Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein Read Free Book Online Page A

into battle. If I go into battle, I’ll call on the spirits in my power for help—the spirits whose pieces of tongue I have in my pouch—and we’ll slug it out and hopefully I’ll win.”
    “I see,” Ferguson mused. He briefly wondered if David was making this all up. Maybe it was all a crock. Although it was interesting enough. Indian spirits were much more tangible than Christian spirits. Hand-to-hand combat with a spirit. He couldn’t ever imagine a priest doing battle with the devil. Although it happened in The Exorcist . So maybe it was the same after all.
    “I see,” Ferguson repeated. “Now, for instance, that logging company you told me about. With the owls. How did that work? Did you apologize to the spirits?”
    “Yes.”
    “And did it work?”
    “No. The company was doing it to make newspaper copy. They didn’t hold up their end of the deal and offer sacrifice.”
    “So what happened?”
    “A mud slide took out their whole operation.”
    “Really?” Ferguson exclaimed. “The spirits did that?”
    “Yes.”
    “So were they evil spirits?”
    “No.”
    “But they destroyed the logging operation.”
    David sighed. There were a lot of questions, and each answer opened up more questions. Still, he thought, education is the road to ending ignorance. At least Ferguson wanted to know.
    “The Tlingit don’t have good and evil,” David explained. He stood up and threw a couple more logs into the fire pit. “Let me tell you another story . . .”
    T HERE WAS A VERY powerful chief who kept the sun, moon, and stars locked up in three boxes, which he never let anyone touch. Raven had heard many stories of these boxes, and wanting them for himself, he devised a plan to get them.
    Raven knew that the chief loved his family above all other things. The chief had a daughter whom he cared for very much and guarded very carefully. Raven realized he could get to the boxes if he became the chief’s grandson.
    Since Raven could change into any form, he turned himself into a blade of grass. He let himself down on the rim of a bowl from which the daughter was drinking, and when she drank, she swallowed Raven. The daughter knew she had swallowed something, but it was too late. She became pregnant, and when the time came, she gave birth to a boy. Nobody suspected that this boy was Raven.
    The grandfather took great joy in his grandson and loved the child more than anything. So when Raven cried and cried for one of the chief’s valuable treasure boxes, the grandfather could not refuse. Raven took the box outside to play, and when he opened it, all the stars jumped into the sky, leaving the box empty. The grandfather was sad to lose his prize, but he did not scold his grandson.
    Raven cried again, this time for the second box. The grandfather reluctantly gave the box to the boy, warning him not to open it as he had the last box. Raven, again, took the box outside and opened it, releasing the moon into the sky.
    The grandfather firmly refused to give his grandson the third box, for it contained the sun, his most valuable possession. Raven’s cries and wails could do nothing to persuade the chief. But when Raven stopped eating and drinking and became ill, his grandfather could not refuse. He gave his grandson the box, this time with the strict warning that he would be punished if he opened it.
    Raven went outside, and having the third box in his possession, he turned himself into a bird and flew off. As Raven flew, he called out for the people of earth, but because there was no sun he could not see them. When he heard the people calling for him, Raven opened the box and the sun burst out, shining on all the lands. From that time on, the earth had light.
    “D O YOU UNDERSTAND, Ferguson? Raven didn’t just give us the sun, moon, and stars. He had to steal them from someone else.”
    “I don’t follow.”
    “Stealing is an act of evil. But giving is an act of good. So was Raven good or evil?”
    Ferguson felt a