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“Zlata Dromenko was a stout Cossack about my height with a thick single eyebrow giving her a serious, severe look. I found out she’d been a mail-order bride who came over from Ukraine to marry a local farmer, a Russian immigrant. He died, though, and now Mrs. Dromenko worked in the hospital bullying patients like me. I called her “Hun,” because she made me think of Attila. I was curious as to how Mr. Dromenko died but was afraid to ask.”

“Makade-ma'iingan walked slowly toward him out of the gloom. She circled him, her head low, her cerulean eyes lancing into him like arrows. Her voice spoke in his grandmother’s tongue. “Myeengun, you must rise and finish your work, rip out the throats of the whites who oppress and pursue us. The spirit of your grandmother, the spirits of all your people, demand it. I am Otshee monetoo, and I command it.” She lunged, sinking her yellow teeth deep into his chest where he’d pressed the knife. The flash of pain struck him like a sudden bolt from angry clouds. It reached so much beyond his level to endure, that this time he did cry out. His feral howl screaming out into the cold night, rolling through the valley like a keening from the damned.”

“The deep bowl of frozen air that lay still across the land promised to make the clear night colder than the day. Through the warm glow of the dining room window, we could see Standback and a woman taking their meal. A servant came in to say something to him, and he looked out the window at our approach in the remaining daylight. Standback met us on the porch as we walked our horses up.”

“The Dire Wolf killed the Jakes,” he said. “Who’s this Dire Wolf?” I asked. Figured he was talking about someone he knew. He spoke in a whisper, almost reverently. “The Dire Wolf is the curse of the Downstream People, the Arkansa. He is an evil spirit of the Quapaw.” I sighed and shook my head, knowing how these old Indians liked to throw in a bunch of mythical tribal mumbo-jumbo and superstition to deflect blame from someone they knew. “Well, you know where I can find this Dire Wolf fella?” I asked. “He cannot be found,” the old man said. “Really. You have reason to believe he’s taken off to other parts?” He said nothing for a full quarter minute, his black eyes intently on mine, searching. I could see contempt in them and a sadness. Made me nervous. “No,” old Long Walker answered at last. “He has not departed. Now that he has awakened, he will kill again.”