The Orbit: The Online Drive-in of Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale

In the cold, wet, blowing snow, the Reverend Jedidiah Mercer rode his horse and led his pack mule into the midst of it. It was as if God, the mean dictator for whom he worked, had taken the world in hand and filled it with slush and ice and shook it like a petulant child.

When at last the wind shifted, he could see the world again. He was high up in the Rockies. The tips of mountains were coated in snow and the trail he was on was narrow. It was easy enough to traverse when his vision was clear, but as he rounded a precarious curve, the snow dumped again, forcing him to pull his mount and lead his mule close to the side of a rock wall. Only a few feet away to his right was a deep drop-off that fell into a cluster of snow-coated trees, and between the boughs of those trees was a long, cold drop and eventually a hard bottom of solid rock.

He cinched up the lead rope on the mule and managed it around the curve of the mountain. The wind shifted again, and for a brief moment there was a part in the blowing snow. He could see where the trail rose up and near the top of it was a red haze, like a burning match seen through greasy glass. It was a large cave and there was fire inside. There were people as well, squatted together around the fire. He only glimpsed them, and then the snow blew hard and they were wiped from view.

The Reverend heard a dribbling sound, realized it was falling gravel, small rocks, slipping ice, and then he felt a tug on the mule’s rope, and then the rope burned through his hands.

The beast was sliding over the side of the trail and away into oblivion. Within an instant, the rope was gone and the Reverend held nothing but a clenched fist. It felt less like the mule slid away, and more like it was snatched away.

Most of his supplies for crossing the Rockies on his way farther west had been strapped on that mule’s back. Now those supplies and his mule were at the bottom of a cliff. The mule had not made a sound.

The Reverend reined his mount to a stop, slipped off his horse and led the beast. He did this by putting one hand out to his left to feel the rock wall, clutched the reins in his other. He kept as close to the rock wall as possible, aware there could still be surprises. Breaks in the trail, a narrowing of it, but to stop moving and stay where they were was sheer, frozen death.

He felt he had to make it up to the cave where the fire burned, place himself among the people there. The cave might help him and his horse ride out the blizzard.

It was like a blind man threading a needle, but he managed up the trail, and soon he saw the light of the fire again, a crimson glow against the snow. The sight of it would come and go as the wind puffed and gusted, wild and white, wet and cold.

He trudged upwards, and soon the fire and cave were visible again, as were those nestled around it. A couple of the men in the group stood up as he arrived. Another, a bearded man, stayed squatted close to the fire. The remaining two occupants were a woman and a boy, sitting close together, a blanket wrapped around them.

The Reverend stopped outside the entrance to the cave. The logs in the fire were popping and crackling with a sound like a man snapping peanuts free from their shell.

“Do you got food?” one of the standing men said. He was a big fellow in a thick buffalo coat that made him seem even bigger. He wore boots topped with rabbit fur, a thick leather hat. He had pushed his great coat open. It was lined with a checkered blanket. His hand was on the butt of his pistol, which looked to be an old converted .44. He was slightly crouched. The Reverend believed him to be a man who thought he knew what he was doing.

The other man was short and thin. He had grown so thin and pale, blue veins could be seen in his face, like colored pencil marks on a map. His coat was thinner than the other and made of leather that had turned dark and was stained from time and wear. He had on a black slouch hat with a hole in the crown. He removed his hand from the butt of his pistol and let it hang at his side.

“It’d be right nice if you did have some food,” the small, thin man said. “We done boiled and ate damn near everything that’s leather except what we’re wearing. Horses and mules had to go, too, as did a hog and a flock of chickens we was hauling out to start a farm. We ate the goddamn seeds we had for planting. There goes the turnip crop, the beans and peas and squash, as well.”

“Those were our seeds,” said the woman.

“Well,” the skinny man said. “We all ate them.”

The Reverend carefully observed the others, knowing from experience that those who did not appear threatening could be the ones to worry about. The other man was older than the rest, had a thick beard. He wore a drooping, wide-brimmed hat and a weasel-hide coat. If he had a pistol it was either under his coat or in one of the wide coat pockets. His head was turned to look at the Reverend. His massive beard was flecked with snow and ice and time’s gray marks.

The woman had on a hooded coat. Her hair poked out from under the hood and was dark as the bottom of a coal mine. Her face was like an animal looking out of its den. She was delicate, except for her dark eyes that appeared to contain some reservoir of strength.

The boy he thought to be twelve or thirteen. He had black, scraggly hair and was snuggled close to the woman. His mouth, like the others, was cracked and bloody from the cold. From the color of the boy’s hair and eyes, the Reverend decided they were mother and child.

“About that food?” said the bearded man at the fire.

“To be exact, gentlemen, much of my chuck and supplies were on a mule that made a misstep and took flight off the mountainside and into the void, like Icarus with melting wings, but in this case, with frozen ass.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said the big man in the buffalo coat.

“He’s talking metaphor,” said the skinny man. “I heard a preacher talk about metaphor and how it’s a lot of what the Bible is. Still, I don’t know who that Icarus is.”

“I’m talking truth,” said the Reverend. “My mule fell off a cliff.”

“Why didn’t you just say that?” said the big man, the one the Reverend had come to think of as Buffalo Coat. The other standing man he decided to think of as Skinny. The man by the fire became Bearded Man, and the other two were Woman and Boy. It might be best not to know names. If things went sideways, it was best not to have names for what you might have to eat.

“Let me start with a friendly suggestion,” said the Reverend. He looked right at Bearded Man. “Remove your hand from the butt of your pistol. Be assured I will not ask you twice. If you do not, I will consider you hostile, and will put a bullet, perhaps two, through your head.”

The man eyed the Reverend for a moment, but any show of strength in his face faded. He straightened from his crouch and dropped his hand away. His coat fell around him and concealed the pistol.

“Who the hell are you?” Buffalo Coat said.

“Call me Reverend. This is my horse, Bill.”

“A goddamn preacher,” Skinny said. “I’d have preferred a gambler with a deck of cards, even if I got nothing to gamble.”

“Well, you have me,” the Reverend said.

Without asking permission, the Reverend led Bill around the fire and inside the cave. At the back of the cave the warmth of the fire could still be felt, even if the cave ceiling was tall and wide and pretty long. It was a relatively cozy spot.

The Reverend prepared to hobble Bill with the hobble ropes that were fastened to his saddle. He did this while keeping a cautious eye on his new companions.

He pushed his black duster coat back over his matching ivory-handled pistols in their black leather holsters. He wanted to discourage any sort of confrontation, because he sensed a tension in the air that was cold as the snow.

The Reverend was proud of his pistols. He had recently bought them from a peculiar gunsmith who said they were haunted and had belonged to Wild Bill Hickok, shortly before his demise. He said the spirit of the gunfighter’s aim was in the guns. Said they should always be loaded with silver bullets. That was something the Reverend did anyway. Went with his line of work.

As for them being the pistols of Wild Bill Hickok, the Reverend considered this a bullshit selling point to jack up the price, but he liked the pistols and didn’t regret the gunsmith’s subterfuge, if indeed it was. The guns did feel strange in his hands. He had yet to kill anyone with them, but shooting targets with them was a delight. He was an excellent shot, but when he fired these pistols he felt as if he were an even better one.

As he leaned down to fasten the hobbles to his horse’s ankles, he noted a large pile of firewood, which was a good thing. He also saw a cache of charred bones not far from them. Some of the bones were those of a horse, and some were of a human: broken femurs and a skull that had been smashed open at the top, like a kid shattering a piggy bank to get at the loot inside. The Reverend made no recognition of this. He removed his lantern from the saddle. It was contained in a thick, leather bag. He placed it against the cave wall. He never lit it unless he had to. He wanted to keep the coal-oil content as full as possible, in case it really became necessary to see in the night, if the moon and stars were not in sight, if a campfire was not enough. The lantern itself he had washed several times in Holy Water. Water that, if to do its duty, had to be blessed by someone other than himself. He was not that holy.

He removed his horse’s blanket and saddle and sat them against the back wall next to the lantern. He took time to curry Bill with a brush from a bag that dangled from the saddle horn. The others watched him as if he were a bear doing human things. He pulled the saddlebags off the back of the saddle, threw them over his shoulder, and headed toward the fire.

“Food?” said the woman.

This time the Reverend answered. “Some.”

He rummaged in one of the bulging saddlebag pouches and pulled out a fat mound of waxed paper wrapped around strips of beef jerky. He gave a piece to everyone. They all squatted around the fire and ate. The Reverend took a piece for himself, carefully wrapped the paper around the dried meat and put it away.

They watched him as he did this. He knew he’d have to be alert, or they would not only take the jerky, but eat him as well. From the bones in the back, he was certain they had already resorted to cannibalism, but the question was had they eaten a fellow pilgrim that had died, or had they killed to eat? One he could understand, but of the other he was less tolerant, especially if he might be on the menu.

An old sailor who had been marooned on an island told him that he and three others had been trapped in what seemed like a tropical paradise, but they couldn’t catch fish. They didn’t seem to be as prevalent there as expected. They lived off wild greens and fruits, an occasional crab, but nothing much edible was in abundance. When members of their group died, they ate them, raw. Cut them open and pulled out the guts and the innards, cut the flesh in strips and ate it. The old man said the strips of flesh were chewy, but tasty, and he developed quite an appreciation for it.

In the end, he said it was only him and another, and that they watched each other like hawks, hoping one or the other would die. He admitted he occasionally considered helping the other to do just that. Said he was so hungry he could see cornbread walking on the ground.

Fortunately, a ship found them, and he and his island companion were rescued. He never saw his companion after their return to civilization, but for a short time they were both famous as Robinson Crusoe. He never went to sea again. Worked the docks. Never mentioned what happened to the others until he was an old man and read that his surviving companion had died. Somehow that set him free to tell his tale.

“You know,” the old, marooned sailor said, “I still have me a hankering for a strip of that raw people-meat. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had anything as tasty. Of course, maybe I was just hungry.”

The Reverend had never forgotten the story. There was also the fact eventually he had to kill the old man, but that was for righteous reasons and had nothing to do with cannibalism.

“How long have you been trapped here?” the Reverend asked.

“No idea, exactly,” said the woman. “But a long time.”

The older man said, “We were crossing the mountains, trying to get out West. We took a wrong cut-off.”

“As did I,” the Reverend said.

“We were trapped in the pass for maybe a month or more,” said the woman. “We had plenty of supplies at first. Plenty of feed for the horses. And then we didn’t. We ate what we could find. The men hunted. We scrounged for anything edible, even the bark off trees.”

“That bark was better than I would have thought,” said the boy.

“Hell,” said Buffalo Coat, “we picked grain out of our horse’s shit to eat. Even that tasted pretty good. What I want to know is how come you look so good, and you got that sleek horse?”

“I got trapped in a valley, and it wasn’t terrible there. There was plenty of game and the snow wasn’t so bad, but I couldn’t get out until the other day, and when I did, I soon wished I’d stayed. The storm that had gone away came back with a vengeance. I believe I’d have been alright had I stayed on the original trail, but I’d heard of this cut-off, that it took days off the trip. It might in fact do that if the weather is perfect and you hold your mouth just right. Left the valley too early, decided on the wrong trail, and here I am.”

“We studied the trail you was on,” Buffalo Coat said. “Decided it might be worse than here. Cave is at least a sight better than being out in the bad weather. Thing is, though, we ain’t got no supplies.”

“You probably made a better choice,” the Reverend said. “If the snow were to blow over and out, the ice melt some, then I’d try and go back the way I came. But not otherwise. That trail takes the brunt of the North Wind. And it is narrow as the edge of a butcher’s knife.”

“Up here, there hasn’t been a break in the snow in weeks, maybe it’s been months,” said Buffalo Coat. “Oh, there was that one day when we could see the sun. I remember. I had gone out of the cave to shit, was squatted doing my business, and the sun hit me like a bullet. It was so warm for a couple of minutes, I thought I’d cry. Instead, I looked through my shit for something edible. I think I found a seed. The sun got covered in clouds and the wind blew snow, and that moment was gone.”

“Don’t talk like that in front of a lady,” said Bearded Man.

“She ain’t no lady no more,” Buffalo Coat said. “Ain’t none of us nothing more than survivors.”

No one challenged this. Night slithered out of the sky and began to choke out the sun. The Reverend noted that, as it did, all the pilgrims looked at the gathering darkness as if watching themselves bleed out.

“At least it’s nice and warm in here,” the Reverend said.

“We chopped some trees growing alongside the cave,” Bearded Man said. “There’s no more to chop. This wood runs out, then it’s just us and the cold and that won’t play out so well. And then there’s the real reason we’ve stayed here close to the fire.”

“And what would that be?” the Reverend said.

“IT,” said the woman.

There was a loud cracking of ice out in the night. Everyone looked into the darkness.

“It’s out there, and it’s coming closer,” she said. “But it doesn’t like fire. We have to seal the entrance with it. We do it every night. Why the wood goes quick.”

The Reverend helped them spread the fire-licked wood about so that the front of the cave had a barrier of flame in front of it. Bearded Man and Skinny went to the back of the cave and pulled some firewood forward, stacked it on the fire.

When that was done, Bearded Man squatted back down by the fire, looked out of the cave at the night. “It don’t come in daylight, but just night. It always does. It’s hungry, like us.”

The wind sighed. All that could be seen from the mouth of the cave was the swirling of the snow. The Reverend sniffed. There was a stench of evil the Reverend knew so well. It had a stink not common to human experience. Even with all that he had faced, vampires, werewolves, walking dead, and monsters from the edges of time, he felt his skin crawl.

Bearded Man said, “We have another day or two of firewood. Like Jane said, it doesn’t like fire, though it’s gotten bolder of late. Comes closer.”

“Jane,” the Reverend said, now having a name to call her. “Can you tell me more about this IT?”

“You’ll think we’re crazy, but you’ll know soon enough what I say is true,” she said.

“I’ve seen strange things in my time,” the Reverend said. “You might say strange things are my business.”

“Very well,” Jane said. “We started out in fine weather, and there was a much larger number of us, twenty or so. We had horses and mules and were well stocked. The trip was fine. Then Mr. Meeker thought we might do better to take a shortcut he’d been told about. It would cut days, even weeks off our travels, he said. But it was only a good way to go when the weather was good, and it wasn’t good. We were trapped by bad weather, and after some time we begin to run out of food. We were eating bark off trees and eating all our leather. Of course, the horses and mules were killed and eaten, and then it was just us.”

“You don’t have to say,” Bearded Man said.

“It’s all right,” Jane said. “I’m not happy about it, but I’m not ashamed either. We began to eat the dead, Reverend. Meeker was the first. I know how that must sound to a man of God.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“Then it went from worse to worst. Someone among us began to kill. They would strike in the night, drag their victim off in the woods. Next morning, we’d see bloody drag marks in the snow. Whoever killed their pick for the night ate all of them, save for a few bones. Can you imagine? One person eating a whole human body in one night, leaving only crushed skulls where the brains were taken out. Leg and arm bones cracked and the marrow sucked. Of course, when one of us died, it was understood they would be eaten by the rest of us. It was a matter of who was to be last. That was letting nature take its course, but this was someone outside of nature. And he wasn’t sharing. We quickly realized the killer was Gabriel Johnson. He was a terrible man to begin with, before he became what he became. Greedy and lustful, a thief and other things worse that were rumored.”

The Reverend said, “It is known there are mountain spirits, spirits of the cold and snow and the cutting wind. Starving spirits that seek a host. They prefer the malicious, the desperate, and the greedy. We all have those components, but they float at a higher level in some.”

“Gabriel Johnson was all those things,” Jane said. “Always eating more than his fair share and talking about how he planned to open up a mining-camp store when we got out West, jack up the prices for goods, water the whiskey. He asked me if I wanted a job serving miners, and he wasn’t referring to me waiting tables. He was proud of that kind of thinking. As we traveled, he kept apart from us more and more. Would wander into the forest alone.

“He was stealing flour and salt and smoked meats from our stock. A little at a time at first, and then a lot. By the time we found out it was too late. He had stashed it away. We went to confront him, but he disappeared into the dark. Didn’t come out during the day. At night he would call to us. Taunt us. But over time he sounded strange. Like himself, but not exactly. I know how this will sound, but he became immune to the cold. He was never around the fire. And when we did catch a glimpse of him, moving between the trees, in spite of having our supplies and having killed and eaten folks in our group, he was thin. Skeletal.”

“His eyes were odd,” Bearded Man said. “They glowed in the night, but could turn dead black in a moment.”

“Got so we didn’t see Johnson,” Jane said. “Merely saw his shadow. It would fall down on the snow just before complete dark. But he wasn’t to be seen. Just that shadow. Then the night would come in solid and the shadow would blend with it. It was unnerving.

“Then one night a man lit a torch, stepped outside the heat and light of the campfire. In the torchlight we could see the shadow rise on hands and knees, then scuttle off like a lizard. Then it rose up and ran, like a human, but it was growing in size as it went. And the snow was flying to it. Almost immediately the shadow was turned into a creature made of snow. It ran off into the woods. It sure didn’t like that torch, the light and the heat from it.

“From then on it would come in the night. It would call in Johnson’s voice, and there was a smell about it. I noticed you wrinkle your nose. That is the smell, right there. Right now. And then we’d see it coming closer. Not right up to the fire, but close enough for us to see there was no more Mr. Johnson. It was a kind of snow man. And it was hungry. It would whistle and stomp and frighten the few mules we had left. They tugged their halters loose. And then they were gone. Johnson would get to them some way or another.

“We built bigger fires. And we kept the mules close to it. It helped. But we had to eat the last of the mules ourselves. Then this thing followed us as we moved along. Oh, maybe not during the daylight, but it would catch up come night. Nightfall, it made promises in Johnson’s voice. Some of our group couldn’t keep from leaving the fire and going off in the woods. Starving, exhausted, not thinking straight, they lost their will. They walked out into the dark and never came back.”

“And then we came to this cave,” Bearded Man said. “We only have the front of it to guard. The fire takes care of that. We’re down to nothing to eat, and my belly is full of empty. Perhaps giving Johnson what it wants is better than starving to death.”

“No,” the Reverend said. “It isn’t. Your soul will continue to be pained after your death. What’s out there isn’t Johnson. He’s its catalyst and host, but now he’s something other than what he was. Johnson has become that mountain spirit I mentioned. It’s called the Wendigo.”

“Wendigo,” the boy said.

“The Indians know of it. The Cree, Ojibwe. The tribes that live in cold places and have known starvation and darkness. The Wendigo goes by many names. It kills and cannibalizes. It entices others to do the same. It’s a taboo that breaks a soul down. Untethers it so that it may more easily fly away. But it’s not a flight to escape. It’s a flight into darkness and eternal pain. Johnson was chosen to become its host because of who he is, or was. The Wendigo exists without a host, but its powers are limited. Cold wind. Hunger. That’s all it has until it occupies a soul. Then it lives off other souls and becomes stronger. It’s never satisfied. It is always hungry for meat and for human essence.”

“None among us are innocent of ravenous hunger. Starvation,” Bearded Man said.

“But we didn’t murder for it,” Buffalo Coat said. “Though I admit it has crossed my mind. Just as a thought, you see. Those that died. That was different. We were starving, and it was the only thing to do. Not let the meat go to waste when we could eat and live and not die out here with ice on our bones. But the other, you know, sometimes I think about it.”

“That’s the Wendigo,” the Reverend said. “It gives those urges to you.”

“It calls out for us to break apart the circle of fire and let it in,” the boy said.

“And sometimes we want to,” Skinny said. “There is something about that voice. It promised we could eat. That we would have all the food we wanted. Way that thing talked, you almost believed what it was saying. Then you would see it standing outside the fire, bigger each time. In the morning we would find the bones of bears and elk and all manner of beasts. Now and again, someone would make the mistake of listening to that thing, and would go mad, go outside the fire. Next morning, their bones and blood were on the snow. Sometimes there was a bit of meat still on the bones.”

“We took some of those bones,” Jane said. “God forgive us all.”

“God is a soulless terror,” the Reverend said. “His will is my business, and His will is one of suffering and pain. It’s hard to know what His plan is, or if there is one. There’s no end to His punishments. I deserve them. But He doles them out to the good and the bad, the sinners and those without sin, in equal amounts. He is both God and Satan. He’s unreliable in his intentions.”

“Blasphemy,” said Buffalo Coat.

“Perhaps, but you don’t know Him as well as I do,” the Reverend said.

“Still, we ate human flesh,” Jane said. “And if someone died, I would do it again. I would feed it to my boy by my own hand. What does that say about me?”

“It says you are hungry,” the Reverend said.

“Bones in the back, ones I saw you eyeing,” Bearded Man said. “They belong to Old Man Carruthers. He was a good man. He knew his fate. He was dying, and he knew we were eyeing his flesh as if we were in a meat market. We had already killed and eaten his horse. He told us to think of him as a gift.”

“You did what you had to do,” the Reverend said. “Johnson did what he wanted to do. I can assure you of that. Had he not, there would be no Wendigo following you. Johnson fit the bill for what the Wendigo needed. No doubt about that. He was a Wendigo’s dream. If indeed they dream. The Wendigo is the opposite of warmth. That’s why the fire holds it back. But even so, in time, it can become bolder. You want to survive, then you will have to leave this cave. Take your chances traveling. Possibly find game. Building fires as you go. We can find fallen wood as we travel, and I have plenty of lucifers to strike up a fire with me. They are well wrapped in wax paper and made waterproof inside an oiled water-shedding pouch. I also have flint and steel. You can stay here and die, or you can take a chance and leave. I’ll be leaving soon. Stay if you like, but if you go with me, from that moment on I will make the choices for all of us.”

“What gives you the right?” Buffalo Coat said.

“I take the right and do not ask your permission,” the Reverend said. “If you have a different point of view, you may express it, but it will do you no good. I can leave you and be fine. And if you come with me, I can offer you no guarantees. Just the sum of my knowledge, which, to be immodest, in these matters is considerable.”

There was a cracking sound like a limb burdened by too much snow, and then a more terrible stench than before. A stench like a pit full of rotting meat and vegetables, overlayed by a too-sweet smell of fermenting fruit. The fire wavered as if pushed by the wind. But there was no wind. The Reverend’s horse nickered. Then came a voice, strangely close and simultaneously distant. The mere sound of it chilled the bones.

The voice said, “Pull back the fire. Let a cold man in.”

“It’s Johnson,” Skinny said.

“It’s the Wendigo,” the Reverend said.

There was a laugh more like a cackle, and now the wind was back. It twirled the snow and danced the flames. The cackle seemed to tumble downhill and away, crashing along like dropped dishes shattering on the rocks below.

The Reverend stood from his squat and rested his hands on his revolvers, tried to see through the high-burning fire. And he did see something. Something that had a near-human shape, but larger. It shifted, and then it was nothing more than the twirling of the driven snow and a lingering reek that made the stomach shift.

“When we run out of wood, it’ll get in,” said the boy.

“It’s all right,” the woman said, but the boy was not reassured. He looked out at the dark as if he were about to mount the gallows.

Some time passed. The odor dissolved. There were no more voices. Buffalo Coat, who had been squatting, stood up, took off his hat and held it politely in front of him as he spoke to the Reverend.

“May we eat your horse?”

“No,” said the Reverend. “And if you try to harm that horse, it will be you who is eaten.”

“All right, then,” Buffalo Coat said, and put his hat back on.

* *. *

They built up the fire, and though there was still wood, the Reverend could see that one more night and that would be it. A small fire would not contain IT. Bother IT, perhaps, but not contain IT. Over time no fire would hold IT. There were other methods, but even they had their limits. He would consider those later.

The Reverend curried his horse and put oats in a feed bag and fed him. He fastened a cloth over Bill’s face and eyes to soothe him, then unrolled his blankets and sat with his back against the cave wall and drew his blankets over him. Back there, away from the fire, it was cooler, but not exactly cold. Comfortable enough, all things considered.

He pulled his revolvers and clutched them by his sides under the blankets. Kept a loose eye on Buffalo Coat. The big man was sitting near the fire with his back against the side of the cave. He was watching the Reverend, waiting for him to drift off, the Reverend figured. Skinny was doing the same, eyeing him like a greasy porkchop soon to be dipped in blood gravy. Their own weaknesses and the power of the Wendigo were having an effect.

The Reverend pulled his hat down so that it partially covered his eyes, but he could still see. He was exhausted and feared he would drift off. If he did, if they moved toward him, his horse, Bill, would hear them and snort and stamp. It wasn’t exactly like having a watchdog, but it was some comfort.

* *. *

The Reverend catnapped. But when Bill snorted and stamped, he came wide awake. Buffalo Coat and Skinny stood close by, awkwardly looking at him. The others were asleep near the fire.

“Howdy there,” Buffalo Coat said.

“I will warn you but once, gentlemen. If you make your move, you’ll never make another. Go to the fire and stay there. I see your hand on your gun, or you come close again while I’m resting, I will shoot you without investigation or guilt.”

Buffalo Coat pushed his coat open to reveal his pistol. “You talk a good game, Reverend, but I think you’re all blow.”

That was when the Reverend moved. Flipping the blanket aside and bringing up his revolver in his left hand, he fired. A hole appeared in the middle of Buffalo Coat’s head and there was a spray of blood and brains flying toward the fire like a clutch of insects. Buffalo Coat fell backward and hit with his ankles crossed.

Jane, the boy, and Bearded Man were suddenly awake, sitting up. They looked at the Reverend and the body with open mouths.

The Reverend waved the gun at Skinny. “You take out your pistol and you lay it at my feet, so I don’t have to get up and take it from you or give you a third eye like loudmouth there. You have another gun, let me assure you, you had best divest yourself of it. I find you are carrying after this moment, then I’ll kill you.”

“Yessir,” Skinny said and gently pulled his pistol with his thumb and forefinger and laid it on the ground. “Is it okay if

we eat him?”

“That is your prerogative.”

“We’ll save you a piece.”

“No. I will maintain. Jane, boy, I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“It’s all right,” said the boy. “I didn’t like him, and I’m hungry. And I done seen worse.”

All of them had left the fire and were creeping toward Buffalo Coat’s body. “I claim the coat,” said Skinny.

“No,” the Reverend said. “That belongs to the lady.”

“Who says it belongs to her?” Skinny said.

“Who did you hear?” the Reverend said. Skinny nodded.

“Boy,” the Reverend said. “Bring me that pistol. And bring me the one underneath the buffalo coat.”

The boy brought both pistols to him, then hurriedly returned to Buffalo Coat’s body.

The others had begun to pull off the dead man’s coat and were removing the dead man’s clothes. The coat was given to Jane as instructed.

“Take him closer to the fire,” the Reverend said. “I don’t want that going on near me.”

“You’ll grow hungry yourself,” Bearded Man said.

“I am not there yet. Do as you do, but not close to me.”

* *. *

By morning most of Buffalo Coat’s corpse had been cooked and devoured by the hungry travelers. The entire middle of the man had been cut open and his innards ripped out, blood and fecal matter from his body was all over the front of the cave, and the eaters were covered in blood. A blood-stained rib cage lay nearby.

Having slept very little, the Reverend was surprised at how refreshed he felt by the sunlight and the cessation of the blowing snow.

He fed Bill and tried not to step in horseshit. When finished, he walked over and kicked the rib cage through the fire and out into the snow. Then he edged the fire aside on one end with a stick of firewood and went outside the cave and looked at the snow. There were no tracks. That didn’t surprise him. A creature like the Wendigo wouldn’t leave any.

The snowy trail below had been replaced by ice. Trying to skirt down to it would be impossible. Even if they could make it, the trail was so precarious they would be trapped on it before nightfall, and there might not be a place as protective from the Wendigo as the cave. He had to find another route.

He stepped back inside the cave. “I’m going to take a look around. I will leave my horse where he is. If the horse is harmed, I will kill every last one of you without consideration. Understood?”

They all agreed it was understood.

“Sir,” said the boy, “may I go with you?”

“You may if your mother approves.”

The boy looked at her.

“I believe you may be safer with him than us,” she said.

The Reverend picked his saddlebags off the ground where he had used them as a pillow, threw them over his shoulders, thinking the jerky in his bags might be too much of a temptation for the group. There were other things in them as well: Silver bullets. A spare revolver. A few odds and ends of string and leather strips. He left the lantern.

The boy stood nearby, as if waiting for the school bell to ring. The Reverend said. “Do you have an axe?”

“We do,” said the boy. “We got a hatchet, too.”

“Get them both.”

A moment later, the Reverend and the boy stepped outside the cave. The boy was holding the axe and had the hatchet handle tucked through his belt. The air was as sharp as a razor and cold as a polar bear’s nuts.

There was a little trail that went up and around the back of the cave, then led farther up into the mountains. The Reverend started in that direction.

“Why go up there?” the boy said. “That leads back to the trail that brought us here. It’s just more of the same.”

“You did ask to come with me. If you are going to spend your time giving me pointers, perhaps you should stay in the cave.”

“Sorry.”

“We need to go higher to have a vigil where we may peek out at the land. Perhaps we can find fuel, as well as another path.”

Climbing, they ended up in a cluster of cedar trees, both short and tall. From that angle they could see down a five-acre wide, three-acre deep slope covered by a sheet of ivory colored ice. At the bottom of it was a mountain lake, also covered by ice. The water beneath it made the ice look sky-blue.

The Reverend considered the terrain. Beyond the lake was a trail that was considerably clearer of snow than the trail the Reverend had used to arrive at the cave. It split through the mountains. Boulders and trees bordered it on both sides. If one could get past the acres of slanting ice, cross the frozen lake, the trail looked to be a better way out. But the ice slope looked deadly. And how thick was the ice over the lake? Was it thick enough to walk on?

Unanswered questions.

“You thinking about that clearer trail down there, ain’t you?” the boy said.

“I am.”

“It might not be any better once you get down it a piece.”

“I was thinking the same, but unless we can chop an immense amount of wood daily, haul it to the cave, soon there will be no fire. Even if we can keep the fire going, there is no food, except one another. And, of course, there’s the Wendigo.”

“I have kind of gotten used to eating people,” the boy said.

“There is your mother. Should you eat her or she you?”

“I done told her she can eat me if I die.”

“Eventually, we will run out of people. There is only one choice, and I intend to make it: Leave. You and the others will do as you will. Give me the axe. We spend our time chattering, the day will run away from us.”

* *. *

They set about finding suitable trees or dead wood. After a few hours, the Reverend had a considerable pile of wood chopped and shortened. There was plenty of dead wood as well. The boy had used the hatchet to clear the chopped wood of limbs.

The Reverend used some of the evergreen limbs the boy had chopped and lashed them together with leather strips from his saddlebag. He added some green poles they had cut and turned them into runners.

The Reverend studied the boy. He seemed strong for all he had been through. Then again, on this very morning he had eaten a hearty meal of Buffalo Coat’s remains. That was bound to brace him a bit. Buffalo Coat’s blood was still on his face and stained the front of his coat.

“Now, saddle and bring my horse. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Evan,” the boy said.

“Evan, you may ride him back. But be careful of the trail.” After a while, Evan came back riding Bill, the hobbles fastened to the saddle horn. As Evan climbed down, the Reverend removed one of the two coils of rope he carried on his saddle.

He cut pieces off of it and used them to fasten together a travois made from the wood runners and limbs he had salvaged.

It was a simple device, the evergreen limbs fastened between the runners to make a bed for the wood. The Reverend then fastened the long runners to the sides of the saddle.

They loaded up the chopped logs, but there was still wood they had to leave due to lack of space and the device’s inability to carry huge loads. The Reverend let the boy lead the horse down the trail and back to the cave. It was slow work.

When they were inside the cave, they removed and stored the travois in back, stacked up the wood at the sides of the cave. “We going back for more?” Evan asked the Reverend. “We left some.”

“The day is darkening. We would do all right going, but coming back we might find ourselves in the dark with IT. We have plenty for the night, so let’s lay low and keep the fire high.”

The Reverend went to the rear of the cave and leaned his back against the rock wall. He took jerky from the saddlebags, chewed on a piece. Sitting by the fire, the others watched him, licked their cracked lips.

“You ate a whole man, just about,” the Reverend said. “Had some of him for lunch while me and Evan were occupied. If you are still hungry, I spied some toes and a hand you missed over there. But I warn you. Share. Me, I have not had any nourishment but this, so you can turn your gaze away.”

In short time the hand and toes were found, cooked, and eaten. The Reverend enjoyed the smell of the meat cooking.

* *. *

IT came in the night and called in Johnson’s voice, but IT made other noises as well, and the noises were enticing, like the flute-playing of the Pied Piper. No one succumbed.

IT prowled and called and darted in front of the cave, cackled, and was gone before daylight. When the first rays of morning came, the Reverend used his coffee grounds and the small pot he had wrapped in his bedroll to make coffee. He offered some to the others. Poured it in bowls and cups they provided. Skinny drank his from Buffalo Coat’s skull, from which all the flesh had been stripped. He gave them all a chunk of jerky from his saddlebags, then he and Evan went back up the hill with the horse and travois, loaded the wood that was left from the day before, and brought it back to the cave.

There was still plenty of daylight, so he and Evan returned with Bill to cut more wood, but this time the Reverend had the boy help him cut a large pine. When it fell it shook the snow and ice and caused birds to fly up and squirrels to scamper from the fallen top of the tree.

The Reverend took the axe and cut the tree in sections. The top section extended over the slope of ice. He cut the limbs off of it, and he and the boy chopped them up for kindling. Finished, they looked back at the icy slope, the blue lake sheeted by ice, the trail beyond. It seemed so close and yet so dangerously far away.

Evan stood on the front end of the fallen tree and wobbled it. “Do that, and you will soon take a trip down the slope. Broken bones might well be in the offing.”

Evan stepped off the section. He said, “Should I care?”

“You get to choose.”

They hauled the firewood back to the cave. The Reverend and Evan began to build the fire up with the help of Jane and the Bearded Man. Skinny threw a few sticks onto it. Skinny had begun to take on an attitude that reminded the Reverend of Buffalo Coat.

Just before night, Jane began to cough a lot. She had been coughing before, but not consistently, but now the cough was more frequent and deeper within her chest.

“She ain’t been doing good all day,” Bearded Man said. “Cough has gotten considerable worse.” He spoke like a man hopeful she might soon die.

The Reverend took some horse liniment from his saddlebags, had Jane came to the back of the cave, told Evan to remain up front by the fire.

The Reverend held up the liniment bottle. “You can do this yourself if you’re modest, or you can let me do it. I’ll need your coat wide open, your blouse open to expose your chest.”

“Sounds like to me you’re just having fun.”

“You can do it, then.”

She shook her head. “You do it.”

She unbuttoned her blouse and the Reverend rubbed the liniment across her chest and breasts. There was nothing erotic about it. She was as thin as a bird and due to malnutrition, her breasts were small like fried eggs. But even with the bones in her face poking tight against her flesh, he could see she was a pretty woman. Regular meals for a month, hot water and a bath, nice clothes, and she’d be a standout.

The male mind, he thought.

“It’s going to burn a bit, but it’ll get into your chest, maybe help clear up that cough.”

“We’re not going to make it, or are we?”

“I am,” the Reverend said.

* *. *

Night time came and there was a revival of blowing snow and howling wind. This encouraged the travelers to build the fire higher, to push it from one edge of the cave mouth to the other.

The fire roared five feet high. The wood crackled and oozed sap. Beyond it, through wafts of flames, rises of snow could be seen. The mounds were growing higher. Tomorrow they might need to find a way to move some of the snow, so as not to be trapped by it.

The Reverend noticed that the corners of the fire were being gently nudged. He strained to see if it was the wind. Finally, he saw that it was a stick poking out of the dark, gently pushing a log.

The Wendigo was investigating. No one else had noticed.

“It’s getting braver,” the Reverend said. “I suggest we move to the back of the cave. I have a few tricks that might hold it off.”

“What you mean?” Skinny said. “Best fire we’ve had. I actually feel warm for a change.”

“Best fire because we cut enough wood to build it,” Evan said. “Not like you did anything.”

“You shush, boy, or I’ll be eating dinner out of your belly.” Skinny produced a knife.

“Whoa,” Bearded Man said. “We can’t lose our heads like this.”

The Reverend, without anyone realizing it, had drawn one of his pistols. “Put the knife up, or you will end up like your partner, who you’ve eaten and shat out into the early morning snow.”

Skinny put the knife away. His eyes glowed in the firelight. “I just ain’t got no time for insults from a child,” Skinny

said.

“Yes, you do,” the Reverend said.

They moved to the back of the cave near the Reverend’s horse. Bill had been groomed, fed, and hobbled and a mask had been put over his eyes.

While Jane coughed and spat flecks of blood into an already-stained handkerchief, the Reverend began to draw a large circle on the cave floor with the tip of his knife. He drew it so that they were within it. The Reverend didn’t quite complete it. He stopped at the wall at the back of the cave. He then drew an extension of the circle on the wall, five feet high. Used his knife to carve symbols into the cave rock along the sides of the extended circle on the wall. Then he drew the same symbols on the floor, just outside the loop. The markings were crude and strange. They looked like stick men and dancing creatures.

Bearded Man said, “What is that?”

“Symbols of power. Cree used similar drawings, though I’ve added in a bit of this and that from other beliefs.”

“Are you saying it makes us safe?” Bearded Man said.

“I have used similar before. But no guarantees. It might be more like a picket fence that will hold out the less determined.”

“The fire has held just fine,” Skinny said. “Why do we need these silly marks in the dirt? I don’t see that working, preacher man.”

“I think you don’t see a lot of things, fellow. We need the circle and the spell because it has grown stronger and bolder. Fire or no fire, it will come through. It has been trying the fire, a little at a time. Evil is like that. It nudges, then it pushes, then it shoves. In time, it can break down barriers.”

“I don’t plan to sit inside some damn circle, or stand in one neither,” Skinny said.

“Suit yourself,” the Reverend said.

“I want to stay inside,” Evan said. Jane and Bearded Man agreed.

“To hell with your circle. I’ll take my chances up close to the fire,” Skinny said.

“Fine. But do not smear my line or drawings.”

Skinny stepped out of the circle, making big steps, as if stepping over a snake. He moved close to the fire, rubbed his hands together, basked in its warmth.

“What do you think now?” Skinny said.

“That you should come back,” the Reverend said.

Skinny, feeling bolder, cocked his head as if to say something, then stopped. A chilly wind blew into the cave. The fire’s flames ruffled like red feathers. The Reverend and those in the circle could see a shape on the opposite side of the roaring blaze. It was the first time the Reverend had seen the Wendigo clearly. It was tall and broad and made of snow and sticks and chunks of ice wadded together in a rough facsimile of human form. Its face had a long line of a mouth set tight in its round head of snow. The sticks and debris poked from its body like hair and warts. There was a faint definition of a nose and two deep dark holes for eyes. It reached a long arm over the fire and an enormous hand made of snow and sticks flexed. Water dripped from it, hissed in the flames. The cave filled with its stench.

Skinny, aware now that something was behind him, wheeled toward it, knife in hand. The Wendigo grabbed him by the head and lifted him up. Skinny’s legs dangled momentarily in the fire. Skinny screamed. It was the kind of high-pitched dying-rat scream that made buttholes pucker and skin slither over a person’s bones.

Skinny was lifted out of the cave.

The beast roared. The roar was even more terrifying than Skinny’s scream. The sound of it filled the cave and made the Reverend’s horse try to shuffle away in his hobbles. The Reverend grabbed the rope that he had fastened around Bill’s nose and pulled him back.

The Wendigo had switched to holding Skinny by one of his feet. He slung Skinny about, popping him like a whip. The third time he was popped, Skinny’s head snapped off and landed in the snow. Blood gushed. A boot fell off Skinny’s foot.

The creature split open its long mouth and poked Skinny into it. The creature began to chomp with teeth that were jagged like cracked ice. Gouts of blood sprayed into the fire, coated the rises of snow beside the creature like strawberry topping on mounds of fresh-churned vanilla ice cream. The face of the Wendigo was reddened with gore, spattered with chunks of flesh.

It took one long stride and picked up Skinny’s head where it had fallen, began to eat it like an apple.

“Jesus, help us,” Bearded Man said.

“He won’t,” the Reverend said.

The monster peered over the fire at them. The dark holes that served as its eyes had something in them that moved and flickered. The crackling flames caused those things to be better seen. They were miniature shapes of humans, small and fluttering about like moths in a jar.

“It’s all them that came with us,” Bearded Man said. “Only they’re little.”

The Reverend could see Skinny in there with them. Pushing against an invisible wall, trying to get out.

The behemoth parted its blood-stained lips and a cascade of voices fell out, all of them so kneaded together they were impossible to understand one from the other; they were an avalanche of sound.

Jane put her hands over her ears and screamed. The boy yelled. Bill stamped his feet and whinnied, tugged at the rope around his nose.

The Reverend said, “Evan, hold this rope,” and he passed it to him.

Evan took it without thinking.

The Reverend drew his pistols and fired.

The bullets whistled and the silver-coated loads hit the Wendigo in the face and sizzled. The holes they punched exhaled smoke. The creature let out with a fresh roar. It was different this time. It was a cry of pain. The silver bullets had hurt it. It dropped what was left of Skinny’s partially eaten head and went away so quickly it was hard to believe it was gone or had even been there. Moments later, it returned. It carried a small sapling in one hand. The sapling’s roots dripped dark earth. It had pulled it from the ground.

Poking the sapling into the fire, the monster lifted away logs. The fire sparked and sizzled. The beast continued to push with the sapling until the fire was parted and a wide path was made.

“It’s coming through,” Evan said.

“Evan, saddle and bridle Bill. Make sure the saddlebags and the lantern are fastened in place. But stay in the circle.”

The boy didn’t move. “Son. Do as I say.”

Evan slowly began to do as he was told, boosting the blanket off the ground, tossing it over the horse’s back, preparing to lift the saddle into place. Bearded Man and Jane stood staring at the Wendigo, mesmerized.

The monster hadn’t stirred from its spot. It held the sapling and stared at them. The movement inside its eyes was gone; they had turned dark. The voices were silent. There was only the wind. The thing looked at the path it had made, as if considering its chances. It used the sapling to cautiously push the fire even wider apart. As it did, it breathed out flakes of snow and flecks of ice.

Evan pulled the bridle on, cinched the saddle into place, removed the rope from Bill’s nose. A scarf was over the horse’s eyes, put there when they had returned from their wood chopping. Evan left that in place. He held the reins tight as Bill champed at the bit and stamped his feet.

“No matter what the Wendigo does,” the Reverend said, “stay inside the circle until I say otherwise. Evan, here’s my knife. If I say ‘cut,’ you cut the hobbles off Bill, cut them close to the hooves. No dangles.”

“A circle in the dirt don’t seem like much,” Bearded Man said. He was shivering, and not from the cold.

“We’ll soon find out,” the Reverend said.

The Wendigo’s thin, long line of a mouth twisted as it started through the gap in the fire, its snowy skin hissing from the heat, birthing a thin mist that filled the cave.

* *. *

Bearded Man pulled a small pistol from his coat pocket. He had been armed all along.

“Unless those bullets are coated with silver, they will not cause it injury,” the Reverend said.

“This bullet ain’t for it,” Bearded Man said.

Bearded Man put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet passed through his head and whizzed near the Reverend’s nose as it exited. Hot blood splattered against the side of the Reverend’s face. Bearded Man fell to his knees and onto his face.

Jane picked up the gun.

“Do not dare,” the Reverend said, and twisted it out of her hand, dropped it in his coat pocket.

“It wasn’t for me,” she said.

“No, thanks,” Evan said. “I trust the Reverend.”

The Wendigo moved swiftly to the circle. It lifted the sapling and swung it down. When the tree hit the realm of the circle, it burst into golden flame and would not pass through. Sparks of gold flared about the cave.

The Wendigo swung the flaming sapling again, but this time it came apart in its hands, shedding gold ash, none of it passing into the circle.

The Wendigo slammed its fists down against the invisible barrier. They too flamed with golden fire. The howl from the beast was loud enough it dislodged dust that dribbled from the roof of the cave and fell into the circle.

Wheeling away, the Wendigo charged through the split in the fire and out into the dark and the snow.

“It worked,” Evan said.

“The dust from the ceiling,” Jane said. “How can that be? That thing couldn’t swing a tree through, but dust fell inside?”

“What the beast touches is tainted with the beast,” the Reverend said. “Otherwise, the natural order is unaffected.”

Stepping outside the circle, the Reverend hastened toward the fire. He grabbed the unburned end of a flaming log and dragged it into the circle, then used his knife to reinstate the part of the circle that had been damaged by his efforts. He chanted a combination prayer and spell.

“Evan,” the Reverend said. “Get some of that kindling and firewood from the back, but stay inside the circle.”

“Yes, sir,” Evan said.

The Reverend studied the fire at the mouth of the cave. It roared in two sections now. He considered pulling the sections together again by using a stick of firewood, then decided against it.

He tugged the body of Bearded Man out of the circle and close to one side of the cave. For a starving man, the sonofabitch had some weight on him.

The Reverend repaired the circle again, repeated his spell and prayer. Evan had brought up firewood and kindling. The Reverend carefully stacked it onto the burning log. Soon there was a solid blaze.

“Will the circle hold?” the woman said.

“No guarantee. That thing has moved past the fire, which it fears, so its determination is growing stronger. According to legend, the more the Wendigo eats the hungrier they get. Those it eats become part of IT, part of its power.”

“Then why give it more to eat?” She nodded at Bearded Man.

“Distraction. Rest while you may. Come morning we must depart. It’s no longer safe here.”

Jane and Evan cuddled together close to the fire and fell quickly asleep. Even with the fear of the Wendigo, slumber had claimed them. The Reverend could not and would not sleep. He sat down in front of the fire and held his pistols in his lap.

It was only an hour or so until daylight cracked the blackness. Would it come back before the sun came up? Or was it through for the night?

The Reverend noted in the firelight that the circle he had marked was beginning to thin, the markings to fade. That was a signal that evil was gaining strength. The protection he had created was beginning to fade. There would be no redrawing it. The magic was done. From this point on it was assholes and elbows.

The wind groaned like an old man dying. Snow drifted into the mouth of the cave and fell into the remains of the fire.

Seeing that made the Reverend more mindful of the fire inside the circle. He placed more firewood on it. When the spell was gone there would only be the fire, and the Wendigo was less fearful of it than before.

The Reverend was considering options when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck lift up. The air thickened with a stench. He saw the shadows outside the cave twist, saw flakes of snow fly to them, cling to the shadows like cotton to tar. Sticks were picked up by the wind and tossed at the shape, spearing it. It was like watching an invisible sculptor build a statue from available materials. The shape was now the color of snow.

The Wendigo was larger than before. It bent at the waist, looked inside the cave. Its eyes were greater than before, deeper and black as original sin. A light came on inside of them, as if an early riser had lit a lamp. The light was the color of shit in amber. Once again, the Reverend could see the miniature souls of those it had consumed inside its eyes. They writhed, reached out, imploring rescue. Again, a thin, dark line formed for the mouth. The wind blew two dents into its face. The dents became its nostrils.

The Reverend glanced at the circle. It was withdrawing. Growing closer to the fire. The symbols outside the ring were barely identifiable. They moved like crippled insects to keep up with the receding circle.

Glancing back at the Wendigo, the Reverend saw the thin line of its mouth had split open to show those horrid cracked- ice teeth. Was that a smile?

The Reverend placed his pistols in their holsters, said, “Jane.” He said her name twice. Jane sat up. She saw what he saw. “Wake the boy,” the Reverend said.

* *. *

The Wendigo sniffed loudly. It smelled, then spied the body of Bearded Man lying against the cave wall. It eased itself through the split in the dying embers and moved toward the body.

Jane and Evan were both up, watching the thing as it entered the cave. It tossed a quick look at them, and then at the body. A tongue like a wet, red rope licked out of its mouth and slathered its cracked-ice teeth with bloody saliva the texture of gruel.

“I’m going to climb on Bill,” the Reverend said. “Evan, cut the hobble ropes close to the hooves. Jane, climb up here behind me. Evan, you in front of me. Stretch out over Bill’s neck.”

The Reverend mounted, pulled Jane up and behind him.

Evan cut the hobbles, was about to climb on board Bill. “Give me a torch,” the Reverend said.

Evan picked out a flaming stick of firewood by the unburned end. He handed it to the Reverend who held it high above his head, used his other hand to help boost Evan in front of him.

The Reverend knew that carrying three was more than Bill could do comfortably, but there was nothing for it.

The Wendigo picked up Bearded Man. Just as it tilted its head back to drop its meal into its now widely spread mouth, the Reverend jerked the covering away from Bill’s eyes and yelled to him, and out of the circle they bolted.

The mouth of the cave was close, but so was the Wendigo. The Reverend flung the torch in the monster’s face. It caused the Wendigo to step back, Bearded Man’s legs dangling from its mouth.

Out of the cave they rode, into the cold night air. Bill’s hooves slipped and the Reverend was certain they were about to go down. But Bill gained purchase on the rocks beneath the snow, and up the trail they went, riding hard toward the woodyard the Reverend and Evan had made.

The Reverend glanced back.

Behind them the Wendigo came, seeming to glide on the wind, its legs and feet blending with the white of the snow. It was gaining.

The Reverend pulled a pistol with his left hand, leaned out and shot back. The silver bullet struck the Wendigo and sizzled like bacon in a hot frying pan. The Wendigo howled and fell back a pace. But it was like a bear stung by a bee. It was an annoyance, nothing more.

Bill slipped on the ice. They were almost to the peak of the hill when it happened. Jane flew off and tumbled backwards.

Bill rolled, nickered, and then made a noise seldom heard from a horse—a scream. The Reverend and Evan were tossed into the snow.

The Reverend and Evan stood up. They saw Jane rolling down hill, right to the Wendigo. The Reverend drew one of his revolvers, fired rapidly and accurately. The bullets tore the air and impacted the monster, but it was less annoyed by them than before.

The Reverend’s last shot wasn’t meant for the Wendigo, but it found its mark as well—Jane. It was a better death than what might have been.

Jane’s body was lifted limply into the Wendigo’s mouth like a cheap sweet and devoured in a mist of blood and a crunch of bone.

Evan charged past the Reverend, having grabbed a stick. The Reverend leapt after him, grabbed his coat collar, pulled him back.

“Nothing you can do, boy.”

The Reverend hurried them upwards, pushing at Evan’s back, pausing only long enough to stop where Bill was panting in pain. He pulled his second revolver as he replaced the first. He shot Bill in the head, finishing him off. He pulled the leather lantern pouch off of Bill, grabbed the saddlebags. Then up the last bit of the hill they went.

The Reverend glanced down. The Wendigo had stopped. It turned its great round head and looked east. The sunrise, the Reverend thought. It needs to be tucked away somewhere dark before the sun comes up.

It looked up at the Reverend, and he knew it had decided to take its chances. It rose up the hill like a windblown sheet.

The Reverend pulled the lantern from the leather case, lit it with a match from the saddlebags, flung it just as the Wendigo was almost on them. The lantern burst. The oil in the lantern exploded into flames and the Holy Water flared with holy fire and spread over the Wendigo’s head and turned it into what looked like a giant, blazing match.

Tugging the boy along, the Reverend ran to the edge of the ice where the trimmed top section of the pine tree rested. He pulled the boy in front of him, lifted him with one hand onto the log.

“Straddle it,” he said. “Don’t let your feet touch the ground. Hang on with everything you got.”

The Reverend pushed the large log slightly. It tilted over the slope of ice. He jumped on as it dipped down, glancing back once to see the flame-headed Wendigo gliding after them, the blaze wafting in the breeze. The Wendigo howled.

The log shot down the slope, scratching up ice in a stinging spray. The front of the Reverend’s hat brim lifted in the breeze. Evan was almost flat on the log, clutching it with all his strength. He was whimpering.

The log slid like a sled for some goodly distance, then it started to wobble, threatening to tip and roll over. It stayed upright until it finished the slope and launched out onto the icy lake, tossing them loose and onto the frozen surface.

Out of habit, the Reverend drew his pistols as he rose. He yelled to Evan as the boy wobbled to his feet. “Run like a deer.” He then took his own advice. They ran as fast as their tired bodies would carry them. The Reverend felt as if his heart would burst. He wondered if the lake might crack beneath them.

The flames on the Wendigo’s head had burnt out. It paused at the enormous log of pine that had been used as a sled. It picked it up as if it were nothing more than a switch. The Wendigo glided over the ice toward them, slamming the log in anger against the frozen lake.

As it neared them, it slammed the log down again, close enough the Reverend felt the wind from the blow on the back of his neck, felt a slight pressure against the heel of his boot.

Then there was a noise akin to a bullwhip cracking, but the sound didn’t end right away. A line in the ice formed beside the Reverend and then the line split and he could see cold, blue water in the rip. The line expanded more.

The Reverend forced himself to look back. The Wendigo looked down with its hollow eyes as the crack broadened beneath it and it plunged into it, sending up a slosh like an ocean wave. The Wendigo was about to float above it. But then the night was striped with the color of a fresh egg yolk. The light moved like a bully into the blue-black strands of night, consuming it.

The Wendigo was climbing out of the water. It was being blown apart by the wind. It was less like a wraith now, and more like a man. Small. An animated skeleton, flesh dangling from it like rags.

Johnson.

Crawling out of the icy split, Johnson turned its bare skull to look at the Reverend. From the eyes, little naked bodies, souls, were leaping out and away. They scrambled like insects on the ice, then quickly melted in the sunlight, dissolved into buttery puddles.

Johnson managed to rise on bony legs and feet and staggered over the ice. The Reverend raised a pistol and fired. A bullet nested in Johnson’s skull, causing it to burst into pieces. The skeleton collapsed and rattled apart. A shadow in the shape of Johnson lay on the ice like an oil spill, then soaked into the ice and became clear.

The sun was golden. The sky was blue. The wind was gentle. The spirit of the Wendigo was gone.

The Reverend caught up with the boy. “Is it dead?” Evan asked.

“For now. That’s what greed did for it. It wanted us so badly it neglected the rising of the light. Consider this some kind of goddamn Bible lesson.”

They walked carefully across the ice to where the other trail began. It was clear enough to travel. They found an indentation in the rocks just before night and made a fire with dead wood and matches from the Reverend’s saddlebags. They ate the last of the Reverend’s jerky. The Wendigo was no longer a threat.

Come morning they moved on. Late afternoon of the next day, the Reverend shot an elk with his pistol, three fast shots to the heart. They made a camp in a copse of trees for two days, finding a gap in the midst of them where they could build a fire from dead wood and roast and eat elk until they were full. The Reverend cut strips of meat from the elk and placed them in the snow until they started out again come morning.

Two days later, still living off the remains of the elk, the trail broke wide and slanted down and out of the mountains. The earth below was touched with ice and snow, but much clearer. Bits of grass could be seen poking up from the frost. The Reverend and Evan descended and walked the flatter trail for two more days. Then a band of noisy pilgrims with oxen, wagons, horses, and mules showed up.

They were given a ride in one of the wagons. Fed beans and cornbread. Evan told a story of harrowing survival, but he left out the Wendigo, which the Reverend considered wise. Evan turned the Wendigo into a bear. He also left out the cannibalism. Also a wise decision.

The travelers reached civilization a week and a half later. Evan found a home with a family that had lost their son while crossing the mountains, dying of some unknown disease. Evan seemed happy enough. He and the Reverend never spoke again. When the Reverend regained his strength, he took a job at the stables. He earned enough to pay for the room and board he had taken, enough to buy a horse and saddle, riding gear, as well as a few supplies.

The horse he had bought was no Bill, but it was a strong Paint and it was enough. The Reverend rode the Paint toward California.

It’ll eat at us if you’re not here next Thursday for another serving of Mojo magic.

"The Hungry Snow" was originally published by Death’s Head Press. It later appeared in The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team and Other Stories, a collection published by Subterranean Press. " The Hungry Snow " © 2021 By Bizarre Hands, LLC. All Rights Reserved.