The Winter People (21 page)

Johnny could feel the
icy breath of
the
others
on the nape of his neck and it made his skin crawl, partly
from fear and partly from revulsion.  It was clear that the dogs felt their
presence
as well. They cowered down on the litter and whimpered and whined, searching
the trees around them in vain for the source of their anxiety.  Johnny bit his
lip just then, he very nearly said it.  He almost said their name aloud, and
that scared him.   He was almost afraid that they
would answer, would
come to call on the one who had spoken it.

At that moment, for an instant, the tone
of the wind changed.  It seemed to convey assent. Then, just as quickly, it
returned to its morose wail.  He knew that they talked in the wind, and
tormented in dreams.  But he wasn't sure how far their psychic abilities
stretched.  Could they read his thoughts?  Surely not, or they would have
descended upon him already.  Could they tap into someone else's psychic link
with another?  Who knew?  But Johnny would not put anything past them.

He knew it was they who brought the
storm.  They called it.  They joined together as one and called it to cover
them, to aid them.  It was quite literally a psychic storm, the elements held
together by pure thought.  Evil thought.
 Their
thought.  It also
explained why Johnny's own senses were heightened today.  He wondered then if
when the storm subsided he would retain the level of his gift that he now had. 
If he survived to see the end of the storm, that was.

Johnny had been climbing steadily since
leaving his home, circling slightly to the north.  It was a long ride under
these conditions and the fear that accompanied him made his pace seem
unbearably slow.  The ridge line he was following was treacherous and narrow. 
A wall of aspen on one side, skeletal sentinels in a dead place, and a shear
drop on the other.  More than once Johnny felt the litter he was towing pull to
the right as the snow beneath it gave way and plummeted down the cliff face.

Ahead
of him he could see the wall of clouds that he would enter.  The closer he came
to it, to touching something so much a part of them, the more his hair stood on
end. It was as if an electric current was coursing through his body, activating
every nerve.  He could feel them too, more so than he ever wanted.  It made his
skin come alive under the black nylon of his ski suit.  He was closer to them
now than he had ever been. But he knew that he would get a lot closer.

Upon
penetrating the mass of foreboding vapor the dogs became restless, reacting to
every sound.  Johnny could feel it too, could feel the anxiety seeping in, but
he fought it back.  There was an overwhelming sense of dread in the air, so
thick it was suffocating.  Instinctively, Johnny found himself breathing
heavily to compensate for it, and then he exhaled in a heavy sigh.

The
Indian was now in a world that was not his own.  He had just opened the door
and walked right in.  He was an intruder in a place that didn't take too kindly
to 'em.  In an uninviting place that reeked of depravity and sick desires, and
promised only death.  The air here was tainted and it caused Johnny to gag. 
Even the dogs made repulsive gestures with their noses and whined in dissent.

The
darkness of the cloud bank seemed magnified and added to the alien atmosphere. 
Johnny found it increasingly difficult to see the path before him and even his
headlight couldn't seem to cut through the murk.  Finally, he closed his eyes
and lowered his head.  The path before him became awash in an unearthly glow,
illuminated to the length of his own vision.  It formed a tunnel in the
darkness, a negative image.

Johnny
followed it without hesitation, his trepidations ebbing with each yard
traversed.  The trail veered from the cliff face, entered the stand of aspens,
and began to level out.  At first the trees became sparser, then smaller, then
not at all.  There was a bright light from above, cutting through the cloud
cover to touch the earth, a circle of our world in the midst of their world, an
oasis.

Here,
a strong wind had punched a hole through the clouds and allowed the sun to fall
on a barren patch of ground.  The snowmobile pulled into the clearing and
stopped near its center, its rider crouched over the handlebars.  The litter it
towed and its contents were dusted in white.  Immediately, Johnny felt the warm
sun on his back and he smiled beneath his mask.  Roscoe and Ouray stared up at
it welcomingly.

Johnny
killed the motor and stood to survey the area.  He took a tentative step off
the snowmobile and found the snow to be as solid as granite.  Before him, the
mountain jutted upward abruptly, rocky and formidable.  A constant wind was
channeled down the crag and blasted the ground where Johnny stood.  Over time
it had removed most of the topsoil and left a barren and lifeless glade. 
Further away, as the wind dispersed outward in a fan, plant life took
purchase.  But here, there was nothing.

Johnny
looked upward and let the cold wind hit him squarely in the face.  It felt
clean and he took in several deep breaths.  This was not
their
wind.  It
came from Sinawaf, the Creator.  It was a direct channel to the outside, and
normalcy.  It whistled all about the trio but its sound was pleasant.  In it
there were not the cries and the pleas and sick desires of the
others
,
only the wind.

Roscoe
and Ouray felt light of spirit for the first time since their master had come
home this day.  Roscoe, being somewhat bolder if not wiser, took the first
steps off of the litter.  The ground suited him and he bounded off around the
snowmobile in happy leaps.  This was most definitely more to his liking.  The
air was much better here and it was good to see the sun, to feel it.  Ouray was
a bit more furtive, but finally decided that Roscoe had the right idea and
joined him.

The
two dogs finally made their way to Johnny who had now turned to the right in a
semi-circle, surveying the tree line and his oasis.  There was actually very
little snow here until you hit the trees.  The wind had carried most of it off
and patches of rock and earth showed through in a good many places.  The trees
looked dead and distant, a part of the other world now.  And Johnny could
actually see the good air mixing with the bad, being tainted by the evil in the
clouds.

He
looked down then and found his dogs sitting before him, watching him
curiously.  The smile behind the mask was lost to them, but they relished the
pats on the head the man bestowed upon them.  Johnny moved through the two
towards the litter and they followed him at a distance.  Roscoe glanced at
Ouray and he back, then they both watched Johnny with interest.

One
by one the Indian untied the bundles and placed them on the frozen ground next
to the litter.  Johnny paused at the last bundle; he couldn't bring himself to
touch that one, not yet.  Instead, he turned and moved to the first pack, a
deerskin bound with ropes now stiff from the cold and the snow thrown upon them. 
Taking the Bowie knife from the sheath on his right calf, he cut easily through
the ropes in a single motion.

He
opened the deerskin and surveyed its contents, a wooden bow, a quiver of
arrows, and a torch.  Johnny laid the knife on the skin and pulled an arrow
from the quiver and examined its head.  There were strips of leather wrapped
around the shaft just below the head.  Johnny pressed in on them with his thumb
and saw the kerosene ooze out from the pressure.  Satisfied, he returned the
arrow to the quiver then slid its strap over his head and one shoulder,
allowing the quiver to rest on his back.

Next,
he took the bow in his left hand, extended it, and tugged on the bowstring
several times with his right.  Nodding, he slid it over the opposite shoulder
so that the string crossed the quiver strap across his chest.  He let the torch
lie and retrieved his knife.  The next pack was much larger and concealed in a
blanket.  Johnny grabbed the blanket at one end and dragged it around to the
far side of the snowmobile.  He cut its bindings and let the blanket fall open.

Dry
kindling spilled out past the borders of the old woolen cloth and Johnny let it
lie.  The ends of the blanket flapped wildly in the wind but Johnny ignored
this and focused on the axe half buried in the kindling.  He dug it out and
turned it over in his hands, examining its polished blade.  The sun caught it
as it rotated and it winked at him. In response, Johnny looked over his
shoulder and assessed the tree line.

He
set his mind on a couple of small trees on the far side of the snowmobile and
started for them.  Again the dogs followed him at a distance, Roscoe trying to
initiate play but Ouray would have none of it.  He was far too busy to play,
busy scanning the woods. It was bad in there; he could smell it and it made him
nervous.  Ouray knew the man needed him, and he would be ready.

Roscoe
finally let his playful side subside and he too felt the tension.  The muscular
black dog paused, emitted a low guttural growl, and then continued his pace
next to Ouray.  As each step brought them closer to the woods, and the bad air,
the hair on the dog's backs began to stand up.  As soon as they left the circle
of sun, all three felt the anxiety they had experienced earlier.  It was
oppressive and thick in the air.

Johnny
hurriedly cut down the five small trees he had chosen.  The fetid air caused
him to gag with every puff he exhaled.  His dogs were quiet sentinels on either
side, facing out into the woods.  The axe blade slipped quietly through the air
and rang out sharp against the defiance of the green wood he attacked.  Chips
of the falling aspen exploded outward and were carried off in a frenzy of
confusion by the wind.  One by one the skeletal trees fell, the bony remains of
a huge hand sprawled across the ground.

Johnny
slid the handle of the axe into his belt and let it hang there heavily.  He
grabbed the trees in a bundle with both hands and moved as quickly as he could
back into the light.  The intense cold and sitting on the snowmobile for so
long in it had made his limp noticeably worse, and the slight moan he made with
each step was lost in the wind. The dogs were right beside the man and thankful
for it, but they remained vigilant. Something bad was going to happen, they
could feel it.  Johnny felt it as well, but did his best to ignore it.  He knew
what he had to do, and by God, he was going to do it.

***

Hayden
was not surprised by what he had found.  Concerned yes, but it was somehow what
he expected.  Johnny's house was completely empty, except for the scent of
burned paraffin, leather, kerosene, and something else that he couldn't quite
make out. Not even the dogs were about.  They were usually there to be the
first to greet a visitor, but Hayden had received no greetings.  He had found
nothing but an empty house, empty, yet full somehow.

            It was full of sounds,
scents, memories......and ghosts.  It was full of emotions too, emotions from
years past, and this very morning as well.  Hayden could feel them, he could
sense them.  They encircled his body like the smoke from the fifty or so
snuffed out candles scattered around the room.  Emotions so strong they still
rang off of the walls and gave definition to the scent that Hayden couldn't
make out a moment ago.  Death.

Someone
had died here today.  Hayden knew that you couldn't really smell death, not
like this anyway, but that was what his mind had told him.  That was the name
his brain had put with the smell.  It wasn't the smell of decay or death like
that at all, but real death.  All that it is to be dead, what it is to die,
that was what he smelled.  He hung his head reverently for a moment then left
the place as he had found it.

***

By
the time Hayden had reached the weathered cabin of Ellis Campbell, his joints
and hands ached from the cold.  Even his face mask couldn't keep the icy cold
off of him and his chin and nose were beginning to get numb.  The trip here had
been a couple of miles but he didn't even remember traveling it.  His mind was
elsewhere; his mind was in Johnny's house.  What the hell had happened?

He
saw the bearskin rug with the imprints on it, one from where someone was
sitting, and the other from where someone had been lying down.  All of the
candles around the room had been allowed to burn down to nothing, and from the
smell, Hayden figured had done so this morning. The strips of leather in the
pile next to the rug might have been meant to be dipped in the bowl of kerosene
nearby, but why?  Lastly, the bow of Johnny's great grandfather was no longer
hanging on the wall where it had been proudly displayed since Hayden had known
them.

Whatever
puzzlement or concerns Hayden had over the state of the Kaostiwa household,
were lost the instant he saw the gaping hole where Ellis'
door used
to be.  As he slowed to a stop just off the old sagging porch, Hayden saw that
a huge drift had wandered in the doorway to explore the room beyond.  Something
Hayden was going to have to do as well.  He killed the machine and took a
furtive step in the deep snow.

The
powder was thigh deep before it would support the big man's weight, and it
tugged at him with every step.  The porch was no better, buried under a five
foot drift that Hayden had to bull through.  He paused at the doorway, the cold
in the snow seeping into his legs.  Gusts of wind assaulted his back, trying to
force him into the cabin.  Trying to force him in to see what had been left
there.

The
room was shrouded in darkness with only the little light afforded by the
doorway and the broken window to illuminate it.  Hayden's eyes adjusted quickly
from the bright snow fields he'd crossed, to the dim light of the lifeless
dwelling.  He was standing several feet inside the room in shin deep snow
before the scene came into focus. Shadows at first, fuzzy outlines of things
that were familiar, yet alien at the same time. Then the forms slowly gained
definition.

"Jynx!”
Hayden yelled, his eyes opening wide in surprise and recognition.  But the old
dog didn't move.  In fact, he wasn't moving at all.  Hayden pulled off his
goggles and squinted to sharpen the image, leaning forward slightly.  Jynx sat
stone still.  His fur was dusted with glistening particles of frost and snow;
his eyes were a dull white.  Jynx was frozen.

Suddenly,
Hayden thought of the cattle again from when he was a kid.  Jynx had sat there
and frozen to death, staring up at something on the wall.  Hayden moved closer
but looked down as he did so, it made him nervous to look at the dog.  As he
closed in on Jynx, his line of vision on the floor, he spotted the blood.

A
huge pool, frozen and frosted as the dog was.  It was smeared around the room
and disappeared under the drift in the doorway.  Lying in it, barrel bent,
stock broken, was Ellis' 30/30.  A very sick feeling came over Hayden then and
he had to swallow hard, from emotion as well as revulsion.  He pulled down his
face mask and took several deep breaths of the frigid air to help quell the
feeling that was trying like hell to overcome him. He sidestepped the grisly
residue and stopped at Jynx's front paws.

When
he looked up at the dog and saw the expression of longing frozen on him, Hayden
trembled.  He looked away again quickly.  Then his gaze followed a course up
the wall toward the place Jynx had been staring at.  About two thirds of the
way up the wall he found Ellis Campbell, or what was left of him.  Hayden felt
his stomach churn.

The
old man's head was stuffed onto one of the antlers mounted on the wall there.
His eyes had been gouged out and the blood had run down his cheeks like tears. 
A 30/30 casing had been shoved into one of the bloody craters and what looked
like brain matter had oozed out around it.  The mouth of this grotesque mask
was stretched open in a twisted, agonizing scream, the end of the tongue bitten
off.

Hayden
fell to his knees and vomited, retching violently.  He heaved up the great
breakfast that Barbara had made and he continued to vomit.  He wretched until
there was nothing left in his stomach and then he heaved some more.  Hayden sat
there on all fours, staring blankly at the vomitus before him, steam rising
from it like smoke.  Then he heard something.

His
mind was reeling and knew that he wasn't too clear headed, but he would have
sworn that he'd heard laughter just then.  Laughter in the wind.

***

Johnny
felt the heat from the fire bathe his front side and he relished in it.  Until
now he hadn't really noticed how cold he actually had been.  He tossed the
torch into the fire and stepped back to where the heat was more tolerable.  The
flames lapped hungrily at the dried timber, prodded by the wind.  Johnny stared
at it for a moment, lost in its orange-red glow.  Pitch caused a loud
"POP!" from somewhere deep inside the pyre and the glowing embers
from the tiny explosion hovered momentarily then floated upward and died.

The
little bang prompted Johnny from his daze and he looked up at the body of his
grandfather.  Faywah was stretched out atop the pitched platform that Johnny
had made from the aspen trees, barely five feet above the fire.  He was wearing
his favorite things, an interesting blend of past and present, Indian and white
man.  All of it evidence of the bi-cultural life that the Kaostiwas had lived. 
Evidenced again in the only thing Johnny said for him.

In
the Ute tongue, Johnny managed a phrase that he remembered from the Bible,
"You will lie with your fathers, and He will carry you, and bury you in
their burying place."  And even as he finished saying it, another phrase
popped into his head.  He thought about it for a moment, and knew it was true. 
They are wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness
forever.

Johnny
stared somberly at the face of his grandfather, already his long grey hair was
shrinking away from the advancing flames.  His facial muscles contracted and
flexed with the heat, giving an eerie impression of life to the corpse.  And
through the dancing blaze and the distortion of the rising heat, Johnny thought
he saw a smile.  Then, everything was lost to him as the fiery grave engulfed
the old man.