Wabi (14 page)

Now my palm was down, pressed toward the earth.
Wait here and be watchful.

I unslung my bow and arrows and placed them on the ground.

“No need for these while I'm drinking water,” I said in a loud voice. “And I am so thirsty.” But as I walked forward, I did not drop Head Breaker in my hand. I held my club concealed behind my back.

I went down on one knee at the edge of the pool, and reached one hand toward the water. The surface trembled as my fingers touched it. Hunger rippled up from something hiding under the bank beneath me.
Bend farther. Come closer, come closer!
But I didn't move. I just kept my hand there, the way I had seen humans dangle a line in the water with a hook and a fat grub on it to entice a trout to strike.

Suddenly a long-fingered, hairy hand thrust out of the water to snatch at my wrist. But before it could grasp me firmly, I twisted my own hand around to grab it! It tried to pull me in. I had braced myself too firmly. I planted the butt of Head Breaker into the earth, straightened my back. Now it tried to free itself, to pull away, to break my grip. It could not do so. My grip had been strong when I was an owl and I was pleased to feel that same strength now.

No, you will not get away!
I thought.

I yanked hard. It came snaking out from under the bank. Standing as I did so, I swung my arm back and let go, hurling the hairy creature onto the ground behind me. It landed with a heavy, soggy thud.

“GAARRRRGGGLBBLLL-URP!”

The creature's bubbly growl and its attempt to roll to its wide, webbed feet and hurl itself at me were cut short by Malsumsis. My wolf friend leaped onto the creature's chest, driving it back to the ground. Malsumsis opened his mouth and growled, his large teeth glittering only a hand's width away from the monster's throat. It was caught, pinned down by my wolf friend's paws like a rabbit held by a fox.

I do not mean that this creature was small as a rabbit. Far from it. It was at least the size of a big human being. But I may have neglected to mention just how large my wolf friend is, even for a wolf. When Malsumsis stands on his back legs and puts his front paws on my shoulders, his head towers over me.

I stepped closer to look down at what we had captured. I'd heard about such creatures. It was a gelabago, one of those monsters that lives in certain deep springs, waiting to pull in any unwary creature that comes to drink.

But no one seemed to know much about the actual look of a gelabago. No story that I'd overheard ever spoke of anyone actually seeing such a monster and surviving to talk about it. Then again, who would want to talk about something as ugly and unpleasant as this creature? It was covered with dark hair that was tight to its skin and glistened like that of a beaver. It had very long, hard muscled arms, which were very effectively pressed to the ground by Malsumsis's paws. Its hands looked soft, its skinny, pale fingers almost boneless as they continued to twitch while it lay there. But I knew that when those fingers were wrapped around something, their grip would be terribly strong. The creature's body was short, round, and flabby. It didn't need muscles there, I suppose. Its legs were short too, and its wide feet were webbed like the feet of a muskrat. In fact, it smelled a bit like a muskrat: fishy.

Its head was rounded, its forehead sloped back, it had no real nose, just two nostrils in the center of its face. Its mouth, which it kept opening and closing, was so big that when it was fully open it could probably gape wide enough to take in the head of a bear. It was just waiting for a chance to snap at Malsumsis. But Malsumsis could see that too. Any move would result in my wolf friend grabbing its throat.

“Hold,” I said. “Hold.”

Malsumsis lowered his head a finger's width closer to the throat of the gelabago.

It stared at me with large, cold eyes, eyes like those of a fish, but with more intelligence—but not a lot more, perhaps. There was more greedy hunger in this creature than deep thought. Lure your victim in, grab it, drown it, eat it. That was the life of a gelabago.

I picked up my bow, nocked an arrow to the string, drew it back, and pointed it at the creature's chest.

“If I shoot you,” I said, “you will do no more eating.”

It tried to squirm free when I said that. A growl from Malsumsis stopped it. The hunger in the gelabago's eyes slowly began to be replaced by uncertainty.

“Answer my questions and I will not shoot you,” I said. “There is a powerful being in this valley. I feel its bad mind. Who is the one who holds that power?”

The gelabago opened its mouth wide. Its thick black tongue came out to lick its thin lips. But it was not from hunger. It was afraid to speak the name.

“Speak or I will let loose this arrow,” I said. “Who holds power here?”

“Winasosiz,” it croaked. “Oldold Woman. She holds the power. She is Winasosiz.
Come closer, come closer!
”

I stepped back. “Good. Now I have one more question. This one is for my friend. Have you eaten any wolves?”

Malsumsis's growl became a rumble like that of thunder in a growing storm.

“No,” the gelabago gurgled. “Oldold Woman has them. Yes, oh yes. She has all the wolves.”

I was standing between the gelabago and its pool. I looked back over my shoulder into the deep water and at those white skulls at the bottom. It seemed to be true. None of those skulls looked like those of wolves.

I did not turn back toward the loathsome creature that had drowned and devoured so many innocent victims. I had to look no further to discover why this part of the Wide Valley forest was so empty of life and why the gelabago's belly was so large.

“You have spoken the truth,” I said. “I will not shoot you. Malsumsis, let the creature go.”

I did not look back, but I heard the soft thump as Malsumsis leaped from on top of the monster he had pinned to the ground.

Just as I expected, the creature showed no gratitude for my keeping my word and not shooting it with an arrow. With a gurgling roar, it leaped at my back. Its plan was a simple one: Knock me into the water, pull me under. There it would be out of reach of my wolf friend's jaws. I had expected that too.

What I hadn't expected was that its leap would be so swift. For so large and ungainly a creature, it moved very fast. However, more important, I was faster in this case. Also, I'd picked my club up with my right hand as I placed my bow down with my left. Head Breaker was not about to be neglected this time.

I still kept my word. Spinning around and cracking a monster's skull with a heavy club is, after all, far different from shooting it with an arrow.

AS WE CONTINUED DEEPER INTO the heart of the valley, the forest around us began to change. The first trees we had seen had mostly been those that keep their coats of green all through the cycle of the seasons. Now wider-leaved trees were around us, maples whose winged seeds provide food for many creatures, oaks and beech whose nuts are eaten by the deer and the squirrels and the mice. When I was an owl, such forests as this had been favorite places for me. Good hunting.

The change was not only in the trees. We began to see tracks and hear the sounds of small creatures rustling in the leaves and the grass. That was a relief to hear. Although the gelabago had wiped out all of the animals around its pool, there was still life other than monsters to be found in Wide Valley.

The sky, though, began to darken. Distant thunder started rolling, and soon arrows of lightning would strike.

I thought of the tales about the bedagiak, the Thunder Beings. I had heard those stories being shared by the humans of Valley Village around the fires at night while I hid in the nearby cedars. The bedagiak were beings shaped like giant humans who hunted for monsters with their fiery arrows. When their arrows struck the earth, it was to cleanse it of evil.

I had liked hearing those tales, even though I knew the real story. Great-grandmother had told it to me when I was young. The Thunder Beings were not men, but great birds. How else could they fly across the sky?

Sometimes, if innocent humans (or owls) were in the wrong place, they might be accidentally harmed or even destroyed by those fiery arrows the Thunder Beings hurled. Malsumsis and I needed to find shelter. It was becoming difficult to see in the heavy rain, which was now mixing with hard little balls of ice. The rumble of thunder was getting closer. There in front of us was a huge old tree, as big around as a human lodge. It was broken off at the top and hollow at the bottom. Malsumsis started to trot toward it. I grabbed him with both hands by the scruff of his neck and pulled him back.

“No, my friend!” I shouted to make myself heard over the splash of rain, the spatter of the hail, and the whistling of the wind. “Not a good place!”

There was nothing that I could see with my eyes, nothing that I could smell with my nose. And, of course, with the noise of the storm, nothing I could hear. But I felt a wrongness there. Inside that hollow tree was danger that we should not approach.

We staggered in the opposite direction from the big hollow tree. It was the part of the valley where we had seen the roll of hills. The side of one of those rocky hills came into view. In it was the mouth of a cave.

“There,” I shouted, pulling Malsumsis toward the cave.

As soon as we tumbled inside, falling down on the dry, sandy earth beneath the wide overhang of stone, the screaming of the wind and the roar of the heavy downpour diminished.

Malsumsis shook himself so hard that water sprayed in all directions and it made me laugh. Then he sat down on his haunches facing away from the cave entrance. I wiped the rain from my face, and shook it from my soaked hair just as my wolf friend had done.

Sheets of rain washed across the mouth of the cave. It was hard to see far outside, although now and then I could make out faintly the shape of that huge broken oak. It looked even more ominous now from a distance. It was good that we had not taken shelter there. If we had entered that tree, we would not have been alone. I was certain now that something was inside that hollow tree, something not at all pleasant.

Then I realized that we were not alone here either. My sense of smell was no longer drowned by the rain, and I could smell something, something other than Malsumsis's moist fur. Malsumsis, of course, had noticed it long before I did. His nose was better than mine. That was why he was staring so intently at the back of the cave. I turned slowly to look behind us. It was not a deep cave, but it was so shadowed at the back that it was hard to make out what was crouched and hiding there.

Malsumsis was not growling as he would if there was danger. In fact, he was gently moving his tail back and forth. And that was when I too recognized the scent that had reached my nose.

I held out my hands. “We are friends,” I said in a soft voice. “Come here.”

A small whimper came from the back of the cave that was answered by a yelp from my wolf friend. A pale shape lifted itself up and came forward, head down, tail tucked between its legs. It dropped onto its side and then rolled onto its back at our feet, exposing its throat in the ancient sign of friendship and submission. It was not as large as my friend, and where his fur was black as night, hers was as white as snow. But there was no mistaking what it was: another wolf.

Malsumsis nudged the smaller wolf with his paw, gently grasped her by the throat with his jaws, shook once gently and then let go.
Sister, we accept your friendship.

The female wolf jumped to her feet. Wagging her tail, she shoved her wet nose against my leg, then ran in a circle around us, whining and barking. Malsumsis kept his dignity, even though I sensed that in another place at another time he would also have been running and leaping, as happy to see her as she clearly was to find herself confronted not by enemies or monsters, but by new friends. Finally, she calmed down enough to sit back on her haunches, madly wagging her tail.

I squatted down, my back to the cave mouth that was still veiled by the wash of the rain and wind. I did not reach out to pet her as I did Malsumsis. Her submission had been to him, not to me. It would take her some time to accept me as fully as she did another wolf. But I already liked her. That crazy energy of her greeting had told me something about her personality.

“Wigowzo,” I said to the female wolf as she lolled her tongue out of her mouth and smiled at Malsumsis. “You are happy indeed.”

But there was more I needed to know about her than her good nature. If, as I suspected, she was one of Malsumsis's lost pack, then why was she alone? Where were the other wolves? The gelabago had spoken of a being he had called Winasosiz, the old, old woman, who had all of the wolves. What did it mean that she had all of them? And why was Wigowzo not with them?

Suddenly, there was a great flash of light and the world exploded around us.

I ROLLED BACK UP TO my feet and looked out of the cave. The lightning strike had not hit us, but it had been so close that my head hurt and my ears were still filled with a high trilling sound like the singing of frogs. Malsumsis was crouched on his belly with his head down, snarling and ready to fight back against whatever had just attacked us. Wigowzo was pressed close to his side, both of her front paws over her eyes. Although she was as big as many grown wolves, I could see how young she was, still little more than a puppy. This might have been the first time she had ever heard such loud thunder or seen the strike of lightning so close.

I made a motion with my hand. “Be calm, my friends,” I said. “That arrow of fire was not meant for us.” I turned my head toward the outside. “Look there.”