The Spirit

“A kind of disease. Nothing like a common cold or a pandemic that would leave carcasses all over the place. Something much more insidious, much slower, that would cause them to become less active for a long time.” Kimberly lowered his voice. “A disorder, Mr. Jason. A genetic disorder.”

“Genetic!” Kimberly was even further out than Jason was. “Like what?”

“Oh, something simple. Congenital arthritis. Bone degeneration, even a kind of primate Hodgkin’s disease. It would explain the varieties of footprint you see. And why Patterson’s would not match any other known animal.”

“I thought animals killed off or abandoned deformed infants!”

“It might not be so obvious a deformity, Mr. Jason. It might be a very gradual process that appeared only every couple of generations. Their numbers could never really have been so big in the first place. If a species is limited in numbers to begin with, successive generations and interbreeding would concentrate it to a point after a hundred years where the whole species is threatened. A recessive gene would become a dominant one. Births would become fewer, infants would be more obviously deformed, and of course they would die right after birth. By the time the 1960s roll around, it is a continual menace and their behavior changes a second time.”

“Why?”

“Desperation, Mr. Jason. They’re like an endangered species. Their numbers are diminishing every year, so they have to take chances to get any kind of food.” He tapped the photo envelope. “Maybe one of these prints belongs to the original species, and the others are arthritic variations of it.”

Desperation. Maybe Kimberly was right. Maybe Jason’s quarry was the sick or starving remnant of a band that had once been numerous in the deep forests of the Northwest. If it were one of the last of its kind, its behavior would be erratic. Dangerously, unpredictably erratic.

After some hesitation, Jason told Kimberly about the Indian.

Kimberly’s face reflected absolute amazement. “Mr. Jason, I must say . . .” But Kimberly did not know what to say. He glanced at a shelf full of skulls. “But why would he attack you?”

“I don’t know. It makes no sense. Is there any reason why a gorilla would steal heads?”

“It’s the easiest way of making sure one’s quarry is dead. Ancient man did it to neutralize the power of an enemy. It removes the danger from the spirit. You’re sure it wasn’t the Indian?”

“Indians weren’t headhunters,” said Jason, gathering up his envelope. “They took scalps a lot, but rarely heads. Thanks for your help, Kimberly.”

Kimberly cleared his throat. “Mr. Jason, what do you do?”

“I run a pet-­food company. Why?”

“What are your plans now?”

“That’s obvious, I think.”

“Don’t do it.”

Jason was surprised. “Why not? I’ve got nothing but time. I’ve got plenty of money, the company practically runs itself.”

“Drop it, Mr. Jason. Forget it.” Kimberly’s face was solemn. As with most men of cheerful demeanor, his seriousness was almost comical. “It never appears to those who search for it. There are people who’ve tracked Bigfoot for twenty years and never laid eyes on it. One swings hourly between poles of elation and discouragement. It’s a shortcut to manic-­depression. It’s not a healthy thing, Mr. Jason, really it isn’t.”

“It is for me.”

“How so?”

But Jason could not explain that to Kimberly. How the quest made him feel young again, how his life had coalesced around something for the first time in years. He felt a bond to the beast, strong and tight, which he could not explain and could not sever. Kimberly would never understand. His psychiatrist might, but not Kimberly. “All I plan to do is run down sightings as they happen.”

“It could be years.”

Jason leaned closer to him, a hard, metallic, disturbing smile on his face. “You said it yourself. Food, Kimberly. They—or it—have to find food or die out. When autumn comes and the vegetation starts dying out, he’ll become desperate. He’s different, don’t you see? He takes chances. He invades a campsite full of people, he attacked the pilot holding a gun. . . . Kimberly, in Oregon a bunch of kids reported shooting one of these beasts with a shotgun. What did he do? He ran away. What did mine do? He attacked. He’s fighting for the survival of the species. He’s as different from your normal Bigfoot as a tiger is from a house cat. Maybe he’ll hit a farm or—”

“Decapitate somebody else. I see your point, Mr. Jason.” Kimberly shook his hand. “Keep in touch. In case you need any more technical advice on unicorns.”

Nice fellow, Kimberly thought after Jason left the room. One of these driven businessmen, though. You could see it in his face.

Kimberly filled his pipe and sucked on cold tobacco. He looked up at the eye sockets of a gibbon skull on one of the shelves.

A very ferocious creature, the gibbon, especially when aroused by food. A very ferocious creature, the human being, Kimberly added to his thoughts, especially when aroused by food of another sort.

3

Summer passed.