coins into the phone slot.
“I’m tempted to say he’s been hunting. There’s a very elaborate, time-consuming activity called persistence hunting. You walk your prey to death. The trouble is, you have to do it in a band. It does sound to me like he holds food to be very important, maybe more important than sex, shelter, and even his own safety. He did eat a musk ox, didn’t he? Not many members of the ape family outside of baboons eat meat. It makes sense that he likes apples. Most primates adore fruit. I bet he likes it better than musk oxen.”
Jason said, “Yeah, but a thousand miles? That’s a long way to hunt. That can’t be it.”
Kimberly was silent.
“Kimberly? If I were to look for a Bigfoot’s home, what exactly should I look for?”
“A cave,” Kimberly replied promptly. “A cave system would be better. Best of all would be a cave system in a fairly isolated mountain valley where he could gather roots and tubers all day without being seen. Besides, caves are full of tasty little bugs and things they could nibble on.”
It occurred to Jason that the cave above the trailer park had been empty of insect life. His quarry couldn’t pass up a meal, no matter how small.
Kimberly sighed. “I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Jason, I’m glad there’s no such thing as a Bigfoot. It’s October already, and I’m wondering where he plans to spend the winter. Maybe you’re right, maybe he came home. Then again, maybe he has a place in Florida.”
Jason parked the car off the road under some trees and moved his gear to the lake. He selected a campsite that was fairly dry and opened a can of his company’s dog food for Buck. The dog took a sniff and disdained it. “Thanks for the unsolicited endorsement. What did they feed you there? Filet mignon?”
He pitched a tent, unfolded the kerosene stove, and heated up a can of chili. He polished and cleaned the pistol and reloaded it. Strapped to his belt was the steel hatchet he had bought that afternoon.
Night was a long time falling this far north. By seven the sun was gone, but the sky was still orange, making black spears of the trees around the lake. From the trunk of his car Jason unloaded a bushel of apples, which he had purchased at a road stand. In the fading light, he set out the apples in conical pyramids around the lake. Next to each pile he drove in a stake and chain and attached it to a bear trap, which he buried.
The swampy woods were alive with bullfrogs and insects. They were extremely loud, especially the frogs, whose diaphragmed croaks were like the thrum of plucked rubber bands. When night fell, Jason still labored by the light of a flashlight, sweating open the spring-held jaws of the traps and covering them with light brush. The shepherd watched him, his ears cocked and his body trembling at each sound.
He was finished by nine o’clock. He rubbed the dog’s neck as they returned to the tent. He had forgotten how watery areas attracted mosquitoes. He slapped and cursed them as he primed and lit the lantern. He concealed the light with a tent flap, then turned it so low that its glow was barely visible. He wanted to sharpen his night vision.
Presently his eyes could see the faint sheen of the lake surface all the way to the other shore without the moonlight. All the apple piles were in full view of his tent. He held the pistol loosely in his hands. He spoke to the dog. “They’re out there somewhere, old boy. They’re out there.”
As the Indian walked down the road, he lost his thoughts in the steady progression of white divider lines sliding under his feet. The trees pressed in, withdrew, and pressed in again.
Claws scrabbled on the tarmac from a turn ahead. The Indian slipped off his bow and fitted an arrow.
It was the dog, running toward him with something in its mouth. It dropped it at the Indian’s feet and sat down with its tail wagging.
The Indian ruffled feathers with his arrow tip. Had he hackles on his back, they would have shot straight out. It was a dead chicken, its head removed. Other than that, not a single piece of meat was gone.
“It’s for me? He sent it?”
The dog barked. It ran to the woods and stopped, waiting for him.
The Indian forced down a surge of happiness with the cork of common sense. It was not his name, but it was a message, the first his spirit had sent to him. The spirit was reaching out to the Indian, asking him to resume the journey, perhaps because of the help he had rendered at the trailer park.
The spirit needed him.
It was not a hard decision. In fact, it was not even a decision; it was a surrender. He was a prisoner of the spirit as surely as if he were caged. The Indian did not really mind. The fire of his faith was rekindled instantly, as bright as before.
“I will come,” he said. The same three words had launched him on his search for his soul. He plucked the dead chicken as he reentered the woods and tied it to his belt after placing the foot in his medicine bundle.
They found the footprint on a river bank sometime after midnight.
The spirit was moving with extreme caution through a landscape of low, scrubby trees. Low mists decapitated these trees, and the dog, nervous and upset after its joy at the Indian’s return had worn off, swam in and out of this fog like a heavy fish. It had been roaming farther ahead than usual, sniffing the air and checking out every piece of foliage as the Indian slipped through mucky, trailing vines and puddles of brackish water.
The footprint came from a brand-new hiking boot. There was nothing distinguished about it, other than newness, yet it made the dog’s hair bristle. It arched its throat to howl.
“Sssh!” The Indian cut it off. “Don’t worry. It’s just a man.”
No, said the dog. This one is different. You know him. So do I.
The Indian rummaged through his memory and came up with a disorienting vision of wiping blood from his fingertip on his pants. It must have happened in Vietnam.
No! Not Vietnam! Somewhere else!
The dog’s fear was primeval in its totality. To the dog this was an enemy far more fearful than anything in the trailer park. The only time it had been this frightened was when they passed close to a cemetery.
A ghost? Who left this print!
Try as he might, the Indian could not pull his shredded memories together. It was no use.
“That’s why he wanted me back, isn’t it?” said the Indian. “He’s afraid of this fellow. He’s afraid of trouble ahead.”
The marmot whistle sounded, summoning the dog. After a few minutes, during which the Indian assumed instructions were given, the dog returned and lay down on the ground.