The Hauntings of Hood Canal

Except for a Mouse, No One Is Happy

A satisfied mouse, plumpish, generally well intended, and curious, lives in the shack to which Sugar Bear and Annie repaired. It is not a vacationer’s paradise, but a hunter’s shack; a crude shelter of unfinished boards and shake roof. A glassless window allows ingress and egress of bugs, bats in season; but the place is not classy enough to lodge a barn owl. For a mouse who has enough sense to appreciate advantages the place is home-sweet-home­-with-a-view.

The view is of a copse of madrona, vine maple, and alder. Leaves float through autumn air, or, in the case of the madronas, all year. Small flowers in their season, and edible mushrooms sprout from a thick layer of loam accumulated through centuries. The ground gives beneath one’s feet as the buildup of broken leaves, twigs, and moisture combine and cover the forest floor like a plush rug. Among, around, and in this forest-rug are bugs, seeds, and edible shoots. A mouse, patrolling the perimeter of the shack, cruises his domain with all the confidence of a well-heeled lady in a specialty grocery store.

And, because the mouse had no experience with humans and had shelter from most predators, it sat fearless on the single crossbeam of the ten-by-ten shack and watched as two creatures, one furry and enormous, the other greeny-blue, opened the door.

They entered, saw bunkbeds, a chair, a small woodstove, firewood, a bucket, a kerosene lamp, and stubs of a half-dozen candles, unchewed, having been scorned by a mouse who was filthy rich.

“You’re gonna have to move,” the greeny-blue creature said to a huge spider who webbed the space between upper and lower bunks. “I know it’s a pain but we’ve got a problem.”

The spider shrugged, climbed the bed frame, swung by filament to the wall, and began spinning in the upper corner of the room. “And you,” the greeny-blue creature said to the mouse, “will need to mind your manners. It looks like we’ll be here for a while.”

The mouse, who heretofore had never learned a word of English, or, for that matter, Greek, understood and accepted the situation. He gave a chirp of welcome. In mouse terms, the greeny-blue creature looked interesting.

“Get that stove going,” Annie said to Sugar Bear, “and then get into that sleeping bag. I’ve got a little work outside.” Annie’s voice, which in days past had been either vague or demure, sounded positive as fire trucks. She felt Sugar Bear’s forehead, tsked, felt inside his shirt. “You’re sweating pretty good.” She picked up the bucket. “Cold sweat. Where’s the spring?”

In the week that followed, a week of rain on mossy shakes of the roof, the mouse watched as the window was repaired with plastic film. The mouse sniffed as the shack filled with odors. Burbles of herbal potion steamed on the stovetop, mattresses of piled cedar tips lay beneath colorful sleeping bags while the great big creature wheezed, grumbled, moaned, sniffed, apologized, and wondered what the hell went on back home. When, after a couple of days, the creature grew comatose, peace and quiet entered the shack, and when the creature began choking it kept the mouse awake. Steam filled the shack. The greeny-blue creature applied hot cloths, rubbed smelly concoctions onto chest, throat, and held breathable but stinky stuff beneath the nose. Sometimes the creature cried, but she did not stop working. When the crisis passed, sunlight of Indian summer shone through the plastic window. The shack became uncomfortably warm.

“You’re gonna be all right,” Annie told a very weak Sugar Bear, “but don’t do that again.”

“I didn’t plan it,” Sugar Bear whispered. “Are we gonna stay here, or what?”

“You’re gonna stay,” Annie told him. “I’m hitching a ride north to see what’s going on. I’ll be back day after.” She hugged him, kissed him on the ear. “Don’t wander off.”

With Annie gone, the mouse felt uneasy because of the language barrier. No mouse ever born could fail to understand Annie, but no mouse ever born could fully understand Sugar Bear; at least not without a bit of magic. The mouse did not head for his hidey-hole, but no longer assumed he could hop from the beam, scamper along a chair back, and nibble at spilled crumbs of bread and crackers. The mouse awaited developments.

Sugar Bear sat, yawned, stood, stretched, lay on the bed, scratched, stood up, said, “Dammit”, opened the door and looked into the sunstruck copse. A light breeze sent leaves in a slanting, yellowly shower. He started to take a chair outside, then sat on the doorsill instead.

“I got a little problem,” he confided to the mouse. “She thinks this sicky-business is over, but maybe it ain’t. A certain amount of crap circles the universe. Sometimes it drops on a guy’s head.”

The mouse, clearly sympathetic, but no more philosophic than your average mouse, remained silent. Perhaps on some level of mouse wisdom it knew there are times when a guy just needs a good listener.

“Because maybe my worst problem ain’t cops. I felt okay until that last night at the dunk site… felt like something tried to crawl all over me. Felt like I was being watched.”

Sugar Bear spent the rest of the day, and all of the next, painfully gathering and chopping firewood. He no longer moved like a big man with confidence in his strength, but like a man with a body too large for his spirit. Illness hindered him. Worry hindered him. Although dragging firewood takes time, it does not take much concentration. He had plenty of time to imagine horrible things that might happen at Beer and Bait. He feared Annie might walk into the middle of a mess, and he would not be there to protect her.

As it turned out, by the time Annie stepped into the middle of a real mess she was the last person who needed protecting. The mess had built over the past week. By the time the mess played out, Annie felt like she’d taken a course in history. She guessed the whole thing started with Petey.

During that week Petey drifted from Rough and Randy, to China Bay, with only occasional stop-offs at Beer and Bait. His route seemed erratic. The Plymouth parked in odd places, outside of courthouses, mostly.

And history, as far as Petey was concerned, turned to bunk. His slumping figure hunched over the steering wheel of the Plymouth, or leaned against pool tables where guys rushed to take advantage. Guys figured Petey swam through depths of despair; which was sad but good, because that meant Petey was losing his hustle. Without hustle Petey became a man not feared, but nearly scorned. Guys played him for bucks, hustled him, and Petey generally managed to break even, or a few bucks ahead, although his heart was not in his game. He no longer showed up at Beer and Bait during mornings. During evenings he remained distant with Bertha, and sad, and his baseball cap read Bob’s Used Truck Parts.

And almost always, during mornings, the Plymouth parked not far from dunk sites where police divers remained busy, and where cops directed traffic and hassled taxpayers. The cop who looked like a movie actor pretended indifference to Petey, but coplike, made mental notes. Petey was present on the day the cops pulled out the dead guy’s car, and it seemed that Petey also made notes.

The car dangled from the crane like a guppy on a boat hook. When the crane eased it onto the tow truck kid’s trailer it sat like small change. It was one of those imported things, painted orangey-pink, a monument to miniaturization; that if you sat in it you couldn’t cuss a cat without getting a mouthful of fur.

The front end sported a loose bumper. The fenders were unscratched. The trunk lid popped up where the back end had been squeezed, but, when compared to other drowned cars this one hadn’t been squeezed much. This car looked like a piece of spit-out gum.

“And Petey just stood there,” the tow truck kid confided to Bertha when he stopped for a going-home beer. “…like he’s worried the cop will blame him for something.” The kid now enjoyed the status of a regular at Beer and Bait. A regular can leave his change on the bar when he goes to the john. The bartender keeps an eye on it.

“He’s a good guy, too,” the tow truck kid said about Petey, “even if his game is overrated.” The tow-truck kid rode high and wide as he made a name for himself. His red truck and dread trailer parked before Beer and Bait, or China Bay. The kid gained muscle in arms and shoulders, and shone with manly pride; but only enough to be slightly obnoxious. Men who were brave, and men who hoped they were brave, made room for him at the bar.

Because, out there in that parking lot, one more doomed piece of machinery sat chained to the trailer; helpless as a crab in a crab pot. Guys looked at the wreck, felt emptiness in their minds at the sight of violated metal.

Because, while anyone can regard a wreck with dismal satisfaction if that wreck is not his own, these wrecks went to scary places in mind and soul where even bad people do not want to visit. Men privately told themselves the tow truck kid was courageous, or, more likely, so damn dumb he didn’t know what he fooled with. Still, you had to treat a guy like that with some respect.

And if credit for courage was not enough, the kid also rode the wave of a Canal story that turned him into a pool hero. Since hustling Petey for a hundred bucks, the kid’s game improved. He began wearing shirts with loose sleeves, a bolo tie, and lightly, very lightly, tinted sunglasses. Winning builds confidence, and confidence lets a guy relax. Relaxed guys win at pool.

“Petey’s game is better than you think,” Bertha told the kid on a morning when the bar was otherwise empty. In the parking lot a twisted station wagon sat chained to the kid’s trailer.

“Maybe once-upon-a-time.” The kid looked across the green felt of the pool tables like a farm-guy gazing at his fields. His voice sounded kindly.

“I guess you gotta learn on your own.” Bertha’s words were more positive than her voice, which carried echoes of dismay. Petey had chickened out before a cop. He ran road and lost at pool.

“How’s that cop to work with?”

The kid studied the problem. “Somebody’s gonna get busted.” The kid turned on his bar stool, looked toward the Canal, and his voice got louder. “He’s a loner. He’s not even buddy-buddy with other cops.” The kid tried to lower his voice and still sound positive. “I think somebody has the guy in their sights, like dangerous. The cops are scared. Who would’ve ever thought?” The kid gulped the last of his beer. “I gotta admit. I’m almost scared. I got to git.”

“Petey’s game is better than you think,” Bertha repeated as the kid left. “If you back into a buzz saw don’t say you ain’t been told.”

When the kid left, Bertha faced an empty joint, and suddenly, an empty life. She could not admit that Petey was half the reason she loved her bar.

As days passed dismay tried to replace love, because Beer and Bait still had to be opened even though the world turned dreary. Mornings saw no pool games. The whole notion of pool brought worries about the butterflies from up north, and the beetle-lady. And, since Jubal Jim rode with Petey, there was not even a tail wag of greeting when Bertha arrived through chill mist to an empty bar. Added to that, Annie and Sugar Bear were way-the-­hell-and-gone off somewhere at China Bay. What with no Petey, and no girl-talk with Annie, and poolish worry, life became gray as the weather.

Bertha, being Norwegian, turned her considerable energy toward improvements. The bar mirrors sparkled, reflecting dull faces of morning customers mumbling hangover talk. The dance floor gleamed with wax, and anything that could handle polish, did. When folks looked through windows onto the Canal they felt wind would blow through the room because, while the windows were there, they were so clean you couldn’t see them. If the joint suddenly turned into a burden, Bertha admitted nothing.

And the cop, what of him?

“The state police have an investigative unit,” the cop admitted wistfully to Bertha during one afternoon when the bar held only two tourists and an inveterate drinker. The cop wore his cop suit, stayed near the door, and pretended he caught a quick lemonade before leaving to intimidate the populace. “It’s an elite unit,” the cop confided, “and I can honestly say my chances are good. I’ve seen a little too much road.” The cop did not actually say he wanted to become a detective and settle down, but Bertha caught his drift. She blushed a smidgen, then blushed a lot because she’d been caught blushing.

And, there was no denying the cop turned snoopy. Instead of attending to busted cars, he spent time investigating the shoreline.

“We run the license numbers of the wrecks,” he confided to Bertha.

Bertha waited, wanted to ask questions, and knew enough to keep her lips firmly closed.

Thus did life continue with wet roads, dunked cars, and growing fear among regulars at Beer and Bait. Regulars figured it might be a good notion to drink elsewhere, because a cop in a bar is as welcome as a horse on a houseboat.

True, the cop drove south each evening because he lived in that direction, but a taint of copness seemed to linger in the parking lot of Beer and Bait. A timid Canal story claimed Bertha was in collusion with the cop, but the story didn’t fly. Even the hardiest men were not willing to take a chance on dealing with Bertha’s wrath.

General unease caused business to decline. As autumn rains swept the Canal, Bertha began to worry that she would soon have money worries. She no long wanted a bartender, not even part time. She no longer needed Chantrell George for pick-up work. That was tough on Chantrell, who was about to make the mess even messier.

Chantrell wheeled his bike along the road, an abandoned waif looking for a handout and a home. He could not mooch from Sugar Bear, because Sugar Bear holed up down south. True, mushrooms blossomed in fall rains and that was sorta good, because a guy could stay sorta high all the time, but abundance proved a problem because Chantrell’s customers could easily pick their own. Tourist cars virtually disappeared, so no adoptions of orphan cameras and golf clubs could take place. Chantrell had seen economic downturns before, but, as he confided to his bike, “This one is a slam-banger.”

“A guy don’t hardly know what to do,” he told the bike as they walked along the road. During fall rain Chantrell’s hair dripped even more than his nose and his bike was feeling rusty.

“There’s always wholesale,” the bike kindly advised. “You gotta get new connections, maybe go into export.” The bike dreamed of mushroom shipments to Canada and Mexico.

“That ain’t jail stuff,” Chantrell murmured. “That’s more like… feds.”

“And it ain’t fair,” the bike said. “Sugar Bear dumped you and took all the credit.”

The bike had a point. Chantrell remembered a time, and that time not long ago, when he had been a hero. Guys worth admiring, because they sounded positive and loud, had given Chantrell credit for killing the dead guy. In Chantrell’s memory, which was rarely clouded with reality, it had been a golden time. Bar work had been available. Tourist cars crowded the scene. The mushroom market had been at a premium, and Sugar Bear contributed saleable scrap iron plus a few bucks.

“It all started downhill when Sugar Bear took the credit.” The bike sounded so sad its front wheel squeaked.

“We could get reliable,” Chantrell muttered. “Bertha wants somebody reliable.”

“Naw,” the bike told him. “How much can a guy put up with?”

Their discussion turned, returned, explored avenues crowded with remembered visions as they neared the parking lot of Beer and Bait. In the parking lot sat an unmarked cop car, and beside the cop car sat a Lincoln Continental. Beside the Lincoln sat the red tow truck, and on a far corner of the lot sat a couple of gyppo log trucks. At the edge of the lot, beside the road, a busted-up Ford pickup pulled over, stopped, and Annie stepped out. She dressed in jeans, plaid shirt, practical shoes, and her long hair was braided and piled like the soul of practicality. Chantrell did a flashback. A vision of Annie discussing world events with a spider flooded his mind. A cartoon hammer tapped, tapped, tapped, as it flew around a room where the dead guy lay. Then the hammer started squishing spiders. Little splashes of spider goo popped and sizzled on Sugar Bear’s forge. The dead guy lay oozing a little blood before the doorway of Sugar Bear’s shop while an entire bar full of fishermen and loggers watched. The hammer tapped, tapped, tapped, then escaped through an open window while Sugar Bear stepped forward, hands raised above his head in victory, as guys clapped and stomped and cheered.

Chantrell and the bike moved steadily across the parking lot as Annie disappeared through the doorway of Beer and Bait. Then Chantrell and the bike mourned their unhappy situation, and that took a little while. Then they discussed options.

“The trick,” the bicycle advised, “is to let guys know Sugar Bear swiped the credit. But don’t admit to nothin’. Guys can figure it out!’

Chantrell parked the bike and stepped toward the doorway of Beer and Bait. Neither Chantrell or the bike had never heard of the Rubicon, and would not be impressed if they had. It was, after all, a very small river.