Winter Prey

by T. M. Simmons

  Jimmy gulped in a final breath. When he drew back, he held the silver cross in a chubby fist. "W-what's this?" he asked.

  "It's one of my sacred symbols," Caleb explained. "Like the different things your people use. It has a spell of protection on it."

  Jimmy's lips wobbled, making it hard to understand him. "I-I wish M-mommy hadda had one."

  "So do I." Caleb removed the chain holding the cross from around his neck and looped it over Jimmy's head. "You can wear it. I'll leave it with you."

  Jimmy ducked his head to look at the shining silver cross that over-filled his small palm. "It makes me feel better." Then he frowned up at Caleb. "But do you gots another one? For Sasha? An'…an' you oughts to have one for you."

  "Actually, I do have some more in my truck. And they're all blessed to make them sacred. Before I leave, I'll give you one for Sasha."

  "An' puts one back on you, too!" Jimmy insisted.

  "I will."

  "Promise?"

  Caleb traced a cross on his chest as he said, "Promise. Cross my heart." He couldn't bring himself to add, And hope to die.

  Caleb cupped the boy's cheek, instinctively tracing the faint dark mark beneath Jimmy's right eye with his thumb. He recalled seeing a similar mark on Kymbria's friend Amber's face, heart-shaped, but with a sort of stem, as though the heart grew on a plant. He glanced questioningly at Nodinens.

  "It has meaning," she said. "I will explain later."

  "Do you gots a little boy?" Jimmy asked, still caressing the cross.

  "His name is Skippy." Jimmy didn't need to know that his son was gone. "He's a little older than you. Six."

  "Do you gots a picture of him?"

  Caleb shoved his jacket back and pulled his billfold from his pocket. It opened easily to the cluster of pictures protected by the plastic sleeves. He showed Jimmy the top one, Skippy's first — and only — school photo.

  Jimmy nodded without comment. Caleb's gaze lingered on Skippy's cheerful gap-toothed smile, his eyes sparkling with life. Then he reluctantly folded the billfold and replaced it.

  "Do you feel like maybe now you can tell us what happened this morning?" Caleb asked softly. When tears threatened again, he continued, "It might help us find your mommy."

  He hated lying to the boy, giving him hope both his parents would soon be with him again, but he felt he had no choice. Nodinens touched his shoulder, and his brief glance indicated she supported his slight twist of the truth. Jimmy possibly held information in his young mind that could possibly help save others.

  "'K." Jimmy tightened his fingers around the cross. "It…it was a…a bad monster. Like the one in my closet sometimes. Mommy always says it ain't real. But its was real this time."

  "How could you see it? It was still dark, wasn't it?"

  "Yeah. But Daddy was gettin' in his car t'go to work, an' the porch light was on. Mommy was gettin' ready to kiss him g'bye. It…it comed round the house. M-mommy screamed. Real bad. It scared her a bunch."

  "Take your time, son," Caleb said when Jimmy wavered and sniffled.

  "I got's to tell you! Got's to help find Mommy!" he said in a determined voice. "It…ranned at Mommy, and Daddy comed after it. It…" He frowned. "It ranned awful fast. I seed it at the corner, then next thing, it grabbed Mommy. Daddy j-jumped on it. He hit it. Hard. On the nose. It dropped Mommy and threw Daddy 'gainst the car. He…his arm broke, I guess, 'cause when he comed after the monster again, it was hangin' like it was broke."

  Jimmy dropped the cross and rubbed his right arm with his left. "It picked Daddy up 'gain and held him over its head. Then threw him down on the driveway. Daddy…his head hit one of them rocks Mommy has 'side her flower bed. Ain't no flowers growin' now, 'cause its winter. But Mommy has real pretty flowers in summer."

  "Did it see you, up in the window?"

  "I donno. Maybe. I was screamin' at Mommy to run. Run! Run fast!" He bit his lip. "But the window was closed, an' I couldn't get it up. So's she prob'ly didn't hear me. She tried to get to Daddy. He was layin' there, not movin'."

  "Then?" Caleb asked very softly.

  Jimmy grabbed the cross. "It picked Mommy up over its shoulder. She was beatin' on it, screamin'. An' callin', 'Tom! Tom!' That's Daddy's name. Tom. Then it…it ranned off."

  "Where did it go?"

  "I donno," Jimmy said with another frown. "It was there, holdin' Mommy, then it was gone."

  Full powers. It has its full powers back and can now move like lightning. Like it did on the lake last night when it got out of there with Len's body before we could even get to the window.

  Caleb rubbed his hands up and down Jimmy's arms. Now came the hard part. "Can you tell me what it looked like, son?"

  Jimmy's gaze flew from Caleb's to Nodinens's, then back again. "It was a monster."

  "I know."

  "How do you know? You didn't see it!"

  "I mean, I believe you," Caleb corrected. "And no, I didn't see it, so I need you to tell me what it looked like."

  "Will knowin' what it looks like help you find my mommy?"

  "We hope so, son."

  "'K." He wrinkled his forehead in concentration. "It was big. Tall. Taller'n Daddy, and I heard him tell Aunt Amber once he was six foot two. Same's I's gonna be some day. Daddy said I might's even be taller'n him."

  Caleb easily stifled his stab of impatience. The child needed to ramble, tell the bits and pieces of his story whenever his emotions could handle the strain and hideous memories.

  "Amber ain't really my aunt," Jimmy said in a confidential tone. "Amber and me's cousins. But she's bunches of years older'n me. Old old. Like you. So's me'n Sasha call her Aunt Amber."

  "That makes sense," Caleb assured Jimmy, then prodded, "What color was the monster?"

  Jimmy shivered. "Brown. Near to black. And it had hair. Lots 'n lots of hair. All matted and snarly, like my friend Chad's sled dogs are in the spring. A'fore I help him comb out all their winter hair."

  "Really dark brown with long hair, all matted and snarly," Caleb repeated to let the boy understand he'd gotten that and could go on.

  "Its eyes was dark in the middle. Black dark. But 'round that dark, they glowed likes the end of a cig'rette. And teeth. Lots and lots. It…it snarled, but I never heard nothin'. It just pulled back its mouth, like one of Chad's dogs does. The one we don't mess with. Chad's daddy combs out that one. But the monster's teeth wasn't like a dog's. They was sharp, seasawy like. Like the teeth we put in our punkins at Halloween, only lots closer together."

  "Did it have claws, too?" Caleb asked.

  "Yeah." Jimmy held his hands apart about six inches. "Long ones. They was sharp, too. I was 'fraid it was gonna stick them in my daddy, but I don't think it did. But…" His tears started to trickle again. "It might's use them on my mommy."

  Jimmy lost his battle with control and wailed, "I want Mommy! And Daddy!"

  Caleb gathered the boy close again and let him cry. His tiny shoulders shook and he gripped Caleb's shirt in tight fists. When Caleb glanced at Nodinens, he saw her looking toward the doorway. Kymbria stood there, her fists clenched every bit as tight as Jimmy's and her body tense and rigid. Matching tears trickled down her face.

  "His dad?" Caleb whispered, stomach tightening in dread.

  Chapter 23

  Caleb rose to his feet, Jimmy’s head cradled on his shoulder, as though his embrace would protect the little boy from more devastating news.

  "No. Oh, no," Kymbria hastened to say. "Tom's out of surgery, but still critical. I was just checking on how things were going."

  Caleb shrugged his shoulders as Jimmy shifted and asked, "Can I be with Sasha now? Please."

  "Sure, son," Caleb answered.

  Kymbria followed as Caleb carried Jimmy down the hallway. When he glanced at her, his eyes and tense shoulders echoed the pain she sensed lay behind his carefully placid face. It had to be torturing him to hold this tiny child — so close to his own son's age — in his arms. A child traumatized by the same type of monst
er that destroyed his family.

  After a few steps, she gave up the fight to restrain herself and moved close to slip a hand up his back, stroke his shoulders. He breathed out a sigh of thanks under his breath as they walked into the kitchen, where Amber sat at the table, Sasha cradled in her arms. The little girl's head was tucked beneath Amber's chin, a thumb in her mouth, her eyes so puffy from crying she only opened them a slit when the others entered. A plate of cookies and two untouched glasses of milk were on the table.

  Caleb set Jimmy in the chair beside his baby sister and smoothed a thumb over the birthmark under Jimmy's right eye. Amber had a similar mark on her face, one Kymbria barely noticed after so many years. She had been born with it, and various others in the Marten Clan had inherited the same identically-shaped mark. She and Amber had spent hours as teens blending different shades of makeup to conceal the spot, as well as experimenting with various potions hyped as being able lighten it. Her friend eventually decided to treat it as a sign of her clan and quit worrying. Amber's daughter, Angie, had the same birthmark.

  As Amber urged a cookie on Jimmy, Nodinens cleared her throat in the living room. When Kymbria and Caleb glanced over at her, she motioned for them to join her.

  "What is it, Grandmother?" Kymbria asked as they approached.

  "We need to go to the home where this happened."

  Kymbria gasped and backed away. "No, Grandmother! I…I can't. Besides, someone needs to be with Amber."

  Outside, another vehicle arrived, and Nodinens turned her head toward the window. The three of them waited silently as car doors slammed and footsteps approached. The young couple came in without knocking, halted when they caught sight of the others in the room, then greeted Nodinens with ingrained respect.

  Nodinens made the introductions. "This is George and Anna," and followed it with Kymbria and Caleb's names.

  "We're here to be with Amber and help her with the children," Anna said.

  "Go." Nodinens indicated the door to the kitchen with a tilt of her head.

  Nodinens crossed to the front entranceway, where several snowsuits hung on hooks, boots on a thick rug to soak up melting snow. She donned a bright red snowsuit that fit her small figure snugly, then removed her moccasins and slipped her feet into a pair of black mukluks. Without another word, she went out the door.

  "I guess we better obey her," Caleb said.

  Kymbria sighed. "I'll tell Amber we're leaving. She can let Mother know where we are when she and Scarlet get here."

  By the time Kymbria walked out to the truck, Nidonens sat on a snowmobile beside it, the machine's engine rumbling at an idle. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, stuck one in her mouth and lit it.

  Despite her worry about following the windigo's path, Kymbria couldn't suppress a tiny grin at the incongruous picture of the petite woman on the top-of-the-line machine that dwarfed her body. A cloud of exhaled cigarette smoke mixed with the fog of her breath in the cold air. Kymbria climbed into the pickup, and Caleb dropped the gearshift into drive to follow as Nodinens roared back down the driveway on her snowmobile.

  "She said she'd lead," Caleb said unnecessarily. "Hope I can keep up with her."

  Kymbria ignored his attempt at levity. "I'm not sure this is the right thing to do."

  At the end of the driveway, Caleb turned left to follow Nodinens as she raced ahead of them, keeping as close as she could to the banks of plowed snow on the roadside. Although a mailbox here and there amidst the tall pines and leafless white birch indicated more houses, they were set back for privacy. This isolated country was the perfect hunting ground for the windigo. Kymbria recalled Hjak's caution to her about the wilderness containing danger as well as beauty.

  Caleb finally responded to her earlier comment with questions. "You're reluctant to go to Jane's because you're afraid to be somewhere the monster has been so recently? Where it's done its horrible work on someone else you know?"

  "Yes," she admitted. "It's hard enough knowing that thing was at my cabin."

  She waited for him to prod her again, try to make her admit she'd been hearing this beast, but he changed the subject.

  "Are you related to Nodinens, also?"

  "No. Oh, you mean because I call her Grandmother. It's a title of respect for our Elders, the ones who are stores of the knowledge of our people, our past."

  He nodded and pressed down on the gas feed as Nodinens disappeared around a curve. "She sure knows how to handle that snow machine."

  "She's not someone who thinks change is necessarily bad. She trades for a new snowmobile every other year and goes almost everywhere on it in the winter. She has the largest big screen TV of anyone around. Plus she loves music, so she has state-of-the-art speakers throughout her home. She also keeps up with computer technology. Every once in a while, I'd get an e-mail from her, and you can bet that if your laptop won't connect somewhere, you can go to her house and access the 'net anytime. Well, except in a deep blizzard."

  "An Elder who's a geek?" Caleb smiled. "I like her."

  "Grandmother's a wonderful person. But if we do lose sight of her, I know where Jane lives…lived…oh, god, I can't stand to think of what she might be going through right now!"

  Caleb reached for her hand, and she curled her fingers around his. His touch soothed her nearly as well as when she held her spirit bundle.

  Ahead of them, the snowmobile slowed, then started down another driveway. Caleb squeezed her hand before dropping it to turn into the Lightman's. He couldn't go far. A strip of yellow crime scene tape stopped them. Nodinens had swerved her snowmobile around it, or maybe under it, but Caleb pulled over and killed the pickup engine.

  Beyond them sat the two-story wood house, white with blue shutters on the windows. Such a peaceful scene in the snow. The Lightman's had left a few white birch in the yard and planted blue spruce. The black and white birch trunks stood out against the pristine snow, and a totem pole rose inside a circle lined with gray boulders.

  Kymbria's gaze went instinctively to where the monster had attacked Jane and Tom, then slid up to the window to where Jimmy had looked down on the assault.

  "I only see one cop vehicle," Caleb mused. "Hjak's truck."

  Kymbria jerked her gaze away from the bedroom window. "Why hasn't he called in more help? Hell, the National Guards, if he can."

  "And tell them what?" Caleb admonished in a quiet voice. "That a paranormal monster kidnapped a woman from the tribe?"

  "If that's what it takes!" Kymbria insisted. "We have to kill this thing!"

  "Honey, there's nothing in the National Guard's arsenal to even slow it down."

  "And our puny shotguns with buckshot and salt will?" she asked derisively.

  "Hell if I know," he admitted.

  Disgusted at the thread of truth in the conversation, which was in no way Caleb's fault, Kymbria clamped her mouth and peered through the windshield. There were more people here than just Hjak. Two pickups were parked in front of Hjak's patrol truck, one ancient and one show-room new. They had probably arrived before the sheriff, given the vehicles' locations. Another snowmobile was pulled up behind the patrol vehicle, and she saw Nodinens's Arctic Cat right up beside the house.

  Then she spotted Nodinens — and the man with her.

  Caleb started to open the driver's door, but she caught his arm and pointed through the windshield. "That's Gagewin with Grandmother."

  "The Elder that Keoman mentioned? And?"

  "Not just another Elder. Gagewin is…well, we have a tribal chairman. An elected one. But Gagewin is the uncontested leader of the tribe."

  "I'm getting the impression from your body language that this guy might not welcome me here."

  "It's not that. Well, I can't exactly say for sure, since I don't know what Keoman's told Gagewin about you. Just remember when you meet him, he's respected even more than Nodinens. And he not only expects respect, but demands it."

  "Eats it up? Like some high-up CEO in the corporate
world?"

  "Exactly. For the most part, he's well deserving. He's done a lot for our tribe. Gagewin is actually the one who got the casino off the ground. He's…to put it in words that might make sense to you, he's a holy man. Nothing happens in our tribe without his blessing, which he only gives after a lot of meditation and sometimes even a private vision quest ceremony. He's also a healer, an excellent one. He's our Grand Midé."

  "What clan is this Gagewin descended through?" Caleb asked for some reason.

  "Why should it make any difference?"

  But before Caleb could answer, Nodinens stepped into unobstructed view and waved a small arm at them, indicating for the two of them to get out of the truck and join her.

  "Again, we better obey," Caleb said with a chuckle. "Gagewin may be the boss, but I'd be willing to bet Nodinens can manipulate with the best of women."

  He slid out of the truck, and Kymbria knew she had to follow. The Grand Midé's gaze caught her in its web. She exited the pickup and straightened her body into the entrenched posture of an Army officer before she walked toward the waiting group in the Lightman's driveway. She greeted Gagewin first, since antagonizing him would not sit well with the either him or the rest of the Elders. They were going to need every bit of help they could muster to fight this beast.

  "Grandfather," she said as she bowed her head briefly. "I trust you are well."

  "I am," he replied. "I heard of your widowhood, and I wished your husband a good journey with the Pagidaendijigewin Ceremony."

  Aware he meant a simplified version of the Ritual of the Dead — one Rick, as her husband and a white version of a warrior was entitled to — Kymbria's gratitude was heartfelt. She'd known about the ceremony through Nodinens, but hadn't been able to attend.

  "Thank you, Grandfather," she said sincerely. "Grandmother told me. I was grateful, even though I couldn't be there."

  "Nodinens informed me of your expression of gratitude through that computer she is so fond of."

  She joined the Grand Midé's soft chuckle before she said, "This is Caleb McCoy, Grandfather."