Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein

  Nothing was said between the two men in the car on the way to town. Robert was feeling a little disoriented from the bumpy flight and he didn’t quite have a handle on how to treat Joey. Was he a colleague or a guide? Shouldn’t he have some kind of written report to present to Robert? Whatever. Robert didn’t really care. He was very nervous about his impending confrontation with Jenna and didn’t want to think about how to behave in front of a guy he was paying a lot of money. So he closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat.

  After a short trip the car stopped in front of the town hall. Joey paid the driver, got a receipt, and he and Robert climbed out of the car. They went into the vestibule of a standard-issue government building, complete with pale green walls and cheap gray carpeting. To the right was a glass door with a sheriff’s star painted on it.

  “Where are we going?” Robert asked.

  “To see the sheriff.”

  “Why?”

  “You want to find your wife, don’t you?”

  Joey threw open the door to the sheriff’s office and went inside.

  Robert was confused. He thought his wife was here in town. Now they don’t know where she is? Reluctantly, he followed Joey into the office.

  Joey was talking with a receptionist, an older woman, who listened to his complaint. He was holding up his bandaged hand as if it hurt quite a bit, although this seemed to be an act, as he hadn’t paid any mind to it in the taxi.

  “. . . The dog bit me, and now I can’t find the woman or the dog. I think they left town. I have to find them so they can test the dog for rabies.”

  The woman looked at the bandages closely and shook her head skeptically.

  “Do dogs even get rabies anymore?”

  “It seemed like a rabid dog to me, all frothy at the mouth and with such a quick temper. I reached down to pet it and it bit me.” Joey turned to Robert. “And this here’s the woman’s husband. He’s concerned that the dog may turn on his wife and attack her. I think it’s real important that we find them.”

  The woman screwed up her face in thought, then she excused herself and went to the door behind the front counter that said SHERIFF LARSON on it. She knocked and stepped inside.

  Joey turned to Robert.

  “Play along. You two are on vacation. She came up first and you were supposed to meet her, but now she’s gone and you’re worried.”

  Robert nodded. They could hear two muffled voices discussing the problem, and then Sheriff Larson appeared in the doorway.

  “Was it a shepherd?”

  “Yes, sir,” Joey answered. “Looked real friendly, but nearly took my thumb clean off.”

  “Did you go to the hospital?”

  Joey looked down and shuffled his feet.

  “Yes, sir, but I don’t have any health insurance and a doctor at the hospital told me that rabies shots cost a lot of money, but a vet could test the dog for only twenty-five bucks.”

  “Who are you?” The sheriff turned and leveled his sights on Robert. Robert panicked.

  “I’m Jenna’s husband.”

  “Who’s Jenna?”

  “She’s the lady with the dog,” Joey explained.

  “She’s the one who’s staying with Eddie Fleming?”

  “Yeah, that’s his name. Eddie. Yeah.”

  “So, what’s the problem? Go get the dog tested,” the sheriff said, simply. “You pay for it,” he added, looking at Robert.

  “But they’re gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “They took off in an airplane yesterday.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “That’s why we’re here. We don’t know. But I saw this old guy fly off with them in a seaplane and then he came back alone, so he must know where they are. But he won’t tell me. He says it’s top secret.”

  “That must be Field,” the sheriff said.

  “We thought maybe you could ask him. You know, tell him it’s important. We figured maybe he’d listen to you. My hand really hurts, and Robert, here, is worried about his wife alone with that rabid dog.”

  The sheriff ran his hand over his face and stifled a yawn. He scratched his cheek.

  “That dog has been more trouble than it’s worth,” he said.

  “Will you come and talk to Field?” Joey encouraged.

  “Yeah,” the sheriff said, exhaling, “I’ll come.”

  JENNA HAD BIGGER PROBLEMS than that. Bigger problems than those that could be solved by a dish of macaroni and cheese with hot dogs cut up in it. Her problems were foundational. About faith and belief. Did Moses part the Red Sea? Did Christ heal the infirm? Is there room for more than one religion, or is it all the same and people just interpret it differently? What makes it reasonable to believe that otter creatures steal souls? Is it the possibility of salvation? If so, whose?

  Eddie ate his macaroni and cheese.

  “How much of this do you believe?” Jenna asked him.

  Eddie looked up from a hot dog chunk and shrugged.

  “You don’t believe any of it, do you?” she said.

  Eddie shrugged again. “I don’t know. How much do you believe?”

  “I don’t believe any of it. I’m beyond belief. Belief is an option and this isn’t an option for me. It’s real. I don’t believe any of it. I know it.”

  Eddie nodded and continued eating, but Jenna wasn’t going to let him duck out of an answer.

  “So, all that stuff David told us,” she said. “You don’t believe any of it?”

  “Come on, Jenna. I mean, you’re talking about a religion that’s basically extinct. If I told you that Zeus had stolen the soul of your son, would you believe it?”

  “Maybe. If the context was right.”

  “Well, there you go,” Eddie said. “I wouldn’t. So you’re a believer and I’m a disbeliever. That’s okay. It’s what we call religious tolerance. We practice it in the United States.”

  “Okay then, smart guy, if you don’t believe it and you’re just exercising your religious tolerance, why are you here?”

  Eddie smiled and put down his fork.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He gazed into her eyes for a moment. “Well, you think about it and try to figure it out yourself.”

  Jenna squinted at Eddie. So strange. He looked so familiar to her. She could draw a picture of his face with her eyes closed. But she knew nothing about him. On what level are people attracted to each other? Is it looks or personality or something else? Something invisible. A force that we don’t know about. Some organ in our bodies can sense energy fields and that’s what draws people together. Maybe it’s the appendix. Or it’s pheromones. Maybe they really work.

  “Who are you?” she asked Eddie, suddenly.

  “Me? I’m just a man,” he said.

  “Give me the details. Give me the background.”

  “Born and raised in Alaska. I have a brother who lives in Tacoma. I fish for a living.”

  “Parents?”

  “Dead.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I didn’t like them anyway.”

  “That’s not nice to say.” Jenna was surprised at how cold Eddie sounded with that comment.

  “Yeah, maybe not,” he said. “But then, if they had been nice to me once in their lives, maybe I would be nice to them now that they’re dead. As it is, I have no fond memories, so . . .”

  “What do you do in your spare time?”

  “Nothing. I have no friends, no family, no hobbies, nothing.”

  “You’re a cipher.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A nonentity. A blank page.”

  “That’s right. I’m a cipher.”

  “That sounds boring.”

  “No, it’s good to be a cipher,” he said. “No commitments, no obligations. I don’t have to smile at people I don’t like. I just am.”

  “Like a monk.”

  “Exactly like a monk. That’s it. I’m a monk. Sometimes I
sing chants, but otherwise, I’m a cipher.”

  Jenna looked into Eddie’s eyes for a long time. His face was neutral, but his eyes were smiling, and she knew he was putting her on.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You don’t?”

  He folded his napkin and set it next to his plate of macaroni and cheese.

  “So, what’s the next step?” Eddie asked.

  Jenna shook her head. “I have no clue.”

  She looked out the window. Through the painting of the blue fish holding the knife and fork, Jenna watched an old Indian man trudge up the muddy street, his hair in his face, and she admired his sense of purpose. He had a destination; she could tell by his steps and the way he examined the ground before him as he walked. It was not a question of where he would go, but how he would get there. Jenna wanted to feel that sense of purpose. She had thought she had found it and that David Livingstone would lead her through it, but he had failed her. And now she was back where she started, feeling the dread of knowing her past life was reaching out for her, grabbing for her. The past week had been a series of forward- and backward-looking moments, a series of peaks and valleys, the travel of which was made more difficult by her not knowing if the end was in sight.

  “If we’re going back tonight, we should go before the rain comes, if the rain is coming,” Eddie said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “What if the rain doesn’t come?” Jenna asked.

  “I’m all for staying. As a cipher, I can be happy anywhere. But I sense that your mind is somewhere else, figuring out where the next shaman will come from or something. So, you tell me. I’ll call Field and he can be here in forty-five minutes, or we can go upstairs and fool around.”

  “As much as I’d like to go fool around, my mind is somewhere else—”

  “I knew that.”

  “So I guess we should go back.”

  “I figured.” Eddie stood up. “If you see Motherfish, ask her for a piece of that blueberry pie, will you?” And he headed off toward the back of the bar where a pay phone hung on the wall.

  It was five o’clock and far from being dark. The constant daylight was starting to wear on Jenna. She longed for the fall and the freshness of its air, the early darkness that would signal it was time for pumpkins and squashes and all the fall vegetables she loved so much. But that was far in the future. A lot had to be done before she could reach the fall.

  Eddie returned to the table with a somber look on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” Jenna asked.

  “Well, it looks like you’re going to have to make another decision. It seems that your husband is in Wrangell and he and that wise-ass kid went to Field’s house with the sheriff to find you and the dog.”

  “Oh.”

  “Field didn’t tell them anything. But the sheriff was pretty mad, and your husband and the kid are staking out Field’s place.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, what do you want to do?”

  Jenna sat dumbfounded. Robert had come. Well, it wasn’t like she hadn’t expected it. He came to have it out with her, no doubt. To win her back. To show his love. But she didn’t want that. He was an obstacle now.

  “Oh, Eddie, you know what I want to do is disappear. I’m tired, and I thought this shaman was going to tell me something, but he didn’t. So what do I do now? Give up?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Find Bobby. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

  “So, fine. We’ll go back to Wrangell, tell your husband to back off, and then find a shaman who can help. Trust me, there are plenty of shamans around. It’s just finding one who isn’t a quack.”

  “That’s it? That’s the plan? Just go back?”

  “Well, you don’t want to stay here, do you?”

  “No.”

  “And you don’t want to go somewhere like Ketchikan or Juneau, do you?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Then take the bull by the horns. The only way to make a problem go away is by facing it.”

  “I’m not sure Robert will go away like that. He just got here.”

  “Then I’ll talk to him.”

  “Oh, that’ll go over big. ‘Robert, my lover wants to talk to you.’ ”

  “Is that what I am? Your lover?”

  Jenna flushed. The word sounded so strange coming out of Eddie’s mouth. Lover.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  Eddie smiled.

  “That’s cool.”

  He reached across the table and took her hand. She smiled at him.

  “So that’s the plan, then, huh? Go back and take the bull by the horns?” Jenna asked.

  “Take it by the horns.”

  Eddie stood, leaned over the table, and kissed her. Then he turned and walked back to the phone to call Field. As he dialed, Jenna was relieved that he was around to lend his man-ness to the situation: the ability to make snap decisions without second-guessing or regrets. Although she wasn’t looking forward to meeting up with Robert again, she knew it was just a matter of time, and that time might as well be now rather than later.

  THE WHOLE PLAN hinges on making them believe you’re still in the house. So you leave the TV on full blast. Turn the set a little so they can see the flicker of light from the street. Then you have to be clever, like that Macaulay Culkin kid in that home movie. What you do is you sit in the chair near the front window. How do they know you never sit in that chair? Then you get up and leave the room, and then come back and sit in it again, you know, being obvious so they see you moving around. But the last time you sit down, kind of turn the back of the chair around so they can’t really see if you’re in it. Then you can slide down the chair onto the floor and get away. The last thing they saw was you sitting down, so they’d figure you were asleep. They wouldn’t figure you left out the back.

  Right behind your house are tons of blackberry bushes. And if you slide along the garage, then hunker down and scramble to the bushes, you can just make it without being seen from the street. From there you have to wiggle through the bushes, which can be difficult because of the stickers. But it’s summer, so the thorns are still soft, at least. Then, you follow the tree line behind all the houses and make it to Church Street. From there it’s a straight shot to the docks and your plane.

  You have to hustle down the hill so if they realize you’re gone, it’ll still take them a minute to get to you and by then it’ll be too late. What would they do anyway? Beat you up? Sheriff Larson wasn’t too happy at having to come and ask you all those questions, so he sure ain’t gonna help them catch you. So what are they gonna do?

  So you get down to the docks and, sure enough, there’s the old beauty herself, waiting and ready to go. You look around one last time and see that those dickheads are nowhere, and then you do a quick once-over of the plane. She’s seen better days, to be sure, but as long as she stays in the air, she’ll be okay. You untie her, give her a little push, and climb in. Crank the starter and there she goes.

  Up in the air now, you look down on the town. It’s darker than it usually would be this time of day, but that’s because of the clouds. They shouldn’t be a problem, but flying in the dark has been more difficult lately. The doctor told you it was your eyes and what they call loss of night vision. It gets dark to you before it gets dark to anyone else. Well, not to worry, you’ll be back soon enough.

  You decide to mess with the dickheads a little, so you take a turn over the town before heading off to Klawock. There they are, in their stupid rental car, sitting in front of your house. You get pretty low—someone might complain—and buzz the little bastards. One of them gets out. The kid. He’s a mean son of a bitch. Made sure you knew he was carrying a pistol. Shit, you have more firepower in your house than he could ever imagine, if it comes down to that. Maybe that kind of intimidation works in the city where nobody exercises his Constitutional rights, but not here, Scruffy. This here’s Alaska. The last frontier. Land of the free and home of th
e brave.

  The kid looks up and sees the plane. He points to you and shakes his fist, so you do a little wing wagging for him, just to put a bug up his ass, and he’s hopping up and down like a little Mexican jumping bean. See you later, suckers.

  You turn south by southwest and head out over the water. It feels like more rain is coming, but you figure you’ll be back before it starts. A hop, skip, and a jump, really. When you were a kid, you could make this flight in the middle of a snowy night. But that was then. This is now. Is that a cloud or a mountain up ahead? Some kind of a vague shape. Well, if you gotta go down, you might as well go down swinging. Like your daddy used to say, nobody ever got a prize for living the longest.

  JOEY WAS FURIOUS when he saw the seaplane wag its wing at him. He got out of the car and cursed the old man as he flew over. How could he have been so lax? Why wouldn’t he have suspected Field would try to get away? The old man wouldn’t roll over for the sheriff like Joey thought he would. Joey was sure to flash him the butt of his gun to put a little fear in him, but Field was either too blind to see it or too stupid to realize Joey would use it if he had to. Flying right over him like that. The old guy had a lot of spunk. Joey just wanted to be alone with him for five minutes and he’d show him about spunk. Didn’t the senior citizen realize that he had to come home one day? Sure, Jenna could run, but the others had homes to take care of. What goes around, comes around. Joey got back into the Crown Vic they had rented from the cab company and slammed the door.

  “Was that him?” Robert asked.

  Joey nodded. “He’s probably going to take them somewhere else. This time when he gets back we’re not going to the sheriff. We’ll get the information ourselves.”

  The two men looked straight ahead, out the windshield. Robert didn’t quite understand, but he thought it would be best to keep his mouth shut. Joey seemed an edgy character, the way he had to hold in his anger after the sheriff asked Field a couple of questions and then just left. Robert was concerned about the potential for violence, but then he couldn’t wimp out now. He suspected violence was the standard MO with these guys.