Winter Prey

by T. M. Simmons

  "Mom," Kymbria cautioned.

  "Be safe," Niona whispered, then turned away to reach into the cabinet where they kept Risa's little jars of baby food for when they didn't want to go to the trouble of feeding her something they had prepared themselves.

  Kymbria walked through the connecting door to the garage on the side of the house. Just before she closed the door, she heard one anguished cry behind her, quickly cut off in favor of cooing to Risa. She didn't turn back. She opened the rear door of the SUV, tossed her suitcase on the backseat, then waited until the setter scrambled in before she shut the door. A click of finality echoed her decision.

  Chapter 36

  "You could have at least left the damn dog at home," Caleb muttered angrily as he paced in front of the fire he'd started in the fireplace at Kymbria's cabin. He'd been waiting there for her, as though he knew she would come here first rather than where the beast had last been. "There was no reason to bring her into this situation again."

  "You're probably right," she agreed calmly. She'd worked hard at recalling and practicing the tranquility lessons Adam had taught her during the drive from Duluth, fearing Caleb would be emotional enough for both of them by the time she got there. He was — probably torn between waiting here and wishing he were with the tribal search parties. "But she can sense the windigo even before I can."

  "I suppose you feel she's safe, since this beast only eats human flesh!"

  Rather than flinch at his attempt to shock and anger her, Kymbria said, "I'm sure that doesn't mean it won't kill another animal. But I don't intend to — " She closed her mouth, regretting she'd said too much.

  He whirled on her, green eyes flashing. "Don't intend to what? You've got something planned, don't you? If you think by any stretch of your imagination I'll let you go after this beast, forget it. I'll hogtie you and leave you on your bed until this thing hibernates again before I'll stand for that. I don't give a damn how many people it eats before then!"

  Kymbria sighed. "Caleb, that thing knew what it was doing when it took Nodinens. I tried to work part of this out in my mind while I drove. I still haven't figured it all out, but that's one thing I'm sure of. It wanted me back here."

  "You're giving that thing cognitive powers again. It's an animal. A flesh-eating beast."

  "It was once human, Caleb. I know that for a fact now. And maybe — "

  "Go on," he gritted.

  "O.K. Maybe you don't want to face that part of it. That something once human could do such horrible deeds. You forget, we have serial killers in our own society. Psychopaths who are born without the conscience most people have. They feel absolutely no sorrow or guilt for their horrible deeds."

  "All your psycho-babble isn't going to make me even one bit sympathetic towards this beast, if that's what you're after."

  "It's not," she denied. "However, dismiss my training all you want. It's part of me. And, I believe, of some use here. Maybe that's why no one's been able to defeat a windigo in all these years. People don't give it credit for what it is now, versus who it once was. Credit for its emotions, including deductive powers. You hunt it as though it were an…an animal, like a bear or moose. Something that thrives on inborn instinct alone. But our people believe some animals have human feelings. We honor that in them, understand it."

  "Your people haven't been able to stop this one in three hundred years."

  "That's possibly part of the problem, too." She didn't add, the same problem you have. She wasn't afraid of him. However, his entire body language bespoke how close to the edge of losing it he was. Rightfully so. Just after the wreck, he'd come face-to-face with the windigo; confronted the entity that tore his life apart. Woke up this morning to find it had taken another person from right under his nose, someone he'd begun to care about. She needed to tread carefully around him right now. He could possibly be going through his own form of PTSD, and people didn't act rationally during such episodes. She should know.

  When he continued to glower at her, as though he knew she had more to say, she went on, carefully choosing her words. "Maybe it's just too much for some people to wrap their minds around what the windigo does."

  "You mean, eats people? Tears their flesh from their bones, maybe while they're still alive, and consumes it amidst the blood pouring out of them? Don't try to hide that you're psychoanalyzing me and my reactions, Kymbria. I'm well aware of what probably happened to Mona and Skippy. I'm not ignoring that."

  "That might be the problem," she repeated, carefully studying his reaction. He shuddered, his face crumbling in pain before he caught himself. "Can we sit down and talk this out? Anger clouds things."

  "Anger? Hell, yes, I'm angry! What do you expect? This thing — or one like it — killed my wife and son. It took an elderly woman I'd befriended — a wonderful woman filled with knowledge and caring — while I slept after drinking too much of her booze. It had the deliberate gall to leave proof positive it had been there. Now you're standing here, hinting you're going to place yourself in danger. Another woman I'm starting to care a hell of a lot about!"

  She couldn't suppress the smile that grew with his words, and she walked over to him. Hands at her sides, she paused close enough to touch him if she wanted. "Ditto, Caleb McCoy. At first, I just admired you. It doesn't hurt that you're a handsome, well-built man. I've always been drawn to men who take pride in their bodies. You're also a determined man, a courageous one, someone who cares deeply. Not only about your own quests, but for the people you encounter."

  Did she dare admit how deep her feelings were running? How she'd started believing this man might just be someone she could love? Build a new life with? No, neither he nor she were ready for that. Instead….

  "And I like your kisses, Caleb McCoy." She stretched up and kissed him, lingering, allowing the feelings she had begun to acknowledge for him to flow between them. When he growled low and reached for her, she stepped back. "There will be time to follow up on whatever's growing between us."

  "Not if you get yourself killed," he snarled in a somewhat tempered tone, then moved a few steps over to the sofa and collapsed. He rubbed his hands down his face and stared back at her. "I don't know how much more I can take. If I could just face this thing, at least try to kill it. At the wreck, it left before I could regroup enough to do anything."

  She settled on the sofa beside him, out of reach, as much to keep her own focus on what they needed to discuss as anything else. Scarlet, who hadn't left her side since they arrived, climbed up beside her and laid her head on Kymbria's knee. She smoothed the silky head as she said, "That's another thing I'm trying to figure out. People hunt the windigo because it's what people do."

  "And that means…?"

  "We're hunters. Have been since time began. It's part of the life cycle. Hunt, eat what we kill so we can survive from the deaths of lesser beings. The survivors hunt some more, continue the cycle. We also kill our enemies. Our total focus is on destroying them however we can. We don't let emotions interfere. We don't think of the other people as having the same feelings we do. Having families, loving them. We don't face the fact people we kill in war have families who grieve for them."

  He visibly shook himself, then leaned back on the sofa with a sigh. "I see where you're going. Look at how the slaves were treated when they were brought over here. Tracked down and captured because they could be used to provide physical labor to make life easier on white people. No thought of what they were being taken away from, families they loved, lives they had built. Once here, they were treated like animals, beasts of burden without human emotions. Children torn from their mothers' breasts without regard, like litters taken from dogs or cats. Because they were only animals, they didn't have the same feelings for each other white people did."

  "And my people, who occupied this land long before the whites came," Kymbria added. "They were treated the same way, as though they were incapable of having emotions — love, caring, family tenderness — like the white encroachers had. But
we look back now and realize life did go on. People survived, albeit in different ways than perhaps they'd envisioned."

  He nodded in agreement. "The Universe didn't implode."

  "In my opinion," she continued, "and, understand, I'm not saying it's right, but nothing else has worked…."

  "Go on," he said around a resigned sigh.

  "Well, it's still rather murky to me, but I'm beginning to believe you and I were brought here for a purpose."

  "A path foretold, written by the Universe." It wasn't a question.

  She hesitated, unsure how he would react to her next comment. Still, it needed said.

  "We need to get inside the windigo's mind." As she expected, anger flashed across his gaze. To his credit, he withheld his urge to dispute her.

  Instead, he said, "Does this have something to do with what Niona told you?"

  "Yes." She took a deep breath. But try as she might, she couldn't tell him the deepest, darkest part of what her mother had revealed. She would have to make do with a portion for now, since she'd already started the reveal.

  "I know we've argued about whether this thing has emotions or is just a…well, an animal," she began. When he opened his mouth to interrupt, she held out a hand. "No, you need to listen for now. Then we can discuss this."

  At his reluctant nod of agreement, she clasped her hands in her lap and told him the story. Told him about what had happened to the war party and how one warrior had survived.

  Chapter 37

  When at long last Cocoman stumbled into his home camp, he headed straight for Nimiwin's nasaogan, the tipi with the signs of her clan painted on the deerskin sides. All during the long journey home, he'd envisioned her in his mind: her beauty, the long, flowing hair, her heart-shaped face with deep brown eyes that sparkled with merriment and pleasure of life. The way she flowed when she walked, danced when she was happy. Her name, Nimiwin, meant dance in their language. That she was waiting for him had kept him going, sustained his survival instinct. Her face in his mind overrode his revulsion at what he'd had to do in order to survive, compelled him back to her.

  She didn't disappoint. He found her outside the nasaogan, tending a pot over the fire.

  "Nimiwin," he choked.

  At first, she only stared as though she didn't recognize him. Probably she did not, since he had lost weight, and his clothing was ragged and torn. He hadn't taken time to build a fire and melt snow to bathe, afraid another storm might catch him, one that would isolate him without any sustenance to continue the life flame. He had gathered skins and blankets from the others to wear against the cold, and he pushed back the blanket he wore wrapped around his head and ears.

  Hope flickered in the depths of her eyes. Then love, love that wrapped itself around Cocoman and made life worthwhile. Life he couldn't give up out there in the blizzard, because it meant leaving her.

  She raced to him, and he held her as she sobbed in joy at his homecoming. When her weeping subsided, she drew back and cupped his face between her palms.

  "Oh, Cocoman. I thought…."

  He laid a finger on her lips. "I'm home. I'm home because that's where you are."

  His words set off a new storm of weeping, but she controlled it more easily this time. Then she said, "Oh, you are so thin! And how weary you must be. Come."

  She took his hand and led him to the fire. "I'll be right back with a blanket for you to sit on and a bowl for the stew."

  Despite the tribal rule that he could not enter her nasaogan, he nearly followed her. He couldn't stand to let her out of his sight. But he steeled himself and waited. She returned within seconds, and her presence meant more to him than even the warmth of her wonderful cooking filling his belly.

  While he ate, she told him of the search for the war party after the blizzards finally ceased. Of the failure after failure of the search parties to find any sign of their brothers.

  "We tried so hard," she promised him. "Oh. And what about the others? Are they coming behind you?"

  The taste of her stew soured in his mouth, and he set the bowl down. He couldn't face her as he spoke and turned his gaze towards the lake beside where the tribe had camped. Spring was near now, although it would be weeks even after the snow started to melt before the ice would break on the lake amidst thundering booms. Before their tribe would dismantle their dwellings and move to the river where the fish spawned. Before they would leave this area, put the distance he fervently wished for between this place and the campsite where he had nearly died.

  Finally, he said, "They are all dead. I am the only one who came back."

  She knelt beside him on the blanket. Not too close, since at any time, someone could come out of another nasaogan and see them. Later, they would sneak away and meet at their special place. Then they could free their feelings for each other.

  "I am sorry," she said quietly. "But I am so glad that, if there was only one to return, it was you."

  He turned to her and allowed his finger to trace her cheek. "As am I. And it was you who brought me back."

  A small boy wandered out of the flap on a nearby nasaogan, and their time alone ceased. He shouted the warrior's name and ducked back inside. Soon the entire tribe gathered.

  Not everyone was happy to see Cocoman. That evening, as he sat at the central fire so they could all gather and hear his tale, he stared across the flames at Cingusi. From the time they were boys, the two had hated each other. The Wolf Clan, Cocoman's, and the Marten Clan, Cingusi's, and Nimiwin's Loon Clan, went their separate ways at times, but they always gathered in the winter at the same camp.

  They shared their supplies and helped each other weather the cold, freezing months from manidogizisons until apizigwun. The boys played games with each other when they were young, games that grew fiercer in competition as they aged. This was good for them, the Elders insisted, even when the competitions resulted in injuries. In manhood, they needed to help protect the tribe from enemies. Their physical prowess would be important, as would the fierce desire to defeat the enemy and the lack of fear of their own injuries.

  No two warriors battled to be the best in each and every competition more furiously than Cocoman and Cingusi. And Cocoman came out on top far too frequently for Cingusi, which fed the hatred between them, fueled the resentment in Cingusi. They carried scars from each other, Cingusi more than Cocoman.

  Cocoman had no sympathy for the weaker warrior. He fought him as hard in the play games as he did when they were learning the skills of battle.

  He sent an arrogant glance across the flames at the other man, who had even vied for Nimiwin. Cocoman wasn't sure whether his foe actually cared for Nimiwin or had continued their long-running battle because he noticed Cocoman's interest in her. It did not matter. Nimiwin had chosen. And chosen the better man, the one who had the higher standing in the tribe, the respect shown the best warrior.

  Now bathed and wearing garb from his own nasaogan, he told the tale of their journey…as far as it went, and as much as he could reveal. One by one, he listed each of the other warriors in his band and told of their deaths, each in the order of its happening. Three died coughing from the disease in their chests. Two raved with fever until they stilled at last. The families sat stoically throughout the tales of those other than their own loved ones. But when their turn came, each wailed and left the fire to begin their grief and mourning.

  One man in the war party had been Cingusi's brother. When Cocoman related that the brother had been the last to die — he had found him one morning already frozen in his blankets — Cingusi's mother, father and sister keened and left the circle. But before Cingusi joined them, he glared at Cocoman and stood.

  "And why did you not die?" Cingusi snarled. "How is it you alone returned?"

  Cocoman stood to face him. "By the grace of Midé Manido," he insisted. "It was my destiny to tell what happened."

  Cingusi spat on the ground, then whirled and stalked after his family. Cocoman immediately sought Nimiwin's face. Her express
ion held worship and thankfulness for his return. That was all he needed.

  Late that night, they met at their place, a cave a half-hour's journey from the campsite. He held her, caressed her, and they made their plans for when the clans split up and moved in apizigwun. They would leave this campsite as one, their possessions joined, one nasaogan to sleep in from then on. Nimiwin's father had given his blessing, even though the war party had failed in its quest for vengeance.

  "You seem…." Nimiwin bit her lip.

  "What?" he asked. "Haven't I shown you how glad I am to be with you again?"

  "Yes, yes," she admitted. "Yet…it is as though you are here, yet not here. You must have some weighty thoughts."

  He nodded, and she caressed his cheek.

  "Do not feel bad because you were not successful," she soothed. "It was not to be. There will be another time, when the signs are right. You can lead another war party. If you choose not to go on the gathering party, you can tell the others where they need to go to bring the…the bodies home."

  That was the looming problem, the one he had wrestled with all during his journey to Nimiwin. The families would want the bodies. They would not leave them out there to be torn and rendered by the animals. Already preparations were being made. They would wait a few days, but not many. Only long enough for Cocoman to regain some strength and lead them to the place. If he feigned lack of strength, they would demand he draw a map and go without him. How much of the damage would they believe came from the wilderness beasts? Enough?

  He had been vague about exactly where the blizzards had caught them. Vague enough? Could he make them believe he could not find the place again? Others in the tribe knew the wilderness as well as he did. They roamed at will, to places fruitful for their needs. At times, they explored new territory, other places to possibly hunt, should game grow scarce in formerly abundant areas.

  He had some time. The mourning ceremonies would begin even without a symbol to mourn. But what could he do? He pulled a bag of pemmican he had retrieved from his mother's nasagan from the warm robe he wore.