Windigo Thrall

by Cate Culpepper

  “She’s my great-grandmother.” Maggie dug folded papers from the back pocket of her jeans. “I have a certified rental agreement for this property. We’re living here legally now. There’s no reason for the Park Service to be involved with us.”

  “I understand that.” Pat Daka still held her in place with that oddly searching gaze, but her tone was courteous and professional. She glanced briefly at the papers, then Maggie returned them to her pocket. “I spoke to Frank Abequa when I was here two weeks ago. He’s your father?”

  “He’s not here today,” Maggie lied. Her worthless father was standing at the edge of the sullen crowd, and the ranger flicked a glance right at him. “You don’t need my father. You can deal with me. I’m Selly’s legal guardian.”

  “Are you out of high school, Miss Abequa?” Pat’s voice still held that polite detachment, but Maggie felt her face flush with color.

  She knew how young she looked. She also understood the impact her beauty had on men, and certain women. But when Maggie jabbed her fingertip into the ranger’s broad shoulder, she knew it was her fierceness that made her finally take a step back. “I’m old enough to know my family’s rights, officer. What you need to understand is this. Selly wants to meet with you, and that’s the only reason you’re here today. You and your friends can come inside. But my great-grandmother isn’t well. If you do anything to upset her, you’ll be escorted off our property.”

  Maggie nodded toward her family, and just for a moment, she saw warriors flicker in a few of them. She turned back to Pat, saw her lifted eyebrows, the new respect in her eyes. “Forcibly, if we have to. Okay?”

  “All right,” Pat said. “We know we’re your guests here, and we’ll behave accordingly.”

  Maggie scowled up at her. Maybe she was wrong, and Native cops were different. At least Native women cops, out here. She had no idea what local tribe this ranger belonged to—Maggie knew little enough about the tribes of her home state—but at least she had manners. She nodded brusquely. “Come with me.”

  She felt Pat’s gaze follow her to the front door, and a brief sway took her hips. It was instinctive and irrepressible, that moment of dance, as natural as drawing breath, but Maggie cursed herself for it. She could fantasize all she wanted tonight about this stranger, in the privacy of her bed. This was Selly’s time, maybe one of her last times, and Maggie had to keep her safe as long as she could.

  *

  The windows in the small cabin were shuttered and dark. Grady followed the witchily beautiful Maggie Abequa down a narrow hallway, the others behind her, single file. Grady had crawled through cave dwellings and was on rational terms with claustrophobia, but fifteen seconds in this little house and the walls were already swaying in on her. She heard Jo speak softly into her recorder, and frowned at her over her shoulder.

  Maggie stopped in front of a door that featured several good-sized padlocks, all hanging open from their hasps. Grady frowned at the locks, which looked newly installed. “This is Mrs. Abequa’s room?”

  “Yeah. This is where she stays now. She wants to protect us.” Maggie opened the door without knocking, and a draft of old smoke hit Grady squarely in the face.

  The confines of the house were already stale and dank, but the cloud emanating from the back bedroom was outright stifling. Grady had to brace herself physically as she entered the room, and she reached back automatically for Elena, who gave her hand a quick press.

  It was ostensibly a bedroom, as one narrow bed was the only furniture the room possessed. The lone window had been boarded up with a sheet of plywood, except for one hinged panel, and weak light streamed around its splintered edges. Upon the bed sat one very old, very frail woman, draped loosely in a shawl and smoking a large pipe.

  Selly Abequa had not left this room in days, perhaps weeks. That was Grady’s first, certain impression from the smell of the place, and her second was they might need to get her to a hospital. As was her habit now in any state of alarm, Grady turned to Elena, who was regarding Selly with equal concern. This was tantamount to elder abuse. Before she could stop herself, Grady threw an accusing look at Maggie; hadn’t she said she was Selly’s guardian? Maggie returned her look with implacable disdain.

  Maggie closed the door firmly, sealing seven people inside a very small space. The miasma of smoke was explained by the pipe, which Selly drew on steadily, her withered cheeks billowing with each exhale. Beady eyes studied them by the dim glow of the small lamp on the floor next to her bed.

  “Mrs. Abequa.” Grady knew they were towering over the bed, but there were no chairs. She lowered herself to sit back on her heels, a position that came naturally to her; her work entailed a lot of listening. She introduced each of them briefly, then addressed their most pressing concern, tactless but necessary. “Ma’am, you don’t look very well. Do you need to see a doctor?”

  “I’ve seen doctors.” Selly Abequa’s voice was both thready and gruff, but at least it wasn’t the horrible moaning heard in the recording. Her ancient appearance brought that sound to mind, but if anything like that howling had emerged from her throat, Grady wouldn’t have been able to stay in this room. She jutted her chin toward Maggie. “That young one took me to doctors back home many times. She took me again when she finally got her ass out here last week, after they sprung her from the drunk tank.” She seemed to consider that matter settled, and pulled hard on her pipe again. “And my name is Selly, not missus anything.”

  Selly was all but hairless and a skeleton, or as near to one as anyone could be and still draw breath. Her skin hung in slack sheets around her gaunt face, and what Grady could see of her body through the shawl was rail-thin, dying thin. Grady had had the unhappy experience of witnessing deadly malnutrition in some destitute encampments, and she was seeing it again here, but she had to accept her subject’s indifference, for now.

  Grady was in no hurry to push Selly into speech, and she took in the cramped room. Food was featured prominently—groceries were neatly stacked against one wall. Loaves of packaged bread were in danger of being crushed by Jo’s large boot. Bowls of fresh fruit. Several jars of peanut butter, unopened. A brimming sack of mixed nuts. Bottles of juice. All untouched. Grady saw Becca note these details, then return her gaze uneasily.

  “Selly, we’ve come to ask you about the Windigo,” Grady said finally.

  “Huh.” The old woman rocked slightly on the bed. “At least you call the bitch by its name. We’ve never seen it, not this generation of us. We knew it was coming, though, eh, Margaret?”

  Maggie didn’t respond. Selly held a sputtering plastic lighter to her pipe, and Grady waited for her to elaborate. She heard Jo whisper into her recorder again.

  “It was seven generations back,” Selly said finally. “The Windigo came one winter, when there was no food. One of our great-greats, our ancestor, was the only one of our family to survive its attack. He was just a baby then. His name is forgotten now. Maybe his whole misbegotten line should have been.”

  Grady straightened slightly. Frailty aside, there was a malign energy lingering in Selly Abequa, bitterness rising in her gimlet eyes.

  “He lived to have little ones, whose hearts were frozen by the Windigo. Children who did shit harm to no one, but who grew up to want nothing but flesh. Usually, they would go off into the forest in the snow to freeze to death, to save the rest of us.” She lifted one bird-boned shoulder dismissively. “But me, I’m selfish. I worked hard. I sacrificed for this family. They need to take care of me, now I’m old.”

  Selly seemed to direct this last to Maggie, who was wedged in one corner, her eyes impassive. Pat stood near her, her thumbs linked into her belt, listening silently.

  “So we ran here.”

  Grady felt her eyes water in the sting of the smoke. There was something cloying in the tobacco Selly consumed in slow, methodical draws, if tobacco it was. Elena sometimes sipped the smoke of a variety of herbs in the course of healing sessions, but Grady had never detected this particul
ar, slightly unpleasant odor before.

  Almost as if realizing Grady’s discomfort and relishing it, Selly blew the next cloud directly into her face, and up into Elena’s, who stood close behind her. Grady’s nostrils flared like a horse’s, and she turned her head and snorted like one. She heard Elena’s muffled cough.

  “Selly!” Maggie’s tone was unexpectedly sharp.

  The old woman chuckled, a sandpaper sound. “Don’t worry; it’s not here yet. It hasn’t found us yet.”

  Grady heard shifting behind her and tried to imagine how Jo was coping with the close confines of this room. Jo inched closer to the bed ahead of them, extending the recorder, but she stayed discreetly against the wall—for Jo, she was showing restraint. At least she wasn’t barking out rude questions.

  Then again, Grady couldn’t think of a more intelligent one. “Selly, do you believe you’re possessed by the spirit of the Windigo?”

  “Do you believe you have any hope of understanding my family?” Selly spat. She breathed more smoke in Jo’s direction, then in Becca’s, behind her, and again Grady heard Maggie hiss in reprimand. Outside of kiva ritual, this was a rude and insulting act in any culture. “Big city college people. Unless you have money to pay us for this talk, you should go away. I’ve told our story enough. I’m sick and I’m old and I have no more fucking patience for—”

  “If you’re not possessed by a demon, stop behaving like one,” Elena said, and Grady was shocked by the coldness in her tone. “Being old and sick is no excuse for such meanness, abuela. Answer our questions, and we’ll leave you in peace.”

  Selly was blinking rapidly, and Grady realized she was blinking rapidly herself. When it came to infirm elders, Elena was imbued to her marrow with a kind of old-school courtesy, and she had never heard her address any patient, of any age, so bluntly. Becca glanced at Maggie apologetically and started to speak, but Grady lifted a subtle hand to still her. Selly Abequa’s bald head was starting to tremble with some palsy, and they had to cut to the chase.

  “Selly, what will happen when the Windigo finds you?” Grady wasn’t sure the old woman would respond, but she finally pulled her sullen gaze away from Elena.

  “When the bitch comes, it comes. We’re not running anymore. I’m too tired. My family will be safe. The locks on this door are strong, and I’m not strong. My family never sleeps.” Selly gave that almost childish shrug of one thin shoulder again. “When the Witiko comes, I’ll die in this room, and they’ll scatter my bones on this mountain. Very far from home.”

  Grady felt a hand on her shoulder. It was Becca, an insistent clasp, and she nodded. The old woman looked gray and spent, and there were entirely too many bodies in this room. At least Jo had made her own recording. That was enough for the day. “Selly, we should let you get some rest. Thank you for your time. We might want to speak with you again, so I’m going to leave my card with Mag—”

  “So long as you leave,” Selly muttered, plucking at her shawl with twig-like fingers. All the macabre bravado had drained out of her, and she looked sadly depleted. Her midsection emitted a mournful gurgling sound.

  It was a disciplined stampede out of the fogged bedroom, but a stampede nonetheless. Grady slipped Maggie her card, and Elena paused in the dark living room to speak to her, but Grady didn’t wait to eavesdrop; she just wanted out of there.

  *

  A blessed blast of cold, fresh air hit Pat’s face as she followed the others out onto the porch. She couldn’t pull in the clean oxygen deeply enough. Their silent audience of Abequas still waited in front of their sagging cabins.

  “Are you all right?” Becca touched Jo’s face with concern. “You went scary pale in there—”

  “I’m fine.” Jo shook her off and straightened, but she was clenching the rickety railing of the porch with both hands. “Grady, all my sound checks were normal, so our recording should be—”

  “Great.” Grady turned as Elena emerged from the cabin and took her arm. “What say we make tracks?”

  “Sounds good to me.” Becca clasped Jo’s hand insistently, and they went to the stairs.

  Pat started to follow, but a none too gentle touch suddenly gripped her forearm. Maggie Abequa’s eyes were glittering and hard as she watched them leave the porch. For an astounding moment, Pat’s breath left her lungs.

  She lived like a monk. She was rarely moved by physical beauty, unless it involved mountain vistas or azure lakes. But this woman was the most sensual, alluring human being she had ever seen. And Pat was on the job. She had no time for this.

  “Something happened.” Maggie’s voice was strained, and her fingers stayed clenched around Pat’s arm. “Something happened.”

  “What is it, Maggie? What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t k-know!” Maggie stammered. “Some banshee, voodoo Indian bullshit!”

  “Can you be more specific?” Pat asked politely. Then she frowned. “Maggie, you look scared.”

  “Maybe you should be scared!” Maggie balled her fist and smacked Pat’s chest, rather hard, and then flashed a hand toward the women waiting at the truck. “Do you care about any of them? Then you be scared.”

  Maggie’s fierceness faltered. She rested her palm on Pat’s chest, where she’d struck her, and looked up at her with sudden uncertainty. Pat heard muffled laughter from the crowd of Abequas, but she didn’t know what had amused them and she didn’t care; she was lost in the light of those eyes.

  “Listen to that Mexican girl,” Maggie whispered. “Now, go look after your friend.” She nodded, and Pat followed her gaze.

  Alarm sluiced through her. Jo was on her hands and knees in the snow, the others clustered around her. Pat strode to the stairs, but Elena lifted a quick hand in reassurance.

  “She’s all right, Pat,” Elena called. She was kneeling in the slush next to Jo, and Becca and Grady were starting to lift Jo to her feet. “Just a dizzy spell. Let’s get her home, okay?”

  A clumsy snowball plopped six inches from Jo’s foot, and Pat heard that sly, rumbling laughter again. The watching crowd of Abequas was mocking the fallen stranger. Mocking Jo. Two other children were stooping to form more snowballs.

  Pat heard Maggie’s sharp cry of rebuke to her family, and then her gasp as Pat vaulted the rail of the deck, dropped several feet, and landed hard but walking. The laughter sputtered off as Pat stepped directly into the half-moon opening in the throng of the crowd. She didn’t draw her weapon. She didn’t raise her arms from her sides, because it wasn’t necessary. She just stood there.

  Apparently, the fire in her eyes was enough. The ragged children let their half-formed snowballs drop to the ground. The last of the chuckles faded, and the men and women stared at Pat in sullen silence. Pat waited, to be sure it would hold. Then she turned and walked toward the truck, her indifference in exposing her back to them proof of their weakness.

  She made the mistake of looking up at Maggie, and came to a dead halt. She wasn’t Maggie anymore. For one heartbeat, she was someone else, someone equally beautiful but foreign, someone from Pat’s dreams.

  And then she was Maggie again, her lips parting, her lovely eyes widening as she looked down at Pat.

  “Pat?” Grady had to reach out the window and slap the door sharply to jar her attention from Maggie. “Yo! I think we’re ready to roll, here.”

  Pat swallowed and made herself move quickly to the Outback. She ducked behind the wheel and keyed the engine. In the back seat, Elena and Becca were on either side of Jo, who was white as chalk but at least sitting erect, her eyes closed as if in deep thought.

  Becca’s brow was still creased with worry. “I’d like to get her out of here quickly, Pat.”

  “I hear that.” Pat cranked the wheel, and the heavy tires ground free of their ruts and carried them out of the compound.

  Chapter Five

  La mala hora. The bad hour.

  Lulled by the rocking of the truck, Elena closed her eyes and prayed. Why do You keep singing these wo
rds to me, Diosa, but You bring me no other helpful instruction? Yes, I remember the sad history of the desert towns, the sighting of the woman at the crossroads. The many who have seen her frightening face, and knew they were destined for an early grave.

  And I remember Becca pointing out the memorial at the side of the intersection yesterday, the shrine to the murdered ranger, which bore her portrait. Jo saw that sweet image, and called it gruesome.

  Elena was afraid the others, not even Grady, understood that it was already too late. They could leave this mountain now; Becca and Jo could return to the tall buildings of Seattle, Grady and Elena to the peace of their desert valley, and it would follow them. La mala hora was a moment in time, not space. Whatever this was, it would find them now, wherever they went.

  “This is payback for you turning up your nose at the breakfast Pat made for us.” Becca was talking to Jo. “You didn’t eat much dinner last night, either. No wonder you got light-headed, in that smoky little closet. How are you feeling?”

  “Again, I’m fine now.” Jo sounded curt, more herself. She seemed restored, sitting tall and straight on the long seat, but Becca sat protectively close against her. “And my head was never all that light. What’s your take on Selly Abequa, Grady? Cancer? Some other wasting illness?”

  “I think she’s starving to death.” Grady lifted one shoulder slightly, a sign of her tension, and Elena slid her hand to the back of her neck to rub the stiffness from her muscles. “She claims she’s been checked out by doctors. If there’s no medical cause for her emaciation, this might be a conscious decision. She’s choosing to die.”

  “Deliberate self-starvation.” Becca didn’t look convinced. “That would take a tremendous act of will, Grady. Maggie seems to be taking good care of Selly physically. Her family has surrounded her with groceries. It would be an almost inhuman effort for someone who was starving to deny herself food that’s readily available.”