Rick Yancey - The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist, Book 2)

“I heard of your coming,” he said to Hawk, who translated for our benefit. “But I did not expect you to return so soon, Jonathan Hawk.”

“Dr. Warthrop is a friend of Chanler’s,” said Hawk. “He is ogimaa too, Okimahkan . Very strong, very powerful ogimaa . He’s killed many Outiko , like you.”

“I have done no such thing,” protested the doctor, deeply offended.

Jack Fiddler seemed bemused. “But he is not Iyiniwok ,” he said to Hawk. “He is white.”

“In his tribe, he is called ‘monstrumologist.’ All evil spirits fear him.”

Fiddler squinted in the smoky light at my master. “I do not see it. His atca’k is hidden from me.”

His fathomless dark eyes lighted upon me, and I squirmed under their quiet power.

“But this one—his atca’k is bright. It soars high like the hawk and sees the earth. But there is something . . .” He leaned toward me, studying my face intently. “Something heavy he carries. A great burden. Too great for one so young . . . and so old. As old and young as misi-manito , the Great Spirit. What is your name?”

I glanced at Warthrop, who nodded impatiently. He seemed annoyed that the renowned medicine man had taken an interest in me.

“Will Henry,” I answered.

“You are blessed by misi-manito , Will Henry,” he said. “And a heavy burden is this blessing. Do you understand?”

“Don’t you dare say no,” the doctor whispered ominously in my ear. “I didn’t come two thousand miles to discuss your atca’k , Will Henry.”

I nodded my counterfeit assent to the old Iyiniwok .

“What he loves does not know him, and what he knows cannot love,” said the ogimaa . “ Eha, like misi-manito— that which loves, which love knows not . . . I like this Will Henry.”

“I understand it’s a nearly inexhaustible topic, but if we are quite finished singing Will Henry’s praises, can we get to the point, Sergeant?” asked the doctor. He turned to Jack Fiddler. “Pierre Larose is dead.”

Fiddler’s expression did not change. “I know this.”

“That is not what you told me, Okimahkan ,” said Hawk, startled by the admission. “You told me you didn’t know where Larose was.”

“For I did not know. We found him after you left us, Jonathan Hawk.”

“What happened to him?” Warthrop demanded.

“The Old One called to him— Wi-htikow .”

The doctor groaned softly. “I understand, but my question is why was he mutilated and left for carrion? Is this the way of your people, Jack Fiddler?”

“As we found him, so we left him.”

“Why?”

“He does not belong to us. He belongs to Outiko .”

“ Outiko killed him.”

“Eha.”

“Flayed the skin from his bones, impaled him upon a tree, and did this .” The monstrumologist dug into his rucksack and removed the organ that had once animated Pierre Larose. Sergeant Hawk gasped; he didn’t know Warthrop had kept it. Calmly our host accepted the macabre offering, cradling it in his gnarled hands as he studied it in the firelight.

“You should not have done this,” he chided Warthrop. “ Wi-htikow will be angry.”

“I don’t give a tinker’s damn if he’s angry,” said the doctor. He gestured impatiently to Hawk, who had hesitated to translate the remark. Then he continued in a voice tight with indignation. “It is none of my concern what really happened to Pierre Larose. That is a matter for Sergeant Hawk and his superiors. I have come for my friend. Larose took him into the bush, and only Larose came out again.”

“We do not take what belongs to Wi-htikow ,” said the shaman. “Did you leave the rest for him?”

“No,” replied Hawk. “We buried the rest.”

Fiddler shook his head, dismayed. “ Namoya, say you did not.”

“Where is John Chanler?” persisted my master. “Does he belong to Wi-htikow as well?”

“I am ogimaa . If you are ogimaa , as Jonathan Hawk has told me, you understand. I must protect my people.”

“Then, you do know where he is?”

“I will tell you, monstrumologist Warthrop. Larose, he brings your friend to me. ‘He hunts Outiko ,’ he says. And I tell your friend, ‘ Outiko is not hunted; Outiko hunts. Do not look into the Yellow Eye, for if you look into the Yellow Eye, the Yellow Eye looks back at you.’ Your friend does not listen to my words. His atca’k is bent; it is crooked; it does not flow cleanly to misi-manito . They go anyway. They call to Outiko , but you do not call Outiko. Outiko calls you .

“I have seen this. I am ogimaa ; I protect my people from the Yellow Eye. Your friend is not Iyiniwok . Do you understand, ogimaa Warthrop? Do my words reach your ears? In truth, I ask you: Does the fox raise the bear cub, or the caribou suckle the gray wolf?

“ Outiko is old, as old as the bones of the earth; Outiko was before the first word was spoken. He has no name like Zhauwuno-geezhigo-gaubow or Warthrop; ‘ Outiko ’ we have named him. His ways are not our ways. But our doom is his and his is ours, for when you wake on the morrow, will you say, ‘Since I have eaten last night, I need eat no more’? No! His hunger is our hunger, the hunger that is never satisfied.”

“Then, why leave him Larose to snack upon?” the doctor asked, and then he waved away his own question. “With all respect, Okimahkan , I have no desire to discuss the subtleties of your people’s animistic cosmology. My desire is far simpler. You either know what happened to John Chanler or you do not. If you do, I hope in the name of all human decency that you will share that information with me. If not, my business here is done.”

The ogimaa of the Sucker clan looked down at the lifeless heart in his hands.

“I will protect my people,” he said in English.

“Ah,” the monstrumologist said. He looked at Hawk. “I see.”

We were shown to a wigwam several hundred paces from Fiddler’s, a guesthouse of sorts—and a mansion compared to our quarters for the past two weeks, large enough for all three of us to sleep under one roof without rubbing against one another. The beds were made with fresh balsam boughs, and I swear no feather mattress could feel as soft or as comfortable after one has been marching double time through the wilderness; I was sorer and more tired than the most tender of tenderfoots. I fell upon my bower with a satisfied moan.

The doctor did not go to bed, but sat in the open doorway, hugging his knees and staring across the compound at the glow from our host’s abode.

“Do you think he’s lying?” asked Hawk, trying to draw Warthrop from his reverie.

“I think he isn’t telling everything he knows.”

“I could arrest him.”

“For what?”

“Suspicion of murder, Doctor.”

“What is your evidence?”

“You’ve been carrying it around in your rucksack.”

“He denies having anything to do with that, and neither the body nor the scene yielded anything to incriminate him.”

“Well, somebody killed the poor bastard. Within a day’s hike of this village, and in a way that no white man might do it.”

“Really, Sergeant? If you believe that, then you do not spend enough time around white men. I have found there is very little they’re incapable of.”

“You don’t understand, Dr. Warthrop. These people are savages. A man who boasts of killing his own people— boasts of it! Kills them to save them! Tell me what sort of person does that?”