By

Kaye Draper

Copyright 2017

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Cloud’s moccasins were silent on the leaf-strewn ground as she walked. She pulled the soothing feeling the spirit of the forest about her like a cloak. The Falling Leaves Moon was upon them. It wouldn’t be long before the snows came, and their band of people moved their camp to Saginaw for the winter gathering.

Once, Cloud had loved her trips into the town to trade furs for the things her tribe needed. Now, she was beginning to dislike the trips. What had once felt new and exciting, now felt tarnished. Ominous somehow.

The old spirits were venturing into the human town, but the white people seemed to be horrifyingly blind to the invasion. Many of them could not see the memegwesi that scurried about. She had a terrible feeling they did not see the more dangerous ones either. The ones that fed on humans.

But the white people could feel the creatures. Even if they didn’t know it. Their energies were growing darker, more suspicious, sharper, like hunted things.

The merchant at the general store today had glared at Hanging Cloud with an evil glint in his eyes that was never been there before. One tainted by lust and bitterness. The sort of needless grasping greed that killed.

She shook herself and ducked under a low-hanging tree branch. Standing, she let out a shrill warbling whistle, watching with a smile as her little brothers and a small herd of children started running to her. Squatting down, she bared her teeth and growled like a bear, then lumbered off, leading them on a wild chase to bring down their prey. She dropped the goods she carried and staggered, letting them take her down to the ground in a patch of tall dried grasses.

“It was an honorable hunt,” she intoned, sitting up. “You will all be strong warriors.” Reaching inside her calico shirt, she withdrew the cloth-wrapped package she had traded for her own hides and woven creations. “And now you will reap the fruits of your daring hunt.”

She laughed as she passed out rock candy and a few bright glass beads, loving the fierce joy on the little faces around her.

“Hanging Cloud,” a dry, brittle voice intoned, sending the little children scattering off to get back to their respective chores. “Spoiling the young ones again?”

She stood and brushed off her deerskin leggings. The first time the townspeople had seen her in pants, they had gone all round-eyed with offended pride and no small amount of envy. Apparently, it was strange for white women to wear anything other than their long, cumbersome skirts. Cloud felt sorry for them. It must be difficulty to live in a world that consigned a person to be only one thing at all times.

“It brings me joy to see the young ones happy,” Cloud told the shaman. Then she smiled. “Don’t worry, Grandmother, I’ve brought enough for you too.” She held out a rock candy for her powerful elder, laughing when the woman grinned and snatched up the candy quicker than any of the kids.

Popping the sweet in her mouth, the old woman leaned on her walking stick and nodded her head toward the herb plot behind the large wigwam shared by the elder Midewiwin, or medicine women. “Walk with me, Hanging Cloud,” she intoned, her voice growing serious. “Talk with me of the things you saw in the town today. Tell me of the things you felt.”

Cloud sighed, but followed along out of respect. Her grandmother and the other elder women in the tribe insisted that Hanging Cloud was to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps one day. That she would become the elder shaman for their village—the wisest of counsel and the one who spoke to the spirits on behalf of the clan. Hanging Cloud glanced longingly at the horses as they passed the open area where they grazed. Most bands of Anishinaabe this far north didn’t have horses. But thanks to Cloud and her father, they did. She’d much rather feel the beast heaving under her and the wind through her hair than sit in a circle breathing herb smoke and speaking for the changeable—and often unreliable—spirits.

Her grandmother squatted down to inspect a bit of sage. “The men are preparing for war,” she said, not looking at Cloud. “But they are fighting the wrong enemy.”

Cloud sank down beside her to sit cross-legged on the ground. “They are extinguishing us,” she said urgently. “Grandmother, the white men are tricksters. They take the land, they kill and use without respect for what they are taking. They sign treaties that are actually traps. They send us to their reservations—where we will be out of the way, so they can continue to spread, like a disease.”

Her grandmother nodded. “But once they treated us more fairly. They acted somewhat more rationally. The creatures are riding them, Cloud. They are using the unaware nature of the newcomers to bend and manipulate their minds and souls.”

Cloud heaved a sigh. She had seen this. In the town.

“The midewiwin hold a council tonight with the spirit world. You will come, Cloud. Perhaps you can bend your father’s ear, where the wisdom of the elders has failed to do so.”

The old woman stood and dusted off her hands. “It is your place. Your responsibility to your people, daughter of the chief.”

Cloud’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, grandmother.”

The elder glanced over her shoulder as if sensing something behind them. “Perhaps giving your lovers a child would settle your blood. You need grounding Hanging Cloud. All wild things must come back to the nest to roost at some point.”

Cloud stood, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. She loved children, but she had no desire to become a breeding mare, shackled to the village, when she could be free. “Yes grandmother.”

The elder moved on, toward the center of their encampment, and Cloud turned away. A pair of teasing voices reached Cloud’s ears before the couple stepped from the trees. So that was why her grandmother’s lecture had taken on a chiding tone.

Cloud smiled as Binishii and Animikii stepped out of the forest. Binishii carried a basket overflowing with nuts and berries and herbs, and she had wildflowers stuck in her long braid. Animikii had his bow slung across his back and a line of rabbits and other furry victims in his hand.

“You’ve had a bountiful day,” Cloud said, gesturing to their finds.

Animikii dropped his things at the side of the clearing and came to embrace Cloud, smelling of the cool river water he had used to wash after his hunt. His strong arms lifted her off the ground as he crushed her to him, and his wide mouth covered hers, tasting of the berries Binishii had gathered.

Cloud wrapped her arms around him and returned the kiss, her frustrations for the moment gone, overshadowed by love. His name meant thunder, and he often had the talent of grabbing one’s attention like a thunderclap. He set Cloud on her feet and Binishii slipped her arms around Cloud from behind, dropping a kiss on her shoulder. Their little bird. “Was your grandmother convincing you to be a medicine woman?”

Cloud turned to kiss those sweet lips, pulling back to tug Binishii’s braid playfully. “She tries.”

Animikii ran a hand down Cloud’s arm and smiled fondly. “The elders will have to prevent you becoming a warrior first. And that, they could never do.” His eyes glowed with pride at Cloud’s skill. He knew first-hand that she could hunt and fight as well as any of the men.

Scooping up Binishii’s basket, and Animikii’s bow, she walked with them into the center of the settlement. Cloud was blessed. She knew she was. To be two-spirited as she was and have the support of two such talented lovers, to be healthy and strong, a chief’s daughter, the shaman’s granddaughter. They were all great honors.

But she felt restless. They had avoided the problems of the encroaching white men and the increasingly bold monsters that lurked just out of sight for far too long.

Cloud’s mother had once voiced her opinion that they should move the tribe, pick up and put some distance between themselves and the white men. Retreat, and reinforce their shamanic barriers against the creatures to keep their people safe.

But, as much as Cloud might dream of an idyllic life with her thunder and her little bird at her side, she had a sinking feeling they were too late. That even if they pulled up their roots and retreated now, there would be no place to run. No place where the evil could not reach.

She shivered as a raven flew overhead, its call echoing on the wind.

*****

The next day, she sat beside her grandmother in the council’s large wigwam. Cloud’s hair was braided in an intricate weave, and Binishii had woven feathers and beads and bits of colored cloth into it. Her skin shone with the oil she had rubbed into it before she dressed. The air in the room was heavy with smoking herbs meant to purify and bring clarity of mind.

Currently, the tribe was arguing about a massacre that had happened to the south. The white men were becoming more tricky and unreliable. Their greed and disrespect for life knew no bounds.

Her grandmother shook her head, waiting until the arguing settled down, as she knew it would. The angry, fearful murmuring waned, like waves lapping at the shore of the great lake, cresting, then receding. “The creatures are growing bolder,” the old woman said. “I think this and the aggression of our neighbors are related.”

The murmuring rose again, a wave that once more receded in the face of the elder’s calm patience. “We should focus on the spirits.”

Cloud’s father, the chief of their tribe, took a pull from the pipe and passed it to his neighbor. “The spirits are always there. This new threat worries me more. I think we should deal with the white men first.” He glanced at his shaman mother. “We have been asked to meet with them, to talk of what we can do to keep the peace between our peoples.”

The two leaders, physical and spiritual, stared at each other stubbornly in a silent battle of wills.

Cloud shifted her feet under her, to bring the circulation back to her legs. She hated these meetings. How drawn out every decision was. Why could no one just act?

“Peace and respect, Grandmother—elder. Father—chief. You are both wise and skilled beyond my years. But I would offer council as well.”

Her father frowned at her, but nodded. Her grandmother suppressed a proud smile, probably thinking Cloud was finally joining her in her shamanic role the way everyone expected her to.

“Both pieces of this puzzle are important,” she said slowly. “But could we not address both issues? Perhaps the encroachment of the white man has stirred up the spirit world? Maybe the deviation from our ways had caused the discord?”

“What solution do you offer, Hanging Cloud?” her father asked.

She met his eyes. “We should not sit idle. We should ride out to meet the men who offer peace. See if they are also as infected by malice as the ones who live here. And if they are, we should take steps to prevent them from moving this way.”

He nodded slowly, considering.

She turned to her grandmother. “But that does not mean we ignore the boldness of the creatures. We should also cleanse the area of the aggressive creatures, give tribute to the Spirits, and prevent trouble with them as well.”

Her grandmother was quiet for a time, while the others muttered in hushed whispers.

“Hanging Cloud, you lack patience,” she said finally. “Your young blood would engage in conflict wherever it can. Like a storm cloud rolling over the plains. You would wage war with the spirits. You would wage war with the white men.”

Cloud folded her hands in her lap and looked at her father.

He sighed. “I, as much as anyone, wish to protect our people and keep them from harm. But sometimes conflict cannot be avoided.” He nodded. “We will take action to prevent this situation from getting any worse. I will take the warriors to the meeting and deal with the white men.” He nodded toward his mother. “The shaman and the elder midewiwin will stay and handle the matter of the spirits.”

Cloud drew a breath. Finally. Action.

“You will, of course, stay with us and lend your considerable shamanic energy to the efforts here, Hanging Cloud,” her grandmother intoned. Benevolent, supportive. Trapping her in the role she did not want.

But Cloud knew she had pushed things enough for the moment. “Yes, grandmother.”

The old woman suppressed a grin at her victory. No matter what Cloud did, the whole tribe was set on making her into something she did not wish to be.

She wanted adventure, action, motion. Not to sit stagnant conversing with shadows and smoke and old women.

And she promised herself then and there that she would follow her heart.

*******

The men left two days later to travel to the meeting place to engage the white men who offered peace and friendship. The left in the wee hours of the morning, before day broke over the horizon.

Cloud woke in the darkness and slid from her cozy bed, slipping from beneath the warm furs and the silken caress of Binishii’s plump limbs and Animikii’s long, soft hair. She had made sure she wore them out and fed them wild berry wine last night, to ensure Cloud would wake first.

Animikii was from a neighboring tribe. But he was one of them now. He would insist on fighting with Cloud’s people.

She smothered a grin when he rolled over and pulled the furs over his head, snuggling closer to Binishii in his sleep. If he overslept and stayed behind with the old women and children, he would never forgive her.

But if it came to war with the white men at the meeting and he was injured, she would never forgive herself.

So, Cloud caressed the soft skin under which her lovers slept and tiptoed silently from her warm nest. She paused outside the house to pull on leggings and moccasins. She tied her hair back, still braided into two waist-length ropes from the previous night’s revelries. She took up her tomahawk and her bow, both of which she had stashed under a bush at the edge of the settlement. Then she tucked her knife into her boot and made her way to the open space where the horses were kept.

The men were already mounted up and starting to move off. Cloud called a horse to her with a soft whistle, bridled it, and leapt astride just as the last of the men filed away onto the road. She kicked her horse into a trot and joined the ranks.

The men weren’t fooled by her manner of dress and her weapons. They knew her horse. However, they also knew Cloud. They knew enough to keep quiet as she made her way toward the head of the line, to join her father.

The chief glanced at her from his seat atop his tall roan steed. “The Midewiwin will call all the spirits to curse your unborn children.”

She snorted. “Then may I never have children.”

He sighed. “Do not tempt the Great Spirit with your ungratefulness, Cloud.”

She shrugged. “I am grateful to have a man and woman loving enough to bear my children for me, so that I can do as I please,” she said with an impish smile.

In fact, she suspected Binishii was already with child, but she kept that sweet thought to herself for a little longer.

Her father shook his head, but didn’t send her back home. “I don’t know what this meeting will bring,” he said softly. “Likely bloodshed.”

She nodded. “I know.”

He glanced at her. “I brought an extra bag of arrows for you,” he said tiredly.

She laughed at that, startling a smile from the braves nearest her. Her father knew her so well. He had raised her. And when her dual nature made itself known, he embraced her as both daughter and son. He had trained her along with the best of the warriors. He wouldn’t deny her this part of herself.

“Let’s hope we return to happy sprits,” Cloud said with an eye-roll. Knowing her grandmother, she would have bored them all to death with rituals by the time the men returned and there wouldn’t be a creature for leagues around who dared to risk another round of chanting and smoke.

*****

Everything was a mess.

Cloud buried her tomahawk in the last of their attackers and stood, turning to survey the area with shaking limbs. Blood was cooling on her face as the sun rose.

The remaining braves wordlessly started loading their dead onto the horses, to be taken back home for a proper ceremony.

Cloud’s breath came in shallow pants. She was numb. Her body was so tired that her muscles quivered. She was bleeding from a gash in her side, a furrow torn there by a bullet. But she couldn’t feel anything.

Her father was dead.

He had been one of the first casualties.

She watched as four braves wrestled his broad, heavy body onto the back of a horse. Not the chief’s horse. That poor animal was dead, shattered by bullets and the rough fall.

Cloud wiped her weapon on her pant leg, then cast around for her bow. It lay broken under the body of a white man, snapped in half from when she had used it against him as a club. There was no salvaging it now. Still, she went and wrestled the broken wood out from under the man and broke off the cord that held a charm of feathers and beads carved from deer antler.

She turned and made her way to the men with shaky legs.

“Hanging Cloud,” one of the older warriors spoke softly. “Are you wounded?”

She lifted her head, stuffing down her emotions and refusing to let herself limp as she took the reins of one of the nearby horses, which carried two motionless bodies. “I will survive. Mount the wounded on the remaining horses. Those well enough can walk.”

She led the horse to the dusty road, and the others followed, their steps slow, but purposeful. They hadn’t even made it to the supposed meeting. They were ambushed several miles outside of the white men’s town. The men who attacked them were savage and vengeful. And Cloud had sensed the darkness that lurked around them. Something unseen drove them to this needless ferocity. But the white men couldn’t see the monsters.

Cloud and one of their braves had managed to kill three shadowy creatures made of teeth and claws and hunger with weapons that had been blessed by the village shaman. But the spirits of the men they fought were already tainted beyond reason. The fighting hadn’t stopped until all the white men were dead.

Cloud trudged along the road, pulling a blanket from one of the horses and wrapping it around her shoulders as night came and an early snow began to fall. She had the sinking feeling that winter would come harsh and early. And now her clan was missing nearly a third of its young men. The others would all need to work harder to make sure they made it through the coming winter.

She chewed her lip, her mind wandering as she sought to keep the impact of what had just happened from becoming too much to bear. Could her father really be dead? The man who was as broad and strong and immovable as the hills and mountains?

She brought herself back, ignoring the tears that flowed soundlessly down her cheeks, chilling in the cold air. Her people would be blamed for the fighting that had just occurred. Maybe accused of attacking the white men. It would be an excuse to force them onto the reservations, if not just imprison or kill them outright. Her people would balk at using such tactics, but she knew the ones they fought had no such hesitations.

She wanted to crumple to the ground and weep. But her people needed her to act like the chief’s daughter. They needed her to lead them back home with dignity.

She took a deep breath around the clenched, burning pain in her stomach, ignoring the way it pulled at her wounds, which stuck to her shirt and started to itch and burn.

A couple of days travel and they would return home. Her grandmother and the elders would know what to do. They were always more than willing to order everyone around. And this time she would be happy to let them have their way.

She stumbled and caught herself against the side of the horse. They would keep going as long as they could before resting. Their dead needed to go home.

******

The smell of smoke reached them before the clan’s encampment came into view.

A raven soared overhead, its coarse caw galvanizing Cloud into action. She dropped the horse’s reins and pulled out her tomahawk as she ran.

She smelled the blood mixed with the smoke as she entered the clearing where their settlement lay. Most of the wigwams were on fire, and she saw an overturned skin of oil near the central campfire. It had spilled, leaking fuel toward the nearest shelter. From there the fire would have spread to each home down the line around the circle that was closest to the campfire.

But where were the people? Surely, they should be putting out the fires, or saving their belongings from destruction.

Instead, the place was eerily quiet.

A shrill scream erupted from across the clearing, somewhere in the trees. Cloud ran toward it, a cluster of braves at her back.

What she saw when she reached the clearing froze her blood in her veins. “Grandmother?”

The medicine woman stood in the middle of the clearing, radiating dark energy. Several of the elders ringed her in a loose circle, chanting to the spirits and using all their power. But she was the most powerful shaman in the tribe. No one in the tribe had even a fraction of her grandmother’s magic.

Except Cloud.

She paced to the edge of clearing, her mind racing. She might be second only to her grandmother in her shamanic abilities, but she was second to her. She was nowhere near as powerful as the elder. And she had refused to practice, to hone those abilities.

Her grandmother was covered in blood, and trails of it traced down in dried black rivers from her mouth. Spirits help them, had she eaten someone? Dark energy suffused her being. Possessed her spirit.

“What is going on here?” Cloud said, her tomahawk clenched in her fist.

Her grandmother’s wild gaze latched onto her. “Shaman.”

One of the elders whispered to her without taking her eyes off Cloud’s grandmother. “She walked with the spirits. She came back changed. And it has been getting worse. This morning she...we lost her.”

Cloud shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

The elder hissed as Cloud’s grandmother paced toward them. “She’s killed most of the others. The ones who weren’t with you.”

Cloud’s heart stuttered in her chest. She had just lost her father. So many of her friends and tribe. She had returned home with the hope of finding comfort and support. Only to find...this.

“Grandmother,” she whispered. “You are stronger than the spirits. Your spirit can overpower them.”

The woman who had once been their voice of reason lunged. One of the elders stepped in front of Cloud. Her grandmother backhanded her so hard the woman’s neck snapped with a wet crunch.

Cloud felt bile rise to the back of her throat. “Run,” she whispered to the remaining two elders. “Run to the braves. Then keep running. All of you.”

She pulled on the little bit of shamanic power she possessed, calling magic to her from somewhere deep inside.

When the elders ran, she stepped in front of her grandmother to keep her from chasing them. She knocked her away with her tomahawk, surprised at the old woman’s strength, which sent Cloud tumbling across the ground. She leapt to her feet. “Grandmother,” she pleaded. “Please. I know you are in there. I know you can stop this.”

The old woman cackled. “Poor Cloud. Always stuck here with the women and children. Always wanting to get away. To hunt. To run.” She tilted her head at an odd angle. “I know how you feel, child.”

Her eyes flickered for a moment, and they were the eyes of the woman who had helped raise her—who had held her hand and sang her lullabies and told her all of their old stories while she gathered berries and made maple syrup sweets.

Then that woman was gone and the beast she had become was back. “Come here, little Anishinaabe. Let me taste your heart.”

She dodged the swipe of a clawed hand, then spun, tripping over a snow-covered log. She rolled to her hands and knees and stared down at the log.

And screamed. She screamed as if her heart had indeed just been ripped from her chest.

Binishii. The frozen log was a leg. One whose pale, frozen flesh still bore the strange, star-shaped birthmark Cloud would remember anywhere. She had teased that it looked like a little bird.

She registered the footsteps behind her and rolled away in a flurry of dusty snow. Binishii.

Where was Animikii?

Her mind supplied the answer all too readily. If their little bird was here, ripped to pieces. Then he was dead too. Nothing would have stopped him from protecting her.

Cloud’s grandmother raked Cloud’s side with her claws, drawing blood, then pausing to lick her fingers. “They think they know everything, the little Anishinaabe. But they see too much. The new ones. The pale ones. They see nothing. We will keep them like livestock.” She surged forward, and Cloud spun away, slashing with her tomahawk.

Her grandmother’s hand hit the snow, painting the white and brown ground with vibrant red.

The old woman howled in fury. “All the shamans,” she shrieked. “We will devour them all! Then who will fight us?”

Cloud backed away. “Grandmother,” she whispered. “Please, grandmother. Please. Come back.”

She dodged another swipe, kicked out at the creature and barely kept her footing. Her magic thrummed in her body, unused.

“Please.”

She lifted her eyes to the white sky above, beseeching the Great Spirit with everything she had. “Please.”

Her grandmother tried to rush past her. To chase after the other elders. The only two weakened shaman left to guide the tribe.

She didn’t think. She went numb. Cloud leapt, taking her grandmother down and holding the inhumanly strong body to the ground, grappling, punching. Tears slid unchecked down her cheeks as sharp claws shredder her forearm. But she kept the thing’s shoulder pinned, back to the ground.

Long enough to slit her grandmother’s throat.

Hot blood gushed out, staining the world. The creature thrashed and gurgled. Then the eyes were her grandmother’s once more. They stared at her as the body heaved.

“I will do what you wished. I will do what I must,” Cloud whispered.

Then she grasped her tomahawk in both hands and removed her grandmother’s head from her shoulders.

*****

Cloud still knelt in the blood-soaked clearing, tears streaming down her cheeks, when what was left of the clan returned.

The braves she had brought back with her from the failed meeting. Two weak, elderly medicine women. A couple of small children the one remaining young woman had hidden from the creature her grandmother had become—and from the other creatures that had attacked the village shortly before she returned with the men.

Cloud took a deep breath, wiped the tears and blood from her face and stood.

Her father was gone. Her lovers killed by the spirits they had always treated with wary respect. And her grandmother was dead by Cloud’s own hand. Had there been a way to save her? Should Cloud have tried harder to save the woman trapped inside the beast? She tamped down her doubts. The creature had taken over her grandmother’s mind. Even if Cloud’s magic had been enough to save her, what then? How would her grandmother have lived with the knowledge that she had been part of the slaughter of half their village?

The weight of responsibility had settled heavy on Cloud’s shoulders. She struggled to settle it around her like a blanket, insulating her from her emotions. She had people to serve and protect. The tribe would look to her for answers and guidance. It seemed both her father and her grandmother would have their wishes fulfilled in the end. Cloud would have to be both shaman and chief.

The two remaining elders carried bundles of herbs and various shamanic refuse that Cloud had always resented. “Hanging Cloud,” one of them whispered. “You are the only one who can save us.”

She noticed then that one of the elders was leaning against the other, pale, blood leaking from her ears in a slow trickle.

“Soon you will be all they have left,” the uninjured one said, her back hunched, showing every bit of her age, her shamanic energy depleted by the battle with her grandmother.

Cloud nodded. “Show me what must be done.”

That sense of responsibility settled even more firmly over her, but it was made of cold, rather than warmth, freezing her emotions, making her into a statue that felt no sadness or fear, only a deep, weary sense of duty.

The process was completed right there in the bloody clearing. Smoke and incense curled around Cloud, her nostrils filled with the scents of magic and blood. The had obtained creature blood from somewhere—Cloud did not ask, did not want to know, but deep down she suspected it was her grandmother’s blood, potent with shamanic power and darkness. It burned as she drank it down, calling to her own power.

“You take of the blood of the enemy until they are banished from this earth,” one of the elders whispered.

Cloud’s vision blurred, and she felt as though she were floating above her body, above the thin mist of incense smoke and magic that hovered over her corporeal body. It was as if she viewed the world through a smoky veil. Voices whispered around her, the hallow voices of the ancestors joining with those of the elders, chanting words of protection, strength, purpose and power.

Suddenly it was as if time stopped. Cloud hovered there, between places, between sound. And she knew she had a choice. She could accept the power and responsibility that was pressing in around her. Or she could refuse.

She saw their faces then—her lovers, her grandmother, her father and mother and siblings. The entire tribe, living and dead, flitting before her like the delicate flash of butterfly wings.

Yes.

The single thought entered her mind and her decision was made. She slammed back into her body with a jolt, like plunging into ice water, then being immediately warmed by fire. She felt heat within her—a blazing sense of determination and purpose.

Opening her eyes, Cloud realized she was lying on the muddy, bloody ground as snow fell. The little pinprick stings of the snowflakes melting on her exposed skin were a hundred times more intense than usual. She slowly pushed herself up to stand, swaying.

The shadows under the trees danced and called to her, like unexplored pathways to the unknown. The forest around her was silent. The chanting had stopped. What was left of her clan ringed her in a loose circle. They were breathless and utterly still.

One of the elders—the injured one—lay slumped on the ground near Cloud. As she came back to herself, she caught the other elder. The old woman was light and fragile as a bird in her arms. Her body slack, power and spirit used up with this last shamanic feat.

The elder’s last breath left her in a sigh and Cloud lowered the body to the ground.

The one woman who remained in the tribe paced forward and threw a blanket around Cloud’s shoulders. It smelled like smoke, but was otherwise clean. And warm.

Cloud shuddered, then got a hold of herself. “Have the braves gather what wood they can find,” She said calmly. “Are the wigwams still burning?”

The woman’s brown eyes were sad. “Yes, the elder’s home won’t seem to stop burning.”

Cloud nodded. “Have them bring the wood there. And the bodies.”

Their customs said that it took four days for the spirit of the dead to make the journey westward to the land of everlasting happiness. Usually, if someone died, they were not buried until the fifth day. But there was no time for ritual.

And Cloud feared what might happen to the bodies if a vengeful spirit creature happened by.

She strode away, toward her own small wigwam, situated away from the central area, miraculously safe from the blaze. She knelt at the door, bowed her head, and thought of her lovers as she had last seen them, curled around each other in the lingering twilight, warm and sated and happy. She could still feel them here, their skin against hers in passion, the taste of their lips.

And yet they were gone, swift as an extinguished flame.

She set to quickly packing up the belongings she needed, with an eye out for what was the most useful and easily carried. Hanging Cloud didn’t own much. She had never put value in things. And their band moved with the seasons. It was almost time to pack up camp and make the winter move even before all of this.

She took one last look around the nest she had shared with those who were no longer there. “I will carry you with me always,” she said to the empty space. “May your spirits be free.”

She left her wigwam and set a group of warriors to burning her grandmother’s body.

The elders joined her on the pyre. Then the fallen warriors and any remains they could find scattered about in the snow. Herbs of cleansing and protection were burned with the bodies. The bodies of the dead deserved more respect than they were given. Their spirits deserved more than this. But there wasn’t time. And they had to be sure the taint of the creature who had inhabited her grandmother’s body was well and truly purged.

Cloud pulled on the little magic she possessed, finding it had been bolstered by her transformation into...protector. She led the tribe in a brief blessing and then set them to packing up anything they could use.

The tribes all gathered by the river in a place the white men called Saginaw, for the winter months. She would lead her people there. But she knew that was only the first step.

There would be battles. There would be fear and treachery. And Cloud would lead her people through it all. Protect every last one of them, until there was nothing left.

What she would become then, she had no idea. She had a feeling that this was the beginning of a war that would take everything she had.

But she would gladly give anything, if it meant she could prevent what had happened to her people from happening to the other tribes.

She mounted her horse and led the remains of her tribe in a silent march toward the rest of their people.

Overhead, a raven cawed, its voice strong and startling in the silent, snowy wood. Cloud remembered the voices that had whispered to her in that place in between. The ancestors would watch over them and guide them.

With that steadying thought, Cloud kept her eyes on the horizon, and her heart with the people around her. She was no longer herself. She was the tribe’s warrior. Shaman. Chief. Their last hope.

**********

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The rest of the Wendigo Girl series can be found at most major e-book retailers.

About the Author

Kaye Draper is the author of numerous novels and short stories available in e-format and print. Kaye inhabits the forests and waters of Michigan, where she often finds inspiration for her stories. Sign up for her mailing list to receive free short stories and book updates. Visit her website kayedraper.com, her blog Write Me, Twitter, or Facebook.

Check out these other titles by Kaye Draper:

Beauty And The Feast- Reclusive horror writer Tess Vere has lost everything. There is no possible way her craptastic life can get much worse. Until she is attacked by a shadow creature on the Lake Huron shore. Rescued by a Ninja-Indian-chick and her tasty (in every way) side-kick, Tess learns that she still has something left to lose after all. Her humanity.

Moonlight Calls- The most powerful creatures of the supernatural community are inexplicably drawn to Mya, but she refuses to acknowledge the power growing inside her- not the least of which is the ability to make the undead explode on contact. Aided by her sexy roommate and a powerful new lover, she struggles to stay under the radar and out of the hands of monsters that would use her for their own gain.

Earth And Sky- Wren has trained for war since she was a child, but a secret bond with the enemy will change her world forever. Set in a steampunk world of vampiric Fallen Angels and alchemy-wielding Shifters, this saga blends elements of romance, fantasy, and paranormal into a sweet romantic adventure.

Kelpie- Ada’s world just gets stranger and stranger when she discovers that the naked homeless guy she found in the woods turns out to be a powerful fey water horse. Will she—and the entire human race—survive being swept up in a war between two factions of fey?

Survivor- After a car accident leaves Melody with a host of physical and cognitive issues, she does her best to adjust to her new life.  Until a handsome vampire falls in love with her inner strength and turns her world upside down.

Redemption- Rebecca is trapped in a dream world filled with mythical creatures who force her to face her deepest fears. But when she meets Isaac, another dreamer, she realizes that this is more than a dream and that Isaac's life—and ultimately his soul—hangs in the balance.

A Secret Sky- When Savannah's home is invaded by aliens, the last thing she expects is to fall in love with one of the pointy-eared, energy-wielding giants. Drawn in by their gentleness and attitude of enlightenment and peace, that’s just what she does. Knowing her battle with Multiple Sclerosis will rob her of her future, the young veterinarian gives up her last years on Earth to follow the alien biologist, Eirian, across the solar system. However, Eiri's interest in Earthlings may bring about their destruction.

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