| Tetti Redsquash lived all her life on the reservation located in Oklahoma on the western end. She was the grand daughter of a powerful medicine man who when living had claimed to have attachments to the shy one. The big hairy half-man, half-ape, wild creature that moved on two legs and was said to be ten feet tall and to weigh as much as four men. All her fifty plus years she had wanted to see one but was never privileged. In her tribe it was considered very good luck to see one. It was said that if you ever were to see one that it would protect you the rest of your life. Naturally there were many old wives tales about the shy one coming around during the cold months of the winter. Old-timers said the creature came in search of the smell of food cooking and was also probably attracted to the simple action of living beings when surrounded by so much cold and indifference. The old-timers were said to leave out food for the shy one and it would be gone in the mornings. If there was snow they would see the tracks but seeing the tracks and seeing the creature were two different things completely . So that first year when she became aware it was coming around her place it was both invigorating and frightening. Seeing the tracks for the first time was a confusion of emotions. As a human being, seeing that something is coming around the place where you live that has such big feet is intimidating even if your people have chosen to embrace the creature’s existence as opposed to finding it an intruder or worse, an enemy. Such was not the case with other tribes which has also been relocated to western Oklahoma generations ago. In fact the closest reservation to her tribes was of a people who viewed the sasquatch as dangerous and as a kidnapper and possible eater of men. When you hear things that go against the beliefs of your people it is natural to not give such words much credibility but at the same time it is also completely understandable to question which beliefs are correct? Especially when it is a matter of a large creature which you have seen it leave tracks lending a lot of belief that the legend must be true. Then that question, the one that really bothers you, worms its way to the top. Which tribe is correct? Is the creature a blessing, or a curse? It became clear what the creature was doing. After a few times spotting the tracks she could see it was standing in a position where it could see in through the side window of her living room. The tv was in a position the creature could most likely see it at night when she was on the couch watching. She never thought to look out that window until becoming aware of the tracks. How many nights had she sat there on the couch watching tv while this ten foot tall hairy beast was just feet away watching her? Tetti had been in that same home from the age of twenty. She raised two girls and buried a husband in that stretch of time. Had the creature been there for all of it? Perhaps the question went much further back than that since the house she grew up in was only a couple of blocks from the one she was in now. Could it be the creature new her from that far back? She had a memory from her earliest days her mind could reach back, of having been in the arms of a very big teddy bear. Or that was how she had remembered it. It was far too late for her to be able to ask her parents or any relatives that might have been alive at that time. Was it possible the memory of the giant teddy bear was instead one of having been in the arms of a sasquatch? If that was true, was it possible this was the same one that saw as a child? If that was true, then it surely lent credibility to the legend of them watching over anyone who saw them. If she had seen this one as a child, maybe that was why it was here now? Before she went running outside to give it a big hug the next time she thought it was out there however, it merited considering the alternative attitude about these creatures that the tribe one reservation over, embraced. Their legend had the creatures kidnapping people, possibly eating them. The scary version of the creatures spent a lot of its energy on the creatures kidnapping the women of the tribe and forcing them into being mates. Tetti decided that at least if that turned out to be the case that she was too old to have kids. It wasn’t much consolation but if these creatures were truly of nature, then it would play a large part that she was now unable to provide any offspring. While human beings took mates for many reasons, in nature, there was only one reason for finding a mate. She was past the ability now. More time passed and she saw signs the creature had been around but she never saw it when watching out her window to see if it was there. Then came a snowy December night when she had been making candies that she made up boxes which were given away as presents. On that night about two weeks before Christmas she would have bought all the ingredients to make the various confections and cookies. Plus she bought a little gift for herself to hep the night pass in a warm manner. She had some peppermint schnapps which she kept in the freezer next to a bottle of peach schnapps that occupied its spot year round. Since it was Christmas she opted for the peppermint flavored libation. Two-thirds of a pint into the night found Tetti on her last batch of sweets which required going into the oven for any amount of time. After the next ring of the oven timer she could relax her baking skills until this time again next year. While the current baking candies finished t heir time in the oven, she carried the ones just out of the heat out the back door and placed them on a table in the back yard. Then she went back inside and brought out a cardboard box which she placed over the tray of sweets so to keep the snow from landing on them while they cooled. It was the odor that reminded her that the memory was true. The second she smelled that sour swampy wet dog stench she knew her memory of having been held by a giant teddy bear was more than something she had made up in her young mind. The odor was unmistakable. Oddly enough, it did not instill fear. Quite the opposite. It was a calming effect on her which came in handy because at the same time she was realizing all this she also realized that odors don’t visit unless their source is with them. She was standing in front of the table in the back yard when she noticed it. At first she had been breathing in the sweet hint of cinnamon and butter and several different hints of fruits such as cherry, peach and apple. Coming from inside the house wafted the promise of something made with pumpkin and that inferred spices. Tetti loved the smell of pumpkin pies and bread fresh from he oven. It did not mix well with that new odor. The strangeness of it all was not lost on her. How the sweet, inviting odors from her cooking were colliding with the other odor which though certainly not pleasant, still brought on feelings of being safe and secure. Perhaps that was what made it so possible for her to not freak out when she finally saw that face staring back at her. through the darkness and the falling snow. She had returned back inside from checking on the candies to see if they had cooled enough to be put into boxes. The conclusion was they needed more time. Putting them into the boxes too soon could result in the boxes sweating from the inside which did not make for the kind of present she was wanting to give. The booze and the late hour combined to convince Tetti to take a break and go sit down and watch some late night tv. Christmas music on the television set and the soft tapping on the window glass by the snow flakes being carried by the wind gave Tetti very heavy eyelids and she began to dance in and out of consciousness. She guessed the music must have went to a commercial because she woke up to a man’s voice singing a question of whether she felt like a nut, or not? Just as the song went to land on the last words of, .”sometimes you don’t!”, was when it crossed her mind that she had been smelling that odor, however faintly, that was about the creature. Which caused her to turn and look out the window. It was right there! She saw the wrinkles in its face. The dark eyes surrounded by pools of maroon which gave them a glowing red effect that would have been sufficient to cause someone to pee their pants, but seeing it all from the warmth of the inside of her house and that pane of glass between them was enough to keep her from screaming in fear and fleeing at full speed. Maybe it was the booze. Maybe that calming feeling the odor provided was the difference. Whatever the case her reaction time was slow enough that when her body finally began to move her mind had already concluded the beast was not going to do anything harmful toward her. In fact the face she was seeing was one that had endured many hard times and it seemed apparent they had taken a toll. In short, it looked tired. Tetti didn’t move for maybe five minutes. The longer she looked at the creature’s face, its many wrinkles, the more she felt empathy. She began to wish she had a way to communicate with the animal. Ask it to come in out of the cold and share some appreciation for the opportunity to be warm. To be able to offer what she could offer. Then she began to think about all that stuff about them watching over any human being that had looked them in the eye. Perhaps even ones which were so little they might not remember the exchange. Tetti got up and decided to offer the creature some of her confections. She went out the back door to grab some off the table and was shocked to see there was a wolf just standing there. Like it had been waiting for her. The wolf showed its teeth and growled. When telling the story later she said that when the wolf showed its teeth and growled that she turned back to go back inside the house. She didn’t see what happened but it felt like the wolf had leaped at her and was just about to make contact with her backside, when came a yelp which she knew that had happened because it sounded like the yelp was right next to her ear. She wrenched the door open and rushed inside slamming it closed behind her. Outside in the snowy darkness came the sound of a struggle for a short time followed by silence. Tetti locked the house up tight and grabbed an old rifle out of her bedroom that had once belonged to her grandfather. She then spent about ten minutes digging around in a set of drawers before finding ammunition for the weapon beyond the bullet which was in the chamber. The gun was a bolt-action single shot rifle which needed oil. She struggled but got it to open kicking out the bullet which had been in there for literally years. It still looked pristine when it landed on the floor. She picked it up and put it back in the chamber and shut the bolt. Then she risked a glance outside. Darkness interlaced with falling snow made no promise of anything beyond what was within eyesight. She listened but could only hear the tap of the snow hitting glass. Gathering courage she decided to have a look out the back door. Her candies were still out there on the table and she wanted to rescue them if at all possible. She opened the back door and stepped out, half expecting to see that wolf there again, waiting for her to come out. There was nothing however. Her candies were untouched. When she looked down at the snow there were hints of tracks still remaining. They guaranteed she had not been seeing things, had not imagined that something had taken place. There were enough tracks left to show that something had come in from the side and had most likely intersected the wolf as it jumped to land on Tetti’s back. Whatever it was, which she felt certain was the creature, had prevented the wolf from reaching her. That was the version which most people would have said happened. The medicine man side of Tetti might have told the story differently. It might have said the wolf was a skin walker. A wendigo. A shape-shifter. One that had come to her as a wolf and that had meant to do her harm. Maybe the only reason she survived was because of a meeting that had happened fifty years previous, which she barely remembered. Perhaps it was a meeting that her grandfather had arranged so she would have protection those many years later. Of course that was preposterous. It was just random luck that all those things had happened so many years apart, to result in her being saved from an attack by a beast that had been extinct in Oklahoma for decades if not longer. She looks for signs the big hairy beast has been back around but so far there have been no tracks. Tetti says now she misses the creature she never knew was there. And perhaps it wasn’t always there. Perhaps it was only around back when she was a child, and again the time it needed to be. Maybe the other visits were just that. visits. Maybe they were wrong guesses as to when it needed to be there. But of course, that is all just impossible anyway. Isn’t it? |    |