Raven Stole the Moon (8 page)

T
HE LETTER ARRIVED FOUR DAYS LATER. IT WAS SHORT AND TO
the point:

Ferguson dropped the letter on his desk and sank his face into his hands. Damn. This was not what he needed right now. There were only eight weeks left until July first, and if he didn’t have a positive report from Livingstone, there would be cash flow problems. He steadfastly refused to ask his contractors to extend credit. It’s one thing to do business on a handshake with your friends; it’s another to do it with foreign investors.

It was too late to go find another shaman, and even then, what was the guarantee he wouldn’t say the same thing? He picked up the phone and dialed David’s number. He would have to muscle David a bit, make him write another letter explaining that the chances were equally good that there were no spirits at all.

David answered.

“Look, David, what’s the deal with this letter?”

“That’s my report,” David answered.

“But it doesn’t say anything.”

“It says enough.”

“I can’t go to the investors and say the project is off because some shaman said so.”

“I thought that’s why you hired me,” David said, with a bitter laugh.

“No, I hired you to take care of the problem. Make the spirits go away.”

There was a long pause.

“I can’t,” David finally said.

Ferguson was getting a little exasperated now. He never liked it when people said no to him. The construction business was full of that. Can I build on this soil? No. Can I do it for this amount? No. And you know what? When they think about it, the answer is always yes. “No” is the automatic default answer.

“What’s the problem?” Ferguson pushed on. “Do you want more money, is that it? Talk to me, David. What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem? You were there!” David exclaimed, incredulous.

Ferguson didn’t respond.

“You saw! You saw what happened to me.”

Again, Ferguson didn’t answer.

“Jesus.” David laughed. “Let me lay it out for you. That town is built on somebody else’s property. That’s why it’s a ghost town. There are spirits there. Very powerful spirits. And they don’t want a resort being built on top of them. You want me to write that in a report for your investors?”

Ferguson groaned. No damn luck on this project. Now he has an uppity witch doctor to deal with.

“There must be a way to get them to move.”

“They don’t move. You move. You want my recommendation? Take apart all your buildings and move them about two miles down the shore. Then you’ll be pretty safe, unless someone gets lost in the woods.”

“This is crazy.”

“You’re telling me? I’ve never seen this before.”

“But you’re a shaman. Can’t you cast a spell or something?”

“Cast a spell? Ferguson, the only reason I came back from there was because they let me.”

Ferguson groaned. Damn. This shouldn’t be a problem. Get the place cleansed or whatever they wanted, and move on. Why did it have to be some kind of major issue?

“You told me you weren’t just doing this to placate the locals,” David said.

“I’m not.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

Ferguson thought about whether or not to answer. He decided that he would.

“The investors wanted it.”

“So you don’t believe in any of it. You never did.”

Ferguson didn’t answer. The Fifth Amendment.

“Look, Ferguson,” David finally said. “You paid for my opinion as an expert. Here it is. Close the place down today and get out. If you open the resort, something bad will happen. Hell, something bad has already happened, but it has nothing to do with you.”

“What happened?” Ferguson asked.

David didn’t answer. It was none of Ferguson’s business.

“If you don’t tell me, how can I believe you?”

David thought about it. Education ends ignorance. His misfortune should at least be a sign to others.

“My wife had a miscarriage this morning,” he said. “Actually, they call it a spontaneous abortion at this stage.”

Ferguson didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry, but what does that have to do—”

“Take it as a sign, Ferguson.”

Well, that was the end of it. Now Ferguson was screwed. He could see his life evaporating before his eyes. This was the job of a lifetime. His last job. He would supervise the building, stay on as operations manager for a couple of years, and then retire. It was more money than he had ever made in his life. He had bought a new outboard, put some away in one of those retirement accounts, and was going to take out a loan to fix up his house. He deserved it, too. Sometimes you take shitty jobs knowing they’re shitty, but you do it anyway because you always figure things will equal out in the end. Well, this is the end. Now is the time for equaling out. He’d had a lifetime of hardship and canned beans. He wanted the good life. He
deserved
the good life. A Mexican vacation. A bed that didn’t sag in the middle. A kitchen his wife could cook in. Everyone else has so much money. Now that Ferguson was going to get a little bit, they all wanted to take it away. It wasn’t fair.

Screw the Tlingit. They’re practically extinct, anyway. And screw the Japanese. They made all their money cheating Americans. Screw them all. Livingstone’s miscarriage had nothing to do with Thunder Bay. He picked up the letter Livingstone had sent him. Unresolved spiritual activity. Screw that. The letter had Livingstone’s letterhead and his signature on it. Ferguson didn’t hesitate with his decision. A little cut-and-paste. A little Xerox magic. Once it got passed through a fax machine, nobody would ever know the difference. Type up the new letter.

These are desperate times, John Ferguson, he thought. And they demand decisive action.

T
HE PHONE JOLTED
R
OBERT AWAKE
. H
E ROLLED OVER AND
looked at the clock. Six a.m.

“Mr. Rosen, please,” a deep voice commanded.

“Who’s calling?”

“This is Sergeant Wald from the Bellingham Police Department.”

Robert snapped to. He sat up in the bed.

“Yes, this is Robert Rosen.”

“Mr. Rosen, we’ve impounded a black 1994 BMW 850i two-door registered to you.”

“Yes, that’s my car. Is my wife in it?”

“Excuse me?”

“I was hoping my wife was with the car.”

“Not that I know of. The vehicle was towed to the impound lot yesterday morning. We fed it into the computer just now, and it came up as a missing vehicle. Was it stolen?”

“No. The Seattle police said they put out an APB or something on it. My wife disappeared Saturday night with the car, and I haven’t heard from her since. The cops down here said they would put out an alert on the car because, technically, she’s not a missing person yet.”

“I see. Well, the vehicle was not damaged in any way that would indicate foul play. It was simply parked in a restricted zone.”

“How long had it been there?”

“As I said, the vehicle was impounded yesterday morning.”

“But no sign of my wife?”

“No, sir.”

“Okay. Well, thanks for the call.”

Robert started to hang up.

“Sir! Will you be picking up the vehicle today?”

“Today?”

“There’s a twenty-five-dollar-a-day storage charge, in addition to the towing fee.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Probably not today. I guess tomorrow.”

“That will be an additional twenty-five dollars.”

“What can I say?”

Robert smirked. Twenty-five dollars. Cheaper than a parking garage.

“We take Visa and MasterCard.”

“Great.”

Robert hung up. The car’s gone. Jenna’s gone. The car is back. Jenna is still gone. No calls, nothing. Maybe she was abducted. Call the cops. Yeah, right, they’re a big help. I believe the exact quote was, “If she’s over eighteen, she can leave you if she wants. The police have no obligation to find her for you.” If there was no foul play, no ransom note, then there’s no evidence that she was abducted. And if there’s no evidence, then that means she just decided to leave. She can leave if she wants. This is America, not China.

Robert went into the kitchen and put on some coffee. He wondered if there could be anything more frustrating than this. He wasn’t used to being out of control of his own destiny, forced to sit by the phone waiting for it to ring. To have to go in to work and pretend that everything was hunky-dory. That was annoying. Although at work he could at least get his mind off of it. He could clutter the scene, confuse himself by piling more and more on his desk until he was overwhelmed with things to do and had to concentrate exclusively on completing tasks. Eliminate any time to ponder the unknown, which was the where and why of it. Where, mostly. Where, and what the hell was she doing there? And why?
He
hadn’t done anything wrong, had he? That was the most aggravating—asking questions he couldn’t answer. Pondering questions is stupid. Acquiring answers, that is what Robert much preferred.

Robert took in the paper from the front doorstep and opened it while drinking a cup of coffee. Headline:
CAR HITS TREE KILLING THREE STUDENTS
. Headline:
WORST DROUGHT IN TEN YEARS
. Headline:
MILITANT RELIGIOUS CULT IN STANDOFF WITH FBI
.

Then it hit him. Cult. What do you do when a loved one disappears into a cult? You do what John Wilson did. You send someone after them. A few months ago, Steve Miller told Robert that John Wilson, a lawyer friend of theirs, had some problem with his daughter. She went away to college and joined a cult and disappeared. Wilson was really shaken up by it. Apparently he called some guy, some specialist, an investigator, who found his daughter and brought her back. The cops wouldn’t help Wilson because his daughter was eighteen, so he had to go to someone outside the law.

That’s the answer, then. Why be passive when you can be active? If Jenna had explained to Robert why she had to go, that would be one thing. If she had told him she needed a vacation or something, okay. But this was crazy. She just up and left. That could mean anything. She could have lost it. She might try something drastic. She might have gotten herself into trouble. She might be lying in a ditch somewhere, the victim of some mass murderer.

There’s not even a question on this one. Robert reached into his briefcase on the kitchen table and pulled out his electronic Rolodex. He punched up W. John Wilson. Home. He dialed. A sleepy voice answered.

“John? This is Robert Rosen. Sorry to call so early, but I have a real problem and I need your help.”

Robert told John Wilson everything, as clearly as he could.

“Well, Robert, this guy I hired was an expert. He found Cathy and took care of everything. She’s fine, now. Completely back to normal, sleeping in her old room and everything. This guy really knows what he’s doing.”

“How did he do it?”

“He told me not to ask. He made it clear that in cases like Cathy’s the end always justifies the means. And to be perfectly honest, he was absolutely right. Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, you know?”

“Yeah. I want him.”

“He cost us a bundle, though. You should know that going in. He wasn’t cheap.”

“Money is no object. I want my wife back.”

“Hold on. Let me get his number.”

Robert tapped his fingers nervously on the table while he waited for Wilson. He felt much better now. Action was always his strong suit. Jenna had to be
somewhere.
She couldn’t just disappear. And this guy would find her. If she had just gone away for a few days, Robert would know where she was and that she was okay. But if she
had
been abducted—or worse—well, Robert would be doing something. A man’s character is defined by his actions. And that’s exactly how Robert wanted to be defined. Action.

I
T WAS LATE, ABOUT TWO A.M., AND
J
ENNA STOOD ON THE PARKING
deck waiting for the ferry to dock in Wrangell. She hadn’t realized that the boat was getting into Wrangell that late. But at this point she didn’t care what time it was; all she wanted was to get out into the fresh air, feel the terra firma under her feet. Jenna had already said her good-byes to Debbie and Willie. They looked so sad when she told them she would be leaving in the darkness of night. Willie went down to the cafeteria and got a couple of chocolate cupcakes and the three of them celebrated their journeys and wished each other success.

Jenna was startled by a very loud grinding noise. She turned and saw the huge metal door on the port side of the ship sliding sideways. The big steel gears clawed into each other, and the friction of the door on its rails made a painful wail. The dogs in their cages howled in harmony with the door, and Jenna felt as if she were in some asylum for the acoustically depraved.

As the door continued to open, Jenna could see the shore moving past the boat outside. They were about fifty yards away from land, moving parallel with the beach. She heard a loud rumbling and then felt the vibrations of a propeller changing directions. Another painful noise, and the deck of the boat vibrated so hard it felt as though it would come apart under Jenna’s feet. The ferry slowed, drifting closer to the land.

An old woman, apparently the only other passenger getting off the boat, stood about twenty feet away from Jenna. She was little and round, with long, stringy gray hair. Her face was brown and textured, like a soft leather bag. Her pale eyes poked out from under thick eyebrows. At her feet were two large duffel bags. She was wearing an aluminum-framed backpack and holding a rectangular wooden box at her side. Jenna was surprised by her load.

The woman suddenly looked up at Jenna. Jenna smiled and nodded, but the woman didn’t respond. She stared at Jenna for a moment, then returned her gaze to the darkness outside.

The dock came into view outside the door, only a few feet away from the ship. Jenna saw a huge rope that was looped over a cleat on the dock pull taut, and then she felt the boat ease to a stop. A man on the dock worked some electric controls that lowered a ramp onto the parking deck. One of the boat workers whistled at Jenna and the old woman and waved to them. Jenna moved quickly to the door and up the ramp onto the dock.

The transition from a purely mechanical environment to a purely natural one was jarring. It was like stepping into a different world. The cool air rushed at Jenna as she walked out onto the dock and her eyes adjusted to the new darkness. The woods in front of her were strangely quiet, a vacuum of sound, countering the noise of the ferry with a sucking silence.

Jenna headed up the dock toward the road. Off to the right, she could see some houses and, farther along, the beginnings of Wrangell, the bulk of which was around the bend. She remembered that there was a hotel just before town and she prayed that it was still open for business.

The moon was out and the sky was clear. Jenna walked past the dark houses in silence, glancing around at her surroundings. Across from the dock there had been only a few houses, tucked into the trees and separated from each other. But as she approached town, the houses grew closer together. They all looked quite a bit alike: two stories, a covered porch, slat siding, tar shingles. Most were in pretty run-down condition. One, up ahead
,
was in terrible shape. It listed to one side; its windows were boarded; the paint was completely peeled. Jenna recognized it right away. It was her grandmother’s old house.

She stopped before the house and examined it in the darkness. It had been abandoned for years, and it showed its age. Still, there was something distinctive about it. Jenna remembered when she had come up on the ferry in high school. Then, as now, the ferry had gotten in at night. Jenna’s grandmother was sitting in her nightgown on the front porch, waiting for Jenna to arrive. How creepy it was, those many years ago, to approach the house and see a white-haired old lady sitting in a metal rocking chair talking to herself. Jenna had felt very uneasy at the time, a feeling that was echoed now for no apparent reason. For Jenna’s grandmother was dead. And the house was dead, too. Sitting empty for nearly a decade.

The old woman from the ferry was catching up with Jenna. It was slow going for her, with all of her luggage. She had ingeniously clipped the straps of her two duffle bags together, and she was dragging them behind her like a train. Still, she labored under her load and Jenna felt compelled to offer to help.

“Are you going far?” she called out to the old woman. ”I could help you with your bags.”

The woman paused and looked up. She considered the offer for a moment and then pointed straight ahead.

“Up to the city dock,” she croaked.

Jenna grabbed the handles of the two duffels and tried to lift them, but she quickly realized why the old woman was dragging them. They were tremendously heavy. So Jenna took hold of the straps and began to drag the bags after the old woman.

The two of them moved up the street in silence. Soon, Front Street opened up into a kind of square. Ahead, off to the left, Jenna could see Main Street and its stores. Directly to the right, built out over the water on pilings, was a large, dark building, which they headed toward. As they passed it, Jenna saw a sign that said “Stikine Inn,” and she was relieved that it looked open. They continued another twenty yards to the edge of the water and then onto another dock that projected out into a bay. The old woman stopped.

“I’ll wait here for my son.”

Jenna let go of the strap. Her arm suddenly felt light, and she was relieved to be done with her task. She leaned back against the railing.

“Thank you for your help,” the old woman said.

“Is that all?”

The old woman nodded. In the darkness, Jenna tried to look at the old woman’s face, but it was hidden in the shadows.

“Well, you’re welcome,” Jenna said, gathering herself. ”I guess I’m going to try to get a room.”

“You’re staying at the hotel?” the woman asked quickly.

Jenna nodded. “I’m hoping to.”

“It’s a nice hotel. You’ll have to ring the bell to wake up Earl, though. It’s late.”

“I just ring the bell?”

The old woman nodded.

“Breakfast is free. Eggs cost extra.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you want eggs with breakfast, they cost extra. I always eat eggs at breakfast.”

“That’s nice,” Jenna said. The woman didn’t appear altogether with it. A little scattered and distracted.

“Is this as far as you’re going?” Jenna asked. The dock didn’t seem like a final destination. That, and the woman’s strangeness prompted Jenna’s question. She wanted to be sure the woman wasn’t crazy and lost with someone waiting for her somewhere else.

“My son will pick me up in the morning. I’ll wait here.”

“I see,” Jenna said. “Well, good night, then.”

Jenna started to turn to leave, when the old woman spoke again.

“Where did you get that necklace?”

Jenna reflexively put her hand to the silver charm around her neck.

“Some friends of mine gave it to me as a gift.”

The faceless woman nodded.

“My son made it.”

Of course. Jenna realized that this was the strange old woman that Willie and Debbie talked about. They had purchased the necklace from her.

“It’s very beautiful,” Jenna said. “Could you tell me what it is?”

The old woman reached for the charm and held it a moment in her thick fingers.

“The kushtaka.”

“Yes, that’s what they said. What is the kushtaka? Is it a Tlingit legend?”

The woman pushed her duffel bags together to make a kind of seat and dropped down onto them, stretching her legs out in front of her.

“A legend, yes. It’s a story to frighten children and keep them from straying too far from home. Do you have a cigarette?”

“Sorry, I don’t smoke.” Jenna shrugged. “What about the kushtaka?”

“The kushtaka? What do you want to know? They are spirits.”

“What kind?”

“Otter people. They are very powerful. If you believe in them, that is. They watch over the water and the forests and rescue lost souls. Do you believe in them?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never heard of them.”

Jenna had heard Tlingit stories from her grandmother, but she didn’t remember a kushtaka. There was one about a man who married a bear, and one about a boy who killed a monster and burned the body and that’s where mosquitoes came from.

“They take the souls to the kushtaka villages and make them into kushtaka. They are soul-stealers.”

“Really. Is there a story?”

“Of course. Lots.”

“Can you tell me one?”

“Which one? How they began?”

“Yes. How they began.”

“I know it. It was after the flood. Raven had made a flood to kill all the bad people. There were too many of them. He wanted to clean the world. But he couldn’t kill the bad people without killing the good ones, too. So everyone died. Even Raven’s mother, and that made Raven very sad. He loved his mother, and he was very sad.”

The woman unzipped one of her bags, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. Jenna smiled. Free cigarettes always taste better than ones you pay for.

“One day, after the flood was gone, Raven was walking on the beach collecting stones and he heard someone singing his name. He followed the singing until he found some land otters playing in the sand.

“ ‘Who is calling me?’ Raven asked.

“ ‘Sit on my back,’ one of the otters said, ‘and I will take you to where you are being called.’

“ ‘But you will drown me,’ Raven said. He was very afraid of the water because he couldn’t swim.

“ ‘Don’t fear,’ the otter said, ‘you’ll be safe with me.’

“So Raven sat on the land otter, and, even though he tried to pay attention to where they were going, he became very drowsy and fell asleep. When he awoke, he found himself in a village with many people.

“Raven walked along the shore of this strange land until he came upon his mother. He was very happy to see her because he thought she had drowned in the flood with everyone else. Raven asked his mother how she had come to this land, and she told him that when the waters rose, the land otters rescued her and took her to this place where she was treated very well.

“Well, Raven was so happy that the land otters had saved his mother that he gave them a gift. From then on, the land otters could change into any shape they desired, just like Raven could. They could be a person or an otter or a fish or anything they wanted. And with this gift came a job. Raven told the otters that they must watch over the forests and the seas and rescue anybody who might drown or freeze to death. And then Raven gave the land otters their name. He called them kushtaka.”

The old woman smiled up at Jenna, and Jenna saw that there were only four teeth in her mouth.

“That’s a nice story,” Jenna said. “But it isn’t very scary.”

“You’re not afraid?”

“No.”

“That’s because you’ve never seen one.”

“What do they look like?”

The woman shrugged.

“Like anyone. Like me. I could be a kushtaka and you could be under my spell right now. I could lead you to my den and then you would be trapped forever.”

The woman cackled in a comical way and Jenna laughed.

“You’re a kushtaka?”

“Do you want to come with me?”

“What?”

“My son is coming in his boat. You could come with us.”

“No, thank you.”

“You see?” the old woman snorted. “If I were a kushtaka, you would not be able to say no.”

“Ah, I see. Well,” Jenna yawned, “I should be going.”

“Give me some money.”

Jenna was startled. “What?”

“Give me some money. I told you the story you wanted. Now you have to pay me.”

Jenna was surprised by this new development, but she didn’t want to argue. The woman
had
told her the story, and money was probably more important to her than to Jenna. Besides, Jenna just wanted to get a room and get to sleep. She took a five-dollar bill out of her wallet and handed it to the woman.

“You want to hear another?”

“No, thank you. I have to get to bed. But thanks anyway.”

“Don’t get lost in the woods or the kushtaka will steal your soul.”

The woman laughed grimly and Jenna felt uneasy.

“I’ll be careful,” Jenna said, pulling her backpack over one shoulder.

“You won’t know,” the woman said.

“Won’t know what?”

“When they’re after you.”

Jenna smiled.

“Thank you for the story. I’ll be careful,” she said, and started up the dock. She suddenly had the feeling that the old woman was crazy. It was giving her the creeps. When she reached the end of the dock, the old woman called for her. Jenna thought about ignoring it, but instead she turned.

“The eyes,” the old woman called out, pointing toward her own eye. “They never change.” And then she cackled again, and an intense feeling of fear passed through Jenna. She had to get to the hotel and get a room. The whole scene was beginning to scare her.

Jenna hurried to the Stikine Inn and climbed the five steps to the front porch. It was dark inside. Jenna opened the screen and tried the door. It was unlocked. She slipped inside the dim lobby and closed the door behind her, feeling a little safer already.

The lobby was lit by a single small lamp on the front desk. Jenna approached and saw the bell, which she rang. The sound echoed through the lobby. Nothing stirred. This was bad. Jenna was getting freaked out. The old woman had scared Jenna. Not with her story but with her behavior. Jenna rang the bell again. Still no answer.

Jenna looked around the lobby for a chair she could curl up on for the night. There was a bench near the staircase. An old, wooden telephone booth. A couple of metal folding chairs. Toward the water was a dining room. But nothing looked very comfortable. Certainly not enough to sleep on. Behind the desk was a key rack with all the room keys on it. It didn’t look like the place was full. Jenna thought about helping herself and paying in the morning. But before she did, she tried the bell one more time.