Talk of the Town

by Anne Marie Rodgers

  Clarissa took the paper with a grunt of acknowledgment. “Good. Now,” she said, “surely you three can’t leave here without a little taste of something. What strikes your fancy?”

  Chapter Twelve

  On Friday evening, Alice had just dragged her sleeping bag downstairs in preparation for Florence’s “expedition” when she heard someone sneeze five times in rapid succession.

  “God bless you!” she exclaimed as Maxwell came down behind the staircase. “Allergies?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never had them before. I think I may be catching something.” His voice was thick and nasal-sounding.

  Alice looked at him closely as he came to the bottom of the steps. His eyes appeared dull, but he didn’t seem feverish.

  “Vitamin C,” she suggested. “Try taking it several times a day. It may boost your immune system if you are catching something. If that doesn’t work, I have some over-the-counter allergy remedies you can try.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I had intended to accompany you on the expedition tonight, but I don’t believe I am feeling up to it. I was coming downstairs to tell you.”

  “You should stay home,” Alice said. “It’s still quite cold at night. I have thermal clothing on, and I borrowed a sleeping bag from a church member who regularly camps and says this one will keep me warm down into single digits.”

  Maxwell shivered, and Alice couldn’t tell whether it had been a chill or a reaction to the idea of sleeping outside in the cold. “Brrr. I’ll be thinking of you while I sleep in my warm bed,” he said as he climbed back up the stairs to his room.

  “Thanks,” Alice called after him sarcastically. But secretly she was pleased. The young man seemed to be relaxing. She hadn’t heard him tease before.

  Behind her, she heard Jane say, “Rats!”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked her sister.

  “There went our last lead.” Jane hung up the telephone at the registration desk. “Aunt Ethel and I have spoken with every family by the name of Moeller we could find in the area. Apparently, all of the names on our list are descended from the same couple who came over from Germany shortly before our Civil War.”

  “Which is about a hundred years later than Clothilda’s ancestor, correct?” Alice said.

  “Correct.” Jane put her hands on her hips. “We’re missing something. I can feel it, but I don’t know what it might be.”

  “Why don’t you pray about it?” Alice suggested. “And then sleep on it? Maybe things will look clearer in the morning.”

  “That’s a good suggestion.” Jane sighed. Then she grinned as she realized where Alice would be sleeping that night. “Maybe I’d better say a little prayer for you, as well.”

  Alice smiled, shaking her head. “It surely couldn’t hurt.”

  At 8:00 PM, Alice and her fellow campers gathered in front of the inn. Along with Alice, Florence and Ronald were Fred Humbert and Vera. Ellis, the new inn guest, also was waiting, her sleeping bag in her arms.

  Ellis had tried to corner Alice that morning after breakfast to ask questions about the footprints she had seen. Alice had given her the same information she’d shared with everyone else, but when the woman became more insistent with her questions, Alice had pleaded housework and escaped to the kitchen. Now she might have to fend off Ellis all night long.

  Alice sighed. Why, oh why, did I say yes to this? It didn’t matter now, she reminded herself. She was stuck with no way out. Taking a deep breath, she said, “Hello, everyone.”

  Her fellow campers returned various greetings.

  Florence said, “I suppose you two already know each other,” and when Alice and Ellis nodded pleasantly at one another, “Vera, Fred, this is Ellis Andin, from the Sasquatch Society of America.”

  “Hello, everyone,” Ellis said in her high, flutey voice.

  Vera started. “The what?”

  “The Sasquatch Society of America,” Florence repeated. “I invited her to visit Acorn Hill in hopes that she will be able to verify our sighting of the animal commonly known as Bigfoot.”

  Fred rolled his eyes, but he was standing off to one side, and Alice was the only one to see him. Vera was silent, apparently too taken aback to formulate a response.

  Florence cleared her throat. “I have appointed myself official recorder for this expedition. If you have any observations, see anything unusual, please call me immediately so that I can record it.” Alice noticed that Florence had a small, very costly looking video camera around her neck.

  “Ronald and I set up two tents this afternoon,” Fred said, “so once we get a fire going we should be nice and toasty.”

  The little party piled into Fred’s and Ronald’s vehicles for the short ride from the inn to the pond. The sky was dark by the time they arrived, and they unloaded their things and trooped back into the woods. At the far end of the pond was a clearing with a fire pit, used in the winter for bonfires to warm skaters. Earlier, Ronald and Fred had driven to the closest entry point and carried in the tents and camping supplies.

  As they marched along the path, Ellis said, “So, Ronald, Alice, can you show me where the prints were and where you were when you saw them?”

  Ronald, walking in front of Alice, turned and gave her a long-suffering glance. “They were over that way,” he said, pointing out the spot. “As for where we were, we were standing over them, practically.”

  “So you could have inadvertently destroyed additional footprints?”

  “I doubt it,” Alice said, recalling the afternoon. “The footprints crossed the path at an angle from one side to another, almost at a right angle to us but not quite. It would have had to be traveling on the path for us to have destroyed prints, because it was damp that day and none of us stepped off the path.”

  “Ah! Very good.” Ellis sounded as if she would like to pat Alice on the head. “See there? I elicited quite a bit of detailed information from you.”

  Alice felt annoyed, but then chided herself. You are being silly. The poor woman hasn’t done anything to you. Still she found the expedition a terrible waste of time.

  “Oh, this is nice!” Vera called out.

  Alice calmed herself as she looked in the direction Vera pointed.

  “I brought some marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars along for s’mores tonight,” Vera told the group.

  Alice laughed. “Just as long as you didn’t bring along any Girl Scouts!”

  “No, just the six of us,” Florence said, very seriously. “Too many people might spook the Bigfoot.”

  “Let’s get our bedrolls settled,” Fred proposed, “and start the fire.”

  “Women over here.” Florence led the way to the larger of the two tents.

  Stepping inside, Alice saw that there was plenty of room for four sleeping bags. Florence had procured air mattresses, which they quickly blew up, using a battery-operated pump. Vera hung a lantern from the center pole and turned it on so that there was a cozy glow in the small space.

  Alice spread her sleeping bag on top of one of the mattresses and fluffed the pillow she’d rolled into the center of her sleeping bag. Vera did the same, and then she stepped to the windows and zipped closed the flaps that covered the screened squares.

  Florence said, “What are you doing, Vera?”

  “Shutting these windows,” Vera said, and there was a note in her voice that Alice knew meant that there would be no discussion. Vera was sweet and easygoing but she had a core of steel deep inside.

  Florence apparently recognized the tone, too, because she turned away and busied herself preparing her bed.

  When the interior of the tent was set up, Alice stepped outside. Fred and Ronald sat on one of the logs that formed a seating square around the fire, which they had started. There was a full moon and the little clearing was so bright Alice could see easily to pick up several sticks for roasting the marshmallows Vera was opening.

  “This is lovely,” Vera said, inhaling deeply of the cool spring
air. “A bit cold, but I think we’ll be plenty warm in our sleeping bags.”

  “It is lovely, isn’t it?” Alice accepted a marshmallow and pushed it onto one of the sticks she’d laid near the logs. “Umm, I love s’mores. It’s been some time since I have had these.”

  “I’ve never had them before,” Ellis piped up. “What are they and how do we make them?”

  “To make a s’more, you break a graham cracker in half,” Vera instructed as she demonstrated. “Put a couple of squares of a chocolate bar on each piece. Then toast a marshmallow, and make a sandwich of the two sections using the marshmallow as the middle filling.” She set aside her stick and took a big bite of hers. “I adore these. I think there’s a rule that Girl Scout troops have to make them any time they have a cookout or overnight camping trip.”

  Alice laughed.

  “They do look delicious,” Florence said. “I think I’ll try one.”

  “Me too.” Ellis copied Florence and picked up a stick. “I never was a Girl Scout.”

  “Hey, Vera, make me one of those, will you?” Fred said from his log on the far side of the fire.

  Vera snorted. “You ask me nicely and maybe I will.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “So, Ellis,” Alice said, “why don’t you tell us about yourself and how you came to be involved in the Sasquatch organization?”

  Ellis smiled happily across the fire at Alice, and Alice felt guilty for her earlier thoughts. “I have been a science geek all my life,” she said. “I was the girl in high school with the horn-rimmed glasses and a stack of books that weighed more than I did. You know, the one everyone went to for help on the chemistry test.”

  “Oh yes,” Vera said. “I knew a girl like that. I might not have graduated if not for her.”

  There were a few chuckles.

  “My favorite subject was biology,” Ellis went on, “and I always was riveted by stories of fantastic creatures. I loved Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. You know, because of the giant squid.”

  “That story gave me the shivers,” Florence confessed.

  “Not me,” Ellis said. “I read everything I could about giant squid, the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot and every other unidentified creature ever mentioned. In college, I majored in biology, and one summer I had an internship at a place in South Carolina that cared for circus animals no one wanted anymore. One old man there used to tell a story about a creature he’d seen years ago, a man or an ape with long black hair that was taller than a human.”

  “Sasquatch!” Florence leaned forward eagerly.

  “One might draw that conclusion,” Ellis said, nodding at her approvingly. “Anyhow, I eventually became curious enough about his story to start researching other sightings of similar creatures. I discovered that there was hot debate about the existence of such animals.”

  “That’s for sure,” Vera said to Alice in a meaningful undertone.

  Florence glared at them across the fire, and Alice elbowed Vera. “Behave,” she whispered.

  Ellis smiled at Vera. “Your reaction is perfectly understandable,” she said. “There are many people who do not believe these creatures exist. Years after the death of one man who had claimed to have filmed a sighting, people came forward, one insisting that he had made the Bigfoot suit worn in the film and another who said he was the one wearing the suit.”

  “Is that the Patterson film?” Ronald asked.

  “Yes.” Ellis sounded surprised. “Are you familiar with it?”

  “I looked up some things after we found those tracks,” Ronald said, nodding.

  “What’s the Patterson film?” Florence demanded. Alice thought that Florence sounded as if she wasn’t thrilled with Ronald’s knowing something she didn’t.

  “It was made in 1967 near Yakima, Washington,” Ellis told them, “by two men who were hoping to create a film of Bigfoot. The segment clearly shows a large female on a gravel sandbar near a creek. The men had been on horseback but the one with the camera dismounted and ran toward the creature as he filmed. At that point, the creature turned and walked back into the forest.” Her eyes shone. “It is an extraordinary piece of film.”

  “Is the film authentic?” Florence wanted to know.

  “That is still being debated,” Ellis said.

  “So is that sort of incident what led you to get involved with this society?” Alice asked. She really did not want to get into a debate about whether or not Bigfoot existed.

  “Yes.” Ellis was diverted, as Alice had hoped. “I found this little group called the Sasquatch Society of America and started volunteering. They asked me to be on the board of directors a few years later and the organization has grown steadily ever since. We have investigators in almost every state now.”

  “What’s the most exciting thing you’ve ever found?” Fred wanted to know.

  Ellis smiled, her pale hair gleaming in the dancing firelight. “That’s easy. Five years ago I traveled to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to investigate a report from a couple who said they had seen a Sasquatch. Not only had they seen it, they had nearly fallen over it!”

  “Oh my stars.” Florence looked nervous. “Did it hurt them?”

  “Nothing like that,” Ellis reassured her. “The woman and her husband had been hiking. She was in the lead when they came to a huge downed tree blocking the path. Her husband gave her a leg up and she scrambled onto the trunk. She was just about to leap off the other side when she glanced down and saw an enormous hairy creature in a depression half-hidden on the other side of the log.”

  “I would have had a heart attack,” Florence pronounced. “What a scare! What did the creature do?”

  “Well, the woman thought it was a bear, as we probably all would have. The creature began to rise, and she screamed, but before she could get back down off the log, the creature stood up, leaped out of the depression and ran on two legs until they couldn’t see it anymore.”

  “Bears can walk on two legs,” Fred stated.

  “But they run on all fours, particularly when speed is needed,” Ellis told him. “According to the interviews done with this couple, who both saw it, this creature had long arms that it drew up exactly like a jogger would as it ran. They also stated that once it stood up, it never went back to all fours again.”

  Fred whistled. “What else did they see?”

  Ellis smiled. “Quite a bit. The woman, as it turned out, was an artist. She specialized in portraiture, and she was able to create a sketch based on what she had seen. The result was one of the most detailed depictions of a Sasquatch—a Bigfoot—that I have ever seen.”

  “Really?” Even Vera looked impressed, and Alice knew her friend considered the whole notion of a primitive North American man-ape to be entertaining science fiction and nothing more.

  “Really,” Ellis assured her. “She drew three different sketches. One was her initial impression of the creature lying in its nest, the second was a three-quarter profile of the face, and the third showed it running.”

  “Nest?” Alice asked, intrigued.

  “Oh yes. I forgot to tell you that the couple had a camera. They didn’t get pictures of the creature in the initial excitement, but they did photograph the spot where they had found it lying. The depression was deliberately hollowed out. You can see where the dirt that was dug up was mounded around the edges. It was filled with leaves and twigs and coarse dark hair with reddish tips. They even thought to bring back some of the hair.”

  “And?” Florence asked. “What was it?”

  Ellis smiled. “We don’t know. Or perhaps I should say we know what it is not. A DNA analysis showed that it is not a known species. Not an ape, not a bear, not a man. I believe it came from an unidentified species currently known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch. But until we actually find one, the conclusion reached by the Sasquatch Society is that it must be considered a working theory rather than a fact.”

  Alice was impressed. Ellis wasn’t delusional as Alice had assumed. Instead, t
he woman spoke more like a researcher compiling empirical data and being careful not to leap to an unproven conclusion. “So exactly what does someone from your organization do to investigate?” she asked.

  “Journey to the region, interview eyewitnesses and anyone else who may have pertinent information and try to preserve any evidence,” Ellis said. “In your local case, the tracks have disappeared but the hair still exists.”

  “And what will you do with it?”

  “It will be sent away for DNA analysis.”

  “Will you let us know when you find out what it is?” Florence asked.

  “Or what it isn’t,” Ronald mused.

  “Of course.” Ellis smiled at them. “I promise you will be the first people I call.”

  The rest of the evening passed pleasantly. Not long after the s’mores were finished, everyone settled down for the night. It was cold, it was dark, and no one seemed to care that it was barely ten o’clock.

  Alice certainly didn’t. She had worked the day shift at the hospital, and her feet were letting her know it was time to rest. She lay down in her sleeping bag and zipped herself in. God wouldn’t mind if she said her prayers in this position.

  Dear Heavenly Father, she began, bless each of us engaged in tonight’s endeavor. Keep us safe and in Your care. Bless Wendell, wherever he is, and keep him safe too. Our hearts would be so gladdened if You led him home, Father. But if that’s not in Your plan, give us the courage and grace to face it.

  She went on, asking for specific blessings for a number of people in the Grace Chapel congregation who had asked to be lifted up in prayer last Sunday morning. She prayed for the swift healing of Penelope Smeal’s ankle, for the family of a woman who had passed away during her shift today, for Mark to have a successful experience in San Diego, and she prayed for herself to be more tolerant, to be kinder and more patient.

  Finishing her prayers, she realized that all three of her tentmates were asleep, and she was briefly amused. Apparently no one was too worried about a Bigfoot coming into camp tonight.