Mintikwa and the Underwater Panther

by JR Green

  The Panther nodded. “Yes. That is one of their creations. Could you see what he was doing?”

  “He was bent over looking at things with his strange light,” Mintikwa said, but then he shook his head. “I am sorry. These things are beyond my comprehension.”

  The god of the underworld growled. The waters swirled, but then they quieted quickly. “I understand,” the Panther said. “Indeed, the doings of these people are sometimes a mystery even to me.”

  Mintikwa thought of the markings. He felt like he could show them to the Panther.

  “I did see signs,” Mintikwa admitted.

  “What signs? Can you show me?”

  Mintikwa nodded. “I think so,” he said. “I spent the whole day studying the markings that the strange man made on the skin.”

  “Markings he made?”

  Mintikwa nodded.

  “Good,” the Panther said. “That should tell me what he knows. And what his purpose is.”

  Mintikwa said. “There were many of these men in the stone village.”

  “How many?” the Panther asked. Mintikwa sensed alarm in his voice.

  “Six or so. I think,” he said.

  The Panther seemed to relax. “I was afraid perhaps they were here to resettle Eddytown. Such a small group, they are probably just exploring. Go on,” he said, motioning again.

  Mintikwa knelt in the sand.

  The god emerged from the water. For the first time, Mintikwa saw Underwater Panther in his fullness. The copper of his body shimmered and reflected the stars and the moonlight. His great horns towered above the river. The god of the underworld came entirely out of the water and eased up next to Mintikwa. His long tail stretched out over the river. It whipped about as he settled down onto the sand.

  The scent of burning metal lingered in the air. Mintikwa feared that he might catch fire.

  “Won’t you burn me up?” Mintikwa asked.

  “Nightfall makes it much easier for me to be in the world,” he said. “You are safe.”

  Mintikwa nodded.

  The Panther looked Mintikwa in the eyes and then nodded toward the sand in front of his toes.

  “Please show me,” Underwater Panther said.

  Mintikwa was thunderstruck by the presence of the god, but he managed to wrestle his concentration back enough for the task at hand, that of remembering the strange markings.

  “They were not of anything in particular,” Mintikwa said. “I didn’t see animals, or rivers, or anything. They were simple lines which met together and looped about and crisscrossed.”

  Mintikwa took up a stick from the beach and broke it into a manageable size.

  Underwater Panther nodded. “I know these markings. They are how they communicate with each other over vast distances and across time.”

  The Panther motioned again toward the sand. “Show me,” he said. The tone in the deity’s voice was eager. Mintikwa could tell that he really needed to know what he had seen.

  “Then you will tell me of the last age?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how we came to be here? And what happened to our brothers?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  Mintikwa pressed the stick into the sand. He closed his eyes and concentrated on what he had seen. And then he drew the markings.

  When Mintikwa completed the last symbol, he drew a circle around them, just as the man did. Pleased that he had remembered them correctly, Mintikwa said, “These are the markings that the man made on the skin.”

  The god’s great head leaned in more closely. He eyed the symbols, seemingly deciphering their meaning. The great orbs blinked heavily. He snorted and puffed air. And Mintikwa suspected that he understood what the strange man wrote. Was he expressing disbelief? The Panther’s breath blew over Mintikwa like a stiff breeze. It smelled of forest fires and the ashen ruins of great cities. The god reared back on his hind legs. His tail twitched with pent-up ferocity. His head lifted skyward, and he bellowed into the heavens.

  “Brother!” he shouted to the sky. “Why did you stop me?”

  The Panther’s voice echoed across the banks of the river.

  Mintikwa scrambled. He fell and then rolled. He got to his feet but fell again. Then he pulled his feet under him and leaped into the brush beyond the beach. He cowered in the shadows of a bush. It got really quiet.

  Both Mintikwa and the Panther waited for a long while. The god seemingly expected an answer to his question.

  There was no answer.

  Mintikwa covered his head with his hands.

  On the beach, the Panther paced furiously, back and forth. Then he jumped from the sand and took to the air. He arched out and stretched over the river. He hovered in the sky, far above the water.

  Underwater Panther can fly?

  Mintikwa was stunned that the god also had the power of flight.

  Finally, the god released his grip on the air and plunged into the water. He disappeared into the depths.

  It was sometime later before the Panther emerged again.

  Underwater Panther called out to Mintikwa. His voice was surprisingly calm, as if his rage had left him.

  Mintikwa emerged from his hiding place and came out onto the beach.

  The Panther eased out onto the sand but kept half his body in the river.

  “I take it you know what that man is up to?” Mintikwa ventured, surprising himself at the ease with which he spoke to the god.

  The Panther nodded. “I do,” he said.

  “I imagine it would be difficult to explain to me,” Mintikwa said.

  “Nearly impossible,” he said.

  “I’ll take you at your word.”

  “Someday, I will explain these markings to you.”

  These words sent chills down Mintikwa’s spine. Someday? It was a subtle remark from the god that implied their conversations would continue past today.

  Would you like answers to your questions now?” he asked, jarring Mintikwa from his unsettling contemplations.

  “Yes, please,” he said eagerly. But on some level, he was surprised to hear that Underwater Panther intended to keep his word. The Panther must have gotten what he was looking for in the markings, though apparently, it wasn’t to his liking.

  “Well then. Where shall I begin?”

  “What happened to the fifth world?” Mintikwa offered.

  He nodded. “As good a place as any to begin,” he said. The Panther emerged fully from the water once again. He settled down next to Mintikwa in the moonlight.

  “Toward the end of the fifth world,” he began. “A dangerous people nearly destroyed the earth.”

  Mintikwa had heard very little about the place from which they came. Almost every story he knew occurred after they formed the village; only a handful was attributed to the age before.

  “These people were fearful of the earth, of her people, and her manitou. They were so fearful, in fact, that they did what they could to keep themselves apart from us. In ancient times, when they first appeared in the world, the spirits looked upon them with amusement, for they were not dangerous then. They were simply misguided in their understanding of the world. For ages, in an isolated, far away land, they were a small and pitiful band of people. Pitiful, but clever. No, they were not dangerous in the beginning, but they became so. Much of the time, due to their fear, these people hid away in their houses behind closed doors. They came out onto the land only to hack at the forests, to drive away game, or to make war. Your brothers called them Maulsa. When they finally appeared in your world, they came offering wondrous things – tools, weapons, and food, and even their ideas for trade. Many were enchanted by these things, and they exchanged their own unique gifts for them. The Maulsa were especially interested in the furs of animals of this world. As it turned out, these things were more harmful to you than anything, for your people began to feel they needed them as maize is needed or fish or venison. You had no way of making them yourselves, so you had to go to Maulsa. That is the
nature of his cleverness. He all but destroyed the world in this way. To understand what they really were about, you must understand that the Maulsa were not at war with your people. Or anyone else; they were at war with the earth.”

  At war with the earth?

  Mintikwa thought of the strange figure in the stone village. Could he have been Maulsa? Was this somehow the land of the Maulsa? Was the peculiar man one of them? If so, where were the rest of his people?

  This time Mintikwa’s question easily rolled off his tongue. “How did we get here? Into this world? Into the sixth age?”

  The Panther’s lips pulled away from his teeth.

  Mintikwa interpreted his expression as a smile, which was an awkward translation. Mintikwa felt himself easing into accord with the god. He had trouble deciding if it was pleasant.

  Underwater Panther said. “I brought you.”

  This had to be a trick, Mintikwa thought. The people knew Underwater Panther as a monster who brought misfortune and death. He was known to cause rivers to swell dangerously, to bring terrible storms, and on occasion to tempt people into the water only to drown them. Only rarely in their stories was Underwater Panther in a position of benevolence. And now the Panther claimed to have saved them from the destruction of the last age. From Maulsa?

  “But how?” Mintikwa asked.

  “As the fifth world came to a close, it did so violently and destructively. I foresaw this and offered shelter and deliverance for your people.”

  Mintikwa couldn’t help but ask. “Why?” he ventured.

  “I knew the havoc that Maulsa would bring upon the earth many generations before it came to pass.”

  “You have visions of the future?” Mintikwa asked. None of their stories about Underwater Panther suggested he had this power. “I didn’t know this about you. None of our stories speak of this.”

  The god nodded. “So your legends speak of me?” He seemed pleased to hear that the People told stories about him.

  Mintikwa nodded. “Yes, they do, but not about telling the future.”

  “That will surely be more difficult to explain than the meaning of the markings,” he told Mintikwa. “Perhaps another day? Shall I go on with your original question?” he asked.

  “Yes, please,” Mintikwa said, puzzled, “This is quite more than I can comprehend.”

  Mintikwa thought it might be best to keep more of his questions to himself. Let the god explain what happened at the end of the last age, he thought.”

  The Panther settled in again. “My vision of the coming devastation of the fifth world told me that your people, along with all others, would be completely destroyed. You must know that for me to maintain a toehold in existence, I need you and your dreaming.”

  Mintikwa did know that for many spirits, the thoughts and dreams of the people are like food. Underwater Panther was among these, so their destruction would certainly mean his own as well.

  “Many years would pass before Maulsa would sweep into your land, but still, I needed time to prepare. So I immediately set my plan into motion because the danger of Maulsa was so great that the very foundations of our world were in danger of annihilation.”

  “But isn’t that what you do?” Mintikwa asked. “Aren’t you a destroyer?”

  “Think of me not as a destroyer,” Underwater Panther offered. “Think of me as the cleanser. When an age’s time has come, I light the world on fire.”

  “But that kills everyone?”

  “The living do burn, but always the seeds are hidden. The seeds of the next world are always just under the surface, ready to come forth. You must know of how your ancestors tended to the forests by setting fires? What I do is not much different.”

  The stories did say as much. Early in the fifth world, your ancestors did burn the undergrowth of the forest, then coaxed only those species they wished to grow. As Mintikwa understood it, this practice went on for hundreds of generations. Supposedly, there were those among his people who still had the knowledge of this practice, but their numbers were still too small to carry it out successfully.

  “Now Maulsa,” the Panther said. “They are true destroyers.”

  “How so?”

  “They threaten the seeds themselves. If I hadn’t preempted them, all would have been lost.”

  “So I offered your people shelter.”

  “Only those at my village?”

  “Yes,” the Panther replied.

  “What of the people of Eddytown and the other villages?” Mintikwa asked. These were the tribes of his lost brothers and sisters.

  The Panther shook his head. “It took all of my power to save you.”

  “Why my people?” Mintikwa asked, pressing the spirit.

  “It is reasonable. You were a small band, split off from the whole. At the time, you were just enough for me to handle.”

  It dawned on Mintikwa who they were to the Panther. The god was essentially Seed Saving. Mintikwa wasn’t sure how he felt about this.

  “We were the seeds,” Mintikwa said.

  The god eyed Mintikwa. “Yes, I suppose,” he said. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  Mintikwa’s discomfort with this realization seemed apparent to the Panther. “I am sorry,” Mintikwa said. “Please continue.”

  The god blinked, recalling his place in the story. He picked up where he left off.

  “Maulsa did not appear in your world for many generations, but a great sickness preceded them. Scores of your people died. And for those who survived the illness, great change swept over them. Your way of life was doomed. Long before Maulsa destroyed the earth, they removed your brothers from the land. They took the world for themselves.”

  “What happened to Eddytown?”

  “First it was emptied, later it was dug up and pilfered, then utterly destroyed. The Maulsa built their own towns over it.”

  Underwater Panther’s words stirred Mintikwa into anger. “Why didn’t we stay and fight?” he said with conviction.

  “Many did. But ultimately, it was to no avail. Let me show you the power of Maulsa.”

  The god of the underworld took Mintikwa into a vision so that he could see.

  It was at this moment that Mintikwa’s understanding of the world changed. So terrible was the vision that Mintikwa fell to his knees and wept. Sometime later, he was able to pull himself together.

  “Why didn’t you destroy them before they gained so much power?” he asked finally.

  He shook his head and said, “My brother would not let me.”

  Mintikwa knew the Panther was speaking of Meteor Man-being, his godly brother.

  “My brother didn’t have the vision I had. He wasn’t visited like I was,” he said. “And he doesn’t trust me. If I had taken it upon myself and attempted to destroy Maulsa as he set foot in the world, he would have preempted me before I could gather fire. My brother had to see it for himself before he would unleash me.”

  “When the time came, your people gathered seeds. Not only of the Three Sisters, but also chestnuts, walnuts, hickory, and others. You brought animals too, and skins and totems and other things. It was all necessary to recolonize the world.”

  “I took you into the underworld and offered shelter until it was over.”

  Mintikwa gasped. “The underworld?”

  “I see that you disbelieve me,” the Panther said. Mintikwa was alarmed, but then he accepted the intrusion on his thoughts. The Panther was a god, after all.

  He offered, “I can show you. Would you like to see?”

  Mintikwa’s curiosity got the better of him again. “See as you see? Would I see Great-horned Owl?” Mintikwa asked.

  “I can show you,” Underwater Panther said.

  Mintikwa nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I want to see.”

  With that, he took Mintikwa into his vision again, but then the Panther fell away. Mintikwa began to see things as if they actually occurred before him rather than through the words of a storyteller. He saw as a god might see.


  They could not see all the passings of the moon from their shelter in the underworld. They only aged a few dozen moons. Yes, it was hard. They saw many seasons pass without the pressing wind in their hair, or the warmth of the sun on their faces, or the coolness of the rain upon their shoulders. Their children grew up in the shadows. But everyone who entered the underworld did see the sun again. And a new world.

  And as time passed, to keep the people appeased, the Panther gave them glimpses of what was happening to the world they left behind. For the most part, the people were content, but many among them showed the effects of life in the underworld. Of course, it was not natural for them to go so many years without the sun and stars, their beloved river, the air, and the forests.

  They saw the events unfold above. They saw the sickness overcome their brothers, they saw Maulsa enter the world, at first offering many strange and wondrous things to the people, to their mutual benefit, but then they witnessed from afar their brothers quickly beaten down and finally swept away. The Maulsa took over the land. The stars grew dim, and the sun’s brilliance diminished. The sky was no longer blue. Even the moon was shut out. The forests were leveled, and the horizon was flattened in a great circle in all directions. The air grew sick and dark. Their beloved river died. The animals - white-tailed deer, beaver, owl, black bear, buffalo, coyote, and many others- diminished. They faded away and finally left the land altogether. Whippoorwill no longer called during midsummer nights.

  He addressed the people dwelling in the underworld. “It is done,” he said finally. “Now my Brother sees with his own eyes. When dawn breaks, he will unleash me.”

  The next day, the god entered the world again. But something caught his attention immediately. Near the passage from the underworld, the Maulsa had set a nexus of power. The god sensed immediately that it was a place of great power, power over creation, which the Maulsa had obtained in the years since he had sheltered the People. It was a place of great secrecy, but to Underwater Panther with his sight into creation, it was evident. What he saw there was an attempt by the Maulsa to bend nature to their will. He sensed an opportunity. Rather than burn the whole world with fire, he could let Maulsa pass from this earth at the hand of his own creation. He had only to spin it up a bit. It really amounted to adding exactly what the Maulsa desired most - growth. Infinite growth. For that, he needed his brother, a part of his body that carried seed from another world across the cosmos. Their creation would fill the earth. The Panther set to work, but not by force. Instead, since the place of power had been set so close, he could work at the Maulsa unseen. His plan worked beautifully. With the Meteor-man Being and the Panther’s help, their creation spun out of control. Soon it filled all the world. And once it did that, it took very little for creation to double it, and then quadruple it, and so on. Not long after, it filled the world. Maulsa’s world collapsed under the weight of this infinite growth.