by Garth Stein
“Only a shaman can rescue a soul. Only a shaman.”
Jenna stood stiffly, her twisted ankle throbbing. People around her, all trying to help, stood back in amazement as she scrambled toward the hole in the room. She had to get out into the sun and the fresh air. She couldn’t stay in there, crammed into a wooden box, a coffin, a hot, sweaty room of breathing people. She shoved her head through the entrance hole and bumped into someone. She couldn’t stop to apologize; she didn’t have time.
“Hey!”
She turned. It was the kid from the coffee shop. What was his name? He looked like an actor. Jenna felt sick. She was woozy and in a daze, staggering toward the bridge, limping on her newly sprained ankle. But that wasn’t what was making her sick. It was the truth. It was the truth that churned violently in her stomach. Unadulterated, pure knowledge that was so clean, so harsh in its message, it was like getting punched in the stomach. It was the truth that twisted and turned and yanked at her insides, demanding that she turn herself inside out. When she reached the bridge, the smell of dead fish sealed the deal. She leaned over the railing of the footbridge and vomited into the stagnant stream.
She finished her business and turned to see a massive group of well-intentioned people coming toward her, shouting words of encouragement and concern. She panicked. She lurched across the bridge and headed toward Eddie’s house as fast as she could. She had to hurry. She couldn’t face those people. She couldn’t look them in the eye and tell them that everything was okay. Because she knew the truth. She knew what had happened.
Bobby wasn’t dead. Her son hadn’t drowned.
Her boy was with the kushtaka.
Chapter 24
TWENTY YEARS AGO, SHERIFF LARSON THOUGHT OF HIMSELF AS Andy Griffith in Mayberry. With nothing more than an old beat-up police car and a couple of jail cells, he was the law and order in a crime-free environment. His chief duty was to break up the occasional barroom fight between drunks. The punishment meted out was always the same: sleep it off behind bars and clean the cell for the next weekend.
Things sure had changed in Wrangell. It’s not the good old days anymore. At one time, beer cans were the garbage cleaned up after kids got together in the woods. Now it was crack vials. New drugs, cheap and quick, had spread through Alaska, converting law-abiding citizens into addicts. Young transients actually broke into people’s houses to steal things, something never before heard of in Wrangell.
Other things had changed, as well. Sheriff Larson had a new car. A fancy Mustang with a snappy paint job and those V-shaped lights on the roof designed for aerodynamics. The town bought it for him, hoping it would intimidate lawbreakers into toeing the line. It didn’t work.
The town also bought Sheriff Larson three deputies with 9mm pistols. That didn’t help, either. He tried to explain to them that crime is like disease. If you only treat the symptoms, you will not conquer the sickness. Western medicine as well as Western law were both sorely lacking in their insight. You must treat the body as a whole. You must start from the first step, the first building block, and grow healthy. If a tree grows crooked, you may be able to straighten it out after years of work, but, deep down in its roots, it is still a crooked tree. The same with a sick society.
Sheriff Larson was taught all of this by a girl he loved dearly back in the jungle. A beautiful Vietnamese girl who taught him how to be a man. The Marines had taught him to be an animal in three short months. It took Mai two years to teach him how to be a man. Two years, and her life. It took her sacrifice to a little defoliation chemical for Larson to really understand what she was saying. A painful death from a cancer that killed her from the inside out. A chemical in a canister that he had dropped against his will, came back to take away what he loved. Ironic? No. Irony is an American invention. This was a lesson learned. A man must stand up for his beliefs. Everyone is put onto this earth to learn a lesson. Larson was lucky enough to recognize that. And, lesson learned, he returned to his hometown to work in the public sector, making an attempt to heal the sickness in his society.
Every day in the early morning hours, Sheriff Larson would cruise toward town in his sleek hot rod. He lived way out on the highway, past where the pavement stopped and the gravel began, alone on a point overlooking the water. His was the only house within miles, which was how he liked it. And every morning at six he allowed himself the small pleasure of opening up all eight cylinders of the V-block engine and tearing down the highway at a hundred. He felt he owed it to the town to keep the car ready for action, in case something exciting did happen one day.
The road was always empty. Larson took care around corners, as he had almost T-boned a deer one morning, something that could have killed both him and the hapless animal. But in the straights, which were plentiful, he really let the car unwind, until the turbo-boost filled the cab with its delightful, satisfying whine.
It was on this dewy morning at 5:53 a.m., that, accelerating to eighty-three miles per hour, Sheriff Larson suddenly crunched down so hard on his brake pedal he thought his foot would go through the floor and hit the pavement. It was on this morning that the Mustang’s automatic braking system kicked in for the first time, pumping the brakes on and off at such a rapid-fire rate that the car stopped in a straight line, never once locking up its wide Eagle tires on the damp pavement. It was in this moment that Sheriff Larson opened his eyes and saw, frozen in the road less than three feet from the front bumper, not a frightened doe but a child. A young, white, male child, approximately six years old, four feet tall, weighing fifty pounds, medium-length, dark curly hair, and dark eyes opened wider than one would think humanly possible. Frozen. Like a deer in the headlights.
Sheriff took a deep breath and shifted into PARK. His heart raced as he wondered what the hell would have happened if he had flattened this little boy on the pavement. Another road pizza for the maggots and birds. He stepped out of the car and looked at the child, who stood there without moving.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
But the child didn’t answer. The child was scared out of his wits. He moved his head like an animal, the Sheriff thought, snapping his attention from the sheriff to the front bumper to the woods off to the right of the car. Sheriff looked to the woods and saw the other object of the boy’s attention. It was a German shepherd. Crouched and growling, just off the road. He recognized the dog. It was the same dog that woman had at the Stikine Inn. The dog barked sharply and ran onto the road. The boy reacted by retreating quickly to the opposite side of the road, to the edge of the woods.
“Wait, hold on.” Sheriff Larson wasn’t clear on the dynamic of the situation yet, but there was really only one obvious possibility: the kid was running from the dog. “Hey, boy, come here,” he called for the dog, who barked more viciously at the boy.
Sheriff Larson turned to the boy.
“Are you all right, son?”
He moved toward the boy, figuring he could get between the two of them. The boy flinched, and the dog went straight for him, bursting across the road and lunging, snapping at the boy’s arm. The boy dodged out of the way and swung his fist at the dog’s head, hitting him square. The blow didn’t seem to be hard, but evidently it was in the proper place to force the dog to pull back. The boy turned and bolted into the woods just as Sheriff Larson dove for the dog and grabbed his collar. The dog howled and struggled against the sheriff but could not free itself. Sheriff Larson was a big man and he picked the dog up and carried it to the car, flinging it onto the backseat and slamming the door.
Sheriff Larson looked into the woods for the boy, but he couldn’t see him. He called out for the boy, but there was no response. On the backseat of the car, the dog was going crazy. It was throwing itself at the window, trying desperately to get out. The sheriff ventured into the woods slightly, calling for the child but always keeping the car in sight, not wanting to get lost. He knew how tricky these woods could be. Full of deception. The woods could draw a person in and turn him around and around
until there was no way he could find his way out.
The boy was nowhere to be seen, and the sheriff was uneasy about the whole situation. What was the boy doing out here in the first place? He went back to his car. The dog had calmed down, but the sheriff was still glad there was a wire barrier between the back and front seats. As he drove to town, he figured he’d send a couple of deputies out to scour the area, but he didn’t expect to find anything. The kid was quick and he didn’t look hurt at all, so he was probably already safely home and that was the end of that. Now he had to figure out what to do about this damn dog.
Chapter 25
JENNA WENT BACK TO EDDIE’S HOUSE AND MADE AN ICE PACK by wrapping a plastic baggie of ice in a washcloth. She draped the afghan from the sofa around her shoulders, took a seat outside on the wooden porch bench, and propped the ice pack on her throbbing ankle.
She did all of this with grim determination, a posture she had adopted to combat her anxiety over her mental state. Jenna was confused. She didn’t know what was happening to her. As she saw it, there were two distinct possibilities. One: the soul of her son had been stolen by Tlingit spirits. Otter spirits, no less. Furry little creatures that break open clams on their stomachs and frolic in the bay. Or, two: she was slipping down a very steep, greased metal sheet into a boiling vat of insanity. The two options were mutually exclusive. There was no middle ground. Maybe I’m a little crazy and there are some spirits. No. It was either/or. And Jenna was determined to find out which.
Mind you, she was not without a sense of humor about the whole thing. How could she not be? She suspected that if she took herself too seriously someone might come along and lock her up in the loony bin. Which is why she planned to tell Eddie everything. Get it all out. Tell him that she, too, thought it was a crazy idea, but she still had to get to the bottom of it. That way, nobody could accuse her of being crazy. She would already have done it herself.
Then Jenna smiled because she noticed Eddie walking toward her—more like bouncing, actually—carrying a plastic bag. She smiled and closed her eyes because she was hoping he couldn’t read her face. Her face that revealed the crush that she had on him. She hoped he wouldn’t ask about her ever-present smile. After all, who could resist smiling? This whole thing was a crack-up. A regular comedy hour. Not only was she going insane, she had gotten a massive crush on the first guy she met.
Eddie arrived on the porch and stood before Jenna, whose eyes were still closed.
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?” Jenna played along.
“Artichoke.”
“Artichoke who?”
“Arty chokes when he eats too fast.”
Jenna opened her eyes and laughed. “That’s the best you can do?”
“The only other knock-knocks I know are pornographic,” he said. “What happened to your foot?”
“I fell into the fire pit.”
“You fell into the fire pit? What fire pit?”
“At Chief Shakes’s house.”
He nodded. “Smooth move, Claude. Hungry?”
She nodded but didn’t get up. She wanted to get it over with. She wanted not to have to worry about it anymore.
“Can we talk for a minute?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Sure. Let me put these in the refrigerator.”
He went into the house and made some noise opening and closing the refrigerator door. Then he came back out and sat on the railing.
“What’s up?”
Jenna cleared her throat. Her heart was beating quickly. She dove in.
“Okay,” she started. “You know I’m married, right?”
Eddie nodded.
“Right. Well. All right. The last time I was in Alaska was a couple of years ago—actually, a couple of years to the week—when my whole family came up for a vacation. Me, my husband, and my son.”
“Oh, I see,” Eddie said, slightly surprised. She had never mentioned a son before. Her telling him about it had certain implications, but he wasn’t sure what they were. Everything about Jenna was a mystery to Eddie.
“But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. There’s more. When we were here on that vacation, my son drowned. He fell off a boat and drowned.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry.”
“No—that’s not the point. Look, Eddie, a lot of weird stuff has been happening to me since I got here. Some weird guy chased me through the woods. You can see the scratches yourself. I think there’s someone watching me in the shower. And then Rolfe told that story today—”
“The kushtaka?”
“Yeah, the kushtaka. And it all kind of makes sense to me, you know? But it doesn’t make sense, also. You know what I’m saying?”
He nodded again. All this nodding.
“In other words,” Jenna went on, taking a deep breath. She had to say it all at once. Get it all out. “I think that the story of the kushtaka could have something to do with the death of my son and I want to investigate that possibility. The man at Chief Shakes’s house said that I have to find a shaman. So that’s what I want to do. And I’m telling you this because I want to be straight with you and I know you’re going to think I’m crazy and you’ll probably want me to leave. Right? You’re afraid I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and stab you in the heart with a butcher knife because I think you’re one of them. But don’t worry, I won’t. You’re not one of them and I’m not one of them, but somebody is one of them and that’s why I need to find a shaman.”
She had to stop. She was out of breath. She didn’t know what else to say. She didn’t know if Eddie understood.
“This is the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life,” she said slowly, her voice shaking. She could feel her emotions right on the surface, just beneath the skin. She didn’t want to lose control, but she wanted Eddie to see. “It’s about Bobby. My son. Do you understand?”
He waited for her to reassemble herself with several deep breaths. And then he nodded.
“I understand.”
They sat quietly for a minute in the empty evening.
“Are you okay?” Eddie asked.
“I’m okay. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” He looked over at her and waited for eye contact. “Thanks for telling me.”
“I had to tell you.”
“You didn’t have to tell me, but you did. Thanks.”
“I wanted to,” Jenna said. Another moment passed between them.
“You know,” she went on, “I’m not really sure how I got here. I left my husband in the middle of the night and ended up on the ferry and then sitting here with you, and I don’t know how it happened. And all of a sudden this thing I’ve never heard of my entire life is all over the place. The kushtaka. And I can’t ignore it. I don’t know if I’m having a nervous breakdown or I’m going insane or I’m just grasping for anything I can find. I don’t know.”
“I don’t think sanity is an issue.”
“That’s good to hear. But—and I feel bad about laying this whole trip on you. I don’t even know you, it’s not fair of me, but—”
“Go ahead.”
“When people lose someone they love, they usually turn to religion. It’s a documented thing. I’ve learned this from two years of therapy and half a dozen therapists. They all say the same thing. People turn to religion. The therapists even encourage it. Because if you believe in a higher being, you can give up any responsibility for the death, see? You can say, ‘Well, it was meant to be,’ and then wash your hands of any guilty feelings and then you won’t torment yourself. But I didn’t turn to religion because I don’t believe that. I was there. I saw what happened. It wasn’t meant to be. It was wrong.”
“And now, the kushtaka.”
“I come up here on a lark, and every single person I meet tells me another story about the kushtaka. I think I see a kushtaka. Maybe two. I’m not a big believer in the supernatural, but I think something’s going on here so I have to look into it. I need to
find a shaman. This is my turning to religion. This is what they wanted me to do and now I’m doing it. It’s just not how they wanted me to do it.”
She laughed and rubbed her face.
“Oh, Eddie. Am I crazy, Eddie?”
“No, you’re not crazy, you just have an enthusiastic imagination. Look, if I had a dollar for everyone who had a kushtaka story in Wrangell, I’d have two thousand dollars.”
“What’s that mean?”
“There are only two thousand people on the island. Everyone’s got a story. Look, Jenna, I’m glad you told me all of this, don’t get me wrong. But you’ve been through a lot. Your son. It must be really hard. I understand that. But trust me, there are no kushtaka. It’s a legend. They don’t exist. I’ve slept in the woods around here a million times when I was a kid. I’ve never seen one. Why don’t they want me?”
She buried her face in her hands. She didn’t know. That was the question, all right. But she didn’t know the answer. But did that mean they didn’t exist?
“Oh, Eddie, you’re right. I know you’re right. But what if I want to find a shaman anyway? Would you be mad?”
He laughed.
“Go ahead. What do I care? But, Jenna, you know—look at me now—you know and I know that there are no kushtaka. It’s a myth. A story to scare kids. Everything that’s been scaring you is in your mind. You know that, right?”
She nodded. He was like her dad explaining away the big bad bogeyman. ”I know.”
“And if you go looking for a shaman to help you, you’ll probably find some crazy Indian who’ll dance around for you and charge you a thousand dollars to say some incantation or something. Sounds like a waste of money to me.”
Jenna scratched her head. Eddie was right. Where would she find a shaman, anyway? In the Yellow Pages? Does Alaska even have a Yellow Pages? He would just be a fake and charge her for doing nothing.
“You’re right.”
“So, do you feel better? Sometimes talking it out helps because you hear how ridiculous it sounds.”
