The Spirit

As she waited for water to boil on her hot plate, Jason picked up a stapled sheaf of pages. It was entitled “Trickster of the Winnebagos.” Everything in the room was about Indians. Martha Lucas was an organism whose sole purpose was the gulping down of information about Indians. By the look of her kitchenette, she was a vegetarian, too.

She handed him a cup of herb tea, then kicked out a niche for herself from the papers on the bed. “Why are you following Moon?” she asked.

“Why are you?” Jason countered.

“We could always flip a coin to see who goes first. Fair enough?”

“Heads,” said Jason, sending a quarter into the air. It came down tails.

“I think Moon’s on a spirit quest,” she said.

“What’s that?”

She described it as she had to Helder.

Jason nodded, stroking his chin. “It fits. It fits. I always wondered why he carries that bag around. Medicine bundle, you called it.”

“Yes. If I’m right, he’s not going to have much luck.”

“How come?”

“He’s too old. He’s in his twenties, and the vision is a rite of puberty. Besides, you’re supposed to remain isolated during the quest. It’d be interesting to know if he was prepared by a shaman.”

“How long does this quest take?”

“Three or four days at most.”

“Did they ever follow their spirits around? I mean tag along after them?”

“There were all kinds of spirit quests, Mr. Jason. In some tribes it was how you got your name. You always had to go to a sacred place to find them.”

“When I say follow them, I mean for hundreds of miles.”

She thought over an answer while watching him, trying to pierce his face to the brain behind and see where he was leading.

“You would do what your spirit told you to do. Normally, however, you’d be in no shape to walk, unless . . .”

“What?”

“Unless it was a really special spirit. It’s a religious experience, and you know what that can do to some people.” She blew steam from her cup. “And before I go any further, I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“I’ll answer one now. Moon is wanted by the Canadian police in connection with the deaths of three men in British Columbia last summer.”

“Are you a policeman?”

“No. I was with the men when it happened. Moon knocked me out with a rifle butt.”

She played with the handle of her cup. “Did he do it?”

“The circumstances are suspicious. I think he shot down a helicopter in which two of them died. He definitely did not kill the third man.”

“Were you looking for Moon at the Little Harrington that night?”

Jason hesitated only a moment. “Yes. I have been for several months.”

“Are you going to turn him in to the police?”

Jason pressed the teacup to his bandage to see if it soothed the ache. He thought over an answer. He wasn’t ready to tell anybody about the monster. “I suppose I should. But I don’t think he’s all there in the head. I tried to get a rise out of him by mentioning Canada, but he said he didn’t remember. I don’t think he was faking. Then again, he’s got the original poker face.”

She spoke over the teacup, her eyes wide. “Are you frightened of him, Mr. Jason?”

Jason took what he thought was a nut from a clay bowl. He bit into it and felt the shell crumple into tiny husk splinters. They were some kind of goddamned seeds. It was another tiny frustration to add to the considerable mass this business had brought him. The distant roar of amplified applause resounding across the valley reminded him that they were not as alone as they felt. “Yes,” he admitted. “I think he’s capable of killing people.”

Martha settled herself deeper into her papers. “You’re right about him not being all there. He was in a mental hospital for a year and a half.”

“How do you know?”

“He’s got a Medal of Honor in his medicine bundle. Jack Helder spent the morning on the phone running down his war record. Moon was a Green Beret.”

Jason whistled. “Now that really fits.”

“He was in Vietnam. His squad or platoon or whatever you call it was wiped out by the Viet Cong. Apparently it was pretty much of a massacre. Rather than let himself be rescued, Moon went into the jungle alone and spent a month killing guerrillas. And I mean killing them, Mr. Jason. He blew up ammunition dumps, he practically wiped out villages single-­handed. There’s no telling how many he got. The way the Army learned he was still alive was when guerrillas began surrendering in droves. Out of fear of him.”

“Him personally? How did they know it was just him?”

“Because of the way he killed them. He used a bow and arrow.”

Jason felt a thrill of disconnected terror. Capable of murder—the Indian was a master of it! He was as brutal as his spirit. Until now Jason had thought his own survival was evidence of some kind of restraint in the Indian’s mind, but Martha had wiped out that possibility. He would never know how he had survived Canada. “What about the mental hospital?”