Duane backed up and stumbled over a sofa. She tried to close with him. He ducked away, nearly fainting from the musky stench, and grabbed a poker. He faked a move toward the gallery, trying to keep her away from Helder’s office. She moved to block him, and he jabbed her with the poker. He was rewarded with a screech that impelled him to try again. She flicked a huge arm, and he ducked and jabbed hard. This time the tip came back coated with blood.
As they circled each other, Duane deliberately avoided looking at her face. Those hands that opened and closed spasmodically, those fingers—they were the real danger.
Duane grabbed a lantern and flung it to the floor. It exploded in a sloppy pressurized burst of kerosene that flooded the floor and drizzled in rivulets on the walls. So much for animals being frightened by fire. She stepped, fur-armored and untouched, right through the stuff and kept coming. He swung the poker at her head, felt it graze the thick skull. She grabbed the poker out of his hands and tossed into the fireplace.
Her breath floated out in a steamy cloud, forming ice crystals over the fur on her chest and face. He heard a snowmobile buzz on the road.
Abruptly, she rushed him. He swung his hand edge outward like an ax, but missed completely, for she bashed the furniture and went full length through the plate-glass window of the shop. From the shop she ran through the hole to confront the returning snowmobile.
In that moment of stalemate Duane managed to beat the fire out with a rug. He ran into the office to find Martha Lucas sitting up on the floor, her hand holding her chest.
The lodge had disappeared. The lights were out. Jason crested the drive to the parking apron before realizing that the building was almost in front of him. He saw a burst of flame through chinks in the Grizzly Bar window, then furniture thumping around.
He took out his pistol again as the female burst from the shop wall in a flying edge of broken planking and dashed down the parking lot. He gave chase, narrowly avoiding braining himself on the fallen power pole, swerving between Helder’s Cadillac and the overturned Volkswagen, but she was well into the woods behind the bungalows when he reached the corner.
His pistol was empty, anyway. He crouched against the wall and reloaded it. He fired into the woods to light up the trees. Nothing moved. Nothing lived. But she was there.
Jason stood guard at the little blood spot where Helder’s head had lain as Duane Woodard moved Martha Lucas into the lounge and laid her on the sofa.
Jack Helder.
A house whose owner has died is the loneliest place in the world. The lodge seemed permanently weakened by his absence, a sort of orphan without whose loving parents the walls would collapse as surely as a house of cards under the slightest pressure.
It was not entirely a delusion. The lounge, kitchen, dining room, everything at ground level was hopelessly vulnerable. It was punctured by weak points which could no longer sustain any attack. The metal shutters would fall if Jason fired.
“Raymond, where’s Moon?” asked Martha.
“He went after the male.”
“Why?”
Jason knew he could not limn in words the details that would describe Moon’s change after seeing the bodies. “Let’s just say he saw the light.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I couldn’t. He walked right past me. He gave me the toe, you see? And I lost it.”
“That’s why you took your time coming back,” said Woodard.
“I’m sorry. How could I know you two were alone? Look, this is no good. She could knock on doors and draw fire until we run out of bullets. Is there one solid room in this place?”
“Maybe downstairs. The game room.” Martha coughed at the acrid smoke hanging in the air.
“What’s it like?”
“It’s part of the foundation. The only way through is oak doors. There’s a corridor going in front of it to the furnace and generator room. Jack had to dynamite it out of rock.”
Jason helped her sit up. Something was wrong with her ribs all right. She was in intense pain, both psychic and physical, and trying hard not to show it. Jason found himself admiring her a bit more than objectively.
Something rattled the shutters, freezing them into statues before they realized it was a branch. “We better do something,” said Duane Woodard. “We’re all going to go nuts if we don’t do something.”
“Martha, did Helder have a flare gun?”
“No.”
“What about those ski torches they use in the show? Where did he keep those?”
“In the snowmobile shed. He was afraid of spontaneous combustion.”
Jason kicked at a footstool. “Terrific! She’s boxed us up like a present. We can’t shoot flares, we can’t call anybody on the radio, we can’t do anything. All right. Load up, Woodard. Let’s take a look at the game room.”
Cozy was the ideal Helder had aimed for with the game room. A quiet, secure place where people could wait out blizzards at pinball machines, card tables, and televisions, or lounge in artfully arranged corners filled with overstuffed furniture. It was a miniature of the lounge upstairs, less spacious, with a smaller fireplace, but a compact little standing bar, low ceiling, and exposed beams. Since they were below ground level, there were no windows. Jason lit the candleholders embedded in the beams and spaced the lanterns around.
They moved pinball machines and sofas to the door. They lifted the machines off their casters. They were heavier than any furniture.
The storm was muted by the plaster-and-stone wall to a distant roar. If she gets us in here, Jason thought, she’ll have earned her heads.
Somewhere on a great golden plaque outlining the sins of Man, stupidity was underlined with heavenly forcefulness. Poor, poor humans. They should not depend on their gods so much, because their gods were too much like them. Well, his grandfather had warned him of that, too.
The Indian ran over the snow, following the footprints of the giant, deliberately not using the word betrayal in his thoughts, for he would fall down and cry. All that was left was a chance to redeem himself, some tiny sliver of pride to polish as a shield against the monstrous humiliation he felt.
Under the Indian’s running feet, the ground began a slow steady rise up a slope. The Indian paused only long enough to empty his medicine bundle of the accumulated garbage it contained—chicken foot, corn kernels, clay pipe, the worthless crucifix, even the medal—while following the plowed-up snowdrifts the running giant had left. From time to time the wind shifted, bringing down the thing’s smell. It was frightened. Good.
He lost the trail in the sparse, tangled trees and rocky ledges of the higher slope. He leaned against one of the pines pushing up through the tangle of broken rock terraces to catch his breath and plan his next move. The driving wind made his eyes water, and he rubbed away tears until the flesh was sore.
Smoke.
The Indian sniffed the freezing wind. Again he smelled the lightest delicate touch of wood smoke, coloring the blizzard as gossamer-pink colors the air. There were no houses up here.
The smell led him to a cave higher up on the slope. It was like a mouth concealed under shelves of rock. Mixed with it was the odor of the giant. The Indian pulled himself up to the entrance and strung an arrow onto the bow. He stepped just inside the cave, out of the wind, and listened.
He was in a narrow passageway connecting to a mine shaft. Light shone in a faint smoky glow down this tunnel. The miners had broken into this cave.
The Indian crept forward to the shaft entrance and looked down it. The light came from rudimentary candles made of animal fat poured into rock depressions on the walls. The wicks were pieces of brush that sputtered and hissed. These smoky flickering lights lined the walls all the way down to a corner. Mixed with the acrid smoke and giant smell was the overpowering one of spoiled meat.