He clasped his hands together and tightened all the muscles of his arms. Wrists, forearms, biceps. A pleasurable tension in the shoulders. Then he relaxed and felt blood pump through the strained tissues.
Raymond Jason had spent the better part of his life being successful. Success was money, security, and physical comfort. He had waited until his first million, accumulated by the age of thirty-five, to cash in on physical comfort. He got married. He bought a house and several cars. Having done all that, he discovered something was wrong with him.
This thing that was wrong had driven him to a psychiatrist, who had told him a human being is just a log of the past. Jason considered that, then rejected it. “Doc, I’ve got everything I want. I had a perfectly normal childhood and everything, you said it yourself. By any sensible standards I should be as happy as a clam, but I’m putting on weight, I get depressed, and my temper’s getting worse when it should be getting better.”
Jason had a vicious temper, which had been an asset in his business career. He was a man with a short fuse and a long memory, whose reserves of sheer anger had crashed him through all obstacles, commercial, personal, and social. This temper was damaging his marriage.
“Human beings are slates upon which experience writes the only words,” said the psychiatrist. Then after a moment he said, “Do you believe in God, Mr. Jason?”
“No.”
“God is one of the words on most humans’ slates. Mystery. I hesitate to say mysticism. It is an essential part of life. It is a center, a magnetic core as necessary to a human as sex.”
Being a supremely rational man, Jason simply did not understand what the psychiatrist was talking about.
“Do you know what material success is, Mr. Jason? It is an earthly substitute for going to heaven. It is a nonexistent place where rich people live cushioned by money, with no cares or worries forever. When you made your first million, you died in a way. Only heaven isn’t where you went. Heaven does not necessarily come after success.”
Jason was not paying a shrink forty dollars an hour for a religious lecture. He found himself getting mad.
“You are angry because you are fundamentally frustrated, Mr. Jason. You are searching for something to devote yourself to, something to lose yourself in. A purpose to your life. More money probably isn’t the answer.”
“You mean find a religion,” Jason asked through clenched teeth.
“You are a hungry man, Mr. Jason. Hungry for something irrational. If this were the Middle Ages, yes, you’d be hungry for God. But this is the twentieth century, so let’s say you’re looking for something . . . inexplicable. Something to challenge you. Some—” which was as far as the psychiatrist got, because Jason had lost his temper and thrown an ashtray at him.
Shortly after that, his marriage broke up. He had struck his wife with his fist after an argument about vacations. He threw his fiercest energies into dozens of projects, including the Wildlife Fund. He decided to go to Canada and look for oxen. His business expertise and a sense of organization had slipped control of the expedition into his hands, and he welcomed it.
A hand touched his shoulder. He jumped in shock, clutching his rifle. Hill’s hand clamped over his mouth.
“Listen,” whispered Hill.
Jason was embarrassed at being such a lousy watchman. All three men had awakened and dressed while his mind drifted.
Nicolson slid his rifle from its nylon sheath. From the Land Rover, parked on the gravelly plain, came the clink of metal. Something was poking about the tailgate.
“It’s probably just a woodchuck,” said Hill with a delighted smile. “But let’s pretend it isn’t.”
Jason found some antenna wire in the signal package. He cut two lengths and tied flashlights to Curtis’s and Nicolson’s rifle barrels. “You and Nicolson dig in at the river about fifty yards apart,” he whispered harshly. “Me and Hill will go for him at the Land Rover. If he starts running, we’ll drive him between you. And be quiet!” he said as they crashed excitedly into the trees like Boy Scouts on a treasure hunt.
He turned to Hill. “You take the light. I’ll take the rifle.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Hill did not have a better idea. Jason was a better shot than he was.
The river was actually more of a creek. It rose and fell seasonally, leaving steeply carved banks tangled with tree roots. Nicolson and Curtis slipped down the bank. Nicolson wiped perspiration from his glasses. He glanced at Curtis. “You look like Frank Buck.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean Pearl Buck?” Curtis shot back.
“Better keep your voice down.”
Curtis lit his pipe and settled onto the ground. “What for? Haven’t you ever been on a snipe hunt before?”
“This isn’t a snipe hunt,” retorted Nicolson. Then added, “Is it?”
“Oh, of course it is. Jason and Hill are laughing their rocks off now. I bet Jason’s been planning this ever since Calgary. Nice to know he has a sense of humor.” Curtis drew on his pipe. “Just a game, my boy, just a game. I like games. I think hacking up that musk ox was going a bit too far, but you have to be convincing. What I’m waiting for is Jason running through the woods and growling. Maybe he’ll swing from a tree.” Curtis laughed dryly. “What do we do if he swings from a tree?”
Nicolson shrugged and pointed his rifle to a bend in the river. “Well, I’ll make my way to the other side of that.”
“Take your time,” said Curtis, puffing his pipe.
The rush of the river drowned the sound of Nicolson’s steps as he picked his way upriver. He flashed his light over the tortured ground, then found a cut in the river bank, between two birches, with a fairly clear field of fire.
He was settling down when his light crossed a birch from which a huge crescent of bark had been torn loose. He found the fragments on the ground. The inner layers had been scraped away by huge teeth that left gouges in the wood.
This was too much for a joke. Nicolson was beginning to believe the Bigfoot idea. He wondered if he ought to tell Curtis, and decided not to. Jason was obviously right; the thing was primarily a vegetarian that forced itself to eat meat. Why else would it have gone to all that trouble with the tree?
The helicopter and Land Rover were parked together in the knee-high meadow grass. It was a moonless but not starless night. Jason and Hill advanced a little way out of the forest and lay down in the grass. Jason adjusted his sight and pointed his rifle toward the vehicles.
As his night vision cleared, Jason saw what appeared to be a large tumor on the side of the Land Rover. The tumor resolved itself into a person, whose head projected a foot above the roof.
Jason’s throat felt dry. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Dennis Hill. Jason’s head was just about level with the roof, and he was six foot one. That meant their visitor was at least seven feet tall. Jason strained his eyes until tears formed, trying to see details. It was fifty feet away.
“Christ almighty,” breathed Hill. “Look at it!”
“I’m looking, I’m looking.”
The intruder was roughly pear-shaped, with long cranelike arms reaching down to its calves. The shoulders sloped downward. Something was not quite right about its head. The hair was looser than Jason would have expected, and longer, too, almost shoulder-length.
Jason pushed the rifle to his shoulder and quietly cocked it. He sighted down the barrel, centering the notch on the beast’s chest. A droplet of sweat stung his eye. He wiped it and aimed again.
The giant stepped back from the Land Rover and became very still. The head jerked. Then the wind bore down a detestable smell of sweat and excrement.
It knows we’re here, Jason thought.