The Bloofer Lady Excerpt, Mark A. Zeiger

The Bloofer Lady

An excerpt from the forthcoming short story collection, Shy Ghosts Dancing: Dark Tales from Southeast Alaska by Mark Zeiger

...My sister, Jewel Trickney, gets my house, the car, and my rifles. Everything else goes to Bob Valarial.

Tobias Sparkes started as he read this, having mused an instant before, that people who wrote in U.S. Forest Service cabin journals sometimes composed as if they were writing their last will and testament.

Sparkes had read the journals in nearly every U.S.F.S. cabin in Southeast Alaska. Basically intended to provide information about the cabin—available fuel and water, damage, presence of wildlife, and outhouse conditions—the journals have become a sort of yearbook in which members of the camping fraternity scribble their thoughts, feelings, and memories of their stay. Sparkes found them fascinating. No matter how brief his stay, he always made time to read the cabin journal.

In them he found everything—speeches, hopelessly obscure inside jokes, disjointed political rants, and idiotic, chemically induced meanderings. He found heartwarming stories of budding romance, newlyweds, and anniversary celebrations. He found inscriptions from foreign visitors, and from people he knew. He read hilarious stories of comic mishaps, cooking adventures gone awry, misidentified wildlife, and outlandish fiction. He read poetry, usually inspired by the cabin’s setting or view, and scripture from Bible, Koran, and Talmud. Illustrations occasionally decorated the margins, from children’s scribbles to beautifully executed studies by known and unknown artists. Some people carefully pressed wildflowers from nearby meadows between the pages. Quite often he skipped a paragraph or two, recognizing his own hurried scrawl from past visits.

Sparkes once compared the journals to folklore or family history, in that they connected readers with those who had come before. Privately, he depended on them. They kept him sane when wind and rain drove him to the shelter of fire and candlelight. He found much of what he read unbelievable, some of it troubling, but none more so than the series of entries he found at Butler Cabin.

Sparkes had eagerly anticipated his turn at the newly built cabin. Most stays are limited to three days, but cabins that are salt water accessible, like Butler, could be reserved for a whole week.

“Water accessible” can be misleading. Reaching the cabin required a hike of some eight steep miles from tidewater to the lovely alpine meadow where the shelter nestled, in dramatic proximity to Butler Glacier, for which it had been named.

Sparkes reserved a week in January, planning to reach the cabin by cross-country ski. As often happens, unpredictable Alaskan weather adjusted his plans. A January thaw removed much of the snow. He hiked most of the way, his skis strapped to his pack, sinking to his kneecaps in slushy, rotten snow and muskeg.

Dark fell an hour before he reached his destination. Rain began fifteen minutes later. Sparkes had lived in Alaska all his life. He thought little of rain, except when it fell as it did that day, in relentless, icy waves, soaking him through his wool sweater until his shoulders ached with cold. To his great relief, the little cabin finally appeared in the gloom. Soon he was inside, stripped of wet clothing, admiring the curling steam rising around him, coaxed by a warming woodstove.

Later, his gear stowed, his gun oiled, his body fed, Sparkes scooted the rough-hewn table across the room from the southeast window to the northwest. This would offer a daylight view of the glacier if the weather cleared. Seating himself and adjusting the lantern, he reached for the cabin journal.

Paging through the few entries, reading a line here and there, he smiled at his last will and testament thought, just as his eye caught the bequeathing line. Fighting the urge to continue from there, Sparkes turned back to the boldly stroked manuscript’s beginning, and began to read:

November 12: Made good time on the hike. Got to the cabin just before sunset and snowfall—thanks, Karen and Peter, for all the split wood! Got settled and fed quickly. The bottle of wine proved worth the extra weight. It warmed me as I sat watching the snow fall, adding to the three feet already on the ground. I moved the table to the southeast window, since it’s closer to the stove. I’ll move it back when it clears off or I leave, whichever comes first.

November 13: Slept uneasily last night. I had a strange feeling I wasn’t alone. Don’t know why. The wine helped chase the ghosts away.

Hunted deer on the ridge all day. No luck. I’ll try again tomorrow. The snow never really let up. Waist deep in places. I got soaked and sore, but I’m drying out by the stove now, feeling much better. Funny though, the feeling I had last night came back when the sun set—I sense someone standing behind me, as if waiting to catch my attention. I’m looking over my shoulder a lot! Saw movement at the edge of the clearing outside the southeast window. Thought it might be deer, but I never saw any, even though I kept close watch until well after midnight.

November 14: Snow is falling hard again. I’ll get snowed in if I don’t leave. The deer must have already been driven down mountain by the weather. I won’t get anything up here. I’ll head out tomorrow.

Something is definitely moving at the edge of the clearing. It’s pale, and blends in with the snow around it. It might be snow falling off the boughs, but I don’t see branches springing up after losing the weight.

November 15: Snowed in. I tried to hike out, but gave up before I’d made a half-mile from the cabin. It’s chest deep most places now, deeper in spots. No matter. I’ve got the cabin for a week. There’s plenty of food, water, and firewood. Things will probably change by the end of the week if not before. I’ll be out of wine by then, though. Cheers!

November 16: Something weird is going on! Last night I sat at the window again, watching the snow fall. I swear I saw a person out there! It looked like a woman with long hair that was whipped around by the wind. She stood still or moved back and forth a few paces. She wore a white poncho or robe, or maybe even a sheet. I watched her for a few minutes, but just as I decided to go out on the porch, she turned and walked into the woods. I called to her, but the wind had picked up, and my voice didn’t carry. I went to the edge of the clearing to look. I didn’t see any marks, which wasn’t too surprising since the snow fell so hard, but after I got back to the cabin, it occurred to me: the snow came up to my hips at the edge of the clearing. The person I saw stood above the snow. I could even see her feet!

This morning I looked again. All my tracks got covered. The snow wasn’t crusted at the edge of the clearing, either, so she couldn’t have stood on top of it. I did have wine last night, but not enough to get drunk, even if I had finished the whole bottle. I don’t know what to make of this.

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Thank you for reading this excerpt! To read the rest of this story, and others like it by Mark A. Zeiger, order Shy Ghosts Dancing: Dark Tales from Southeast Alaska.

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