The Spirit

The trailer park was close to the border between Washington State and British Columbia, hundreds of miles southwest of where his experience had occurred. Whatever footprints might have been left were long since stomped to mud by the campers as they blundered into one another the previous night, and the locals who were now photographing the vegetable garden. It looked as if a plane had crashed into it.

After some inquiries, Jason’s spirits rose a trifle. This was not a fake. Something really had gone through the vegetable garden, and a man named Frank P. Stone had gotten a clear look at it.

Frank P. Stone opened a bourbon bottle and poured a shot for himself, his wife, and Jason. Around his neck was a collar bandage. His wife’s stiff posture and drawn face were evidence of the tension caused by the event. Stone was politely wary of Jason’s interest. “Can’t really say folks have been very understanding about this business, Mr. Jason.”

“I know the feeling. I saw one in Canada.”

“No shit!”

Stone’s wife’s eyes lit with hope. “They all think it’s funny. Funny!”

“It’s not funny. And if I were you, I wouldn’t talk about it any more than necessary. For your own good, you know?”

“Amen.” Stone took a fervent gulp.

“I was wondering if there was anything you could tell me that you didn’t tell anyone else. Just between us.”

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?”