Black Stump Ridge

by John Manning; Forrest Hedrick

“Not as dangerous as going up there ignorant, child.”

  “I’m not ignorant,” she said, smiling inwardly. “And, if you call me child or girl once more I’ll serve your balls on a plate – with spaghetti.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “No,” she turned to face him. “I don’t. After what you’ve told me, I’m scared shitless. I won’t lie. Someone has to clean up Daddy’s mess. Kevin can’t handle it or even understand it. I’m not sure I understand it. I just know I’m the only one left to do this – besides you, of course. So, I have to.”

  “Then, I guess we have to,” he replied. He turned and pulled a small bag from the closet. He kept his back to her as he tossed clothing into the bag. The song was louder. And, more insistent than ever. It pulled at him. Cajoled him. His hands trembled, but not from fear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Diane Ravenfeather felt wrong. There was no other word to describe the feeling that nagged at her relentlessly.She wandered aimlessly about her kitchen. She felt like a thunderstorm was building inside of her.

  She pulled things from the cabinet only to put them back moments later. She opened the refrigerator door and stared inside for several minutes, and then closed the door without removing anything. She filled a teapot with water at the sink, set it on the stove, and turned on the burner. Perhaps some tea would help her to focus. She set a cup, saucer, and spoon on the counter next to the stove and then walked into the living room. She stood before the sliding glass door that looked out onto her patio. She pulled back the curtain and looked outside. The failing afternoon light painted everything with an orange glow. Whatever was coming was close. She felt its bony fingers dancing on her skin. In the kitchen the teapot began its shrill whistle.

  She released the curtain and went back to the kitchen to make her tea. As she stirred the pale liquid, the aroma rose filled her nose. She breathed deeply, allowing the fragrance to work its magic within her. Relaxation and calm spread through her. The nagging feeling refused to leave. It provided a jagged note of discordance to an otherwise harmonious sonata.

  “This is ridiculous,” she muttered. She set the cup back on the counter. She wiped her hands on the sides of her black denim slacks and crossed to a narrow door. A gentle push revealed a ceremonial garden on the other side.

  A glass bowl hung just inside on the left of the door. A red-orange candle burned within – the sacred fire that was never permitted to go out. A few steps farther led to a circular area filled with fine beige sand. Multi-colored stones, mostly black and white, formed a cruciform shape in the middle of her medicine wheel.

  The room was open to the sky at the moment. The flick of a switch would close the roof in the event of inclement weather. Should she decide to leave it open to the elements the sand was designed to drain without flooding the rest of the house.

  She walked to a two-tiered gardening table that stood against the left wall and opened a drawer in the upper shelf. She removed a foil cylinder, extracted four charcoal disks, and put the package back into the drawer. She took a taper from a bundle standing in a tall, narrow glass and lit it with a wooden match. She carried the taper and the charcoal to the center of the medicine wheel. She placed the disksin the center of the fire pit and lit them with the taper. She watched as they fizzled and sparkled. Satisfied that they were burning properly, she disrobed.

  Diane twisted her long, black hair into thick horsetails and bound them with colorfully beaded ties. Each strand of beads told a unique story. The black ropes of hair fell over her now unfettered breasts. Although she was nearly fifty, her breasts showed no sign of their inevitable surrender to gravity and time. This was partially because she’d borne no children. Also, a life of manual labor helped to maintain her muscle tone. At five foot four and one hundred forty pounds she was stocky of build but not fat.

  She had never married. She’d had lovers – three – but none who were willing, in the end, to share her with her calling. Had she chosen simply the life of healing, perhaps things might have been different. Her calling carried an added dimension. She was a sorceress. As such, she had to walk a fine line. If she strayed too far into the world of magic, she faced the danger of being branded a witch. In the white man’s world of neo-Paganism and Wicca, being called a witch was high honor. A Cherokee witch, however, was not a benign creature. Even today the prescribed penalty for such was death.

  She turned to the table and pulled down a bowl of fired clay. Into it she put aromatics – crushed and dried leaves, powders, and less recognizable things – and mixed them with a small wooden stick. Cradling the bowl in both hands, she carried it to the medicine wheel. After offering the bowl to the cardinal points, she knelt at the edge of the fire pit. She sprinkled some of the mixture over the hot coals. Immediately a thick cloud engulfed her. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. As she leaned back, she set the bowl on the ground beside her. The acrid smoke burned her throat, but she resisted the urge to cough. She held her breath as long as she could and then let it out slowly. She continued doing this for several minutes.

  Suddenly, she felt herself lifted. She kept her eyes tightly closed. Despite that she still felt vertigo, as if she rode a lurching, swaying elevator car. After a few moments she felt the temperature change. Pine needles pressed against her bare legs. She smelt spruce and holly and laurel and cedar. She opened her eyes.

  Her secret garden was gone. Instead, she knelt in a forest glade. Fog-shrouded mountains rose all around her. Before her stood five trees: holly, cedar, spruce, pine, and laurel. In front of the treeswere three figures. On her left sat a cougar, a magnificent mountain cat, his thick tail curled around his haunches as he regarded her impassively. On her right stood a horned owl, the largest she had ever seen – surely the grandfather of all owls. In the middle stood a Cherokee brave, a medicine man by his dress. She tried to guess his age but his features shifted. First he was young, a man of twenty summers; now a grandfather, old and filled with the wisdom of ages.

  “Welcome, Granddaughter.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather,” she replied. “Where have you brought me?”

  “To the home of our people,” he replied. He stretched his arms wide to take in the entire mountain vista. “Once the Tsalagi called all of these mountains and valleys home.”

  “No longer, Grandfather.” Diane pointed behind her. “Now we live far to the west. The white men drove us from our homes many years ago.”

  “This is only land, Granddaughter,” the man said. “Grandfather Vulture sculpted it with his wings, but it belongs to no one. We were but caretakers. The whites are merely caretakers in their turn. Only the Creator may claim the land.”

  “I hear you, Grandfather,” she replied, bowing her head. “I accept and understand this wisdom.”

  “Granddaughter!”

  Diane’s head snapped up.

  “I, Ududu Gigage Yonv, did not call you here to talk of land and homes.”

  She blinked. “Then, Grandfather Red Bear, why am I here? What do you wish of me?”

  “I have a great undertaking for you. It may be your last such task. Even I do not know the end. Come closer, Granddaughter, that I might teach you what you need to know.”

  •

  Gigage Yonv – Red Bear – spread his ceremonial blanket out on the stony ground. Although young for a didanvwisgi – medicine man – he felt confident he could handle the task ahead of him. The elders of Kawenugoduhv chose him for this great honor. The Tsalagi did not place their trust lightly. Their survival, the future of their people, rode on his young shoulders.

  He knelt on the blanket and faced the cave. A cold fetid air drifted from the mouth and filled his nostrils. That was his breath, the creature Red Bear must face and defeat. Asvyai gago wadiyi nana nudale ukadv — He Who Puts on Another Face — lived within.

  No one knew his true form. Those who survived spoke of monstrous bears and huge dire wolves. Others spoke of loved ones long gone – loved ones who first ca
joled and then attacked. They spoke of hearing the beat of the aholi inside their heads. How it drew them.

  Red Bear cared nothing for these stories. He wanted only revenge – a reckoning for what it had done to his bride to be. Unegv Awinagina, his beloved White Fawn, lay in her father’s lodge. She said nothing and did not stir. Red Bear visited when permitted, but she knew him not. She no longer held hands or laughed with her beloved Gigage Yonv. On the night of no moon, White Fawn had felt the aholi pounding in her blood. Three days later Atsadi Tawedi returned from hunting. He had White Fawn in tow. Her eyes were empty but all knew that her belly was full. Other women had been drawn when the moon hid his face. All returned the same. When their times came, all gave birth to monsters. More frightening, some looked human. None were permitted to live. The medicine women took the newly born to the wilderness and left them.

  Tonight the moon was full. If the dark moon made the creature strong, then the full moon should do the opposite. Tonight Red Bear would deliver justice to the creature.

  These thoughts were dangerous. The thing might find them and his anger and turn them against him. He had to purge all thoughts save those of the task ahead. Red Bear focused on making his medicine wheel. As he worked and chanted the cruciform medicine wheel took shape: first the northern arm, then the west – south and then east. When he straightened and looked around he saw the sun was low on the horizon. It would be dark soon. He reached for his medicine bag and pulled it to him.

  First he removed a clay bowl. Into the vessel he poured powdered silver to which he added earth of different colors as well as leaves and berries. He mixed them together. Satisfied, he raised the bowl towards the sky.

  “Ududu Unalasgi! I beseech you! Come to me tonight. Help me bind the atsvyai gago wadiyi nana ukadv to his lair. Breathe on this silver that it may hold him and bind him.”

  Red Bear lowered the bowl and placed it in the center of the wheel. He pulled an aholi and a small club from the bag and beat a steady rhythm on the tiny drum as he chanted and danced.

  The sun dipped lower. Black clouds rose from the horizon and raced eastward. A cool wind raced ahead of the approaching storm. Thunder grumbled. Lightning backlit the ominous clouds. Red Bear barely noticed. The tempo of the drum increased. He danced faster. His chant grew deeper, harsher, and more insistent. The moon rose. As it reached its zenith the clouds arrived to blot out both moon and stars as they roiled and tumbled overhead.

  The explosion of sound and light was like nothing Red Bear had ever experienced. The ground shook. The trees and rocks stood out in sharp detail, their leaves and small branches pushed backwards by the concussion. The smell of ozone filled the air. The force drove Red Bear to the ground.

  Ududu Unalasgi and his son, Gildinehvyi, had arrived. From somewhere nearby came the deep baying of a large hound – Horned Green Beetle, Grandfather Thunder’s dog.

  “Send them away, Red Bear.”

  He looked up. White Fawn stood before the cave, her face averted. Her arms and hands were raised toward the sky in a warding gesture.

  “The storm frightens me, my love.” She looked up at him. “Come join me in the cave. Protect me from the storm.”

  He shook his head. “Be gone! You are not my Unegv Awiagina. She sleeps dreamless in her father’s galitsode. You are illusion. You are a lie.” He rose and resumed his dance. Thunder grumbled overhead, deeper and more menacing than before. The lightning strikes drew closer.

  “Why do you reject me, Gigage Yonv?”

  Red Bear redoubled his efforts. Behind him the creature’s shape rippled like thick liquid as it changed. It grew until it towered over the human dancing and chanting before it. Foot-long talons sprouted from its forelimbs. Its face elongated into an ursine visage. Fangs sprouted and grew until they were six inches of pointed white death. The eyes were fiery orbs blazing from deep sockets.

  “Look at me!”

  The voice compelled, commanded. Red Bear struggled not to turn. His head slowly twisted.

  Suddenly, a guttural snarl of rage broke the spell as Horned Green Beetle lunged at the gigantic dire bear. The dog was little more than an outline formed of crackling green energy yet it, too, was huge, far more massive than the dire wolves that prowled the edges of the receding ice sheets. Its jaws clamped on the creature’s throat as it forced it to the ground. Red Bear stepped back. Lightning hammered the ground between his circle and the writhing beasts.

  One bolt slammed down upon the center of his medicine wheel. It danced and writhed inside of his clay bowl. Ozone stung Red Bear’s nose. Heat baked his skin. He raised his forearm to protect his eyes from the harsh violet light. Despite the tremendous heat and the awesome energy the small vessel remained intact. After a long moment, the lightning returned to the sky. Red Bear’s vision filled with bright, multi-colored afterimages. He rubbed his eyes with his fists and then blinked rapidly. His sight slowly cleared. He looked down at the medicine wheel in wonder. The small clay vessel remained intact although it was charred and smoking around the rim. Inside was a shiny liquid. The materials were blended. A smoking branch, one end reduced to fibers like a fox’s bushy tail, lay on the blanket. Red Bear stared at them while curious images filled his mind. He saw himself using the brush to paint the drawings around the opening of the cave. He understood.

  Behind him the creatures continued to writhe on the ground. Ozone filled the air as blue-white bolts repeatedly struck the earth. Slowly, foot-by-foot, the creature slid backwards towards the cave. With a howl of rage and pain it broke free of the dog’s jaws and dove for the safety of its underground lair. Green Horned Beetle stopped at the opening. He pointed his muzzle to the sky and howled his victory. He took no notice as Red Bear slipped past him into the cave, the clay bowl in one hand and the branch in the other.

  •

  Stone – cold, coarse, and damp – pressed against his face as Red Bear awoke. At first, he was disoriented. This was not his bed, not his galitsode. It was dark, but enough light filtered in that he could see he was in a cave. He sniffed the air. He smelled damp earth.

  He sat up and looked around. Morning light colored the stone. The cave’s roof sloped down above him until it formed a narrow arch. Faintly glowing symbols encircled the opening. His clay pot rested on the floor. A stick, its frayed end glistening with metallic residue, lay on the stone next to it. When he reached for the bowl, he noticed a tremor in his hand and arm. He frowned as he stood. His knees popped and his legs strained. He fought the stiffness of his limbs as he tottered to the mouth of the cave. He looked in awe at the torn and charred ground. Blackened holes dotted the area in front of the cave. The ground was torn and chewed up as if giant, clawed beasts had struggled there.

  He saw his bag lying on the ground beside the medicine wheel. It was intact despite the evidence of the chaos that had raged around it. Memories of the night’s battle washed over him. He looked back at the cave. The huge tree beside the cave had fared the worst. All that remained of it was a blackened, blasted stump.

  He turned and headed down the mountain, grabbing his bag as he passed. Halfway to the village the trail crossed a spring-fed stream. He stopped to get a drink. The water was cold, clear, and reflective. Red Bear stared at the face looking back at him. It was no longer that of a brave of twenty-five summers. This face was old, with deep lines and creases along the cheeks and across the forehead. The hair was white like winter snow. It was the face of a grandfather, an elder. He stood and continued toward the village.

  There was one more opening to seal before his people would be free. It lay open to the sky like a well. His people drew water from it when the summer grew very hot and some of the streams ran low. The cave was cold and deep, but it, too, gave the creature a way to continue its forays among the Tsalagi. On the next full moon Red Bear must upon the grandfathers, again, to help him close this last door.

  He thought about his reflection. This battle had cost him twenty winters or more. Would the next take another twenty? He th
ought about his lovely White Fawn. He thought of the children and women and young braves lost. He nodded. It was a small price to pay and worth it.

  •

  The ashes in the fire pit were cold when Diane woke from her vision. She looked about in the gray morning light. She slowly stretched her stiff limbs and started to rise. Something rolled against her right hand. She looked down at her fingers splayed just under the sand. A small totem – a little carved redwood grizzly bear – lay against the edge of her hand. She picked it up and looked at it closely. It was a sign from Ududu Gigage Yonv. She needed to put her affairs in order. Her task lay far to the east, in the ancestral home of the Tsalagi, not here in Oklahoma.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “We’ve been here eight days, ” Fred grumbled as he stabbed the buttons on the TV’s remote control.

  “I know how long we’ve been here,” Amanda made no pretense at civility. “It’s my bank account that’s being drained.”

  “Did you really think it would be easy? Did you think that all we had to do was come up here and ask, ‘Where can we find an authentic Cherokee Medicine Man to drive away an ancient monster?’ and that someone would go, ‘Oh, you must be looking for Charlie White Hawk’ or something like that?”

  “No. Of course not.” She hadn’t expected it to be as difficult as it was either. This entire experience flew in the face of her expectations. She thought she was enlightened enough that she didn’t expect teepees or wigwams any more than she would expect to see ice dome igloos in Alaska. The truth was, she didn’t know what she expected to see. What she didn’t expect to see was suburbia. Tahlequah, Oklahoma, consisted of tract homes, shopping malls, schools, hospitals, car lots, a university, churches, and fast food restaurants. In short, it looked much the same as the St. Louis suburb where she lived with her brother. “I just didn’t expect them to be so stand-offish.”

  “I don’t think they’re at all stand-offish,” he argued. “I find them to be very friendly, so long as you stay away from certain subjects.”