by TM Simmons
That man must feel himself so much an ogichidaa now, like the warriors who had raided other tribe's camps and stolen their children to raise in their own beliefs. He had a cloud over him, though, weakening him. That woman … Nenegean pictured her in her mind. She was powerful, a mashkikiikwe with strong but different medicine. She did not need the drums and rattles of the Old Ways. If only she spoke the language of Nenegean's people. As a mashkikiikwe and a woman, she would understand why they had to rid themselves of the sickness carried by the one who stalked the noozhag, the small ones who needed watched over.
Nenegean picked up the mitten. It brought back the face of the girl child. She hadn't feared her as much as the boy. She had even known a few of the Old Words, although not enough to talk well with Nenegean. Would the children still be in danger or, by taking them, had she been able to make the mothers see they needed to find and punish the evil among them?
What if something happened to that little one? Or even the boy?
Nenegean crushed the mitten, then smoothed it out and pushed it down into the top of her knee-high moccasin. The man who took the girl and boy out of the cavern had been able to talk to her. But what he said did not please her, as the man did not please her. He had said she needed to cross into the land of their ancestors. That if she did not, he would send her somewhere she would be imprisoned forevermore.
He was unable to do that, though. His powers were lacking. She had fought him and escaped. Now they were hunting her and would not give up. But she had to make sure they uncovered the evil among them.
There had to be some way she could find out who the maji-manidoo was. If the mashkikiikwe and the others did not, she would destroy him and his wickedness herself. She had not been able to save her own children, but she could not stand by and see other small ones hurt.
~~~~
A red Irish Setter romped out to meet Keoman's truck when he parked in the driveway. Channing slid out after Grant, and she, Grant and Keoman walked toward the log cabin. She lagged behind as Keoman knocked.
Maybe if she did end up staying here, she could find a place like this one. The log home sat on a rise, and she had seen the huge lake in front as they drove in. Around them, leafless white birch interspersed tall pines, and there were signs already of the warmer months to come. A flock of tiny cream and black birds twittered in the trees, perhaps gathering to spend the night in the deep pine recesses. If she did accept Dr. Silver's invitation to share his practice, she'd have to buy a book to identify the various birds and animals. It was very different from Texas, beautiful in its own way.
She did recognize two animals. A pair of squirrels chased each other from branch to branch. They were probably already courting, readying themselves to mate and bring a new litter into the world. For some reason, the thought of birth and babies didn't bring the normal pang she usually endured.
A chipmunk popped its head up from behind a nearby tree stump. It chittered at her, as though making some sort of demand.
"That's Alvin," a woman's voice said. "Do you want to give him a peanut?"
A woman of Native American heritage stood in the doorway. Her dark hair was clasped carelessly into a dangling ponytail, and her deep brown eyes contained a soft welcome. She held a bag of peanuts in her left hand, her right out in greeting.
"Kymbria James," she said. "And you're Dr. Drury."
"Channing, please," Channing said. "I'm just doctor when I'm with patients."
"Let's hope we get to see each other in places where we can be first-name friends. I'm just Kymbria."
She dug in the peanut bag and held one out to Channing. With a smile, Channing took the nut and squatted, holding it in the tips of her fingers.
"Alvin?" she called. "Want a nut?"
The little chipmunk squeaked again and raced to her. Before she could react, it grabbed the peanut and scurried back to the tree stump.
"Alvin!" Kymbria called as Channing stood. "You're supposed to say thank you!"
The chipmunk rose on its hind feet. Both jaws stood out in rounded humps from the peanut stashed in his mouth. It emitted another muffled squeak, then raced toward a storage shed behind them.
"That was your thanks," Kymbria said with a chuckle. "He's really a polite little chipmunk. But he's getting so he expects a peanut every time I come out the door."
Channing laughed. "I'll bet he cheers you up if you're down in the dumps."
"That he does." Kymbria turned back into the cabin. "Keoman and your husband are already talking to Caleb."
"Uh … Grant's my ex," Channing explained as they entered the cabin.
"Oh, sorry," Kymbria said.
They walked through a tidy kitchen into a living area. The men sat in a sunroom built across the front of the cabin. The view was wonderful even now, with the snow decorating pine branches. A pair of cardinals landed in one tree, the male's coat shining like a Christmas ornament. The lake spread into the far distance; it would be even more beautiful in the summer, when the blue water sparkled in sunlight.
Keoman and Grant were already in deep conversation with Caleb, but when she and Kymbria came in, Keoman glanced up. Channing had to stifle a surprising stab of jealousy when Keoman looked at Kymbria first. She hadn't felt the green-eyed beast since she and Grant dated.
"I haven't found any information at all," Caleb was saying. The setter leaned against one of his knees, and Caleb inattentively played with the dog's ears.
Kymbria settled on the arm of Caleb's lounge chair and laid her arm across the back of it in a gesture that indicated she and Caleb were a couple. She motioned Channing to a small loveseat, where Grant already sat, the only seat left in the room. There was a moment of silence, and Channing stared at the men's faces to find frowns on each one.
Finally, Grant said, "I've checked all our data bases. There's nothing about an entity like Nenegean. All I found was the stuff on your tribe's web site."
"There has to be a way to destroy this thing." Keoman focused on Kymbria. "I was pretty much out of it when you got rid of the windigo. But I heard the story from Nodinens. She said you were actually able to talk to it."
"A coma is definitely out of touch," Kymbria agreed. "And the conversation between us was mental, not like how Nenegean tried to communicate with Channing." Kymbria's focus shifted to Channing. "From what Nodinens said when she called to see if I was here at the cabin, Nenegean said a couple of the Old Words to you."
Channing nodded at Keoman. "She also spoke to Keoman the day she killed the man out by the sweat lodge."
"If this thing is anything like the windigo," Kymbria mused, "it might form a connection to a certain person."
"Not me," Channing insisted. "Everyone keeps telling me that I was lucky to get away from that entity the first time. What happened to Alan wasn't pretty. I'm happy with all my body parts right where they belong."
"There might be some more children depending on us to destroy this thing," Kymbria said quietly. "Send her to another dimension, where she belongs."
Wishing she and Kymbria could have some time alone, and not wanting to start an argument with Keoman and Grant in front of people she had just met, Channing forced a shrug. "Maybe she'll go to … wherever she needs to go on her own."
"She won't," Kymbria said sadly. "She'll take more little ones. And with nowhere at least halfway safe and warm for her to leave them, she might put them somewhere they won't last long."
Channing surged to her feet and paced back and forth in front of the front wall of windows. "I agree," she said. "But I suppose I have to listen to the warnings I'm getting. They tell me the only reason Nenegean came that close to me was because I left the arrow on the snowmobile." She pulled out the small doeskin pouch and held it so they could all see it. "This didn't protect me. Those arrows are the only thing I've seen yet that effect Nenegean. Well, those and the shield I hit her with. And she's not going to approach me if I carry one of those arrows. Plus, I don't know her language."
"She seemed
to communicate with you despite that," Kymbria said. "As the windigo did me."
"I'm positive she's trying to tell me something, but there's only so much we can say to each other with motions."
"There you go, too, calling that thing a she," Keoman snarled. "It's a monster, an evil entity."
"He's correct," Grant added. "She's the same thing I've spent my life fighting since I joined my current unit."
"You and Grant called Nenegean she, also," Kymbria pointed out.
"They did!" Channing said. "And from the story I heard, she lost three children. Felt she was forced to kill two of them by her own hand to end their suffering. Women here are suffering the same loss. Don't you realize how bad a mother hurts when she loses a child, Keoman? Men, too!"
Grant rose and walked over to take Channing in his arms. Without concern for the people in the room who would overhear him, he said, "This is too hard on you. I know it is on me, but at least I have the training to handle it. Maybe you need some distance. Do you want me to get you an airlift back to Texas?"
Although her need to cry stayed safely behind a dam on her emotions, she buried her face on his chest. Anger burgeoned, though, and she gritted her teeth as she spoke into his shirt.
"Yes, it's hard on me. Yes, I want to go back to Texas." She lifted her head to look at Keoman. "I want to see these mothers at peace more than I want to run away, though. This human monster needs to be caught, and Nenegean needs to be given peace. Eradicated or destroyed, if that's the only choice. Neither of them should ever touch one more tiny child. I'm sure Pete Hjak's working hard to find the pedophile. But there has to be some way to make Nenegean listen to us. You keep touting how much you and your tribe know about the supernatural. You were able to bring this entity to you at the sweat lodge."
"I have no idea if our ceremony called to her, or if she only came to show she wasn't afraid of us." Keoman frowned. "Unless she really was trying to give us some sort of message."
He hesitated, and it was Kymbria who said, "The windigo was cognizant enough to be able to find people who were descended from its enemy. It was after vengeance for what they did to the woman he loved."
"But it didn't even give them a chance," Caleb said. "None of the windigos I've researched ever tried to speak to any of their victims. Even when Keoman and I were helpless after we wrecked, that thing didn't try to say anything. It just stood there glaring at us."
"Because I was using the type of protections that it couldn't penetrate," Keoman explained. "Even though I was out cold, they worked. I think that windigo was totally different from any others."
Caleb sighed. "You're probably right. Other windigos didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason as to their victims, like this Northwood one did. Nenegean is also difficult to comprehend."
"Because there's no research available on her." Grant led Channing back to the loveseat and gently pushed her down before he sat beside her and leaned his elbows on his knees. "I wonder if you're right about her trying to get some message through."
"What type of message?" Keoman asked angrily. "That parents need to keep a closer eye on their children?"
"Calm down, Keoman," Kymbria said. "We all know that's a universal warning these days. As soon as that first child was taken, my mother went back to Duluth with Risa. I would have gone, too, but someone had to stay here while we got a broken pipe repaired. And my mother had a doctor's appointment anyway."
"Risa?" Channing asked.
Kymbria gave her a beautiful smile. "My daughter. All those pictures behind you are Risa."
Channing wandered over to the wall full of framed photos. The tiny girl must have taken after her father, since she looked nothing like Kymbria. However, she was an adorable child. Channing carefully kept her barriers hardened against the hurt from Rose's death, always too close to the surface.
"She's beautiful," she told Kymbria honestly.
Kymbria's smile remained on her lips.
"Well," Grant said. "I don't think we're going to figure anything out right now."
With one last scratch at the setter's ears, Caleb said, "I'll walk you out. Kymbria, you better keep Scarlet in, or we'll be chasing her for hours. It's about time for that moose to stroll by."
Kymbria laughed and grabbed the setter's collar. "Scarlet will chase a moose or deer or anything she can find that runs from her. I think she does it partly for exercise, but part of it's definitely for fun."
As the men left the room, Channing said to Kymbria, "If you're here long enough before you go back to Duluth, maybe we can have dinner and get to know each other better."
"You've got a deal. I'll even spring for a bottle of wine."
"Girl talk and wine. That sounds wonderful."
She started to turn, but Kymbria stood and said, "Wait a minute." She led the setter over to a closed door, opened it, and put the dog safely inside another room. "Now she won't slip out if I'm not paying close attention. She can be quite the escape artist."
"Did you want to tell me something?" Channing asked.
"I want to give you my phone number. Here." She wrote a number on a pad lying on the coffee table and handed the sheet of paper she tore off to Channing. "This is my satellite phone, because I want my mother to be able to contact me at any time when she has Risa. If you need to talk to someone …" She winked teasingly. "And if Keoman's not available, call me."
"Keoman isn't … I mean …."
"It's all right," Kymbria said as they walked through the cabin. "Grant seems to be a really nice man, too. But sometimes once a relationship is over, it's just truly over. And Keoman's pretty easy to read. He spends too much time not noticing you to not notice you."
"You've known him a long while?"
She nodded. "We grew up together. At one point, we were both interested in each other. But it just wasn't to be. Now I'm completely happy with Caleb."
"I haven't seen much of him, but Caleb seems like a good man, also."
"Yep," Kymbria said. "He's a keeper."
As they exited the cabin, the dog locked in the bedroom erupted in frenzied barking. Kymbria halted on the step and said, "She usually doesn't get that upset at being locked in. I better go see what's wrong. Oh, never mind. Look. She can smell that moose even from inside the cabin."
Channing stared at a huge moose ambling down the road they had driven in on. It appeared totally unconcerned with the humans watching it.
"I wouldn't want to meet one of those driving on a slippery road," she said. "But I'd rather it be a moose than Nenegean in front of me."
"I agree," Kymbria replied.
Chapter 25
What is that woman doing out here?
Nenegean studied the red thing with the woman inside. The woman guided it onto a side road and stopped. This thing she rode in was unlike the noisy sled-like ones the people in this time used. Even during her short time in this existence, Nenegean had watched them carry others from place to place. Now the woman sat there with a black box held to her ear, one like the first woman Nenegean had encountered spoke into.
Nenegean had seen this woman before. She had something to do with the little boy Nenegean had brought to the cavern to keep him safe.
The woman also talked into her black box. Nenegean's sharp hearing allowed her to listen to the words she still did not understand.
"What do you mean you have to cancel? I need you! I helped you kill him so we can be together again!"
Nenegean moved over beside a tree closer to the woman, where she could remain hidden but hear better. To her surprise, she heard someone inside that black box. A man. How did these people do that?
But when the man spoke, rage boiled in Nenegean. Her new sense told her that he was the one. Anger held her in place as she tried to decide what to do. Reason intruded. The man wasn't in that box. Instead, it was a way these people talked to each other, like those things the searchers had carried.
"I have to be available to the tribe right now," the man said. "You know that. If I'm
not, they'll want to know why. And if I'm seen with you right now, they might figure out we've been having an affair all along. Hjak's already got Jed looking closer at Yancy's death."
"They won't see us out here! That's why we picked this place. It's well over an hour from Neris Lake and at another clan's casino! I'll get a room and you can come later, so no one will know we're together."
Nenegean's anger exploded.
~~~~
Surprisingly, Keoman found Gagewin at the tribal headquarters after he dropped Channing and Grant back at the resort.
"I thought you'd be with Walt and Sandy," he said as he walked into Gagewin's office.
"I was," Gagewin said. "But just because we got those two children back doesn't mean Nenegean won't take another one. Or more. We have to find her. Eliminate her."
Keoman sat in one of the office chairs and ran his fingers through his hair. "We tried the most powerful ceremony we had, and she still escaped."
"The arrows —"
"She knows about the arrows now. She didn't come close to Channing until she knew the arrow was beyond her quick reach. Plus, she was hit with two arrows the first time, and she recovered."
Gagewin slammed his fist on his desk, then surged to his feet and walked over to the lone window in his office. Keoman stiffened in alarm. Gagewin hardly ever lost his stoicism. But he couldn't blame the man. Gagewin felt responsible for the entire tribe, not just his own family.
The blind was open and outside, snow drifted down lightly. Gagewin's shoulders slumped, and he leaned his forehead against the glass.
"When the windigo came, we at least understood why," he said, his voice laced with controlled anger. "It wanted revenge. Nenegean only seems focused on the children, and that means she can attack any family at all."