The Spirit

The stretch of road through the trees where Lester had seen the Bigfoot always gave him the heebies. These woods were not like your regular scraggly mountain trees. These woods were so tight they leaned clean over the road, breaking moonlight up into clutching fingers and teeth. Somebody once said on a late-­night TV show that people were afraid of the full moon because thousands of years ago the earth was covered with different types of humans who came out then. These humans lived in the woods with saber-­toothed tigers and snakes and dinosaurs and mastodons, and got along great with them because they all ate the same thing: other humans. This guy had said there were wars between these humans and the real humans. That was where all that stuff about giants in the Bible and Greece and Scandinavia came from.

Lester pulled his pickup off the road onto the grassy entrance of the logging trail where he had seen the thing. He cut off his engine. Lester figured the thing came out only late at night. Really late. That was why nobody had found it. Lester had come home late that night only because he needed the overtime to pay off Harry for the poker game.

Lester had plenty of time to get to Murphy’s funeral. But for the rest of the night he was not even going to go home. He did not have to get up early in the morning, and he had his Remington pump on the rack over the rear window. He shut the radio and checked the rifle chamber. Then he settled back into his seat and waited.

Fucking cold.

Sometime around ten, Lester fell asleep.

From time to time the Indian blew hot breath into his hands to warm them. He paced the little clearing with restless steps, whistling into the trees.

The dog had deserted him. Even the plastic sack was gone. The Indian had looked for it, afraid he would find the animal whimpering and vomiting under some bush from the unusually heavy food he had given it to share with the spirit last night.

The Indian lay on the ground, head propped on a tree root, and tried to calm down. He kept pushing down the thought of betrayal which surfaced in his mind, keeping him from slumber. His spirit had left him alone at this place after leading him hundreds of miles from home.

The Indian turned over on the ground, pushing away that thought. It subsided, but its stirrings tilted the great weight of faith he had constructed particle by particle over the past months.

His grandfather tried to speak to him. The dry, cracked lips opened and whispered.

Something about his spirit.

The Indian’s hand slid over the ground to where he wished the dog’s warm body lay. There was nothing but dirt and pine needles.

Why did his spirit not give him a name or at least a sign? Had he taken the dog?

Steamy jungle heat drenched his body in sweat. Ah! His grandfather’s voice. He heard it clearly as he lay in the Asian bush with an arrow drawn back. A Russian rifle clicked down the path somewhere. They knew he was here, but they couldn’t see him. Good. They were frightened. The Indian smelled blood as he drew the arrow taut toward the chest. A quick, quiet exhalation, the hiss of air, then the strangled cry and he was running, stooped under the leaves, as rifle fire split the night . . .

A shudder whipcracked the Indian’s body. He grunted in fear as icy wetness coated his chest, his fingers, and caressed his neck, soft as cotton. His chest was covered with snowflakes.

Snow whispered through the hissing trees, branch to branch, causing the timbers to groan, whitening the ground into a pale, ghostly hue.

Helder’s voice boomed over the hills: “Ladies and gentlemen, one free drink on the house, courtesy of the great god Snow.”

The Indian whistled desperately for his dog. Winter or not, he wanted to get out of this place. He wanted his spirit back.

“Mountain weather” was Martha Lucas’s only comment about the falling snow dusting her hair. “Looks like it woke Moon up.”

She passed the binoculars to Jason, who observed Moon whistling into the woods. They were sharp, piercing, sad whistles, like a marmot’s. “That’s what the Bigfoot sounds like, too. The same whistle. That’s how they both summon the dog.”

“What do you think will happen to Moon when he learns the truth?” The Indian’s distress apparently affected Martha.

Jason pushed the glasses tight to his eyes. “Him? He’ll never learn the truth, not him. People like him always find a truth they want. He’ll make his spirit into a devil if he can’t have it as a god.”

Jason was depressed, and when he became depressed he became mad. If only he’d burned out that food in the mine and gone after them. If only he’d searched the slope instead of wasting time with Drake. If only this girl had not become entangled with everything. Dammit, dammit to hell and gone! Jason was so damned mad about this business that even his arm did not bother him any more, as if the poison had somehow moved from his body to his psyche.