Raven Stole the Moon (29 page)

T
HE WIPER BLADES SQUEAKED WHEN THEY MOVED CLOCKWISE
across the windshield, but they were silent on their way back, leaving two ribbons of rain on the glass. It had been raining all night and the road was a muddy mess. It seemed to Jenna as if they had been traveling hours through the woods along a bumpy, twisting road, when, in fact, it had been only a little over half an hour. Every now and then she looked back through the rear window of the pickup truck to see if Eddie and Oscar were okay. They looked miserable, riding in the bed of the truck with a green plastic tarp pulled over them to shield them from the rain.

Tom, the man from the store, drove in silence, only speaking to curse the stick shift when the gears made an awful grinding sound. He was a big man and he seemed to be singularly humorless. With his stony face and permanent scowl, Jenna thought they must have offended him in some way. Maybe the trip was too much of an inconvenience. She had offered to take a cab, but Tom just got in his truck and started the engine without a word. But now, Jenna felt she couldn’t take it anymore. If he didn’t say something, even move his lips, anything, she knew she would scream. She prayed the trip would be over soon.

They rounded a bend and stopped before a rusted chain that stretched across the road. Tom climbed out of the truck and dropped the chain and they continued along the road, which had been reduced to two wheel tracks separated by a hump of green grass. The rain had tapered off, or so it seemed. It was hard to tell in the woods. But up ahead, through the trees, Jenna could see white, puffy clouds and an occasional patch of blue sky.

“Looks like it’s clearing up,” she offered to her driver.

Tom shook his head, slowly.

The truck continued along its twisting path for another mile or so until the road went sharply up a short hill and the trees seemed to fall away into a dramatic view of a beach and an inlet, and, across the water, another island in the distance. The truck paused on this precipice, long enough for Jenna’s breath to be taken away by the beauty of it all, the brightness of the colors, the almost fluorescent green of new growth on the trees and shrubs, the dark richness of the pines, the reddish color of the bark and the mud, the glistening blackness of the water. Streams of sunlight pierced a hole in the clouds and shot down to earth in dramatic fashion, like the rains parting for the voice of God, Jenna thought. It was an omen, she knew. A good omen. A sign that told her that everything was going to be okay, that the shaman would fix it all. Because below her, at the bottom of the hill, at the end of the shafts of sunlight that God sent down from the heavens, was a house. David Livingstone’s house.

“If we drive down, we won’t be able to make it back up,” Tom said, setting the emergency brake and climbing out of the truck.

Jenna got out on her side and waited for Eddie and Oscar to join them at the front of the truck. The hill was steeper than she had imagined, and the ground was redder. Tom took a rope out of the back of his truck and tied one end to the front bumper. The other end he threw down the hill.

He then grabbed the rope and started working his way down the hill, holding on to the rope like a mountain climber. Jenna looked at Eddie, who shrugged.

“Why is it so red?” Jenna asked.

“Clay,” Eddie answered, picking up the rope. “Makes it more exciting. Kind of like trying to walk on an ice cube.”

“Can you make it with your arm?” she asked.

“If I can’t, I’ll go down on my butt.”

Eddie followed Tom, looping the rope around his good arm and going slowly.

Jenna looked down the hill and then at Oscar. This was not her idea of fun. Rappelling off a clay wall to get to a shaman. Why can’t shamans live in condominiums or something? With heated pools.

“You’re next, kid,” she said to Oscar, and tried to push him toward the hill. But Oscar would have none of it. He set his feet and resisted. He felt the same way as Jenna about the whole thing. Finally, Jenna gave up.

“Fine. You can wait here, then.”

She started backing down the hill the way Tom and Eddie had. It wasn’t as steep as she thought. Actually, if it weren’t so wet, it would be easy, but the clay made it very slippery. When she had made it about a third of the way down the hill, she looked up and called for Oscar, still waiting at the top, watching her. Not wanting to be left behind, Oscar finally made his attempt. Trying to stop himself from skidding down the hill with his front legs, he inched his way down the cliff. His effort was valiant but, alas, insufficient. Soon, Oscar seemed to give himself over to the hill, and he went shooting down on his hindquarters, howling as he went. As he passed Jenna, she reached out to try to stop him, but that was impossible. Oscar’s momentum was too great. All Jenna succeeded in doing was losing her footing herself, so now she was following Oscar down the hill on her back.

She managed to get her feet in front of her, pointed in the direction she was going, but there was no way to stop herself. She shot past Eddie, who was laughing hysterically. It actually felt kind of good to have all the wet mud and clay sliding inside her shirt and up her back. Finally she came to a stop at the bottom of the hill at Tom’s feet, where Tom was in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. It was a relief to Jenna that Tom reacted at all, as stone-faced as he had been in the truck.

“Told you I could get you to laugh,” she said, picking herself up and trying to scoop the mud out of her shirt. Tom laughed harder and harder until he lost his balance and slipped in the mud, landing on his butt with a thud. And then he just laughed harder still. Jenna smiled. This guy probably hadn’t laughed in ten years, and now he was going to wet his pants. Slapstick comedy, she thought. There’s nothing like it.

D
AVID ANSWERED THE
door and was a little surprised to find his guests, covered in mud from head to toe, giggling at him.

“The hill’s a little slippery,” he said, inviting more giggles and a burst of laughter from Tom.

“Go to the kitchen door around the side and I’ll try to find you some dry clothes.”

They tromped around the side of the house and went into a workroom next to the kitchen. Eddie, the least muddy of the three, took off his boots, while Tom stripped down to his briefs and Jenna waited self-consciously in mud-caked clothes. The room had stark white walls, cold beige tiles on the floor, and a large work sink in the corner. It had obviously been built for this purpose. A decompression chamber for muddy people.

“This is a convenient room,” she said.

“It’s a mudroom,” Tom said, and then looked around, trying not to laugh, finally letting out a couple of giggles.

David came in from the kitchen with a stack of sweatshirts and pants. Tom slipped on his sweats, and then the men left Jenna alone to change. When she was ready, David rinsed out their clothes in hot water and hung them on a line outside. Jenna told him he didn’t have to go to the trouble, but David insisted that they wouldn’t want to put their clothes back on if the mud set, and he didn’t want them to stay overnight.

Finally, when they were all in the kitchen and the excitement of the great mud adventure had ebbed, formal introductions were made, coffee was poured, and they retreated to the living room to sit and talk. The living room was very grand, a twenty-foot ceiling and a wall of glass that overlooked the water. The walls and floor were all unfinished wood with a rich texture, and at each of the four corners was a large wooden pillar. The room was decorated with Indian blankets and trinkets of all kinds. At one end of the room was a fireplace with a fire burning in it.

They sat and made small talk about the rain and whether or not more of it was coming. Tom was convinced they were in for a downpour, while David insisted the worst was over. Their chatter was interrupted, though, by Oscar, who was sitting outside the wall of windows, looking in and barking.

“Is that your dog?” David asked.

“Yeah,” Jenna answered. “He was too muddy, so I left him outside. He’s okay out there.”

David got up and went to the window, kneeling down before Oscar, who barked through the glass at him.

“What’s his name?”

“Oscar.”

“How long have you had him?”

Jenna shrugged.

“Four or five days. I found him in the woods. Or he found me. I was lost and there he was to lead me back to town.”

“Really?” David stood up and looked at Jenna. “This was in Alaska?”

“Wrangell.”

David nodded and turned his attention back to Oscar. “You weren’t afraid of a dog you found in the woods?”

“Well, I didn’t really have time to be afraid of him because I thought something was chasing me and Oscar scared it away. So he was my friend from the beginning.”

David nodded again, considering what Jenna was saying.

“And what did you think was chasing you?”

“I don’t know.” Jenna picked up her coffee cup and tried to hide behind it. “I don’t know.”

“Guess,” David prompted.

“Well,” she said. “It sounds silly, but I think it was a kushtaka.”

Jenna laughed at her own thoughts. David didn’t flinch. Eddie and Tom sat together quietly on one of the sofas near the fire. They hadn’t said a word; they just listened to the conversation David and Jenna were having. But at the mention of the kushtaka, they exchanged a look.

“What makes you think it was a kushtaka?” David asked.

“Well, sometimes it was like a bear and sometimes like a squirrel. It was fast. Then there was a man who had black eyes and pointy teeth.”

“And the dog scared him away?”

“Yeah.”

David opened the door on the glass wall and went outside, closing the door after him. He crouched before Oscar and stroked his head. Dog and man looked into each other’s eyes quietly, and then David stood up and the two of them went around the side of the house.

“What was that all about?” Eddie asked.

Jenna shrugged. Both Jenna and Eddie looked at Tom, who threw up his hands.

“Beats me. I’m just the driver.”

They could hear the door to the mudroom open and close, then water running and rustling. Oscar appeared at the living room door and looked around the room. The mud had been rinsed off him, and he shook the remaining water from his fur. He then trotted around the perimeter, sniffing along the molding at the bottom of the wall. David stepped into the room as Oscar lifted his leg and squirted a few drops of urine on one of the large corner posts.

“Oh, Oscar, no!” Jenna cried out, jumping up from her seat.

“It’s okay,” David said, waving her off.

Oscar continued around the room, leaving his scent on each of the posts. Then he went to one of the posts on the wall of windows and sat with his back to the post, looking into the room.

“That’s his corner,” David said. Then he disappeared for a moment and returned with a coffee pot. “More coffee anyone?”

Jenna, Eddie, and Tom all stared at David, bewildered and surprised at Oscar’s behavior and the fact that David hadn’t explained it.

“Maybe you could tell us what’s going on?” Jenna said, immediately regretting the sarcasm in her voice.

“Sure,” David responded, cheerfully. He walked around the room, filling up everyone’s coffee cup. “I had this room built in the way a traditional Tlingit house is built. Tlingit houses have four corner posts, which anchor the house structurally as well as spiritually. Each post is carved to represent different spirits who are called upon to protect the family or families who live in the house.”

He filled his own cup and sat on the couch next to Jenna.

“There are many different spirits that can be called upon: the wolf, the killer whale, the bear. A family calls upon the spirits that it has some history with, so the posts also tell the family history, in a sense.”

“That’s very interesting,” Jenna said. “But it doesn’t explain why Oscar peed on your corner posts.”

David laughed. “Oscar staked out his territory. He’s now the resident spirit in the house. He’s sitting there because that’s the most powerful corner of the house, spiritually speaking.”

“Wait a second, Oscar’s a spirit?”

“Oh, yes. That’s not just a dog, there. That’s your yék. Your spirit helper. He came to protect you.”

Jenna leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes. It was a lot to ask anyone to believe. First that her son was with Indian spirits and then that one of the spirits, a dog, had been with her the whole time. She scratched her ear.

“Everyone has a spirit helper, but most people ignore theirs,” David explained. “Or they act in ways that make the helper abandon them. If you’re being pursued by the kushtaka, it would make sense that your spirit helper would be a dog. Dogs are the most hated enemy of the kushtaka. The kushtaka is anti-society. It prowls the woods, looking for lost people. It only approaches people when it can isolate them from others. Anything civilized is harmful to the kushtaka. Metals burn their skin, because metal is processed ore. They can’t eat any kind of cooked food, only raw meat. Human blood will break the kushtaka spell. And dogs are their enemies, because dogs are domesticated animals.”

“So Oscar’s been protecting me?”

David nodded. “Absolutely. Tell me, has the kushtaka showed itself to you any other time?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has anything strange happened? Something you felt seemed weird?”

“There was a little boy.”

She glanced at Eddie.

“A boy?”

“In the middle of the night. He came to the house and then ran into the ocean. I was trying to save him from going into the water when . . .”

“When, what?”

“When Oscar came and tried to attack him.”

David nodded. “You’re lucky he did.”

“That was a kushtaka?”

“Probably.”

“But he looked like Bobby.”

The words came out of her mouth, but it was the first time she had ever thought of it. He looked like Bobby. Black curly hair. Big eyes. Why didn’t she put it together sooner?

“Your son?”

Jenna nodded.

“The kushtaka often appear as a family member to trick you into following them.”