Problem is, it works better as a love story. But Wendigos eat people. As a person, I am opposed to this. I am also opposed to making it dark. But I don’t want the Wendigo to be just a misunderstood sort of entity, either. These are all at least semi-conflicting issues to have.
It is, as they say, a puzzler.
Bigfoots!
One of the nice things about Bigfoots is, they don’t need much in the way of supplies. They do their own hunting and don’t need clothes, so they’re pretty good is living off the land. What they do need is mostly stuff like salt or corn meal or toothpaste.
Oh, and books. Gary liked books. He didn’t care what they were, either, just as long as they were in English. “It gets quiet up here sometimes,” he told me as we unloaded three crates full of romance novels and self-help books. “Reading helps with that.”
“I hear ya, Gary. You got a favorite genre, though?”
“Anything human’s fine.” He gave a loose-limbed Bigfoot wide shrug. “It’s all the same amount of weird to me, so I don’t care. You want coffee?
Getting back to this one.
“Yeah,” Gary replied after thinking about it. “It’s very, huh, far, though? Not as many trees,” he explained when I looked at him. “You can see for longer.”
“Hmm, a fair amount,” I allowed. The cabin wasn’t at the top of a hill, just a flat spot on the side of the road; but from the porch you could see the ground start lowering itself to meet up with the river, down in the valley. I don’t know how far it was, really. We didn’t go down into that valley. But it’d be a hike, to be sure. “Somebody tell you about the clear space?”
“A little, Shirley Lee. I don’t touch the wooden poles, don’t go past them after dark unless I have iron, and if something tries to break them, I should go get help.” I wasn’t good at reading Bigfoot faces at the time, so I couldn’t see how unhappy he was about that. “They kept telling me that last one.”
“Who? The people who first moved you in?”
But he shook his head. “My paw and my uncles. Like there’s any help around here!” He stopped there, suddenly remembering that I drove up here to offer a hand, and everything. “You know what I mean.”
I changed the name because I had it pointed out that “Charlie and the Wendigo” is evocative of a certain author’s name. I wouldn’t have cared if Charlie/Gary turned out to be the villain, since it wasn’t intentional — but since I like Gary, I ain’t going to saddle him with such an unfortunate name choice.
Continue reading 05/19/21 Snippet, GARY AND THE WENDIGO.
