The Spirit

“The blizzard will sober me up.”

“I have a better idea. Moon?”

The Indian had been leaning by the fireplace, well away from them. If Woodard’s story had made any impact at all, it was not visible on his face.

“Can you drive a snowmobile?”

An almost imperceptible nod.

“That gives us three weapons. Two guns and Moon with a bow and arrow. Okay with you, Moon?”

The Indian looked away from them. Martha thought for a moment that he was contemplating the stuffed grizzly by the bar, but his eyes were turned inward. His fingers played with the tasseled flap of the medicine bundle. “I will come.”

They stacked two snowmobiles with blankets, brandy, bandages, and heavy coats. Jason and Moon wore fleece-lined nylon riding suits with helmets and faceguards. Jason slipped his pistol into a zippered pocket. Moon tied a quiver of aluminum arrows to his back and slid the bow around his chest. Heavy flashlights completed their gear.

Helder shouted through chattering teeth over the wind that rattled the snowmobile shed, “I’ll try to raise Drake on the radio. Maybe he can meet you down there.”

“Okay.” Jason pulled on his helmet and motioned Moon to precede him.

“You first,” said the Indian. “I don’t want you behind me.” He wore his medicine bundle under his coveralls. Tonight he would need it.

Helder slid open the doors of the shed. Jason tested the accelerator on the handlebar, inched forward a few feet, then got the feel of the overloaded machine. Cautiously, adjusting for wind, he drove steadily out to the parking lot and entered the road. Moon followed behind him, guided by Jason’s taillight.

When Helder returned to the lodge he found Duane Woodard slipping into his partially dried clothes. Martha sat in the bar, discreetly averting her face.

“I could use about six steaks, Helder,” Woodard said.

“Don’t you want any sleep?” asked Helder in awe. Physical people tended to intimidate him. After Wood­ard’s experience, he would have taken to his bed with enough aspirin for three days.

“Hell no. I feel great. Little brandy. Little food . . . Ain’t you got anything to eat?”

Helder took him into the shop, where Duane Wood­ard gobbled down six Hershey bars. One two three. Pause. Four five six. He licked chocolate from his fingers. “That’s a start,” he said, fingering a bag of potato chips.

To Martha’s disgust, Jack Helder helped himself to a full glass of undiluted Scotch. If this was the way he reacted to emergencies . . .

“Wood­ard, maybe you can help me with the radio. I’ve got to call the Ranger station.”

The radio was in a small pine cabinet adjacent to the gun rack. Drake had given him an emergency frequency when he began construction, and he rifled the desk, looking for it.

Duane Wood­ard switched on the radio, filling the office with a skull-­piercing static that seemed to drive nails through their ears. He dampened the volume, but even at low level the fuzzy whine was uncomfortable.

Helder handed him the band number and Wood­ard set the tuner directly over it. He gave the microphone to Helder. “Here you go. Press the button to talk, release to listen.”

“Hello, Augusta Station. Anybody there? This is Jack Helder . . .”

When he released the button, Drake was shouting at him: “. . . you to get the shit out of there, Helder! What’s going on! Over.”

“The bridge is out.”

“What!”

“The van fell—” The radio cut off, dead.

Overhead the lights flickered. They blinked in the lounge, too.

“Is something happening?” asked Helder.

Martha ran into the office, her face slate-­white, and pointed at the Grizzly Bar. Duane Wood­ard ran past her, grabbing the rifle from the sofa, to the window. He raised the glass and pushed open the shutters.

The power line ran from a light pole at the edge of the parking apron to the corner of the building. A Bigfoot was pushing the pole out of the concrete, with hollow popping sounds.

“Got him, got him, got him,” Duane said to himself.

Sparks of released current shorted by snowflakes burst from the wires as they tore loose. One by one the lights blinked out in the lodge.

Duane slipped the rifle out the window and fired. He was certain he hit it. The ponderous head looked in surprise at him. The body quivered. But it turned and ran around the corner, out of range.

The pole descended in a tangle of wires to the eaves. The top crosspiece punched through the shingled roof in the lounge, sending down wooden bracing blocks, nails, and shingles that nearly hit Martha.

The fire was the only light in the lounge now. It illuminated Jack Helder’s sodden figure in the doorway, with the microphone still clutched in his hand. Wood­ard closed the shutters and lowered the window.

“What is going on here?” said Helder.

“Sssh!” Martha hissed at him. They could hear feet thumping outside. Past the chimney. More slowly toward the leading-­entrance door.

“I will not be silent in my own lodge—”