The Spirit

“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.

Weren’t they? All of them? Could one have escaped? What did the giants look like, Grandfather?

Like . . . Like . . .

No!

This is it, thought Jason as the Indian bounded off the bed, thrust a hand into his jacket, and pulled him to his feet with a single yank. Jason protected his face until the gun barrel pushed into his stomach, almost to his spine.