Howl of a Thousand Winds

by Howl of a Thousand Winds (retail) (epub)

  "Again, with deepest respect, I believe in the scientific explanations for weather patterns and phenomena. I've never seen any quantifiable evidence of weather gods or their influence," Micah said.

  "You have. Only you didn't know what you were seeing," Old Joe said, finding a way to explain without having to stop and ponder. "When snow falls from the sky, you see the flakes. Each is an individual, separate. When it gathers on the ground, it is still called snow, yet you no longer see the individual flakes. What you see is the result of their combined influence. When the wind blows, you can see the grass bending, hear the leaves whispering, feel the chill on your face. But you never see the wind itself. Does that mean the wind does not exist? No. Same is true of the spirits, the Elementals. You see their result, yet never see them."

  "How about you?" Micah asked, trying to maintain a respectful tone while refusing to give in to the hoodoo. "Have you ever seen them?"

  Old Joe's gaze traveled from the fireplace to Micah, then through him to a place in history that didn't exist in this room.

  "Yes," the medicine man said quietly, the strength having left his voice.

  "It was in 1940, what the white man's newspapers called the Armistice Day Blizzard," Old Joe began, returning his eyes to the fireplace as if the flames would help him tell the story. "I was a little boy. My mother had died giving me life, not an uncommon occurrence in those days among my people.

  "The snow makes everything look pure. It is said that white is the color of goodness, of innocence, but that isn't always so," the medicine man continued.

  "While we slept, overnight the drifts covered the bottom half of the windows in our house, pressed in against the front door. My father and I didn't know that, while we were asleep, we had become trapped.

  "It was still dark. I had been dreaming of a white horse, ridden by a rider dressed all in white, when the sound on the roof first woke me. I had heard noises before when snow would accumulate there, the weight on the aging beams, but never anything like this. Not before nor since. It wasn't creaking, it was pounding. I got out of bed and went to the main room, where my father was already up. He was throwing powders into the fireplace, coaxing the fire to awaken and grow. The powders made the flames change colors; blue, then green, then back to orange. While my father spoke to the fire with his powders, the noise above stopped. It wasn't until then that my father saw me. At first I thought he would send me back to bed, but instead he told me to sit near the fire and listen. I heard the flames begin to whisper to me in words I didn't understand. But the words were soothing, almost lulling me back to sleep.

  "Before I could close my eyes, the front door exploded inward," Old Joe continued, no emotion coloring his words. "Standing in the splintered doorway was what looked like a man, clad completely in white. The opening allowed the cold wind to gain entrance, but when the creature came into the room, I could tell the coldness came not from the air but from him. It was as if the creature was made completely of frozen snow, yet walked on two legs like a human.

  "While I got up to run away, my father grabbed a piece of wood from where it was leaning against the wall next to the fireplace, a thick limb from a willow tree. He spit into his hand and poured a handful of powder from a small leather bag into it, then rubbed it onto the heavy end of the stick before poking it into the fire. Fire jumped onto the stick, where the flames turned the same green and blue I had seen earlier.

  "As my father turned to face the creature, it charged toward him. Its mouth opened where before there had been nothing, grew large like a scream but never emitted a sound. When it reached my father, as if trying to bite his face, my father plunged the burning stick into the center of the creature's body.

  "What happened next is something few humans have ever witnessed. The snow caught fire. The green and blue flames turned purple like an evening sky. For the first time, the creature finally made a noise. It was the howl of a thousand winds, a tornado screaming its fury through a doomed forest. The force of it knocked me against the wall. It shattered every window in the house, blowing the shards of glass out but allowing the drifts of snow in.

  "The burning creature then exploded into a shower of purple sparks. The winds now pouring in through every broken window and the front door swirled through the room, gathering the purple sparks before they could reach the floor and sucking them out into the night, where they winked and disappeared against the blackness. Through the darkness and above the sound of the receding wind, I heard the single whinny of a horse, then silence."

  Old Joe stopped and the room fell quiet, save for the pop and crackle of the now waning fire. Micah looked as the embers in the fireplace fell through the grate, something his childhood fears had rarely allowed him to watch.

  After a moment, the medicine man spoke again.

  "The creature's name is Aisoyimstan. My father explained that he is the bringer of ice and snow. He is not among the strongest of gods, and few offer him praises and tributes, which is why he so often is angry and destructive."

  For the first time since his story began, Old Joe's eyes left the fireplace and returned to Micah's face.

  "I have never shared this outside the circle of my sons, in hopes one would someday follow the path of my ancestors as medicine men," Old Joe said. "While they have made me proud with families and strong sons of their own, they have chosen different paths. The same is true of my grandsons. While I have come to accept that my family's traditions with medicine end with me, my grandsons bring me joy as they, too, grow into men. One comes now, to return you to the center."

  Micah strained to catch the sound of the ATV's engine, but heard nothing but the fire's arrhythmic song. Old Joe stood up and walked over to the table in the corner, taking off the lid and pulling out a small leather pouch tied with a string of deerskin. He returned to Micah, who now stood next to the rocker. The medicine man extended his hand toward his guest, holding the bag by the string.

  "I am old, and no longer in need of what is in this bag. Although I haven't lived here since becoming a man and taking a wife, it has remained in this room, protecting this house against Aisoyimstan's return since that night. Now it has been revealed to me that, soon, you will need it more than does my father's house," Old Joe said, holding the bag until Micah finally reached out and accepted it. "You will know when that time has arrived. At that moment, find a piece of wood and do as I have described."

  Micah looked first at the pouch he now held, then looked around the room as understanding overtook him. The creature of which Old Joe had spoken once stood in this very spot, more than 70 years before. And without knowing why, the educated, experienced, skeptical newspaper reporter knew with an unexpected certainty that every word was true.

  While still trying to wrap his head around the fantastic tale he had just heard and the warning of an encounter to come, the sound of an ATV engine began to grow outside the front door.

  It was time to go.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ridley, Pennsylvania

  Wednesday

  November 21, 2012

  It was a sound few people had ever heard, even fewer could describe. It was the snap of a revolver’s hammer striking home, followed by that instant yet infinite slice of time between the hammer’s click and the pop of the small round cap which ignited the controlled explosion within the cartridge. The next sound would be that of the copper-jacketed lead slug breaking the sound barrier as it left the gun’s muzzle. Beyond that, eternal emptiness.

  Brad jerked awake in his recliner, his heart racing. The dream had returned, the same scene in a cerebral video loop that had been tormenting him for months. It took a moment for him to focus his bleary eyes on the only source of light in the room, bringing him from the nightmare to the bad dream of his current reality.

  With lucidity came the pain. The deeper emotional ache was muted by the pounding in his head that announced another night of drinking had yielded to the unsympathetic birth of the morning after.

&nbs
p; On the TV screen, it was yesterday’s message with a new messenger, heralding a holiday snow. Easing the lever forward on the recliner, he brought his feet to solid ground. He sat and looked around the room, trying to shake the fuzziness from his brain without actually shaking his head. His effort to cobble together where he was and what he needed to do was the only thing keeping the memory of yesterday at bay. His heart rate began to slow as his dream returned to its wispy, ethereal non-existence.

  The time at the bottom of the TV screen indicated 9:18 a.m., Wednesday, November 24. Brad should have been at the office an hour ago.

  He found success in standing on his third attempt, his balance still in question. The machinery in his head churned broken glass through its gears, reaching the decision that all other decisions could wait until the first urgent memo from his kidneys had been acknowledged. Brad lurched toward the hall, pinballing from wall to wall until he reached the open door to the bathroom. Without turning on the light, he found the toilet and began his bladder’s bidding.

  “Okay, life by the numbers,” he thought. Shower, shave, teeth, underwear, followed by the rest of his corporate uniform. Drive to work. Read mind-numbing policy minutiae. Slay the dragons of trench-coated ambulance chasers trying to gnaw their way through the liability-coverage suit of armor he had fashioned for his clients.

  Or, plan two: call in sick, then go to bed until the hangover went away, which he estimated would be around 4:32 p.m. on Arbor Day.

  His internal Jiminy Cricket said hit the showers. The arrhythmic drummer in his head was beating out a primitive Morse code, telling him that his choice should be the latter.

  After washing his hands, Brad returned to the living room and picked up his portable phone. The drummer had won.

  “Atkins and Cowher Risk Management, how may I direct your call?” a pleasant voice answered.

  “Shianne, it’s Brad. I’m not on top of my game today, so I’m gonna bag it. Can you pass the word along to Sue?”

  There was a slight pause.

  “Um, Mrs. Enderrin has called twice for you. Says you have an appointment at 11:15?”

  “Damn,” he replied. “I can’t reschedule that one.” His mind scanned the list of things he needed to do on the Enderrin account. “Okay, I’ll take 900 aspirin and be there in 45.”

  He hung up the phone, then went in search of the mythical 900 aspirin that wouldn’t be enough to get him through the day.

  An hour and a half later, he was at his desk, arguing with his computer. The unpleasant beep insisted that his password wasn’t 16919270, which was his birth date reversed. His fingers punched the keys like a five-armed boxer pummeling a mouthy opponent. After the fourth try, Brad switched from the number pad to the line of numbered keys at the top of the keyboard, where he slowly repeated his code. This time, the melodic greeting announced success.

  After checking his e-mail and the news blurbs on Yahoo, he moved into the company database and called up the info on “Enderrin, Sylvia.”

  The account showed five policies, including a $680,000 homeowners policy on her residence, a dwelling fire policy on a cabin worth $217,000 in Easerly, Pennsylvania, a full-coverage auto policy for a 2005 Lincoln Town Car, a liability-only auto policy for a 1985 Chevy Suburban, a Personal Articles Floater for $180,000 worth of jewelry, and a two million dollar liability umbrella. There was no mention of a life insurance policy or health coverage, but that wasn’t particularly unusual, since a lot of people received such benefits from their employers or businesses these days.

  Brad clicked on the claims section to see if the Enderrins had ever crashed into a busload of nuns or set their kitchen on fire while deep-frying a frozen turkey. He enjoyed a voyeuristic curiosity when researching claims, witnessing the secrets and digging into details of the various calamities that plague modern owners of land, building, and machine. Auto claims were usually the most grisly, liability claims the most juicy, and property claims served as testaments to man’s relentless fallibility.

  The system listed only one loss, a windstorm claim from November of 1987. The claim involved roof damage, three broken windows, and water damage to a bedroom. The water damage was probably the result of rain or snow pouring in through the broken windows, Brad surmised. He clicked the “Detail” button for more information, but was met with the “Data has been archived” message. Not surprising, considering how old the claim was. In any case, a claim that was more than 25 years old wasn’t going to impact whatever insurance activity Mrs. Enderrin would need today.

  Returning to the policy screens, Brad noted that all of the policies were in the name of Sylvia Enderrin, which might indicate one of two things: Either there was no longer a “Mr. Enderrin” in her life, or that the Enderrins had joined a growing list of wealthier clients who were choosing to place assets in the name of the wives as part of an estate management plan.

  Brad clicked on the auto policy to see if a husband was listed as a driver, but was answered with the dreaded “Fatal Exception Error,” the harbinger of a network about to go down. This morning was shaping up worse by the minute. True to the warning, his phone chirped, followed by Shianne’s intercom announcement that everyone needed to log off of the network for the next 30 minutes.

  In a spiteful move, Brad did the forbidden and simply pushed the power button instead of following the proper logout procedure. He usually liked working with computers, but lately despised their lack of sympathy for hungover humans.

  The next step was to have Sue go downstairs where the dead files were stored and pull out the Enderrin file. Sue was the customer service rep assigned to his accounts, and had been with the agency for nearly 10 years, so she would know how to locate the information. However, even with her extensive knowledge of the filing system, he knew it would take her a while to locate the right box; so he decided not to bother her with a 45 minute assignment for what he estimated would be a 15 minute appointment.

  He disliked being at an informational disadvantage, since this was one of a handful of “orphan” accounts he had been assigned when he joined the firm four years ago, but figured he knew enough to answer whatever questions might come up. An “orphan” account was one in which the agent who wrote the account no longer worked at the firm. In this case, the account had been written by Dave Cowher himself. He had founded the firm with T.O. Atkins back in 1968. Mr. Cowher had retired five years ago, then lost his battle with cancer two years later. Since taking over the account, Brad had spoken to Mrs. Enderrin a half dozen times, but had never actually met the client. Until today.

  Almost as if on cue, his desk phone chirped again.

  “Brad, Mrs. Enderrin is here to see you.”

  “Thanks, Shianne. Please send her on back”.

  Thirty seconds later, his client appeared.

  Sylvia Enderrin was a slim but sturdy woman. Her hair was waging a battle between the youthful brown of her past and the regal silver that was her destiny, pinned into a loose but neat bun. Her face was lined with the stories of 68 years on this planet, with lively eyes that radiated the warning that this was not a woman who tolerated misdirection, but with a watery sympathy that came from pain long endured. Brad had begun to notice that look in his own eyes over the last few months.

  She also stood on three legs; a strong left leg two-thirds hidden by a dark blue below-the-knee skirt, bracketed by the two skinny aluminum poles of wristed crutches.

  “Mrs. Enderrin, I’m Bradley Connerman. I’m so pleased to finally meet you,” Brad said, standing and coming around the desk to formally extend his salutation and help her to a chair while being careful not to stare at the lone leg.

  Quickly parking the right crutch against her hip in a practiced motion, Mrs. Enderrin took his hand in a firm grip, not like the dainty handshake of most monied older women, then released it to continue navigating toward a chair under her own power.

  “Mr. Connerman. I appreciate you seeing me today. I know your office is closing early for the holiday.”


  Brad quickly glanced at the calendar on his desk, and the November 25 date which bore no celebratory red circle around tomorrow’s Thanksgiving holiday.

  ”Not a problem,” he replied. “Please have a seat.” Brad indicated the two comfortably upholstered leather seats in front of his desk, as he closed the door behind her.

  “How can I help you today?” he asked, returning to his place behind the large cherry desk.

  “I’ve traded in the '05 Lincoln for a new one and I need to get it insured before I go away for Thanksgiving.” She started withdrawing papers from her purse. “I think all the information you need is here."

  Brad took the paper she placed on his desk and began reviewing what appeared to be a dealer’s invoice. It listed a midnight blue 2012 Lincoln Navigator, four wheel drive, valued at $61,000. He began jotting down the Vehicle Identification Number, the value, and the make and model.

  “Which bank is doing the financing?” he asked.

  Mrs. Enderrin raised her left eyebrow. “That’s an insurance man’s way of asking if I’m rich, isn’t it Mr. Connerman?”

  Brad looked up, at first confused, his face beginning to flush. “No, ma’am. I was only asking if I needed to add a bank as the lien holder. I meant no offense.”

  She broke into a laugh. It softened her eyes and filled her face with a gentleness that made her seem more vulnerable than her grip would indicate.

  “I’m yanking your chain, Mr. Connerman. We’re not rich by today’s standards, but we’re not poor, either. We’re what the uppity crowd likes to call 'comfortable.'”

  Brad began to relax. The sense of humor was matched by an unspoken twinkle that hinted of mischief and fraternal conspiracy, like two old friends sharing a rather public secret, without a hint of arrogance. He liked this lady.

  “I’m going to write that down as a ‘no’ then. The repo man isn’t going to come looking for you.”

  “You’re very quick, Mr. Connerman. I like that.”