The Spirit

The scanning traffic monitored by the radio at Ranger headquarters was concerned mostly with highway-­patrol dispatches closing off roads with storm warnings or spotting fallen phone lines. These were normal occurrences for a blizzard. For that reason, Drake was unable to make up his mind whether the interrupted broadcast from Colby signaled a disaster or just more of Jack Helder’s poor luck.

Drake had asked the cops to test the tower on Mount Crane to see if the lines were down up there. When the calls came through perfectly, he knew the trouble was at the lodge itself.

Helder had solemnly sworn to have all the guests in a Garrison motel by eight o’clock. Drake had called them, and they said they had expected another group of passengers momentarily. Momentarily stretched into half an hour, and the van still did not show up.

At eight fifteen he received a call from the hospital in Garrison. “It’s about that blood?”

“What blood?” Drake asked. “Oh. That blood.”

“Right. We classified Mr. Cole’s from the body you brought in. We’ve been trying to get a line on the other stuff.”

“Okay. Fine. What is it?”

The doctor paused. “Well, that answers my question. I was about to ask you.”

“Uh-­huh.”

“I believe you said it was a bear.”

“Did I?”

“Somebody said it was a bear. We checked that. It’s not a bear. It’s not a deer, either. Did Lester keep hogs or chickens or anything?”

“Try human.” After hanging up, Drake shouted, “Tony?” Jones looked in the door. “I hate to do this, but take Wallace and run up to Colby Lodge.”

“You mean now?”

“Yeah. You’ll have to go through Oharaville. Helder said the bridge was out. Take some extra lights and a tow truck. And all the firepower you want, short of flame throwers.”

“If I see one of those things, boss, I’ll kill it.”

“You do that. Just don’t shoot somebody in a fur coat.”

Drake poured coffee into a cup and stirred slowly. Wouldn’t you think Helder had batteries for that radio? Maybe he didn’t know where to put them. Drake would like to tell Helder where to stick his batteries.

Wallace and Jones dressed in quilted jackets next to the tow truck in the garage. Both carried heavy .30.30 deer rifles with starlight scopes for night shooting.

Wallace took down two snowmobile helmets and handed one to Jones.

“You’re kidding,” said Jones.

“I’m not kidding. They throw rocks, remember? That’s what Lester said the first time he saw one.”

Jones sighed and took the helmet. They climbed into the truck cab and started the heater. As they drove out, Wallace lowered his window a bit and put out the gun muzzle. He was ready for anything. Jones hoped the grease in the rifle didn’t freeze up just when they needed it.

15

They barricaded the lounge as best they could.

Duane reinforced the Grizzly Bar windows with chairs and propped tables, the loading entrance with a sofa, which he wedged against the corner, and the sliding wooden doors connecting the lounge to the gallery with coffee tables. The service-­entrance door to the kitchen was off its hinges, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Shortly after the fire was doused, the cold began sucking heat from the room. The lantern metal gave off warmth, so Martha kept her hands close to one.

From the parking lot came the steady squeak of springs being compressed. The squeaking continued for a minute, getting louder and louder; then the wall of the shop split and burst inward.

Blankets, paintings, archery equipment, sunglasses— all the paraphernalia in the shop tumbled off the walls. Duane Wood­ard opened the sliding lounge doors an inch or so and looked at the shop. He was just able to see the wall, which was seamed with cracks and bulged inward. Martha Lucas’s Volkswagen had been overturned and pushed against it.

The car was pulled upright. Then it crunched against the wall again, knocking down wooden slats and buckling the ceiling.

When the car was pulled back a second time, there was a hole in the wall through which snow blew. Duane aimed the rifle, expecting the beast.

He kept waiting. He was at the door as a rock smashed against the metal sun-­deck shutters behind him. The glass collapsed in tinkling sheets, and a pimple of aluminum protruded inward. More rocks hit the shutters, tattooing their way down toward the shuttered dining-­room windows.

“It’s trying to draw fire,” Duane whispered to Martha. “Keep me pinned down with this hole and raise hell everywhere else.” Smart son of a bitch. The open hole was a breach in their defenses which they could not cover yet could not leave. One of them always had to keep an eye on it.

Again there came that tearing stillness, that violent silence that weighed more heavily than the bluntest attack. This time it dragged out into five full minutes. “Listen, do you think Helder kept batteries for the radio in his office?”

“He’s very disorganized. If he does, I don’t know where they are.” She still spoke of him in the present tense, as though he were alive.