The Spirit

Something seemed to crackle in the air over his chest. The Indian awoke to find it was night. Standing in the grass below the boulders was a small, mottled mongrel dog with a face like a cat’s and patches of skin showing through its tattered coat.

The Indian and the dog regarded each other with alert, unfrightened eyes. The marmot sounded again in the trees. The dog glanced toward the sound.

The dog said, Follow me.

With the aid of his rifle, the Indian unhinged his body section by section and painfully stood upright. He leaned on the gun. Corn spilled from his medicine bundle. The flap was open. The dog must have been sniffing at it. Thoughtlessly the Indian raised corn to his lips.

Don’t eat, said the dog. Your spirit is waiting.

The animal scampered up to the edge of the woods and paused until the Indian caught up. The trees closed around him like a warm coat. The woods were silent. All of the animals were gone except for the marmot, which whistled again, summoning the dog. The Indian tottered through the trees after it.

Seated on a log in a clearing bounded by Douglas firs was a man, his back to the Indian. He was digging with large, oddly shaped hands at a pile of rocks and stacking them, one on top of another, in a pyramid. The Indian saw a field mouse run from under one of the rocks. The man grabbed it and popped it into his mouth.

The dog barked at the man.

The man grabbed a rock in each hand. He stood up and faced the Indian. He was at least seven feet tall. He wore no clothes. A thick coat of black fur covered him from head to ankle and curtained his face. His chest was fat and massive, his legs were short, and he had almost no neck. Because of the gloom, the Indian could not see the man’s face clearly.

He was not a man. Not really. Such men had never lived. He was somewhere between man and beast. He was a spirit.

The Indian put his rifle against a tree.

The spirit set down his rocks.

The Indian waited for his name.

The spirit did not speak it. Instead, he blended into the slanted grays and blacks of the woods, heading toward the northern peaks and leaving the Indian alone with the dog.

The dog said, He wants you to follow him.