by Steve Vernon
Worse yet, the only thing the man knew how to cook were grilled cheese sandwiches.
I don’t think that I can ever stare another slice of processed cheese in the face if I live to be a thousand years old.
“You’re not actually sure about that, then?” Bigfoot asked. “Are you?”
“I was awfully young when it happened,” I explained. “But I always figured that it was my Mom’s idea.”
“But you don’t really know for sure.”
I did not.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “My real Dad is dead now.”
“You’re sure about that too, are you?” Bigfoot asked.
I wasn’t exactly certain what he meant by that – whether he meant that I wasn’t sure about it not mattering, or if I wasn’t sure about why Mom and Dad had divorced in their own separate ways – or if he had meant something completely entirely different.
But I would remember that question for some time to come.
“Ah well. Stepdad or Dad, it’s all the same difference to me,” Bigfoot said, tearing what was left of Warren’s windbreaker from off of his chili-con-carne chest. “He still looks to be hurt pretty bad right now. Stepping on him MIGHT actually be an improvement.”
“Pretty bad?” I repeated slowly. “Warren?”
I didn’t know what to do or say. Here was my stepdad, the guy I supposedly hated, with his chest torn up so badly that it looked like he was wearing a bowl of chili-con-carne for a shirt. I ought to be Christmas-Day-happy but for some reason I couldn’t seem to muddle past surprise algebra pop-quiz-glum.
Bigfoot leaned down close enough to breathe on Warren’s wounds.
All I could see was a whole mouth full of teeth.
Oh my god.
He was going to eat my stepdad right there in front of me.
“Do you have any moss?” Bigfoot asked.
“Moss?”
I wondered if he needed the moss to make himself a salad to go along with all of this people-meat – which got me to thinking about the way that Mom was always after me and Warren eating salad with our meals. She always said that salad was good for our cholesterol – so maybe Cape Breton Bigfeet worried about their cholesterol levels.
“What are you, an echo chamber?” Bigfoot asked, reaching over and yanking some moss from the foot of a nearby tree. “You know, MOSS – the green stuff that grows on trees. Why don’t you see if you can find some moss and maybe some cobwebs in that alder thicket. There ought to be some dew glinting on the cobwebs this time of the morning. Just look for the shimmer and you’ll be fine.”
I got up and ran to the alders he was pointing at. It happened to be the very same alder bush thicket that rain cloud that the coyote had jumped off of had landed in.
I could see the alder bushes just fine.
I could even see the shimmer that Bigfoot told me I’d see.
What I couldn’t see was just why I was doing exactly what Bigfoot told me to do – except that maybe doing anything felt better than me doing nothing at all.
So I ran into the alders.
Now – for those of you who don’t know quite what an alder is I can tell you that an alder is basically a sort of a weed tree. An alder will sprout pretty anywhere it wants to and just as soon as it sprouts up it begins to spread into big old thickets that will fill in the gaps where the trees left off and they’ll choke out the younger trees. They’re not really much good for anything but getting in the way of things.
I ran into those alders and I hit that alder thicket like it was a solid brick wall.
I’m telling you it hurt – and it did not make one single bit of sense.
I mean, all that I could see in front of me was just sticks and branches but I flattened out against it like somebody had parked a nine-mile-high planet-wide car in the middle of that alder thicket and I had run smack flat dab against the car door.
I fell flat on my back and when I looked up Bigfoot and the Coyote were both standing over me and laughing. Bigfoot was carrying what was left of Warren in his arms like he was nothing more than a little baby.
“That’ll teach you to call me mythical,” Bigfoot said, with a low rumbling chuckle that would have drowned out any avalanche you care to name.
I just lay there and groaned a little while the earth continued to spin in both directions at once.
And then the mystic pink Winnebago showed up.
Right out of thin blue air.
Chapter Five – Winnebago Alder Bush Surprise
I lay there in the dirt, flat on my back, looking up at the sky.
A bird flew overhead. It might have been a crow. I wasn’t certain – but I’m pretty sure that particular bird was looking down and laughing at me.
I guess I couldn’t blame him much for laughing, if he was.
I must have looked pretty funny laying there by that patch of alders that I had just run into like they were some kind of a freaking brick wall.
“Didn’t anybody ever teach you to stop and open the door before you go running into an alder thicket?” the coyote asked.
Door?
I sat up slowly, like my butt and my legs had been glued to the dirt and was refusing to go along with that whole getting-up part of things. The coyote reached down one paw and helped me to my feet.
I felt just a little surprised at how soft the coyote’s paw really was.
“Upsidaisy,” the coyote said.
I stood up twice as slowly.
Right about now I did not figure there was any need to rush into ANYTHING.
I took a good long look at the coyote that had helped me to my feet – but I couldn’t really figure out just exactly what he looked like. He looked a little like a plain ordinary coyote – which I had seen in a couple of nature programs that my Mom had made me watch. At the same time he looked a little like that coyote that kept chasing after that roadrunner in all of those cartoon shows that I used to watch – back when I was a kid – three or four years ago.
At the same time I could see something else looking out at me from that whole mess of coyote and cartoon character – something that looked like a very old and very young Indian warrior – the kind you might see in an old western movie, only way older than movies.
“You can come out now, Winnie,” Bigfoot said.
Winnie?
Like the bear?
Was he talking about The House at Pooh Corners and all of that kiddy-book jazz?
Or was Bigfoot talking to the ghost of the dead bear?
I was seriously confused.
“Are you sure that it is safe?” a voice asked from somewhere inside the alders. “That kid sure smells awfully funny to me.”
“I’ll vouch for him,” Bigfoot said.
“Big hairy deal,” the voice from the alders said. “You talk as if you are some kind of a fountain of Solomon-like wisdom and judgment. It just so happens that I have seen you chew the chewing gum that you find stuck to the bottom of park benches.”
Bigfoot shrugged.
“Pre-chewed is way tastier,” Bigfoot said in mid-shrug. “I like to think of it as my own version of environmental recycling.”
“There is just no accounting for Sasquatch taste, I guess,” the alder bush went on. “Or the lack thereof.”
Bigfoot shrugged again.
On second thought – shrug was just way too small of a word to use on such a heavy gesture. It was a little like watching a mountain giving birth to an earthquake in the middle of a full-blown tornado.
“The kid is a souvenir,” Bigfoot said. “Some folks bring home baseball bats and silver teaspoons and t-shirts. Me, I collect kids.”
“That still doesn’t mean I want him anywhere inside of me,” the voice from the alders said.
Inside?
I didn’t like the sound of that at all.
Being fed to an alder bush might be worse than being eaten by a Bigfoot.
“He
’s been touched by the Raven,” Bigfoot said – and I could somehow hear him using that big capital R in Raven. “He’s been marked. That means that he’s our business now.”
Then a door opened up in the middle of the alders – just the same way as that bear had stepped out of the birch tree.
The door swung open like someone was opening it for us.
And then all of a sudden like instant magic I could see this bright salmon pink Winnebago motor home – something about the size of Wisconsin that had been parked here in the alder thicket all along – maybe hiding in that coyote-dropping rain cloud.
Except that giant pink Winnebago hadn’t been there a minute ago.
There was no way on earth that I wouldn’t have seen it if HAD been here.
It was freaking huge and it was pink all-over – but other than that it looked exactly like one of those gigantic road-boats that you see prowling up and down the highway, usually driven by nine-hundred year old men wearing way-too-flowery Hawaiian shirts.
That is, except for the wings.
The big pink magic Winnebago had a huge pair of bright pink wings.
“A flying Winnebago?” I asked.
“Do you like them?” the Winnebago asked, giving those big giant pink wings a thunderous flap. “An eagle gave them to me.”
“You mean , you won them in a poker match with a hand of five aces,” Bigfoot corrected. “The only reason you got to keep them is that eagle never learned to count.”
Then he looked back at me.
“Listen kid, why don’t you step into my office?” Bigfoot said.
“Yes sir, Mister Bigfoot,” I stammered.
“Why don’t you just go ahead and drop the Mister bit, would you?” Bigfoot said. “You can just call me Bigfoot.”
So I dropped the Mister bit and I stepped inside the magic pink Winnebago.
The Winnebago was even bigger inside than it had looked outside. I had the feeling like I had stepped into one of those big old manor houses – like the kind that Bruce Wayne would live in when he wasn’t busy being the Batman.
There were rooms and there was a staircase and a shiny chrome fire pole that slid down to somewhere and a big old skylight that looked to be looking out at the rings of Saturn and I’m pretty sure that door in the wall lead to an elevator.
“Let me introduce you to somebody, kid,” Bigfoot said. “This here is the third member of our team. He likes to be called the Prophet.”
“Which is what his people called him back before he passed on over to the other side,” the Coyote said. “Although I should tell you that it isn’t his real name. The Prophet is just a name that he gave himself.”
“Old Winnie has ALWAYS had a heck of a knack for spinning his own PR campaign,” Bigfoot said.
I was still trying to get my head wrapped around the idea of a haunted travel home.
“You mean this alder bush is the ghost of a dead Winnebago?” I asked.
“A dead Shawnee, if you want to be specific about it,” The Prophet – also known as the Winnebago said. “I am Tenskwatawa, brother to Tecumseh. I am Lalawethika – He Who Makes a Loud Noise. I am the Open Door and I am the Bringer and I am the Sender.”
Hearing those words spoken from inside of the Winnebago felt a little like bit like I was hearing his voice speaking out loud from inside of my head – like somebody had planted an amplified speaker just left of my cerebrum.
In a way, hearing it like that helped me get over the idea that this was nothing more than a dream. The way I saw it, I had NEVER dreamed as loud as this – so I figured that what I was experiencing had to be the truth.
Either that or I had lost my mind.
“The Prophet has got more names than a Toronto phonebook,” Bigfoot said. “But I mostly like to call him Winnie – short for Winnebago.”
The Prophet made his displeasure known by puffing a small cloud of funky green smoke from out of his tailpipe.
I was pretty certain that he wasn’t one bit happy with the nickname “Winnie” but I guess he wasn’t about to argue with a nine foot tall Bigfoot beast.
“The Prophet was the brother to Tecumseh,” Coyote explained. “Way back in the days of what some folks like to call the War of 1812. When he passed over the Great Spirit decided he was worth hanging to and so he brought him back in the form of Winnebago travel home – which only goes to show that the Manitou has a heck of lot better sense of humor than most folks give him credit for.”
“This is a Pawnee travel home,” the Prophet rumbled. “I don’t care one bit what it happens to accidentally say on my bumper sticker.”
There it was again. I could hear him talking like he was talking through my i-pod after someone had jammed the ear phones about three inches past the inner-end of my ear drums.
I must have winced, because Coyote DEFINITELY noticed me flinching.
“It will give you a bit of a headache at first, listening to the Prophet talk from this close up,” the Coyote said. “But you’ll get used to it. Ear wax helps, if you let it build up long enough.”
Only I didn’t want to get used to anything.
“I don’t want to stay here,” I said, taking two steps backwards. “I want to go home.”
“This is your home for now, kid,” Bigfoot said, laying Warren out on a table. “You’re staying whether you like it or not.”
Which almost sounded like some kind of a threat to me – and I guess coming from a nine-foot tall Sasquatch I had to treat it as such.
“You’ll get used to it,” the Coyote repeated.
“What’s the matter with this one?” The Prophet asked.
A bright pink spotlight lit up around what was left of Warren.
“This one is that one’s step-dad,” Bigfoot said, pointing at Warren. “Only that doesn’t mean that you can step on him. This step-dad has been bit pretty badly by a Spirit Bear.”
“So who called the Spirit Bear?” The Prophet asked. “They don’t come unless they are told to. Somebody had to have been pulling the strings of that ursoid, the way I see it.”
“What’s an ursoid?” I asked the Coyote.
“That’s just another name for the Spirit Bear,” Coyote replied.
“As near as I can figure the spirit bear was walking for Raven,” Bigfoot theorized. “And I am pretty sure that Raven took a piece of this kid’s stepdad with him when he left.”
“Is that the dead guy?” The Prophet asked. “The stepdad, I mean?”
Dead?
“He’s not dead,” Bigfoot replied. “Not quite, anyway. Do you think that you can hold him on to his side of the curtain?”
“I can try,” The Prophet said. “It will take a heavy weaving, but if anyone can do it, I can – for I am Tenskwatawa, brother to Tecumseh. I am Lalawethika – He Who Makes a Loud Noise. I am the Open Door and I am the Bringer and I am the Sender.”
“Right, Winnie,” Bigfoot replied. “Just do it, would you – and spare us all the reading of the resume. You make up half of that stuff anyway.”
“Some of it is true,” The Prophet asserted. “The best kinds of stories are made up out of little bits of truth stretched into a pleasing shape.”
“So what are you doing to my stepdad?” I asked, interrupting.
I still couldn’t figure out why I was so concerned about what was happening to Warren – but there it was.
I actually had feelings for Warren, dork or not.
“I thought you said that you didn’t care about him,” Bigfoot said.
“I didn’t say that,” I said, even though I really had said it.
“Winnie is going to hold your step-dad onto our side of the curtain,” Bigfoot explained. “Otherwise he is apt to pass over.”
“Do you mean die?”
“He means pass over,” Coyote explained. “Dying isn’t nearly as serious or permanent as everyone tells you it is.”
“It isn’t any more serious than leaves turni
ng colors on an autumn tree,” Bigfoot explained. “The leaves might fall off but the tree goes on living.”
“If you say so,” I replied.
If dying meant leaves turning color than I pretty sure that it looked to me as if Warren had a terminal case of autumn – and winter was close behind.
“And if we let him pass over with only half a spirit – and that’s all that the Raven left him with,” Bigfoot went on. “Then he’ll slip into the darkness and be gone forever – which is a lot more serious than just passing away.”
“You mean die,” I repeated. “Warren is going to die, isn’t he?”
“Something worse than just die,” Bigfoot said. “But we’re going to fix things – because fixing things is what we do best.”
“Do it, Winnie,” Bigfoot said to The Prophet.
I watched as a slow cocoon began to weave itself about Warren’s body. The cocoon was made out of pine needles and moss and dead leaves and dirt and moth wings and fireflies and bull rushes. I could see all those things coming together from out of the nearby wilderness and weaving themselves about what was left of my stepfather’s body until he looked like something that might have been found on the bottom of a swamp.
I touched the side of the Warren-cocoon. It felt warm and I could feel the warmth of the pine needles and dirt and rock moss and moth wings breathing beneath my touch. I could see something glowing deep inside of the Warren-cocoon – like the memory of a birthday candle burning somewhere in behind the dream of a cake crumb.
“That’ll hold him, for a while,” Bigfoot said. “But we’re going to need to track the Raven down to get back what he took from your stepfather.”
“Is he alive?” I asked. “My stepdad, I mean.”
“He is,” Coyote replied.
“For now,” Bigfoot added.
For now?
“Can you do it? Can you help him?” I asked. “Can you actually fix him? Can you save my stepdad?”
I was scared and worried and it felt like maybe ten kinds of weird, worrying about Warren this way.
I thought I had it all figured out but I guess I didn’t.
“Now don’t be so worried,” Bigfoot said. “Death isn’t anything but a doorway. You can step in through it and you can step back out – and it hardly hurts at all. I remember dying once and it took me an awful long time to get back. You see, what happened is…”