Chapter 11

Canada, Twenty-Eight Years Ago

The next morning, Sheshebens was no better. Chepi put her hand to the child’s forehead. “He’s so hot.”

“Take off his jacket and pack snow on his head to cool him down,” Noshi said. He leaned over and kissed her. “We may be here for several days. I’ll try to catch a rabbit.”

“Without your rifle?” said Chepi.

“I’ve got my knife.” He held up the mule skinner and traced his finger over the blade…

Northern California, Present Time

Maggie grew up with the Yurok raven myth of a shape shifter, woman part of the time, bird part of the time. According to the legend, a magical raven fell in love with a beautiful green-eyed maiden. He turned her into a bird so he could mate with her. She laid a silver egg and hatched a tiny black-haired human baby girl with green eyes. The bird, not wanting a human child, intended to kick the baby out of the nest to a hungry raccoon waiting below.

“Please,” begged the maiden. “Do not kill my baby. I will stay with you forever if you let her live.”

The raven thought and thought, and finally decided he loved the maiden so much he would grant her wish under one condition. “I will agree to this, but she cannot spend all her time as a human.”

He turned his daughter into a shape shifter. The daughter could not remain in her human form for more than a day without turning. By spending some hours as a bird, the girl honored her father and her raven heritage.

As a teenager, Maggie heard Yurok kids at school talking about the shape shifter. She asked her mother about the legend. “Mom, it seems some people actually believe this raven stuff.”

“Ah, yes, I heard some Yurok and Hoopa women talkin’ at a bear dance once. They say the green-eyed raven lives down by the river. The women think it’s a good sign, too, ‘cause some wohpekumeo, shape shifters, are pukkukwerek.”

“What’s a puc-uc-were-ek, or whatever you call it?”

“Protectors of the Yurok people, monster killers.”

“Fairy tales.” Maggie shook her head. “Sorry, Mom, but I’m not buying any of this.”

“Not all legends are legends. Grandfather always said, ‘Within every myth is the seed of truth.’”

“You mean you actually believe a ‘were-raven’ could exist? There’s no such thing as were-ravens and shape shifters or pucawhatevers, Mom. That’s like believing in Sasquatch. C’mon.”

“There’s plenty folk who believe in Sasquatch, and ‘sides our people honor the limitless possibilities of nature. Who are any of us to say that anything is impossible?”

*

The raven dream returned. Maggie soared once again over the Trinity Alps, but this time, she flew with an unkindness of ravens who cawed to her in Yurok.

“I don’t understand everything you’re saying,” she cawed back. “My Yurok is rusty. I speak mostly English and Raven.”

One turned an eye to her and said in English, “I said you’re the pukkukwerek.”

“What? My mother told me about that. A ‘monster killer.’”

“Your mother knew.”

It was midnight, but the waxing moon was bright enough that Maggie could see veins in the leaves of the oaks she skimmed. She turned to fly toward the white cliffs of Sunset Mountain. The other ravens bid her goodbye, and peeled off. Their caws grew so faint that all Maggie could hear was the breeze moving through the conifers blended with the beat of an unseen drum. She flew closer toward the drumming until the ugly man-creature she’d seen there before came into view. She perched in the lightning-scarred Douglas fir to observe him.

This time, there were two little boys with him, both dead and naked, their skin so pale it was nearly transparent. Their clothes were folded into two stacks, shoes on top with their socks rolled and tucked inside. The twins lay on their backs side-by-side in the red dirt, arms at their sides, eyes wide open.

The big native grabbed one boy by an arm, and held him aloft in his left hand. The child’s head flopped over to one side in an unnatural angle. Bracing the small body against the fir, the creature plunged his right hand into the child’s chest as though his fingertips were made of surgical steel, and with a twist and a jerk he yanked out the heart. Unhinging his jaws, the monster shoved the entire organ into his mouth. He chewed for a long while. Blood, saliva and macerated pieces of heart dripped out a gaping hole in the side of his face where a portion of his cheek was missing. As he swallowed, a lump moved down through an exposed section of his esophagus. The monster cast aside the first boy and picked up the other.

When he had finished his second “meal,” the hideous specter cleaned the boys with a soft cloth, dressed them, meticulously brushed their hair, and laid them facing one another in the neat, rectangular hole Maggie had watched him dig in her earlier dream. He wrapped their arms around one another in an embrace, and covered them with dirt, rocks and leaves. In a little boy’s voice, he said “Bye bye, Sheshebens,” and patted the mound.

He stood. The moonlight illuminated his decayed face. Glistening pieces of heart and blood clung to his tattered deerskin shirt. He raised his arms into the air and sang a plaintive song in an Indian tongue unfamiliar to Maggie. She cawed at him. He stopped singing; looked up into the tree where she perched. He pounded his emaciated chest with both fists and laughed.

*

Maggie awoke with a start, tangled in sweat-drenched sheets. “My God, my God.” She looked at the clock on the night stand. Three a.m. With trembling hands she picked up her cell and dialed.