Raven Stole the Moon

by Garth Stein

  “You don’t approve,” Robert ventured.

  “Well, I know he’s not going to be happy spending the day with me, that’s all. I’m not an outdoors man. I’m not a guy.”

  “But, Jenna, I know it will work out. If it starts getting late, I’ll leave the group and head back on my own. Please? I really want to go hunting.”

  “What do you need my permission for?”

  “Because if you’re mad at me, I won’t go. But if you say it’s okay, I will.”

  “Do what you want to do. He’s your son and you promised to take him fishing. If you can do both . . .”

  “I can do both, I promise.”

  And that was the end of it. When Jenna woke up in the morning, Robert was already gone.

  AS JENNA HAD SUSPECTED, Bobby didn’t take it well. He was up early and ready to go, and he was devastated that his father had left without him. Jenna could see the tears forming in his eyes and the effort he had to put into holding them back. So Jenna spent the entire morning trying to offer alternatives. He could go on a beach walk with her, or he could go off with his friends, or he could help the cook peel potatoes, an activity that for some reason Bobby had found enjoyable earlier in the week. But nothing would do. Bobby wanted to stay in the cabin all day and wait for his dad. He didn’t want to stray too far away for fear that Robert would come back and Bobby wouldn’t be ready.

  Finally, after endless games of checkers, Bobby’s boredom got the better of him. At about three o’clock he heard the voices of other kids from the beach and he asked his mom if he could go check it out. Jenna was so relieved she couldn’t say yes fast enough. And Bobby was off to play with the other kids.

  But at five he was back, wondering where Dad was. And this time he couldn’t hold back the tears. He cried and cried. How unfair the world is sometimes. It hurt Jenna to see her little boy cry. He just wanted to go out in a little boat. There was a little rowboat tied to the dock that anybody was welcome to use. That’s all, a little ride out into the bay. And Jenna decided she would do it. As much as she feared the wilderness, she thought she could overcome her fears for her boy. Besides, she was irritated with Robert for ditching Bobby and she didn’t think Bobby should have to pay for Robert’s being a selfish idiot.

  So they took Bobby’s line and went down to the dock. Jenna and Bobby put on their life jackets, vests made of foam like the kind water-skiers use. There were no kids’ sizes, so Bobby basically floated around inside his, but Jenna figured it would be okay. She fit the oarlocks in place and untied the boat and, with a few strokes, started them out into the bay. Before she knew it, they were out in the middle and Bobby was smiling again. That’s what Jenna needed, to see her son smile. He lowered his fishing line over the side.

  “I bet we’ll get a big one now,” he said, excitedly.

  They floated around in the bay for a while, trolling for fish, not saying a word. Bobby enforced the code of silence that he had heard existed among fishermen. It was quite peaceful out on the water. The tapping of the waves on the side of the boat. The silence of the town that loomed over the bay. Jenna relaxed and realized that she had actually enjoyed most of the trip. She wasn’t sure about coming back in the future, but the past week hadn’t been so bad.

  After about a half hour on the water, Jenna got a little concerned. She didn’t want to get too far away from the shore because she was far from being an expert oarsman, but the little boat kept getting farther and farther out. It was the tide, Jenna realized. The tide was going out and it was carrying their boat out with it. They approached the mouth of the bay. Soon they would be beyond the protection of the point and into the rougher waters. Jenna really didn’t want to go out that far, and she was getting very nervous. So she pulled hard at the oars, but with her increased effort, she realized that one of the oarlocks was broken and the oar kept popping out of its latch with every stroke.

  “Bobby, I need you to help me,” she said, trying to keep her voice level, trying to hide her anxiety from Bobby.

  She wanted Bobby to hold the oar in place while she got them back to the shore. But Bobby’s attention was over the side, on the fish deep below.

  “Bobby!” Jenna said sternly. But he just wanted to go fishing. And, as kids do, he hurled himself around to give his mother his reluctant attention, and as he did that, he dropped his fishing line over the side of the boat.

  Little kids are so quick, they’re really too quick for their own good. Their reflexes act so fast they have little ability to consider the dangers of their actions. Bobby leaned over the side for the fishing line that floated beyond his reach, and in the split second it took for him to realize that it was his oversized life jacket that kept him from reaching the line, he slipped out of the vest and lunged again for the fishing line. This time his momentum carried him overboard.

  Now he was in the cold water and he knew he was in trouble. He looked at his mother, frightened of the next step. Jenna cried out for him and reached out her hand, but he couldn’t grab it. He was wearing an Irish wool sweater, a heavy one; he had looked so cute in it. With his jeans and waffle stompers and big sweater, he looked like a little angel. But now that angel’s costume was like a lead anchor. He disappeared under the water, Jenna holding out her hand in a vain attempt to grab him.

  Jenna yelled to shore for help. There was someone there, on the dock. But they would come too late. She had to go in after Bobby.

  But she couldn’t do it. No matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn’t move. The more she tried to stand up in the boat, the more she struggled against the phantom force that held her in place, the stronger it became. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her throat burned so that she didn’t know if she was screaming or merely mouthing her screams. Within her lifeless body she thrashed about, she flung herself around the boat; she threw herself over the side. But it wasn’t so. She could see herself. She knew. She hadn’t moved an inch. None of her muscles had responded to her commands. And then she saw Bobby appear fifteen feet from the boat, his head on the surface, mouth open, nostrils just above the waves, coughing and choking on the water, calling out for his mother. But Jenna was trapped in her own immobile body and powerless to help him.

  Then, with one last effort, with all of her might, Jenna threw off the force that held her in her seat. She was free. She stripped off her life jacket and hurled herself over the side of the boat, reaching down into the water for Bobby. She took a breath and dove down, but the water was thick and dark and revealed nothing to her of her son. She returned to the surface and took another breath and back down she went; eyes burning from the cold salt water, she was blind, thrashing, trying to go deeper, and then back up for air. Something grabbed her at the surface. She fought against it. Go back down, she said, she had to go back down, but it was strong, a man, two men, who hauled her onto a boat as she fought to get free. She needed to dive in after Bobby, why won’t they let her dive in?

  “My boy,” she cried to them.

  “Stay here, we’ll go,” one of them said.

  And the two men took turns diving into the darkness only to reappear with nothing but shaking heads. Jenna stood looking over the side, shivering, freezing in the cold air, waiting for the men to bring something to the surface, something that meant something, a boy; they could breathe into his mouth until he coughed himself back to life and this would only be a close call, a near miss. But each time they dove down and came up twenty, thirty seconds later, with nothing, surfacing for air like little whales, grabbing another breath and then back down, shaking their heads at Jenna as she watched from the boat, over and over again, as people gathered on the shore to watch, over and over again, until they were exhausted and feared for their own lives, that they would go down into the dark water and never return to the surface, but they kept going because each time they reached the surface they saw Jenna’s face and as long as they could see her face they knew they couldn’t stop trying.

  Then other boats came. They took Jenna to sh
ore because she couldn’t be any help out on the water. They dressed her in warm clothes and sat her before the fire and told her everything would be all right. Robert came back from hunting and they took him to her and then they were together, husband and wife, and he sat next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. She collapsed into him and cried. And Robert, still not knowing exactly what had happened, held her in an odd and uncomfortable way, as if he didn’t really know her.

  TRAGEDY BRINGS OUT the best in people. Why is that? It must be because people are secretly thankful that the tragic incident didn’t happen to them, and to protect against becoming victims themselves, they pitch in to help others less fortunate.

  Twenty or so locals from the town nearby came to drag the bay. They had what looked like fishing hooks, but bigger, with three prongs each, that they dropped over the sides of their boats and trolled behind them. The hooks would hopefully snag on a part of Bobby’s body and let them pull him up from the bottom. How horrible that Bobby was now the fish everyone wanted to catch.

  The dragging went on into the night and for the entire next day. The local sheriff whispered pessimistic things into Robert’s ear. Things about the dangerous tides and the shifting sands. Things about the likelihood of finding a body in this deep bay. All of this was kept from Jenna, who sat wrapped in a blanket in front of the fire in the community house.

  At the end of the second day of searching, the officials decided to call it off. Reports were filed. Accidental drowning, body not recovered. Quick and painless, they all said. Let’s not drag this out. The mother is distraught and it would be best to put it behind us. Put it behind us.

  A man with a seaplane, his name was Ferguson, took Jenna and Robert to Ketchikan, where a 727 took them to Seattle and a car took them home.

  They stepped into their house and snapped on the lights. Nothing was different, but everything had changed. Something had happened. Something terrible. And everything had changed.

  “We have to put it behind us,” Robert said, standing in the doorway to the bathroom. Jenna lay on their bed, studying the paint on the ceiling. “I mean, it’ll take some time. But we have to try to put it behind us and move on,” he said.

  Yes. Put it behind us. Put it away. Don’t think about it. Don’t remember. Nothing is what it used to be. We must move forward, not backward. We must put it behind us.

  The phone rang, a loud clanging that made Jenna’s heart jump. It rang again. She stared at it wondering if it could be someone calling to tell her all of this was a mistake. That they had taken the wrong boy. Bobby was on his way home and would be there soon.

  She lifted the receiver.

  “Hello?” she asked.

  But there was nothing, only silence.

  “Hello?” she said again.

  Vast emptiness, absence of sound.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  Chapter 22

  A CRUISE SHIP HAD ANCHORED A FEW HUNDRED YARDS FROM the island before dawn, and all morning orange and white skiffs shuttled tourists to and from the dock in front of the Stikine Inn. Jenna walked past a line of children selling chipped garnets and salmon jerky and threaded her way through town to the marina.

  Eddie was down at the marina. The fishing boat he worked on that was usually up in Chignik had come back to Wrangell for a couple of weeks before the next halibut opening, and Eddie wanted to help out the guys as best he could. Jenna spotted the boat, Sapphire Moon, which was much smaller than she had imagined. The guys were sitting around on the deck drinking beers. Eddie had his shirt off and Jenna saw that the sun had baked him to a deep, brick red color. She walked up to the boat and said hello.

  Eddie jumped up and offered his hand to help her onboard. The other guys, there were five of them, perked up and introduced themselves one by one. Marc, Chuck, Joel, Rolfe, Jamie. Jamie was the youngest and he was the only one to slip on his T-shirt when he saw Jenna. The other guys weren’t embarrassed to let their big, hairy bellies stick out over their pants.

  “Beer?” one of them offered.

  “No thanks.”

  They all shuffled around a bit. Eddie pushed aside a lumpy plastic bag and gestured for Jenna to sit next to him. She did.

  “Did you find Oscar?”

  Jenna shook her head. “No. I looked everywhere. I hope the sheriff didn’t find him and shoot him.”

  “He might shoot at him,” one of the guys said. “But he wouldn’t hit him. He’d close his eyes and pull the trigger and pray to God he didn’t shoot off his own foot.” They all laughed.

  “He’ll turn up,” Eddie offered hopefully. He pointed to the plastic bag. “And if he doesn’t, that only means more halibut cheeks for us.”

  “Halibut cheeks for dinner?” Jenna loved halibut cheeks. Sweet, chewy meat, simmered in butter and wine.

  Eddie nodded. “Marc skimmed off a few pounds for the crew.”

  Marc, the one with the grin, was a big guy with a big red beard. He leaned back and stroked his chest.

  “Have to take care of the crew. One for us, two for them,” he explained, showing how he divided the spoils. “Hell, they’re only good when they’re fresh anyway. Had a couple right there in the Sound.”

  “Raw?” Jenna asked.

  “Sure, raw. The only way. Right, Rolfe?”

  Rolfe was sitting back with a bigger grin than Marc, nodding his head. Wedged in his lips was a small joint.

  Jenna looked around at the boat, an old white seiner. It smelled of oil and seaweed and the deck had been polished to a slippery rink by years of weather and wear. But despite its old age, the boat was comfortable and confident. Jenna had heard fishing stories from her uncles, about the dangers and rigors and how easy it is to lose men over the side in the rough seas. But judging by the way these men almost refused to get off the boat even though it was their vacation, she could imagine that the boat became more than a home away from home. It was home and mother all wrapped into one.

  “What happened to your legs?” Jamie, the young one with the T-shirt, asked. He had noticed that Jenna was scratching her leg before Jenna did. Jenna looked down and saw how bad the scratches looked.

  “I got lost in the woods and then I got scared. I thought someone was chasing me and I ran through some sticker bushes.”

  “Heard footsteps?” one of the others asked.

  Jenna smiled and nodded sheepishly. “I’m from the city. I’m not used to the sounds of the woods.”

  “It happens all the time. When you’re alone in the woods, the footsteps always come.”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “Maybe it was a kushtaka.”

  Jenna spun around. The kushtaka. It was Rolfe, the guy with the joint, which was so small now it almost burned his lips. He was sitting on a tackle box, leaning against the winch mast. The sun was in his eyes and he squinted so much she couldn’t see if he had eyes at all. One leg was bent, with a beer can delicately balanced on its knee. The other leg had a long, skinny foot on the end of it, sticking out of wet jeans.

  “The kushtaka?” Jenna asked.

  He raised his eyebrows, took the joint out of his lips, and flicked it into the water.

  “From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night. Good Lord, deliver us!”

  Rolfe reached into a cooler next to him and pulled out another beer. He cracked it open and the spray shot across the deck, hitting Marc, who laughed.

  “What’s a kushtaka?” Jenna asked. She wanted to confirm the old woman’s legend. See if the five-dollar story was the real thing.

  “Indian legend,” Rolfe answered. “They’re like werewolves.”

  “But what are they?”

  “They’re half man, half otter. They can change shape into anything. That’s why you should never follow a stranger in the woods. He might be a kushtaka, come to steal your soul.”

  Okay, Jenna thought, that jibes. Half man, half otter. Lost in the woods. Footsteps. Changing shape. Very good.
Like the old woman said. Like the man that Jenna met on Mount Dewey. Everyone’s in sync, here. No need to beat it to death.

  “Rolfe, man, knock it off. Can’t you see you’re getting her scared?” Eddie put his arm around Jenna’s shoulder.

  Rolfe shrugged unenthusiastically and slipped another joint between his lips. “I’m just saying . . .” He lit the joint with a lighter. “If you’re alone in the woods, and you hear footsteps, you better take care the kushtaka don’t get you. That’s all.”

  “There are no kushtaka, man,” Eddie said with a snort. “I’ve been lost in these woods a hundred times and I know. It’s just a ghost story.”

  “Oh, yeah? Tell that to Whitey Jorgenson,” Rolfe said.

  “Who’s Whitey Jorgenson?” Jenna asked.

  “You remember Whitey, don’t you, Eddie? His dad, Nils Jorgenson, had a piece of land out by the Institute? Had a few head of milk cows? Ol’ Nils, he was caught by the kushtaka.”

  Eddie groaned and sat down on the rail. “Rolfe, man, you and your stories.”

  “I’m not gonna tell no story.”

  “Tell the story,” Jenna said.

  “Well . . .” Rolfe cleared his throat. “If Jenna here wants to hear it, I’ll tell it. But not if Eddie’s gonna be all mad at me.”

  “Just tell it,” Eddie groaned.

  “Okay,” Rolfe said, ”I guess I will.” He looked around at everyone on the deck. “Ol’ Nils Jorgenson kept some milk cows, see, and he would sell the milk in town. He and his wife and Whitey, who was a baby at the time, lived out by the Institute. You been out there?”

  Jenna shook her head.

  “It’s the old Indian school, a couple miles past town. Anyway, they had a farm out there with no electricity or nothing. So, one morning, Nils goes out to milk the cows, and two of them are missing. Gone. And where they used to be standing was nothing but two puddles of blood.