by Brian Hodge
But Woody had never been here alone at night, and as much as he tried to buck himself up so his uneasiness wouldn't get the better of him, he couldn't deny that the place worked his nerves. He quickened his pace until he was panting, nearly out of breath when he crested the hill and looked down at the automobile graveyard.
By now his eyes were adjusted to the dim light, and he immediately recognized Suzie's black Mustang at the top of the pile. From where he stood, trying to catch his breath, he could see the rounded dent dead center in the front. Thin smoke drifted like fog from one of the smaller mounds of burning trash not far from the cars.
Woody glanced nervously over his shoulder, making sure the coast was clear, then skidded down the slope to the wrecked car. A dull sense of loss filled him when he touched the side of Suzie's car, and he chuckled when he looked inside, remembering how many times he and Suzie had screwed in the back seat. Amazing what can be done in such limited space.
But he and Suzie were through, and tonight he was here strictly on business, so he walked quickly around to the back of the car. He was just about to slide the tire iron in under the edge of the trunk when a sound caught his attention. Tensing, he straightened up and looked all around. Except for the thin trail of smoke rising from the trash, nothing was moving. Only the sounds of frogs and the call of an occasional night bird broke the eerie stillness.
Woody shifted his weight forward as he prepared to pop open the trunk, but as he was positioning the tire iron, a loud clanging sound filled the night. Looking up quickly, he saw something—an old hubcap—roll down from the mound where the smoke was rising. It spun around, making a hollow wobbling sound as it came to rest on the bulldozer-flattened ground.
"Son-of-a-bitch," Woody hissed as he tried to pierce the darkness and see if someone was over there. Maybe someone had seen him and was trying to play a trick on him. Maybe Fats hadn't left for the night and had decided to give him a little scare.
But that couldn't be it, Woody thought. The gate had been locked.
Then again, something had made that hubcap roll down the slope.
For close to a minute, Woody stood stock still, breathing shallowly as he looked and listened for motion from the mound. Once he was satisfied the hubcap had probably just tilted off balance as the smoldering mound shifted and settled, he went back to work.
He placed the tip of the tire iron under the trunk latch, jiggled it up and down a few times to make sure it was secure, then, grunting loudly, jammed it downward. The car bounced as its shocks gave, and the tire iron slipped out, clanging loudly on the fender.
"You fucker!" Woody shouted, his voice echoing from the surrounding hills of trash.
"Come on, you rotten mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch!"
He jammed the tire iron back under the trunk lock and tried to focus his thoughts on how goddamned happy he was going to be if he was right and Suzie had stolen his marijuana and it was in the trunk. He promised himself he'd have one happy, healthy toke on some of it before the night was over.
After several more attempts, each one ending with the tire iron slipping out, Woody finally lost his patience and broke the trunk lock. The hood popped up, almost hitting him in the face. He threw the tire iron to the ground and because it was so dark, he started feeling around inside the trunk.
Suzie had never been a very neat person, so her trunk was full of empty cans and bottles, old clothes, some rope, a spare gone flat, and a couple of bundles of old newspapers. Pawing through the junk, he tossed everything out over his shoulder where it landed behind him in a clattering pile; but at last he had to admit defeat. There was no package of marijuana.
"Fuck!" Woody shouted, "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
Slamming his fist against the trunk hood, he ground his teeth and started thinking of ways he could get to Suzie in the hospital if only to beat the living shit out of her for fucking him up.
He stood there staring blankly at the now empty trunk. The floor of the trunk was fuzzy blue from the pale moonlight, and Woody's shadow was a looming black stain across the middle of it. His breath came in short, hitching gasps, but no amount of wishing was going to make the stolen marijuana suddenly reappear.
It's gone!
And he was in some deep shit with his connection in Portland.
Swept up with anger and hostility, Woody didn't notice at first when the smoking mound of trash beside the car shifted again. He didn't look up as something small and dark emerged from the ground and, crouching low, moved silently down the slope, dragging a thin, moon-cast shadow behind it. What finally got his attention was when something moved behind him near the crap he'd emptied from Suzie's trunk. A beer cans clanked on the ground, drawing his attention.
"What the—?" Woody said, but as the words were leaving his mouth, the ground around him suddenly exploded upward. Trash and loose dirt flew high into the night sky as loud, buzz-saw squeals cut through the peaceful silence. Dozens of small figures erupted up out of the ground.
Woody reached for the tire iron he had dropped, but as he crouched down to get it, before his fingers touched the cold metal, strange and twisted shapes that looked like deformed children closed in, encircling him. Facing the moonlight, all he could see were their silhouettes and the long, rippling shadows they cast. When he glanced behind him, he saw more of them. Small, ratlike faces, thin but strong-looking bodies, and upraised arms with curved, hooked claws drew closer.
"Jesus Christ!" Woody screamed. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He had to be tripping or something. All around him, the ground churned and seemed simply to open up as these things clawed their way up into the open air. Before long, it seemed as though there were hundreds of them sprouting up out of the soil.
Woody started to back away, but the back of his legs caught on the bumper of Suzie's car. His knees buckled, and he sat down, hard, in the open trunk. When the trunk lid dropped, it smacked him on top of the head. A jolt of pain shot down his neck. He wasn't aware that his bladder had let go until a warm flood of liquid spread across his thighs.
"Oh Jesus," he moaned. "Sweet fucking Jesus!"
The circle of figures closed in on him, and as they drew closer, Woody could distinguish their features more clearly in the moonlight. These things weren't even close to human, he realized, as the beaked faces closed in on him. Several of them looked as though they had been burned. Large blisters and flaps of puckered skin hung from their sharply lined faces.
The moonlit sky cast a cold powdery blue over the scene as Woody looked up from inside Suzie's trunk. The sky was suddenly cross-hatched by dozens of upraised arms. The moonlight made their claws and eyes glow with a cold yellow gleam. The scream that had been building up in Woody's chest finally found its way out.
He tried to protect himself, but nothing could stop those razor-sharp talons as they whistled through the night air and raked the skin from his arms and face. Exposed bone glistened wetly in the moonlight as blood spurted down his chest.
Woody's screams filled the night and echoed from the shells of salvaged cars and the distant ring of trees, but suddenly they cut off. Then the only sounds were those of ripping skin and breaking bones as the creatures feasted.
THE UNTCIGAHUNK MYTHS
LITTLE BROTHER
A Micmac Indian tale told around the campfire
1
How the earth and water came to be, no one but Old One knows. How trees and rocks and animals came to be, no one but Old One knows. The earth and sky were made by Old One. He sang a sacred song as he molded them in his hands. He carved the earth with swift, gleaming rivers and filled its depths with surging oceans. He sang another sacred song as he stamped his foot on the ground to make deep valleys and push up mountains that reached to the sky. Singing another sacred song, he smoked his pipe and blew out smoke to make the clouds. He placed the sun and the stars and the moon in the sky and set them on their courses. Taking soil into his hand, he spit on it and sang many sacred songs as he fashioned all the creatures that
live on the earth, fly in the air, and swim in the waters.
But after all this work was done, Old One was lonely.
When the sun fled from the sky and the moon shined her cold light over the land, Old One would sit huddled by the campfire in front of his wigwam, and he was filled with sadness.
"What's the matter, Old One?" Brother Wolf asked one night, seeing how sad Old One was.
Old One puffed on his pipe and didn't answer as he looked up at the stars, his creations, and thought long. He saw the stars' beauty, but he felt their loneliness, too. Looking across the land, he saw the valleys and mountains he had made, and the gleaming rivers and oceans he had filled; but they, too, filled him with a deep longing. He knew in his heart that none of his creation mattered unless there was someone to look at it, someone who could appreciate its beauty.
"I'm lonely, Brother Wolf," Old One said after a long while. "I look around me and see what I have made, and it saddens me."
"The world you have made is very beautiful, Old One," Brother Wolf said. "The woods and plains are filled with animals and birds. The waters are alive with fish. The hunting is good, and all that is strong grows and prospers."
"Yes, but that is not enough," Old One said sadly. "I feel the loneliness of the world, and I need someone... someone I can talk to. Someone who can share with me and enjoy the beauty of all that I have made."
"Every day after the hunt I come to your camp and we talk long into the evening. Am I not company enough for you, Old One?" Brother Wolf asked. He lowered his head and pointed his sleek black tail to the ground as he waited for Old One's reply.
Again, Old One smoked and thought long before speaking.
"No, Brother Wolf," he said finally. "Your company is not enough. The world needs Human Beings, creatures created in my image who can truly enjoy what I have made."
"But Old One," Brother Wolf said, scowling deeply, "would not creatures made in your own image also share your powers? I mean no disrespect, but would it be wise to give Human Beings such dominion over your work? Perhaps they will make things and do things to your creation that are not part of your plan."
Old One laughed loud and long, and smoke as thick as storm clouds billowed from his nostrils.
"Brother Wolf," he said sagely, "I have no plan other than to do what I have said. In the morning, I will take more soil and spit, and I will sing a sacred song as I fashion Human Beings for my world."
Brother Wolf bowed so low his snout nearly touched the ground as he shook his head from side to side.
"Meaning no disrespect, Old One, but I think that would not be wise."
Saying that, he bid Old One good night and skulked away; but in his cold, animal heart, he held resentment for Old One for not telling him that his company was enough to give him pleasure. That very night, he resolved to wait for the dawn and, before the sun could light the land in the morning he would steal it and hide it in his den.
2
Old One slept, and the night was long, seemingly without end. He was not aware that while he slept Brother Wolf had stolen the sun. When Old One awoke, refreshed, he sat and smoked, waiting for the sun to rise. After a long time when it didn't come, he grew impatient and called Brother Bear to him.
"Brother Bear," he said, "I feel in my heart that many hours, perhaps many years have passed in darkness, yet the sun has not brought his light and warmth to the land. Do you know anything about this?"
Brother Bear shook his head sadly. "I do not, Old One," he said. "Like you, I have slept long and have awakened to find the world still dark. You created the day and the night, the sun and the moon, so you must know if this night will last forever."
"We shall see," Old One said, stirring the coals of his campfire. There was little wood, and the fire was no more than a feeble orange glow in the darkness. "If the night lasts too long, I will either find the sun or else sing a sacred song and make a new one."
After that, Old One called to him Brother Deer, Brother Fox, Brother Rat, Brother Raccoon, and many others. They all said to him what Brother Bear had said to him, and Old One answered them as he had answered Brother Bear. Before he could call Brother Wolf to him, however, Old One found that he was growing tired. Remembering his resolve to create the Human Beings today, he set about his work in spite of the darkness. By this time, his campfire had burned out, and he could no longer see in the darkness to gather more wood. Digging blindly into the earth, his creation, he took a handful of soil, spit into it. Singing a sacred song, he began to fashion a Human Being. But working in the dark, he was unable to see his handiwork. It was only by touch that he fashioned a Human Being like himself who walked on two legs like Brother Bear but was naked.
"To you, Little Brother, I give the gift of life," Old One said. With that, he blew gently onto the molded soil until he felt it stir with life. Carefully, he held his new creation close to his face and addressed it thus:
"Also to you, Little Brother, I give command of the earth. All of the animals I have created are for you to—"
He intended to say "for you to enjoy," but before he could continue, Brother Wolf came sniffing to Old One's campsite. Old One heard him prowling in the darkness and called out to him, "Brother Wolf, why do you come to me, skulking in the darkness?"
"I have heard from my brother animals that you are displeased, Old One," Brother Wolf said softly. "You have been asking my brothers if they know where the sun is."
"And you know," Old One said, seeing clearly into Brother Wolf's heart.
"I do," Brother Wolf replied, "for I have taken the sun from the sky and hidden it inside my den."
Old One's heart flashed like lightning with anger, yet he said nothing.
"I was saddened by what you said to me last night," Brother Wolf went on, "that my company was not good enough for you. I stole the sun to prevent you from making Human Beings."
"Go! Now!" Old One commanded, his voice rumbling like distant thunder in the darkness. "Return the sun to the sky, or else you and all of your children will perish."
Without another word, Brother Wolf departed back to his cave where he retrieved the sun and placed it back in the sky. As soon as the warm yellow light touched the land, Old One looked into his hand and saw what he had created from soil and spit and by singing a sacred song in the darkness.
The Human Being was short and stunted. His body was covered with thick scales like those of Brother Lizard. The back of his head was pointed, and his face projected forward like Brother Rat's. His eyes were round and bulged from his face like twin full moons. His shoulders were broad, like Brother Buffalo's, but his body was narrow and had long, dangling arms that ended in wide flat hands upon which were long, curved claws like Brother Mole's. He stood shakily on thin, gnarly legs that bowed outward at the knees like no creature Old One had ever created.
"You are a disappointment to me, Little Brother," Old One said, looking earnestly at his creation as he placed it carefully on the ground. "I thought, working in the dark, my hands and my sacred song would guide me, but now that Brother Wolf has returned the sun to the sky, I see that I was wrong. You are not what I had in mind at all. You are not a Human Being."
Little Brother looked up at Old One but, because Old One had not given him the gift of speech, he said nothing. The sudden blast of sunlight hurt his round, bulging eyes, and he shielded his face from the day's warmth as best he could with his wide, flat hands.
"No, Little Brother, I am sorry, but you are not a creature of the daylight," Old One said solemnly. "You were created in the night, and you are a creature of the dark, so to the darkness below the earth I will send you. But to show that I am kind, I will allow you and all of your children to come back to the upper world once every five years, there to see my creation and all the animals which I have created for you to—"
Again, Old One intended to say "for you to enjoy" but at that moment, Brother Wolf returned, approaching Old One with his head bowed and his snout scraping against the ground.
"See what you have done!" Old One said, clenching his fists and shaking them over his head until the wind rose high in the sky. "Because I was not able to see, I have created this, not the Human Being I intended. And it is all your fault, Brother Wolf. Because I have to banish this pitiful creature to the dark caverns below the ground, I also will have to punish you. You, Brother Wolf, will become a child of the night as well, and every night, you and all of your children will howl at the full moon, the pale reflection of that which you tried to steal from me!"
LITTLE BROTHER SPEAKS
A Micmac Indian tale told around the campfire
Brother Wolf sat on the rock ledge in front of his den, looking out at the cold, still night. Overhead, the sky rippled with blue starlight, which cast a subtle glow over the world. Silence reigned except for the distant hiss of wind-blown snow. Far off, winking like a single orange eye in the night was Old One's campfire. Brother Wolf's heart grew heavy as he watched the flames, dancing merrily as they pushed back the darkness.
Brother Wolf shivered and sighed, his breath a thick, moist cloud in the darkness. This was not the first night during this long winter that he had wished he had kept the sun hidden in his den after stealing it from the sky. Its warmth and light would have kept him comfortable throughout the long winter. But Old One had known of his theft without Brother Wolf having to tell him of it. And he, unlike Old One, did not have the knowledge to make fire, so he could not have a fire in his den. Although he could appreciate the fire's warmth, in his cold animal heart, he also feared the flame.
"But I am lonely and cold up here in the mountains," Brother Wolf said to the wind. "I am worse off now because Old One is angry at me, and I no longer share the warmth of his campfire on frigid nights such as this."
