The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist #2)(34)

“Why?”

“He left his rucksack. And his canteen. He intended to return.”

Unless he did not leave of his own accord. That possibility the doctor did not give voice to. He chewed thoughtfully upon the wood; the firelight flickered in his eyes.

“We are lost,” he said matter-of-factly. “That is the only explanation. You observed his reaction to the suggestion yesterday. So at first light he struck out to pick up the trail again. Darkness caught him in the bush, and he’s waiting for daylight to come back for us.”

“What if he doesn’t?”

The doctor frowned. “Why wouldn’t he?”

“He’s afraid.” I remembered the wild look in his eyes, the spittle flying from his chapped and swollen lips. I did not offer the other reason—that he wouldn’t return because he couldn’t. I thought of Pierre Larose, impaled upon a tree.

“All the more reason to find his way back,” argued the doctor. Then, as if he had read my thoughts, he said, “I wouldn’t choose solitude in these circumstances, and I am one who chooses it in nearly every circumstance!” His jaw worked the shavings incessantly; his eyes shone. “Secrets,” he murmured.

“Secrets, sir?”

“The reason I became a monstrumologist, Will Henry.” He lowered his voice, now whispery warm, as intimate as a lover’s. “She cloaks herself in mystery. She hides her true face. I would unmask her. I would strip her bare. I would see her as she is.”

He lifted his face toward the veiled heavens. He considered the treetops genuflecting to the high wind. “‘The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh.’ . . . She is fickle and jealous and completely indifferent—and therefore completely irresistible. What mortal woman can approach her? What earthly maiden possesses her eternal youth or can inspire such rapture—and despair? There is something profoundly terrifying about her, Will Henry, and utterly seductive. In my lust to master her, I became her slave. In my rising, I fell. I fell . . . very far.”

Though I sat three feet from the fire, I shivered. I wondered if, like Sergeant Hawk, the doctor was coming down with a case of “bush fever.” If so—if I lost him, too—what would become of me?

He looked at me, shook his head, and laughed softly. “I warned you. I wanted to be a poet.”

“Was that a poem?”

“No, of course not.”

“It didn’t sound like any poem I’ve ever read.”

“You are a clever boy, Will Henry. That could be both a compliment and an insult.”

He pulled the gnarled bit of wood from his mouth and tossed it into the fire.

“Terrible! Like chewing on a chair leg. But it’s what we have. And we must learn to be satisfied with what we have, no matter how bland or bitter the taste.”

We were quiet for a moment. The fire cracked and popped. The wind whistled in the bowed heads of the spruce and pine. Behind us John Chanler moaned in gentle harmony.

“Did he feel the same as you, Doctor?” I asked. “About . . . her?”

“John has more the soul of a boxer than a poet. He never quite grew up, in my opinion. Monstrumology is a sport to him, like hunting fox or playing cricket.”

“He thought it was fun?” The idea that anyone could find the doctor’s business enjoyable was bizarre.

“Oh, he thought it was great fun.”

“What part?”

“Usually the part that brought him closest to the edge of ruin.” He laughed morbidly. “Got a little too close to that edge this time.”

“Mr. Larose went right over it,” I said. I could not chase the image of his skinless corpse from my mind.

“An interesting extension of the metaphor, Will Henry. Perhaps this affair has more to do with monstrumology than we first assumed.”

I was shocked. “You mean you’ve changed your mind? You think it could be . . .”

“Real? Oh, no. Not in the sense that you mean. Perhaps there is an organism native to this environment—something altogether natural—that gave rise to the myth. A bipedal predator with some of the Wendigo’s traits—cannibalistic, humanoid, able to scale these trees and traverse vast distances quickly. John was not the first monstrumologist to come here searching for the inspiration of the legend. I even found some references to it in my father’s papers—probably how the sergeant’s mother knew the name.”

“So there . . . there could be something. . . .”

“Oh, Will Henry, you’ve been with me long enough to know there is always something.”

TWELVE

“The One Useful Thing You Could Do”

He had spoken of it as one speaks of a lover. The eternally young, fertile bride; the ancient, barren spinster; the siren; the sibyl—she was all these things, all at once, his beloved, the one for whom he denied himself the companionship of mere mortal company, against whom even the breathtaking Muriel Chanler paled. His beloved called that night, but she did not call to him.

Her voice—the voice of the untamed wilderness, the secret voice that rides the high wind, the voice of abundant desolation and exhilarating despair, the voice the Iyiniwok had named Outiko—called that night, and John Chanler answered.

I felt his presence before I saw him. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I had the distinctly uncomfortable feeling of being watched. I looked over my shoulder. My breath caught in my throat. I touched the doctor’s arm, and he followed my gaze, both of us frozen for an instant in utter amazement at the sight.