The Spirit

Helder’s father had once built some substandard houses. Someone had opened a shower door which fell apart in a shatter of thousands of deadly pieces. Even though there were no injuries, the lawsuit was horrendous. He shuddered at the consequences of having one of his guests mauled by a grizzly bear.

Drake said, “You wouldn’t have seen anything poking around your garbage or anything like that, would you?”

“No. Not since summer. In fact, there don’t seem to be many animals of any kind this fall. Is it always like this?”

In the years Drake had been at the Augusta station, he had wondered about the scarcity of wildlife around Colby. Maybe he had his explanation now. Maybe not.

“Helder, I don’t want any of your people up here. If they hear about bears wandering around, they’re likely to come and feed them. Once you start feeding grizzlies, you never get rid of them.”

“But there’s a storm coming. Surely they wouldn’t be out now.”

“Grizzlies are funny animals. It depends whether they’re hungry or not. If you feed them, they’re likely to follow you around like little puppy dogs.”

At that image, Helder’s stomach rotated in the other direction. Bears coming into the kitchen, bears on the sun deck, bears in the lounge, and Christ! bears sniffing around the heated bungalows at night while the guests slept.

“Right. Bears. Okay. I’ll post the lodge and everything. Thanks for telling me.”

As they finished putting up the roadblock, Drake watched the sun sink, casting deep, pointed shadows over Colby’s cliffs. Outlined with trees, its features blackened into silhouette, it resembled a gigantic head overlooking the valley.

10

Beginning tonight, Lester Cole was getting an extra day off. Combined with the weekend, that gave him three days in which to attend the funeral of his cousin Murphy, who had driven his motorcycle into a moving van night before last. After the accident, Helder had inquired solicitously if there was anything he could do to help. Lester considered hitting him for two or three hundred dollars, then blowing the country altogether. But he had read somewhere that if you’re going to pull a swindle, pull a really big one. Big enough to get far away and have a lot of money left over.

He had almost blown this whole Bigfoot business. The sudden thrill of fame had impelled him to shoot off his mouth to everybody before realizing he was going about it the wrong way. He had realized this blunder while scraping lettuce from a plate. Now everybody was hunting the beast. It was his. After all, he had seen it first and could do whatever he wanted with it. Like prospectors when they found gold and staked a claim. There was some law about that. Lester was sure there was a law for him, too. He hated all those people with time to hunt while he dipped his hands in pork fat.

He had tried to correct his mistake as best he could. He told everybody now that he had made it up, hoping to drive all those hunters back into their homes, leaving him clear. It had worked, too. Everybody knew Lester was a liar, except that goddamned flatlander with an arm bandage. Lester hated people like Jason, who pushed around the Lester Coles of the world and had it made. It was not fair how he had tried to pump the truth out of Lester. He had been about to hit him. Lester wished he had.

It would be too bad if that flatlander got in Lester’s way. Got in his way, that is, down there in the valley while Lester had his gun. Just the two of them. Had his gun and the drop on him. Don’t push Lester around. Lester gets even. Later.

He banged a lot of crockery around that day. Everybody thought he was upset about his cousin Murphy. Lester never liked his cousin Murphy. Murphy was a wiseass. Helder had looked pityingly on as he dropped a glass and said, “You can go home now, Lester. We’ll see you Tuesday.”

Lester wore denims and a sweater to keep the night chill at bay. He drove down to the valley and passed the van on the bridge, on its way to the lodge. Delbert, the driver, waved at him from the driver’s seat, but Lester did not wave back. He did not like Delbert. He hoped Delbert never found out how much he hated him, because Delbert was six feet tall and could make tossed salad out of him. Unless him and Delbert found themselves in the valley at night and Lester had the gun and the drop on him. Usually he was nice to Delbert, because of Delbert’s size.