Legends & Tales Of Mount St. Helens

The Ghost Of The Spirit Lake Lodge

--Alan Goggenheim

Spirit Lake Lodge lay buried in the snowy forest of towering Douglas firs, shaggy pine, and ancient cedar. Ice crusted up along the banks of the frozen Toutle River three feet from the lodge patio. A stillness clung to the air. Nothing breathes. A heavy darkness blanketed the snowy round shoulders of Mount St. Helens.

A warm yellow beam of life poured out from a single kerosene lantern perched on the window still inside one of the second-floor lodger's rooms above the main entrance. Inside that room two men talked.

"I'd say we chopped a good pile of wood today," said Harry Gustafson.

"Yeah, and now I guess we'll have to clean out that chimney before long," his companion replied.

Gustafson leaned back in his big leather rocking chair, gently massaging his arthritic elbow. Sitting across from the older Gustafson was Silas Scoggins, the lodge caretaker. Silas took care of the place through the long and lonesome winter months. Gustafson had ventured up the mountain to the lodge that afternoon to help Silas during the upcoming weekend when a few tourists might trek through the elements for some winter adventure.

Silas leaned back in his cane-bottomed chair and nodded, a little sleepy but deeply content with the chicken and gravy he had fried up earlier that evening. Harry's company was sure nice in the big, old lodge. Except for his shaggy black Labrador retriever—Bugsy—Silas had nobody to talk to other than himself during the weekdays. This was nice.

Bugsy curled up at Silas' feet, stood and walked in a light circle, then lay down again and curled up. The big, long-haired Lab must have weighed 150lbs. Gustafson smiled at the way the dog groaned and fell into a deep, restful sleep. He peered at Silas and asked about their neighbor, a fellow lodge owner up the road named Harry Truman.

"I seen how you and old Truman laid in a pretty big pile of wood. How'd you wangle that?" he asked Silas.

"Oh, me and Harry are buddies these days. He stopped in and asked me to help buck some logs down the road. He bribed some loggers to leave him a few in a ditch, but you know that old coot can sure make his case, especially when he's got a cooler full of six-packs," Silas laughed.

"Old Truman even made arrangements with the cutters there to cut him two-foot logs rather them chip'em. We just drove down and hurled half back to his place and half to here," said Silas.

"How much did you get us?" Gustafson asked.

"Twenty cords," said Silas.

Gustafson whistled.

Suddenly, Bugsy's head popped up. His floppy ears stood straight up. Silas cocked his head sideways. Voices!

A woman said something about something somewhere.

A man's voice responded, "Yes."

Her voice went on, just barely out of earshot.

"What in the heck?" Silas could not quite make out what she was saying.

Gustafson sat up, turned his head towards the bedroom door almost expecting somebody to walk in any moment.

"You hear that?" Silas asked.

"I think so," Gustafson replied. "Maybe it's somebody got into the lodge?"

"No, no, couldn't be. I'm pretty sure I barred the front door and the back's snowed in clear to the eaves." Silas said. "I'm sure it's locked."

"You sure?" Gustafson asked once again. He could hear the woman clearly not. She was pointing out objects in the lodge to the man who would occasionally mutter, "Mmm, yes, yes. Mmm, yes."

Silas slid forward to the edge of his chair. "Yeah, I'm positive I wedged the shovel through the door handles. And I latched the top and the bottom of the door too. I'm sure I did."

Bugsy leaped to his feet and walked to the door. His nose reached up into the air, trying to catch a whiff of whoever, or whatever, was coming this way.

"You better go and take a look around," said Gustafson. Silas stood up and reached for his 410-shotgun leaning against the wall and a big, eight-battery flashlight on the top of a dresser drawer.

Gustafson's arthritis prevented him from jumping out of the big leather rocking chair. Silas pondered giving him a hand up, and then decided to take a look-see by himself. "I'll be right back," he said.

Bugsy sprang to his feet as Silas reached for the doorknob. It turned ever so slightly. Silas recoiled. He pulled his hand back to the stock of the gun, gave it a pat, and then reached out again to turn the knob.

"Here; take the lamp," said Gustafson, pointing to the kerosene lantern by the bed.

"Good idea," said Silas. It would be kind of hard juggling the flashlight, lantern, and his shotgun, but pitch black and horrific without them.

"I'm coming now," Silas said to the intruders outside their bedroom door. He twisted the heavy, cast-iron knob, pushed open the solid wood door and blasted the full length of the hallway with the big flashlight. An eerie reflection off the picture frame at the far end of the hall blinded Silas for a second. He quickly scanned the hall with his lights. Shadows fled into the doorways to the seven other second-floor lodge rooms. He inched down the hallway, flashing inside each lodge room. In each was a handmade bed, its mattress carefully bunked over for the winter. Each room had a bone China kerosene lamp on the nightstand. The hand painted lampshades leered back at Silas, prompting him to hurry on to the next room.

"Come on, boy," said Silas to his dog. "Let's get this over with."

They paced down the long hallway the length of the lodge. Nothing here; nothing there. The voices seemed more remote. The mysterious man and woman must have disappeared downstairs to the main lodge area, somewhere near the stairwell, or maybe they were lurking in the basement.

"Hello! Down there?" Silas called out.

Silas edged closer to the stairs, threw the beam of light from his powerful flashlight down below and brought into full view two red, white, and blue wooden Indian heads.

Creeeeak! Creeeeak! Creeeeak! Went the steps as he descended, Bugsy by his side, strangely unwilling to bolt downstairs.

At the landing, Silas checked the dark edges of the room and placed the kerosene lantern on the end of the banister. He leveled the flashlight and probed the shadowy form frozen around the lobby. Salt shakers cowered behind napkin holders on each of the five dining tables. Ghastly images smiled out of burled myrtle wood picture frames that lined the walls above the antique end tables. There was no phone.

Stale candy and spools of fishing line gleamed behind the cut glass showcases. Silas angled to the left and passed the horseshoe bar and grill area in the middle of the lodge. No voices now, but a heavy sigh of air exhaled from the flue of the woodstove at the top of the stairs. Bugsy paid it no mind; his paws padded down the steps to the basement barely illuminated now by the throw of the flashlight. Silas followed him.

A rocking chair creaked. The woodstove flue tapped gently to the rustle of the wind outside. Snow tapped against the windowpanes. Bugsy growled, then sniffed the dank air below.

Silas strained to hear something moving, something whispering, something grasping the handle of an axe.

"Find anything?" Gustafson snapped as Silas and Bugsy burst back into the upstairs lodge bedroom.

"Naw, just some mice, I think. Must've been in this place all winter," Silas said.

"Or them ghosts again," said Gustafson.