I nodded thoughtfully, and said, in a remarkably level voice, “I can’t say I share your confidence. You invited me to this damp abscess of a place to hunt an imaginary ape-man. Have you lost your wits, Fraser?”
He shook his head. “I knew you’d be sceptical, which is why I didn’t offer details when I invited you. But is it really so far-fetched, Colonel? The orang-utan of the Malay peninsula was considered a myth when the natives first described them as ‘people of the forest.’ You yourself heard tales in Africa of monster apes that kidnap and kill tribesmen. The creature they describe has not been conclusively identified, but it surely exists. Is it so improbable that in the wilds of the American forests there lurk similar beasts?” Fraser warmed to his subject, or perhaps it was just the brandy. “I have travelled here and in Canada and down to California, hearing stories that use different names for the same beast – skookum, oh-mah, gougou, tsiatko, or just ‘big man’ – but all describe the same thing: a beast that stands up to ten feet tall, covered all over in coarse hair, with feet as much as eighteen inches long. These creatures sometimes kidnap the unwary, perhaps to eat them, and perhaps for more terrible purposes. There are also tales of the creatures acting to help those lost in the woods, but I don’t much credit those. These oh-mah are cunning, elusive, and feared and respected by the locals… but no specimen has ever been recovered, intact or in part. To go into the forest and bring back the body of such a thing… what a triumph!”
“Indeed.” Clearly Fraser had been seized by a fervour for some imaginary beast, and we might as well be setting out to hunt dragons or manticores. “What makes you think we’ll find one of these ‘big men’ of yours?”
“I have many recent reports of activity in the forest not far from here.” He tapped a map laid out on the table, but I didn’t bother to look at it closely; it showed a great tract of trackless woods, more or less. “There have been recent sightings of immense, shambling creatures, and verified accounts of two small children being snatched away from a local village, with a third taken while you were en route. The big man of the woods is here, Moran, and we can kill it.”
My disappointment was vast, but perhaps something could be salvaged. In a forest like this, surely there would be some beast worth shooting. Perhaps we’d encounter a grizzly bear. They were supposed to be formidable quarry, and taking one would salvage something of this trip. “When do you propose we set out?”
He chuckled. “Tomorrow before first light, unless you need more time to settle in.”
“I’m settled enough. I just need time to clean my guns. Are we to be the whole of the party?”
He waved his hand. “I have a man-of-all-work, named Newman, to fetch and carry and perform other tasks as needed. He’s mute from an old throat injury, and illiterate besides, which makes him more discreet than most men.”
“Where’s he lurking about, then?”
“Oh, I sent him out to procure some essential supplies. I’d hoped to employ an Indian tracker from one of the local tribes, but my approaches were rebuffed. They don’t believe we should trouble the ‘big men’, it seems. No matter. We’re up to following the signs ourselves, I daresay.”
“If there’s anything to track, we can track it.” I thought we’d find nothing at all, or else discover some filthy madman of a hermit with a long beard. As long as the brandy didn’t run out, I supposed I could stand the indignity.
We let the subject of the wild men of the woods lapse, then, reminiscing instead about our campaign days, and hunts we’d both enjoyed over the years. After so long enmeshed in the professor’s plots, it was pleasant to return to thoughts of a simpler time. We ate a dinner of roasted game birds, moved along from brandy to port, played a bit of cards (for negligible stakes, and there aren’t many two-handed games worth playing anyway), and then I retired early to a bed that felt stuffed with equal parts hay and loose pebbles.
In the first glimmerings of dawn, we stepped into the damp air. A thin fellow with stringy grey hair stood waiting placidly outside, an overstuffed pack resting by his feet. Fraser nodded to him. “Newman, this is Colonel Moran. Heed his words as you would my own.” The man nodded solemnly. There were scars all around Newman’s lips, down his chin and on his throat, leading me to speculate on how he’d become mute.
We clambered onto the cart, Newman perched in the back with the camping gear and supplies, and we set off along a rutted logging road, bouncing abominably.
Fraser said, “I’ve tracked the sightings, and particularly the disappearances of children, and have a good sense of the monster’s territory. We’ll get as close as we can by road, then hike in and look for signs.”
“If these ‘big men’ of yours leave eighteen-inch long footprints, it shouldn’t be hard to find some trace of them in this muddy ground. Indeed, it’s remarkable one has never been tracked before.”
“I understand your scepticism.” Fraser’s voice was low and calm. “Surely a creature like this couldn’t escape capture for so long. If it were real, there would be a specimen by now. But the forests here are vaster than you realise, and more thinly peopled. Even so, there have been scores of sightings in recent decades and old tales from the indigenous savages going back centuries. The beasts are wily, that’s all. As cunning as any tiger, and hard to capture.”
I looked at my one-time fellow soldier for a long time. I’d known him as impetuous, but never credulous, or prone to fancies. “You’ve seen one, haven’t you?”
He bowed his head for a moment, then nodded. “I have. I was walking in the forest, three years ago, when suddenly the birds fell silent, and a great hush descended. I stopped because I know when the prey fall silent, the predator is often near. I had the most peculiar sense that someone was watching me – you know the feeling, when you can feel a sniper has you in his sights?”
I didn’t reply. I’d fired my rifle at enough unsuspecting targets to know the ability to sense a watcher was unreliable at best.
“I turned my head, and there it was, not ten yards away. A figure standing at least nine feet tall, with long arms, covered all over in thick hair, watching me. After a long moment it darted out of sight, faster than I could credit. At first, I feared it was circling to attack me, but soon the birds began their song again, and I knew it was gone.” Fraser shrugged. “What had been mere curiosity became my singular passion after that encounter. Still, I’m not without a sense of proportion. I don’t wish to become Ahab, pursuing my obsession even to death.”
“Eh? Ahab?”
“From an American novel, written, oh, forty years ago, about a sea captain obsessed with a great white whale.”
I grunted. I’d never hunted whales. Seemed like too much mucking around with boats, though there were no heavier game, I supposed. “I don’t read Americans.”
Fraser chuckled. “I have missed you, Colonel. This expedition will either see my passion satisfied or disappointed, and either way, after this I am done pursuing the oh-mah. I’ll return to London either way, be it empty-handed or covered in glory.”
I was glad to hear he hadn’t lost all his sense. Only most of it. “Let’s hope for the latter, then.”
The sun was well up by the time he stopped the cart, at the end of a grassy track that didn’t merit being called a road. We were surrounded on all sides by evergreen forest, dense and damp and scented with the astringency of pines.