08-A Thousand Bones, page 13
She was glad she hadn’t told him she thought it was a man standing in a boat. “Tell me,” she said.
Maybe it was just the shifting of the lamp lights, but the hardness of his brow seemed to soften. So did his voice. “As in many cultures, there is a belief that every woman holds in her body the ancient mysteries of the moon.” His black eyes held hers. “It is the same with your astrology.”
He seemed to be waiting, watching her for a reaction.
“Please go on,” she said.
“The blood cycle of a woman flows like the changes in the moon, waxing and waning as the moon does,” Ahanu said. “And the blood cycle is what the woman herself is. And the woman who sees the moon and seeks herself in it will never be lost. The woman who sees the moon will hear the wisdom of her ancestors and learn to honor what she is.”
The cabin fell silent. A log dropped in the fireplace, filling Ahanu’s black eyes with a glitter of cinders. He seemed to be searching her face for something, and she suddenly felt exposed, like she did sometimes when her mother got into her head.
Rafsky cleared his throat. “Mr. Ahanu,” he said, “is there any sinister meaning behind the symbols?” he asked.
“Sinister?” Ahanu asked, turning to him.
“Yes,” Rafsky said. “Can they represent a hunting kill or a sacrifice?”
Ahanu went back to the stove and took a large wooden bowl from the shelf. As he ladled his meaty stew into it, he spoke. “There is nothing sinister in the symbols,” he said. “They are folklore, long forgotten now by our children.”
“So there would be no reason for a killer to leave them near a body?”
Ahanu’s hand paused in midair. Then, slowly, he finished filling his bowl. “I am finished talking,” he said.
Rafsky gave a sigh and handed Joe the photos. She slipped them into the folder, watching Ahanu. He took a spoon from a drawer and sat down at the table.
“The victim was a young woman,” Joe said. “Does that change how her killer would see or use a symbol?”
Ahanu shut his eyes. “How much of her did you find?” he asked.
Joe exchanged a quick look with Rafsky, then slipped into a chair across from Ahanu. “Just a few bones,” she said.
Ahanu’s eyes were still shut. The smell of the animal stew was everywhere, thick and almost sickening.
“Where exactly did you find the bones?” he asked.
“In the deep woods,” Joe said.
He was silent. And even though he was sitting right across from her, Joe had the sense that a part of him had suddenly left the cabin.
“There is nothing else I can tell you,” Ahanu said softly.
Joe leaned across the table. “Then why did you ask how much of her body was left?”
“Leave.”
Joe didn’t move. Ahanu started to eat, his movements slow, his jaw grinding against the meat.
“Mr. Ahanu,” Joe said, “we may have several victims. Please, if you know—”
Ahanu pushed away from the table and walked to the screen door off the kitchen, pushing through it so hard it back-slapped against the house. Through the window, Joe watched him step off the back porch. A few seconds later, he disappeared into the dark folds of the forest.
“I pushed him too hard,” Joe said, rising.
“No,” Rafsky said. “You did fine. You saw something there that got a reaction. And sometimes, getting a reaction is all we need.”
She glanced back at the window. Ahanu was gone.
“Come on,” Rafsky said.
Joe followed him back to the car, her head still stuck on the odd expression on Ahanu’s face when she spoke of the bones.
“Something scared him,” she said.
“The symbols could be just a time marker, like the killer was leaving a mark of what month he killed.”
“There could be more carvings,” Joe said.
Rafsky nodded. “I already told the search team to look for others. Nothing yet.”
Joe was quiet.
“What it is?” Rafsky asked.
“I don’t know. Just a feeling. I just know he was scared of something.”
Rafsky opened the car door, laid his jacket inside, and leaned his elbows on the roof. “We need to find the other symbols and what they mean. You want that assignment?”
“Sure,” she said.
“You got it, then.”
18
Ojibwa or Ottawa?”
Joe stared at the librarian. “I’m not sure.”
The woman behind the counter looked at Joe over her glasses. “We have several tribes that are indigenous to the peninsula. Maybe if you could be more specific?”
Joe sighed. “I’m sorry. How about if you just give me everything you have?”
The librarian gave a small shrug. “All right, but it might take me a while. Why don’t you take one of those study carrels over there?”
Joe looked to a series of doors with pebbled glass windows. The inside was just big enough for a wooden table and chair. Joe took off her hat and set it on the table. She could hear the hiss of the steam heat rising from the old radiator, and after a moment, she unsnapped her windbreaker and took it off.
She sat there, waiting, sweating, wondering how long this old stone fortress of a library had been here. The library was on Sixth Street in Traverse City, set down among the dowager mansions built in the nineteenth century by the city’s logging barons. She was thinking, too, about Brad. His clinic was only a couple of blocks away. They had made a date to meet for lunch after she was done.
The fluorescent light flickered and hummed. Joe was about to go find the librarian when the woman came in and dropped a big stack of books on the table.
“This is everything we have on Indian lore. There’s Ojibwa, Ottawa, Peshaba, and Anishinabeg.”
Fifteen books. Joe thanked the woman, the door closed, and she was alone.
The small room grew close and hot as she labored through the books. Most were arid scholarly accounts of Leelanau’s history. Others were picaresque personal records of the Indian culture written by settlers, interesting but nothing that illuminated what Thomas Ahanu had offered. Joe was about to give up when she found a slim, tattered volume written by an Ojibwa chief reprinted by the local historical society. It talked about how the Ojibwas were descendants of the Anishinabegs, an ancient tribe whose name meant “the real people” of the Great Lakes basin and whose unifying native language was Algonquian.
The close heat of the room was lulling, and she was about to close the book when a paragraph caught her eye:
Anishinabeg life revolved around an annual cycle of activities determined by the seasons and food supplies. With the coming of the heavy snows and the bitter cold of winter, came the Hunger Moon, with its limited supply of fish and the ice cover that stopped all lake and river canoe travel.
Joe sat upright. She quickly scanned the account, but there was nothing more about moons. She flipped through the rest of the slender book and then stopped. Drawings. Twelve of them, one for each month.
JANUARY Snow Moon
FEBRUARY Hunger Moon
MARCH Crow Moon
APRIL Wild Goose Moon
MAY Planting Moon
JUNE Rose Moon
JULY Thunder Moon
AUGUST Green Corn Moon
SEPTEMBER Hunting Moon
OCTOBER Falling Leaf Moon
NOVEMBER Mad Moon
DECEMBER Long Night Moon
She let out a breath as she stared at the February Hunger Moon symbol. That was the one carved on the oak tree, that much she was sure of. The other one? It didn’t seem to match any of the symbols in the book. She tore off a piece of scrap paper to mark the page.
She was gathering up the books when a pamphlet caught her eye. The title was “Lore and Customs of the Algonquian Speaking Tribes.” She flipped through it, looking for more moon references. She stopped at a heading called “Mad with Hunger.”
In the depths of the forest, deep down into no man’s land, are tales of terror that would make the boldest of men shiver. Tales of inhuman things, supernatural things, savage things. Strange creatures dwell in the deepest, darkest forests in the world, but stranger still are the ones that live inside of man, inner beasts more fearsome than anything else. One such creature is the Windigo. Or as the Algonquian root word calls it, “Witiku.”
The legend of the Windigo is well known among the Algonquian speaking tribes. No monster or “evil spirit” evokes so much fear in these people. Windigo is usually associated with winter, what the Algonquian tribes call the Hunger Moon. Most “cases” of Windigos are heard of during these cold months, probably because the lack of food is felt the most during these times, bringing cannibalism along with them. Most tales say that the Windigo rides with the winter wind, howling inhuman screams, others that the Windigo is made of ice and cold, a creature with a heart of ice, incapable of feeling human emotions.
Joe sat back in her chair, staring at the title: “Mad with Hunger.” No way could she bring this back to Rafsky. He’d laugh her right off the case.
She flipped the page and went back to skim-reading the other entries about Ojibwa lore. She paused again, a familiar word in the chapter about language catching her eyes: “Leelanau.”
There are many theories about the origin of the name Leelanau, and many attribute it to a corruption of an ancient Indian word meaning “Delight of Life.”
Joe thought of Rafsky getting his local history lesson with his morning coffee from the waitress at the Early Bird. She read on:
But many people believe the true origin of the name Leelanau came from an old Ojibwa legend about a beautiful Indian maiden who ran away from home to spend time in a sacred grove deep in the woods by Lake Michigan. On one trip, she said a prayer:
Spirit of the dancing leaves,
Hear a throbbing heart that grieves
Not for joys this world can give
But for the life that spirits live.
Her prayer was answered, and she disappeared from her home forever and went to live in her enchanted haunted grove. The name of the legend was Leelinau or “The Lost Daughter.”
Joe stared at the book in stunned silence. Maybe it was just the closed room, but she suddenly felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She gathered up all the books and quickly left.
19
Joe pulled open the door to the Early Bird, her eyes tearing in the sudden burst of warm air. She blinked and scanned the row of booths for Rafsky. He was seated near the back, staring out the window.
She shivered as she walked to him. She had thought Cleveland was cold when the winds came off Lake Erie, but it was nothing like the gusts off Lake Michigan. Bigger and bluer and deeper, Lake Michigan could bestow soul-warming sunsets but it was equally capable of unleashing wrathful winter screams that could drive men mad.
Joe dropped into the booth, shoving her pile of library books to the side as she unwrapped the scarf from her neck.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, trying to tuck her hair back into the ponytail. She gave up, looking around for a cup of coffee.
Rafsky signaled the waitress, and she appeared instantly with a cup. Joe grabbed it with both hands, taking small sips. Over the rim, she saw Rafsky watching her, a small smile tipping his lips.
“You look half frozen,” he said.
“So much for an Indian summer,” she said, taking two gulps of the coffee and looking around for the waitress for a refill.
“Speaking of Indians,” Rafsky said, “what did you find out?”
Joe pulled out the book written by the Ojibwa chief. She opened it to the page with the twelve moon symbols and pushed it across the table.
“Twelve months, twelve symbols, just like Thomas Ahanu said,” Joe said.
“So this is Hunger Moon,” Rafsky said, pointing. “That’s definitely the carving on the big oak tree. You got a photo of the other carving, the one that looks like a jack-o’-lantern?”
Joe dug through the papers she had stuck in one of the books and found the photograph of the second carving. Rafsky studied it before looking up at her. “What’s your thought?” he asked.
She tapped the book page. “It could be this one, for September, Hunting Moon.”
“Or it might just be a crude version of the Hunger Moon,” he said.
“That would give us two carvings for February,” Joe said.
“When did the Newton girl disappear?”
“We don’t know exactly. But Dorothy Newton told us she last talked to Natalie sometime in early February. But then Natalie was supposed to be going away for spring break. We haven’t tracked down the roommates yet to verify anything.”
“I’ll get one of the men to handle that.” Rafsky took a drink of his coffee.
“The charm bracelet doesn’t belong to either Natalie or Annabelle,” Joe said.
Rafsky just nodded.
Joe sat back in the booth, feeling another shiver ripple her shoulders despite the fact she hadn’t taken off her jacket. She let her gaze drift to the window and for a few minutes she watched the people. Most of the leaf peepers were gone now, leaving only those hearty souls who lived here year-round to brave the coming winter.
Joe spotted Mindy Villella crossing the street, holding the collar of her parka closed against the wind. The photograph that Theo had developed of the teenage girl on the hood of the cruiser flashed back to Joe and she wondered again about Mike and his off-duty life. She still hadn’t had the chance to tell him she had the picture.
“I need to eat,” Rafsky said, pulling her attention back. “You want something? My treat.”
Joe thought about Brad. After finding the books in the library, she had immediately called Rafsky. He had asked to meet her for lunch so they could go over them. Brad had tried to sound understanding when she called to cancel their lunch date. Then he told her he had to work late again tonight. She promised him she’d wait so they could have a late dinner together.
“I’ll have a ham and Swiss on rye,” she said.
Rafsky flagged the waitress again and gave her their orders. When he turned back to Joe, he seemed to be studying her, and it made her uncomfortable. She used the excuse of taking off her jacket so as to not look at him.
Rafsky opened the book again, and Joe sipped her coffee as he thumbed through. “You find anything else in here we can use?”
“Well, like Ahanu said, the Hunger Moon is a symbol of survival in a season of starvation,” she said.
Rafsky’s eyes came up when she didn’t go on. “I hear an ‘and’ in your voice.”
When the waitress brought their food, Joe was glad for the interruption. A part of her wanted to tell him about the Windigo myth, but what was she supposed to say? Well, sir, I think we have a cannibalistic monster that lives in the forest and is driven beyond all human comprehension to eat his victims.
Rafsky was carefully taking apart his BLT and arranging the bacon and tomatoes in different layers. “Tell me what’s on your mind, Frye,” he said without looking up. “I won’t bite.”
She cleared her throat. “Well, sir, there’s this Algonquian legend. It’s about this creature that lives in the woods, and—” She pulled in a breath. “The creature stalks people during winter, eating them to survive.”
Rafsky looked up.
“The Algonquins call it the Witiku, or the Windigo.”
He slowly put the toasted bread atop the sandwich. His pale blue eyes, interested but cautious, gave her hope that he wasn’t going to laugh at her.
“The Windigo is considered just a folklore story by white people, like Big Foot,” she said. “But for many centuries, the Indians believed Windigos really existed.”
“If you were reading Thomas Ahanu right, some still do,” Rafsky said.
She pointed to the photograph of the carving. “The Windigo hunts during the Hunger Moon, when survival is hardest for animals or humans. It’s too big a coincidence to have the symbol for February on the tree closest to the bones.”
Rafsky took a bite of his sandwich and then a long drink of coffee. “So this creature is supposed to be what, like a werewolf?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Similar but different. Creatures like the Windigo show up in many cultures. Did you have to read Beowulf in college?”
Rafsky smiled slightly. “Didn’t go to college.”
She smiled back before she continued. “Well, you were saved from Grendel.”
“Grendel was a Windigo?”
“Distant relative.”
Rafsky took another bite of his BLT. “Go on.”
“The Windigo legend is unique to this area and Canada. The details vary from tribe to tribe, but the basic idea is always the same. The Windigo starts out as a normal human being. Maybe a hunter who gets lost in the woods, or someone who gets stranded, runs out of food during the long winter, and has to turn to cannibalism to survive.”
Joe noticed he had put down his sandwich.
“Once they have eaten human flesh, they become inhabited by the victim’s spirit and then are forever drawn to cannibalism,” she said. “They become violent, and even if they try to be normal, the need to eat human flesh always comes back. Some people who believe they are Windigo-possessed try to stop by isolating themselves in the deep woods, away from people. Some commit suicide to stop.”
