The Marsh King's Daughter(35)

My father dipped a cup into the water bucket and drizzled the water slowly over the tin plate balanced on top of the fire. The drops sizzled and danced. Steam filled the room. Water ran down my face and dripped off my chin.

“Sometime later, a wendigo attacked the village,” my father’s story continued. “The wendigo was very thin and terrible. It smelled of death and decay. Its bones pushed against its skin, and its skin was gray like death. Its lips were tattered and bloody, and its eyes sat deep in their sockets. This wendigo was very large. A wendigo is never satisfied after killing and eating. He searches constantly for new victims. Every time he eats another person, he grows bigger, so he can never be full.”

From outside there came a noise. Scritch-scritch, scritch-scritch. It sounded like a branch brushing against the side of the sweat lodge, except that our madoodiswan sat in the middle of our clearing and there were no branches close enough to touch. My father cocked his head. We waited. The sound didn’t come again.

He leaned forward. The glow from the fire threw the top of his face into shadow as it lit his chin from below.

“As the wendigo approached the village, the little people who protect the manitou ran out to meet it. One threw a rock at the wendigo. The rock became a bolt of lightning that struck the wendigo in the forehead. The wendigo fell down dead with a noise like that of a big tree falling. As the wendigo lay in the snow, he looked like a big Indian. But when the people started to chop him up, they saw that he was really a huge block of ice. They melted the pieces and found in the middle a tiny infant with a hole in his head where the rock had hit him. This was the baby who had turned into a wendigo. If the manidog hadn’t killed it, the wendigo would have eaten up the entire village.”

I shivered. In the flickering firelight I saw the baby with the hole in its forehead, its parents weeping over the terrible fate that befell their too-curious child. Water dripped through the cracks in the roof and drew an icy path down my neck.

From outside the noise came again. Scritch scritch scritch. I heard breathing—uh, uh, uh—as if whatever was outside had arrived on our ridge after a long run. My father stood up. His head almost touched the ceiling. His fire-shadow was even bigger. Surely my shaman of a father was a match for whatever was outside. He stepped around the fire pit and opened the door. I shut my eyes and shrank back against my mother as the cold rushed in.

“Open your eyes, Helena,” my father commanded in a terrible voice. “See! Here is your wendigo!”

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and drew my feet up onto the bench. The wendigo was in the room—I could feel it. I heard the wendigo panting. Smelled its horrible, foul breath. Something cold and wet touched my foot. I shrieked.

My father laughed. He sat down beside me and pulled me onto his lap. “Open your eyes, Bangii-Agawaateyaa,” he said, using the pet name he had given me, which meant “Little Shadow.” And so I did.

Wonder of wonders, it was not a wendigo that found its way into our sweat lodge. It was a dog. I knew this was a dog because I’d seen pictures in the Geographics. Also because its coat was short and speckled and nothing like the fur of a coyote or a wolf. Its ears hung down, and its tail lashed from side to side as it pushed its nose against my toes.

“Sit,” my father commanded. I wasn’t sure why, as I was already sitting. Then I realized my father was talking to the dog. Not only that, but the dog understood what my father said and obeyed him. The dog plopped down on its haunches and looked up at my father with its head tipped to the side as if to say, All right. I did as I was told. What next?

My mother stretched out her hand and scratched the dog behind its ears. It was the bravest thing I’d ever seen her do. The dog whined and scooted closer to my mother. She stood up and wrapped a towel around her shoulders. “Come,” she said to the dog. The dog trotted after her. I’d never seen anything like it. All I could think was that my mother had somehow stolen a piece of my father’s shaman magic.

My mother wanted the dog to spend the night with us in the cabin. My father laughed and said that animals belonged outside. He tied a rope around the dog’s neck and led it to the woodshed.

Long after my mother and father stopped making the bedsprings squeak, I stood at my bedroom window, looking out over the yard. The moon reflecting off the snow turned the night as bright as day. Through the gaps in the woodshed I could see the dog moving around. I tapped the window with my fingernail. The dog stopped pacing and looked up at me.

I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders and tiptoed down the stairs. Outside, the night was cold and still. I sat down on the steps and pulled on my boots, then crossed the yard to the woodshed. The dog was tied to the iron ring in the back. I stood in the doorway and whispered the Indian name my father had given it. The dog’s tail thumped. I thought about my father’s story about how Dog came to the Ojibwa people. How the giant who sheltered the hunters who got lost in the forest gave them his pet Dog to protect them from the wendigo on their return. How Dog allowed the men to pet it, and took food from their hands, and played with their children.

I went inside and sat down on the dried cattail rushes my mother spread on the floor for bedding. I whispered the Indian name my father had given the dog a second time: “Rambo.” Again the dog’s tail thumped. I scooted closer and stretched out my hand. The dog stretched forward as well and sniffed my fingers. I edged closer still and put my hand on its head. If my mother was brave enough to touch the dog, then so was I. The dog wriggled out from beneath my hand. Before I could pull back, its tongue came out and licked my fingers. The tongue was raspy and soft. I put my hand on its head, and the dog licked my face.