“Moon, did you know there’s another of your so-called spirits up here?”
Something thumped at the door of the Grizzly Bar. A slow, measured scratching grated, then stopped. “That’s probably my dog,” said Moon, walking into the bar.
He stopped as the scratching began again from close to the floor. “No,” he said slowly. “That’s not him.”
Jason rose from his chair, cocking his pistol. “Hold it, Moon. Helder, do you have that rifle handy?”
“It’s in my office.” Helder sidled away and returned with the rifle.
“There’s no need of that, sir,” said Moon. “He won’t hurt nobody.” He yanked open the door.
A thousand pythons of wind and snow gibbered in blowing chairs off tables, toppling liquor bottles from shelves and swirling snow into every corner.
Jason crouched behind the bar with his gun.
Nothing there?
No. A hand lay just inside the threshold. Moon grasped it and pulled the body inside, shouldering the door shut. The man’s face was scratched by branches, his red hair was clogged with congealing snow, and his skin was pale white, setting off blue lips. His mouth stretched in a smile.
“Hi,” said Duane Woodard. “Hot out there.”
Woodard sat before the fire, tented in a blanket Helder kept in his office. His clothes steamed on the hearth. He cupped a brandy glass, which looked ridiculously small in his huge hand, and shivered. “Bigfoot!” he exclaimed to Jason. “Ain’t that something? I thought they weren’t supposed to hurt people.” He looked at the Grizzly Bar, struggling to digest this revelation. “He just stood there in front of me for five minutes, then let out a howl that would have broken glass a mile away. I was sure you’d heard it.”
“It actually attacked the van?”
“You better believe it. And sabotaged the bridge. I’d put money on it. I never knew they were supposed to be so damn clever.” Woodard swallowed the rest of the brandy and lowered his head into his hands as the enormity of it all seemed to hit him in a delayed reaction.
Jason noticed that Martha Lucas had gone white. His quarry had a shape now, a shape, form, and malevolent personality. It was human, too human, in fact, nothing like the other two species of Sasquatch. Those mountain men, those pioneers who had been idolized by generations, had inadvertently created a monster.
He came out of his thoughts. “They’re sealing the valley off,” said Jason. “The only other road goes back through Oharaville, and I bet they’ve been there, too.”
Helder’s arms dangled limply over the arms of his chair. He seemed to have shrunk a little. “Mr. Woodard, you don’t recall how many people there were on the van, do you?”
“Eight. Nine.” Duane shrugged, his head still in his hands.
“Is there the slightest chance anybody else could have gotten away?”
“Not with that thing running around down there.”
“But he wasn’t down there, was he?” Jason cleared his throat. “He was chasing you. Or at least one of them was chasing you. If somebody got out of the bus to the meadow . . .” He swallowed and his voice died. The silence weighed down the room. Even the fire seemed subdued.
“You said there were two of them, Raymond,” Martha murmured. “One to chase Duane Woodard, the other to get whoever got out of the van.”
“No,” said Jason. “The other one would have gone after Woodard too. The other one must be up in the mine or something. At any rate, somebody’s going to have to check out the van. Right now.”
“Christ,” said Helder.
“There’s five of us . . .”
“And only two guns. Yours and mine,” Helder said.
“Besides, a man on a snowmobile is a sitting duck,” said Woodard. “So it’s ridiculous. He could pick you off before you got to the river.”
“Two snowmobiles isn’t ridiculous,” said Jason. “Two men backing each other up. We can leave the rifle here and I’ll take the pistol.”
“Very well,” said Helder, hiccuping as he climbed to his feet.
“Helder, you’re so drunk you can’t see what you’re doing,” said Jason.
“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.