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I took a long look around at where we had come to.
“This looks just exactly like Nova Scotia,” I said. “In fact, it looks like the very same place that we started from. Are you really sure we are getting anywhere?”
“Give the kid a genuine cheap candy cigar,” Bigfoot said. “Congratulations. You finally guessed something right.”
“I guess there is a first time for everything,” Coyote allowed. “There might even be a chance that hell will freeze over.”
Ha-ha.
“So we went all the way from Cape Breton to Thunder Bay and then we came back again to the Cape Breton Highlands?” I said.
“Right again. Your sense of direction is nearly infallible,” Bigfoot said. “Truly I stand in awe of your awesome-as-apple-sauce awesomeness.”
I was getting used to his sarcasm in the same way as you might get used to the reek of an old rain-soaked sheepdog. That didn’t mean that I liked it any better – that just meant that I was getting used to it which I guess goes to show that you could get used to anything.
“That’s so funny I might even have to laugh at it for two or three times,” I twice-as-sarcastically replied. “But maybe while you are in the mood for explaining things – do you could tell me who in their mind would EVER call this the highlands? None of it really looks one bit like a mountain range to me.”
Coyote giggled.
“Kid,” Bigfoot explained. “The Cape Breton Mountains are some of the oldest mountains on the Eastern coastline. They used to be a whole lot taller – until age and erosion and glaciers wore them down to what you see now – but if you look at them in a certain kind of manner you’ll see the memory of the mountains they used to be.”
“Are you trying to tell me that these are really the ghosts of mountains?” I asked.
“Actually,” Bigfoot said. “They’re more exactly the stories of mountains that used to be.”
“Or better yet call them the memory of mountains,” Coyote said.
“They still look like hills to me,” I said.
“It all depends on you learning how to squint,” Bigfoot said. “You listen closely enough and you can hear the glaciers talking.”
I held up my hand up to my ear like I was listening.
“So what exactly are they saying?” I asked. “Because I can’t hear a thing.”
I half wanted to know and I was halfway trying to be a smartass about it. Teenagers can be perverse that way.
“I guess it depends on just who is listening,” Bigfoot said. “To me they are telling a story about a time when there were nothing but Bigfeet as far as you could see.”
“Was there ever such a time?” I asked.
“Who knows?” Bigfoot said, with a shrug. “It’s a story. True doesn’t have any place at all in this particular equation.”
“So what are they telling me?” I asked.
I was a little less smartass about that second question.
The truth was, I really wanted to know.
“Well,” Bigfoot began. “If you ask me these mountains would tell you the story of a boy name of Glooskap. One morning the people woke up and the rivers and the lakes had all run dry. It turns out that a giant bullfrog named Aglebemu had built himself a huge stone dam to keep all the water of the world for himself.”
“Why did he want all of the water?” I asked.
“Water is part fish and that big old giant bullfrog monster wanted all the fish to his own self as well,” Bigfoot explained. “But the boy named Glooskap went out and caught hold of the big old bullfrog and he swung him by his legs and cracked his back against the big old stone dam and the pieces of the dam flew in all directions and they soaked into the dirt of the earth and grew up into mountains and that is why the bullfrog is born with a hump on his back from the bruising that boy named Glooskap handed out to him way back at the day on the dam.”
“So what is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It means that even a boy can make himself useful every now and then,” Bigfoot said. “At least as far as killing frogs is concerned.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
“Anytime,” Bigfoot replied.
I decided to give up on arguing over this particular issue.
“So what exactly are we looking for?” I asked. “Is this supposed to be the place where Raven is hiding out?”
Bigfoot growled loudly.
“So what did I say wrong?” I asked.
“Do me a favor and try and not say his name out loud outside of the walls of The Prophet,” Coyote warned. “He could be listening.”
“Who?” I asked, wanting to know just whose name I wasn’t supposed to say out loud and WHO could be listening.
“Now this kid thinks he’s an owl,” Bigfoot grumbled. “Why don’t you see if you can catch us a rabbit? Owls are supposed to be good at that.”
“Well who do you think can hear us out here?” I complained. “There’s nothing around here but a whole bunch of trees.”
“And you don’t think they’re not listening?” Bigfoot asked.
“Trees don’t have ears. Trees are plants. Nothing but bark and leaves on some and needles on the other. “
“Corn has ears, doesn’t it?” Bigfoot said. “Why do you think that the most serious of gardeners all make it a point to sit and talk to their plants?”
That might have made sense if someone had hit me on the head with a rock about six or eight times before saying it to me.
“Because they are freaking weird, maybe?” I guessed.
“Look who is calling who weird,” Bigfoot said. “You’re the one who is having a conversation with an urban myth.”
“Don’t put on airs,” Coyote said. “There’s nothing urban about you.”
This was getting nowhere fast.
I took a long deep breath, considering my next question as carefully as possible – barely resisting the urge to yell “Raven, raven, raven” at the top of my lungs – only the memory of me looking at that shadow-raven gnawing on my Dad was just enough to make me think better.
“Okay,” I said. “So are we here in you-know-where looking for the scent of you-know-who, you-know-what?”
“Who?” Bigfoot asked.
“What?” Coyote asked – almost at the exact same time that Bigfoot spoke.
Even I had to laugh.
“What we’re here for,” Bigfoot explained. “Is we are looking for a better nose than I happen to be wearing beneath my eye holes.”
“We are looking for a good hunting hound,” Coyote went on. “What else did you think we came here for?”
What the freak?
“So we are looking for a dog?”
“We’re looking for something like that,” Bigfoot explained. “We’re looking for a dog that could hunt out a single bead of sweat in a gymnasium full of sweated-up funky-pitted and newly-puberty-infested basketball players. We’re looking for a dog that can hunt out a single second in an entire century full of long irritating minutes.”
“Wouldn’t a GPS be a whole lot quicker?” I asked. “Or maybe we could even try looking it up on Google – under D for dog.”
“What we are looking for can’t be found on any GPS,” Bigfoot said. “What we are looking for won’t even show up if you sacrificed about a billion searches to the God of All Google.”
“You mean you-know-who?” I asked.
“I mean you-know-what,” Bigfoot replied. “What we’re looking for right now is a certain canine known as Old Shuck, the Devil’s Dog.”
Have you ever got an answer that didn’t mean a thing to you when you finally got it?
This was one of those kinds of answers.
“So what exactly is a Shuck?” I asked. “And is an old one any better than a new one?”
“You tell him, Coyote.” Bigfoot said. “You always tell it best.”
“You mean I remember it best,” Coyote corrected.
“Whatever,” Bigfoot said.
I was getting tired of waiting.
“One of you had better tell the story to me, quick,” I said. “Because I am running out of patience pretty darned fast.”
Bigfoot snorted.
“Let me tell you a story,” Coyote began.
Why did I know that he was going to say that?
I think these guys were MADE out of stories.
“Why don’t you just tell me what you figure you need to tell me,” I suggested. “And let’s skip the whole story thing.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” Bigfoot echoed, sulkily. “You’ll sit and listen to HIS stories, but you won’t sit and listen to MINE.”
“What choice do I have?” I asked – but I already knew the answer.
Namely, none at all.