Chapter 24
Caleb didn't give her even a second to contemplate the kiss. Instead, as soon as he lifted his head, his words chilled the tiny flame of flickering desire.
"You need to know something else. Nodinens doesn't believe Jane's coming back."
She gasped and shoved against him. "What were you trying to do? Kissing me as a prelude to telling me something like that? That...that was cruel, McCoy!"
"I didn't mean it that way," he whispered before another voice broke in.
"He's telling you the truth, Kymbria."
Keoman stood behind Caleb, stone face in place. For an instant, though, Kymbria thought she'd caught a hint of darkness in the Midé's eyes. Jealousy? Or something else? She and Keoman had never had that sort of relationship, only friendship. Yet...whenever she'd returned to the Northwood, he had made it a point to spend time with her.
"Did you find anything in the house?" Caleb asked.
"Nothing. At least, nothing that will help us. She and her husband do not practice the Old Ways much, except they do proclaim their clan."
Kymbria inwardly shuddered. Keoman, too, was already adhering to the custom of not speaking the name of the dead.
"Is anyone out looking for the monster's lair?" she asked.
"Many," he said. "But we won't have any luck, as before. It doesn't leave tracks. How can we follow it?"
"I don't know, damn it. Can't we...perform a ceremony or something? Ask our spirits to tell us where it's hiding?"
She knew better, of course. One didn't make demands of the spirits, only requests. Keoman's expression confirmed his evaluation of how ludicrous her idea was.
"Then what about at least identifying everyone from the Marten Clan and making sure they're on alert. Not wandering off somewhere it's easy for them to be taken."
"Kymbria," Caleb said, "it took Jane right in front of her family. It doesn't seem a bit reluctant to reveal itself this season." He continued to Keoman, "Always before, from what I understand, it took pains not to let anyone see it. Took as its prey people whose absence wouldn't be discovered right away."
"Something has changed this time," Keoman agreed.
Kymbria couldn't stop her mind. God, please don't let my being here be what's changed.
"Besides the fact that it's hunting a month early," Keoman finished.
A thought flickered across Caleb's face, but before Kymbria could ask him about it, Keoman went on, "There's a meeting of the Elders and our tribal government in an hour, so you and I can't meet as planned, McCoy. You're welcome to join us. I've confirmed that with Gagewin. Hjak will be there, too."
"I'll be there," Caleb responded. "Where?"
"Our tribal headquarters building, behind the casino. Instead of stopping in the parking lot, keep going a half-mile or so."
"I need to get back to Amber's," Kymbria reminded him. And on the drive back, she intended to get to the bottom of that kiss.
~~~
Kymbria climbed off the back of Nodinens' snowmobile in front of Amber's house and pulled off the ski mask the elderly woman had loaned her for the ride. "Thanks for the lift. I guess."
"I understand," Nodinens said with a chuckle. "But when Gagewin speaks, it's a demand. Especially in times like this. He decided to have them adjourn to the headquarters now, not an hour from now, and if Mr. McCoy wanted to be with them, he had no choice. Us women are dismissed to do women's work."
"Are you coming in?"
"I believe I will join the tribal meeting. Gagewin will not dare refuse me, since I'm also an Elder. First, though, I must go home and change vehicles. For some reason, the town council banned snowmobiles on the streets, and I need to put in an order at the grocery store. We'll be feeding the volunteers soon."
Kymbria stared at the door to Amber's house, knowing she needed to walk in there. The vehicle that Anna and George had arrived in - a bright yellow SUV - was still parked in the driveway, so at least Amber had them with her. Dread filled her - and shamed her. She'd counseled dozens of traumatized soldiers over the years, men and women who had experienced things just as horrible as this. None of them had been close friends or people near to her own blood, though. Amber had been there for Kymbria during the trauma after Tina's death. Had stayed with her when Kymbria wanted company, left her alone when she didn't. Would have been there for her after Rick's death, had she asked her friend rather than wallow in her grief, guilt and PTSD.
Amber would even have understood about Risa. Risa, whose tiny body filled a hole in Kymbria's heart she hadn't acknowledged in years. Risa, whom Kymbria longed to hold right now - a longing she would for now fight with everything in her, for the good of her daughter.
Jane Lightfoot's daughter and son might grow up without that motherly love. Kymbria refused to honor the custom of banishing the name until Jane's death was confirmed. Jane, whom Amber was close friends with and to whom Amber had come here to offer aid and friendship. Amber, to whom Kymbria needed to offer support and friendship right now....
Friends don't only laugh and share the joy with you, they cry with you. Many times Kymbria had counseled a patient as to just that. It meant so much to have your friends with you in troubled times, and she would be there to assist Amber as much as possible. She steeled herself to take that first step toward the house, wishing desperately that Caleb had been able to accompany her. She'd come to depend upon him far too much during this short time.
However, despite her insistence that she would disregard Gagewin's admonishment and join the men at the tribal government building, Nidonens lingered. A lighter clicked, and the wrinkles around the tiny woman's mouth deepened as she drew on another cigarette, then loosened as she exhaled smoke.
"Is there something else you want to say to me, Grandmother?"
"Is there anything you want to ask?" Nodinens replied.
"So very much, Grandmother! But now isn't the time. Is it?"
Nodinens held out her arms and Kymbria wrapped herself around the frail figure inside the heavy snowsuit and buried her face on Nodinens's neck. She smelled cigarette smoke and age, a hint of medicated salve. Nodinens flicked the cigarette away and it sizzled for a second in the snow as she caressed Kymbria's hair.
"Daughter, sometimes there are more questions than answers. When you have reached my age, you understand one thing. We are here for each other in this life. Sometimes we do not know why our paths cross with those of others, why we - as you young ones say - click with some, but not with others. Many times the paths we travel, and the decisions we make, do become clear, when something later happens in our life or in the lives of those we care about."
Kymbria pulled back and wiped her hands across her face. No tears flowed down her cheeks, but they were built up in the troughs and corners of her eyes. Nodinens shimmered in the glaze.
"I don't think I could have gotten through the guilt I felt over Tina's death without Amber. And of course, Adam. In fact, Amber was the one who insisted I talk to Adam. She went with me on my first visit to the Grand Midé."
"As I am sure Adam told you, guilt was not yours to experience back then. It was Tina's time. Had that not been so, something would have saved her. You suffered your own loss, the loss of ability to bear children." She smoothed an age-softened palm down Kymbria's face. "It was not retribution for failing to rescue Tina. It was what your life path called for."
Again, Kymbria thought of Risa. Would she have been so quick to adopt her husband's love child, had she been able to bear her own children? Would Rick even have cheated on her if they'd had a son or daughter to fill out their family?
Many times the paths we travel, and the decisions we make, do become clear, when something later happens in our life or in the lives of those we care about.
"That's what Adam finally made me believe - that it was my life path. Yet...." Kymbria hadn't spoken of this even to her mother, but something compelled her to be open with Nodinens. "Rick..." She didn't give a damn that she was breaking the code against speaking his name. She had still cared for him, was thinking of insisting they go through counseling before she'd agree to the divorce.
"Rick," she said more emphatically, "my husband...one of the things we first talked about when we realized we were falling in love was whether or not we wanted children. Rick grew up an only child, and...well, his family life wasn't the greatest. He said he would prefer that we build a life of our own, without children. And that was even before I told him that I was barren."
Nodinens waited silently for Kymbria to continue. Kymbria allowed a few pleasant memories to filter through her mind: Their honeymoon in Hawaii. Lazy evenings together, nights of lovemaking that both satisfied and thrilled her. Passion so hot, the only thing that might have made it better would have been that it resulted in a pregnancy.
She'd never quite been able to come to terms with her barrenness....
She'd never admitted during her own brief weeks of counseling that perhaps the lack of her own child in her life had nagged at her, perhaps thwarted the completeness of her relationship with Rick. Perhaps...sent him to Marie.
"Rick had an affair," she told Nodinens. "I'm fairly certain this was the only time he was unfaithful to me. I think I would have known." She cleared her throat and continued in a staccato manner, "She was a member of his team. She got pregnant. Rick asked me for a divorce. Since we were both overseas, in a combat zone, the paperwork had to wait."
"Then you agreed to the divorce?" Nodinens asked.
"After a miserable fight," Kymbria said. "Well, several miserable, accusing fights. Then Rick got shot. There was a firefight near our field hospital. I saw him go down. I...still cared for him. But when his men got him to the hospital, I could tell he'd rather have had...her with him."
Nodinens frowned. "I do not recall Amber telling me that your husband died in a battle."
"He didn't," Kymbria assured her. "But he was hurt horribly, shot in the stomach - through a defective bullet-proof vest. They airlifted him to the Armed Forces hospital in Germany. Did surgery. He was actually recovering when...when he contracted a staph infection. The infection is what killed him."
Images flashed in her mind, accompanied by surfacing emotions. The high hospital bed where Rick lay, evading eye contact with her. The fluctuations between throbbing anger at his deceit and deep longing for the love they had shared in those early years. Smells. The clean, sharp odor of laundered sheets against a backdrop of the lemon-scented cleaning fluid the housekeepers used in their mop water. The faint putrid scent of Rick's body near the last, already decaying with the infection.
In defense, she took a deep breath of the crisp, clear air around her and stared across the snow to where Amber's husband had planted a line of blue-green spruce for a windbreak. Not even the bone-biting cold could run off all the birds in this beautiful land, and she watched several tiny gray and black titmice dive-bomb a fat piece of suet that Amber had hung in a nearby oak, which would be leafed out beautifully in the summer. A coal-black raven emerged from a distant spruce and foolishly tried to grab a share of the suet. The titmice banded together and attacked the larger bird, sending it squawking off in fear.
A smile actually touched Kymbria's lips, quickly dissipating when Nodinens spoke.
"That is not all, is it? The woman? The baby?"
"I...oh, damn it, Grandmother! I kept telling myself that she probably got pregnant deliberately. So Rick would divorce me and marry her. But...she was on leave, because she was about to give birth. She found out about Rick. Hell, he probably called her as soon as he was able. She flew to Germany. I walked in...well, started to walk in one day, but froze in the doorway. She was there, and Rick had his head on her belly, talking to the baby. I could tell from his words that they already knew it was a girl. And when he looked up at her, it was the same expression he'd had on his face when we were first married. He loved her and her baby, Grandmother. Then...."
"Go on, Child. You need to get this out. It had to have been hard on you to actually see this."
"It might be better if I hadn't," Kymbria said grudgingly. "Then I could have kept imagining her as some bimbo with big tits."
Nodinens laughed softly. "I understand. My husband was faithful to me, at least, I believe so. Yet sometimes I tell myself that was because I kept a close eye on him and once in a while would help him sharpen our cleaning knives."
"Oh, Grandmother, thank you for that," Kymbria said with a bubble of laughter.
"Tell me the rest, Child."
Kymbria gritted her teeth. Part of what she had to tell curdled her stomach with shame at herself. "I couldn't help myself. I checked her out through a sympathetic friend I had in Rick's unit. She wasn't a bimbo. She had a rep as a strong woman, one of the best-trained soldiers my friend had ever worked with. Her name was Marie Winston. She was blond, that lovely, silky white-blond hair that has to be natural. And yeah, she did have big tits. Bigger than mine, anyway. She joined Rick's unit nearly three years before we were sent to Afghanistan. Even now, I'm not sure when it started, how long it went on."
She took a deep breath to prepare herself for the final part of the story. "Rick didn't last long after he contracted the staph infection. Only two days. After the first day, they told me he wasn't going to make it. I never left his side after that. She never got a chance to say her own goodbye. And I'll admit, that gave me a nasty amount of satisfaction. Kept me there at his side without even a break for coffee. But then I found out she couldn't have come anyway. She went into labor. The baby girl was born there in the German hospital. An hour after Rick died."
"You keep speaking of her in the past tense," Nodinens pointed out.
Kymbria clenched her hands inside her heavy mittens. The answer to that would be revealed as she told the rest of it.
"I left for home immediately, leaving them to take care of transporting Rick's body. But I was already experiencing post traumatic stress episodes. Jitteriness. Flashes of temper and eruptions of actual rage out of the blue. I'd decided I needed to contact a counselor myself as soon as I got Stateside. I asked my mother to meet me at Bethesda. We had made our own arrangements for Rick's burial, and since his parents had died during our marriage, there was no one to protest. I was still his legal wife. I figured I'd look into counseling after the funeral, and Mom agreed to stay with me for a while, if that was what I ended up doing."
Kymbria glanced at Nodinens, expecting to see a frown at how long it was taking her to tell her tale, how many details it seemed she had to add for explanation. There was only patience on the elderly woman's face. She lowered her voice to finish.
"She and the baby came back on the plane with his body. The plane lost an engine about fifty miles from New York and crash landed. There was an oil carrier nearby. They rescued the baby and about a hundred other passengers. But they said she was already dead. When the plane went down, it took her body and Rick's coffin with it."
"The baby you have adopted is the one rescued from the plane."
"Risa. I couldn't help myself. I went to the New York hospital to see her. My mother went with me. We found out also that there was no one on her mother's side to take her. She would have gone into foster care, or to an adoptive family praying for a newborn."
"You did right, Child."
"I kept my PTSD symptoms under wraps until I had everything done paperwork-wise to adopt Risa," Kymbria said. "It turned out that since she was my husband's child - he'd already claimed paternity - I had a legal right to Risa. And I love her with my entire being, Grandmother. As does my mother. When the PTSD continued to worsen, I went into counseling there in Bethesda as much for Risa as for myself. But the Army chose the wrong psychiatrist to help me."
"Child, you did the right thing coming here. There is much suffering in your life right now. It will take you some time to overcome all this. Sitting beside the man you still loved while he died is a terrible thing to experience."
"I did still love him," Kymbria agreed. "I was hoping we could get some marriage counseling. Work things out."
"Then you have the knowledge of his unfaithfulness, the fact that he fathered a child with this woman. Yes, you need to take time and talk things out. "
"I need to get myself back on the right path, so I can be the best mother I can for my daughter. I can tell you without a doubt that I love her more than life, that I never care about her parentage."
"You need to decide what is best for you, not others, Child. Not even your daughter. You need to find out what will make you feel right inside for the rest of your days. If you follow that path, then it is the best one, the one that will also benefit those around you, including your daughter. And there will only be one path. So consider it with deep care."
Kymbria hesitated and again breathed in the beauty around her while she let Nodinens's words flow over her. It made sense. She had to do this for herself, not just her daughter. That way, it would be best for both of them.
"I will remember that," she assured Nodinens. She glanced at the door again, but before she could turn away, Nodinens lifted a hand and gently grasped her chin.
"You must also face something else," Nodinens told her. "You may have been drawn home by your need for your people and your Midé, but also by your path in life. Your destiny."
For a brief second, she thought of Caleb. But his image was immediately covered up by that of a huge evil entity with the smell of death about it. A howl filled with nuances that fostered fear. Words that whispered through her mind, each time becoming clearer and more adamant.
With an effort she dredged up from deep within, she managed a small smile at Nodinens. "I'll have to put off my own considerations for a while. This monster has come into my life on top of everything else."
Nodinens reached out and held her arm when Kymbria turned toward the path up to the door. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Do you believe the windigo has some tie to you?"
"No. Oh, no," Kymbria denied. "Not a tie. It's just...well, it's been at my cabin. That's where it left L...the maintenance man. And Keoman and I heard it outside the sweat lodge the other night. He never admitted that's what it was, but I know now. It made that same howl out on the lake when it left Len's body there."
"You should not speak his name," Nodinens reminded her, then went on before Kymbria could apologize, "but tell me what you heard in this howl."
"Why should that matter? I just heard it howl. A horrible howl that was definitely not human."
Nodinens made no move to start her snowmobile and leave. She pulled out another cigarette, lit it and stared at Kymbria without speaking, clearly waiting. The last thing on earth she wanted to do right now was re-live the feelings she had when that beast was near. Nodinens wasn't leaving, though, until she got an answer. She took another deep drag on the cigarette, her eyes never wavering, silently demanding that Kymbria respect her and share the information that she wasn't even admitting to herself.
"All right. It...it was a horrible sound. Mean and cruel. It sliced through a person like a sharp knife, and my skin crawled. When it came to the cabin to leave L - the body, it scared my dog, Scarlet, too. Scared her so badly that she curled up in a ball rather than bark and defy it like she usually does when she thinks something might be even a slight danger to me."
Nodinens flicked cigarette ashes into the snow and continued to wait.
"Damn...darn it, Grandmother. It also had some sort of deep sadness in its voice. And no, I have no idea why I felt that. It's a monster, an evil beast. It kills people. Eats them! It doesn't deserve anyone's pity!"
"You are right about that, Child. If this thing even senses pity in someone, it will laugh at them. That will make its evil even stronger. But never have I heard anyone say this about the windigo. That it carried some sadness with it. There is something different about this season's hunt. I think we need to understand what that is."
"Why? It's just on its usual rampage, killing people so it can feed on them."
"Perhaps not. Perhaps it is like the sheriff says. He has studied human monsters. He says they sometimes grow careless with their kills. Or escalate for some reason."
"Caleb is insistent that we not put human emotions into the windigo. He says it will be a huge mistake to do that while we fight it."
"He has his reasons for this. Keoman told us about his wife and child. That is why Gagewin has agreed to let this man join us this season. Still, I am starting to believe that we need to understand this thing better before we can kill it. All we have done before has not been successful. It just keeps waking and killing, sleeping and waking and killing more."
Kymbria dropped her gaze, but Nodinens cleared her throat and cast her a stern frown when she glanced back up at her.
"Do not hide things now, Child. They might be important."
She drew in a steadying breath. "When the windigo is around, I think I hear it trying to talk to me. But it's very possible it's a PTSD symptom instead. That happens a lot to those of us suffering from this."
"What does it say?" Nodinens demanded.
"As near as I can translate from the Old Language," Kymbria admitted, "it's saying Come. Or sometimes, Come now."
"Great Spirit," Nodinens whispered.
Kymbria bit her lip, and Nodinens caught the gesture. "What is it?" she insisted.
"Maybe you should talk to my mother. I think she knows more than she's saying."
"Niona has told you this?"
"No. That's the problem. She won't tell me anything. She just keeps insisting that I need to leave here. In fact, she drove up here yesterday to get me."
A vehicle approached, and both of them looked down the driveway as Kymbria's black SUV drove toward them.
"Listen to me," Nodinens said. "You must make your mother tell you whatever she is hiding. If she will not, tell her that I will tell the Council and they will demand it of her."
"I will," Kymbria agreed. "I think you're right. Whatever she's concealing is important."
When Niona pulled in behind George's truck, Kymbria could hear Scarlet yapping. The setter had her shining head close to the windshield, her nose leaving spots on the glass. Niona reached over and opened the passenger door, and Scarlet bounded out and up to Kymbria.
Kymbria knelt and gratefully hugged her dog into her arms. She laid her cheek against the silky fur on Scarlet's ruff and met her mother's eyes through the windshield of the SUV. Niona appeared reluctant to join them, moving her gaze back and forth between her daughter and the elderly tribal grandmother.
Around them, none of the beauty of the scenery had changed. The sun emerged from a gray cloud, shooting dazzling diamonds across the pristine snow. Yet evil had infiltrated this beauty, unimaginable evil. Evil that had been covered up for centuries. Or, if not covered up, at least denied after it abated.
And - Kymbria searched out her mother's gaze again, but Niona was gathering something from the seat before she opened the driver's door.
Was what her mother was hiding actually fostering the evil? How could they force her to tell them? Or were they wrong? Was Niona only trying to force Kymbria to return to her daughter and the new life she was building in Duluth?