Chapter 50
In the myth of Windigo, there is only one way to kill the creature.
A man has to become a Windigo himself. His heart has to turn to ice.
The danger is in the possibility of that man remaining a Windigo forever.
What must happen is that once he’s killed the monster, someone has to be waiting with hot tallow for him to drink, to melt his icy heart.
I stood looking across the lake. I’d portaged my canoe and gear to the shore where the ordeal that eventually led me to murder had begun.
It was an idyllic day—clear sky, soft breeze, the lake sapphire blue before me.
I set the canoe on the water, loaded my gear, then stood contemplating the wilderness beyond.
A piece of heaven. That’s how I’d always thought of it until the events that had ended with me severing a man’s throat with the blade of a canoe paddle.
Now I gazed at everything before me with fear.
What had changed? The place or me? I knew the answer to that question.
For thousands of years, this vast forest had remained the same.
It had always been, and was still, the face, the voice, the breath of the Divine.
So what was the source of this deep fear inside me?
A heart of ice? A hungry wolf? Two representations of the savagery I was capable of, maybe every human being is capable of?
Henry had told me that I’d lost myself in the wilderness and that it was in the wilderness I would find myself again.
But what if I didn’t? What if there was no returning from what I’d become?
I was alone on the lakeshore. No one was with me holding hot tallow.
Did it have to be a human who melted the ice inside me?
Could that warmth come from somewhere else, from the compassionate spirits of the woods, the manidoog perhaps?
Henry had assured me that in the heart of the Creator there was only love.
Was it possible my salvation would come from that great heart itself?
In my whole life, Henry had never led me wrong. I decided to trust him once again.
“God’s country,” I whispered. Then I stepped into my canoe and shoved off.