Mintikwa and the Underwater Panther

by JR Green

  “Thank you for giving me your healing bark,” Mintikwa said.

  He tucked the remaining bark in his deerskin pack. Then he got back into his canoe and paddled on. Mintikwa thought of his vision of the Great-horned Serpent. He realized that his fear of the serpent had clouded his judgment concerning Beaver. That snake had deceived him into taking Beaver as a totem. Why was this god of the underworld bent on making him fail? He shuddered at the mere thought of being of any concern to a god. Mintikwa searched his heart and did his best to find the courage to go on.

  On the western shore, just inside the woods at the base of a towering red cedar tree, sat the Great-horned Serpent. The nature spirit was in full view under the deep green shade of the tree. Mintikwa blinked hard, trying to clear away the vision, but it was no use. The deity of the underworld watched him approach. Before he could look away, the eyes of the Serpent bore into him.

  The Serpent exuded menace toward Mintikwa. The great rack of antlers hovered above the head of the snake. The tip of one of the horns brushed against a cedar branch, causing him to shake his big head. The crystal embedded in its forehead shone with a brilliant white light. Mintikwa trained his eyes forward, fearing that the crystal might take him over. He paddled on quietly.

  He began to sing, and his courage soon returned. For the time being, he felt safe from the Serpent. Perhaps it was his fasting, or the sweating out of negative energies days ago, or maybe it was his skin that smelled of burnt offerings. His body was steeped in the scent of sage, tobacco, and red willow smoke. Still, he rowed evenly on both sides of his canoe, fighting to stay dead center in the river. He kept his eyes on the creature, which continued to stare back at him. Like the Soulless, his gaze held only contempt and hatred. Great-horned Serpent seemed to wish great harm upon him. Mintikwa tried to imagine what the source of such ill-will could be. He couldn’t say. The Serpent didn’t utter a word, but rather with just his gaze, willed him to turn around and go home.

  But Mintikwa held his course upstream and paddled on.

  The river turned to the east. The trees grew more sparse. Vast meadows appeared bordering each side of the river.

  He knew he must be close to the ancient town. Likely it lay just beyond another turn of the river. Only one more confluence left, the creek coming into the river just beyond the old town. He thought of his vision seeking; his goal was to find his totem animal spirit. These two things were tied together in his mind, vision-seeking and the need to see Eddytown. He was desperate for a dream, a vision of manitou, a totem to keep close to his heart and to catch a glimpse of the old town of his ancestors.

  As Mintikwa paddled, a ridge grew along the southern shore of the river. It rose high above the river. Then he spied the waters of a creek spilling out into the river on the south side.

  The last confluence. It was the seventh! This was it!

  Mintikwa looked to the ridge. He thought back to where Jumping Frog’s finger pointed on the map, just west of the creek. The village must have been on the ridge. It made sense. A ridge was the perfect spot for a town.

  Mintikwa ran his canoe into the beach.

  After he left the river and ducked under the canopy, he could see into the woods again. He gasped at what he saw, but he clamped his mouth shut before giving himself away.

  A figure crouched in the forest between two giant trees, an oak and a chestnut. Mintikwa spied its dark form against the lighter shade of undergrowth.

  He was confident that the figure had not seen him. He crouched unmoving for quite a long while as he watched. Mintikwa moved again. He crept up on the figure. He wasn’t moving. Instead, he seemed to be sitting, faced away from Mintikwa. He was within a few paces now. The top of his head poked out among a patch of mayapples. Was he wounded?

  Then Mintikwa realized this wasn’t a person. Was it manitou? He decided it must be because it wasn’t like anything else he had ever seen. Mintikwa moved in closer, and as he did, he saw that it was the color of the rope-like material in the big stones. It stood erect, just to Mintikwa’s waist. What Mintikwa had thought were shoulders were nothing of the kind. It was a post, but apparently not made from a tree. Mintikwa couldn’t tell what material it was. He supposed it might be some kind of rock. He was afraid to touch it. But his curiosity got the better of him. When he did, he found it to be cool to the touch. It felt rough against his fingers. Tiny flakes came off on his hand, much like the stuff running through the giant stones that he and Willow discovered.

  Mintikwa looked about. The forest was quiet. He got the sense that whoever set it here was long gone. There was no sign of anything, no houses, no signs of fire, nor people working. The trees towered above the post. For the first time since arriving on the ridge, it occurred to Mintikwa that the forest here was unusually quiet. No birds were calling, no bugs trilling. Even the air was deathly still. Suddenly, Mintikwa was overwhelmed by a feeling that the post didn’t belong here, that the forest had no use for the thing. It had already been here a very long time, and it would yet remain here for a very long time. Perhaps it was one of the manitou that Uncle spoke of that was telling Mintikwa this. He felt distinctly that the spirit was telling him to get rid of it.

  He leaned against the post. It didn’t budge. He lunged at it, putting all his weight behind it. It stood unmoving. He stepped back and then, with all his might, kicked it. His foot cracked, and pain shot up his leg. He fell to the ground gripping the sole of his foot. The post stood unshaken.

  A little while later, as his pain subsided, it occurred to him that he might have better luck digging it out. He set down his pack, pulled out his knife, and set about digging at the soil around the base of the post.

  Soon he had a sizable hole, though there was no sign of the bottom of the post. Now that some of the soil was away from the base, Mintikwa tried moving it again. Still, it would not budge.

  How deep did it go?

  Mintikwa set to digging again.

  He grew tired. Now he could almost stand in the hole around the post. He collapsed on the ground and rested. Soon he was at it again, his curiosity fueling his muscles. He dug well into the afternoon. Finally, he heard the crunch of his knife hitting solid rock. Mintikwa paused, gripped the post, and swung back and forth. It still would not move! The stone was strange. It was much like the post. Not wanting to break his knife on the peculiar stone, Mintikwa carefully used it to carve away the remaining soil. He quickly realized the post was embedded in the rock. He dug around it, then saw that it wasn’t rock after all. It was precisely the same material as the post. As the soil came away, he could see that the embedded post ran along with the earth.

  Mintikwa continued to dig until he was breathing heavily, and his heart raced. He fell back. His chest heaved. The post in the earth was as big as a tree trunk. His side began to throb with pain. He had pushed his wound too far. Dirt covered him from head to toe. It caked on his chest, and his back spread all over his arms, and his face, and into his hair. Mintikwa realized he had to give up. This task was beyond his abilities. He could not free the post from the earth. He looked around the forest. There was no sign of the old town. Just this stupid post!

  He leaned back and gazed into the canopy. “I am so sorry!” he called out to the manitou.

  Tears streamed down his cheeks.

  Mintikwa collapsed on his knees and stared down at the hole he had dug. Ridiculous, he thought. He still had no idea what it was, but he had to move on.

  He smeared the tears away from his cheeks and walked on. He wasn’t twenty paces away from the first when he saw a second post. He gaped in amazement as he passed it. Soon he saw a third, and waves of anger flashed through him. They were all likely connected by the trunk running inside the earth. How had such a thing come to be? It was perverse as if the earth was violated. And he could do nothing.

  He climbed the ridge and walked along a flat stretch of ground. About halfway up, he paused for a rest. He looked down upon the river. His canoe lay on the beach where he left i
t. Waves lapped at the shore. The ridge was a considerable distance above the river, far enough to be an excellent vantage point, but yet close enough for easy access to the water—still no sign of an ancient town. Mintikwa wasn’t quite to the top, so he kept walking. Perhaps he could spot something from up there.

  Soon he reached the edge but was forced to stop. There was a steep drop-off below. Perhaps at one time, the river coursed along the ridge and carved the cliff out of the hill.

  Mintikwa turned slowly, surveying the land. So this was it. Eddytown. He was really here! This was the abandoned town. So long had he wished for this moment, to set foot in the lands of his ancestors and to walk in their footsteps. The thought that they once lived here sent chills through him.

  Mintikwa looked about. He turned in every direction. He gazed down the cliff again. He walked along the top of the ridge. He knelt and took some soil in his hands and filtered it through his fingers.

  But then he shook his head. This wasn’t what he expected.

  There was no village here. Of course, it had been a long time ago, another age in fact. Mintikwa searched for some sign - refuse, animal bones, a remnant of a house, a fire pit, a maize grindstone. Nothing stood out. Had it been too long ago? Was every last vestige of his people erased from this land? Perhaps so. Mintikwa’s heart sank at the idea. It made him feel insignificant. In a few years, when he was gone, would his descendants search for some sign of his existence? Would they find anything? Mintikwa was beginning to believe they would not.

  What had he expected?

  He hoped for some clue as to why they left. And what happened to them? And what happened to the fifth world? Why does a world end?

  There were no answers here.

  Mintikwa turned skyward and shouted his questions into the heavens. He screamed until his voice gave out.

  When it did, Mintikwa began to spin again. He stood on the ridge and saw all the way to the horizon. It arched in one continuous dome of blue brilliance from the west around to the north and east and south. He stretched out his arms and spun about, watching the horizon with open eyes.

  Mintikwa gasped and stomped abruptly to cease his spinning. His spine turned to ice. His arms fell to his sides. His legs buckled. He dropped to his knees. He was looking east, upriver.

  What on earth is that on the horizon?

  Mintikwa clambered down the ridge as best he could as the pain resurged in his side. He climbed in his canoe and began paddling.

  A dark shape poked above the horizon to the east. Soon another joined the first, and then there was a cluster of them. He wondered if the dark forms were dancers. They clustered and spun about an unseen fire, gathering for some dark ceremonial witchery, Mintikwa sensed. As he rowed on, they grew taller. They rose to impossible heights, rivaling the tallest of trees. They were giants.

  Mintikwa heard drums. Or did he? Perhaps they were only in his head.

  Sitting upon the surface of the water, Mintikwa felt terribly exposed. The wicked dancers continued to rise in the sky as he approached. His apprehension rose with them. Mintikwa felt eyes peering at him. Being in the presence of these giants was like cowering inside his home during storms, cringing against the constant thunderclap and fearing that the next one might come crashing down on him like lightning. There was no reprieve from the deafening crash from above, save the meager tossing of cedar shavings on the fire, until the storm passed. A vision flashed before Mintikwa’s mind of the dancers converging on him like so many hungry giants. Suddenly he felt desperate to get off the river. He turned to look downstream. How long had it been since he passed the serpent? It had been a few turns of the river, he was sure. Despite his fear that the Serpent might see him, he decided to chance it. His mind reeled at the constant sight of the dark giants. He felt desperate to hide, so Mintikwa ran the canoe into the riverbank and stumbled into the woods.

  He found a rock ledge and slid into its depths. He pulled the birch bark from his pack, popped a piece in his mouth, and chewed away his anxiety. For the longest time, Mintikwa cowered in the shadows. He lay as quiet as he could, fearing that Great-Horned Serpent might come upon him or the giant dancers might storm into the forest and root him out of his cave.

  He slept through the rest of the afternoon and most of the following day. Then, as the sun capped the treetops again, Mintikwa ventured a peek from his cave. He peered out. The forest was quiet. No lumbering giants were coming for him, no immense serpent stretching through the trees. He emerged again into the woods. He walked down to the river and found his canoe. He chanced a look at the source of his nightmare of the previous day. The giants hadn’t moved after all. His nerves quieted.

  Their character had changed to something much more benign.

  Mintikwa climbed in his boat and paddled upstream.

  As he rounded a bend in the river, another of the stone shapes appeared. It was closer than any of the other ones, which had been far off from the river and obscured by the forest. Mintikwa ran his canoe up onto the sand. He rolled out of his boat and then crept over the beach to sit behind a bank covered with brush. Mintikwa peered above a bush.

  What lay before him, he had seen in a dream. It was a river of stone. This one spanned the width of the river. He and Willow had seen remnants of one like it. He thought of the giant rocks and the strange rope-like pieces embedded within the stone. This one was apparently a bridge. Willow was right! Her admonition that their world was a lot bigger than they thought ran through Mintikwa’s mind.

  Now he was sure she was right.

  A bridge. It was a giant. What crossed the river here that needed such a considerable pathway?

  A stone wall emerged from the water and shot straight up until it met the underbelly of the structure. The water lapped against the stone wall. The bridge spanned the width of the river, blanketing it like a canopy covering the forest floor.

  Mintikwa could not contain his curiosity. He just had to see where it led. He climbed the hill. At the top, the stone met the hill and ran out across the river in one direction. Mintikwa climbed onto its surface. It was covered with forest litter, but just enough of the smooth rock remained to know that it was born of human hands. Mintikwa looked along the stone walkway, away from the river. In the other direction, he could see that the stone path continued on. He pondered how far. For a moment, he thought of following it. It did beckon. But then he thought better of it. Perhaps another day. He needed to focus on one diversion from his vision seeking at a time. Mintikwa walked over the bridge.

  The ground dropped away, and the bridge spanned the river from a dizzying height. Mintikwa stopped several times and peered over the edge at the water below. How on earth was such a colossal structure supported? Mintikwa thought of the ochre-colored snake-like material which disappeared into the giant stones downstream. He remembered smashing the big rock against it just to see if he could break it. Was the brown stuff supporting the bridge as it hovered over the river?

  About halfway across, Mintikwa came upon a queer-looking thing. It was shaped somewhat like a pot, but much of it seemed missing. It consisted of cords of silver that arced around on itself like a snake. The silver snakes curved perfectly, like that of a crescent moon, and they reflected light like the surface of a pond. Mintikwa eyed the object carefully as he passed, but it continued to rest benignly at the edge.

  He crossed the bridge and followed the rock pathway to a village of stone. The high structures stood all around him now. Like the bridge and the river of stone, they were consumed by the forest. Birds flew in and out of the holes all along their lengths. Thick vines stretched up the walls. Squirrels climbed, fought, and sat eating on their surfaces. They weren’t giants ready to strike him as he passed, but structures that the people might have fashioned together, given the proper materials and know-how. Mintikwa estimated that the council house at the town center if stood on end, might approach the height of these weird forms. Perhaps they were houses of Eddytown. If so, either he or the map-keeper had mi
sjudged where the old village was. Maybe it wasn’t on the ridge above the creek after all. Were these dark buildings the ruins that he sought?

  Mintikwa stood at the bottom of one of the buildings. Its base was wider than the widest of trees. Huge holes bore into the walls, exposing its black interior. He followed it as it crept upward. He squinted out the sun and tried to see where it ended. It seemed it might touch the clouds. Earlier, while he had been a good distance away, he had misjudged. This structure before him dwarfed everything that he had ever known about building houses, though he no longer feared it. His fear had transformed into awe as big as the thing before him. What did his ancestors do? What were they like that they built such things? What on earth were they for? Did they house people? If so, Eddytown was far more populous than anyone could have possibly imagined. Mintikwa tried to envision a number to represent all the people who must have lived here in this single building. He thought of his own village, of its one thousand souls, and what it took to support them. True, his town was on the verge of over-capacity, but still, the area had provided for them for many generations. It was nowhere near the amount that one of these buildings might support. Mintikwa estimated ten of his own villages could fit into one of these buildings. It must have held a whole sea of people. Indeed, the population of Eddytown must have been like Big Lake.

  How could they rise to the heavens as they did? What did they use to fashion them together? Mintikwa walked near one of them, brushed aside the vines, and tapped at its side. It was made of solid rock, like the giant stones by the river. Like them, this building was perfectly straight as it stretched up. Though covered in algae and vines, the surface was as smooth as the surface of a pond. He thought back to the stories about Eddytown in the fifth world. Mintikwa ran through as much as he could of the old stories and tried to recall any descriptions that might come close to what stood before him. He could think of none.