Heart of Ice

by Barbara Pietron

Chapter 3

  Ice smacked his pencil on the table and pushed back his chair in frustration. He couldn't concentrate. He wished he'd never brought up the dance earlier because now he couldn't get it off his mind. Again. But his distraction during the vision quest hadn't been the first complication caused by his future date. Minutes after telling Lynn he'd go to the dance with her, Ice had realized he should probably make sure Troy, his team captain, was okay with him taking his sister out.

  Sighing, Ice rose and pulled open the refrigerator. He grabbed a can of soda and after a long drink, took it with him into the living room and plopped down on the couch. He vividly remembered that awful night at hockey practice last week: sitting on the player's bench waiting to be sent out on the ice, seeing Lynn in the bleachers, anticipating how to approach Troy…

  The guy next to him had poked him with an elbow and Ice stepped into the rink, eager to impress both Lynn and her brother. But the puck had been stolen from the curve of his stick at least twice—something Ice never let happen—and his shots continually went a little wild. Troy waved him back to the bench. As he'd sat watching the other players, Ice refused to look at the bleachers, his eyes glued to the skirmish. Although he'd fared better his second time on the ice, he didn't feel like he made up for his bungled first exhibition.

  In the end, his performance had earned him a conversation with the team captain—which was what he wanted, but certainly not the way he wanted it.

  Troy called him out of line as the team filed into the locker room after practice. He waited until the last guy was through the door. "I've never seen you skate as bad as you did today. I need to set up strategy for our next game. What's up?"

  "Yeah, man. I'm sorry," Ice had stumbled over his words. "I over-thought everything today instead of just playing. I need to get out of my own head."

  Troy looked him in the eye. "So I can count on you for the game with Bemidji?"

  "Absolutely," Ice said truthfully. The dance would be over by then. No distractions.

  "Okay." Troy clapped him on the shoulder and then turned away.

  "Hey, Troy?" The knot of nerves in his belly unfurled and spread upward to his chest.

  The team captain turned back to him, his eyebrows peaked.

  "Uh… Lynn asked me to the dance next week and I'd like to take her, but I wanted to make sure you were okay with it."

  Ice held his breath as he watched a look of surprise cross Troy's face and leave behind a thoughtful expression. "I try to stay out of her business, so if she wants to go with you, that's her choice. But I appreciate the heads up." Then he laughed. "Sheds a little light on your practice today, too."

  Ice made a face. Reliving the embarrassing moment was nearly as mortifying as when it happened. He leaned forward and picked up his game controller. His mom wouldn't be pleased at his lack of progress on his calculus, but he just couldn't focus right now. Maybe killing some zombies would blow off enough frustration to allow him to concentrate on math.

  In what seemed like merely minutes later, Ice heard the ringtone he'd set for Nik. He took out two more zombies and then dashed into the kitchen to retrieve his phone.

  "Hey Nik, what's up?"

  "Ice, I was able to get a little insider information on that teacher. I was hoping you might be able to track him down. I've got a couple other things I'm looking into," Nik said.

  "Sure," Ice agreed. "What'd you find out?"

  "I spoke to a staff member from the school. Of course she wasn't in the classroom, but I'd like to think her version is closer to the truth than the constantly changing details coming from the rumor mill." Nik paused and Ice heard paper rustling. "This happened while you were on your vision quest, so the timing's right. The teacher, Mr. Nesbitt, showed up for class Monday morning looking quite rough. The woman I spoke to saw him in the lounge and said she knew he'd been hunting over the weekend and it looked as though he'd come in straight from the woods, unshowered, unshaven, and dressed like a lumberjack. This from a man who never wore facial hair and has his dress shirts professionally laundered and pressed.

  "By the end of the day," Nik continued, "there were all kinds of stories going around the school. The next morning the staff was called in for an emergency meeting and told that Nesbitt had been suspended for sexual harassment. Later, the assistant principle admitted in private that Nesbitt had sniffed a female student and told her that she 'smelled delectable' and he'd 'love to eat her.'"

  Ice felt his cheeks flush and was glad this conversation was taking place over the phone and not in person. He cleared his throat. "He sniffed her? That's kinda sick."

  "Yeah," Nik agreed.

  "Sounds kind of outside our jurisdiction." Ice felt a little less than eager to go tracking down some creepy pedophile.

  "Because you're thinking like everyone else. Add the North Wind to the equation and take out the sexual harassment. What do you get?"

  Ice knew Nik expected a reasonable answer so he did as his mentor suggested and considered the words Nesbitt used. "Holy crap. Hannibal Lecter," he concluded.

  "Right," Nik said grimly. "In our world, known as a Windigo."

  "And you want me to go after him?"

  "No Ice. Track him down—just find out where he is."

  "All right." Ice ripped a blank sheet from his calculus notebook. "Do you have a first name?"

  "Yes," Nik answered amidst another paper shuffle. "Harrison. And Nesbitt has two 't's."

  "Got it." Ice scratched the name on his paper. "As long as his information is public, I should be able to find him."

  "Great. I'll be in touch. Remember Ice, no contact."

  "Right." Ice ended the call and retrieved his laptop from his bedroom. As the operating system booted up, he walked into the living room where the television screen flashed "terminated" over the gruesome scene of zombies feasting on his fallen body. "Ugh," he mumbled as he turned the system off. "Not what I needed to see right now."

  He should've thought of a Windigo as soon as Nik repeated what the teacher had said. After all, he'd just mentioned it yesterday.

  The Windigo condition went back to a time when people survived off the land. Through the long and harsh winters in northern Minnesota, families depended on successful hunting in order to survive. If no game could be found and a person resorted to cannibalism to keep from starving, it was said they would become a Windigo.

  One of the most feared evil entities of the northern woods and Great Lakes regions, the Windigo preyed upon people to satisfy a compulsive hunger for human flesh. It was believed the creature had a heart of ice because of its disregard for human life. Ice had seen many renderings of the monster in books and various forms of artwork. The creature possessed yellow, owl-like eyes, and was most often depicted as tall and lanky, usually emaciated. Its body was sometimes covered with matted hair and other times shown with sallow, wrinkled skin, but the fingers always ended in large claws. In one account, Ice remembered the description included long fangs and a lipless mouth, the monster's hunger being so insatiable, the creature consumed its own lips.

  A young boy never forgets a detail like that.

  Ice felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand on end even as he stood in his own living room in the middle of the day. If this teacher was a Windigo, he would hunt down people to kill and eat them, until he was stopped.

  It didn't take Ice long to find an online profile for Harrison Nesbitt. Most of his information was private, but Ice was able to learn a little bit from photos in the public domain. Nesbitt was an outdoorsman. Posted pictures showed turkey, deer, rabbit, several kinds of fish, and a string of long, furry rodent-sized animals that Ice guessed might be mink, or something similar. So the man hunted, fished, and likely was a trapper as well.

  The photos were of Nesbitt alone or with other men; none had women or children. Ice theorized that the man was either single or divorced with no children. Of course, he also could be extremely particular about keeping his family off the internet, but Ic
e thought that was an outside chance.

  An online directory listed a Cass Lake address for a Harrison Nesbitt so Ice typed the location into a map program. Closing the calculus notebook (so his mom wouldn't see the meager amount of work he'd done) but leaving it on the table (so she'd see he had at least thought about it) he donned his coat and shoes and headed south across town.

  Nesbitt lived in a subdivision built in the forties near an industrial park. The streets appeared to be cloned, with house after house built in the same small ranch style. Ice noticed many owners had added a family room or a new garage, but the few with an added second level really stood out.

  As he turned on Nesbitt's street, he slowed to watch the house numbers and maneuvered his Jeep to the curb when he found the correct address. From the street, the white sided house appeared unaltered from its original structure. A cracked cement driveway led to a small one car garage in the back corner of the lot.

  The place looked deserted so Ice got out of his car, passing close to a bank of four mail boxes on his way to the sidewalk. He feigned a slip in the slushy street and reached for the box bearing Nesbitt's address. The door stuck, but Ice was able to give it a quick yank as he righted himself. He pushed it closed after a brief peek inside.

  The glimpse told him exactly what he wanted to know: no one had emptied the mail box in days. He wondered where the teacher had gone.

  Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Ice strode up the walk to the front porch. He had no intention of knocking, following Nik's direction of no contact, but he made it look as though he did. Then he mimicked waiting impatiently and took a look in the living room window.

  Chances were, no one was paying any attention to him, but he didn't need a neighbor calling the police because he looked suspicious. The house was so still, he decided it was safe enough to go around to the side door—as if he were adamant about rousing someone inside.

  As he strode down the driveway, he was able to see the house did have an addition, in the back. Again, he mimed knocking on the side door, eyeing everything around him for any useful information.

  Ice burrowed his hands in his coat pockets and retreated back toward the street. About halfway to his car a creak issued from the house on the other side of the driveway. Ice felt a stab of alarm even as he told himself he'd done nothing wrong.

  At the loud slam of an aluminum door, he decided he'd look guiltier if he didn't turn to look. A middle-aged woman with her hair piled on top of her head and a robe cinched around her waist sprinkled rock salt on her front steps. Her attention, however, was not on her task, but on Ice.

  "Morning," he called with a friendly wave and continued to move toward his Jeep.

  "Morning," she replied, eyeballing him with mixed curiosity and suspicion. "You a student?" she asked.

  Ice stopped. "Yes," he answered truthfully. "I'm looking for Mr. Nesbitt."

  "Pretty sure he went to his cabin out by Itasca State Park." She leaned the bag of salt against the house. "Haven't seen him in a few days. He didn't let his students know?"

  "I don't know," Ice said, kicking at a piece of slush. "I wasn't there this week." He tried for a sheepish tone. "Guess I'm outta luck." He shrugged and walked to the Jeep, trying not to rush, and praying she didn't ask any more questions.

  Once he'd made it to the side of his car and out of the woman's sight, he quickly swung into his seat and started the engine. He shifted the vehicle into gear and slowly rolled from the curb as he buckled his seatbelt.

  At a stop sign he dialed Nik, wondering if the medicine man wanted him to try to find Nesbitt's cabin. When he didn't get an answer, he pulled to the side of the road and used his phone to get online. But when he had a directory on his screen, he realized he didn't have a city to enter in the search box. Since the only clue he had was Itasca State Park, he looked for the park address and then used the same city—Park Rapids—to find Nesbitt.

  "Yes," he breathed as an address showed up for Harrison Nesbitt in Park Rapids.

  He knew the remote location of the cabin and the probability that Nesbitt was actually there made the situation more risky than the medicine man's original request. Still, Ice was fairly certain Nik would want him to investigate as long as he did it safely. He drummed his fingers on top of the steering wheel as he debated over what to do.

  His gaze shifted to the clock on his car radio, confirming that school was out, so he dialed his buddy, Corey. He was about to give up when his friend finally answered. "Yeah?" A loud scratching noise sounded from Corey's end of the line.

  "Hey, what're you up to?"

  The scratching paused. "Cleaning the snow off the porch awning. Why? What's up?"

  "I'm running an errand for Nik, taking a ride out near Itasca. Just looking for company. No big deal."

  Ice winced at a loud bang in his ear and then Corey said, "Sure. I'll go. I should be done by the time you get here."

  "Cool. See you in about ten." Ice ended the call and dropped his phone in his cup holder as he swung onto the road.

  When he turned onto Corey's street, he could see his friend's stocky frame piling chunks of icy snow near the curb. Corey waved and approached the Jeep's passenger window when Ice pulled in the driveway. "I just gotta put this shovel and stuff in the garage and let my mom know I'm leaving," he said.

  Minutes later Corey climbed into the passenger seat. He palmed his knit cap from his head freeing his dark blond, loose curls. He shook his head then ran his hands through the thick mane. "Hey, can we stop for something to drink?" he asked.

  "Sure." Ice backed from the drive.

  "So what kind of errand are you running today?" Corey's genuine interest in Ice's medicine man apprenticeship was one of the reasons Ice liked him so much. Even in a town located within the boundaries of Leech Lake Indian Reservation, he often felt other kids were tiptoeing around his Ojibwe heritage as if it were a taboo subject.

  Corey, however, had shown up at some of the public ceremonies and dances and, after hearing Ice or other tribe members tell stories, often inquired about Ojibwe myths.

  "Actually, I'm just checking a guy out." Ice answered his friend's question.

  Corey studied him with a raised eyebrow cocked over one of his sky-blue eyes. "Excuse me?"

  Ice laughed. "Poor choice of words. Making sure a guy is doing okay."

  "He's sick?"

  "Maybe." Ice pulled into a convenience store and Corey hopped out. He returned with a sports drink in each hand, passing one to Ice as he got back in the Jeep.

  "Thanks, man," Ice said, opening the bottle and taking a few swallows.

  "All right, so what's the deal with this guy?" Corey snapped the lid off his drink.

  Ice thought for a moment as he pulled into traffic. "Look, it's a teacher at your school, so you can't say a thing to anyone."

  "Mr. Nesbitt?"

  "Yeah," Ice replied, not surprised Corey guessed. "All we have are theories, so you can't repeat this."

  "I get it dude," Corey assured him. "My lips are sealed."

  Ice remembered telling his friend a tale about a Windigo a year or two ago, so he relayed their basic suspicions. He trusted Corey and thought it only fair to be up front about what they were doing and why they were looking for Nesbitt.

  "That is gnarly," Corey exclaimed. "I thought that stuff was made up—but you think it actually happened?"

  "Maybe," Ice reiterated.

  When Corey didn't reply, Ice decided to change the subject. "Hey, so I'm going to the dance at your school on Friday… Lynn Ballentine asked me."

  "Congrats, dude. Pretty ballsy going out with the captain's sister." Corey was the hockey team's goalie.

  Ice chuckled. "Yeah. I gave him a heads up, though. Do you know Lynn?"

  Corey nodded. "A little. She's friends with Audrey."

  The news was huge for Ice—Audrey was Corey's girlfriend. "Really? So the four of us can hang out?" Having Corey as a backup would take a lot of pressure off Ice.

  "Sorry
. Not happening. We broke up."

  Ice's excitement deflated. He glanced at his friend. "Since when?"

  "Since she started lip wrestling another guy."

  "Ah man, that sucks."

  "Whatever," Corey replied, swiping his hand through his curls. "Better sooner than later. At least I didn't buy prom tickets yet or anything." His bitter tone didn't match his flippant words.

  "There're probably ten other girls lined up just hoping your 'Prince Charmingness' will ask them to the dance," Ice teased, using the nickname Corey's gold and brown curls had earned him in the locker room.

  "Nah, I don't have an advantage like you," Corey shot back.

  "Me?" Ice laughed.

  "Do you know how many times Audrey's friends have asked about you?"

  "Come on…"

  "Chicks think you're mysterious." Corey wagged his fingers in the air. "They're into stuff like that."

  Ice shook his head. "There's nothing mysterious about me."

  "Dude. We're on our way to check out a cannibal. I rest my case."

  Ice chuckled and felt a flush creeping up his neck so he let the conversation drop. "Let me know if you see 200," he said.

  When they reached Highway 200, Ice made a left and continued to skirt the east side of Itasca State Park until they reached Route 113, which took them along the bottom edge of the park. "What's next?" he asked, passing his phone with the map directions to his friend.

  "Ahh… according to this, we've arrived at our destination."

  "What?"

  "That's what it says."

  Ice groaned and eased his Jeep to the shoulder of the road. He scanned the map. "Crap. It looks like his property isn't part of my map program. Hopefully we're at least close."

  "I think there was a gas station back that way." Corey jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

  "You're right, I saw it too." Ice made a U-turn and backtracked to Hoglund's Gas and Goods. Inside the station's convenience store they found the proprietor, Roffe Hoglund, very willing to help. "Can't say I know this Harrison Nesbitt, but I have seen the name Nesbitt on one of them-there two-track signs. You've seen the signs they post on the trees at the end of the dirt tracks, eh?"

  When he received an affirmative nod from the boys, Mr. Hoglund stroked his chin, looking into the distance thoughtfully. "About four and a half… five miles up, is Twin Island Lake, eh. Can't remember if it's before or after, but it's right around there."

  "Okay, great," Ice said. "Thanks for the help." He elbowed Corey who was bent over a glass case. "Let's go."

  "Did you see this stuff?" Corey asked. "Pretty cool."

  Ice scanned the case, only mildly surprised to find it filled with a variety of Native American trinkets.

  "Yeah," Roffe agreed. "Kids can't get enough of these beaded bracelets and such. But I think this other stuff is much more interesting." He indicated a section of arrowheads and other painted stones.

  Ice studied the items for a moment and then asked, "Uh… where do you get your inventory?"

  "Local reservations. I've got a good location here, just outside the park, you know."

  A sense of disquiet settled over Ice. He couldn't fault Mr. Hoglund for the items others were willing to sell, but the Midewiwin, the medicine man society, was working on rounding up authentic artifacts. Ice hated to see them reduced to souvenirs in a roadside shop. He made a mental note to mention Hoglund's to Nik. "We should get going. Thanks again," he said.

  "You betcha," Roffe replied with a wide smile.

  A few minutes down the road, Ice reduced his speed at the sign for Twin Island Lake. Because of the sparse traffic on 113, he was able to slow to a near stop as they examined the signs posted at the side road entrances. Camps and resorts generally used wooden signs driven into the ground while the residents simply nailed their placards directly to a tree. Most families painted their surname on a scrap of plywood or two-by-four, although Ice did see one that appeared to be artistically etched on a finished piece of hardwood. He could only imagine what that place must look like.

  When they spotted the Nesbitt sign, Ice turned right, advancing slowly down an uneven dirt road which cut into the forest. He mentally thanked himself for choosing a four-wheel drive vehicle as they slogged through the slushy mud for at least a quarter mile before spotting the first building.

  Sections of trees divided the occupied lots, but the cleared areas surrounding the houses or cabins allowed a view beyond the homes where a flat stretch of snow indicated that the properties bordered a small lake. Decorative signboards such as 'Paulsen's Paradise' and 'Hiller's Haven' must've once been the trend, and Corey read them out loud with amusement. Harrison Nesbitt's cabin, however, was marked only by numbers hand painted on his mailbox.

  The crunch and pop of rocks beneath the tires almost sounded ominous as they rolled slowly past the log cabin. An SUV was parked near the door on what seemed to be a gravel driveway. Corey pointed. "There's smoke coming from the chimney."

  Ice maintained the slow crawl until they were out of sight of the cabin and then rested his foot on the brake until they stopped completely.

  Corey flicked his eyebrows up and down. "Now what?"

  "I'm not sure. I'm trying to decide if the smoke is enough to confirm he's here. What if he loaned his cabin to friends or family?"

  "Then I think we need to check it out." His friend smiled mischievously.

  Ice grinned back at him. "I better find a place to park." He slipped his foot off the brake. Fortunately, most of the lakefront properties were summer homes. The untouched snow piled around the next place up the road announced that no one had visited since last fall so Ice pulled in and parked in front of the garage.

  As his feet sunk into the snow, Ice was glad he had on shoes rather than sneakers, but when they reached the sludgy road, he looked wistfully at Corey's boots. His shoes were going to be a mess.

  The temperature was close to freezing, but clear skies allowed the sun to warm the tops of their heads. They approached Nesbitt's property warily, slipping into the bank of afternoon shade cast along the western side of the yard. Staying in the deepest shadows, close to the line of trees, the boys progressed until they stood opposite one of the cabin's side windows.

  As soon as they were still, the cold began to seep past their clothes. Ice tugged the zipper on his coat all the way up and shoved his hands in his pockets.

  "What if he's taking a nap or something?" Corey whispered. "We could be here hours."

  Shuffling from foot to foot and wiggling his toes, Ice had been thinking the same thing. "Let's give it a few minutes and if we don't see anything, we'll go right up to the window."

  Corey had his hands in his pockets, but he wasn't shuffling his feet. He nodded.

  The shade stretched out toward the cabin as the sun continued to set. Both boys froze in place when suddenly the room they'd been studying flooded with light. Finally a figure came into view. "Is that him?" Ice murmured, thinking this was another reason he was glad Corey had come—he could identify the teacher.

  After a short pause, Corey whispered. "Yeah… I think so. I've never seen him with a beard. And man, he looks so… so…"

  "Bad? Crazy?"

  "He looks like he just came back from some kind of survival training."

  Even without knowing the man, the first thing that came to Ice's mind was 'he's not right.' Despite the full beard, or perhaps because of the dark facial hair, Nesbitt's pale skin stood out starkly on his gaunt face. The way his shoulders rose and fell, the man appeared to be breathing heavily.

  As the boys watched, he moved slowly to the back of the cabin. His manner wasn't that of an old man, but rather, an exhausted man. The crotch of his worn sweatpants drooped halfway down to his knees as if the waistband hung low on his hips, and the buttons on his flannel shirt were fastened in the wrong holes.

  When Nesbitt disappeared from view, Ice motioned for Corey to follow him to the back of the cabin. From their position at the frin
ge of the woods, they could see that only a small area had been cleared on the lakeside of the property. A shed stood at the back corner of the clearing and behind it, tall grass and weeds separated the yard from the water's edge. As the wind shifted, Ice caught a whiff of an offensive smell, but before he could identify it, the breeze carried it away.

  Ice silently crept from the shadows and crossed to the corner of the cabin with Corey following close behind. Pressed against the rough-hewn logs, Ice extended his head past the edge of the structure and then slipped around the corner to the back wall. He ducked under a lighted window. Rising slowly, he attempted to peek through it, but as soon as his line of vision passed the window sill, he dropped back to a crouch. He scrambled back to where Corey stood and pulled his friend around the corner.

  "What happened?" Corey hissed.

  "He was right there," Ice whispered. "Right at the window."

  Corey's eyes bugged out. "Did he see you?"

  "I don't think so. He was looking down at whatever he was doing." Ice shuddered. "Dude, I think he had a knife. A bloody knife."

  Corey took a step toward the trees. "Let's get out of here."

  That'd been Ice's first reaction also, but then he remembered all the hunting pictures of Nesbitt online. "He's a hunter. He may just be butchering an animal." He scanned the back yard, looking for a way to see in the window without being spotted. His gaze came to rest on the shed. "Let's see if we can get behind the shed," he whispered.

  The other boy shrugged and nodded, then wrinkled his nose. "Smell that swamp gas?"

  The breeze had again changed direction, bending the long grass away from the water. Maybe that explained why Nesbitt had only cleared this small space, Ice thought, the land was swampy.

  By now, the shade along the woods had extended its reach almost to where they were standing and the air had taken on the grainy quality of twilight. Ice led the way down the edge of the yard to the shed, wrinkling his nose as the foul odor became more noxious. When they approached the small structure, Ice's brain registered two things, one good and the other bad. The good thing: there was space to stand behind the shed. The bad thing: if the ground was frozen, they shouldn't smell swamp gas…

  He reached the corner of the building and stumbled backward into Corey.

  "What the—” And then Corey saw what had stopped Ice in his tracks. He gagged, turning quickly to retreat.

  Ice followed his friend as they dashed past the cabin and all the way to the street. They continued, slipping and stumbling over the half-frozen muddy road, until they reached Ice's Jeep. Once they were inside, Ice locked the doors immediately and started the engine. "What was that?" he croaked, sucking in a breath in an attempt to calm his heart and stop his hands from shaking.

  Corey sat staring straight ahead, his arms wrapped over his chest, breathing hard. "A corpse," he muttered.

  It's what you see along the way that makes you an elder. You can live a long time and not see anything, not be any wiser. Pay attention to what you see along the way.

  Vera Mitchell, Mescalero and Lakota