The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac (36 page)

Sure enough, the article appeared the following morning, placed, to his astonishment, on the front page of the paper.

DEADFOOT
, the headline read.

Cryptozoologist Dr. Eli Roebuck has unexpected plans for his Sasquatch once he finds it: He'll shoot it dead!

Oh, the phone calls he had received after that.

PETA contacted him, sending him a faux pelt splashed with red dye and a note that read,
No creature will suffer!
His own bleeding-heart-liberal daughter, Ginger, left him a message about how the president should ban guns. Amelia called, laughing, to say that she thought the article was a riot. Gladys wrote him a long, careful letter saying that he looked handsome, if aged, in the photo taken of him. Also, since he was so famous, would he mind sending her a little extra cash? There were medical bills, so many medical bills! Signed,
your loving wife of nearly twenty years.
Even his
real
loving wife, Vanessa, who typically supported him in all things, blanched when she read the article, which he had shoved at her with what she maybe mistook as pride.

“You need to tone it down, Eli,” she advised. “You sound desperate.”

Eli nearly exploded.
Desperate! Wow! How astute! How smart you are! Way to go, Vanessa, you observant poet, you intuitive woman! How incredibly perceptive of you! Because who would have ever guessed? You've noticed that, after years and years and years of searching for this one goddamn thing, after tedious decades of research and catalogs and arguments and fieldwork and discussions and aching, throbbing desire, perhaps I've grown desperate! Well, I have! Thanks for noticing!

He was not one for sarcasm, though, so he merely said, his face blank, “Ah. Well.”

She was a good wife, a good wife who loved him. She patted his knee and gave him a sour smile. She cared for him. He sorrowed for them both.

The thing was, about the killing: He meant it. When he went on his excursions nowadays, he took the Winchester with him. He stopped searching for Mr. Krantz during the day, believing firmly now that he was nocturnal. He wore a headlamp and bounced along the uneven forestry roads in his new ATV, his dogs happily panting in the backseat, all of them enjoying the cool night air, and sometimes he drank a little whiskey. Sometimes he yelled at the top of his lungs, emitting a pained, elongated yodel.

It was a stupid plan: to drive an ATV, to wear a headlamp, to bring the dogs, to cry out in the night; why was he crashing through the forest like this, scaring away every living beast within a fifteen-mile radius?

It was, as Vanessa noted, desperation.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters,
Eli remembered, and so here he was. Maybe if Eli was irrational, his own monster would finally appear. Who knew? Mr. Krantz might just wander over to the road and stare at him as he passed. From his own research, Eli had concluded that Mr. Krantz and his type were shy, private creatures but also curious. If Eli made enough noise, if he seemed interesting enough, Mr. Krantz might just come up to the road's edge and peer at him. The key, the doctor believed, was spotting Mr. Krantz in the underbrush. And, if he saw him, he would stop the ATV, shush the dogs, raise a hand and murmur a soft greeting, then quickly aim the Winchester and shoot Mr. Krantz dead. Not because he was some sick killer, some horrible person, but because it was the only way to ensure both of their spots in the scientific firmament.

It was not a revenge thing, Eli told himself. It was not about bitterness. It had nothing to do with his mom or with his lost childhood. It was about human progress. It was about humanity, period.

Though he admitted to himself that he might enjoy the look of agony on Mr. Krantz's beastly face.

But nothing happened. The days grew colder and the nights longer, and then the days grew warmer and the nights shorter, and the cycle repeated itself, and sometimes Eli would go to his office window and look out over the forest and imagine moving, for the first time, away from Washington State, away from the north to warmer country, somewhere hominid-free, where time seemed to stand still. Hawaii, say. Jamaica.

He thought of his mother, the old hag. She'd come to him recently at a conference he'd spoken at, and he'd blatantly pretended not to recognize her. He wanted nothing to do with her. He'd been both pleased and slightly disturbed by her hurt face, her slow walk away from him. She'd made no attempt to explain herself.
Good riddance,
he'd thought then. There were wonderful women in the world, Eli knew—his wife, his daughters—but there were also women like Gladys and Agnes, depraved, loveless, mentally disturbed women who didn't truly know what they wanted from life. It was women like these who fucked up the world. It was women like these who hurt good men, who asked for too much, who slept with beasts. They made the pure impure: DNA; childhood; love itself.

Eli began to mourn his entire adult life. No one would ever believe him until he emerged from the forest dragging Mr. Krantz's carcass behind him. It was the only possible vindication. As his life neared its close, it was the one thing Eli truly wanted.

*   *   *

R
EADING
T
HE
L
ILAC
City Monitor
one day, Eli came across another article about Sasquatch, written by the same blond journalist. It focused on a middle-aged anthropologist and anatomy professor at the University of Idaho in Moscow, a man by the name of Eugene Ferm.

Ferm, too, believed in the Sasquatch, despite the dubious reputation it earned him among his academic colleagues.

Like Dr. Roebuck, he, too, was obsessed with the accuracy of existing evidence and floored by the scientific community's refusal to take it seriously.

For a moment, Eli believed that he had found an ally. He would drive to Moscow that very day, he decided. He would drive there and shake Ferm's hand and offer to assist him in his research.

“New species of apes have been found all over the world,” Mr. Eugene Ferm, Ph.D., said as he drank a strong-smelling cup of green tea. “Cryptozoologists, in fact, have played a major part in their discovery. The Sasquatch is not some ridiculous made-up legend, like a sea monster or a unicorn. Think of it as a missing link. Just imagine what it would mean for our natural history. It would be astounding! It's important research.”

Eli thought,
Yes! I've felt and said these very same things for several decades now!
He continued reading:

“
You've gotta have a great sense of humor to do this,” Ferm said, laughing, when asked about his angry colleagues and overzealous fans. “You've gotta have tough skin.”

Again Eli thought,
Yes! I adore this man! He, unlike anyone else, understands!

But then, toward the end of the article, he was alarmed to find himself mentioned, and not in flattering terms.

Despite the appreciation Mr. Ferm feels for his supporters, he admits that some of his most loyal followers are “a bit strange.”

“These are people not looking at this from a scientific standpoint,” Ferm said. “They want Sasquatch to exist as a magical entity. They don't want to sit and hear me lecture about bipedal ambulation, about foot flexes. They want some crazy circus-sideshow act. And then you have quote-unquote scientists—hobbyists, really—who are threatening to kill the Sasquatch if they find it. This is a disservice to serious researchers.”

Such researchers include Dr. Eli Roebuck, once a prominent podiatrist in the Inland Empire, who has, in the course of the last three decades, garnered quite a following (and made quite a profit) with lectures and even a book,
The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac,
on Northwest monsters.

“What if someone had harpooned the giant squid rather than filming it? What would that say about us?” Mr. Ferm grew teary-eyed as he spoke. “I'm interested in the potential life of these mammals. I'm not at all interested in their murder. It is a disservice to humankind to wish them dead.”

Mr. Ferm went on to say that while he respects much of Dr. Roebuck's research, he believes that in recent years the older researcher has lost his way.

“We need to embrace the scientific method involved with such research. We cannot merely argue for one side without considering the other. The truth is, the Sasquatch simply may not exist. We have to be honest about all possibilities. It is possible, after all, that it is a fabrication.”

I couldn't help but ask, “Is that what you believe?”

With a wink, Mr. Ferm concluded, “In my heart? No.”

Clearly, Eugene Ferm is our best hope for finding this gentle, shy Bigfoot.

Eli finished reading the article and removed his red-framed glasses. He wiped at his eyes with his knuckles so that uneven bright splotches of light played on his shuttered eyelids. Then, leaving his glasses on the table, nearly blind with hatred and nearsightedness, Eli went to the utility room and retrieved his rifle. He went outside and sat down,
plop,
in the middle of his long wide driveway. It was late January, the earth frosted and cold. His haunches ached from the driveway's ice.

The Roebuck home butted up to a forested mountainside sloping away from the heart of Lilac City. Through the pastel blur, Eli could just make out the green smear of trees that indicated the edge of his property.

He aimed the rifle lazily and shot randomly into the trees.

Two figures came running out at him, waving their arms.

“Stop!” the taller figure cried. “Stop shooting! You'll kill us!”

The figures drew near. It was a man with a small boy at his side. Eli's heart hammered.
My God,
he thought.
You almost killed a damn kid.

“What are you doing out there?” Eli demanded. He wanted to blame someone else. “This is private property.”

The man and boy had blurry features, matching orange hunting caps shoved atop their heads. Eli rose to go back inside to get his glasses.

“You can't just shoot at things like that,” the man said angrily. “You could have killed my son.”

Eli began to walk toward the house, dragging the Winchester with him. He was not trying to be rude, but he wanted his eyeglasses. It seemed to him that this man was his father, that this boy was his younger self. He wanted to put on his glasses and destroy that impression.

“Don't turn away from me, mister. These woods have a public trail running through them.”

The man stood there, lifting his arms in anger. Eli straightened at the door, horror-stricken. Although he couldn't make out the little boy's face very well, he could hear him breathing roughly through his small nose, and he could see that he wore large spectacles, just as Eli had as a child.

The man continued, raging, “Give me the gun. Give it here now.”

Eli could only stand there awkwardly, gazing in their general direction with a sorrowful expression.
I'm sorry, Dad,
he wanted to say.
I let you down.

He leaned the rifle against the doorframe, and the man stomped up the stairs and retrieved it.

“All right. All right. It's okay now, old man. Listen. Are you okay? You're not wearing a coat. Can you say your name? Do you need a doctor?” He looked toward the garage. “Do you have a vehicle here? I could drive you.”

Eli shook his head. “I haven't had a stroke. Nothing like that. I'm lucid. I'm … I'm having a bad day.”

“You do see the danger here, though,” the man pressed.

“If I could go inside and retrieve my glasses—”

“You could have killed someone. Do you know how far these bullets travel?”

Eli said that he didn't, not exactly.

“Miles! You could have shot someone already and we don't know about it yet!”

Eli considered this. His shoulders slumped. Why was he allowing himself to be reprimanded? Had he really sunk so low?

“I've been very stupid,” he said now. “I'm sorry.”

“Well, I don't know,” the man said after a moment, perhaps seeing how shocked Eli looked, how deeply frightened and regretful. “Bullet's no doubt lodged in a tree somewhere. Stuck in the dirt.” How like his father this man spoke, so calm and so forgiving! “I'm sure it's okay. But … I'm going to take this. For today. Until you're feeling better.”

He came forward and scribbled an address on the wood railing with a pencil stub he fished out of his breast pocket.

“Here's my address. I'm not stealing it, you know. You come around and pick it up when you're feeling better. How's that sound?”

Eli wanted the Winchester back now. He didn't want to surrender it to anyone, not until he killed Mr. Krantz with it. Or until he killed Eugene Ferm.

He chuckled at the thought.

“I'm worried about you,” the man said. “Okay? I'm worried. You seem off your rocker. So I'll take your rifle, all right? For the day.”

It was easy for Eli to comply, to trust this kindly man, his own dead dad.

The man was comfortable with a rifle. He removed the cartridges and clicked on the safety. He hung it through the crook of one elbow and then nudged his son toward the woods with the opposite hand. The boy looked over his shoulder at Eli, just once, before falling into step with his dad.

“I'm sorry,” Eli called again, and the man raised a hand without looking over his shoulder, and the boy stumbled, and then caught himself, and then stumbled again.

Eli hurried inside and grabbed his glasses and returned to the sun-and-ice-streaked field, the frozen molehills, the distant trees. The father and son were far away now, almost to the tree line. The little boy was running here and there, picking up sticks and rocks in his mittened hands and then, finding a better treasure, letting them fall, speaking in an excited way with his father. He was small and curious, mercurial as a deer mouse.