The Spirit

“Like hell! It’s getting late!”

She scuffed at the snow and settled her head deeper into her fur collar. “I’ll stick around. I am, after all, sort of an anthropologist.”

“I see.” Jason laughed. “Moon gets to you, doesn’t he. Maybe I should forget Bigfoot and put him in a cage. It must be ten below with this wind, and I bet he isn’t even wearing a coat.”

Helder’s door was still firmly locked. There were several people waiting apprehensively for the van to return. The loading entrance was propped open, and a huge fire thundered in the hearth.

A man with wiry red hair and a bulky build sprawled in one of the stuffed chairs. “He’s locked himself away real good,” he said to them. “I nearly knocked the door down trying to get in. What’s the matter with the phones around here anyhow?”

“They don’t work,” Jason responded, pounding loudly on Helder’s door.

The red-­haired man leafed through a Sports Illustrated and grinned. He held the magazine up to Martha. It was a photograph of himself decked out in a football uniform. The caption stated that Duane Woodard of the Dallas Cowboys had broken some yardage records that fall. “I figured I’d take a couple days off up here,” he said to Martha. “I’d still rather stay. I don’t know why everybody’s so afraid of a little old storm.”

“It’s not the storm, it’s the bears,” said Jason. He sat in a chair, impatiently cracking his knuckles.

“Naw, it ain’t bears,” said Woodard. “I’ve hunted bears. They don’t tear up ski lifts.”

“What do you think it is, then?”

“It’s people. Has to be. How would a bear know how a ski lift works?”

The van wheezed up and creaked to a stop at the loading entrance. The tires were clogged with slush and the fenders rimmed with muddy ice. Delbert helped lash the luggage to the roof.

The door to Helder’s office popped open and the lodge owner swayed there, reeking of good Scotch. His natty coat was crumpled and his cuffs were open, splaying over the sleeves of his sport jacket. He lurched out to say farewell to the guests.

“Thank you so much for, hic, coming. See you next year. So sorry about this nonsense . . . Marvelous . . . We’ll be open by the end of the week.”

“Last chance,” said Jason to Martha.

She might have gone had Moon not walked into the lounge just then. His hair streamed with melting ice, and his clothes were stiff. He walked to the fire, oblivious to his surroundings, and warmed his palms.

“I’m staying,” she said to Jason, her eyes on the Indian.

The van pumped clouds of bluish exhaust, which were torn away by the storm. Delbert leaned out the window and shouted to Jack Helder, “We got most of them into the Pines Motel and some others into Howard Johnson’s down in Clayton.”

“Excellent,” hiccupped Jack Helder. “Fine people. Give them my best.”

“When are you coming down, Mr. Helder? The road’s getting bad.”

“In my own good time, Delbert, my boy. It’s my home, and no Bigfoot is going to chase me out.”

“No what?” Delbert cupped an ear.

“Never mind, Delbert. It’s all a crock of shit.” Helder started back to the door. “A . . . crock . . . of . . . shit! Don’t worry, I’ll have more fun than a barrelful of boa constrictors. Drive safely, my boy.” Helder blew a wet kiss at the sour faces packed against the windows. “Good-­bye, my lovelies.”

He waved as the van backed around, facing the road, then churned away through the wind-­lashed night until the red taillights disappeared. He waved again as he tottered through the door and closed it behind him.

Martha Lucas, Raymond Jason, and John Moon were waiting for him when he stepped into the lounge.

Helder looked at each one of them. “Moon!” he roared.

“Yes, sir?” Moon replied quietly.

Helder pointed a wavering finger at the door. “You missed the van!”

Moon did not deign to answer. He put his back to the fire and watched Jason.

“Didn’t you hear the orders of the big bad Forest Service?”

“I’m staying,” said Moon with icy finality. “Until my dog comes back.”

“Martha!” Helder roared.

“Yes, Jack?”

“What’s going on around here!”

“Well, Mr. Jason is staying because Moon is. And I guess I don’t have anyplace to go either. I never liked motels. Besides, I’ve got to think of my reputation, haven’t I?”

Helder had the disjointed feeling that he had walked into a room he had lived in all his life and did not recognize it. “But . . . but . . . Oh, the hell with it. Glad for the company. We can all go to Mexico together.”

“Mexico?” Jason inquired.

“Yup. Mexico is where we’ll wind up if this wind doesn’t let up.” He sniffed the air. The lodge trembled under a gust of wind. It was still settling its joints. “My little baby,” Helder murmured in a loving voice.

Then to the others he said, “Listen to this. You will never guess what Mr. Drake told me this afternoon.”

“I can guess,” said Jason. “The Bigfeet are restless.”

“Is that a crock or isn’t it?” Jack Helder slumped onto a footstool before the fire.