The Winter People

by Bret Tallent

  Roscoe and Ouray felt light of spirit for the first time since their master had come home this day. Roscoe, being somewhat bolder if not wiser, took the first steps off of the litter. The ground suited him and he bounded off around the snowmobile in happy leaps. This was most definitely more to his liking. The air was much better here and it was good to see the sun, to feel it. Ouray was a bit more furtive, but finally decided that Roscoe had the right idea and joined him.

  The two dogs finally made their way to Johnny who had now turned to the right in a semi-circle, surveying the tree line and his oasis. There was actually very little snow here until you hit the trees. The wind had carried most of it off and patches of rock and earth showed through in a good many places. The trees looked dead and distant, a part of the other world now. And Johnny could actually see the good air mixing with the bad, being tainted by the evil in the clouds.

  He looked down then and found his dogs sitting before him, watching him curiously. The smile behind the mask was lost to them, but they relished the pats on the head the man bestowed upon them. Johnny moved through the two towards the litter and they followed him at a distance. Roscoe glanced at Ouray and he back, then they both watched Johnny with interest.

  One by one the Indian untied the bundles and placed them on the frozen ground next to the litter. Johnny paused at the last bundle; he couldn't bring himself to touch that one, not yet. Instead, he turned and moved to the first pack, a deerskin bound with ropes now stiff from the cold and the snow thrown upon them. Taking the Bowie knife from the sheath on his right calf, he cut easily through the ropes in a single motion.

  He opened the deerskin and surveyed its contents, a wooden bow, a quiver of arrows, and a torch. Johnny laid the knife on the skin and pulled an arrow from the quiver and examined its head. There were strips of leather wrapped around the shaft just below the head. Johnny pressed in on them with his thumb and saw the kerosene ooze out from the pressure. Satisfied, he returned the arrow to the quiver then slid its strap over his head and one shoulder, allowing the quiver to rest on his back.

  Next, he took the bow in his left hand, extended it, and tugged on the bowstring several times with his right. Nodding, he slid it over the opposite shoulder so that the string crossed the quiver strap across his chest. He let the torch lie and retrieved his knife. The next pack was much larger and concealed in a blanket. Johnny grabbed the blanket at one end and dragged it around to the far side of the snowmobile. He cut its bindings and let the blanket fall open.

  Dry kindling spilled out past the borders of the old woolen cloth and Johnny let it lie. The ends of the blanket flapped wildly in the wind but Johnny ignored this and focused on the axe half buried in the kindling. He dug it out and turned it over in his hands, examining its polished blade. The sun caught it as it rotated and it winked at him. In response, Johnny looked over his shoulder and assessed the tree line.

  He set his mind on a couple of small trees on the far side of the snowmobile and started for them. Again the dogs followed him at a distance, Roscoe trying to initiate play but Ouray would have none of it. He was far too busy to play, busy scanning the woods. It was bad in there; he could smell it and it made him nervous. Ouray knew the man needed him, and he would be ready.

  Roscoe finally let his playful side subside and he too felt the tension. The muscular black dog paused, emitted a low guttural growl, and then continued his pace next to Ouray. As each step brought them closer to the woods, and the bad air, the hair on the dog's backs began to stand up. As soon as they left the circle of sun, all three felt the anxiety they had experienced earlier. It was oppressive and thick in the air.

  Johnny hurriedly cut down the five small trees he had chosen. The fetid air caused him to gag with every puff he exhaled. His dogs were quiet sentinels on either side, facing out into the woods. The axe blade slipped quietly through the air and rang out sharp against the defiance of the green wood he attacked. Chips of the falling aspen exploded outward and were carried off in a frenzy of confusion by the wind. One by one the skeletal trees fell, the bony remains of a huge hand sprawled across the ground.

  Johnny slid the handle of the axe into his belt and let it hang there heavily. He grabbed the trees in a bundle with both hands and moved as quickly as he could back into the light. The intense cold and sitting on the snowmobile for so long in it had made his limp noticeably worse, and the slight moan he made with each step was lost in the wind. The dogs were right beside the man and thankful for it, but they remained vigilant. Something bad was going to happen, they could feel it. Johnny felt it as well, but did his best to ignore it. He knew what he had to do, and by God, he was going to do it.

  ***

  Hayden was not surprised by what he had found. Concerned yes, but it was somehow what he expected. Johnny's house was completely empty, except for the scent of burned paraffin, leather, kerosene, and something else that he couldn't quite make out. Not even the dogs were about. They were usually there to be the first to greet a visitor, but Hayden had received no greetings. He had found nothing but an empty house, empty, yet full somehow.

  It was full of sounds, scents, memories......and ghosts. It was full of emotions too, emotions from years past, and this very morning as well. Hayden could feel them, he could sense them. They encircled his body like the smoke from the fifty or so snuffed out candles scattered around the room. Emotions so strong they still rang off of the walls and gave definition to the scent that Hayden couldn't make out a moment ago. Death.

  Someone had died here today. Hayden knew that you couldn't really smell death, not like this anyway, but that was what his mind had told him. That was the name his brain had put with the smell. It wasn't the smell of decay or death like that at all, but real death. All that it is to be dead, what it is to die, that was what he smelled. He hung his head reverently for a moment then left the place as he had found it.

  ***

  By the time Hayden had reached the weathered cabin of Ellis Campbell, his joints and hands ached from the cold. Even his face mask couldn't keep the icy cold off of him and his chin and nose were beginning to get numb. The trip here had been a couple of miles but he didn't even remember traveling it. His mind was elsewhere; his mind was in Johnny's house. What the hell had happened?

  He saw the bearskin rug with the imprints on it, one from where someone was sitting, and the other from where someone had been lying down. All of the candles around the room had been allowed to burn down to nothing, and from the smell, Hayden figured had done so this morning. The strips of leather in the pile next to the rug might have been meant to be dipped in the bowl of kerosene nearby, but why? Lastly, the bow of Johnny's great grandfather was no longer hanging on the wall where it had been proudly displayed since Hayden had known them.

  Whatever puzzlement or concerns Hayden had over the state of the Kaostiwa household, were lost the instant he saw the gaping hole where Ellis' door used to be. As he slowed to a stop just off the old sagging porch, Hayden saw that a huge drift had wandered in the doorway to explore the room beyond. Something Hayden was going to have to do as well. He killed the machine and took a furtive step in the deep snow.

  The powder was thigh deep before it would support the big man's weight, and it tugged at him with every step. The porch was no better, buried under a five foot drift that Hayden had to bull through. He paused at the doorway, the cold in the snow seeping into his legs. Gusts of wind assaulted his back, trying to force him into the cabin. Trying to force him in to see what had been left there.

  The room was shrouded in darkness with only the little light afforded by the doorway and the broken window to illuminate it. Hayden's eyes adjusted quickly from the bright snow fields he'd crossed, to the dim light of the lifeless dwelling. He was standing several feet inside the room in shin deep snow before the scene came into focus. Shadows at first, fuzzy outlines of things that were familiar, yet alien at the same time. Then the forms slowly gained definition.

  "Jynx!” Hayden yelled
, his eyes opening wide in surprise and recognition. But the old dog didn't move. In fact, he wasn't moving at all. Hayden pulled off his goggles and squinted to sharpen the image, leaning forward slightly. Jynx sat stone still. His fur was dusted with glistening particles of frost and snow; his eyes were a dull white. Jynx was frozen.

  Suddenly, Hayden thought of the cattle again from when he was a kid. Jynx had sat there and frozen to death, staring up at something on the wall. Hayden moved closer but looked down as he did so, it made him nervous to look at the dog. As he closed in on Jynx, his line of vision on the floor, he spotted the blood.

  A huge pool, frozen and frosted as the dog was. It was smeared around the room and disappeared under the drift in the doorway. Lying in it, barrel bent, stock broken, was Ellis' 30/30. A very sick feeling came over Hayden then and he had to swallow hard, from emotion as well as revulsion. He pulled down his face mask and took several deep breaths of the frigid air to help quell the feeling that was trying like hell to overcome him. He sidestepped the grisly residue and stopped at Jynx's front paws.

  When he looked up at the dog and saw the expression of longing frozen on him, Hayden trembled. He looked away again quickly. Then his gaze followed a course up the wall toward the place Jynx had been staring at. About two thirds of the way up the wall he found Ellis Campbell, or what was left of him. Hayden felt his stomach churn.

  The old man's head was stuffed onto one of the antlers mounted on the wall there. His eyes had been gouged out and the blood had run down his cheeks like tears. A 30/30 casing had been shoved into one of the bloody craters and what looked like brain matter had oozed out around it. The mouth of this grotesque mask was stretched open in a twisted, agonizing scream, the end of the tongue bitten off.

  Hayden fell to his knees and vomited, retching violently. He heaved up the great breakfast that Barbara had made and he continued to vomit. He wretched until there was nothing left in his stomach and then he heaved some more. Hayden sat there on all fours, staring blankly at the vomitus before him, steam rising from it like smoke. Then he heard something.

  His mind was reeling and knew that he wasn't too clear headed, but he would have sworn that he'd heard laughter just then. Laughter in the wind.

  ***

  Johnny felt the heat from the fire bathe his front side and he relished in it. Until now he hadn't really noticed how cold he actually had been. He tossed the torch into the fire and stepped back to where the heat was more tolerable. The flames lapped hungrily at the dried timber, prodded by the wind. Johnny stared at it for a moment, lost in its orange-red glow. Pitch caused a loud "POP!" from somewhere deep inside the pyre and the glowing embers from the tiny explosion hovered momentarily then floated upward and died.

  The little bang prompted Johnny from his daze and he looked up at the body of his grandfather. Faywah was stretched out atop the pitched platform that Johnny had made from the aspen trees, barely five feet above the fire. He was wearing his favorite things, an interesting blend of past and present, Indian and white man. All of it evidence of the bi-cultural life that the Kaostiwas had lived. Evidenced again in the only thing Johnny said for him.

  In the Ute tongue, Johnny managed a phrase that he remembered from the Bible, "You will lie with your fathers, and He will carry you, and bury you in their burying place." And even as he finished saying it, another phrase popped into his head. He thought about it for a moment, and knew it was true. They are wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

  Johnny stared somberly at the face of his grandfather, already his long grey hair was shrinking away from the advancing flames. His facial muscles contracted and flexed with the heat, giving an eerie impression of life to the corpse. And through the dancing blaze and the distortion of the rising heat, Johnny thought he saw a smile. Then, everything was lost to him as the fiery grave engulfed the old man.

  All around the group the air had gone preternaturally silent and the dogs looked about nervously. The wind had stopped and there was no sound but the crackling of the fire. The flames danced higher and higher still until the restraints of the Earth and gravity would allow no more. Glowing embers shot out of the bonfire and leapt upward, carried away out the opening in the clouds. The smoke looked like a reverse funnel cloud but Johnny didn't find it bizarre at all, it was as it should be.

  Johnny winced as he shifted his weight, his leg ached deep. From the cold and then the heat, and everything else he had put it through today. He shifted back then stood there reverently and watched the fire begin to die. His mind was in another place, another time. He was with his grandfather in fond memory. Visualizing things they had done together, reliving them. And so he closed his eyes to intensify the visions.

  His eyes flew back open in a flash, fear on his face. He swallowed hard and forced his eyes shut once again. He fought the urge to open them, open them up and run. He kept them closed and watched the two at the edge of the woods, watching him. Blended in with the trees behind him, stood two of them. Below him somewhere, he heard a low guttural growl from Roscoe and he knew that this was their time.

  In Johnny's mind he was right in front of the unearthly creatures, eye to eye. He looked into their black, soulless eyes and saw only hatred. A fire deep inside that hungered for human flesh and misery, a fire that was all consuming. The more you fed it the more it needed. It was a fire that was pain, terrible pain. A pain that Johnny couldn't imagine, it was beyond his or any human comprehension.

  Johnny looked away from those eyes, unable to take any more of their insanity. The rest of the creature came into focus and it made the Indian tremble. Roughly man-shaped, they were over seven feet tall, but not lumbering or clumsy looking. They were sinewy and powerful, well defined muscles bulging beneath the soft snow white fur that covered them. Their arms hung long at their sides, ending in huge exaggerations of hands. Powerful hands tipped with three inch razors for nails, nails that the one on the right was clicking together impatiently.

  The head itself was worse than any child's nightmare. It resembled a grossly distorted and twisted wolf's head. The eyes were sharper, angled slits in the heavy brow. Its ears stood tall and sharp, twitching at every sound. A white nose sat at the end of a long series of ridges that forever gave it the impression of snarling with its black lips constantly curled. Several rows of long white barbed spikes protruded from its gums as teeth. So many that it looked like a dense forest.

  The impatient one opened its mouth in a howl that blended into the wind and the other nodded. Its mouth opened incredibly wide and Johnny jerked, that maw could easily take his entire head in it. Then, the gaping mandible snapped shut in an audible clap, and Johnny jerked again. The impatient one then began skirting the clearing, moving in a form that reminded Johnny of cross-country skiing. It was unbelievably fast and fluid in its movement, and traversed the ground in an instant to end up across the clearing from its partner.

  Johnny slowly pulled the bow of his great grandfather from his chest and held it in his left hand. Then he pulled one of the arrows from the quiver with his right. He opened his eyes and saw that his dogs were standing and staring past the fire towards the impatient one. Johnny took several steps towards the ebbing fire and extended the point of the arrow into it. The kerosene soaked leather caught instantly and Johnny wheeled around on his bum leg bringing the arrow up to the bow as he turned. In a split second the bowstring snapped and the flaming arrow was launched.

  In that instant, both creatures lurched for the tasty man-thing in the clearing. In mid stride he saw the blazing light coming for him and his face actually showed surprise, and even fear. And quick as he was, he couldn't side step it. The arrow struck firmly in the left of his chest and buried itself there. Tkleah felt the burning inside him and it expanded quickly. His lungs were acrid with fire, then his heart and stomach. The flames filled his head and his eyes had an orange glow to them.

  The heat filled his arms and legs and he felt heavy and sluggish. Tkleah leap
t at the man-thing in a final defiant gesture, arms extended in a futile grasping motion. He burst into a ball of flame, a brief shooting star that winked out in an instant. There was a dead calm in the wind for only a moment, then it returned, angrier.

  Johnny watched in horrified awe as the creature seemed to ignite from the inside out. Its movement never wavered, only changed from living to fire to nothing. It burned itself out in mid air above the snowmobile, all the while sanguinary in its expression. A loathing directed solely at Johnny. And in that brief moment of hesitation, as he watched the thing die, Johnny had forgotten about the other one.

  Jrahl began moving on the man-thing as did Tkleah. His movement was fluid and graceful, direct and full of purpose. Each great stride covered nearly six feet and he was insufferably close to the fire when he saw Tkleah die. His cry in the wind was brief and Jrahl felt his fever, it unsettled him. Fear was something they were not accustomed to, and this angered him. Jrahl paused for only a moment then continued, his expression showing even more disdain for the puny things.

  Jrahl rounded the fire in a whisper, undetected by the prey. He stopped suddenly when he saw the two vermin bare their teeth at him and make a bold noise, a noise that Jrahl found amusing because of its futility. He glared back at them in response and continued forward. The scent of prey was in his nostrils now and the hunger had taken over. Jrahl would feed, and feed well on this one. And out of spite he would rip apart the thing's vermin as well.

  Johnny knew the other was very near, too near to use the bow again. He let it drop and began to slide the axe out of his belt. Behind him he heard the dogs and he whirled to face it. But as he turned, his leg would take no more and it lost what strength it held. Johnny fell to the side, the axe only half out of his belt.