The Spirit

“He was under treatment in Los Angeles for combat fatigue. That’s when they gave him a medal. Then he was released and went home to Stevensville, where he checked in with a psychiatrist once a month. Last spring he disappeared. The doctor in Stevensville was very worried about him.”

“Why?”

She spoke into her teacup, hair shrouding her face. “He was being treated for schizophrenia.”

“Ah! Which he probably had a long time before he went into the Army.”

“That’s right. You see, he doesn’t have any family. His father left them, his mother died when he was young. Typical broken home. He was raised by priests in a mission school and a grandfather whom he revered. His grandfather apparently was responsible for a lot of his mental problems. He told him all sorts of stories when he was young.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Indian stories that they used to tell their young as they grew up. It’s how the Indians passed on their culture, Mr. Jason. They had no writing, so they spent winters banked up in their lodges, talking about how the chipmunk got his stripes and how the world was made and all that. He revered his grandfather. He was the only family he had. He died just before Moon went into the Army.” Her voice lowered, and her hair slowly covered her face. “You know, when they treated him in the hospital, they gave him all these drugs and shock therapy that wrecked his memory. He had spells of amnesia . . .”

“And still does, I’d venture to say.”

“. . . and couldn’t remember his grandfather’s words. To somebody like him that’s death, Mr. Jason. Absolute death.”

A war casualty like millions of other broken, blasted men through the ages. That was John Moon, Jason reflected. Every world he had lived in crumpled before his eyes. So, like others, he had found religion. A spirit. Something to live for, something to heal the split between his mind and the shambles of his life.

Some guardian angel!

“Could I have some more tea?” Jason held out his cup.

“Of course.” Suddenly flustered, Martha Lucas knocked over papers as she took his cup into the kitchen.

For some moments Jason had been looking at a book cover on the couch next to her. He had wanted her out of the room in order to examine it more closely.

The book cover showed a wooden mask carved by a Northwest tribe called the Kwakiutls, who believed giant cannibals lived in the mountains. The face was a skull with added details. Tendrils of hair formed a widow’s peak, and eyeholes burned from beneath frowning brow bones.

Stretch those brows, Jason thought, and there were the horns. Narrow the nose and forehead, add a bit more hair, and there it was the face of the Bigfoot as he had seen it in the river. Probably the artist who carved this mask had worked from somebody’s description.

He dropped the paper as Martha returned with a steaming cup of tea. Jason forced down a mouthful of the awful stuff. It sure woke him up, he could say that much about it. “That medicine bundle Moon wears. What’s it for?”

“He’s supposed to carry a talisman of his spirit in it.”

“What kind of talisman!” In the dim light, his eyes gleamed.

“If your spirit was a bird, you’d carry one of his feathers. That kind of thing. A piece of its body, or if it was human some belonging, like a clay pipe.”

“Not to change the subject, but how long has this lodge been here?”

She counted with her fingers. “Ten . . . no, eleven months. That’s when the foundation was laid. It wasn’t habitable until last spring.”

“Was anybody killed while working on it?”

“How did you know?” A certain suspicion clouded her face.

“I’m making brilliant deductions. There was somebody killed, wasn’t there?”

“Yes. A plumber. His name was Jameson. Mr. Jason—”

“And it was at night, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And his head was missing, wasn’t it?”

She swallowed hard. “Jameson came up one night with a rifle because something was messing around with his equipment. All the pipes and lumber piles were being thrown around. Jameson wanted to surprise it, but it killed him and took his head away. The Rangers said it was a grizzly bear.”

“And has this grizzly bear been back?”

Her voice became very small. “Mr. Jason, this lodge has been jinxed ever since it was finished. Practically everyday the phone lines go down. Sometimes the garbage is broken into—” Her mouth opened, and tea slopped over her thumb. “Moon’s spirit! That’s it! It’s a grizzly bear!”

Jason found himself feeling protective toward Martha Lucas. He had not felt that stab of tenderness since his last sulfurous blast of temper ended in divorce. She had nice hands. He wondered how she kept them so nice. And she was logical in that maddening perfect way that made things come out wrong. He set down his teacup. “I have to be going. I want to get a room, if it isn’t too late.”