Jason kneeled beside the Indian and untied the medicine
bundle. He opened the flap, and the stench poured forth in
such waves that he gagged.
He overturned the bag. Out fell a clay pipe, a medal
box, a billfold, a crucifix, and some dried corn. Whatever
else was in there was stuck to the leather, as if hiding for
a last few seconds. Jason shook the bag.
It tumbled onto the floor with a sticky plop. Jason
recoiled with a sheet of cold zipping down his spine as
though it were some kind of spider. But it was just a toe. The thing was unrecognizable but for the suppurated cuticle anchoring the huge brown nail. The flesh had drawn up from the severed bone, leaving it exposed. Hair clumped the top of it.
Jason grasped it between thumb and forefinger. Vertigo swirled through him, rushing out of his eyes to the toe like a drain for his emotions. After a second he calmed down. What was the matter with him anyway? He was at peace for the first time in weeks. Here was something for his efforts, at least. The end was in sight—the end of endless lonely exertions that had played havoc with his business and his life, the cauterizing climax of days of constant fear that he had lost the beast forever.
He turned it to the gray light from the window. It was big, at least the size of a silver dollar in breadth. In length it was well over an inch, jointed between two long bones as if Nature had designed it for a gorilla’s clutching foot, then changed her mind at the last minute. Decay was advanced. The hair was loosening. He would have to get it into preservative quickly. There must be alcohol in the infirmary—
The Indian’s hand caught him on the side of the neck. It hit like an ax blade, sending a bone vibration up the vertebrae to his skull, where darkness exploded in a black globe that drove light from his eyes.
He came to flat on his back with his own gun muzzle hovering like an evil eye between his nose and forehead. The Indian was seated on the bed, holding the pistol in both hands. The medicine bundle was tied fast to his waist.
“All right,” said Jason. “I’m ready.”
The Indian’s body was relentlessly still. Only his hands moved, rotating the gun in small circles.
“Moon?” Jason said to break the silence. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen your spirit.”
The gun muzzle steadied on his forehead.
“I know what it is. It’s not a spirit at all. Never was. Do you understand me?”
Moon’s head vibrated in small negative shakes.
“He killed two men last summer. I was with them. Don’t you remember that?”
“I never seen you before.” His words were contemptuous, as though too precious to waste on a doomed man.
“In Canada, Moon. You hit me with a rifle. I had a beard then. Remember?” Jason tried to define a beard with one of his hands on his chin.
“No.”
Jason raised himself on his elbows. Moon’s foot pushed him down again. “Dammit, Moon, he tore off their heads!”
“I don’t remember nothing past yesterday, no sir. My memory’s gone.”
Jason tried to sit up again.
“Stay put.”
“Can’t I have a last cigarette?”
The Indian nodded. Reluctantly.
Jason sat upright, tenderly rubbing his neck. The ache was a pole of agony that flared whenever he moved his neck. “Thanks for hitting me on the right side, Moon. It balances my left arm.”
Moon was not amused in the slightest. This apparition had many words which he would use to shake his faith. “Just stay on the floor.”
Very carefully Jason withdrew a cigarette from his pocket. “You really don’t remember me, do you.”
Moon shook his head.
“If I talk and you don’t like what I’m going to say, are you going to shoot me?”
“I might.”
Jason lit the cigarette with slow movements. He looked for some place to put the match. Seeing nothing, he slipped it into his pocket. “Have you seen your so-called spirit’s face?”
“ ’Course I have.” It was a lie, but Moon did not want to be put on the defensive.
“Then you know it’s deformed. But in a special way, Moon. In a way that was familiar to humans thousands of years ago, when there were many more species of primate on the earth than there ever have been since. A genetic change hit a species of Bigfoot out here about two hundred years ago. It entered the bloodline of these creatures and has been making hash out of them.”
“Shit on you.”
“Let me finish. Kill me later. Okay?”
Moon gripped his pistol.
“This genetic change appeared to them as a disease. Every now and then an infant would be born strange and killed. But another would carry little or no visible evidence and pass it on to its own offspring. A biologist back in Kansas City set me up for this. He was right. But he thought it was a real disease, and it isn’t. It’s a human strain, Moon. One of your spirit’s ancestors was a human being.”
Not much of a revelation to Moon. He had considered similar thoughts himself.
“I call it a disease because that’s exactly how it would appear to them. None of this shit about being touched by gods or anything like that. To them it would appear they were giving birth to monsters. Do you follow me?”
Jason was certain the Indian did not understand a word he said. He talked to keep the thumb away from the hammer of the pistol. Moon studied him as if he were a centipede that had invaded his room.
“There are human traits of your spirit, Moon, that simply do not fit primate behavior other than man. He travels alone, whereas apes live in bands. He has a very distinct chin, and no other nonhuman primate has that. I’ve seen him walk. Only humans walk upright for any length of time—other primates walk on their knuckles. He eats meat. He hunts heads—”
“No sir.” The gun came up. “He don’t do that.”
“And he leaves footprints that are a total mix between human and ape. And there are other details, mostly in the thing’s face. He has a long thin nose with a bridge and horns. Horns, Moon! Didn’t you ever wonder why the devil had horns? This face that your spirit has goes back thousands of years and frightened people then. And why? It’s not because they believed in an abstract devil, it’s because there were enough creatures like this wandering around. It’s in the Bible. It’s in the Veda, Chinese legends, Scandinavian ones. People in ancient times were consistently warned not to sleep with giants. It used to happen more often than we can believe. Think of Polyphemus, the cyclops. Goliath. The Greek Titans. They were outcasts from both species! Just like your spirit!”
The gun continued circling. Jason babbled on, knowing he was getting too abstract for Moon but hoping his fervency would convince him.
“The original species was definitely humanoid. Very tall, very hairy, very strong. The other species are shy— you glimpse them in the woods for a few seconds at a time. But not yours. Yours is aggressive. And calculating. No ape could have dreamed up throwing a rattlesnake . . .”
In Moon’s obsidian eyes, something splintered and fell away, blanking his gaze into a deadness that seemed to go through Jason. Something had happened.
“Moon? Moon?”
The giants.
His grandfather’s mouth opened and the fearful word slipped out. Natliskeliguten, the fearful giants, and the old man had terrified the Indian with tales of their depredations. They had a powerful odor like burning horn, and they would walk up to tipis and look down the smokeholes. Sometimes they stole women.
Softly, softly, like a curtain shredding to golden threads, then those threads to their constituent atoms, the Indian’s memory unblocked and the old cracked voice returned to him. His grandfather spoke again in the grave, patient tones of his youth.
The giants were dead, John! Coyote the dancing dog, God who made the human race, killed them all and turned them into the black boulders of the Bitterroot valley. They were dead.