The Fiddle is the Devils Instrument

by Brett J. Talley

  I gaped at her, mouth as open as it could be. I had never seen nothing like it. I followed the old woman’s eyes to Travis. He didn’t look shocked. He just sat there and smiled, smiled that same awful smirk he always had. This was nothing to him. Tom just looked from the woman to Travis and, then, struck the horses. He didn’t take his eyes off of the road until we were clear out of town. But the woman didn’t stop. She dragged that girl until they were running alongside the wagon.

  “You did this!” she screamed at Travis in a thickly veiled tongue I could barely understand. Travis just smiled even broader and shrugged his shoulders. Then, the woman threw the girl to the ground and pointed at Travis. I couldn’t understand some of what she said, and I have come to believe that most of it wasn’t English. In her ravings and cryings, I only really caught a couple words.

  Curse. And Wendigo.

  Travis chuckled. And, that was it. The wagon rolled along, and we sat in silence except for the creaking of the wheels and the crinkling of the tobacco in Travis’s cigar as his breath ignited it. I looked around the wagon. Tom was emotionless. Doc Stanley was not as disciplined a man, and if Travis had cared to look he would have seen a snarl of disgust on his face. Andy just looked scared. But it was Joe that interested me the most. He looked off through the forest, peering really, and mumbled to himself.

  Despite our earlier encounter, my curiosity got the better of me. I reached across the wagon and tapped Joe on the shoulder. He spun around, and when he looked at me, I knew the face of terror.

  His skin was ashen, his dark hair drenched with sweat. The eyes were the worst, though. They were opened wide, pupils as big as saucers. And, on he mumbled. He grabbed me on the shoulders.

  “He will come for us now!” he screamed. It was as if he had gone mad. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. Travis landed a swift kick right to Joe’s midsection.

  “Shut it, you damn fool,” he spat. “Superstitious bullshit, that is. There ain’t nothing out here but what we're gonna kill. Should have left you behind with the rest of your kind.”

  “Silence!” Tom yelled, the veins in his neck beginning to throb. “One day in, and I don’t need this!”

  Travis leaned back and returned to his cigar. Joe just rocked back and forth on the floor of the wagon, while Andy looked the worst of the group. We rumbled along, deeper into the woods. We didn’t stop till night fall, not that day. When I felt it was safe to speak, I moved quietly over to Andy who still looked as though the fear of God was in him.

  “You alright?” I asked.

  “No,” Andy spat. “And, you ain’t either. You’re just too stupid to know it.”

  I let it pass. “What’s wrong? What was Joe all up about?”

  Andy looked at me with terror-filled eyes and said, “The Wendigo.”

  * * *

  For the second time that day I heard a word that had never met my ears in my previous 18 years of life.

  “What,” I began to ask, swallowing deeply before I continued, “is the Wendigo?”

  The voice that answered me was not Andy’s. It was deeper, stronger. I turned to see Joe had pulled himself up and leaned against the side of the wagon. Whatever panic had covered him before now seemed to vanish as he spoke. His voice was melodic. On the surface it was steady and firm, but I sensed the fear still lurking beneath its seemingly calm waters.

  “The Wendigo,” he began, “is the whisper in the darkness, the voice in the night. He is the wind that shakes the forest, the thunder in the blizzard, the lightening flash that follows. The Wendigo is death.”

  Andy whimpered audibly and then curled himself into a tightly wound ball. I looked from him back to Joe’s now-bloodless face. Then Doc Stanley interrupted.

  “All superstition and myth,” he said. “None of it’s true.” He cut his eyes to Joe and in that look there was a none-too-subtle command to end this talk now. The forest is no place to lose your head. Joe, however, did not keep his peace.

  “No myth,” he said. “Long ago, before the age of man, there walked this Earth a race whose name is now lost to us, if it was ever known. My people speak of them. These are the Great Old Ones, creatures of legend who for eons ruled the forests and the plains, the sea and even the sky from whence they came. Some say they were gods, but I do not believe it. They were cruel and cold-hearted. They reveled in pain and their hearts were filled with hate. The world was covered in darkness then, and if men had been there to see their cruelty, the agony of it would still be burned into our memory, even now.

  “There was one who ruled over them all, one who made them and formed them. We do not speak his name, and I will not speak it here. The Old Ones were his spawn, and thousands they were, but he loved one above all others—a daughter, Lilitu. Lilitu was as beautiful as she was depraved. She gave herself freely to her brothers, the sons of the dark one. But unto one of her kin, Witiko, he who lusted for her most fiercely, she refused. As his desire burned within him, Lilitu mocked Witiko until finally he took her by force. But it was all part of her ploy, you see, all part of her game. She went to her father and cried out for his vengeance on Witiko. In a mockery of all that is holy, Witiko was brought before his father to face his ‘justice.’ Witiko was not killed. Instead he was stripped of his authority and power on this Earth, stripped even of his name.

  “’You shall be Wendigo,’ his father roared. ‘You shall walk the Earth alone. Off it you shall gain no sustenance. You shall eat of neither the plants of the forest nor the plain, nor of the animals that now swarm about us. Pain will be all that you know.’

  “And so the Wendigo was banished from his brethren, and in pain and darkness he traveled the land, his skin stretched tight over his bones, his hunger burning as bright as his hate. But the age of the Old Ones passed, and only the Wendigo remained. A new creature arose then, one that had not been refused to the Wendigo, one unknown to his father. This was man, and he the Wendigo could eat. Since then, the Wendigo has haunted the north woods, devouring whomever he finds as prey. From him, the Wendigo takes his knowledge and his skill, but never gains sustenance, never fills his hunger, never quenches his hate. This is the Wendigo, and now, he comes for us.”

  “Bah!” Doc Stanley spat. “No more of this! There is no Wendigo.”

  “What of the stories then?” Andy muttered through his creeping fear.

  “A disease of the mind,” the doctor responded matter-of-factly.

  “Wait,” I said, breaking my silence for the first time, “you mean to tell me there is some truth to this?” Until that moment, Joe’s ravings, though frightening in their power, struck me as nothing more than a myth from the old days. But now the doctor appeared to give them some weight.

  “Well,” the doctor replied, stuttering, “the legend, such that it is—absurdities all, of course—is not merely that the Wendigo devours his victims. You see…” He paused then, studying his hands. It gave me no calm that the doctor seemed to give more than a little credence to the story. “Oh, it’s rubbish. We shouldn’t talk any more of this.”

  “He takes you,” Joe interjected. “His spirit is strong, stronger than yours. But his body was imprisoned long ago, along with all the Old Ones. They speak to us only in dreams now. But the curse gave the Wendigo power beyond even theirs. But though he lives, he must take the form of a man to partake of this world. Whomever he takes is doomed to feast upon the flesh of his brothers, to watch through eyes that are no longer his as the Wendigo devours all before him.”

  “It’s a mental defect,” the doctor spat, showing both his own frustration but also a hint of doubt. “Certain of the Indian tribes around these parts are known to succumb to it. To explain their sudden insanity and…cannibalism, the legend of the Wendigo was invented. That is all. These are mad men and nothing more. And if you persist in this kind of talk, we are liable to lose our own minds over these next few months.”

  I suppose it might have gone on like that for a few more hours, b
ut at that moment Tom pulled the wagon to a stop. We had arrived at the first of our campsites. The next few hours of work made us forget quickly about the curse that had been laid upon us, about the Wendigo. But as I lay in my tent that night, I couldn’t help but hear whispers on the wind as the first snows of winter began to fall in earnest.

  * * *

  Without notice our duties consumed us. The life of the men of the forest is not one of leisure. As the air grew colder, the work got harder. I was used to a more lenient taskmaster—my father. But Tom was relentless. He was the best in the western woods, that’s certain. But there was a growing gloom above us as well, and as the moon waxed brighter, as a steel-gray curtain of clouds rose, and as the icy cold wind cut through our tents and our clothes, it was clear to all that the season’s worst was near.

  “A storm’s a-comin’,” I remember Joe saying. It was prescient, I suppose, but it didn’t take his particular senses to know a blizzard was upon us. Tom was worried, too.

  “We should close up early tonight,” he said. He had a wary eye on the dim light of the setting sun. It was an hour yet until twilight, but thick clouds had rendered it night already. “Everyone, make sure everything is double secure tonight. Trust me when I say night in a snowstorm is no time to try and pitch a tent.”

  Tom’s point was well taken, but it was advice we didn’t need. We had already begun the work and were well underway before the first burst of snow. Joe was our cook, but he had a hard time getting anything together that night. The winds and the snow were such that the fire would barely stay lit, no matter how much wood we fed it.

  We bedded down early. I stood at the opening of my tent and watched as the snow began to fall in ever greater quantities. I glanced back at the dying fire and saw Joe still sat at its edge. The waning embers did not give much light, but he had drawn near to their warmth, and the rays that remained illuminated his face. Perhaps it was the light or the shadow or the snow, but I noticed for the first time that Joe had aged over the past few weeks. The lines were deeper, the skin more leathery and pulled taut across his face. His eyes were simply empty. There was no fear, no worry, just nothing, a cold resignation that frightened me more than anything else possibly could. That may sound strange, but I know no other way to describe it.

  They say man is an animal, and that may be so. But most men don’t know nature. They are like you, my young friend. They live in the world of the city, and when they come to the wild it is for leisure and peace. They do not see the cold killer lurking in the darkness, the hunter red in tooth and claw. But we saw it that night.

  The blizzard came hard and fast, falling upon us like the eagle strikes its prey. I lay listening as the wind buffeted my tent, and the snow struck its sides like grapeshot fired from a distant cannon. I know I slept that night, as strange and unbelievable as it might sound. Yes, the work had exhausted me, but my senses were so heightened, my fear so deep, that sleep should never have come. I was as a man taken by opium, and my eyes grew heavy, my mind grew cloudy, and I drifted in and out of consciousness.

  I cannot know how much of what I remember was real or imagined. But I heard things that night. Not just the wind or the snow. It started with a howl, a low and distant whine. I wasn’t sure it was there at first, thought it might just be something from a dream. Soon it was joined by another and another. It was as if all the wolves in the western wood had suddenly been called to a common purpose.

  But it wasn’t the howl itself that sent a chill through my bones. No, it was the message of that call. It was pain and fear from an animal that rarely knew either. At one moment the sound was all about, as if we were surrounded. Then just as quickly it seemed to be coming from within my own mind. And then it changed, my God, did it change. No more the call of a wild dog. Now it was the pitiful cry of a woman. So deep was her anguish, so terrible. As if the world had been taken from her, as if a child had been ripped from her bosom and slaughtered before her very eyes. Oh, the pain in that cry. But it was not the worst I heard, no, not at all. Vile sounds followed, sounds that are beyond my meager education to describe, but I wager the greatest poet in the world couldn’t write a line for them. Demon haunted the forest was that night, and in my dreams, I heard and felt the darkest and foulest beast that ever gibbered its wail from the depths of the pit.

  There was thunder that followed lightening, the mark of a summer storm in the heart of winter. In those flashes of light, I saw figures outlined against the thin skin of my tent, figures that danced outside my vision. And then, even in the night, even in the darkness, a shadow fell upon me, that of a great bird, a flying beast never before seen on this Earth by the eyes of man. Its cry rent the night air, and in that moment my mind snapped, and I sunk into blessed black oblivion.

  * * *

  I awoke the next morning to the brilliant, blinding light of the morning sun shining through my now open tent. Outlined in its gleam was Doc Stanley. If the bitter night had shaken him, the blank expression on his face did little to reveal it.

  “Get up,” he commanded. “Joe is missing.” And with that, he turned and was gone.

  I pulled on boots and rushed outside to find the entire campsite covered in snow. I remembered the wolves and immediately walked around to the back of my tent. I expected to find paw prints, fur, something. But there was only snow, thick and as untouched as a lamb that had never been sheered. I told myself it had been all a dream or that, at worst, the snow had covered whatever markings the beasts had left behind. I told myself that, but even in those early days I didn’t believe it.

  Then I heard my name. It was Tom. I walked back to the center of the campsite to find the entire group gathered around the spot where the fire had been before. Tom was serious, Doc Stanley’s expression remained as impenetrable as the grave, and Andy looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. Travis merely seemed irritated.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Tom sighed and said, “Joe is gone. He should have been up making breakfast by now, but as you can probably see, he never even started the fire.”

  “Maybe he needed some wood,” I offered.

  “We cut some yesterday,” Doc Stanley replied. I knew this. I had helped break it up.

  “Maybe something was wrong with it.” Tom sighed again, and I saw Doc cast a weary look his way. When Tom didn’t speak, Doc Stanley did.

  “He didn’t go for wood,” Stanley said. “His tent is empty, and there are no footprints. No footprints anywhere. Not going to it, not going away. Nothing. It’s like…” Andy whimpered, and for a second Doc Stanley paused. He looked at him with less contempt than I expected and then said, “It’s like Joe disappeared. Just up and vanished. We looked in his tent. Everything is in place. Nothing messed up, nothing broken. And, nothing taken. It looks like he just walked out of camp with nothing but the clothes on his back.”

  “Oh, God,” Andy stammered, “Joe knew this trip was trouble. Knew it was trouble from the start. And, now it’s got him.”

  Doc Stanley jerked his head toward Andy and fixed him with one of the most hate-filled gazes I’ve ever seen.

  “Who’s got him?” Tom asked.

  “The Wendigo!” Andy cried, oblivious to Doc Stanley.

  “Oh, not this rubbish,” Doc Stanley said as he turned and walked toward his tent.

  “Look.” Now it was Travis’s time to talk. “Ain’t nobody here who put any stock in Joe. I don’t even know why you brought him along,” he spat, pointing a long narrow finger at Tom. “He was always liable to run off, and now he has. He probably left last night. He probably got spooked by the storm and struck off into the woods. The snow covered his tracks, and he’s gone. If the wolves haven’t gotten him, the snow damn sure did. He’s probably buried under three feet of it now.”

  “You heard the wolves too?” I asked.

  Travis’s eyes went from mine to Tom’s, and as I followed them I saw the answer to my question in both their faces.


  “No, kid,” Travis lied. “I was just sayin’ is all. There ain’t no wolves in these parts. But Joe is dead either way.”

  Tom still hadn’t spoken, and I knew given how he guarded his words, he wasn’t likely to.

  Then Travis continued. “Look, we got dry wood. You clean off a spot,” he said to me, “and I’ll get a fire going. I think I can round up something for us to eat. And, then we can go look for Joe.”

  When I heard that I lost my words. Travis didn’t do anything for anybody, had never made food for us. Now Tom did speak. “You don’t cook,” he said.

  “Yeah, well, looks like somebody has to learn, huh?”

  With that he turned and walked away. I went to work clearing a spot for a fire, and soon we had a pretty big one going. Before the sun had risen too far in the sky, Travis had cooked up some of the rabbit we had trapped the day before. For a man who had no way with food, I remember thinking to myself that it wasn’t half bad. I had never thought much of Joe’s cooking, and I reckoned what Travis had made was just as good. I ate more than I was accustomed to. I was hungry, and Travis, though he had cooked it himself, obviously had doubts about his ability as he ate almost none.

  “Not hungry this mornin’,” he said. Something with his stomach.

  We ate quickly. If Joe were still alive out there, we needed to find him and find him fast. Tom gave us our orders.

  “Each man take a line and walk it. Don’t wander off. We’ll cover the forest close by as good as we can, but I don’t want nobody else gettin’ lost. You walk straight out and then you follow your tracks and come straight back. You got it?”