The Spirit

“Tonight!” Helder screeched. The boss was always the last to know. Lester was a nose-­picking dishwasher whom Helder had always thought pretty advanced for a cretin.

“Lester even claimed the thing threw rocks at him.”

Helder was disinclined to believe that Lester could tell a Bigfoot from an empty sock. Bigfoot added another angle to the glittering array in his imagination. The wilderness equivalent of a haunted house. He wrote out notes for a Bigfoot hunt. Only the strong of heart need apply. He finished with a notation about discreetly stocking condoms in case girls on the Bigfoot hunt became so frightened that a strong, manly, protective arm was not diversion enough. Helder giggled at his wicked thoughts, and wondered if somewhere in that land development in the sky Daddy was not chortling with him.

“Kimberly? It’s Jason!”

“Mr. Jason! I’ve been on pins and needles ever since talking to you. What’s been happening? Where are you?”

“I’m in a hospital in the State of Washington.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. You’re not going to believe this. He threw a rattler at me.”

Jason had been taken to the Ranger station two nights ago and then transferred to this ward, where a multitude of antibiotics was added to the antivenin. Bruises covered his body, more from the snake venom than the fight in the river. He was so full of needle holes that he leaked. A tight bandage constricted his arm where the snakebite was. He had successfully evaded the questions about where he was that night and what he was doing.

“I’d rather you didn’t tell anybody about it.” Jason could see his company’s stock dropping into the basement. CANADA BIGFOOT HUNTER IN HOSPITAL AGAIN.

“That makes sense,” Kimberly said.

“Listen, I found out some stuff on the Flatheads.”

“Oh? Shoot.”

“They had a very rich culture, all of it oral. And over half their stories are about giants. Giants! How about that? Giant tree men, giants living in the Flathead lake, giant everything. The story is Coyote killed them all off and turned them into black boulders. I guess he missed one, what?”

Jason filed away that bit of information. “Listen, I got a pretty good look at the thing.”

“What was it like?”

“Well, it had a very peculiar face.”

“Uh-­huh.”

“The skin was lighter-­colored than the rest of it, and the hair was different, longer, with a widow’s peak—”

“A what?”

“Widow’s peak. A V in the middle of the forehead. Pointing down. And it had this narrow protuberant nose. The eyes were set deep. Now get this. You know how apes have this heavy eyebrow ridge over their eyes?”

“Oh yes. It’s a shield of bone. The eyes are set well behind it.”

“Well, he had two of these eyebrow ridges. And if the light was right they kind of looked like . . .” Jason gulped. “Horns.”

The director of the Kansas Primate Center did not laugh out loud. His scratching pen was audible over the phone. “Anything else?”

What else do you need! “That’s about it. Sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it?”

“Let me ask you this. Did it have a chin?”

Kimberly had hit it. A chin! Even more than the horns, that fragile, aristocratic, pointed chin was the single feature that transformed a simple gorilla in Jason’s mind into something else. “Why?”

“And what about buttocks? Large protuberant buttocks? Oh, never mind. We know he walks upright, don’t we? Buttocks anchor the back muscles. I believe you said he even runs upright?”

“Yes.”

“We can identify your Sasquatch, Mr. Jason. Are you ready for this?”

Jason took a sip of water. “I’m ready for anything.”

“The chin is what really does it. There’s only one primate that has that feature. Homo sapiens, Mr. Jason. Your beast is a human of some kind. He’s not an ape at all.”

As Jason’s equilibrium tilted, water spilled from his glass to the bed. He did not know whether to feel anger or disappointment. The face crowded back on him, that wicked, leering demon face curtained by shaggy hair . . .

Kimberly was still talking. “It’s been growing on me ever since you said it was a headhunter. Neanderthal man was a headhunter, Mr. Jason. During an excavation in Italy they uncovered a skull cult in a sort of altar made by Neanderthals. They found a skull propped on a little stick. Now you’re saying he’s intelligent enough to throw a rattler at you to defend himself. Doesn’t that sound pretty human to you?”

Impossible!

Jason furiously waved away a nurse who looked in, concerned about his white face and shaking hand. “A human being!” he grated into the phone. “Kimberly, he’s seven feet tall! He eats bark! He’s covered head to foot in hair and his arms reach to his knees! What the hell, do you think I’m crazy or something?”

“Certainly not, Mr. Jason. I fully realize it raises more questions than it answers. But a man is what it is, a man of some kind.”

“What kind, Kimberly?”

“Remember what I said about genetic deformities?”

“Yes!”