Roanoke Ridge

by J. J. Dupuis

  “Yeah, I know. I’m not sure why I said that, I shouldn’t have, it was thoughtless.”

  “So you’re changing your mind?”

  “I guess. I don’t know enough about crime scene investigation to make statements like that. It’s just, well, the whole thing looked wrong.”

  “Wrong how?”

  “The conditions for a rockfall were all wrong. The incline of the hill, the dry conditions, even the angles at which the rocks hit the soil. They seemed to fly straight down from the mountaintop; then, as Mr. Driver’s footprints climbed diagonally upward, the craters left by the rocks seemed to follow. What are the odds that rocks landed only where he’d been standing? You’d expect rocks falling randomly to fan outward, unless funnelled together by the geography of the mountainside.”

  “You sound convinced.”

  I notice her makeup for the first time. It’s subtle, just a touch of eyeliner, some lip gloss, a little concealer.

  “I could be wrong. There was a body lying there. I may have jumped to conclusions or missed something. I’m not an expert.”

  “The sheriff asked that I convince you not to spread panic and rumors in town, but I don’t have to worry about that, do I?”

  Her uniform, her authority, makes her seem older than she is. She gives off the impression that she served overseas, but I can’t back that up with any observable facts. It’s just a feeling. She speaks to me like a teacher or even the principal. Part of me thinks that I am just like her in a parallel dimension.

  “No, ma’am,” I say.

  She smiles for the first time, twists a pen around in her tan fingers.

  “Sometimes I think we try to find a reason in everything. The idea of rocks just falling loose and hitting a person in the middle of the wilderness seems just too random, right? It’s natural to think there was a motive, a reason. But these things just happen, trust me.”

  “Have you seen anything like this? Bodies just turning up in the woods here?” I ask.

  Her smile disappears. She sets the pen down in front of her and stares at it. She rolls it forward, then back again.

  “Okay, that should be enough,” she says. “Thank you for coming in.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say. “Have a good day.”

  My hand is on the stainless steel doorknob, cool to my fingertips, when the deputy speaks again. “Just for my notes, you didn’t tell those government people any different than you told me, right? You didn’t say anything about your previous suspicions?”

  I look up and to my right, so she thinks I’m really concentrating.

  “Nope, they just asked what I saw, which was nothing.”

  “Great,” the deputy says. “Thanks.”

  Saad is waiting exactly where I left him. He looks up at me with no expression on his face, but his big brown eyes are always comforting.

  “They’ve finished with you?” I ask.

  He nods. “We’re leaving?” he asks.

  “I don’t want to stay here a second longer,” I say.

  Saad is quick to his feet, holding the door and staring down at the tile flooring.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  Saad stays quiet and lets the door slip from his hand as he clears it.

  “Saad?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  SEVEN

  Investigating the persistent barking of his dog at night, Dan came face to face with a hairy giant who, according to Dan, was tall and muscular, prowling in the nude. He was covered with black hair from head to foot except for a small space around the eyes.

  — Lethbridge Herald, March 3, 1934

  WE PASS OVER THE RIVER ON THE WAY BACK from the sheriff’s station. The sun is ducking behind the mountains and its last, red rays seem to set the river on fire. The sawmill is a haunting silhouette, like a phantom invisible to the eye but caught on film.

  By the time we get back to the motel, Saad and I are running on empty. Bats flutter around at the edge of the parking lot, just out of reach of the buzzing fluorescent lights. There’s a damp, earthen smell, an atmosphere like the moist soil and moss are peeling away and all the corpses buried just beneath our footsteps will be revealed. I feel like I’m in a zombie movie — a European zombie movie, showing corpses in a later stage of decomposition, maggots squirming in their eye sockets, haunting synth music playing.

  “Excuse me,” a lady says in a Georgia accent. She trots along the walkway in front of the motel, intercepting us before Saad can turn the key. Her hair is like a grey clown wig; around her neck is a scarf of a thousand colours, and her earrings are of polished jade and look like June beetles. “Are you Laura Reagan?”

  “That’s me,” I say.

  “My goodness, it’s an honour. I’m so grateful to your father for helping to spread the truth about Bigfoot. My name is Sylvia.” She pauses and looks at Saad, who is frozen by the door. “And you,” she says. “Aren’t you lucky to have such a beautiful young lady as this?”

  “We’re not —”

  “They’ll never catch him, you know,” she says.

  “Catch who?”

  “Bigfoot.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Why is that?”

  “He’s not some monkey eating bananas out there in the woods. He is much more than that. So much more.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “He’s an elemental spirit. The Indians have known this all along. But you know how blind scientists can be. ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”

  “Are you a very spiritual woman, Sylvia?” I ask.

  “Haven’t missed a day of church since I was yay high,” she says, tracing a line at knee level. “And I never go far without my Bible.” At this, she smiles and gives a little wave, turning away to walk back to her room. “Well, it was lovely meeting you.”

  I want to fall face-first on my bed, but Saad, shoulders back and posture perfect, walks with poise toward the back of the room as though he’s completely recharged his batteries between the sheriff’s station and here. He pours himself a glass of water, then offers me one of my own.

  “Paani chai-yay,” I say in Urdu, as if I am the one asking him if he wanted water.

  “Jee-haan,” he says, smiling. “Paani chai-yay. I like your accent.”

  “Thanks,” I say, embarrassed.

  “So, you’re a celebrity now.”

  “Me? No. That’s my dad, and only around here.”

  Saad furrows his brow, hesitates for a second, then speaks. “I know a fair amount about the Bible, much of it has influenced the Qur’an, but what are elemental spirits?”

  “No idea. And I don’t think they’re in the Bible.”

  I fall backward onto the bed, roll onto my side, and take my phone from my pocket. A quick Google search answers our questions. Saad sits and waits for the information. He knows me well enough now — googling is not just a word in my vocabulary, it’s a lifestyle choice.

  “Elemental spirits were categorized in the sixteenth century by the philosopher Paracelsus, who divided mythological beings by the four elements. This idea was further distilled into the figure of the wild man, like a Greek satyr, which became a popular figure in European art. This figure was heavily influenced by Silvanus, the Roman god of the woods.”

  “Weird,” Saad says.

  “And pagan,” I say.

  At this point, Saad, ever dutiful, informs me he has to call his mother. I try to calculate what time it must be in Karachi, but I’m too tired to think. He doesn’t show it, he doesn’t even look at me, but I know part of him is keeping an ear out for me, wary of any sounds that might betray my presence. The last thing his mother needs to hear is the sound of a woman in her son’s motel room at night. Does she even know he’s in a motel room? I have no idea what she knows, what he’s told her, even if he will.

  “Asalaam aleikum, Ammi-jaan,” he says. “Aap kesi hai
n?”

  I can still hear his voice faintly as I pull the door shut behind me. The night air is warm. It is the first night this year that’s comfortable, past those transitionary days of early spring when it only gets warm, say sixty degrees, at midday, before dropping back to the midthirties at night. I take the time to enjoy the stars, so many of them, so many more than in the city. They look like they all might be moving, or like the current lighting them up is unsteady. I miss the stars. Camping with Dad, when the sky was so bright and clear I could see satellites orbiting above me.

  “That was one hell of a day,” a voice says behind me.

  It’s the man from the Rotary Club yesterday — the one in the suit, who’d been leaning like James Dean against the wall with his hand surgically attached to his phone. He approaches along the walkway between the motel doors and the gravel parking lot. Leaves are starting to reach out over the edges of the planters on the wall, but none come close to mussing his carefully gelled hair.

  “We all wanted to go into these woods and find a body, but this is a bit much,” he says.

  “Pardon me?”

  “I mean Bigfoot. Who doesn’t want a carcass they can parade in front of the scientific community? Nobody wants Rick Driver’s body.”

  “News travels fast,” I say.

  “It’s my job to know these things, I have a lot riding on them.”

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “Sorry,” he says, looking down at his shiny leather shoes and smiling. “Sometimes I think everybody knows who I am. My name is Danny LeDoux. I’m from NatureWorld. I’m here to troubleshoot for the network and make sure we get our show to air.”

  “That doesn’t look so likely now.”

  “There’s always hope,” he says. “I’m mulling over the idea of changing Dr. Laidlaw’s role on the series.”

  Suddenly he claps, waking me up.

  “I have an idea,” he says, his eyes bright like the fluorescent tube lights above us. “You could take over for Driver. A second-generation squatcher like yourself.”

  “I’m not —”

  “I know you’re not a squatcher, not really, but we can play that up. Your whole hot nerd, internet science queen thing works, though.”

  He reaches into his jacket, then gives me his business card.

  “I wasn’t aware you know —”

  “Who you are? Of course I know.”

  “Your talent for interrupting people you just met is less than charming.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” he says. “Life’s too short.”

  “I think your audience will be disappointed if they expect Rick Driver and they get me.”

  “I don’t think they’ll care. All they’re looking for is a validation of their preconceived beliefs. That’s why we trip all over ourselves to create the next Ancient Aliens or Ghost Hunters. Nobody tunes in to see ‘experts.’ They just want to feel like their superstitions and hare-brained ideas have scientific merit.”

  “Not interested,” I say, just as his phone rings and he holds it to his ear, illuminating his face in white light.

  “Excuse me,” he says, holding a finger up to me.

  The NatureWorld crew are all hunkered down in the Golden Eagle, just up the highway, same as Aunt Barb. So if Danny LeDoux isn’t staying at the Tall Pines, why’s he creeping around the parking lot? It’s a mystery, but too minor a mystery and I’ve had my fill. Danny turns and faces the road, plugging his left ear with his free hand. I slip back inside the motel room, trading the sounds of one phone conversation for another.

  It’s ten forty-two when a nightmare jolts me awake. I can still see Rick Driver’s body looking up at me from the darkest corner of the room. I can feel it lying on the floor next to my bed. My head is filled with entirely unscientific thoughts.

  Silently, catlike, I creep over to the door and turn the deadbolt. Saad, cocooned in his comforter, doesn’t stir as I step outside and pull the door slowly behind me.

  Two men stand by the corner of the motel, next to the window where the neon vacancy sign sits. One of them is leaning against the stucco wall, smoking a cigarette. The other gesticulates in front of him, like a bird of paradise dancing to impress a mate. He sounds like he’s hissing, but as I get closer I can discern the words he whispers.

  “I … I only saw it for a split second. It was up the hill, behind us. I heard something, I don’t know what, I must have, ’cause I turned and saw it, backlit by the sun. The creature bounded behind some trees, then it was gone.”

  “What did it look like?” the smoking man asks.

  “It was covered in fur the colour of straw, and it was big, at least seven feet tall,” the other man says. “It couldn’t have been a bear, it moved too quick on its hind legs.”

  The smoking man looks over at me. The other one stops moving, then he, too, turns and looks at me over his shoulder. They don’t say another word and I keep walking. The whispers start up again as I round the corner.

  Closer to the road, the night is quiet. The midsummer songs of frogs have yet to begin. I walk along the shoulder of the highway, facing the oncoming traffic. There’s a restaurant and bar not too far down. It has a painted sign on the roof, but I can’t make it out from the road until I get closer. The Paul. In the window next to the neon open sign is a picture, made up entirely of LEDs, of a lady sitting in a martini glass. It looks like something made by a father playing with his kid’s Lite Brite. Moths crawl up the wall and around the light above the door. I can hear the faintest flutter of their painted wings. Through the windows the room has an amber hue and looks lively.

  The dining area consists of five circular tables in the Olympic ring formation, booths on the right and the bar on the left. The closest table to the door is full, all heads turned toward a man sitting with his back to me. I know who it is by the voice, the only English accent in town.

  “I find the matter of this creature’s bipedal striding gait to be the most fascinating part of this discussion. If we look at the two major schools of thought from what I call the ‘physical Bigfoot’ camp — that is to say, the creature is a flesh-and-blood animal with no supernatural tendencies — this animal is either closely related to us or closely related to orangutans. Now, given how dissimilar we are to orangutans, this is a fascinating dilemma.”

  He takes a break to sip his pint and put it down again, a ring of foam around the glass that refuses to fall back down. The one waitress in the place walks around the table, placing another round of drinks down on cardboard coasters.

  “The question then becomes, did Bigfoot’s hominin-like traits, such as striding bipedality, result from convergent evolution? Were these traits present in other hominids who either died out or lost them entirely? Like Orang Pendek, which may be another example of a hominin-like pongine that possesses such traits.”

  The room is too tight to stand around unnoticed, and some of his captive audience seems to wake up, as if from a trance, to look at me.

  “Sorry, am I rambling?” Dr. Laidlaw asks, turning to follow their gazes. “Ah, Laura,” he says, with a hint of an R sound at the end. He slides his chair over. “Do sit down.”

  Dr. Laidlaw introduces me to everyone and no one to me, so I sit quietly, glancing down at the laminated menu without reading it. Then he waves to the waitress and says to her, with a childlike giddiness, “Two pints of Bigfoot Brewery’s Primate Pilsner.”

  “Sure,” the waitress says, brushing a wisp of bleach-blond hair behind her ear. “Back in a minute.”

  “I love saying that,” Dr. Laidlaw says. “‘Bigfoot Brewery.’ The brewery is right here in the middle of town. They have an alliterative title for every style of beer they brew: Primate Pilsner, Ape Ale, Sasquatch Stout.”

  “They have ‘Bigfoot’ everything here,” I say.

  “Made from the freshest mountain waters that sustain Bigfoot himself,” Dr. Laidlaw says, reading the slogan off a coaster.

  The waitress reaches over my shoulder and drops
my own Bigfoot Brewery coaster, printed with a large black footprint, down in front of me, then places the pint on it. The foam head rises over the rim of the glass and I bend at the waist to take one long sip. As the white foam recedes, I look down through pale liquid at the footprint.

  “Thank you,” I say to the waitress, then again to Dr. Laidlaw.

  “Tell me where you stand on Sasquatch, Laura. Natural or supernatural? Hominin or pongine?”

  “Assuming I believe in it at all?”

  “Certainly. No fun chatting in a pub about non-existent lifeforms is it?”

  He clinks his glass against mine and takes a big gulp.

  “I’m in the camp for Gigantopithecus blacki adapted to cooler climates by a dose of Bergmann’s rule,” I say.

  “That seems reasonable,” Dr. Laidlaw says. “But might not Allen’s rule counteract the enormous height of the creature?”

  He’s referring to Allen’s Rule, which posits that warm-blooded animals living in colder climates tend to have shorter extremities than analogues in warmer climates. This allows for a reduction in the surface-to-volume ratio. Such adaptations come in handy when you want to avoid freezing your tail off.

  “We might see an increase in overall mass as a Gigantopithecus population migrates north, per Bergmann’s rule, but the reported long limbs of Bigfoot seem to be at odds with Allen’s rule. They’d lose tremendous heat in ice age conditions.”

  “Moose seem to do just fine,” replies a round man with glasses pushed back high on the bridge of his nose, a waxed moustache more William H. Taft than Salvador Dali beneath.

  Dr. Laidlaw continues. “I am told by friends of mine who specialize in moose that you can see both forces acting on moose, depending on their distribution. In colder climates moose tend to be large, in keeping with Bergmann’s rule. But bear in mind that Allen’s rule applies to all extremities, not just limbs. So those northern moose also tend to have shorter ears to mitigate heat loss.”

  “I hate to argue against my own position,” I say between sips of my beer, “but we have no idea the true size of Gigantopithecus. The only remains we have are a dozen molars and some mandible pieces. It might’ve just had incredibly large teeth for its size.”