The Spirit

Blazing eyes lit up the trees along the road. Another monster’s breath shivered the land as it forged toward him. Jason feebly held up one hand to ward it off, but instead a horn blared, brakes screeched, and he sank to his knees on the pavement.

The footsteps were wary.

“Snakebite,” he gasped.

“There’s a Ranger station down the road. Can you walk?”

It was a young woman wearing a granny dress. She had thin, surprisingly strong hands that grasped him under the armpits and guided him to the car.

Damn his luck, it was a Volkswagen, barely big enough for his legs. He rolled down the window and threw up. “Sorry,” he choked.

“How long since it happened?”

“Few minutes.”

The girl was in her twenties, with a wide, spare, attractive face completely devoid of makeup. She shifted gears. The car turned back the way it had come. “Don’t worry. You’ve got time. But you’re lucky I came by.”

Jason squirmed on the seat, trying to find a comfortable position.

“It won’t work.” She smiled. “It happened to me once. You can’t get comfortable.”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

She laughed.

“What’s your name, for my will?”

“It’s Martha Lucas. And you won’t have to worry about your will. You’ll be fine.”

He should have used bigger traps, long rectangular ones that would have taken its foot off completely. Set up ultraviolet lights. Poisoned the apples. Something. Something! He had almost caught a legend out there. Poor Buck. Poor, poor dog. No second chances for him.

It was a long way to the Ranger station. The girl accelerated, glancing with concern at him.

Jason tried to disassemble that thing’s face and put it back together more sensibly. He made it from the hair to the eyes before, retching, he passed out.

The Indian watched the slow-­moving waters for some sign of the demon that had attacked his spirit. A porcupine rustled the foliage down the bank. The Indian killed it with an arrow and carefully plucked out the quills. He led the dog across the river, then handed the limp, denuded animal to him. “Take this to him. I’ll find more.”

When the dog returned, the Indian had two squirrels and a chipmunk ready. The spirit was walking steadily southward, toward the mountains. At sunrise they left the dark woods and moved into a meadow at the base of the foothills.

The spirit left blood everywhere, on boulder tops, mossy patches of ground, and green grass. He was no longer hiding his trail. Nor did he stop to rest as the sun continued rising. He walked with steady, sure steps, setting a grueling pace.

The Indian realized that the spirit was on familiar ground. It knew every trail, every log, every blade of grass. They were coming to the end of their journey. Their goal was somewhere in the mountains.

For two days and another night, the Indian lived only for his spirit. He butchered everything that walked, flew, or swam, shoveling bodies into the dog’s mouth to be delivered to the spirit like sacrifices on a conveyor belt.

They crossed mountain foothills and climbed upward, the trees changing from lush thickness to lean, well-­spaced suppleness suitable for resisting blizzard winds.

Patches of snow appeared on foggy trails and at night the wind, sharpened by mountain heights, was laden with icy grains. The Indian clutched his coat more tightly about him as they climbed, and wondered if they would climb so high they would step off the earth into ethereal transparency. The rational half of his mind realized the spirit was trying to get somewhere before his strength gave out entirely.

“He ain’t a man,” he gasped to the dog. “Where’s his clothes? How come he don’t talk? You seen him—what kind of man looks like that? Grandaddy’s was a man. Grandaddy’s was a carpenter. Big Foot was just a short little guy. He can’t be Big Foot’s ghost. What is he? What is he?”

The Indian gave out completely in a mountain meadow puddled with water and ringed by tall, mournful pines. With the dregs of his strength he managed to kill a rabbit. He skinned it, planning to give it to the dog. Instead, his hand delivered it to his own mouth. He sat on the ground, knowing it was a fatal mistake, because he would be unable to get up again. “I’m okay,” he muttered to the dog. “But I got to sleep. I’m okay. Tell him I’m sorry . . .” He fell backward into a reclining position and dropped off, the rabbit carcass still in his hand.

The Indian did not know how long he had slept. The dog did not awaken him this time. He cracked his eyelids and saw moonlight gleaming off the glaciers of a mountain in the west. He sat slowly up. His blood seemed to have thickened to glue clogging his joints.

Much to his relief, the dog was not gone. It was sitting placidly on the ground, finishing off what was left of the rabbit. The Indian tottered to his feet and that got the blood moving. “Where is he?”

The dog yawned. The Indian whistled. His shriek broke up against many cliffs and returned to him in pieces.