Windigo Thrall

by Cate Culpepper

  “Science is all we have going for us in this study, Dr. Wrenn.” Jo rallied. “We’re here to document the mystery of that recording, not the dysfunction of a Chippewa fam—”

  “And, that’s breakfast for Becca.” Becca rose smoothly and unhurriedly to her feet. “No, Becca’s taking her bacon.” She took two strips from her plate, then walked to the front door.

  “Becca?” Jo called after her. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m taking my bacon, and I’m going for a walk.” Becca looked down at her slippered feet. “But not in these.” She kicked them off, then stepped into one of the pairs of boots left at the door.

  “Now?” Jo got to her feet, sounding suddenly plaintive. “You’re taking a walk now?”

  “Correct.”

  Grady could see how angry Becca was in her terse pronunciation of Jo’s favorite word.

  “I’m taking my bacon, and I’m taking Elena, who is coming along on this interview, and we’re going for a walk.” Becca snapped her fingers at Elena, and at another time and place, that might have felt rude, but now it seemed merely expedient. Elena got up, smiled fleetingly at Grady, and went to remove her parka from the row of maple pegs near the door.

  Pat scrambled to her feet too, brushing crumbs from her palms. “I’d better chain up those tires.”

  Jo glanced uneasily at Grady. “But, Becca, by the time the three of you get back…”

  “By the time we three get back, you two will have worked all this out.” Becca slung a scarf around her neck and pulled open the front door. “Together, working in tandem, you and Dr. Wrenn will pull down your little-girl pants and remove whatever barbells, professional or personal, you have up your respective buttocks. ’Kay?”

  Becca swept Elena and Pat out the door in front of her, then closed it firmly behind them.

  The sound reverberated through the silent living room.

  Grady stared openmouthed at Jo, who stared back at her.

  “She can be a little fierce,” Jo stammered.

  Grady nodded. “So can mine.”

  It was the first faint moment of kinship between them, and Grady knew she had to build on it.

  “Look, Jo.” She scratched her head. “I know you don’t remember this, but I took a class from you a long time ago…”

  *

  Snow was novel enough in Seattle to make its crunch beneath Becca’s boots a welcome distraction. She wasn’t sure how often it snowed in New Mexico, but Elena seemed surefooted beside her, matching a pace Becca hadn’t intended to set so fast. They waved at Pat as she disappeared behind the cabin.

  “Sorry.” Becca folded her arms against the chill and slowed down enough to qualify this as a stroll, as opposed to an escape. “I just thought we should get out of there. They didn’t need an audience for their drama.”

  If Elena was upset by the scene at the table, she wasn’t showing it. Crystals of snow drifted down from a branch high above their path, and she caught them on her tongue like a child.

  “By ‘they,’ I mean Jo.” Becca sighed. “Grady wasn’t much out of line.”

  “Oh, Grady’s real capable of stomping a line into the dust.” Elena tramped cheerfully in the snow, as if to illustrate. “Not too often, though, and not if I’m stomping one myself. That’s a good thing we’ve learned in this marriage. Only one of us has to be a sane person at a time.”

  Becca was glad to focus on something other than her clueless and abrasive partner. “How long have you guys been together?”

  “Grady came into my life a year and a half ago.” Elena extended her hand toward Becca, and her smile turned shy. “She just had these made for us for Christmas, and I love to show mine off. I can’t with many, back home.”

  “I noticed these before. Grady wears one just like it.” Becca clasped Elena’s fingers and took in the delicate swirl of silver on her finger, encircling an irregular drop of deep turquoise. “It’s beautiful, Elena. Classy and tender at the same time.”

  “Yes. Like her. Thank you.”

  Becca gave Elena’s hand a brisk warming rub and released it, wishing she’d given her time to find gloves. Their breath frosted on the air before them, but the cold wasn’t too bitter. And it was lovely out here; Becca had forgotten the picturesque charm of Jo’s land. Carpeted in snow, it was even more beautiful in winter than summer, the only time she’d seen it. The six inches of new snowpack made walking cumbersome but rewarding.

  They high-stepped to the deep metal trough that still stood at the edge of Jo’s lot. It was a quaint throwback to an earlier age of grazing livestock, but apparently, Pat kept it in good repair. Becca remembered Jo mentioning this trough in one of her rare stories of her childhood—coming out here at dawn as a young girl in summer, scattering corn in this feeder, hiding in the brush to watch the near-tame deer gather for breakfast. Becca’s throat constricted, and she closed her eyes. Her Jo had been that sweet kid, happy to feed her friends breakfast. Always alone, Becca knew.

  Then she remembered something else Jo told her about this trough, and she grinned and put a hand on Elena’s arm to stop her. A brief, nigh miraculous sun had broken through the clouds to wash them in gold morning light. This would be fun.

  “Want to see something pretty?” Becca asked Elena.

  “Always.”

  “Look back.” They turned, and Becca did a double take. Jo had mentioned this trough marked a nice view of Mt. Rainier, but then Jo was an idiot of understatement. This vista of the mountain, shrouded in mist at its base but a shining testament to sheer cliffs to its tapered peak, took her breath away.

  “Ay.” Elena sighed, and neither of them felt a need to elaborate. They sat back against the rough edge of the trough and drank in the mountain, and Becca appreciated their companionable silence. She wasn’t sure why she decided to break it, except she found Elena so damn easy to talk to.

  “My parents’ ashes are scattered in a field of wildflowers not far from here.” She nodded toward Paradise, a lovely, aptly named tract of land just around the bend of the mountain. “It was the first place I brought Jo, last summer. The first place we visited together, once we realized we were together.”

  “That must have been an honor for Jo. That you would share this field of wildflowers with her, that is so important to you.”

  “You’re right. It was an honor.” Becca was pleased that Elena understood, pleased to her core that Jo had too, and warmed by the memory. “It was a gift I gave her, and she knew it. Jo helped me heal from losing my folks in so many ways, Elena. I wish you and Grady could know that side of her.”

  “Ah, mi amiga, we’ve seen that side.” Elena smiled at her around the hood of her parka. “Just in the way Jo looks at you, we can see she’s capable of gentleness, and she has so much love for you.”

  Becca nodded, her brimming eyes on Rainier. “It’s just a lot of work.”

  “Yes?”

  “Sometimes I think if Jo and I could just build a big fortress and live it in together, shut out the world, we’d be fine. We’d be happy. Because with me, she’s so fine, so much of the time. But we can’t always be alone.” Becca sighed. “I’m always going to need friends in my life. She’s come a long way, but mornings like this remind me how hard being around people is for her.”

  Elena didn’t offer easy assurance, letting the beauty around them soak into their skin and bring its own comfort.

  “I know Jo faces some special challenges, Becca,” Elena said finally. “And I know that you will always help her with them.”

  “The doctors who examined her as a child said she had a character disorder.” Becca shook her head. “Then a learning disorder. Jo’s had a dozen clinical labels slapped on her. None of them are even really accurate—”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Elena was watching her. “I think there’s danger up here, and Jo might be especially vulnerable to it.”

  “I promise I won’t let her cook for us.” Becca smiled uncertainly. “Um, can you say any more about
this?”

  “I wish I could, but that’s all I’m sure of right now.” A line appeared between Elena’s brows. “It’s just a feeling, like my feeling that our friend Pat is also a part of this. But I’m worried for Jo, and I know she’s going to need your help.”

  Elena was not a flamboyant person, and she wasn’t making this pronouncement with any scary-eyed claim to otherworldly knowledge. She just looked scared.

  Becca shivered. “Okay.”

  Elena reached over and took Becca’s hand and held it on her knee. “But I promise you one thing, chica, you guys aren’t alone with this. Pat and Grady and I are here too, and we’ll help you all we can.”

  This promise seemed to allow the sun to linger for a while, but it couldn’t last. They watched the mountain until the clouds closed over it again, encasing them in snowy shadows.

  Chapter Four

  Jo was gratified when they pulled away from the cabin close to schedule. She noted Becca climbed silently into the back seat next to Grady, so she was not yet forgiven entirely for the silly clash at breakfast.

  “Where is this family living?” Grady was peering out the window at the white forest aligning the narrow road. At least she was being sensible; they both considered the argument resolved and forgotten.

  “About a mile south of Paradise. I guess that’s an unfortunate way to put it.” Jo caught Becca’s eye, and they shared a slight smile. “The Abequas are no longer squatting on this land, Pat, correct?”

  “Right.” Pat steered the heavy vehicle down the slick drive with an expert hand, the frost crackling under the chained tires. “Frank Abequa tells me they’ve managed to rent this little compound of homes off a side road. It’s not tribal land, any tribe, but it’s the only housing they can afford. We’re supposed to speak to this Margaret Abequa this morning, Jo, the woman Frank mentioned. Must be some kind of family matriarch.”

  “They’ve traveled such a long way.” In the seat beside Becca, Elena was also gazing up at the snow-blanketed trees they trundled slowly past. “All the way across the continent, to try to escape this demon.”

  “Or a psychiatric disorder, which would have come with them,” Grady said. “We have to keep that possibility in mind too.” She turned to Becca. “Are you familiar at all with Windigo Psychosis?”

  Becca lifted her eyebrows. “No, but you have my complete attention. There is such a thing?”

  Grady nodded. “It’s a culture-specific syndrome, an accepted diagnosis, though not without controversy.”

  “And a culture-specific syndrome is a disorder that’s only seen in a given community?” Becca was looking at Grady with fascination, the way she looked at Jo while she tried to explain other worlds.

  “Exactly. Windigo Psychosis doesn’t exist outside the Algonquin tribes, such as the Chippewa, but many societies have their own examples. Another culture-bound syndrome is la mala hora, in New Mexico—the legend of the woman who appears at a crossroads to those who are doomed to die soon. Some folks in Hispanic communities have seen a frightening woman at a crossroads, and they quickly sicken and die, from no known physical cause.”

  “La mala hora is more than this syndrome, querida,” Elena said mildly. “But please go on.”

  “A person suffering from Windigo Psychosis believes they’ve been possessed by the spirit of a Windigo,” Grady continued. “They’re consumed with a craving for human flesh, even when other food is available. Some have actually begged to be executed, because they fear they’re going to harm their families.” Grady paused. “Some have harmed their families.”

  “Yeah?” Becca was sitting quite close to Grady on the wide back seat, Jo noted. “It’s gone that far?”

  “The most notorious case was Swift Runner, a Cree trapper up near Alberta, Canada. His family was very isolated during a brutal winter in eighteen seventy-eight. The oldest son died.”

  “And this Swift Runner ate his son?” Becca asked.

  “And butchered his wife, and his five remaining children, and ate them too. He was arrested and executed at Fort Saskatchewan.”

  “Jesus,” Jo whispered, and heard Elena softly invoke some other deity at the same time. Pat released a long, low whistle.

  She wouldn’t admit it aloud, but Jo was starting to be glad she had agreed to let Grady take the lead this morning. She was beginning to feel completely at sea in this quagmire of folklore and pathology. Give her the quantifiable energy of human existence beyond death, something she could measure with the right instruments, and she was on solid ground. The intricacies of normal minds in the living were difficult enough to fathom, forget cultural delusions and psychoses. It chaffed her to accept it, but those were much more Grady’s purview, and Becca’s clinical training in social work.

  Even Elena Montalvo’s background in a kind of Hispanic witchcraft was more suitable to this study than Jo’s science, in some ways. Elena was sitting quietly, with a stillness Jo was coming to recognize as her natural state. She remembered her easy dismissal of Elena at the breakfast table, and reminded herself that she had to learn to think before she spoke.

  She turned to look at Becca again and saw only her profile intent on Grady, the two of them talking quietly. Becca rested her hand on Grady’s wrist as she spoke, and Jo frowned. She felt Elena’s gaze on her, oddly searching, and she gave her a puzzled smile as Pat steered them down the path to the Abequa family’s compound.

  *

  Maggie lifted the panel in the bedroom window and peered out, seeing their new home through the judging eyes of these strangers.

  The generational poverty of the Abequas had followed them here, reflected in the ramshackle cabins that composed the compound. Little more than shacks, the cabins formed a scattered half-circle around an open parking area. A few rusted trucks listed hubcap-deep in snow, all the transport available to the more than thirty people milling close to their doorsteps. A few mangy-looking dogs trotted through the muddy slush, collarless and forlorn.

  Maggie’s great-grandmother muttered something behind her in the cramped bedroom, something low in the old language, which Maggie didn’t speak and had no intention of learning. She muttered something back and continued glaring out the hinged window.

  Her tribe had gathered en masse this morning to greet these interlopers. Dark-haired uncles, aunts, greats, and cousins, shrouded in heavy coats, silently watched the women climb out of their truck. The family resemblance was evident not only in their features but in their sullen expressions. Small puffs of steam plumed from their faces as they waited. Maggie didn’t like the look of her kin in the harsh morning light. They were too frightened these days.

  Finally, all five of the women stood in the snow beside their ridiculously expensive vehicle. Maggie could have bought four new cars for her family for the price of that tank, with some to spare. Peachy. These were very rich women, and they’d brought the cop with them. She eyed the uniformed officer standing apart from the others, her hands clasped behind her back. Maggie’s father had told her about this cop.

  She clenched her teeth to bite back a yawn she was far too tense to enjoy. That damned dream last night, clutching a screaming baby, running from a man who was more spider than human, had shattered her sleep again. Rested or not, it was time to take charge.

  Maggie gripped the ragged window ledge for a moment, then pushed off it and strode past the muttering Selly and out of the cabin. She slapped open the door and stalked out just as one of the white women stepped up the three stairs to the deck. The woman stopped abruptly and blinked up at Maggie through her glasses. Maggie planted her feet at the top of the stairs, and the woman backed down two of them, conceding space.

  “Hello. My name is Grady Wrenn. I think you’re expecting us. We’ve been told to speak to a Margaret Abequa?”

  “Yeah, I’m Maggie Abequa. You can speak to me.” Maggie tried to curb the knee-jerk hostility in her voice. This person was being perfectly respectful. Except she looked insultingly startled that Maggie was the speake
r for her family, being so young. They all looked startled, except for the cop, who was staring at her hard. Maggie jerked her chin toward the others. “Tell me who they are.”

  She listened carefully to the tedious introductions that followed, studying these strangers. The cop continued to stand apart, but the other four turned slightly toward each other as couples, protective under the grim watch of the crowd. Wonderful. A nest of lesbians. She’d heard everyone in Seattle was a lesbian, but that was no real draw as far as she was concerned. If Maggie had wanted to find her own kind, she had no problem doing that in Minnesota. Lesbians were rare, but they were there.

  But now that Maggie was here, she had no choice about that. It was time to do her job. She shook her head as Grady Wrenn droned on about the strange tall brunette’s credentials. “I need to speak to the cop.”

  Grady stopped mid-word, her mouth hanging open, and the strangers all looked at each other. The officer, however, did not hesitate. Her hands still clasped behind her, she walked through the snow to the steps, then ascended them with slow calm. Maggie was standing at the top of the stairs, but the cop didn’t hesitate, her dark gaze locked on Maggie as she rose to her level. It was either back up or have physical contact, and to Maggie’s astonishment, she was the one to give ground.

  The woman didn’t press her advantage. She stepped onto the deck and stayed a careful three feet from Maggie, standing sideways as if she knew not to block her view of the other strangers. She waited for Maggie to speak.

  “You’re the cop who talked to Selly?” Maggie struggled not to cross her arms. She had been interrogated by police more than once in her twenty-two years, and she didn’t like them. She didn’t like the faint heat rising in her as she looked at this one, either.

  “My name is Pat Daka. I’m a ranger with the Mount Rainier National Park Service.” This Native was used to her title commanding respect. In Maggie’s eyes, she was a cop. North, west, Native or white, they were all the same. This one had a voice like melted caramel. “Yes, I interviewed Selly Abequa. Are you related to her?”