The Dark Place

'The Indians. I can't see anyone else doing that kind of surgery.'

'I don't know,” John said. “I'm still not used to this Indians idea. I mean, you were telling me just a few days ago—you and Julie both—it couldn't be Indians, it's ridiculous to think it's Indians, it's anybody but Indians.'

'Well, you get fresh data, you change your hypothesis.'

John looked doubtful. “So the new hypothesis is that these phantom Indians that nobody but you believes in hit Hartman on the head with a war club or something and then changed their minds and nursed him for a week and then tried to cure him by cutting a piece out of his head, and that finally did him in?'

Gideon shrugged. “That's what it looks like to me.'

'Well, what the hell kind of dumb theory is that?” John shouted, his hands outspread.

'Inferential reasoning,” Gideon said with a smile, “will only get you so far.” He began to gather his tools and put them in his attache case. “Now, having given you the better part of my morning, only to be shouted at and abused, I am going to drag Julie away from whatever administrative trivia she's performing, and we are going to go engage in some richly deserved recreation.'

John slumped back into his chair. “Why do I keep calling you in?” he said, shaking his head. “Things are always nice and simple until you stick your finger into them.'

'Ah, but they come clear in the end, don't they?'

'Yeah,” John said, smiling, “they do. Usually. Up to now. Have fun, Doc. I'll just slave away on this while you're out playing in the sunshine.'

'Excellent idea,” said Gideon.

* * * *

Julie was at Fall Creek campground, a quarter of a mile away. The camp was packed with people, and Gideon was concerned about finding her in the crowd. Every site seemed to be taken, and the paths bustled with people heading off to the woods. There were plenty of serious hikers: sturdy, chunky girls and lean, hard boys with clumpy, ankle-height shoes and towering, bedroll-topped backpacks on metal frames. These Gideon might have expected to find, had he thought about it, at a small campground on the edge of Mount Olympus's low, western flank. But there were others: fat, pasty city men in Bermuda shorts, youngsters on skates and skateboards, and cross mothers with pouty children.

And there were still others, not many, but a distinctly recognizable breed all the same: sinewy, grim men in their forties and fifties, loners with lank hair and creased cowboy's faces, eyes narrowed against the smoke from cigarettes dangling at the corners of their mouths.

'Gideon!'

Julie was behind him and looked competent and pretty in her ranger uniform. She laughed with obvious pleasure as soon as he turned, and he laughed, too. “Hi,” he said. “How's business?'

'Booming,” she said, holding out both hands.

Gideon clasped her hands and held them a moment. “It certainly is. It's mobbed here.'

'Oh, yes, the campgrounds are crawling with people, and you practically have to wait in line to get on a hiking trail.'

'Why? What's going on?'

Julie looked at him oddly, her head tilted to one side. “'What's going on?’ he says. A good question.'

'That means something, apparently, but I'm afraid the significance eludes me.'

'Well, Dr. Oliver, I believe that every thrill-seeker from the seven western states is here.” She smiled at him. “It seems they read a certain professor's article about Bigfoot being—'

Gideon laughed uncertainly. “You're not serious...'

'The story got picked up—and considerably elaborated upon—by a bunch of other newspapers. It was even in the Sunday magazines. You really didn't know?'

'They elaborated on the story?” For the first time, Gideon was becoming genuinely concerned about his reputation. He stepped aside for a fat woman in a housedress who was pushing a grumbling, dyspeptic baby in a stroller.

'Oh, yes,” Julie said sweetly. “The only thing they all got right was the spelling of your name. One of the magazines even got a picture of you from somewhere. You looked awful. You had a beard.'

'That was five years ago at least. I always thought I looked rather good in it.” His tone was playfully cross, but, absurdly, he was hurt. Nora had always liked his beard. He had shaved it off to go for a job interview with UNESCO, only to find that two of the three members of the interview panel had beards of their own. He hadn't gotten the position and somehow had never found the fortitude to go through that first scraggly month of beard-growing again.

'No,” Julie said. “I like you the way you are now.” She reached out and gently touched the side of his jaw. At once his petulance vanished.

Julie must have seen the change in his eyes. “Boy,” she said softly, “you really are a pushover, aren't you?'

Before he could think of anything to say, something bumped into him from behind, and a little girl's voice, shrill with mock terror, cried, “Watch out! Everybody watch out! Here comes Bigfoot Kevin!'

Behind her, stomping down the campground's one-way-only circular road, came a giggling boy of eight, swaying from side to side with a stiff-legged, clumping gait, arms outstretched—every child's image of a monster since the first horror movie.

'Why don't we get out of the traffic lanes?” Gideon said.