HAIRY STORIES
NARRATOR
Stevie Ray sat with his back resting against a tree near the postage-stamp-sized Indian reservation of Pres du Lac, trying not to doze off. He yawned, closing his eyes, and when he opened them again, three elderly Native American men dressed in flannel and denim stood in a loose semi-circle around him. Stevie Ray glared. “Indians creeping up silently on a fella through the woods? You don’t think that’s a little stereotypical?”
Willy Noir grinned. “We weren’t all that quiet. Maybe a guy who didn’t hear us coming should think about having his ears checked out.”
Stevie Ray stood up and offered his hand, but no one shook it. He sighed. “Dr. Scullen would like me to apologize on his behalf for his idiot son trespassing on your lands, if he did, which maybe he didn’t, but he probably came close, so anyway, he’s sorry.”
Willy glanced at the other two tribal elders, who had faces as impassive as carved wooden—damn it, stereotyping again. As the only black man in the entire town of Lake Woebegotten, Stevie Ray was keenly aware of racial things, but heck, these guys were taciturn and inscrutable and other such things. Then Willy leaned over his walking stick and spat on the ground. “Never had a wendigo apologize to me before,” Willy said. “Can’t say as I like it much.”
Stevie Ray rolled his eyes. “This wendigo stuff. We both know the Scullens and Scales aren’t wendigo—”
“Wendigos,” Willy interrupted. “The plural is wendigos, not wendigo, they’re not like deer or moose.”
“I thought it was Wendigeaux,” one of the elders said. “With an x. Like the French do it.”
“Wendigi, maybe, like octopi and cacti?” Stevie Ray said.
“Wendigos,” Willy Noir said, unperturbed.
“Well, all right,” Stevie Ray said. “The point is, they’re not wendigos. They’re… you know.” He put his hands to the corners of his mouth and made fangs of his index fingers.
Willy shrugged. “Our legends don’t really have those, but we have wendigos. I don’t think it’s a bad description. Wendigos used to be human, and then became something else, something immortal. They eat human flesh. The details are a little different, maybe, okay, but do your—” Here he imitated Stevie Ray’s fang gesture “—do they fear sunlight, or garlic, or crucifixes, or holy water, or have obsessive compulsive disorder? They don’t exactly fit the stories perfectly, either, do they?”
Stevie Ray shrugged. “No, I guess not. But in the legends there are all different kinds of—”
Willy interrupted. “And maybe one kind is a wendigo. My people—especially people like me,” he said meaningfully, “are sworn to protect the world from the wendigos. And the world needs protecting from the Scullens and the Scales, so I say they’re wendigos.” He wiped his mouth. “And yes, one of them was on our land, though I think he strayed over by accident in the midst of blood lust during pursuit of a deer. He ran right off our land again, and killed whatever prey he was chasing outside the limits of the rez, but trespass is trespass. I’m willing to concede it was an accident. No doubt about whether he was here or not, though. I can smell him.”
“That’s not so difficult,” Stevie Ray said, “assuming he was out on a sunny day.”
One of the other elders snorted, and Willy cracked a smile. “You’re not so bad, Stevie Ray. Why do you play Renfield for those things?”
“Let’s just say I have some philosophical interest in avoiding an all-out race war,” Stevie Ray said blandly. “Between you… hairy folks… and the ones you want to call wendigos.” Also because the Scullens pay me a lot. “Besides, I don’t work for them, I work for both of you, as a liaison. Did you have a message to take back to the Scullens?”
“Just this. If it happens again, and one of the boys comes onto our land? Don’t expect them to come back.”
Stevie Ray sighed. “I’ve seen those boys play hockey, Willy. They play rough. Could be one of them against you three wouldn’t be a fair fight. Could be it might be a little dangerous.”
“Could we fight a wendigo as we are now? No. But you know… we’re not too hairy right now. We can get hairier. And one of the things that makes it easy to get all hairy—that makes it hard to not get all hairy—is having unnatural flesh-eating animated dead things on our land. Besides… what makes you think there aren’t any young people in Pres du Lac who’ve inherited our gift?”
“Okay, okay.” Stevie Ray held up his hands. “I’ll pass on the message, least I can do, I was just saying, that’s all. But, you know, for flesh-eating dead things, they aren’t so bad. They’ve found, ah, non-human sources of nourishment. And they brought a lot of money to the economy. Dr. Scullen has a way of forgetting to send the people he treats bills, too. I mean, their kind may be known for drinking blood and treating humans as playthings, but heck, some people think my kind are all good at playing basketball, and some people think your kind are in touch with the spirits of ancient wisdom or else that you’re all drunks, so maybe these kind of generalities aren’t such a good idea, I don’t know, I couldn’t say, but it just seems to me.”
“I know they’re behaving themselves now. That’s why we made the truce with the Scullens—well, not we, but my ancestors, and I was awfully annoyed to see them come back here a couple of years ago. But we also know it’s an effort for them to stick to food that doesn’t think and talk and have hopes and dreams. You have to understand, Stevie Ray, things like that live forever unless you stop them from living… and when you live forever, the chance of you making a mistake or losing control isn’t a question of whether or not, it’s just a question of when. And when they do slip, when they witness a car wreck or something and start smelling blood and lose control of themselves… aren’t you glad to know me and my occasionally hairy friends and family are around to protect you?”
“Great,” Stevie Ray said. “Werewolves are going to protect us from vampires? That makes me feel real comfortable, as a human.”
After Stevie Ray left, the quietest elder said, “Did he say werewolves? He thinks we’re werewolves?”
“That fella,” Willy Noir said, “is a fella who watches too many dumb movies, is what I think.”