The Dark Place

'Yes,” he said. “I mean no. John's left with it. My part in this is finished. Would you like me to get us some more coffee?'

'No, thanks. Will you get angry if I ask you something?'

'Probably. How do I know until you ask?'

Julie laughed, a bright, easy laugh that made Gideon feel they were friends. “My God, I didn't even ask it, and he's already cross.'

'That,” said Gideon, “is because some deeply perceptive part of my subconscious tells me it's going to be about Bigfoot.'

'Well, after all, ‘superhuman strength’ is your term—'

'To my growing regret.'

'—and you don't have any plausible theories of your own. Look, John's due any minute. Couldn't we all go and have a look at those footprints? Aren't you even a teeny bit curious?'

There was a shout from the volleyball court, and the ball bounded squishily over the grass toward them. Gideon caught it in one hand, stood up, and batted it back with his fist, all in one movement, clearing the net some seventy feet away.

'Hey, great shot, mister!” shouted a tall, yellow-haired girl with long, brown legs. “Did you guys see that?'

'Big goddamn deal,” muttered one of the boys loudly enough for Gideon to hear.

'Yeah, big goddamn deal,” Julie said, smiling up at him. “Don't look so smug, you show-off. It's not talent, it's just that macho shoulder girdle.'

Standing there in the sunshine, looking down at her with the clean morning breeze riffling his hair and the lively sting of the volleyball still on his knuckles, Gideon was oddly happy. He reached for her hand and hauled her easily out of the chair, feeling powerful and in control.

'Okay,” he said, laughing and holding both her hands, “let's go see the monster footprints.'

They drove east on South Shore Road among giant fir, hemlock, and spruce draped with mosses and spotted with lichens. Within a few miles the lake narrowed into the Upper Quinault River, and the paved road gave way to gravel and then to rutted dirt. The cab of the Park Service pickup truck was small for the three of them, and Gideon sat in the middle, jouncing and uncomfortably constricted, between Julie in the driver's seat and John on the right. Julie drove fast and well, obviously at home at the wheel and in the forest.

Gideon had gotten over his initial reaction to the woods. The towering, increasingly dark forest with its filtered light now seemed majestic and beautiful.

'I take it,” he said to Julie, “that this is the real rain forest?'

'It is,” she said with proprietary pride. “What do you think of it?'

'Too damn dark,” John muttered out the window.

'It's beautiful,” Gideon said simply.

Julie smiled at him, clearly pleased.

'Technically, what makes it a rain forest?” he asked her.

'Rains all the goddamn time, that's what,” grumbled John, still looking out the window. “It's even worse than Seattle.'

'Actually,” Julie said, “it hardly rains at all from July to October. All the rain falls in the winter.'

'How much rain does it get in a year?” Gideon asked, then quickly said, “Too goddamn much,” in time with John's growl.

They all laughed. Julie said, “Ten or fifteen feet a year; about a hundred forty-five inches.” She waited for Gideon's obligatory low whistle and went on. “Strictly speaking, it's not a rain forest. The term technically applies to tropical forests with broadleaf trees and woody vines and clay soil. These trees are evergreen, and the soil is fantastically rich. You can dig through two or three feet of humus with your fingers. But it's temperate and wet, and it has a pretty solid roof of treetops, and lots of ferns and flowers and mosses on the ground, and most botanists would agree nowadays that that qualifies it as a rain forest—the only one in the Northern Hemisphere, and the only coniferous one in the world.'

'I am suitably impressed,” Gideon said.

'Too much like Hawaii,” said John. “Everything's so damn wet and soggy it falls apart if you touch it.'

'John,” said Gideon, “you must be the only person in the world—certainly the only native—who hates Hawaii.'

'Too damn wet,” John said again. “I wish they'd assign me to Tucson.'

After half an hour's drive, they crossed over the river on a surprisingly modern bridge and followed a sign toward the North Fork Ranger Station. Julie swung the truck suddenly to the left shoulder of the road—until then, the shoulder had not been wide enough to park on—and stopped.

'Here we are,” she said. “It's up on that ridge.'

They walked up the shallow incline on a narrow trail with frequent switchbacks. Gideon, who had poor woods sense, lost sight of the truck and the road in thirty seconds. Within two minutes, he had no idea of which direction it lay in. The trail was well cut and easy to walk on, however, and the fragrances and varied greens of the rain forest absorbed him.

They left the trail after twenty minutes, climbed a fifteen-foot slope, and stood in a small clearing. The trail was swallowed up at once; they might have been miles from the nearest path. Before them, a twenty-by-twenty-foot area had been stripped of undergrowth and pockmarked with deep trenches cut in right-angled patterns.