Kimberly Kaufman
I cursed under my breath. I didn’t want to be louder than the snaps of wood that might eventually lead me to my Sasquatch, but it was the only thing I could do to not fire my rifle in frustration.
Tony Summers had been here. When I saw the hiking boot tracks, my suspicions had grown. But when I found a pink strawberry bubble gum wrapper lying in the middle of the muted colors of the forest, there was no doubt that the Elvis-impersonator-turned-bigfoot-hunter was heading into the heart of the forest, and ahead of me.
I crumpled the wrapper and looked down at the whites of my knuckles. I wanted to turn around and go home. It wasn’t that he had pretended to like me. It was that I was stupid enough to believe him. I’d already lost so much clout with the other Society members, that if they knew I was on the same trail as Mr. Fake-Tan, they’d probably revoke my Paranormal Membership Society card for good.
But that wasn’t the only thing that mattered to me. There was the enticement of Discovery itself. I rolled my shoulders, in pain from my backpack, and notice the trees’ shadows had gotten longer, leering, as the Earth’s axis moved away from the sun. There were still the mysteries waiting in the forest. I thought of a “million-dollar” photo, the proceeds I could use to pay off my mortgage, and let Julius go off forever, like he wanted. I thought of respect from the other Society members. I needed to find the wonder in the world again, to know the fabulous Sasquatch was not just a myth for rural men and women to tell around campfires.
I couldn’t despair just yet. Tony may have had a silly slicked-back receding hairline, and would be wearing his gold, aviator sunglasses even as the forest darkened, but he was an experienced hunter, and had ancestors from the Plains Indians. Part Sioux. Or so he said. I’d seen broken branches, disturbed dirt and leaves, orangey-auburn hair fragments, and finally, as I came upon mud from the rain last night, a footprint: mammalian, no hoof, and unless Tony Summer’s foot had grown a few sizes since last week, not his. No, clearly not, because I could see the clumsy, boot prints he had left, from walking carefully around the footprint.
Tony had become my hunted as well, then. I snapped pictures of both sets of tracks.
As I traced their steps, I thought about how Julius had laughed at me, comparing my maps and charts tracking sightings to the crazy people who didn’t believe in global warming. Whether I was into Bigfoot or not, I wasn’t good enough for him. Turned out while I was preparing for our retirement together, planning a long road-trip through Sasquatch country, he had been secretly seeing his teaching assistant. I’d have to delay retirement, now, but decided to go on the trip anyway.
As I continued through the forest, I thought of Tony, pretending to be interested in me, humoring me by asking all about my upcoming trip. It was foolish to think anyone could be interested in my graying hair, crows-feet eyes, and slowly thickening middle, even if I still one of the best sharpshooters I knew. Men were somehow always turned on by a woman who could shoot, so I didn’t think it was too weird when he bought me that second bottle of wine. If only I hadn’t passed out on the couch when he brought me home. I was sure he had copied my maps.
Thinking about Julius, Tony, and general old age, I was fuming by the time I arrived at the end of the tracks. I stood before jagged lines in the mud, the signs of a struggle.
Despite the foreboding signs in front of me, the air smelled fresh; the smoke from the fires that week had finally moved out of the forest. Maybe my bad luck, like the smoke, was clearing out.
Looking back at the forest floor, I could see the tracks where a body had been rolled around, unwillingly, and then dragged away. I scrunched my face, half not believing that that fucking asshole would think of killing one of the rarest animals on earth. It was like that man who shot the last dodo bird, or those beasts who still hunted endangered elephants to turn their feet into ottomans for dictators and oil tyrants. I had thought better of Tony. It was strange the deference we are capable of giving men who look dazzling in white and rhinestones.
I almost walked right into it, just on the other side of a redwood tree. A dead body, hanging upside down. I didn’t recognize it, at first, the face was contorted in agony, its mouth hanging wide open and bloody, the blood dripping down its cheeks. I looked around to make sure I was safe.
I had walked into a small clearing and it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the sun. It wasn’t until I saw the Sasquatch walking towards me that I realized the body was Tony’s — his face looked pale and his sunglasses were gone. And Tony was always smiling and, well, he wasn’t anymore. I was almost surprised by the wave of guilt and tragedy that fell over me — I had liked him, peanut-butter-and-bacon-breath and all — but I didn’t have time.
The Sasquatch had seen me. I should have tried to make better use of my camouflage jacket, but it was too late for that. It stood nearly seven feet tall, was covered in hair, longer than I had expected, and on its head, it had flowing, long red hair. Like a supermodel. I reached for my gun, for no reason other than instinct. I would never kill it. Instead, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Please don’t kill me,” I said. How embarrassing. Now I knew that when I faced death, I was going to be one of those slobbering idiots begging for my life.
It stopped walking towards me, and made a strange face. Was that a smirk? It — no, I could now see from the wide hips and the large, sagging breasts that it was a she, and breastfeeding, to boot.
She spoke to me in clear English, with an accent I didn’t recognize.
“If you put down the gun, I probably have no reason to kill you.”
Later that night, I sat around a campfire with the Sasquatch and her three children, the toddler-sized one sitting in my lap. There was so much left to see and to learn. I wanted to ask her so many questions. How did she learn to speak English, of all languages? What was the language she spoke with her children, which mostly involved clicking and whispers? Was there a father Sasquatch? Were there others? Tony and Julius were now distant memories, as was my fury. The few hours I’d spent with the Sasquatch and her children had seemed like eternity, and I had no problem staying with them until the end of time. If they let me.
I listened to the mother Sasquatch singing in her language, and I looked up to the sky and thought the stars seemed brighter than I remembered. She sung in a low pitch, gazing out into the darkness of the forest, while she grazed her fingers through her nursing baby’s orange fluff of hair. It sounded like the mourning song of an unearthly being, sorrowful, yet not without hope.
One of the little ones offered me a piece of meat, which I declined with a smile and shake of my dead. I was sticking to my trail mix tonight. I wiped away my tears as the song ended.
“Can you tell me what that song was about?” I asked.
She looked right at me and nodded. “It is about me, and my children, and their children. That we will be here, far beyond this time, and after the icecaps melt, and after that.”
She said it with such determination, so matter-of-fact and resolute, that even though I knew her species was nearly extinct, and her habitat was quickly disappearing, I believed her.
If she was trying to convince me to forget about her kind, to leave my camera behind, to give up on hunting the Sasquatch forever, there was no need. I had seen her mysteries and I had time to consider them before I died, however soon that was. As I held the child in my lap, who snuggled into my shoulder, I knew that even if I were to die tomorrow, it would be knowing that I had walked, sat, and eaten with Bigfoot. There was no greater pleasure.
KIMBERLY KAUFMAN lives in San Francisco, California. She’s published stories in Metaphorosis and San Francisco City College’s Forum. When not reading, she’s probably watching Italian horror movies or walking in the fog with her husband and imaginary dog. Her academic background is in Spanish literature and she dreams in punk.