Big Hairy Deal

by Steve Vernon

  “Or better yet call them the memory of mountains,” Coyote said.

  “They still look like hills to me,” I said.

  “It all depends on you learning how to squint,” Bigfoot said. “You listen closely enough and you can hear the glaciers talking.”

  I held up my hand up to my ear like I was listening.

  “So what exactly are they saying?” I asked. “Because I can’t hear a thing.”

  I half wanted to know and I was halfway trying to be a smartass about it. Teenagers can be perverse that way.

  “I guess it depends on just who is listening,” Bigfoot said. “To me they are telling a story about a time when there were nothing but Bigfeet as far as you could see.”

  “Was there ever such a time?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” Bigfoot said, with a shrug. “It’s a story. True doesn’t have any place at all in this particular equation.”

  “So what are they telling me?” I asked.

  I was a little less smartass about that second question.

  The truth was, I really wanted to know.

  “Well,” Bigfoot began. “If you ask me these mountains would tell you the story of a boy name of Glooskap. One morning the people woke up and the rivers and the lakes had all run dry. It turns out that a giant bullfrog named Aglebemu had built himself a huge stone dam to keep all the water of the world for himself.”

  “Why did he want all of the water?” I asked.

  “Water is part fish and that big old giant bullfrog monster wanted all the fish to his own self as well,” Bigfoot explained. “But the boy named Glooskap went out and caught hold of the big old bullfrog and he swung him by his legs and cracked his back against the big old stone dam and the pieces of the dam flew in all directions and they soaked into the dirt of the earth and grew up into mountains and that is why the bullfrog is born with a hump on his back from the bruising that boy named Glooskap handed out to him way back at the day on the dam.”

  “So what is that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “It means that even a boy can make himself useful every now and then,” Bigfoot said. “At least as far as killing frogs is concerned.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said.

  “Anytime,” Bigfoot replied.

  I decided to give up on arguing over this particular issue.

  “So what exactly are we looking for?” I asked. “Is this supposed to be the place where Raven is hiding out?”

  Bigfoot growled loudly.

  “So what did I say wrong?” I asked.

  “Do me a favor and try and not say his name out loud outside of the walls of The Prophet,” Coyote warned. “He could be listening.”

  “Who?” I asked, wanting to know just whose name I wasn’t supposed to say out loud and WHO could be listening.

  “Now this kid thinks he’s an owl,” Bigfoot grumbled. “Why don’t you see if you can catch us a rabbit? Owls are supposed to be good at that.”

  “Well who do you think can hear us out here?” I complained. “There’s nothing around here but a whole bunch of trees.”

  “And you don’t think they’re not listening?” Bigfoot asked.

  “Trees don’t have ears. Trees are plants. Nothing but bark and leaves on some and needles on the other. “

  “Corn has ears, doesn’t it?” Bigfoot said. “Why do you think that the most serious of gardeners all make it a point to sit and talk to their plants?”

  That might have made sense if someone had hit me on the head with a rock about six or eight times before saying it to me.

  “Because they are freaking weird, maybe?” I guessed.

  “Look who is calling who weird,” Bigfoot said. “You’re the one who is having a conversation with an urban myth.”

  “Don’t put on airs,” Coyote said. “There’s nothing urban about you.”

  This was getting nowhere fast.

  I took a long deep breath, considering my next question as carefully as possible – barely resisting the urge to yell “Raven, raven, raven” at the top of my lungs – only the memory of me looking at that shadow-raven gnawing on my Dad was just enough to make me think better.

  “Okay,” I said. “So are we here in you-know-where looking for the scent of you-know-who, you-know-what?”

  “Who?” Bigfoot asked.

  “What?” Coyote asked – almost at the exact same time that Bigfoot spoke.

  Even I had to laugh.

  “What we’re here for,” Bigfoot explained. “Is we are looking for a better nose than I happen to be wearing beneath my eye holes.”

  “We are looking for a good hunting hound,” Coyote went on. “What else did you think we came here for?”

  What the freak?

  “So we are looking for a dog?”

  “We’re looking for something like that,” Bigfoot explained. “We’re looking for a dog that could hunt out a single bead of sweat in a gymnasium full of sweated-up funky-pitted and newly-puberty-infested basketball players. We’re looking for a dog that can hunt out a single second in an entire century full of long irritating minutes.”

  “Wouldn’t a GPS be a whole lot quicker?” I asked. “Or maybe we could even try looking it up on Google – under D for dog.”

  “What we are looking for can’t be found on any GPS,” Bigfoot said. “What we are looking for won’t even show up if you sacrificed about a billion searches to the God of All Google.”

  “You mean you-know-who?” I asked.

  “I mean you-know-what,” Bigfoot replied. “What we’re looking for right now is a certain canine known as Old Shuck, the Devil’s Dog.”

  Have you ever got an answer that didn’t mean a thing to you when you finally got it?

  This was one of those kinds of answers.

  “So what exactly is a Shuck?” I asked. “And is an old one any better than a new one?”

  “You tell him, Coyote.” Bigfoot said. “You always tell it best.”

  “You mean I remember it best,” Coyote corrected.

  “Whatever,” Bigfoot said.

  I was getting tired of waiting.

  “One of you had better tell the story to me, quick,” I said. “Because I am running out of patience pretty darned fast.”

  Bigfoot snorted.

  “Let me tell you a story,” Coyote began.

  Why did I know that he was going to say that?

  I think these guys were MADE out of stories.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what you figure you need to tell me,” I suggested. “And let’s skip the whole story thing.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine,” Bigfoot echoed, sulkily. “You’ll sit and listen to HIS stories, but you won’t sit and listen to MINE.”

  “What choice do I have?” I asked – but I already knew the answer.

  Namely, none at all.

  Chapter Nineteen – The Tale of Old Shuck – as Told by Coyote

  “This is the way that the story was first told to me – way back when I was nothing but a pup,” Coyote began. “Many, many, many long years ago.”

  “You mean way back when people lived in caves?” Bigfoot asked. “Back when they carried clubs and ate dinosaur burgers for breakfast?”

  “People weren’t actually around when the dinosaurs were,” I pointed out. “My science teacher taught me that.”

  “What?” Bigfoot replied. “Haven’t you ever watched the Flintstones?”

  I gave it up as an argument that was already lost long before it ever got started.

  “I’m not that old,” Coyote angrily snapped.

  “You’re not that young, either,” Bigfoot pointed out. “Besides, you only start the story that way in case you get any of the facts out of order – which you probably will – in which case you can always blame who ever told it to you first.”

  “Do you really want to try and tell this story all by
yourself?” Coyote asked. “I’m not sure there aren’t too many syllables in it for your vocabulary.”

  “Tell on,” Bigfoot replied. “I’m not saying a single word.”

  “That’d be a first,” Coyote retorted – but then he jumped right back into the flow of the story – before Bigfoot could squeeze one more wisecrack comment out of his mouth.

  “It started with a young boy by the name of Little Billy,” Coyote began. “A young boy named Billy who lived all by his lonesome out in the deepest darkest woods imaginable. “

  I sat down on a rock.

  I had the feeling this was going to be a long old story – because so far I hadn’t actually heard any short ones – and I figured that I might as well do my best to make myself comfortable while I was at it.

  “How come every question I ask you guys always has to lead to some dumb old story?” I asked. “It’s beginning to become a bit of a habit.”

  “There is no such thing as a dumb story,” Bigfoot said.

  “Our whole existence depends upon stories being told,” Coyote added. “So long as a story is told and told well we storied folk will continue to walk the earth.”

  “So tell it, then,” I said. “Tell us all about that forest.”

  I was getting a little impatient.

  “There were trees in that forest that were so old that you would have to spend three hundred years of straight night-and-day calculating just to count up how many rings run round the middle of their trunk,” Coyote went on. “There were trees so old that their shadows had grown roots of their own and the roots had grown shadows. There were trees so old that their leaves had got all tangled up with the clouds and the moonbeams.”

  “Okay, okay,” Bigfoot interrupted. “We got it. It was an old forest. Can you cut to the chase? I see my birthday coming up in about three months down the road and the way that you are winding up the wind you generate might blow out all of my candles before I even get around to thinking about baking myself a cake.”

  “You’re interrupting me again,” Coyote said.

  “Well tell it to us in a hurry,” Bigfoot said. “Life is too darned short for this sort of interminable monotony.”

  “That’s what I’m doing,” Coyote said. “I am telling it just as fast as I am able to.”

  “Well, tell it faster,” Bigfoot said. “Before it gets too dark to follow the trail.

  “How come he lived by himself?” I asked. “Didn’t he have any parents?”

  “Are you going to start interrupting now?” Coyote asked.

  “I’m just asking is all,” I said, with a shrug. “I still want to hear the story.”

  By then I did. It was funny, but every time that Bigfoot interrupted I wanted to hear it told all the more.

  “Then I recommend listening a little more with your ears,” Coyote said. “and exercising your mouth a whole lot less.”

  And then, before Bigfoot could add anything else, Coyote snapped at him.

  “And you,” Coyote snapped. “If you interrupt one more time the very next story I intend to tell is going to concern the manner in which you were discovered asleep on top of that used car lot roof with that giant latex blow-up King Kong mannequin.”

  Now that sounded like the kind of a story that I REALLY wanted to hear – but Bigfoot shut his mouth so fast that I swear I heard his jaw click shut.

  So Coyote started his story again – completely uninterrupted.

  “The boy didn’t live COMPLETELY by himself,” Coyote went on, answering my last question first. “He had parents – and I already told you that he had a dog.”

  I nodded hastily, not wanting to interrupt him any more than I had to.

  The way I figured it, if either myself or Bigfoot interrupted him one more time it would be weeks and weeks and weeks before we ever heard the end of Coyote’s story.

  “Dogs are great companions – given that they aren’t quite coyotes – and this dog was the boy’s very best friend.”

  I nodded again.

  Coyote seemed happy with that.

  “The boy’s name was Little Billy, on account of his Dad’s name was Big William.” Coyote went on. “The dog’s name was Shukramarama – which was what Little Billy had named him – because at the time that he had named the dog, Little Billy was only about three years old and he had liked names that rhymed inside and the name Shukramarama had sounded cooler to him than an entire refrigerator full of fresh-frozen polar bear toes – but everyone else called the dog Old Shuck, because the name was shorter than Shukramarama. Little Billy used to live with his parents and his grandparents – but one summer that all changed.”

  I leaned in a little closer.

  I hated to admit it – but this was beginning to get interesting.

  “One hot summer night – when the moon was hanging in the sky like a fat rotting pumpkin – someone knocked on the family door.”

  “Who was it?” I asked.

  “It was Old Man Death who had come knocking on the door,” Coyote explained. “He had come for Little Billy’s grandfather – whose name was Old William.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean there are THREE Billy’s in this family?”

  “Did their last name happen to be Goat-Gruff?” Bigfoot asked. “And did they go trip-trap, trip-trap, trip-trap over a long wooden troll bridge?”

  “Shut up,” Coyote replied.

  “Was their mother’s named Billy too?” Bigfoot asked.

  “Shut up,” Coyote repeated.

  “Maybe they were a family of hillbillies,” Bigfoot suggested.

  Which was funny.

  “Actually, there was Old William, Young William and Little Billy,” Coyote explained.

  “Where there’s a Will, there’s a way, I guess,” Bigfoot said.

  “Are you done shutting up?” Coyote asked. “Because I could still sit down and tell that latex blow-up King Kong story.”

  “I guess I’m done,” Bigfoot said. “For now at least.”

  “And how about you?” Coyote asked before I could get my two cents in. “Are you going to let me finish this story?”

  So I shut up again, for at least a half a breath or so.

  “So Little Billy’s grandfather Old William walked outside and walked away with Old Man Death,” Coyote went on.

  “Why’d the grandfather do that?” I asked.

  “The grandfather was old and his bones had been aching for long past hurt and he figured that if he didn’t walk away with Old Man Death that there might be trouble for the family.”

  This was a complicated story but I did my best to listen.

  If it had something to do with getting Warren out of that pine cone cocoon and me back to somewhere close to the way that everything used to be – it was worth listening to.

  “What happened then?” I asked.

  “Well, three weeks later there was another knock on the door,” Coyote said. “It was Old Man Death again – only this time he had come for Little Billy’s grandmother, Wilhelmina.”

  Wilhelmina?

  It figured.

  “I thought you said her name wasn’t Billy,” Bigfoot interjected.

  “It’s Wilhelmina,” Coyote said. “That isn’t Billy, now is it?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Well, she had been feeling pretty stiff and tired and old herself,” Coyote went on. “So she went along with Old Man Death without making any kind of trouble. She missed her husband and she wanted to go off and be with him in the Kingdom of the Dead.”

  I leaned back against the Warren-cocoon.

  It felt a little cooler – like the sun had been shining on it all day long but it was now time for the night to fall. That Warren-cocoon felt like it was growing colder and its breathing seemed to feel a little bit more labored and I had the feeling that Warren was dying.

  I still wasn’t sure just what that would feel like.

  It had been hard en
ough losing one Dad, never mind losing a second.

  “What’s that feel like?” I asked. “Being so lonely that all you wanted to do was to walk off with Old Man Death? And what does the Kingdom of Death look like? Do they have any sort of computer games there?”

  I wasn’t sure if I was talking to Coyote or to Bigfoot or whether I was talking to whatever was left of Warren inside of that Warren-cocoon.

  I might even have been talking to my real Dad.

  “You won’t know until you get there,” Bigfoot answered. “And until then you just have to learn how to make do with just not knowing.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that but I didn’t see any point in arguing with him over it.

  “Three weeks later there come another knock at the door.”

  “Was it Old Man Death?” I asked.

  “It was,” Coyote replied. “Well, Little Billy’s father went to the door and told Old Man Death that he would have to go. You’ve caused enough trouble for this family, Little Billy’s father said to Old Man Death. Why are you so set in picking on us? Then Old Man Death told Little Billy’s father that sometimes it rains and sometimes and sunny and this was nothing more than Little Billy’s family’s turn to get rained on.”

  “Who did he come for?” I asked.

  “Old Man Death had come for Little Billy’s father – and try as he might, Little Billy’s father had absolutely nothing to say in the matter. He hung onto the doorway and he hung onto the banister and he hung onto the porch swing but then finally he had nothing left to hang onto and so he got up and he walked on down the road with Old Man Death.”

  “What happened then?” I asked. “Did Old Man Death take Little Billy’s mother?”

  “He did not,” Coyote said. “So why don’t you stop trying to guess all of the fun out of this story?”

  I thought about all of that family walking down the road with Old Man Death and I had to wonder just how much fun this story was REALLY supposed to be?

  “Little Billy’s mother cried for three straight weeks – from sun up to sundown until the pine floorboards of the house were soaked with her tears. And then on that night of the third week Little Billy’s mother stood out on the porch under the moonlight and she sang a song that sounded a little like a coyote howling at the moon and the waves talking to the shoreline and the wind whispering through the autumn trees on the longest midnight of the year. She sang a song that was both beautiful and terrible and as lonely as an empty water bucket, rusted at the bottom and poked full of holes.”