Dark Spirits of the Forest

by Michael Weinberger

  “Looks like the Casino’s convention center isn’t going to be enough for the crowds they’re expecting.”

  Jett shook his head and agreed with Ursula, “Apparently not. Man-o-man, it looks like the tribe has bitten off more than it can chew here. They must have had to hire from outside the tribe to run this.”

  “How are we supposed to make contact with the Tribal Council?”

  “The council arranged for us to meet in one of their convention rooms. We also have a room reserved for our use, so we’re just supposed to check in at the front desk, go to our room and rest up until someone from the tribe comes to collect us for the meeting.”

  Ursula didn’t like that, “So we’re to cool our heels until called for?”

  “Basically, but I’d like a shower and change of clothes.”

  Ursula screwed up her face, “You need it.”

  “Thanks,” Jett kidded, “I can always count on you to say the nicest things.”

  After valeting the car and carrying their luggage into the Hotel’s lobby they paused and noticed that the Lodge theme was carried throughout the interior of the Casino. It was a strange contrast, having the wood beams and hunting trophies adorning the walls in combination with the sounds and flashing bright lights of slot machines. Table games were centered within the casino floor complete with security cameras and spotlights that shone down on the tables, while uniformed dealers in pants or short skirts shuffled cards, called out craps or spun the roulette ball.

  The check-in process at the front desk went quickly, but despite the initial smiles and polite service, Jett felt the employees, who were all of the Tribe, watching him with a great deal of suspicion when they thought he wasn’t looking. He was still an outsider, regardless of his background, and it made Jett wonder if news of his arrival was being perceived as something ominous. Then again, it might have just been a simple case of prejudice toward Native people generally not being very good tippers, even among other Native people. He gave the Bellman five bucks for bringing their three bags to the room, and the young man’s demeanor brightened a little, even offering to fill the ice buckets for them before he went back down.

  Instead Jett asked him about the upcoming weekend, listening as the young man delivered a clearly rehearsed explanation of the schedule of events. Jett didn’t really care about the actual shows because he was more interested in the mechanics of what might have been happening behind the scenes.

  “The outdoor area seems kind of risky, given the current weather, doesn’t it?”

  The young man shook his head as if Jett had brought up a particular point of frustration or concern, “It shouldn’t be this cold at this time of year.” The young man suddenly looked up with a concerned expression on his face as if he had said something he shouldn’t, “I mean it not going to snow or anything, so I doubt they’ll cancel.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Jett responded.

  “Right, that’s right. It’s just that there’s a chill in the air that we don’t usually have, so bring a light jacket or a sweatshirt with you, if you’re going to be outdoors tonight.”

  Jett nodded, and then asked, “Anyone know why a cold front has come in?”

  It was an odd question, he knew, and the young man frowned, but politely waited to see if Jett wanted to rephrase what he had asked.

  When Jett just looked at him expectantly, the young man just shrugged, “Global warming, I guess?”

  Jett returned the shrug politely and smiled, “Funny how it’s called ‘global warming’, but even though the summers are getting hotter, the winters seem to be colder.”

  The young man thought about that for a second, before saying, “Well, we were having a seriously hot August until about a week ago. Then this chill came through and it just isn’t leaving.” The young man looked down at his hands, “It’s making people nervous.”

  “What people?” Jett responded.

  “The Elders, of course.”

  Jett agreed, “Of course”.

  The young man started shifting his weight from side to side before changing the subject, “Well, if there’s anything you need, just call down to the front desk or to the concierge and we’ll get it taken care of for you.”

  “Sounds good, thank you…”

  The Bellman made a show of shaking Ursula’s hand before he collected his baggage cart and closed the door behind him.

  Ursula turned to Jett and repeated his words back to him, “Anyone know WHY a cold front has come in? Isn’t that kind of deep for that young man?”

  “People talk. I was hoping that there might have been a rumor going around that could give us a clue.”

  “About the weather?” she wondered.

  Jett started unpacking his bag, “It’s something that’s out of place or outside what should be the norm in the natural world. Maybe it’s part of what Pinga meant when she said the area was ‘out of balance’.”

  “And this imbalance could have an effect on the weather?” Ursula questioned.

  He let out a breath before answering, “I hope not because, if something dark has gained enough power to exert an influence on the elements, then it could mean we are already too late to stop whatever is coming.

  Chapter 8:

  It was over two hours beyond the scheduled meeting time when there was a knock on their door. Jett tried not to let the fact that they had been kept waiting bother him. He understood they were outsiders, and not a priority at the moment, so given the significance of the upcoming event, they were just going to have to wait until they could be spared the time by the tribe. Besides, it had given Jett and Ursula enough time to clean up, get dressed and even retreat to the Casino floor for food. Then again, a phone call saying there was a delay would’ve been a simple enough courtesy.

  When Jett answered the door, he found himself staring down at a particularly surly looking Ojibwe woman. Standing about five feet three inches, and likely weighing over two hundred pounds not counting her silver jewelry, the woman pushed her way past Jett into the room without being invited.

  She didn’t introduce herself, but instead angrily commanded, “Come on, get your stuff and let’s go.” Her voice was a little low and she spoke in an accent that made the words come out as if a kind of slang, maybe half Native and half Northern United States/Canadian in inflection.

  “To the meeting?” Jett asked.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m to take you to the meeting room, as if I didn’t already have enough to do.”

  “Sorry you were put out at our expense,” Ursula offered with obvious insincerity.

  “Hey!” The woman rounded on Ursula having registered the sarcasm, “I have a lot to do before Friday and I don’t have the time to spare on escorting people around who use the fact they are Native to get a free room.”

  Ursula looked at Jett, who just shook his head by way of a reply.

  “So,” the woman finished, “can we please go already?”

  Jett bowed his head and gestured with a wave of his hand, “Lead the way.”

  Jett and Ursula followed the woman as she led them through the Casino and away from the main gaming area toward the convention center. There, inside one of the event spaces, people were working at setting up decorations and promotional tables for some kind of even that coincided with the scheduled MMA fight.

  “What’s going on in here?” Ursula asked.

  The woman answered angrily, but this time it seemed to be directed at the worker’s in the conference hall instead of at them, “Not enough if we are going to stay on schedule, but to answer your question, this is the area where the pre-fight weigh-in and post-fight press conference will take place. It’s going to be a zoo as it is, and it will be even worse if I am constantly being taken away from the set up.”

  The woman pointed to a door at one side of the conference hall, “They’re waiting for you in there. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t take you the whole way.” Then she bounded forward, screaming curses and commands at th
e top of her lungs at a man stringing spotlights on a scaffold.

  Jett and Ursula made their way to the indicated door and Jett knocked. There was no verbal response but the door was opened by a man in a business suit who held his hand out in greeting, “Hello, you must be Jethro Carle?”

  He accepted the man’s hand and shook it warmly, “Yes, but please call me Jett, this is my…” hesitating unexpectedly, “…partner Ursula.”

  “Ursula Carle,” Ursula gave Jett an exasperated look, “we’re newlyweds and my husband still gets stuck on the propriety of introductions.”

  Jett’s mouth dropped for the slightest second as Ursula introduced herself as his wife. True they were together and had talked marriage, but they hadn’t yet pulled the trigger. He thought about how it sounded when Ursula had introduced herself with his last name. Jett smiled, it sounded good.

  “Ah, well congratulations then,” the man said sincerely before continuing, “my name is Micah Roundtree and I am one of two senior members of the Tribal Council. Let me introduce you to the rest.”

  There were two middle-aged men and an elderly woman seated around a wooden table. All eyes were on Jett and Ursula as they made their way over.

  “This is Edward Cottonwood our Vice Chairman, Bethany Gandolson another senior member of the council and Douglas Penchant our Tribal Chairman.”

  Jett made his way around the table and greeted everyone with a handshake and a smile. All of the members of the council stood politely to reciprocate the greeting except for Penchant, the Tribal Chairman, who chose to remain seated. Jett thought the gesture made the man seem artificially regal, as if he were trying to impress his position within the tribe to Jett, but it only came off as an unnecessary arrogance. Jett wasn’t here for tribal business and he would circumvent the tribe completely if necessary. The very fact that he was standing amongst them now was a show of his respect on the highest level and the need for any kind of posturing, even if there was some kind of tradition in place, was a waste of time. It was also important to understand that “tribal Chairman” was an elected position within the tribe and not the same as “Chief.”

  Penchant was quick to cut off the small talk and get to business, “So, what brings a full-fledged Shaman to our door at this highly inconvenient time? Your need to pay us a visit was a bit vague over the phone.”

  Jett gave Ursula a quick look, which she returned with an expression that clearly stated, “So it’s going to be like that.”

  Jett cleared his throat, “As you may or may not know, I recently came into my station as a Shaman and I am still growing accustomed to all that comes with being someone with such a connection to the Earth Mother. Having said that I have it on good authority that something…” Jett searched for the right word, “…dark is happening in your territory. It has the potential to unbalance spiritual harmony in the area and we were hoping to gain your permission to walk Ojibwe lands for a time to see if we might locate the cause of the darkness.”

  Jett watched, as all of the council looked uncomfortable when he had mentioned the “Earth Mother” and then they became even more so when he had asked to be able to walk the land.

  “You say ‘something’ is going on. Can you be more specific?”

  Jett shook his head, “To be honest, I’m not even sure what I am looking for. The ‘dark’ as I am calling it could be anything. It might simply be something is spiritually ‘off center’ within the forest and, until I can locate some evidence that gives me a direction to pursue, I can’t really say what it might be. I can say, however, it isn’t necessarily something evil but, until I find what I am looking for, I really can’t elaborate beyond that, because I don’t have any more information to give.”

  Penchant gave Jett a highly skeptical look, “And this ‘good authority’ who enlightened you to the issue?”

  Now it was Jett who looked uncomfortable. The Tribal council seemed to react skeptically when he mentioned the spiritual side of things, at least that was how he read their body language, and now he had to take a pretty big leap.

  “That would be Pinga, as the Inuit know her. The Ojibwe name for her would be Gichi Manidoo.”

  The entire council reacted to that, and not in a good way.

  “You are saying a Shaman of the Tseli Watuth tribe was visited by the Great Spirit of our people, while in the guise of Pinga, an Inuit Spirit, and told to investigate a ‘darkness’ that is happening in our lands?”

  Jett shifted uncomfortably as he smiled and tried to be humorous, “Well, when you put it like that…”

  “We have our own Medicine Men and Shaman within the tribe. Why didn’t Gichi Manidoo speak directly to them?”

  “I can’t say and wouldn’t dare to guess.” When all of the members of the Tribal Council scrutinized that answer, Jett added, “You realize you’re asking me to explain the actions and reasoning of what modern man would call a god, right?”

  The only woman in the room, senior council member Mrs. Gandolson, countered, “Isn’t that what Shaman are supposed to do? Interpret the intent and will of the Spirits?”

  “Sure, when we can, otherwise we are servants of the Earth Mother, who uses our connection to her and the Spirit World for the betterment of all. So, if benevolent Spirits, such as Pinga or Gichi Manidoo tell me to investigate, then I have faith in the wisdom of their request, and I do as much as I am capable to do in order to abide by their requests.”

  Roundtree was the next to speak up, “What would you do if you were to find this ‘darkness’?”

  “I guess I won’t know until I discover what it is, but probably remove it from the area.”

  Penchant let out a sigh and shook his head, as if he had heard enough, “Look Jethro, may I call you Jethro?”

  Jett’s voice grew stern, “No.”

  Penchant, who hadn’t expected Jett to say anything and was already forming his next sentence, hesitated. A barest trace of fear flashed before his eyes only to be quickly replaced by indignation.

  Jett met the man’s eyes and glared angrily at him and conveyed a message to the man regarding the seriousness of his response. Then Jett dropped the rage from his expression and softened, “My grandfather was the only person allowed to call me that, so everyone else calls me ‘Jett’.”

  Roundtree hesitated a second more before he too softened, “Look Jett, we have a lot of things going on right now and it really isn’t a good time for anyone to give you a guided tour of the entirety of our territory. I appreciate the protocols of tradition here, but the events of this coming weekend are very important to the economic survival of our tribe. Most of us still living on the reservation fall below the poverty line, and the success of the Casino will allow us to improve the quality of life for everyone… as well as allow us a measure of redemption.”

  “Redemption?” Jett frowned, “Are you talking about the reclaiming of Amnicon Bay?”

  All eyes quickly turned to Jett, and only the Tribal Chairman looked nonplussed, “You’ve done your research I see. Yes, the reclaiming of the lands the tribe leased over fifty years ago when we were desperate for money was a very embarrassing and hurtful necessity. Now, with the ongoing success of the Casino, we are in a position where the tribe will have a consistent flow of income and never need to sacrifice our lands again.”

  Ursula decided to chime in, “You do realize by announcing the fact that you are not going to renew the lease with the current homeowners you might have alienated the very people that would support the Casino.”

  Penchant laughed, “We were already alienated from that crowd. Do you know it takes a ferry ride to get to the islands of Amnicon Bay? Or that the ferry costs $37, which is more than anyone in Odanah can afford to spend, given the level of poverty they are living in? Or how, if an Ojibwe does feel strongly enough about visiting the area and spends the money on the ferry to the islands, they are run off by the white people with their leased property lines and expensive homes? Our people are kicked off the island, as if we were
trespassing, and it’s our own land!”

  Penchant was getting agitated, with his voice growing in volume. Jett looked around the room and saw the other council members looking away, or dropping their heads in what appeared to be a deep sadness. This was clearly a conflict that had been going on for quite a time, perhaps since the lease had first been agreed upon, and Jett began to understand the frustration the Council must be feeling. Assuming they even believed his story in the first place, why had the Spirits deemed it necessary for him to investigate only now when the tribe was on the verge of getting its land back? Why send him in to fix something now when the truth was there had been a pretty serious problem of a different kind in the area for generations?

  “I’m not here to cause problems for the tribe. Really, I’m not. I would just like your permission to look around a bit and see if I can figure this ‘darkness’ out.”

  Cottonwood, the oldest man in the room and the council’s Vice Chairman had been quiet up to this point. Now he peered at Jett, and then asked, “Where would you begin?”

  Jett nodded at the man in a show of respect before saying, “I read something about an incident with an outfitter while guiding clients in the woods. It’s the only unusual thing I saw in the newspaper in the past few days, so maybe I can start there?”

  Penchant spoke up immediately, “The Ashland police are handling the issue and I think we should let them do their jobs as best they can.”

  Cottonwood spoke up, “Douglas, Ashland is an off-reservation police station. Those officers…”

  The tribal Chairman rounded on his Vice Chairman, “What we need is for the Ashland police to finish their investigation and get back on the reservation for crowd control, as promised and paid for, before Friday. They can’t do that if their investigation is impeded by someone they see as a primitive ‘screw-head.’”