Winter Prey

by T. M. Simmons

  Kymbria traced her finger over various landmarks on the map. "See? Here's the lake, and here we are. As the crow flies, we're only about a half-mile from the lake, although to get to it in any vehicle besides a snowmobile would take a good hour."

  "And the lake is important because…?"

  "Lakes are always important in tribal history. Our early lives and travels revolved around the seasons, as well as what various bodies of water provided for us. Fish, of course. Some shallower lakes where we harvested wild rice. Lakes draw animals, too, and make the hunting prosperous. More importantly, these lakes were left behind when the glaciers withdrew. That withdrawal did a lot of damage to the area, carved up the land. Formed caves in some places. The windigo needs a lair. Has a lair…somewhere around here."

  "I think Nodinens and I were on the wrong path. We should have been tracing tribal history as to the legends and lore, not genealogy. Maybe we should contact your mother again. See if she can add any more information to her story about how this beast came into being. Where it all happened."

  The last thing Kymbria wanted right now was Caleb talking to Niona. She still hadn't forced herself to tell him about her and Niona being blood descendants of the windigo. Niona might let that slip before Kymbria could tell him. And if they had any chance of a relationship at all, Caleb would have to overcome any repugnance he might have regarding that. She wouldn't know if it were possible unless she watched his body language as she told him.

  "First, let's call Hjak," she said. "Let him know what we're up to…where we are. I don't want to be stupid enough to get in trouble out here and no one have any idea where to look for us."

  "Definitely," Caleb conceded. He dug his phone out of his jacket pocket and punched in the number.

  "Hjak," was the curt answer after only one ring.

  "It's Caleb," he said. "Look, Kymbria and I have at least a half-baked idea about where we should look for this windigo. We're out here where Keoman wrecked, and we've got two snowmobiles with us. We're going to do some exploring."

  "Well, you better not explore too long," Hjak said. "Have you listened to the weather reports lately?"

  No, he'd been doing something a lot more enjoyable than worrying about the weather. He glanced at Kymbria, but she was intent on the map. "What's happening weather-wise?"

  "We've only got a few hours,” the sheriff responded. “Maybe more or less. Definitely before nightfall. Canada’s gonna stomp us with another Arctic front. A blizzard will dump a foot or two of new snow."

  "How long is it supposed to last?" Caleb asked, his thoughts on Nodinens.

  "A day, maybe two."

  "Jesus," Caleb breathed, and Kymbria looked up when she caught his tone. "Where are the other search parties?"

  "All over," Hjak replied. "But not one of them has reported any hint of a trail or a place that could possibly be this thing's lair. If we don't find anything before this blizzard hits, Gagewin's planning a ceremony. Tonight, at the tribal building."

  Caleb scanned the tree-and-underbrush glutted landscape around him, mentally interspersing this mass of wilderness on the map laid on the dash. It was nearly enough to make a person give up hope before they even began.

  "McCoy?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I'm still here. Look, we just wanted to make sure someone knew where we were. We'll report in now and then, and we'll be out of the woods long before dark."

  "Do that," Hjak said, then hung up.

  "What?" Kymbria asked.

  "We don't want to waste time calling your mother," he informed her. "We've got a blizzard on the way. We've only got a few hours before we need to get out of the woods and find shelter."

  "A blizzard," Kymbria mused "At about the same time of year that all this started so many years ago. Are there more storms forecast behind this one?"

  "Hjak didn't say."

  She stared through the windshield toward the sky. "I'll bet there are."

  "Forces coming together to reenact previous history? The blizzards that started all this?"

  "Yeah."

  After a moment's contemplation, Caleb said, "Hjak also said that if no one finds Nodinens before dark, Gagewin's doing some sort of ceremony at the tribal building tonight."

  "Not a ceremony. A…well, you whites would call it a séance. It will be an attempt to contact Nodinens, if she's passed on. Or maybe the windigo. It might be successful, too, if all the patterns and elements line up just so." She stared at him. "Do you want to go?"

  Caleb replied in a grim voice, "My ventures into this other world stuff, and my experiences, have had more to do with how the ghosts and entities are effecting the present and what we can do about it. What sort of countermeasures we can take if they're causing havoc. I've never delved into how circumstances can come full circle and explode. For good, or for bad. Which sounds like what your tribe is looking for with this ceremony."

  "Yes, it is, because that's exactly what can happen. Good…or bad. And to understand how to handle things, we draw on the past. How the past has effected the present in other various situations."

  Caleb reached for his door handle. "We don't have a whole lot of time — "

  "Wait." He turned to her, but she had her hand on her spirit bundle, her gaze on the map. "Patterns," she murmured. "It's possible the same weather pattern is forming, but I don't think that's the most important part of all this. I think the most important part is…."

  When she fell silent, Caleb reached over and took her chin. Gently yet firmly, he turned her to face him.

  "You," he whispered. "The most important part of the pattern is that you are here in the Northwood during this thing's current hunting season. He…it…wants something from you." He let loose of her chin and gripped both her shoulders. "You listen to me, Kymbria James. You are not going to sacrifice yourself or any part of your sanity to appease this beast. Do you understand?"

  "It might not be my choice, Caleb."

  "Bull shit!" He squeezed her shoulders until she winced and he dropped his hold. "Bull shit and fuck this. We'll just get the hell out of here and let the tribe hunt for this thing on its own." He reached for the keys in the ignition and started the engine.

  "What about Nodinens?" she asked in a quiet voice. "Can we just abandon her?"

  Caleb laid his forehead on the steering wheel, then turned off the engine. Without raising his head, he said, "A couple hours. We'll search for a couple hours, then we get the hell out of here."

  "All right," she agreed, and when he looked up at her, he caught the end of her slight shiver. Fear lay in the depths of her eyes, her grip on her spirit bundle white-knuckled.

  "Are you sure you can handle even an hour?" he had to ask her.

  "No. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try."

  Five minutes later, they had the snowmobiles unloaded. Rather than take the time to retrieve Caleb's machine from his rented cabin, they'd taken the two from Kymbria's garage. Both engines rumbled in the stillness, and Kymbria sat quietly on hers as Caleb once again checked the gas in both tanks. They were full, as Kymbria knew. She also realized that he was procrastinating, partly from fear for her physical — and emotional — safety.

  Overhead, a few clouds drifted into view from the north, black and pregnant with snow, which would soon inundate the wilderness. The cold crept in even beneath her knitted mask, though the rest of her body was comfortable under her suit, heavy gloves and boots.

  The chill she fought didn't come from the plunging temperatures. Pieces of her past crowded for dominance in her mind. The depths of despair she'd fallen into as a teenager. The emotional trauma brought on in a land of sand and heat on the opposite side of the world, a direct reverse of this frigid woods but with pockets of isolation just as daunting to exploration.

  The tentative beginnings of stability she'd found when she first arrived home to the place she'd overcome her long-ago torment. Was the draw to the Northwood, the peace she felt building at first, merely a ploy of fate? Something that drew her
back to take her own place in the design for future events? A future now playing out? A design that might possibly cost her more than anything she'd experienced in the past?

  Cost her the life she hoped to have with her daughter?

  But what sort of life would it be if she took the coward's way out? She had avoided admitting the problems between her and Rick, and look what that got her.

  Caleb slammed his pickup door, and Kymbria realized she hadn't noticed him return to his truck. He carried the shotgun upright against his shoulder as he climbed on the snowmobile.

  "We forgot to bring your dad's shotgun," he said as he laid his across his knees. "But I put mine back in my truck."

  "I should have remembered," she apologized.

  "No help for it. Which way? As reluctant as I am to let you take the lead, I guess you should. But you stay close to me, hear?"

  "I hear. Where did you see the windigo?"

  Caleb nodded towards the split birch. "About six feet in front of where Keoman's jeep hit that tree."

  "What did he look like?"

  "It isn't a he," Caleb denied. "It's an it. An entity, a horrible mishmash of a sasquatch and an ape. A being that's not supposed to exist, but does."

  She stared at him silently until after a resigned sigh he continued, "Physically, it was about eight…maybe nine feet tall. Covered with fur, strings and clumps all over its body, including its face. The irises were dark pits, black holes. Around those, red veins glowing like lava crawled through the whites. Its face was flat, no nose to speak of, mouth wide, lips drawn back to expose teeth best described as like saw teeth. More than one row. Two, maybe three. There were arms, but if it had hands, they were overshadowed by the claws knifing out. Feet…its feet had claws, too. But…"

  Breathing in jerky gasps, he stopped speaking, obviously fighting his own memories. How horrible it must have been for him to face the same type entity that took his wife and son. She steeled herself against reaching out to comfort him. They couldn't waste the precious time available.

  "Go on," she insisted, attempting with every bit of positive energy she could glean to hide her growing terror. The picture of the beast trying to contact her — a picture she had tried to keep from imagining — firmed in her mind.

  "The worst wasn't the physical makeup," Caleb said. "There was evil emanating from it. Wicked, foul malevolence. It didn't come just from the eyes, although they weren't something you wanted to spend much time staring into. Imagine looking into the depths of hell itself. Wickedness spewed from it. Surrounded it. Poured toward you. I knew if it weren't for my cross, it would have gotten to me. And…I might have been entirely insane before it even touched me."

  "Is it possible you were able to sense the depth of evil because of your previous experience in dealing with paranormal entities? That maybe you are able — ?"

  "No!" he spat. "No way in hell will I try to make contact with this thing's diseased mind. It would win. I have no doubt about that."

  "It's evil mind has tried to penetrate mine," she reminded him. "Maybe your…" She took a deep breath, steeled herself and continued, "…your fear of it is what's blocking you from being reasonable about how we can track it. Kill it. Or I suppose it's possible the windigo could have mind-control abilities. Be able to diffuse people's thoughts so it can escape."

  "No one's ever reported anything like that…although we've never interviewed anyone who's made contact other than Jimmy. We didn't hang around the bar long enough to talk to those men."

  He shook his head. "Even Keoman was aware of the need to protect humans from this beast's supernatural capacities." He glared at her, his face set in firm admonition. "And if I even get an inkling you're allowing this entity to communicate completely with you, I'll shut down this attempt to find its lair so fast you won't know what hit you."

  "You have to agree, it's trying to manipulate us into something different than on its previous hunts."

  "And it's using a lot of pressure," Caleb said as though reexamining the situation. He gazed at the split birch. "We haven't taken time — haven't had time — to pool our knowledge."

  "You're right," she agreed. "All of us seem to know bits and pieces, but none of us know the whole story behind its powers. My mother, and probably one or two of our Elders, know portions of the story. Nodinens probably has more to add. You studied this thing before you came here, researched what others of its ilk have done, so you have somewhat of a general knowledge of the windigo as a supernatural entity."

  Caleb started to speak again, but Kymbria glanced at the sky and said, "Tell me what you know as we ride."

  "I don't think that's a good idea. We don't want to be distracted while we chase it."

  "We don't have a choice. Our time is limited."

  He set his mouth in a grim line, but nodded.

  Chapter 41

  The snowmobiles crawled along single file when necessary, side-by-side so they could continue their conversation when possible. Their helmets lay on the leather seats in front of them, a dangerous tactic if they had to flee through the congested underbrush, but essential if they wanted to hear each other over even these well-tuned engines. There was no trail to guide them, only Kymbria's knowledge of the area, reinforced by the map they'd both examined.

  "So," she said over her shoulder to Caleb as she maneuvered down what must have been a narrow deer trail, "besides a windigo's physical abilities — its capacity to move faster than the human eye can follow, superhuman strength, acute vision — it obviously has a certain amount of telepathy ability."

  "According to what's been happening to you, yeah," he confirmed grudgingly. "That's not in any of the research I read, though. "

  She stopped at a fork in the trail, and Caleb pulled up beside her. The heavy silence blanketed and softened even the rumble of the snowmobile engines. Though she listened closely, Kymbria could hear no bird calls, no sign of any other life in the snow-covered underbrush and trees. It reminded her of the eerie silence surrounding the sweat lodge that night. The feeling of isolation, a bubble in the wilderness that didn't fit.

  "That way leads towards the lake," she said with a nod, "and another road, the one that runs close to where Keoman and I visited his sweat lodge when I first arrived. And…."

  "And?" he prodded.

  "I don't know how much you can tell after all these years, but this area was once burned over. The summer camp we attended in our teen years was near here. There are some caves behind where the camp was, but believe me, we explored each and every one of them years ago. None of them was a windigo lair."

  "None you found. You don't think for a minute this thing would leave its hibernating place exposed to discovery, do you?"

  "Are you insinuating it had something to do with the fire back then? To run us out of the area, so it could leave its lair each new hunting season without discovery? The fire was in the summer, Caleb. The thing would have been asleep."

  "It should have been asleep through this month, also," he reminded her. "It woke up early this season."

  "The forces," she murmured.

  "What do you mean?"

  "We believe there are forces that guide events at times," she explained. "Call it fate, whatever you want. Coincidences don't just happen, not when there's a foretold path set out."

  "The same forces that brought you back here at this exact time?"

  When she glared at him in irritation, he held up a forestalling hand. "I'm not contradicting you or denigrating any cultural beliefs, Kymbria. I know things like this happen. I've seen the results over the years."

  She relaxed a bit. "Foretold paths are not set in stone. There's free will to take into consideration. Maybe I've been set on this course by forces we believe in but don't completely understand, but it's my decision as to whether or not to follow it. Or, even if I do, I have a choice in how I make my decisions along the way."

  Caleb pulled back his snowmobile suit sleeve to look at his watch. "We're not going to be able to invest
igate those caves this trip. We need to start back."

  "It's only about another ten minutes to the caves."

  "And then what? We don't have time to spend there. And if we do run into this thing, due to the weather, we might be trapped with it. I doubt the blizzard would kill us. No, we've made a lot of progress, at least as to where we think we should search next. We need reinforcements first."

  "But Nodinens…."

  "She might already be dead," Caleb said quietly.

  "But if she's not…oh, god, how can we just go back now?"

  ~~~

  Standing at the mouth of the lair, even Its keen vision could not see across the distance to where the voices came from. It’s hearing identified two humans: Her and that one who wore the cross. Why did She continue to be with him? Didn't She understand their destiny was entwined?

  Or was it? Was this another trick of the spirits who controlled Its destiny during this existence? During Its time as this being? Was this a further punishment? Give It hope — the one emotion that, when withdrawn, would make this purgatorial existence even worse — then remove that hope? Hope was a powerful emotion, especially when absent for so long. It could be dangled like a tantalizing minnow in front of a hungry, winter-weary pike, then jerked away a second before culmination. The hunger would be worsened a hundred-fold by the temptation of ending the dark bleakness.

  Behind It, the old woman shuffled across the pebble-strewn dirt floor. It turned to face the tiny, wrinkled being. Nodinens, she had said her name was, insisting that if she were to die, It must know who It killed.

  "I'm leaving," Nodinens said. She spoke in the language people used today, one It understood, although some of their previous conversations had taken place in the Old words.

  It silently studied her. The aged one had conquered her repugnance at the remains of previous meals. She wore the moccasins from the woman, the heavy jacket from the man, the fur-lined hood cinched around her face. The man had been three times her size, and she only grew as high as Its upper thigh. The jacket enveloped her nearly to her feet. Beneath the bottom of the jacket, the blanket dangled an inch or so. She thrust her hands in the opposite sleeves to keep them warm, similar to how women of his tribe had fashioned muffs from the mink they trapped.