by Tim Westover
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The night around me is cold. The ground beneath me is colder still. But the world is quiet, save for the pounding of my heart in the darkness.
I sit atop the mound my people call Elder Home because they believe it is where we originated in the days of our ancestors long past, when the beetle brought the mud to the surface and made the earth. Some have preferred to believe we are descended from the Tsul Kalu, the hairy men who came from the darkness of the swamps and learned to create tools and hunt and work the land.
I sit in a darkness that is darker still than the night alone. A skill I learned from my father. Having tied a leather strip around my eyes before the night was complete, I now train my eyes to become like those of the owl and the night creatures. Blindness for a season so that I may see truer when the test of manhood is upon me.
Listening to the wind shriek and the creatures walk about below me, I notice they occasionally stop to moan or growl at each other.
I am safe on the ground, knowing the trees are near enough to climb should one of the beasts wander too near, but each time they speak, my blindness causes me to shudder as though the beasts were encircling me at arm’s reach.
When they at last die down and wander off, I wait again for Yowa to visit and give me a vision of my quest. I have heard from other boys who became men that Yowa does not speak to all boys and that some of them only pretend and make up a quest so they can return to the tribe.
But I will wait.
I will not disappoint Yowa when she comes. I will not lie about my quest. I will wait until she speaks. I will wait until my body dies and I hear her with spirit ears.
If I must, perhaps I can stay awake for seven nights, like the panther and owl, and receive the reward of night vision along with them.
As I wait, I tell the night the stories my father and grandfather told to me.
A warrior traveled far from the mountains, deep into the swamps to hunt. On the first night of the hunt, the forest remained silent and still. On the second night, it remained the same. On the third night, the warrior cried out to Yowa to provide prey he could hunt to feed his family. On the fourth night, while the warrior was sleeping, he was awakened by the sound of footsteps from the brush.
He grabbed his bow and crouched behind a rock. From the leaves, a giant from the tribe of hairy men in the forest backed into the clearing.
But this was from the time before our people knew the Tsul Kalu.
The warrior silently thanked Yowa. Then he quietly retrieved an arrow from his quiver, notched it into his bow, and drew back the string.
The hairy man turned around and waved his huge arms at the warrior, and the warrior let go of the string. The arrow flew true and pierced the hairy man through his heart, and the giant fell dead on the spot.
The warrior yelled a triumphant cry and leaped from the safety of his rock, thanking Yowa loudly. He used all his strength to drag the heavy body near the fire, and only when the light of the flames were able to help him see did he notice that the giant’s hand was clasped around the leg of a hug elk, dead from a blow to its head.
And the warrior grew silent.
Then he cursed his eagerness and his inability to understand.
The hairy man was bringing him a gift of food from Yowa.
The warrior drew his knife and placed it down onto the middle fingers of his drawstring hand, and he sliced them off then burned the wound in the fire to stop the bleeding.
From that day, my people’s ancestors learned to share the land in peace with the hairy men.
Sounds of padded paws return near me, and I listen, still refusing to remove the blindfold. I will only take it off when the time is right, when the test begins in earnest, when I will prove that I will not disappoint Yowa.
There is a loud howl in the distance, not like that of a wolf, but of something malignant, something living by instincts it wasn’t born with. Perhaps this night will bring me face-to-face not only with Yowa but also the evil creature my father calls the Wendigo.
The creature is not one my own people speak of. The beast has only been known to us since the time of my father’s father, when a warrior from the north—lost and removed from his own Anishinabe people, wandering as his own quest commanded—told us the story of the creature so loathed by even Yowa herself.
I speak the story to the night to quiet my spirit.
A long time ago, it is said, long before my father’s father’s father, my people’s ancestors were noble and pure. They lived as one with the creatures and beasts, both the intelligent ones and the natural ones, often playing games with Fox and Bear and Eagle, all the while hunting the elk and the squirrel.
But one day, when Fox and his people were starving, they refused to learn how to cultivate grain and identify the healthy berries and leaves, insisting on maintaining their meals of meat and blood alone, no matter that the dumb animals had hidden for the winter or had been run off to lands where they would not be hunted.
In a fit of anger, Fox lashed out at his mate and killed her. He carried her body into a cave to hide from the eyes that see everything, and there, he quietly consumed every part of her, even the bones.
After that, Fox grew more and more violent, and he taught other foxes how to hunt their own kinds. But Coyote and Bear knew that Fox had to be stopped before he desecrated the land and all its peoples, both with fur and without it. When Fox heard that Bear and Coyote were hunting him, he used his magic to blind the eyes of my people’s ancestors to believe they saw him as a wise man of many years, and they allowed him into their tribe and hid him.
Fox lived in his new tribe for many years, never growing older, and one day, the elders of the people asked him to give away his secret for long life.
It was the moment Fox had been waiting for, and he taught the tribe how to hunt and kill other tribes of men and to eat their meat and use their bones for tools.
But because man was not made of magic like Fox, man was defiled by eating the meat of man, and all who did withered and shriveled and became like walking dead men, and they were cast out of the tribe along with Fox.
They still roam the nights, seeking to turn men into monsters like themselves, possessing them when they do.
My people call them Wendigo, the evil spirits of those who eat the flesh of their own kind.
As I recite the legend, I hear the wanderer’s voice reminding me that any man can become Wendigo, that no man is above the desecration, that even good men of his own family had been possessed by the evil when food is scarce. And I see my father grip my shoulder and tell me to remember this before he smiles and tells me to join the other boys playing in the river.
The howl returns, nearer, though still a long way off, and I see past the memories and stories to find myself in the forest again. The padded paws of the curious lesser beasts stop to show respect to the sound. I stand, not removing the blindfold, and hear even the curious creatures scamper away. After a few silent moments, I realize I am alone again.
Another malignant howl, and it fades into a shriek that makes my bones rattle. A boy can be brave enough to face the wolf and even the bear and perhaps even the old man of the forest if Yowa wills it, but no boy has ever had the misfortune to see a Wendigo.
And if the words of the wanderer still run true, no boy, even one on the night of becoming a man, could encounter one and live to tell his adventure.
My heart pounds like ceremonial drums. My ears grow full with the sound. My skin steals the chill from the night wind and takes it deep into my body.
But I do not remove the blindfold.
Nor do I run.
If I am to die tonight, then I will die like a man.
Limbs break behind me, and dead leaves crack on the ground as something quiet walks across them.
Another howling shriek rises in the distance.
The leaves grow silent again.
I wait.
I wait until my heart-drums stop reminding me of my fear.
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I wait until my ears empty and become restful.
I wait until the chill warms and my body resists the cold again.
I wait until my legs tell me I should sit down.
And I wait until the quiet around me tells my eyes to close.
