Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet (7 page)

Salisbury watched the footage several times, prudishly fast-forwarding through the prelude to the skunk ape attack.

“Well?” I said, when he finally shut off the camera.

“Hard to say for sure,” Salisbury said. “The video is very poor.”

“C’mon now,” Lester protested, “it ain’t that bad.”

Salisbury ignored him. “It’s hardly surprising the so-called ‘experts’ dismissed it as a hoax. For me to be one-hundred percent certain,” he said, “I’ll need to visit the attack site.” He looked at Lester and Eliza. “Will you take me there?”

Lester lurched back from the table. “Are you outta your mind? Mister, I ain’t never going back in them Sticks again. Point of fact, just as soon as I rustle up enough money, I’m moving to the city, someplace where the biggest tree is a potted plant. ‘Take you there.’ Sheeeeeit.” He took a hearty slug of Keystone.

“I’ll take you,” Eliza said, softly.

Lester gaped at her. “The hell you will.”

Eliza warned him, “You’re not the boss of me, Lester.” Lester was about to retort, but chose the safer course of action and took another pull of his beer instead.

Salisbury gave a throaty chuckle. “I admire your sand, missy. But skunk apeing’s no place for a lady.”

Eliza bared her teeth. “I ain’t no lady,” she said. “Tell him, Mr. Levine.”

I said, “What she means is she’s tougher than she looks.”

Eliza nodded fiercely. “Damn straight I am.”

And she looked about ready to punch Lester’s lights out to prove it.

“But Salisbury’s right,” I told her. “You don’t want to get mixed up in this any more than you already are.” She didn’t look convinced. “Hell, the only reason I’m here is ‘cause Walt asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“Then you’ll be coming too,” Eliza said, “‘cause I’m going.”

“Eliza—”

“No, Mr. Levine. Talk to the hand, ‘cause no. It’s my career on the line here.”

“But Walt said you could come back to work when your scratches healed.”

“You think I plan on dancing at The Henhouse all my life?” She raised her chin proudly and fluffed the bottom of her hair. “It just so happens,” she said, “that a nice man from Austin, Texas saw Lester’s video on YouTube and he’s offered me a starring role in a movie.”

“What kind of movie?” I asked, with that familiar sinking feeling.

“A real movie. With a real fella. Not Ned in his stinky-ass baboon costume.”

“Another stag movie, you mean?”

“Another step up the ladder, Mr. Levine.”

It was hard to argue it wasn’t an improvement on skunk ape porn.

Lester looked like he’d been slapped.

“You … you never told me ‘bout this, Lizzie. I thought I was your manager?”

She dismissed him with a flap of her hand.

“Well, it mightn’t ever happen now,” she said. “Everything’s all hanging in the balance. ‘Cause ever since people started saying Lester killed Ned, they been looking at me all fishy-eyed too. Now the nice man from Austin, Texas says he won’t sign me till after everything’s straightened out. And if that means I’ve gotta catch me a skunk ape, then by God damn it, that’s what I’m gonna do.”

I held up my hands in surrender.

Salisbury preened his beard, chewing things over. “I suppose I could use some extra hands,” he decided. “Judging by the footage, we’re looking at a seven-footer … That’s a whole lot of hominid.”

Lester realized everyone was looking at him and lowered the beer can from his lips. “What?” Then he cottoned on and glared at Eliza. “Well, thank you very much, girl. I’m gonna look like some kinda pussy I don’t tag along too!” He angrily chugged the rest of his beer. “Alright … Fuck it, let’s go.”

“Has the world gone batshit crazy?” Walt said, watching from behind the

slab as I inventoried my camping gear on the barroom floor.

“You told me to keep an eye on Eliza,” I said.

“That was before I knew she planned on leaving me in the lurch to go make another stag movie.”

“She’s hardly leaving you in the lurch. You’ve got plenty other girls.”

“She broke her word to me, Reggie. She promised me she wasn’t going to make those movies anymore.”

“The way I see it, she can do what she wants. You’re not her daddy, Walt.”

He looked away.

“Shit,” I said, “are you?”

Walt gave a burdened sigh. “Can’t say for sure. But I got my suspicions. Let’s just say I once knew Eliza’s momma. You know …
intimately
. And more than once, come to think of it.” Walt drifted away. “Henrietta-Sue …” he murmured wistfully. “Goddamn, she could dance … Just like little Eliza.”

I knew where this was leading, and now wasn’t the time for one of Walt’s Penthouse Forum stories; Salisbury was waiting with the others in the Minnie Winnie.

I slung the strap of my camping bag over my shoulder.

“Walt,” I said, “I’ve gotta get.”

“It should be me going with her,” Walt said, suddenly looking very old.

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to her,” I promised him.

“You’re a good man, Reggie.”

“I reckon I have my moments. But I’m not doing this just for you and your maybe-daughter.” Walt cocked an eyebrow. “Think about it. All this time we’ve thought the Bigelow Skunk Ape was just a myth. And who the hell knows, maybe it is. But what if it isn’t? Then that’s a whole new species we’ve discovered.”

“Maybe you can name it after Lester?
Swashus Retardus
.”

“This could be history in the making, Walt!”

“Just what the world needs,” Walt said, “a man-eating monster that smells like a septic tank. You just watch your ass out there, son.”

He’d never called me that before; I choked down a lump in my throat.

Then I said, “You, uh … you didn’t know
my
momma, did you, Walt?”

He waggled his eyebrows. “Just a turn of phrase.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, we shook hands, and then I headed for the door.

“Reggie, wait—”

Walt fetched the shotgun from under the slab. I took it with a grim nod of thanks. “Mind yourself around Salisbury,” he said. “I don’t trust him.”

Of course, Walt didn’t trust his own mother.

“I’ll see you, Walt.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Can’t speak for Salisbury,” I said, “but Lester and Eliza? One night in those Sticks and they’ll be begging to come home. Two nights tops, I reckon. Any longer than that … ?” I gave my best shit-eating grin. “Call the President.”

I went outside to the Minnie Winnie. Salisbury gunned the engine as I climbed inside. “I thought that damned skunk ape would die of old age before you’d be ready,” he said.

“Just drive,” I said, and as we pulled away, I glanced in the wing mirror and saw Walt raising his hand in farewell.

At least, that’s what I’d thought at the time. Later I’d realise he’d been clutching my cellphone—and our only connection to the outside world.

* * *

Bigelow will never be mistaken for a metropolis, but as the Minnie Winnie left town, and we ventured out into the Sticks, I was struck by the palpable sense we were leaving civilization far behind us. Perhaps I was getting carried away. It’d been some years since I’d hunted or camped in the Sticks, and I’ll admit I was excited. The woods were deserted, not a soul in sight. Despite most townsfolk having decided by now that Lester murdered Ned and then blamed it on the skunk ape to cover his tracks, it seemed no one was taking any chances.

Salisbury was driving, Eliza riding shotgun. She wore cutoff denim shorts, the scratches on her legs like scabby fishnet stockings, and a cowgirl shirt knotted above the navel. Her bare feet were propped on the dashboard as she painted her toenails Pepto-Bismol pink. Every once in a while she’d glance up from her piggies and tell Salisbury left or right or straight on. Salisbury didn’t seem to appreciate taking directions from a woman, nor that she had her feet on the dash, but he needed someone to navigate, because by now Lester was half past shitfaced, and so even less reliable than a lady navigator.

I was trapped with Lester at the camper’s kitchenette table. Lester was wearing a Bigelow Baboons cap and a T-shirt he’d doctored with a Sharpie pen so it read THE SKUNK APE
DID
IT! All he’d brought with him were his video camera, to document our skunk ape safari, and a rapidly diminishing crate of Keystone. He seemed marginally comforted by Salisbury’s arsenal of skunk apeing weapons—and the beer was emboldening him—but it didn’t stop Lester from whining. Between slurps of beer, Lester took pains to remind me that he was here under duress, and against his wishes, and that we all should be grateful he had deigned to join us—

“For pity’s sake, Lester,” I said. “Would you shut the fuck up?”

We reached the clearing around noon. I recognized the place from Lester’s video. There was the log over which Eliza had been splayed while Boogaloo Baboon had his way with her. The log seemed sullied somehow. I averted my eyes and glared at Lester. “What?” he said.

Salisbury ground the Minnie Winnie to a halt and killed the engine. He marched past Lester and me to the back of the camper and began rummaging through his supplies. Then he hauled out a rifle the size of a Howitzer.

“What the hell is that?” I exclaimed. “An elephant gun?”

Smiling proudly, Salisbury said: “Mr. Levine, I’d like you to meet the Nitro Express .700 double-rifle, the most powerful hunting gun in the world.” He began loading the giant gun with shells the size of Cuban cigars. “Each shell weighs 1,000 grains, hitting the target at 2,000-feet per second. That’s 9,000 foot-pounds of muzzle energy. You could stop a charging bull-elephant with a single shot, make ole Dumbo fly without his magic feather.”

“Hoooleee shit,” Lester said. “Can I fire it?”

I answered for Salisbury: “No fucking way.”

Salisbury chuckled and said, “I’m afraid not, son. Each one of these bullets costs a hundred bucks. A hundred bucks which, not to be unkind, you don’t have.”

Lester ceded the point with a nod.

“Besides,” Salisbury said, “this bitch has gotta helluva kick. Ten times anything you’ve ever fired. She’s liable to wrench your arms clean out of their sockets.”

As he climbed from the camper, Salisbury told us: “Now stay behind me.”

Lester took those words to heart and refused to move from the camper until I shoved him out the door. I considered leaving Walt’s shotgun in the camper. Compared to Salisbury’s cannon, I was a little ashamed of it. Plus I wasn’t sure if we were hunting skunk ape or snipe here, and I figured the fewer jumpy idiots waving guns around, the better. But in the end, like a good American, I brought it with me.

We watched in silence as Salisbury stalked the clearing with the elephant gun braced before him. He scanned the ground for tracks; sniffed the air for a scent. Eliza pointed a trembling hand towards the thicket of brush where the skunk ape had run off with Ned. Hesitating outside the thicket, Salisbury cocked his head and listened intently. He made a ‘follow me’ gesture and inched forwards into the brush, sweeping bushes from his path with the enormous barrels of his gun. Eliza went after him. I glanced behind me. “Let’s go, Lester.” We followed behind Salisbury as he stalked through the brush with the elephant gun thrust before him—

Suddenly he stopped, holding up his fist.

We froze; I grabbed Lester’s shirt to stop him fleeing back to the camper.

“What is it?” I whispered to Salisbury.

He crouched down on his haunches and untangled a burr of black fur that was snagged in some thorns. He wafted the burr under his nose, inhaling deeply. His nostrils flared and his head jerked back reflexively. “Christ on His throne!”

“Let me see that,” I said, crouching down beside him.

Salisbury passed me the burr like he was eager to be rid of it.

I took a quick whiff, turned my head and heaved.

“That’s no skunk ape,” I gasped, “that’s Ned’s Boogaloo costume.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “You never forget that.”

I looked back at Lester and Eliza.

“Randy-Ray should have found this. Didn’t he search back here?”

Lester shook his head bitterly. “Randy-Ray and his searchers hardly moved from the clearing back there. Loafing around on the log, laughing about the Eliza and Boogaloo part of the video. One of the sonsofbitches was pumping his hips in the air like he was getting him some imaginary Eliza. I bet them bastards had already made up their minds I killed Ned out of jealousy.”

“What about the coonhounds?”

“Ned’s Boogaloo outfit must’ve thrown ‘em off.”

I could see, not to mention smell, how that was possible.

I brushed the fur ball from my hands and wiped my palms on my jeans. When I sniffed my fingers, I could still smell Ned’s Boogaloo suit on them, and my guts lurched. How Eliza had stomached the stench, I did not know. Nobody could deny that she’d paid her dues on her quest to become a porn starlet.

“Well?” I said to Salisbury.

“Quiet!” he hissed.

He handed me the elephant gun. My knees stiffened under the weight. Damn thing weighed a ton. Never mind an elephant, you could’ve clubbed a T-Rex to death just with the stock. Salisbury unsheathed the machete-sized knife on his hip and began hacking at the brush. Raking the trimmings aside, he clawed away the undergrowth to reveal a monstrous bare footprint cratered in the earth.

“And
that
, Mr. Levine?” Salisbury’s eyes blazed zealously. “Is
that
from a ‘Boogaloo Baboon’ costume?” I could only shake my head; I’d never seen the like of the huge print. When I placed my foot next to it, it dwarfed my size 12s. The size of the print, it might’ve been left by the Monty Python foot. “Lady and gentlemen,” Salisbury declared, “we have us a skunk ape.”

Lester said, “We’re gonna need a bigger Winnebago—”

I said to him, “Get a shot of this with your camera, dumbass.”

Lester warily approached, the video camera shaking in his hands, as if he expected the footprint would somehow come to life and kick him in the butt.

I saw Salisbury striding away. “Where are you going?”

“Back to the camper, there’s much work to be done.”

“Wait—uh—don’t you want to take a plaster cast of this print?”