The Spirit

It was one of the things that had bothered Jason in his preliminary researches. “Many people just feel more inclined to report sightings these days than they did a hundred years ago. I don’t know, Kimberly. I do know it’s real. I saw it.”

“It appears I can’t convince you otherwise.”

“Not a chance.”

“What did it look like, then?”

“It was a good seven feet tall. It was covered with black fur. It ran pretty fast on two legs. And it was mismatched, too, like the one in the Patterson film . . .”

“In what way?” Kimberly had become very still.

“I had the distinct feeling its head did not match the rest of it.”

“How!”

“The hair was too long. And I think it had a more-­pronounced neck than apes usually have. It . . . it . . .” Jason rubbed his bandage. “It’s nocturnal.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just realized it. He could have examined the Land Rover any time during the day while we were gone. And that musk ox was about ten hours dead, which means he was killed at night. I’m certain he’s nocturnal.”

Kimberly doodled on a memo pad. “Let’s understand each other, Mr. Jason. I have a certain professional standing which necessarily excludes the existence of giant hairy apes in the great north woods. So long as we agree officially that Bigfoot is impossible and everyone who’s ever seen one, including yourself, is a fool or a liar, we can safely proceed to a higher level of irrationality. Is that clear?” He smiled. “The academic world can be very incestuous when it comes to such creatures. Too many sword fights with hatpins, if you know what I mean.”

“If I get him, I’ll leave your name out of it.”

“Thank you. What can I do for you specifically?”

“I want your professional opinion of those prints.”

“You mean besides being fakes?” He peered at the black-­and-­white photographs, turning them about as if to shed sunlight on them. “Well, there’s something that jumps right out at me, Mr. Jason. So far they’ve classified two separate and distinct types of Bigfoot prints, which clearly indicates this nonexistent creature exists as two entirely different species. And I do mean different, as different as trolls and unicorns.” On his memo pad, Kimberly drew a rectangle with five circles on top. “This is the print left by Patterson’s creature. It’s called the hourglass print because of the shape of the shank. Hourglass prints have long toes lined up horizontally, like marbles in a rack. He walks from the outer side of his foot. It’s a very clearly nonhuman stride with a nonhuman configuration.” Then Kimberly sketched a more-­or-­less-­human foot, with toes that slanted forward toward the big toe. “It’s called the human print for obvious reasons. Not to imply it’s made by a human, but he walks like one. He comes down on his heel and takes off using the big toe. There’s an arch there, too.”

Jason studied the two drawings. Something was wrong. Something was really haywire.

“Yes,” said Kimberly. “It appears your ghost is a combination of both. You’ve got an hourglass foot with slanted toes. Yet according to the depth of the outline, he walks with his weight on the outer side. I bet his feet ache like hell.”

“What do you make of it?”

“It appears you’ve found a third species of Sasquatch, Mr. Jason.”

Jason remembered the word “Sasquatch.” It was a Salish Indian word meaning “wild man of the woods.” He knew he had been right. This ape was different, something that was not like the other primates—something that did not quite fit words like Bigfoot or Omah or the other legions of Indian terms.

Kimberly crumpled up the drawings and tossed them into his wastebasket. “Well, two species of a nonexistent gorilla are enough for me. Three is laying it on a bit thick. Whole groups of them, you said.”

“That’s right. Some Indian tribes say they were numerous right up to the 1850s.”

“After which they die out. Then suddenly, nonsensically, reappear in the 1960s. They just sort of fade away while Indians and whites slaughter each other. You’d think the late nineteenth century, with the farms sprouting all over the place and all that grain around, is when they’d really show up.”

Jason waited. Then he said, “Kimberly, I can’t help feeling you’ve thought about this more than you’re letting on.”

Kimberly laughed and folded his arms tightly. “Of course I have. At three in the morning in my heart of hearts. Suddenly I get an attack of theories. It’s sort of like hives.”

“Can I get in on one or two?”

“Why not?” Kimberly straightened up and faced him. “I’ve been putting together a kind of idea that would explain why your beast would have a misshapen head and Patterson’s beast would be such a mess. I think this hundred-­year gap in sightings is the result of a behavior change caused by a certain type of . . . event.”

“What kind of event?”