by Steve Vernon
“But what happened next?” I almost screamed. “Something HAD to happen, didn’t it?”
“Of course something happened. Sooner or later something always happens,” Coyote said. “That’s just the nature of life. One day an Ojibwa hunter took his pelts in to the white man’s fort to trade for whatever he could get – but he made the mistake of bringing a few chunks of silver from the mine. So the white man traded whiskey with the Ojibwa and they got him to drink it and they drank with him only they were drinking every time he thought they were drinking whiskey and before you knew it they had talked him into taking a canoe and paddling them out to that silver mine.”
It was strange sitting there and listening to Coyote’s story. I had my i-pod wires still hanging around my neck and I could have easily have plugged in and tuned out but I was totally caught up in his words. And while Coyote was talking I’ll swear that a little campfire seemed to grow up between us and cast its light and flicker and dance all about us.
“Well he took those greedy white men right out to the mine and they could not believe their eyes,” Coyote went on. “There was more silver in that mine than they had ever dreamed of – but while they laughing and dancing and gathering up just as much silver as they could cram and stuff and jam into their backpacks and pockets they did not pay attention to a great dark cloud that rose up above them.”
“It started to rain?” I asked.
“No, it did not start to rain. It was the shadow of Old Nanna Bijou and he laid down right on top of that silver mine, trapping those white men down there with all of that silver and then he cried himself to sleep on account of finding out how his people had gone and let him down and then all of those big old buckets of tears they crystalized about his body and hardened up and turned him into stone.”
“He cried himself into stone?” I said. “That doesn’t make any kind of sense at all.”
“The tears of gods and mean are a strange and mysterious kind of magic,” Coyote said. “You don’t know what you will make out of sorrow until sorrow falls upon you.”
“So what happened after that?”
“If you hush long enough I will tell it to you.”
So I hushed.
I just HAD to know what came next.
“Well sir, they found that Ojibwa trader lying in his canoe scared clear out of his mind and they never found a sign of those white men and for all I know they are still down there in the darkness of that mine, counting their silver. And that mountain still lays there on that island, just off of Thunder Bay in that big old gulp that men call Lake Superior – and you can see it laying out there in the water if you look right out that front window.”
So I looked out that Winnebago front window and I could see The Sleeping Giant of Thunder Bay lying there, stretched out in all of his wonder and his glory.
“How’d we get here?” I asked. “The last time I looked we were in Cape Breton.”
“We got here by magic,” Coyote said. “Weren’t you paying attention?”
“Magic isn’t real,” I pointed out.
“Neither is Bigfoot – or screaming sacred sea monkeys, for that matter,” Coyote replied. “The fact is – magic is real if you believe in it – or even if you don’t.”
“If you two are done with all of your talking,” Bigfoot said. “We’re going to come in for a landing. It’s time to go and talk to a mountain.”
I held on tight and waited for things to get worse.
The way things were going I didn’t figure I had all that long to wait.
Chapter Nine – The Breath of the Great Lakes Dragons
We came in from a long way up.
“I like this part of it best of all,” Bigfoot said. “I like seeing the way that everything down there that is so big looking so darned small from way up here.”
The way I figured it nearly EVERYTHING must look small to a guy the size of Bigfoot – but I did not argue the point with him. I could see clouds around us through the windows of the mystic Winnebago. I didn’t like to think about just how high we were but the land down below us looked like something that might have been built for a model railroad set.
It was a first for me. I had been on airplanes many times before – but this was the very first time that I had been this high up in a mystic pink Winnebago motor home.
“Do you see all of that deep green down there below us?” Bigfoot asked me. “That’s the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park down there.”
We moved in a little closer.
“Shouldn’t we be careful?” I asked. “There are an awful lot of airports in Ontario. What if we wander into somebody’s flight path?”
“They won’t see us,” Bigfoot said. “We don’t even show up on their radar. Remember that rain cloud that you saw back in Cape Breton – the one that old Coyote jumped off of? That was Winnie, in one of his many spirit forms. Anyone sees us at all – well all they see is a rain cloud and a bit of dust blowing in the wind or just a soft pink mist.”
That particular bit of knowledge still didn’t comfort me all that much.
“Not seeing us wouldn’t stop an airplane from crashing into us, now would it?”
Bigfoot just snorted, like he thought that was saying was one of the ten most stupidest of statements of last three centuries.
“We haven’t hit anyone in a long, long time,” Bigfoot said. “Why don’t you stop worrying so much?”
That still didn’t help me feel any better.
“The island looks a little bit like a raven, lying on its side, now doesn’t it?” Bigfoot asked. “Can you see it?”
I looked down at what he was looking at. I could see how somebody might have thought it looked like a big old crow lying on its side.
Coyote wasn’t so sure about that, though.
“If you ask me it doesn’t look a thing a thing like a raven,” Coyote said. “I’m pretty sure that the island looks just exactly like a coyote.”
I took another look.
I really WANTED to agree with Coyote but I was still seeing a raven.
“I can see the beak,” I said. “I’m afraid it doesn’t look much like a coyote at all.”
“That that little bit of island is called Thunder Cape,” Bigfoot said. “And that is right where we are aiming to land on. Now you just keep your mouth open and your tongue still or else your ears will surely pop.”
I looked out through the Winnebago window and I could indeed see a long peninsula that did sort of look like a crow’s beak.
“There’s a thick fog down there,” I said. “It looks like it might be growing right out of the rocks.”
“They call that fog the Dragon’s Breath,” Bigfoot told me. “Or at least that’s what I have heard tell.”
“You know – you know an awful lot of names for an awful lot of things,” I said. “Can you tell me what my middle name really is?”
I was trying to be a wise guy, seeing if I could stump Bigfoot but I might as well have been trying to convince the wind to change direction.
“How about Irritating?” Bigfoot asked. “I think that sounds like a pretty good middle name for you.”
Actually, my middle name was Aloysius – and I’m not going to tell you how to pronounce that. I had been named after an uncle who I really wish had been named something cool like Brock or Rip or even Knuckles.
“Is there any real dragons down there?” I asked.
Hey, if there was a giant down there – then why not a dragon?
“The Dragon’s Breath is just a natural phenomenon,” Bigfoot explained. “It is caused by the cold water hitting the sun-warmed rocks of the beach.”
I wasn’t all that convinced of what he was telling me.
“If you say so,” I replied. “It still looks awfully dragon-like to me.”
I studied the ground closely. We were still a long way off but if there were any dragons hiding down there in the rocks I didn’t want to be caught unaware.
It might sound stupid to you – but I had just seen a Bigfoot, a spirit bear, the ghost of a Mountie, a giant raven, a flying coyote and now we were going to visit a sleeping giant.
The possibility of me actually meeting an entire horde full of Winnebago-eating Great Lake Dragons didn’t seem all that far-fetched to me at all.
“I still say it doesn’t look a thing like a raven,” Coyote repeated. “It looks more like the muzzle of a great noble animal – like maybe a coyote.”
I guess he wasn’t going to let that go until we agreed with him – but Bigfoot only snorted in disdain.
“If you squint, maybe,” I allowed, trying to make him feel better. “I could probably see a coyote.”
Bigfoot just snorted again.
I was just about to offer him a handkerchief to blow his nose with – when I spotted the very first dragon.
The first dragon came up out of the cold waters of Lake Superior. It was a long necked thing with the head of a lynx and two great horns on top of his head. He kind of moved like a tentacle on the end of an octopus – so long as that tentacle had a head on it the size of a freaking Volkswagen. The other noticeable feature was a long row of sharp-looking spikes right up the monster’s long old backbone.
“DRAGON!” I shouted.
Actually, there were three of them.
Three giant freaking dragons.
“I wasn’t expecting them,” Coyote said. “Were you?”
“Me neither,” I said.
“Relax, kid,” Bigfoot said. “Those aren’t dragons. Not really, anyway. They are more like a KIND of dragon.”
“Does that mean they are only going to KIND of eat us alive?” I asked. “If they are I’d like the opportunity for a few last words and maybe even a grilled cheese sandwich and a bag full of potato chips.”
The first not-really-any-kind-of-dragon reached its neck up out of the water and caught hold of the rear left tire on our flying Winnebago.
A part of me wondered just how often a fellow like me could be expected to think a sentence out loud as ridiculous as that last one sounded.
“They’re big trouble, just the same,” Coyote said. “They are what the local people used to call the Michi Peshu. They live in the storms and the high water of the deepest parts of Lake Superior. The Ashinabe used to calm them down with gifts of tobacco and prayer.”
“Do you happen to have any tobacco?” I asked Bigfoot.
“I’ve never smoked,” Bigfoot said. “It stunts your growth.”
Then he looked at Coyote.
“Here,” he said. “You take the wheel.”
Which is the very last thing that Bigfoot said, right before he opened up the side door of our flying Winnebago – leaving Coyote to jump into the driver’s seat – like he knew exactly what Bigfoot was going to do.
And maybe he did.
“I’ve got to fly,” Bigfoot said.
Right before he jumped.
Out of the side door of the Flying Winnebago.
Forget about Superman – you WILL believe that a Bigfoot can fly.
Chapter Ten – Faster Than A Turkish Half and a Half Hitch Reef Knot
I don’t really think that there is any real way of getting used to the sight of an eight foot tall hairy anthropoid in midflight – especially when he is jumping out of the door of a giant pink flying Winnebago motor home.
“GEE-RON-AH-HOO-HAW!” Bigfoot yelled as he hurtled downwards.
“Do you think he might hurt himself?” I asked the Coyote, who was busy keeping the Winnebago in the air.
“That depends on what he lands on.”
“Shouldn’t you be trying to help him?” I said.
“What, and spoil all of his fun?” Coyote replied. “Take it from me, kid. Bigfoot actually likes this part of his work. You watch and see – he’s awfully good at it.”
I supposed that Coyote was right. After all, Bigfoot was only jumping from about twenty feet up and that lake water looked pretty deep.
He ought to land with a fine and comfortable splash.
Only he didn’t land in the water.
The second Mishi Peshu not-quite-dragon snapped at Bigfoot who sort of twisted in mid-fall and caught hold of the long row of spikes that were step-laddered up the monster’s long backbone. Then Bigfoot hand-over-handed up the monster’s backbone, swinging from spike to spike like some kind of a great ape trapeze artist.
The third Mishi Peshu not-quite-dragon tried to take a bite out of the neck-clambering Bigfoot that was clambering his brother’s backbone.
I suppose it could have been his sister’s backbone. I mean, there was really know of telling whether each of these Mishi Peshu’s were actually a boy or girl.
“Come here, ugly.” Bigfoot called out, catching hold of the third Mishi Peshu’s lower jawbone with one big hairy fist and sort of twisting the beast’s head sideways with pure brute force.
Meanwhile the first Mishi Peshu kept a firm mouth-hold of The Prophet’s rear left tire. I guess it figured that there was no way on earth that a tiny little Bigfoot was going to be that much trouble to a pair of full-grown Mishi Peshu.
That just shows you what he knew.
Or she.
“Shouldn’t you at least try and do something about that dragon that is hanging onto our Winnebago’s tire?” I suggested to Coyote. “I mean, how puncture proof ARE we?”
“The Prophet is perfectly capable of taking care of himself,” Coyote said. “Just you watch and wait and see.”
By now I was beginning to get the idea that Coyote wasn’t all that fond of any form of face-to-face confrontation. In fact, if I hadn’t seen him with my own eyes falling out of the sky onto that spirit bear back in Cape Breton – even though he missed – I would have begun to suspect him of outright cowardice.
But he was right about the Prophet.
When the first Mishi Peshu not-quite-dragon bit down on the Prophet’s rear left tire there was a sound sort of a like a low rumble of summer thunder crossed with a loud cheek-flapping bean fart. The Mishi Peshu’s head swelled up like a balloon that had one one too many puffs of breath forced in.
Then that first Mishi Peshu hissed like a wet cat and slithered backwards into the deep cold waters of Lake Superior.
The air around the flying Winnebago grew green and funky.
“See,” Coyote said, holding his nose tightly with his front paw. “I told you that the Prophet could handle it himself.”
I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. That green tire funk smelled worse than a road-killed cabbage-fed skunk in the middle of a hot summer day.
Bigfoot didn’t look to be doing so well either.
The third Mishi Peshu – the one that Bigfoot had been hanging onto by the jawbone had shifted his mouth and bit down on Bigfoot’s fist. Meanwhile the other Mishi Peshu had caught hold of Bigfoot’s other fist and the two of those lake monsters looked to be trying their level best to make a wishbone out of Bigfoot.
“You’ve got to do something!” I said to Coyote.
Coyote sort of shrugged and lifted his hind leg towards the open Winnebago door and then he did what dogs do best and let a little warm smelly yellow rain fall down upon the ears of the two lynx-headed monsters.
“Most cats just hate it when you do that to them,” Coyote said. “Even the big cats hate to get wet.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But that’s still pretty gross.”
“You told me to do something,” Coyote said, with a shrug. “So I did it.”
“That wasn’t quite what I had in mind.” I replied.
Still, Coyote’s contribution did actually manage to distract the second Mishi Peshu for about a half of a half a second. Bigfoot made the most of the smelly diversion, hauling the second Mishi Peshu’s neck around the third by pure brute force.
“Let’s see if I remember how this works now,” Bigfoot roared. “The little rabbit comes out of the hole and then he runs down under the l
og and then he jumps up over the log and then he heads back into its hole and the holes close up – right over left and left over right makes you a knot that’s tidy and tight.”
It was a little like watching the world’s biggest hairiest Boy Scout tying himself a great-great-great-granny knot.
“Yes sir, I love to see a craftsman at work,” Coyote said.
“How does that look to you two?” Bigfoot asked us.
I took a look. Bigfoot had tied the two Mishi Peshu’s long necks into a regular granny knot – faster than you could say Baden Powell Boy Scout.
“I think the proper question is more accurately WHAT is that?” I said.
“That there is a proper Turkish half and a half hitch reef knot,” Bigfoot happily announced, as we landed beside him on the shores of the Thunder Cape. “I didn’t really want to go and hurt them. They are an endangered species, after all. This way I figure that it will take them at least a week and a half of full-grown tomorrows to untangle themselves. By then they will be hungry and they will head for the deep water and get out of our hair.”
Which sounded reasonable.
As for me, I just wrinkled my nose in a great show of pure freaking disgust.
Knots or not, nothing reeks harder than a soggy wet and partially peed-on Bigfoot.
Chapter Eleven – Talking to a Mountain
Bigfoot drove the giant pink mystical Winnebago straight down onto the farthest end of Thunder Cape.
I was a little surprised that he didn’t make more of a mess of it. The pink mystical Winnebago was about the size of Nebraska and I figured there ought to be leaving some sort of a trail of knocked-down trees behind. Maybe even a few turned-over tire ruts and at least a bump or two – but it looked as if the trees just sort of leaned out of the way of the Winnebago and the rocks and the bumps smoothed out before us.
“So where is this Giant hiding anyways?” I asked. “I kind of think that he would stand out a little bit, wouldn’t he?”
“We just landed on him,” Bigfoot replied. “You’ve really got to learn how to open up your eyes and LOOK.”
So I took a long look around.
