Raven Stole the Moon (6 page)

“I
’M FRIGGIN’ HUNGRY,
” F
ERGUSON MUTTERED, SHOVING ANOTHER
cigarette into his mouth. It was ten thirty and getting dark out and he hadn’t eaten since lunch. He was having a hard time keeping himself awake and his feet were damp and cold. He could really go for a cup of chili right now. Hot, with onions and cheese and those big red beans.

Livingstone wouldn’t let him turn on the lights. The fire burning in the pit was the only source of light or heat. But it was Livingstone’s fire. He kept it, fed it, wouldn’t let Ferguson near it. Since the morning, Livingstone had been worshiping the fire. He would sit in front of it, staring into it for hours, then get up and walk around it in circles for hours. Sometimes he would speak some strange words. His eyes had met Ferguson’s only once since the séance began, when Ferguson tried to put a log on the fire and Livingstone stopped him. That was pretty early on, but Ferguson could tell David was far gone. He looked like that blind guy in the beginning of
Kung Fu,
the one who calls David Carradine “Grasshopper.”

David Livingstone was circling, now, a blanket over him, every now and then adding a hop to his step. Indian dancing. Fergie had seen plenty of Indian dancing and he wasn’t impressed at all. It wasn’t like ballet, or something, where everyone knows what to do and it’s very exact. It’s just a bunch of fat guys with their stomachs hanging out, running around in circles bumping into each other. There doesn’t seem to be any order to it. Fergie thought maybe he was watching bad dancers, but they were the best ones. That’s what it’s supposed to look like. A bunch of fat guys with wooden helmets, bumping into each other.

“I’m hungry,” he said again, louder.

This time David heard him. He stopped circling and looked over at Fergie.

“Those things will kill you,” David said, pointing to Ferguson’s cigarette. He had a crooked smile on his face and his eyes were distant, vacant, not the eyes Fergie had seen that morning.

“Not eating. That’ll kill me.”

“Did you bring your sleeping bag like I told you?”

“It’s in my plane,” Fergie answered.

“But you didn’t bring any food?”

“I didn’t figure we’d be spending the night.”

“But I told you to bring a sleeping bag,” David said.

Strange, Fergie thought. He seems so loose and relaxed. This morning he was so uptight.

“How long is this going to take?” Fergie asked.

“As long as it takes.”

“Well, the workers will be here in the morning, so you’d better be done by then.”

“Oh, no,” David said, suddenly dropping into a sitting position. He rubbed his face with his hands, pushing the loose flesh around, twisting his face, looking off in the distance. “Oh, no,” he repeated, “no, no, no. No workers in here. This is our place. This is our fire. No one else.”

“But they have to work.”

“No.” David fell backward, cracking his head on the floor. Fergie winced at the sound, but David didn’t seem to notice. “We are here. They know we are here. They will come for us when they are ready. This is our house.” He said “house” almost barking. His voice was becoming more guttural, like an animal’s. “I will not eat or sleep until they come.”

“When are they going to come?”

“When they are ready.”

Then David closed his eyes and started making a weird sound from his throat. A dark, choking sound. Ferguson stubbed out his cigarette and stood up, frustrated and a little uneasy.

“I’m going to get my sleeping bag,” he said to the room, and then stepped out into the night.

A light drizzle was falling outside. Ferguson’s feet were still cold and becoming numb. He got his sleeping bag out of his plane and looked up at the town. It was dark except for an orange glow from the community house. The sky was a gray slate, clouds lightened slightly by the last fingers of the day. The air smelled like cinnamon, and Ferguson, for some reason, remembered his father. A slight man with black hair and green eyes. Black Irish. Mean as a bastard. He went elk hunting every October with his buddies and brought home a buck or two for the winter. Fergie always wanted to go. But he was too young. He wouldn’t be able to keep up. And then, when he was eleven, his dad said he could go. Fergie was so excited he couldn’t sleep for three days. Camping with the men, wet in their sleeping bags from the damp fog and the drizzle. His feet so cold. His father yelling at him to keep up. They took a rest on a log, and a doe with a fawn walked right up to them. Fergie wanted to shoot them, but his father said no, they were helpless animals. The men deer, those we shoot, the women and children are free to go. And then they shot a man deer and they tracked it down after the bullet went in. It wasn’t a clean shot. It wasn’t heart. It was lungs, and the thing ran and ran until it collapsed from lack of blood. And his father strung it up from a tree upside down and cut the head off, letting the rest of the blood run out onto the ground. And then he took his knife and slit the sheath of leather holding the animal’s insides in, letting them all spill out onto the dirt. And the smell of cinnamon was gone, obscured by the smell of hot intestines. Fergie turned away, unable to control his nausea at the smell, his father digging through the cavity, hands black with blood. Fergie vomited and his father laughed. Did you puke, you little baby? Did you puke, little girl? Scooping out handfuls of organs, hacking through bones. The bastard weighs two hundred pounds. Packing the carcass out on his back, sweating and cursing. Fergie’s job was to hold the flashlight. The darkness was close and they had to get back to the truck. Fergie dropped the light and it broke. No more light. His father smacked him hard across the face, his nose bled, and when he turned around, his father smacked him hard across the back of his head. Don’t turn your back on me, you little prick, he said. So Fergie turned again and he got hit again. If I have to drop this deer, I’m gonna beat you, boy. So Ferguson led the way out of the woods trying to hold back his tears, shaking with rage and fear, his father and a dead deer following him. Gonna cry, little girl? We’ll get you a little pink dress. Gonna cry for us? Mama ain’t here for you? Go on, cry.

The sharp bark of a coyote snapped Ferguson out of his thoughts. He looked up to the dark woods. Something moved, branches rustled, and he caught a glimpse of an animal’s eyes. But it was gone again, as quick as that. Ferguson shuddered and hiked back up to the community house. He was looking forward to going home and getting some sleep, real sleep on a bed. He had made plenty of sacrifices for Thunder Bay; spending the night looking for evil spirits with a shaman was just another one. But at the end of the rainbow was a pot of gold. Ferguson knew there would be a big bonus if he could get the resort ready by the first of July. Money he could use to give his wife that new kitchen she wanted. The one he promised her when they bought the house fifteen years ago. The one with the wide plank floors and the island in the middle, even though he had no idea why anyone would want an island in their kitchen. That would be nice, he thought. Then, when the renovation was finished, maybe they would have this Livingstone guy over for dinner. It’s not bad to have an Indian for a friend. This guy seemed all right. It would be fun. They could all sit around drinking beer and laugh about that night when they ran the evil spirits out of Thunder Bay.

R
OBERT DROVE
J
ENNA’S CAR UP TO THE
R
EALITY
C
AFE ON
Broadway, as he did every Sunday. He automatically got two coffees and two muffins, even though Jenna had vanished the previous night and wouldn’t be eating hers. When the ritual becomes habitual. Maybe she’d come home today.

Robert had called her parents earlier in the morning, but they had no idea where she could have gone. Sally asked if he had done something to make her upset. Assumption of guilt, typical of the American judicial system. Of course, it must be
his
fault. No, he told them. He hadn’t done anything. He told them he thought she was upset about Bobby. Still.

When a loved one dies, one goes through many stages of grief. So they say. Anger, denial, despair, or whatever order they go in. Robert didn’t put much store in that. Grief is grief. Some people can deal with it on their own; others need help. What the helpers do is break the whole down into tiny little parts. Chunks. Each chunk, then, becomes manageable. When you’ve dealt with all the little chunks, the whole is gone. Robert dealt with his grief as a whole. Jenna had someone break it down for her.

Denial was the worst chunk. Jenna would wake up in the middle of the night and go to check on Bobby. She’d turn on the light in Bobby’s room and realize that he was gone. Robert would find her sitting on the floor of Bobby’s room, staring straight ahead with a faraway look in her eyes. That was the worst. It made Robert feel so powerless. He couldn’t fix it. He couldn’t do anything.

Then there was the next phase. Robert didn’t know if they had a clinical term for it. It basically consisted of sleeping with the TV on all night. What do you call that stage? Letterman, Conan, and E! Television, around the clock, twenty-four hours. Robert finally had to sleep in the other room. He was a pretty flexible guy, but he needed his sleep and he needed it to be quiet.

Then there was the relationship counselor phase. Robert still didn’t know how he got roped into that one. A couples therapist who caused Robert and Jenna to fight more than they had before they went to see him. You’re working it out, that idiot used to say. The problem with those people is that they don’t tell you
when
you’re going to be cured. They just keep on asking you for money. A real doctor puts you on a program. Take these antibiotics for fourteen days and your infection will be gone. But psychiatrists tell you it’s not as easy as that. It takes longer. Sure, it takes longer. It takes a long time to build an addition to a house. It costs a lot of money. If shrinks cured you, they’d be out of business and they couldn’t afford their sailboats. They have to create a dependence on the part of the patient.

It was one of those shrinks who gave Jenna the Valium. She couldn’t sleep at night. Had to have the TV blaring all night long, which kept Robert awake, but when Robert moved into the guest room she couldn’t sleep alone. So they gave her Valium. Wash it down with wine. They created a junkie, that’s what they did. Systematic and legal. And get this, they needed to hire
another
psychiatrist to get her off the Valium.
And
a specialist to keep her from going through withdrawal. Not from the Valium, from the
first
psychiatrist! Can you believe that? Psychiatrists who specialize in weaning patients away from their abusive psychiatrists. Health insurance doesn’t pay for that, by the way. And the ultimate insult, they wanted Robert to see a psychiatrist to help him deal with Jenna’s problem. His problem was dealing with the psychiatrists, not Jenna.

The old VW shuddered when he downshifted and turned into the driveway. He nudged the door closed with his hip and climbed the two brick steps to the back door. Holding the coffee bag in one hand and the muffin bag in his teeth, Robert opened the back door. As he set his things down on the kitchen table, he heard a long beep and the clicking and whirring of the answering machine. He ran to the bedroom and grabbed the phone, but it was too late. The person who called had left a message and had already hung up.

He pressed
PLAY
and waited for the tape to rewind. The voice that came on sounded strained, a little too cheerful and buoyant. It was Jenna.

“Hi, it’s me. Where are you? Look, sorry about last night, but . . . I’m . . . I’m going away for a few days. I need to get away. Don’t worry about me. I’ll call you when I get a chance. I love you.”

Robert could feel his heart thumping in his chest; he could hear it pound away. He listened to the message again.

She was outdoors somewhere. She sounded rushed, confused. Sorry about last night, I’m going away. That didn’t follow. If she was sorry about last night, she should be coming back. I need to get away. From what? From me? Get away to where? Was she calling from an airport? No, that would have been inside. Robert definitely heard birds in the background. Don’t worry about me. I’ll call you when I get a chance. What’s that supposed to mean? One of the basics of couples therapy is to work out problems verbally. You can’t run away. This didn’t make sense. Jenna loves to talk about problems. She could talk for days about their relationship. She wouldn’t just leave. She can’t sleep by herself. This is a woman who is so afraid of being alone she cannot sleep in a bed by herself. She didn’t come home last night, so she has no clothes or anything. Where could she go?

It’s her parents. They’re hiding her. She took a plane to New York and is with them.

No, that doesn’t make any sense. She would have had to wait until this morning to get a plane, and she’d be on it right now. How could she leave a message? Air-phone. And the plane is flying through a flock of geese with the windows open. A gaggle of geese. A flock of seagulls. I ran, I ran so far away.

Robert picked up the phone and dialed Jenna’s parents in New York. Jenna’s mother answered.

“Hello, Robert. Did you hear anything?”

“She left a message.”

“Left a message? You were out?”

“Well, I have to eat, you know.”

“Couldn’t you have ordered in?”

Spoken like a true New Yorker.

“Look, Sally, she left a message and it sounded very strange. She said she was going away for a few days. Where could she go? She has no clothes or anything. Tell me the truth, is she on her way to you?”

“Well, if she is, she certainly didn’t call first. But I can’t imagine. Why would she fly all the way across the country? Is there something going on between you two that we don’t know about?”

“No. I’m telling you, she freaked out last night. Went into some psychotic episode. Just like the old days.”

“Robert.” It was a man. Myron. Dad.

“Myron, I didn’t know you were on the line.”

“I’ve been listening. Are you implying that she’s back on those pills?”

“I’m not
implying
anything, Myron, I’m stating the facts. We live in a world of cause and effect. You figure it out.”

“Robert, please,” Sally broke in. “It’s been a year and you know she doesn’t take those pills anymore.”

“Sally, I have to be honest. I really don’t know
what
Jenna does anymore.”

“Are you sure she hasn’t been abducted?” Myron asked after a pause. Abducted? Carjacked? Kidnapped? “You said the message sounded strange.”

“Yeah, strange. But not
that
strange. Why would someone kidnap her and then let her call in?”

There was silence all around. Abducted. That was an absurd thought. Who would abduct her? Could it be possible?

“Robert, why don’t you call the police and find out how to report a missing person, then call us back.”

“But she’s not missing. She called and said she was getting away for a few days. That’s not missing. She knows where she is; she’s not telling anyone.”

There was silence. Then Myron.

“Robert, call the police.”

Robert hung up. Kidnapped? Crazy. But then again, every other possible explanation was equally crazy, so who knows? He picked up the phone and dialed the police.