by J. J. Dupuis
As the hill becomes steeper we see that the tracks change. More weight is shifted to the ball of the foot. The impressions look as though they were left by a horse’s hooves. There are more rocks on either side of the trail and the footprints are spaced farther apart and weave side to side, almost in a zigzag pattern. Ted walks ahead, faster, impetuously.
To the right of the trail is a tree stump about my height. It is long dead, barkless and bleached in the sun, like a big femur jutting from the dirt. The stump is riddled with holes, one the circumference of a human face, but the largest is at the base, a burrow fit for a raccoon with trails of mulch fanning out from it. In the middle of the rust-coloured mulch sits a rock, similar to the one earlier on the trail. There’s a dent halfway up the stump that looks recent.
“We got someone over here!” Ted calls out.
He moves left and I, after a quick glance over to Moira and Saad, move right. Before me, the hillside folds inward into a valley that runs halfway down the incline before flattening out like a dustpan.
The first thing I see are hiking boots pointing toward the summit. Then the rest of the body, arms spread like Christ on the cross.
The body isn’t Professor Sorel’s. It’s Rick Driver’s.
I catch myself thinking Thank God, which is ethically and philosophically complicated for me. But I can’t help but be relieved. Ted holds an arm out toward me as if to ward me off, like I might touch the corpse or attempt CPR on it. Any second now I expect the body to convulse and laugh, pointing fingers at us, and say, Boy, you should have seen the look on your face. But the body doesn’t move.
There’s a gash in his forehead, blood crusting around the edges. Otherwise he’s fresh, untouched by scavengers, and his skin still has some colour to it. His back is arched because of the backpack under the torso, and his plaid shirt is open, revealing a T-shirt with the words Moustache Rides Are Free written beneath a cartoon handlebar moustache very similar to his own. His eyes are wide and stare up at a gap in the forest canopy. The sky is a beautiful, clear blue, and if there is a heaven it looks like the door is open.
Several feet down the incline is his cap, upside down on a bed of moss. A few feet farther off is a rock, the top half of which is covered in dirt. There is a small crater and trail in the reddish soil where it landed and rolled. I’m reminded of the first post I put up on my site about the sailing stones of Death Valley. Around where I’m standing, I can see three, four, five more stones just like it, tossed down from some place higher on the incline.
Moira comes over the ridge and Saad follows behind. Ted takes his GPS from his backpack’s strap and starts pressing buttons. He unzips his jacket, reaches in and plucks the radio that dangles over his clavicle and calls the ranger station. He’s careful not to use the victim’s name over the radio, as is protocol. After being told to “sit tight,” he surveys the area quickly and takes a deep breath.
“We lose a dozen people to falls every year,” Ted says without specifying who we is.
“Look at those rocks,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“You see a lot of rocks go flying off a mountaintop under their own power? Somebody threw those, they didn’t just happen to fall like that,” I say.
“It’s not so hard to believe,” he says. “Rock slides happen.”
“You think someone did this on purpose?” Saad asks.
“I … I can’t be sure. But look at how and where the rocks landed. It’s a very small area, like he was targeted. If this was a rock slide, we should see more craters, more trails, evidence that the rocks rolled down the hill.”
“Not necessarily,” Ted chimes in.
“Why would somebody want to kill him?” Saad asks.
I kneel down near the body and point to his T-shirt.
“Could be a business rival,” I say. “Driver was pricing the competition out of business.”
“How about a little compassion?” Ted says, his tone high enough to be mocking.
“Don’t get too close,” Moira says. “We don’t want to disturb the scene.”
“Yeah, good call,” Ted says. “Laura, you and Saad stay back, please.” Without taking his eyes off the body, he waves us back the way we came. “We’ll have to get a SAIT crew up here,” he says to Moira.
“What about them?” Moira asks, pointing a thumb in our direction.
“The last thing I need is for something to happen to them. I’ll get them back to the station once the SAIT crew arrives and the scene has been secured.”
Saad and I walk toward a log that is buttressed on the incline between two trees. The log is hollow and looks as though it’s been home to many different creatures. There’s scat on the end of the log; where it touches the wood, it spreads outward like the end of an exploding cartoon cigar.
“A mustelid, something from the weasel family,” I say, pointing at the scat. “This region is known for supporting populations of pine martens, wolverines, and Pacific fishers.”
Saad shifts suddenly. “Oh,” he says. “Disgusting.”
“Sorry, I had to say something. My head is filled with this stuff and I never get to let it out.”
“Your dad taught you that?”
“Most of what I know about tracking I learned from him. The rest I picked up from this app.” I hold out my phone. “See? Scat shaped like folded cords? Weasel family.”
In my head I picture a mink, which is built like a wiener dog but moves like a spring.
“That’s really cool,” he says. “When I was a kid, my parents took my sisters and me to the mountains in the north of Pakistan. My youngest sister was born in Kashmir. Those mountains, they looked a lot like this. The weather was the same, too. My baba-jaan came with us. He’d take us out very early in the morning when it was still cold and dark. I miss those days. It’s not easy to travel there anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“I like it here,” Saad says.
“Dead bodies notwithstanding.”
We wait for some rangers and the sheriff to show up. We sit still. We don’t touch anything. I reapply my all-natural bug repellent for something to do. It’s been unusually warm the last few days and the arthropods are waking up. A breeze sweeps over the mountainside and the branches of the two trees near us creak as they shift around.
In my head I plot trajectories, drawing lines from the rocks up the slope, trying to figure out where they fell from. Using the small pair of binoculars hanging around my neck, I scour the hillside for signs of disturbance, where the rocks may have bounced or slid before landing in their final resting places. There’s a small ledge along the incline that looks ideal to launch rocks from. I can’t see from where I sit because of the angle, but I’d bet a million Bigfoot dollars that there are signs of a recent disturbance in the soil up there. I think back to shotput or pitching a baseball. If someone hurled rocks at Rick Driver, they would have had to dig their foot, the right if they’re right-handed, into the ground to toss rocks that distance.
Saad and I take snacks out of our backpacks and eat, facing away from the body. We drink water and look out at the forest, all the pointed tops of pine trees. It’s almost like a picnic or a date, if we can just keep concentrating on the scenic vistas looking down the side of the mountain.
Behind us, Ted circles the body, as though by looking at it from different angles the whole picture will become clear. Moira is careful to stay in one place. She turns and looks down the mountain, scanning the bare canopy that is still a month away from full bloom.
Eventually, Sheriff Watkins and a round deputy with a square head and short black hair come up through the trees, with the superintendent we met earlier accompanying them.
“The Serious Accident Investigation Team is still an hour out, Ranger Cassavetes,” the superintendent says, and Ted nods.
Sheriff Watkins approaches the body, examining it from head to toe, then looks up the mountain and all around. When he spots us his gaze lingers a moment, then he turns
to his deputy. “This isn’t ours until they say it is, just keep the scene until the chief investigator gets here,” he says. The sheriff then walks casually over to us, his eyes on the ground in front of him. The incline isn’t too steep, but it requires some vigilance. Carelessness can get you killed out here. He waves to us from a few feet off and keeps his arm in the air until he closes the distance. “So you decided to show up after all,” Sheriff Watkins says to me.
“Excuse me?” I say.
“The town council couldn’t track down your father, so we sent you his special invitation to be the guest of honour at the Bigfoot Festival. But we never heard back from you.”
“I’m sorry, I never received it.”
“Uh-huh,” he says. “So, want to tell me what you saw here?”
“Well, we were looking for —”
“I know why you came up here, just tell me what you saw.”
“We just came up the ridge,” I say.
“‘We’ being you four?” Sheriff Watkins says.
“Yes. Ranger Cassavetes was leading, I was behind him. We came up over the ridge and we found the body.”
“What were your first impressions?”
“My first impression was that this man was dead and he had been killed deliberately.”
“Why would you say that?”
“The scene just gave off that impression,” I say. “I know I’m not qualified to make that call. You asked and I answered. However, if I had to bet, I’d say you’ll find evidence of someone having stood on that ledge right up there, chucking rocks down.”
I point up to the ledge, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“Do me a favour and keep that to yourself,” Sheriff Watkins says. “I don’t need a panic up here because some tourist just saw her first dead body.”
“That’s not fair,” Saad says.
“Life’s not fair, kid. You see anything that struck you as peculiar about the scene?”
“No,” Saad says, shrugging his shoulders.
“I see,” Sheriff Watkins says. “Then it’s in the hands of the rangers and the BLM. But, when they’re done with you, swing by the station. I’d like to get your statements in writing.”
He tips his hat to me then walks back and speaks quietly to his deputy. They both turn to look at us — I can’t hear what’s being said — before breaking like football players from a huddle. Sheriff Watkins then walks up to the superintendent and it looks like he might poke him right in the chest. “It’s time to get serious about this rescue operation,” he says.
“How do you mean?”
“I think one body is enough.” He steps so close to the superintendent that they must feel each other’s breath.
“And what do you suggest?” the veteran park ranger says coolly.
“Call your bosses back in D.C. and get them to put some choppers in the air; you can afford it,” Sheriff Watkins says. “Driver might’ve been a bit of a lowlife, but what happens when a university professor winds up dead in your park? Won’t do wonders for the tourism industry, will it?”
“This Driver guy must not have been popular, even when he’s dead people have nothing nice to say about him,” Saad whispers, leaning over, his shoulder touching mine.
“Well, he’s popular enough that the sheriff could ID him on sight,” I say. “But what I can’t figure out is, why does the sheriff want our statements? This case is out of his jurisdiction.”
“You tell me. I feel like I’m starting Game of Thrones at season three,” Saad says. “Is this where your dad caught Bigfoot on tape?” He makes a sweeping gesture toward the peak of the mountain.
“It was farther up, just over the ridge,” I say.
“And only Professor Sorel, you, and your dad know where it was shot?”
I nod. Saad leans back a little, then slouches forward, suddenly concerned that he might roll off the back of the log. He scans the area right to left.
“Then how did Rick Driver end up out here?” Saad asks. “I mean, in this exact spot. It’s a long ridge.”
“Good question,” I say.
FIVE
At that time I had never heard of Sasquatch. So I asked what kind of an animal he called a Sasquatch. The Indian said, “They have hair all over their bodies, but they are not animals. They are people. Big people living in the mountains. My uncle saw the tracks of one that were two feet long. One old Indian saw one over eight feet tall.”
— Interview with Albert Ostman, Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us,
John Green, 1978
A FOUR-PERSON TEAM OF INVESTIGATORS arrives just as Saad and I polish off a can of Pringles. Like a meerkat colony, they all stand attentively, surveying the scene from the mouth of the trail, trying to get a sense of the complete picture. The leader is a man with curly black hair with a dusting of white over the ears. He’s wide at the shoulders and looks both tough and kind. He is followed by a lady who looks kind of like Fran Drescher from The Nanny, a guy carrying a tripod, and a pink-skinned farm boy. Hands are shaken, pleasantries and names exchanged. Sheriff Watkins disappears down the hill while his deputy stays on and keeps watch.
The sun reaches its apex and begins its journey downward in the sky. I was sweaty earlier, hiking up the incline, but now that I’ve been sitting on the log motionless for the last hour and a half, I feel chilly, and zip my fleece up all the way under my chin. The SAIT people take pictures and measurements. They kneel down and inspect the body, then put yellow markers in the ground next to the rocks I suspect played a part in Rick Driver’s death. The team leader gives more directions, then makes his way toward us slowly, like he hasn’t a care in the world.
“Sorry for keeping you around,” the leader of the SAI team says. “My name’s Dale Jordan. I have to ask you a few questions. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“I don’t know how much we can help you,” I say.
“You were up here searching for …” he says, looking down at his notepad, “Professor Berton Sorel?”
“Yes, sir. Professor Sorel is an old family friend, so I came here to help out in the search. We have reason to believe that Professor Sorel came up here the day he went missing.”
“No one seems able to account for the deceased’s presence up here,” he says, more to himself than to me. “Any idea why he was out here?”
“I suspect he was here for the same reason as Professor Sorel, trying to retrace the route my father and I took when we first came up here.”
Dale surveys the scene from his new vantage point. He’s doing some math in his head, some kind of complex calculation. You can see it in his face. He forgets that we’re even there.
“Is there anything else we can do?” I ask.
“What? No. Thank you for your help. Ranger Cassavetes will take you back down the mountain. Please stick to the trail you came up on.”
“What about Professor Sorel?”
“I’m afraid I can’t have you hiking around this accident scene.”
Ranger Ted stands behind Dale with his arms crossed, like an impatient father picking up his children. They nod at each other as one passes the other. No words are spoken.
The three of us walk down the mountain. Moira is gone, I don’t see her with the SAIT people. Once again, Ted leads, I follow, and Saad watches my back. All three of us are quiet, thinking our morbid thoughts and watching the placement of our steps.
“Look,” Ted says. “Don’t worry about your friend.”
We walk the rest of the way to the truck in silence. The flat faces of exposed serpentine rock loom above us, perfect platforms from which to rain stones down on us. Failure hangs around my neck and shoulders like chains. I sit in the back of the truck and stare at the headrest of the passenger seat.
SIX
My first impression was of a huge man, about six feet tall, almost three feet wide, and probably weighing somewhere near three hundred pounds. It was covered from head to toe with dark brown silver-tipped hair. But as it came closer I saw by its
breasts that it was female.
— William Roe, sworn affidavit,
August 26, 1957
ON THE OUTSIDE, THE ROANOKE COUNTY sheriff’s station looks brand new. To the left of the door are three flags hanging limp on their poles: the Stars and Stripes, the state flag, and the flag of the sheriff’s department. The crest of the sheriff’s department is painted in green on the door. Above the doorway, in the tiny gap between the red brick and the steel frame, pieces of straw stick out like bushy eyebrows. House sparrows fly in and out, chirping constantly. There was a time when they were only birds to me; now I register them as an invasive species, stowaways from England who accompanied our ancestors. They’re notoriously aggressive, forcing native species from their burrows. When the famous naturalist Aldo Leopold wrote of this region, all he could talk about was the invasive species colonizing this land as the settlers did.
At odds with the exterior, the inside of the building feels like a bank. It smells like a bank. The deputy behind the front desk is tall and gaunt, with sunken eyes and acne scars on his cheeks. I tell him who we are and he asks us to wait, so Saad and I sit down in the line of armless plastic chairs. We face a wall covered in plaques and photos of people — mostly men — in uniforms, shaking hands with people — mostly men — wearing suits. The skinny deputy tries to look busy. I can’t see what he’s up to behind the counter, but I hear paper shuffling on his desk, the occasional clicking of his mouse.
“Miss Reagan,” a woman’s voice calls from down the hall.
Looking up, I see a female deputy coming down the hall toward me. I stand up to find she’s a few inches shorter than me and about a foot wider. Her eyes are wide and brown and have an unblinking, no-nonsense look to them; her shiny black hair is tied back.
She leads me down the hall, away from Saad, and into an interview room that, despite its name, is neither intimidating nor unnerving. For one thing the chairs have arms and comfortable padding. It looks more like the waiting room at a dentist’s office.
“Sheriff Watkins wanted me to follow up with you about the statement you gave earlier today,” the deputy says. “You said something about the death not being an accident?”