Whitefeather. He was tall, very old, and wore buckskins under a great buffalo robe. His long white hair was held in place by an ornate band, decorated with two eagle feathers. He looked as if he had just stepped out of the pages of a history book, but there was no look of a ghost about him. He stared Odd Whitefeather up and down, grimaced, and began to take the rest of us in. Finally, after a long appraising look, the old man spoke. “The Windigo will trade the white man for one of these two,” he said, gesturing to Terry and myself, without turning his head in our direction. “Have they made their decision?”
“I haven’t told them yet,” answered Odd Whitefeather.
“I see you haven’t changed,” replied the old man in the buffalo robe. He then turned away and gazed out into the blackness. “What has happened to my home? Don’t you know how to use a hammer?”
“Windigo,” said Odd Whitefeather.
The Old One looked at Odd Whitefeather for a long while before nodding his head. “Well, don’t just stand there looking silly in those foolish robes. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”
Odd Whitefeather squinted his eyes at his elder, and was obviously a little miffed by the comments made by him. “Billy Proudfoot, Terry Blackbird, this is my grandfather, Crooked Walker. He has climbed down from the Great Tree of Life to join us in our battle with the Windigo. He has come very far.”
“Proudfoot?” asked Crooked Walker, gesturing at me. “I knew your grandfather, he was a great warrior. It is an honor to meet you, young Proudfoot.”
I bowed my head and uttered a quick thank you, embarrassed by the attention. If the Old One had recognized the Blackbird name, he never let on about it. I could read the disappointment on Terry’s face. He was very proud of his family heritage, what he knew of it, anyhow. Like me, he only had his mother’s word from where he had descended from. Something started to click inside my head, but before I could piece it all together, Crooked Walker spelled out the terrible truth.
“Have you told them that the Windigo is their father?” he asked Odd Whitefeather.
“I was getting to that,” muttered Odd Whitefeather.
“Well, you’d better get to it right now, because the Windigo is poised to strike at any moment. This was important information, I am saddened that you didn’t share it with them,” he then turned his head to us and spoke, stealing his grandson’s thunder. “The man who was once your father is now the Windigo. His heart cries out for one of his sons to join him. The Great Spirit has forbidden him to keep the son he has chosen, for he is a good man and an asset to his people. The two of you, well… are not. One of you must take his place.”
I looked at Terry as another wave of truth washed over me. Frank Warner was also his father, and the two of us were brothers. I stared at him with complete shock because he seemed to already know this terrible truth. “You knew?” I asked him. “I thought you were my friend…”
“He is better than friend,” said Crooked Walker. “He is your brother.”
Terry hung his head and studied his feet.
I stood there and just stared into the flames. There were so many things that I wanted to say, but I knew better than to open my mouth. I needed to weigh things out in my head, if that were possible. Odd Whitefeather’s grandfather, Crooked Walker, was asking him where the cows were and Terry remained where he was, head lowered in shame. I knew Terry; he would remain that way until I had forgiven him.
How was this possible and why had I been the only one who didn’t seem to know? My two best friends in the world; my brothers, and neither one had the decency to bother telling me the truth. Or, maybe they hadn’t had the guts to tell me? Probably a little bit of both, I thought. Without warning, my thoughts turned to my dear old dad, great guy; how many other siblings were still out there? It sounded like Dad was a busy man.
“Don’t let your mind go there,” said Odd Whitefeather, sharply.
I turned and looked at him. I didn’t like that he could see inside my head. “Why shouldn’t I?” I asked, wondering why it mattered to him.
“Blackbird, tell your brother the truth and start from the beginning,” said Odd Whitefeather. “Do it now.”
“This ought to be good,” I said with gritted teeth. While Crooked Walker played with the wolves, I faced Terry and challenged him with my eyes.
Terry began the story, twice, but each time he tried his voice hitched in his throat. On the third attempt he was able to tell the story. “Haven’t you ever wondered why we had so much in common? Our birthdays are a week apart. We were both raised without fathers. Look at me, man. I’m your brother and you never once suspected it? You got the looks, the brains, the girls. All I got was bigger. Still, sometimes I see you in the mirror looking back at me. I always sorta hoped that you’d figure things out on your own. After a while, I was ashamed that you hadn’t seen what was right before your eyes.”
I began to interrupt, but I was hushed by Odd Whitefeather.
“The winter before we were born, our parents, and I do mean the three of them, went on a little snowmobile trip. Dad had an old sleigh he’d pull behind his snowmobile and he took our mothers out for a ride. The three of them had been friends since grade school. They got the thing buried in some deep snow and had to walk back to town, which was about ten miles away. It was getting colder and they decided to take a short cut back to town. A couple of miles into the walk, the three of them fell up to their necks in a poorly frozen pond. Across the pond was a hunting shack. They made it that far,” he let that sink in for a while and studied my face.
“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “And you believe all that?”
“I looked it up in the newspaper; it was all there and pretty big news at the time. They went into the shack and found that there was no woodstove. No heat of any kind. They were freezing to death. They did find one sleeping bag.”
“Okay, Terry, I get the point.”
“They knew they had to get out of their wet clothing.”
“Okay. I understand,” I said, just wanting him to stop. I should’ve known better.
“They spent the night like that, thinking that they were going to freeze to death. It was the first time for all three of them and they thought it would be the last.”
“Enough, man, you don’t have to drill it into my head like that. I get it.”
“Do you?” asked Odd Whitefeather.
“That’s just too much information,” I said. “He doesn’t need to paint a picture for me, that’s my mom were talking about.”
Odd Whitefeather nodded.
Terry continued. “Right, sorry, man. Anyhow, the next day they were found by searchers who swore never to tell anyone about the way they were discovered. The three of them were embarrassed about the whole thing and didn’t speak for months. That was when Dad met Doug’s mom, Shelly. They fell in love and were married in two months. Dad never knew. Our moms decided to keep it from him and they rode it out alone, here on the reservation. Dad didn’t find out until they got back from their honeymoon.”
“Why didn’t he ever tell me?” I asked, ashamed by the tears that were streaming down my face. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?”
“Proudfoot,” said Crooked Walker, who had stepped up to the barrel and was now standing behind Terry. “You will take this as a man!”
Now I was totally humiliated. I wiped the tears from my face and felt the anger welling up inside of me. Spirit, or not, I was going to give this man a piece of my mind. “I am taking this like a man,” I blurted out. “What do you expect me to say? That’s great, man. Hey, let’s party? Are you kidding me? I get the whole scandal thing. I understand why they tried to keep it a secret. I just don’t understand why they didn’t tell me. I had a stake in this too, ya know? How could any of you possibly know how I feel?”
“I was born during the Civil War,” snapped Crooked Walker. “Here, right here on the frozen ground we stand on. I have witnessed many terrible things. I have seen pain and suffering unlike anythin
g you can imagine. I have heard the stories about the old ways and about how many things we lost, as they were told to me by my father and grandfather. Do you want to talk about feelings? Let me tell you about theirs. Let me tell you about death and disease, about watching your people starve to death.”
“Don’t go changing the subject,” I said, wishing I hadn’t. Somehow, I had crossed the line and I immediately knew it.
“Don’t you ever interrupt an elder, young man,” scolded Odd Whitefeather.
“This is about dignity and about you trying to show some. This is about courage and being able to face the truth. You will need both if you ever hope to defeat the Windigo,” added Crooked Walker before walking away to the moose. He stood there looking at me with his dark eyes, patting the long brown snout with his hand. The moose seemed to enjoy this.
“But, the Windigo is my father? Our father,” I said to Terry. “How can we be expected to kill him?”
“He isn’t your father, anymore.” said Odd Whitefeather. “And if a little bit of him is left inside the Windigo, he would scream to you to end his misery. To become a