Ancestor Approved Read online

  Miigwech, Gchi-Manidoo. Miigwech, family. So many good surprises today at the powwow. And we still get to compete in Jingle Dress later!

  Wendigos Don’t Dance

  Art Coulson

  As he stepped from his bedroom into the dark hallway, Jace noticed the flickering light before he heard the muffled laughs and tinny music coming from his uncles’ room one door down. He poked his head in the half-open door.

  “Is this how you guys spend every night? Staying up late watching Bigfoot videos?”

  Jace stood in mock anger, hands on his hips, imitating his mother’s voice.

  His uncles turned to look at him over their shoulders. Their eyes were wide and faces blank, like deer standing along the roadside.

  They knew they’d been caught. Then they both chuckled.

  “Wendigo,” Uncle Mutt said.

  “Windy what?” Jace raised an eyebrow.

  “Wendigo videos, not Bigfoot this time,” Uncle Jeff said. “Wendigos are spirits that live in the forests up there in the Great Lakes. We have to get ready for our trip to Michigan tomorrow. Wouldn’t want to head over there unprepared.”

  Uncle Mutt nodded. His face was serious, but he couldn’t hide his smile for long.

  Jace’s uncles had an unusual hobby. On weekends, they liked to hunt for Bigfoot, both in the forests of northern Minnesota and back home in Oklahoma. Many nights, they retired to their room after supper to watch Bigfoot videos online. They kept a big loose-leaf notebook filled with their observations, sketches, locks of hair, and grainy photos of old tree stumps and large, snowy footprints—did Bigfoot really wear hiking boots?

  Jace must have missed that fact in science class.

  “Well, you should both be in bed. We have a long trip tomorrow and it’s just you two driving,” Jace said. “You know I can’t get my learner’s permit for another two years and nine months.”

  Not that he was counting or anything.

  “We know, we know. But this isn’t our first road trip, little man,” said Uncle Jeff. “Mutt and I have this down to a science. You got the sausage and cheese in the cooler, right, big brother? Thermos filled with coffee? Corn nuts? Bologna sandwiches?”

  Mutt checked off each item with a flourish on an imaginary list on the palm of his hand. “Hawa! We’re all set,” he replied. “Now back to our video, already in progress.”

  Man, Jace’s uncles could be annoying.

  “Well, you should try to get some sleep. I don’t want you all tired at the powwow and teasing to go back to the hotel for a nap at lunchtime.” Jace felt like the grown-up in the room when his uncles were together. You’d think they were six years old instead of pushing sixty. They still shared a bedroom, after all. It was a wonder they weren’t still sleeping in bunk beds.

  Besides hunting Bigfoot, his uncles traveled the country telling stories at schools, powwows, and festivals.

  This weekend, his uncles were traveling all the way from Minneapolis to Ann Arbor, to the University of Michigan’s annual spring powwow, where they planned to visit with old friends and tell stories.

  Jace was an unwilling chaperone. Jace’s grandma wanted him to go along with her younger brothers to keep them out of trouble. Jace would much rather stay home and hang out with his friends. Plus, he was missing a day of school on Friday. Pizza day in the cafeteria. It was just unfair.

  Once again, he’d be stuck in the back of the car on an endless road trip. Jace would have to listen to his uncles as they swapped stories, remembered every place they’d ever stopped for food (and what they had eaten), and counted every deer between Minnesota and Michigan.

  Despite his uncles’ vow to be ready for the trip first thing in the morning, they didn’t get their ugly avocado-green station wagon loaded and on the road until almost noon.

  “Your chariot awaits,” said Uncle Jeff to no one in particular as he slammed down the rear hatch. Jace worried that the cracked rear window would finally give up its grip and fall out of the car entirely, but it held on. Maybe it was the Indians Discovered Columbus bumper sticker that held it magically in place.

  Pure stubbornness, more likely.

  “You using your GPS, Jeff?” Mutt asked. He pronounced it “gipps.” Jace wasn’t sure if that was intentional or just a sign of his uncle’s old age.

  “Nah, once we get on 94, it’s a straight shot to Ann Arbor,” Jeff said as he slid into the driver’s seat. “In fact, we’ll barely have time for you to finish one of your stories before we get there. Maybe you can just boil it down to the interesting parts.”

  Jeff grinned. Teasing his brother was his favorite pastime.

  Jace napped most of the trip, waking only when they stopped for gas or when one of his uncles reached across him to fish around in the cooler for a sausage or hunk of cheese.

  When they pulled into the Ann Arbor Holiday Inn parking lot just before midnight, Jeff shook Jace awake.

  “We’re here, neff. Time to wake up and start gathering your stuff. We also need help hauling in the cooler and gear.”

  They tossed their duffel bags on the floor of their room, rolled out Jace’s sleeping bag, and jockeyed for position at the lone sink as all three tried to brush their teeth at once.

  “No snoring,” Mutt said, looking over at his brother.

  “It’ll be like I’m not even here,” Jeff said. He had a weird look on his face, but Jace just chalked it up to the long drive. Maybe all the spicy sausage Jeff had scarfed down on the trip was biting him back.

  They all lay down and Jeff reached over to turn out the light between the beds.

  Once his brother and nephew were asleep, Jeff left them a note, and then quietly slipped out the front door of the hotel and into the parking lot. He rubbed his hands together and puffed out a steamy breath.

  “It’s good to see you again, Jeff. How’s Mutt? Is he coming with us?”

  The short, thin woman closed the door of her idling SUV and leaned in to give Jeff a peck on the cheek. She was wearing jeans, a Pendleton jacket, and white fleece ear warmers that circled her long, dark hair. Her eyes sparkled in the brightness of the parking-lot lights.

  “Nah, I’m letting him and my nephew catch up on their sleep. Just the two of us tonight.”

  Helen Peacock smiled. Her ears turned red, but Jeff couldn’t see them under the ear warmers.

  “I’m staying in a yurt up at Green Lake, in the Waterloo Recreation Area. It’s only a half hour away, but you feel like you’re camping in the wilderness. Great to sit on the deck under a blanket and watch the Northern Lights over the lake.”

  “And look for wendigos,” Jeff added.

  Helen looked at Jeff and slowly shook her head. That man could wring the romance right out of a Lifetime movie. No wonder he was still a bachelor.

  Helen and Jeff had known each other for more than twenty years, but she still couldn’t get used to his odd hobby. Or his even odder sense of humor.

  Helen was the reason Jeff had jumped at the chance to come to Ann Arbor to tell stories and attend the powwow. Helen—Dr. Peacock to her students—taught math at the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College on her Reservation, two hours north of Ann Arbor. She attended the University of Michigan powwow each spring.

  “Skoden. We need to get started if I’m going to have you back here before breakfast,” she said, opening the driver’s door.

  The sound of running water and the smell of coffee woke Jace before any light peeked in around the room’s heavy flowered drapes. He rolled over in his sleeping bag and ran a hand through his long hair.

  Uncle Mutt was moving quickly and methodically in the dark, singing an old Cherokee song under his breath as he prepared to meet the day. He was trying not to wake anyone.

  As Jace gradually traveled from dreamland to the here and now, he sensed something wasn’t quite right. After more than ten hours in the car and a less-than-comfortable night’s sleep on the floor, he wasn’t sure of much. But he was sure of one thing: when they’d gone to bed, there had
been three people in the room. Now there were only two.

  “Uncle Mutt?” Jace said.

  “Siyo, Jace. How’d you sleep?”

  “Where’s Uncle Jeff?” Jace said, without answering the question.

  “He’s right over there in his bed. Where do you think he is? He’s going to sleep the whole day away—if the cannibal ghosts don’t carry him away.”

  Jace shivered, remembering the stories his grandmother had told him about the water cannibals who snuck into homes at dawn and carried away the souls of children who stayed in bed too late. Yeah, no fluffy bunnies and happy puppies in his grandmother’s stories.

  Uncle Mutt flipped on the light switch next to the sink and squinted to get used to the sudden brightness.

  “Hmm, you’re right. We seem to be missing someone. Jeff must have snuck out early to be first in line at the breakfast buffet. That boy sure does love his bacon.”

  Jace stood up and stretched. He could almost touch the ceiling. He’d grown almost a foot in the last year alone. He reached into the pocket of his shorts and drew out a hair tie. As he pulled his hair back into a loose ponytail, he saw a note on the table between the beds.

  “There’s our explanation,” Uncle Mutt said as he crossed the room, carefully stepping around the duffel bags, comic books, and cracker boxes.

  Gone to look for wendigos with Helen. I’ll be back in time for breakfast. Don’t eat all the bacon.

  —ᏙᏧᏩ

  Jeff had signed his note with his Indian name, Totsuwa, or Redbird. Jace’s grandma and his uncles usually called each other by their Cherokee names, especially when they were speaking their language.

  When he was younger, Jace—Jayson when his mom was mad—had been curious about his uncle Mutt’s name. He went to his grandma, figuring she would tell him the truth. Uncle Mutt would probably make up some far-fetched story about how he had gotten his unusual name.

  “Elisi, what’s Uncle Mutt’s real name?” Jace had asked her one day.

  “What do you mean?” she replied.

  “I mean, Mutt is his nickname. What’s his real name? Is Mutt short for Matthew or Mathias or something?”

  “No,” his grandmother said. “Mutt is his real name. Our parents named him and your uncle Jeff after two guys on an old radio show.”

  Grandma didn’t say what kind of music they played on that old radio show. Probably country and western, if he knew his family.

  Uncle Mutt coughed, bringing Jace back into the present.

  “Well, he could have said something before we all went to sleep, so we didn’t worry,” Mutt said, taking another sip of his coffee and shaking his head. “But that’s my brother—Mr. Responsible.”

  Jace frowned. Uncle Jeff’s note said he’d be back before breakfast. So where was he?

  “I bet he’s already down at the buffet waiting on us. Get dressed and we’ll meet him down there.” Uncle Mutt was already dressed for the powwow in a pair of black jeans, handmade boots, and a denim shirt. A red bandanna was fastened around his neck with a silver slide. His graying hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. He slipped on a dark blue blazer and grabbed his white cowboy hat to complete what he called his “Official Storyteller’s Uniform.”

  Jace pulled on a pair of jeans before sitting on the edge of Jeff’s bed to put on his boots. He grabbed a flannel shirt from his bag and slid it on before announcing, “Let’s go.”

  But Uncle Jeff wasn’t at the breakfast buffet.

  Jace and Mutt went through the short line and sat at a small table near the window. The dining area was full of Indian people of all ages. The room was loud with excited conversation and laughter. Powwow mornings were always like that.

  But Jace was having a hard time getting in the mood.

  Uncle Mutt shoveled eggs and toast into his mouth, pausing only for the occasional breath and sip of black coffee. He pushed his tinted, silver-framed eyeglasses back on his nose with the index finger of his right hand and looked over at his nephew.

  Jace just pushed his eggs and hash browns around with his fork. He looked down at his plate in silence. “He’ll turn up, Mutt. Jeff and Helen are probably already over at the school watching them set up for the powwow. We’ll head over after breakfast and give him a hard time for disappearing on us.”

  Hours earlier, the SUV had jolted through the pine forest along a dark road as Jeff and Helen drove toward Green Lake. An occasional snow flurry spun in the beams of the headlights. The cool air blowing through the SUV’s vents smelled fresh and crisp, like pine needles, with just a hint of woodsmoke. Jeff loved early spring, when the whole world started anew.

  Helen pulled off the road, parked the SUV at her yurt, and turned off the engine. The night was dark, and their eyes were slow to adjust. “We’re here,” she said, looking over at Jeff. She kept her eyes on him as he unbuckled his seat belt and adjusted his baseball cap. “Hope you’ll be warm enough. Want to see the lake before we head into the yurt?”

  She and Jeff walked toward the lake, holding hands.

  “Let’s hit one of the trails, see if we can find any sign of the wendigo,” Jeff said.

  “We don’t have a flashlight or a trail map,” Helen said. “This isn’t a good idea.” She followed Jeff up the dark trail anyway. “And what about bears?”

  “What about them? I’m more worried about encountering a wendigo in the wild, to be honest. They look kinda mean on YouTube.”

  “Then why in the world are you looking for them?” Helen asked. “Besides, you know they’re not real, right?”

  “How can an Ojibwe woman say that? They’re your stories—you mean you don’t believe ’em?”

  “Do you believe every Cherokee story you’ve ever heard?”

  “Sure do. Well, except for Mutt’s. He lies a lot.”

  They walked on in silence, with the occasional sound of an animal in the underbrush or the crack of a branch to keep their hearts beating fast.

  “Didn’t we pass this dead tree already?” Helen asked, worry creeping into her voice.

  “Hmm. Not sure. You think we doubled back on ourselves?” Jeff stopped and looked around them in the dark. It was hard to make anything out more than a foot or two away.

  Helen gasped. “What’s that?” She pointed off in the distance. Her hand shook.

  Jeff’s eyes grew wide. Fingers of flame danced along the tops of the trees.

  “Wendigo,” he said.

  As they walked in the front doors at Skyline High School just after eleven a.m., Jace darted ahead of his uncle. He ran past the gym, straight to the back of the building, where the vendors were set up. He walked quickly from table to table, asking the people at each if they had seen a short Indian man who looked really tired.

  “Sure, a lot of them,” said the woman working at the fry bread stand. “I’m surrounded by short Indian men. And they’re always acting tired when I have work for them to do.”

  She held out her hand. “My name is Maisie. What’s yours? If I see your friend, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

  Jace introduced himself. “It’s my uncle Jeff. He’s missing.”

  “He’s got short gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses. And he’s probably wearing a polo shirt and his Native Pride baseball cap,” Jace added hopefully. “He’s kind of short and round. And he laughs a lot.”

  The woman shook her head and said, “Sorry, hon. I haven’t seen anyone like that recently. You might ask one of the security guards or call the police before the powwow gets going.” She went back to kneading her dough.

  Jace didn’t want the police looking for his uncle. Besides, there were plenty of people here from the community he hadn’t spoken with yet. Maybe one of them had seen Uncle Jeff. He was hard to miss.

  “Or,” Maisie said, “you could ask the young woman who stopped by here earlier, Tokala. She’s a detective, you know. And you’re in luck—that’s her across the way at the jewelry table now.” Maisie tilted her head and pointed with her lips.
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  Jace walked up to the girl, who was just finishing her conversation with the jewelry vendor.

  “Excuse me, Tokala, maybe you can help me? I need to find my uncle Jeff. He’s missing and I’m really worried.”

  Tokala turned to look at Jace. “I’d be happy to help you, but I’m working on a mystery of my own at the moment. Have you looked in all the places he could be? They’re holding the storytelling in the school theater later. Have you checked there?” At Jace’s nod, she added, “Are you staying at the hotel? Have you looked there?”

  “Yes, my uncle Mutt and I have looked everywhere. He’s really missing.”

  Tokala’s eyes narrowed at the mention of Uncle Mutt, but she didn’t let the unusual name faze her. “As soon as I solve the mystery I’m working on, I’ll find you and help search for your uncle, if he hasn’t turned up.”

  “Thank you,” Jace said, holding out his hand. “I’m Jace, by the way. I’m glad to meet you. I’ve never met a real-life detective before.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Tokala said. “Hope you find your uncle soon.”

  Jace walked back to Uncle Mutt, a worried look on his face.

  “Uncle Jeff’s not here either.” Jace flopped down on the floor with his back against the wall. He didn’t want to cry like a little kid, but his frustration and worry were causing his eyes to fill with tears.

  Just then Jace felt a warm, slobbery kiss on his cheek. He jumped a little and quickly turned to find a short, stocky black-brown-and-white dog with its tongue hanging out of its brown-and-white face. The dog looked like something Grandma and her sewing kit might have pieced together from bits of mismatched dogs. It was wearing a T-shirt that read Ancestor Approved. He had to smile as he reached out to pet the dog.

  “Heh. See, even the four-leggeds want you to stop worrying,” Uncle Mutt said, reaching down to scratch the dog behind its ears. Just then, a large group of Elders walked past, talking excitedly and laughing. The dog glanced up and then trotted after them, wagging its tail.