The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac (19 page)

“Shit,” Eli said to Vanessa, frustrated. “Tonight of all nights.”

She would be destroyed if he didn't attend. Not merely annoyed or even angry; no, it had to be total. Eli hated having that on his shoulders.

And what could possibly happen (his wife suggested now) to the bone in one night?

“I mean, you took it, right? You've got it with you? Can't you just shove it in the glove box or something?”

Eli winced. “It's quintessential evidence, Vanessa. You don't go throwing it around like a pair of old shoes.”

“Well, you're the scientist. I'm just a mom looking out for our kid.”

She was not trying to be a nag, he knew. She was trying to be practical. But didn't she see that this was it? Not it, but IT? His life's work, finally vindicated? All of the laughter and finger-pointing he'd had to endure would now be silenced. Short of an actual corpse, this would be the necessary evidence he'd long sought. Mr. Krantz would be disclosed to the world for what he was. Didn't she get that this was both a miracle and his destiny?

“I am really happy for you, Eli,” she said now, reading his silence. “This is what you've always wanted. You'll get the recognition you deserve now.”

He forced himself to calm down, to take a long breath. She understood how much this meant to him. Somehow this allowed him to turn a corner emotionally. He could go home for the night. He could enjoy Ginger's recital. It might even calm down the shaking in his hands, the twitching in his eyes.

“Okay,” he said, “how much time do I have?”

“Not much. You'll need to head directly to the church, or else you'll be late.”

Eli agreed that he would meet them there. He could hear Ginger in the background, practicing her scales on the hallway piano—the same piano that Mr. Krantz had played all of those long years ago. Ginger played her scales unevenly; it sounded like a soprano alternating singing with coughing. It was a cheerful if discordant tune, and Eli felt happy enough as he buckled his seat belt and drove the thirty-some miles west to Lilac City.

*   *   *

H
E MADE IT
to the recital with few minutes to spare. The parking lot was crowded with cars and overdressed children and fussing, smiling parents. Eli considered the trap and the foot bone. He had rested it on the passenger seat, which was now flaked with dirt and brittle leaf remnants.

What would he do with it? Lay his coat over it and close it in the car? Wrap it in fabric and place it in the trunk? He hesitated. It was a sunny Sunday in the early fall. He did not like to think of Mr. Krantz's metatarsus sweltering alone in the hot dark. He was not paranoid about car theft, either, but still: What if? It would destroy him to return to the car and find the specimen missing.

He decided to take every possible precaution. He would carry the foothold snare into the recital, bone and all. He took care to wrap it in his coat. Even so, it appeared bulbous and awkward in his arms, as if he were holding a stillborn horse.

As soon as he entered the church, he saw Vanessa, standing taller and straighter than anyone else there, her wild hair framing her handsome, relaxed face. She saw him and brought a hand to her heart, grateful. He maneuvered through the crowd and noticed that some people were making room for him as he passed, eyeballing his laden arms.

“You're here,” Vanessa said with relief, and she leaned into him and kissed him. “Ginger will be so happy.”

Ginger was, in fact, peeking through the dense red curtain at the front of the room. She beamed when she saw Eli, and he smiled back at her with what he hoped was encouragement.

Vanessa noticed his coat. “Eli,” she said, “what are you doing?”

“I couldn't leave it in the car,” he said. “I just couldn't. It's too important.”

She was more amused than horrified, and he was glad for it.

“Ew, let me see,” she said. “Show me, show me.”

He partially unwrapped the coat and she peered into his arms, smiling. “Good God, Eli,” she said with delight. “It's positively gruesome!”

Eli rewrapped the foothold snare proudly.

Another set of parents approached them. They greeted Eli and Vanessa warmly, and Eli returned their greeting.

“Whatcha got there?” the dad asked. He was a slim, overly tanned dentist with perfect teeth. His wife stood squat and white beside him like a freshly painted lighthouse, grinning broadly. “Some fancy camera or something?”

Eli shook his head.

“Eli is a cryptozoologist,” Vanessa explained. “He found a bone today.”

“Crypto-what?” the dentist said.

“He studies diabetes,” said the wife.

“You're thinking of an endocrinologist, Nora,” said the dentist, rolling his eyes.

The wife said, “I was close, right?”

“He studies Sasquatch,” Vanessa said. There was no shame in her tone, but Eli sensed a dry amusement. “He knows all about them. Ask him anything!”

“Sasquatch,” the dentist repeated. He was puzzled, his orange forehead furrowing. “You mean, like Bigfoot? You believe in that shit?”

Eli shifted uncomfortably. “I wonder if we should sit now? I think they're about to begin.”

“Listen,” the dentist said, leaning forward, “my brother-in-law saw Bigfoot once. Said he looked like a giant turd with legs. Over by Snoqualmie Pass. Almost hit him with his car. Of course”—and the dentist laughed hugely here, showing all of his perfect, white teeth—“he's the drunkest bastard this side of the Rockies. Damn idiot swears he saw the Loch Ness monster, too, swimming in Puget Sound!”

“He's not a drunk, he's a schizophrenic,” the wife said. “And he has diabetes. So, you know, if you have any advice for him?”

“He's a damn monster-stalker, Nora,” the husband cried. “He doesn't know shit about diabetes. I
told
you.” The dentist bent toward Eli, shaking his head, and Eli smelled the man's minty breath, a combination of Scope and whiskey. “She's deaf in one ear, I swear to God. Denies it, but I swear on my life. Hears half of what I say, if I'm lucky. Or if I'm unlucky, ha!”

Vanessa put a palm against Eli's back, pressing him toward an empty pew. Eli hoped to escape, but the couple followed them, the wife squeezing in against Eli's legs.

“Funny, though,” the man said, leaning over his wife's lap. “My Matilda told me you were a foot doctor. A pee-ologist, she called it. She's as deaf as my wife, I swear. ‘Podiatrist,' I told her, and she was like, ‘Yup, that's it. Pee-diatrist.'”

“Well,” Eli said, “I am. I'm still a licensed podiatrist, it's true.”

“Your daughter is the sweetest little girl,” said the wife now, sincerely. “She just raves about you both.” She turned to Vanessa and said, “She told me you're a professor?”

“Oh,” Vanessa said. “No. I teach some creative writing classes through the extension program, but, no. I'm a poet.”

“A poet and a monster-stalker!” cried the dentist. “Your sex life must be amazing.”

“Oh, my,” the wife said, reaching up and nervously tugging at an earring. “Christopher, the things you say.”

“Big imaginations,” the dentist said. “That's all I'm saying.”

“Well, it is,” Vanessa said.

“What is?” the wife asked politely.

“Amazing. Our sex life.”

The dentist laughed and the wife stammered and Eli wanted to shush his wife but refrained. The curtains drew back then and a child emerged from the recesses, sitting stiffly at the piano bench and beginning to struggle through a simple Mozart sonata. Eli tried to relax and enjoy the show.

He did enjoy it, almost. He wanted to stand up and sing and dance and drown out the cacophony of the children, to show these little wonders what joy
really
looked like, but he remained seated, blazing from within, straining not to wiggle too noticeably on the uncomfortable wooden pew. The foothold snare grew increasingly incommodious on his lap.

Finally, it was Ginger's turn. She was one of the youngest performers, too young yet to read or even learn a real song, but the crowd applauded her anyway. The teacher came onstage and informed them that Ginger would be performing a very short piece, called “Dad,” in which she played only the D and A notes for about one minute. She stood at the edge of the stage for a moment, looking out and, finding her parents in the crowd, happily waving. Eli and Vanessa waved proudly back at her.

“She is too precious,” the wife said to them approvingly, and Eli saw that his daughter's sweet goodness had restored their standing in the world.

Her performance began, and Eli noticed that his thighs were sweating horribly, droplets of sweat running from the backs of his knees, behind his trousers, and into his socks. He tried to open up the folded coat a little to allow better air circulation, but in the attempt he unfolded it too wide and the couple beside them gasped, catching sight of the menacing device and its contents.

“My God,” the dentist said to his wife. “He's got a goddamn weapon in there. It's not a bone at all. Just a weapon.”

The dentist's wife hushed him. “Christopher,” she said. “The children.”

The dentist scowled for a moment, crossing his arms over his chest. His beeper sounded. He checked the number, resettled it into the back of his waistband, and re-crossed his arms. Then, after a bit more of listening to Ginger play, he stood and shuffled away from them.

“Excuse me,” he said, as people slanted their knees, making room for his passage. “Sorry. I have to make a phone call.”

A few moments later he returned, taking his wife by the elbow and pulling her to her feet.

“Nice to see you,” Vanessa whispered, and the woman bade her a friendly goodbye. The dentist kept his eyes averted, tugging his wife along.

“Must have been an important call,” Vanessa whispered to Eli, and he shrugged indifferently.

Ginger had finished playing. They whistled and cheered for her, Eli loudest of all.

It wasn't a bad evening. Eli felt fine as they left the church and filed outside with the other parents and children. Ginger came to them and accepted their congratulations and hugs. Eli had to set his trap down on the sidewalk to hug her, but he did so willingly.

“Eli,” Vanessa said then, her tone tight. “I think this man would like to speak to you.”

Eli turned. A policeman stood at Vanessa's side.

“We received a call about a weapon,” the officer said. “Would you like to show me what's in that jacket?” He pointed at the trap, where it sat on the sidewalk.

“It's nothing,” Eli said. He lifted the trap and opened his jacket, presenting it to the officer, who wrinkled his brow in confusion. “It's not a weapon at all. It's a trap. See this bone? I'm a scientist, and this bone is very important.”

“I wonder if you shouldn't hand it over to the authorities,” the officer said.

“I am the authority here,” Eli said. “I'm a scientist. This is what I do for a living.”

“That trap is illegal in this state, you know.”

“I didn't set the trap,” Eli said. “I only found it. Besides, it was in Idaho, not in Washington.”

The officer sucked on his teeth. He stared off into the cloudless sky for a moment, thinking, or pretending to think, very hard. “I'm gonna let you go with a warning. But next time you want to frighten a church full of kids, you're gonna have to answer to
moi
.”

“Okay. Yes, I see. Thank you, Officer.”

The officer looked over at Vanessa and Ginger, who were playing hopscotch off to the side of the parking lot. Ginger threw a stick and then bounded—
one leg, two legs, one, two, bend, pluck!
—and the officer softened and said, “Cute kid.”

“Thank you. Yes. Thanks.”

Eli was angry with Ginger. It was an irrational anger, but he couldn't shake the feeling that her recital had dampened a triumphant day. Why did children always force themselves into the center of everyone's attention? Why did they demand the sum total of one's affections and abilities? Sometimes he wondered why he'd agreed to another child, when he'd known how much work it would be.

He forced himself to smile as he approached his wife and daughter.

“Ready to go?” Vanessa asked, and Eli reminded her that he had his own car and that he planned to stop by the office so that he could lock the trap and the metatarsus safely into it for the night.

Vanessa looked ready to argue with him, but she stopped herself and then said, a little petulantly, “Fine. Whatever. As though it hasn't caused enough trouble tonight. We'll save you some pizza,” and Ginger shrieked in pleasure at the word
pizza
and skipped eagerly over to Vanessa's car.

Eli, frustrated, guilty, returned to his own car.

He drove with the trap in the passenger seat beside him. God, was he insane? Everyone else seemed to think so. How many years had passed since he'd seen Mr. Krantz? He remembered it all so clearly: the hulking shoulders; the tufts of reeking hair; the cold, simian eyes. But doubt ate away at him, nonetheless. How was it that he had been the
only
witness to Agnes's lover? How was it that even Eli's own father could never bring himself to believe his son's testimony, would assume only that Eli was an imaginative and traumatized little boy? What was true? It was quite possible, as the family doctor had said, that he had made the whole thing up, an elaborate fantasy that deadened the pain of abandonment.

“To you,” the doctor had said, “it is very real. But, I assure you, it's not real.”

Couldn't that explain life in general?

Because, look, there is the bone! Proof! Lying right there! As clear as day!

But other voices spoke to him, too.
It belongs to a man, stupid, a man with a hereditary disease such as Marfan syndrome. It belongs to a bear. It is purely faked evidence, not even real bone.