Untcigahunk: The Complete Little Brothers

by Rick Hautala

  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 Buffal
o’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.”

  In his heart there was a deeper pain, the pain that he also no longer shared the company of Old One; but he would not admit this, even to the wind, who would whisper it all around the world.

  Brother Wolf stared at the full-bellied moon, riding high in the sky. Unable to resist the urge any longer, he stretched back his neck, narrowed his eyes, and howled at the cold beauty of its light, as Old One had said he must. His voice echoed in the canyons and was carried away by the wind.

  For a long time, he sat thus, baying loudly as his nose pointed up at the moon as it followed its slow, silent journey across the sky. But after a while, Brother Wolf became aware of another sound—a rough scratching noise coming from behind him, from the far corner of his den. His voice cut off abruptly as he stood, turned, and cautiously sniffed the air.

  “Who dares enter my den?” Brother Wolf asked, his voice rumbling gruffly in the depths of his chest as he tried to pierce the pressing darkness.

  For an answer, there came again—louder this time—a scratching sound like that of Brother Mole digging in the earth. Brother Wolf lowered his head. The muscles in his shoulders tensed as he bared his fangs, prepared to destroy whomever this was invading his home.

  The den filled with a rough scratching sound of dirt and loose stones being pushed aside. Then, faintly in the bright glow of moonlight filtering into the darkness, Brother Wolf saw the intruder crawl up through a hole in the den floor.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t Little Brother, my old friend,” Brother Wolf said when he saw two rounded eyes glaring at him from the far corner of his den. “And why have you come to visit me?”

  Little Brother made no reply as he hunched his shoulders and squatted flat on his feet, his bony knees nearly touching his ears. For a long moment, he just sat there, crouching on the den floor and staring at Brother Wolf.

  “Ah-hah, that’s right,” Brother Wolf said, “I just remembered. When Old One created you, he did not give you the gift of speech.”

  Brother Wolf cast a wary glance out at the night, down to the winking orange campfire in the distance, and then said, “But I will do for you something even Old One would not do, Little Brother. I will give you the ability to speak. I, too, would like someone to talk to on these cold winter nights. Come—come here, and I will teach you.”

  As the moon made her slow journey across the sky, Brother Wolf instructed Little Brother in the gift of speech. It didn’t take him long to realize that Little Brother would never master the art. No matter how many words Brother Wolf tried to teach him, Little Brother could only remember half of them, and time after time, he interrupted his lesson by saying to Brother Wolf, “Little Brother … hungry.”

  At first, Brother Wolf asked Little Brother to be patient, that after he had learned to speak, he would have time to eat; but Little Brother grew insistent, and eventually Brother Wolf gave in to his demands.

  “You may leave my den now and go eat,” Brother Wolf said. “But before you go, tell me. What do you eat down there in the darkness where Old One has placed you?”

  “Little Brother eat … many things,” he replied in a shrill, chittering voice that sounded most like Brother Bat’s high-pitched squeal. “Whatever I find... Some, large and furry...others, small and smooth.”

  “It’s a pity that you can never enjoy the world as Old One created it,” Brother Wolf said. His heart filled with hurt and envy that he, too, no longer enjoyed the world, not since Old One told him his company was not enough to satisfy him. A memory came to him of the night when Old One created Little Brother. He recalled that Old One had been about to say something to Little Brother but had been interrupted when he, Brother Wolf, had come to him after returning the sun to the sky.

  “I know, Little Brother, that the sun hurts your eyes and burns your skin, but there is something Old One asked me to tell you the next time I saw you.” He lowered his head, cringing at the lie he was about to speak. “On the day he created you, he intended to tell you that all of his creation has been made for you, Little Brother, to devour, as the night where you live devours the day that hurts you.”

  “Little Brother...hungry,” was the shrieking reply.

  In that instant, Brother Wolf realized his mistake. Hissing loudly as he bared his fangs, Little Brother reached out to him with his long, clawed hands.

  With a frightened yelp, Brother Wolf turned and ran from his den just as Little Brother grabbed for him. A spark of pain, like a flying ember from Old One’s campfire, hit the tip of his tail. Howling loudly, Brother Wolf raced down the mountainside and ran straight to where Old One sat, smoking his pipe in front of his wigwam.

  “Brother Wolf,” said Old One, letting a billow of smoke rise from his mouth until it hid the moon. “It’s been a long time since I have seen you, but why
are you running so fast and howling in pain? What has happened?”

  Panting, Brother Wolf lowered his head to the ground, knowing that Old One need not have asked; he could see clearly into his heart and know what he had done.

  “What you have done was not wise,” Old One said solemnly.

  Brother Wolf looked at him, silently pleading for mercy. He was surprised to see that Old One’s face was creased with laughter, not anger. His eyes sparkled like sunlight reflecting off the river. A long, loud roll of laughter came like thunder from his chest as he looked at Brother Wolf in the light of his campfire.

  “I know why you laugh at me,” Brother Wolf said humbly. “I have been foolish, trying to do the work of creation that is only in your power to do.”

  “No, no,” Old One said. His voice sounded like boulders, tumbling down the mountainside in the night. “That is not at all why I laugh. I can see that what you have told that poor, miserable creature has come back to haunt you no sooner than the words were out of your mouth. I cannot unsay those words, so from this night on, my creation and everything in it is indeed at the mercy of Little Brother. From now on, when he returns to the upper world every five years, he will devour whatever he meets.”

  “Then why do you laugh, Old One,” Brother Wolf asked, still trembling with fear.

  “Why, just look at yourself,” Old One said, shaking like an earthquake with laughter. “You are so frightened that your fur, once so sleek and black, has turned gray and wiry. It stands up as though you are in fear. And this is the mark you and your kind must bear from now on for what you have done.”

  REDMAN

  A Micmac Indian tale told around the campfire

  1

  It was midsummer. Hot, heavy breezes blew lazily along the deep forest trails. Overhead, the leaves rippled like green water, turning up their undersides, presaging rain. Far off in the distance, thunder rolled like boulders tumbling downhill. Oppressed by the heat, Brother Wolf trod slowly along the path that led to Old One’s campsite, which was beside the river with no opposite shore. While still some distance from the camp, Brother Wolf’s sensitive nose detected something new, something he had never smelled before. As he got closer to the Old One’s camp, he also heard a sound...a steady click-click-click that both puzzled him and filled him with apprehension.