Mintikwa and the Underwater Panther

by JR Green

  Mintikwa awoke, drearily blinking his eyes. He felt a terrible thirst. He wondered how long it had been since he had a drink. A day? Probably two. Maybe three. He tried to sit up but couldn’t. Then he remembered that they had him bound to the table.

  “Are you done with him?” the brute asked.

  “No. Back off,” she said, and then in her little chair, she eased up to Mintikwa’s face. “He may yet give us some answers that the others wouldn’t.”

  “Now,” she said to Mintikwa, smiling and with a quickly summoned patience. “I have some questions. What was that you said back at the river? How did you stop the snake from suffocating you? And who were you talking to across the river?”

  Mintikwa wasn’t going to tell her anything. He shook his head.

  In a flash, she had a blade in her hand. It was straight and reflective. Without a trace of hesitancy or skittishness, she set its tip at the back of his bound wrist and drew it up his forearm, slicing his skin and leaving a thin trail of blood in its wake.

  It felt like fire touching his skin.

  He sat under a chestnut tree and eased his back against the deeply furrowed bark at its trunk.

  A longhouse stood nearby, cut from fresh timber. Newly stripped elm bark lined its length—a tendril of smoke issued from the roof. The fragrant smoke drifted among the treetops and finally reached Mintikwa at his chestnut tree. The smoke smelled of roasted venison and baked cornbread. A girl emerged from the depths of the great house. She walked over the threshold, carrying a pail. She strolled to Mintikwa, smiling contentedly, her hips rocking rhythmically, legs gently gliding above the earth, her approach a sweet eternity. When she reached him, she smiled, but she was silent. Mintikwa motioned to stand, but she waved a hand at him.

  “No. I must not disturb your place. Please sit,” she said, as she set the pail down next to him, and from beneath her arm, she pulled a clay cup. She handed this to Mintikwa.

  “Thank you,” Mintikwa said, and he took the cup.

  “Drink,” the woman said abruptly, and then she got up, turned, and walked back to the house without a word. Suddenly, Mintikwa realized it was their house. They had recently built it. The woman was Willow, and she was now his wife and the mother of her own clan.

  Mintikwa looked into the pail. Tiny ripples jostled above the dark water. The pool within had a deep reddish color, the color of fall leaves. He dipped the clay cup under the water. It was cool and soft against his skin. He drew it out, and as he did, he found that the water in the container was clear and clean, not red. He was very thirsty, so he put the cup to his lips and drank deeply.

  Mintikwa felt a physical blow to his body that was without pain. He laughed out loud. His body lurched out at the furrowed bark against his back. He reached farther into the soil under the tree and felt its roots as they slid deep into the earth. His body suddenly exploded into the elements. His sense of self leaped from his palms and from his fingertips and from the soles of his feet and out of the crown of his head. It expanded, settling in the scene before him, permeating the trickling water, into the pungent soil, and over the undulation of the fields. He felt his world shift, and at the same time, knew it had been this way all along. He just couldn’t see it. His world was really within him, or rather he was the earth without. He realized that he had felt this before, on a somewhat different level, but with the same expansion and loss of that sense of a personal barrier. He had felt this same sensation in the river, underwater.

  His mind reached into the soil, and then he pushed farther, and his mind went on into the layers of bedrock below the surface. He moved down until he came to where the water lay. With his mind, he reached out and touched its glistening surface. It was the river, he realized, only away from its banks and now beneath him. The water embraced his presence. Mintikwa sensed its longing to come up through the layers of rock, to move up into the soil to the roots of the plants and into the air again, to even rise into the sky and soar above the earth as clouds. In the next instant, he knew his power. He knew that he could lift the water if he so chose. He reached out with his arms and his mind and pulled the water up.

  “Now, are you done?” the brute asked.

  She nodded, seemingly distracted. He turned to Mintikwa and laughed. “I think I’ll kill him with my bare hands,” he said.

  The woman gathered her things, including Mintikwa’s blood and the Panther’s. She got up and left the room.

  The Maulsa man grinned eagerly. Roughly, he reached for the bonds at his wrists and released him. Mintikwa sat up and fell to the floor. He saw blood dripping from his forearm and traced it to its source, a series of gashes, partially covered over with scabs. How long have I been here?

  “You’re a fast healer,” the man said. “But that won’t matter when I bash your skull.”

  Mintikwa closed his eyes and searched inside for any last remnants of strength. He found Willow and their time together on the river. He had to get back to the river, to home, to her.

  The brute lunged at Mintikwa. Mintikwa didn’t have the strength to fight. He leaped backward and fell, catching himself with his palms. They hit the floor behind him, unexpectedly splashed into water. The man laughed at his awkwardness.

  He closed in on Mintikwa, this time slowly. But then he saw the water around Mintikwa’s wrists. He stopped, puzzling over its sudden appearance.

  A deep rumble shook through the big structure. Mintikwa felt the ground shudder under his palms and feet.

  “What the hell?” the man blurted. A stronger quake followed. His arms shot out, and his stance widened to keep from falling.

  A moment later, the woman popped her head back in the room. She looked panicked.

  He pointed behind Mintikwa. “There’s water,” he said.

  “I know,” she said fearfully. “There’s more out here. We gotta go. I don’t think this building is stable anymore.”

  A cracking sound filled the room. A hairline fissure appeared in the floor—more water issued from below.

  The brute looked at Mintikwa earnestly, fearing his chance to kill him was evaporating.

  She looked from him to Mintikwa and back again. “Leave him, you idiot,” she said, fiddling with a torch in her hand, and then she was gone.

  The brute sighed and took off.

  Mintikwa scrambled to his feet. The light from the woman’s torch was fading fast. The building shook again, and dust wafted up and swept through the hall. Mintikwa chased after the dim light, stumbling and fighting against the pain which wracked his body and throbbed at his head. Water filled the way. It was now up to his ankles and still rising.

  Finally, he emerged from the structure.

  The three Soulless lay on the ground, unmoved from the spot where they were executed. Something had visited their bodies in the night.

  Mintikwa ran past them and away from the building. Water was spilling out over the stone. The Maulsa were running ahead. A terrible crash erupted behind Mintikwa. He glanced back at the building. Its base was enveloped in water. The great house was falling. Ignoring the pain, fighting for survival, Mintikwa ran. He ducked behind a stone wall and collapsed. A deafening crash consumed everything. A massive cloud of dust swept through the streets, blocking out all sight.

  It grew quiet. Mintikwa fell unconscious.

  He must have passed out, but he couldn’t have been out long. The dust still clouded the air, and he could hear the building settling from its collapse. The Maulsa woman appeared out of the haze. She was holding her forearm, grimacing. It had a gash along its length. The brute followed her. He was bleeding too, but he ignored his wound. Blood flowed from his hairline. His injury was somewhere on his head. Sweet justice, Mintikwa thought. When the man caught sight of Mintikwa, he lumbered around the woman and came directly at him.

  Desperately, Mintikwa fumbled to his feet.

  The brute was in a rage. “Did you do that?” he demanded.

  The woman called from behind him. “What are you talking about?”
she said, shaking her head. “How could he do that?”

  The Maulsa man spun him about and wrapped his arm around Mintikwa’s neck. His muscles flexed, and he squeezed.

  Covered in dust, the woman shook her head. “Just shoot him,” she said. “Get it over with.”

  “No,” he said, with the agitation of a child denied a toy. “I want the satisfaction of killing him with my bare hands.”

  Mintikwa began to choke. He struggled against the brute’s grip, but it was no use. Mintikwa just wasn’t a match for his strength.

  The brute lifted Mintikwa clear of the ground and began walking him toward the base of the stone wall.

  “I’m going to smash your head,” he told Mintikwa. They were careening toward the stone now.

  At the last moment, Mintikwa lifted his legs and pressed against the wall, stopping the brute’s charge. The strength in his legs surprised Mintikwa. All the years of his life he had spent under the river had paid off. They were dense with layers of muscle forged from the resistance of all that water. Perhaps he was a match for the Maulsa after all. The brute was foolish to attempt to smash his head against this wall. It gave Mintikwa the leverage he needed.

  The man still held him fast, still hoping to choke the resistance out of him. Mintikwa realized he had one chance, so in one swift motion, he leaned back, lifted his legs, and pressed the soles of his feet against the stone. He pushed against the wall with all his might, propelling both of them backward, preempting any chance the man had of maintaining balance. The weight of Mintikwa’s body added to the momentum. Mintikwa wrapped his arms around the man’s arms at his neck, squeezing them to his chest, disallowing him anything to brace his fall. The back of the brute’s head struck the ground. It made a loud pop against the smooth stone.

  For a moment, Mintikwa lay on his back over him. The brute’s arms went limp.

  The Maulsa wasn’t moving. Mintikwa tumbled off of him and spun about, looking at him. He was unconscious.

  Mintikwa’s first thought was to just flee. He instinctively reached for his totem but found nothing around his neck. The woman still had it, of course.

  She stood nearby, shocked by what he had done to the brute.

  Mintikwa thought of the man’s weapon, the one he used to execute the Soulless on the table. He knelt and quickly searched him. He found the strange weapon at his side, freed it from his belt, and eyed it carefully. Mintikwa held it like the brute had done. And then leveled it at the woman.

  “Where’s my totem?” Mintikwa demanded. “My sacred bundle?” Just to make sure she understood, he tapped the place at his neck where it would typically hang.

  She knew what he wanted, but she eyed the weapon in his hand.

  “Do you even know how to use that?” she asked.

  Mintikwa toyed with the trigger while it was aimed at her.

  She was suddenly panicked. “Okay,” she said, holding up her hands. “Okay.”

  “Here,” she said, removing the pack from her shoulder. “I have it right here.”

  She pulled out Mintikwa’s sacred bundle and set it on the ground. She motioned for him to take it.

  He decided he should stay where he was. Instead, he motioned for her to throw it to him.

  She picked it up and tossed it his way, but it landed at his feet.

  Mintikwa bent to scoop it up.

  Suddenly, she rushed at him.

  Mintikwa squeezed the trigger, and the weapon erupted violently.

  It hit the woman in the shoulder, and she fell back. She screamed in pain, gripping her shoulder. She fell to the ground.

  Holding his sacred bundle, Mintikwa considered her for a moment. Then he turned and ran, leaving her in the cloud of dust.

  Was the river this way? He felt like it was. Mintikwa lumbered down the road until he was running. Was he really going in the right direction? Or was he putting even more of this alien town between him and the river? Would his boat still be tucked amongst the brush? Hidden from sight. He prayed to the manitou that it would be so.

  Mintikwa began to see the telltale signs that the river was close. Sycamores towered above, and giant round stones emerged from the earth.

  Suddenly, he burst from the trees and found the river.

  And there was his boat.

  Mintikwa walked back to his canoe, pushed it away from the brambles, and crawled in. The river swept him downstream and away from the bridge. A few moments later, he lifted his head above the edge of his canoe and peered upstream toward the bridge. His canoe floated steadily toward the next turn of the river. Mintikwa watched as the great stone houses of the Maulsa disappeared behind him.

  Mintikwa collapsed into the bottom of his canoe and closed his eyes.

  The swift current carried him south. And home.

  Despite the steady progress drifting south, Mintikwa began to feel worse. His side ached. It hurt to move at all. The snake bite on his leg turned an angry red and burned. His forearm felt like fire. He lay in his canoe most of the time, barely conscious of his surroundings. Throughout the day, his canoe would hit a snag or naturally drift from shore to shore. He wasn’t really aware each time it snagged. He could have been stuck for hours, but when he finally realized it, he crawled out of his boat, landing in the water or the sand or in the brush. He pushed with all his strength to free his canoe, his only hope of getting home, then hauled himself over the side to collapse again.

  In his delirium, among many things, he thought of his last encounter with Great-horned Serpent and how he had invoked the covenant with his sacred bundle. One thing stood out in his mind. It nagged at him. It felt like he was taken over, or else he took over something, something which had up until now been entirely outside his consciousness. It was like he had felt when he entered the sweat lodge for the first time like he had entered an adjacent realm. But above all that, as soon as he smeared the coagulated blood over his fingers, he felt the presence of Underwater Panther. There was an exchange between them, below thought, and he had asked Mintikwa something. He had asked for permission. Mintikwa accepted, then felt the Great Cat enter his perception in a way like nothing else had. It was at once an exhilarating sensation and a disturbing one. Mintikwa became the Underwater Panther. He acted on the deity’s behalf. True, Mintikwa had been in trouble. Underwater Serpent was killing him. Mintikwa, as Underwater Panther, commanded Underwater Serpent to back down. He suddenly had power over Underwater Serpent. He became aware that the serpent would have done anything that he asked. He remembered the instant he realized this. Mintikwa held the snake under his command for a moment, but he released him out of exhaustion.

  He also thought of his run-in with the Maulsa, but it was already getting fuzzy. With each passing moment, his mind seemed to be wrapping each horrible impression in a cloud so that the more he thought of it, the hazier it grew.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, Willow climbed down from the tree just before first light and crept back to Crow’s camp. He was gone. She found his trail immediately. He was headed south. She followed the trail to Sugar Maple Tree Creek. He had crossed the waterway without hesitation and drove farther south. She followed him beyond their border. Finally, at the edge of a deep ravine, she stopped. There were signs of his scrambling down the steep slope. A cool breeze wafted up from the dark bottomland. She decided she couldn’t do much more. It appeared that Laughing Crow was headed back, disappearing deep into the territory of his people, the Dark Ones.

  “And he didn’t even say goodbye,” she said to herself. She turned and, without a sound, made her way back across the border. Within a day or two, she would be home again. Perhaps Mintikwa would be there too.

  Every day since Mintikwa left, Saul fished upstream, always with an eye upriver for his nephew. His nets continued to come back empty, though occasionally, a mussel or two would find their way into his boat. They reminded him of Mintikwa, of course. He couldn’t bring himself to cast them away, and so he grew a modest collection of the mussels in
the bottom of his boat.

  A day ago, Willow appeared. He was surprised to see her but also very pleased. He remembered Mintikwa saying they had drifted apart and were no longer friends. Willow told Saul about her time with Mintikwa. It seemed that their friendship had rekindled. And now here she was keeping vigil with him for Mintikwa. She was charming, full of life, and stunningly beautiful. He was delighted for his nephew.

  They sat together, resting among the cattails along the riverbank. They talked of Mintikwa. With her keen eyes, Willow spotted it first.

  “That’s it,” she said. “That’s Mintikwa’s canoe.”

  Somehow he knew the day would come when he would see the boat, but not his nephew. Perhaps it was a dream he had. That day finally arrived.

  Still upstream, it was on the other side of the river. They scrambled to Saul’s boat, climbed inside, and made their way across the river.

  Mintikwa was nowhere to be seen. It was only his boat. Saul feared the worst and briefly wondered if Willow should have stayed on the riverbank. His heart ached, not knowing if the boy was alive. Why had he encouraged him to take on such a perilous quest? All he could think of was his innocent nephew, his little fishing buddy, turned out alone to face the wilds of the sixth age.

  It was racing now, caught by a swift current near some shallows. Briars and the tips of branches from fallen trees reached out, pawing at the side of the canoe as it passed. Saul paddled fiercely to catch it. Willow was at the tip of the boat, ready to snag it at the first opportunity. The canoe seemed determined to pass them. He dug in and matched its speed. They grew near. Where was his nephew? Would there be some clue in the boat? Perhaps something they didn’t want to see. The shell of the old canoe loomed. Saul drew a deep breath and braced himself.