The first blizzard of the winter came shortly after the solstice. The wind howled through the village for two days, keeping everyone inside the great longhouse who didn't have to go outside. Even those who had their own lodges moved into the longhouse where they shared the warmth of their bodies and cooking fires. They passed the time listening to the old ones tell stories. When Grandmother's turn came, she told the tales of the Wendigo.
The third day after the start of the blizzard dawned bright, and clear, and cold. The villagers ventured forth from the longhouse and started the work of clearing paths through the snow between the lodges and storehouses of the village. Some of the drifts of snow were deeper than the tallest of the men in the village.
The snow was too deep for Nahanni to move quickly through it when she resumed her patrols. Now she had to wear snowshoes to keep from sinking waist deep into the drifts between the trees. She still found no sign of anything stalking her village.
There had been a hunting party away when the blizzard struck. They had been due back at about the time that it ended, but no one was concerned when they still hadn't returned a week later. They would have had to take shelter during the storm, and they wouldn't be able to move as quickly through the deep snow when the weather cleared. The delay in their return was at first seen as a hopeful sign. They were delayed by the difficulty of transporting all the meat they had killed.
Nahanni knew better. Her nightly dreams were full of the faces of some of the men from the hunting party, transformed into wendigo.
Two weeks after the blizzard other people were starting to worry. The hunters should have been back by now, no matter how much the snow or their burdens had delayed them.
It was just after sunset, on the fifteenth day after the blizzard when Mandokee returned to the village. He stood outside the great longhouse, slapping his hand against the wall by the door, calling out to his brother and sister. "Pamaswek! Sebequa! Can I come in?"
The noise Mandokee was making roused the entire village. People boiled from their lodges, including Pamaswek and Sebequa who hugged their brother, glad that he had returned alive.
"Where are the others?" asked Moguago, the village chief. "Where is the hunting party?"
"They are camped not far from here," said Mandokee. "I came ahead to ask for help to bring in the game we have killed." He pointed toward the lodge. "Please, may I come in to warm myself by the fire?"
Nahanni watched the man who's face had appeared in many of her dreams over the past weeks. "He is not Mandokee," she whispered to Ashiwut. "He is a wendigo."
Ashiwut started to open his mouth to say something, but Pamaswek spoke first. "Of course brother! Come in! Warm yourself. Then in the morning you can lead some of us back to your camp to fetch the others, and help bring in your catch."
Mandokee smiled. "Thank you for your invitation, brother." He ducked through the doorway into the longhouse. Everyone followed, anxious to hear his news. Nahanni stayed close to him, alert for any sign that the wendigo would attack, but it quickly became apparent that that was not its plan.
Mandokee told a story of a very successful hunt, and a hunting party exhausted by the effort to move so much meat through the deep snow. "I do not want to leave them out there overnight, when there is a warm lodge and fire waiting here for them," he told the people gathered around the fire. "We just need five or six strong men to come with me now, and we can have all the meat brought to the smokehouse, and everyone in a warm bed by midnight."
Nahanni and Ashiwut exchanged a glance. It was plain to both of them what Mandokee's plan was. Lure some of the best warriors in the village into a trap and kill them, perhaps make some or all of them wendigo too. Weaken the village, while making themselves stronger. Ashiwut stood up. "Yes! I will come with you." The other men around the fire quickly volunteered too.
"No, no!" said Mandokee. "We do not need so many. Five or six will do." He picked out Ashiwut, and five of the strongest warriors, including his brother Pamaswek. "You will come with me."
Ashiwut returned to his lodge with Nahanni to get his snowshoes and parka for the journey. The men going with Mandokee would all meet at the stockade gate when they were ready.
"Are you crazy?" asked Nahanni as Ashiwut gathered his things. "You know this is a trap!"
"Of course it's a trap." Ashiwut slid a wooden stake into each of his parka sleeves. "But we see the trap. I will go with Mandokee and the others. You will follow us. When the wendigo attack, we will kill them."
Nahanni waited until after Ashiwut had gone to meet the other men before she left their lodge and made her way to the stockade wall. She climbed it easily, with her snowshoes and bow slung over her back and jumped down into the deep snow on the other side. She put on her snowshoes and moved quickly around the wall toward the main gate. The men were already gone when she arrived there, but their tracks were plain in the moonlight. She set out after them.
Mandokee led the group of six men south along the banks of the small river. They could see that he was following a single set of snowshoe tracks going the other way toward the village, the tracks he had made himself as he came in.
Nahanni caught up with the men quickly. She broke away from the trail, climbing up into the trees at the top of the river bank before anyone could see her. She knew that none of the men from the village would see her, but Grandmother had told her that Wendigo could see as well in the dark as she did. Her nightly patrols had made her familiar with all the terrain around the village, and she knew she could move as swiftly through the trees as the men were moving on the trail along the river's edge. She was close enough now that she didn't have to see the men or their tracks to follow them, she could hear the faint crunching of the snow under their snowshoes. They were moving too quickly to be travel without making noise. She also knew that they had little choice in their path. The river still wasn't frozen enough that she had to worry that they might turn away from her and cross it. Large sections of the fast flowing river were still free of ice. They either continued up stream, or they turned away from the river, toward her.
Ashiwut wondered how far Mandokee would lead them before the wendigo sprang their trap. He didn't think it would be very far. Just far enough that there would be no hope of anyone in their village hearing their screams. He figured they had passed that point some time ago and his eyes darted around, looking for the ambush he knew was coming.
Mandokee led them into a place where the trail along the river's edge narrowed. A steep bank rose above them to their left, and the river ran deep and black and cold to their right. 'This is it,' Ashiwut thought to himself. He wasn't wrong.
Mandokee stopped, and turned around, blocking the path so that none of them could move forward. Ashiwut saw that he had dropped his disguise. Mandokee's eyes shone yellow in the night, his forehead was creased with ridges, and fangs appeared in his mouth.
Ashiwut looked back. He saw another wendigo appear out of the darkness on the trail behind them, cutting off their escape. He looked up the river bank, just in time to see more wendigo erupt from the snow that had covered them, to fall down onto the men on the trail.