Rumours and Search for the Horse

A Story by Jeff Rex

The mentally unstable Pale Raging Horse has fled everything and everyone from his life, including his brother Athan who seeks his return and restoration, along with his own.

Rumours of the cabin ignited the synapses in my mind. Ether carries such things for those who hear. The seven and the one and the guard. Nine, what is the significance of nine, if any? I feel energy in the number. Power and connection. Yet fear warns that it can destroy me.

The search continues and one of us thinks that he might be one of them, or a skinwalker, or both. In a mainly empty cabin, which appears to be but three rooms, seven figures lie flat on the old wood floor in a circle around another figure in the center. Deep in meditation or sleep, they remained still, perfectly frozen - so much so, that I could not detect breathing or other signs that living creatures exhibit. After a presumably short period of staring through the broken window by the door (all the windows are broken), I felt warm breath on my left hand and turned, startled to look. The wolf was charcoal grey, almost black with eyes that matched and it was showing me its teeth. He was in an attack ready stance and as I stepped backwards cautiously, he stepped forward.

For a flash I felt instability. In the cabin, in the wolf perhaps, like an egg hanging on the edge of a knife. Chemistry of interrelated parties or overload of serotonin and melatonin in the dead sleepers. The speculation circled my mind as my feet continued backwards, eyes on the wolf. The cold chill before death was between us. I stopped and it did the same, snarling without sound. I looked to see if I could read its thoughts and could only feel that I would be left alone for now and killed if I returned. I calmly stepped back and back and back to the path about 50 feet away. The wolf was mainly still, but trotted a few steps as if to guard the door of the cabin, tail and nose down in the gait of a young animal. I backed myself down the trail and out of sight and walked in silent thought back to camp at the great lake.

***

What do you do when part of you has left you to explore on its own? Left in despair, in disillusionment, in hate, perhaps. And if that part of you is into ritualistic killing, prophecy, sucking memory from the dead, drugs, and recklessness, then what? Well, then you keep looking. Death follows him, he leaves abundant clues in his path. A sunken ship, oil slicks and blood on the flat seas of the Pacific, an underwater bed, a cave of emptied bones and half eaten raw fish, Shakespearean rant in the air. The clues of a raging horse are blatant and many. Yet he remains beyond reach.

The recent cabin clues and the disturbance of ether created therein call me to him and likely to death. My death. The horse, as well as the whole of me, has long been fascinated with the skinwalker. As the legend goes, the skinwalker is generally of native origin and transforms from human to animal form and kills often. In the beginning, a skinwalker needs other skinwalkers to make the transformation via ritual. There is a required initiation in that the skinwalker must kill someone he loves to become a full skinwalker and make the transformation without the aid of others.

I am therefore skittish about an attempted rescue, as I could very well be the victim and it is continuing to appear as if he does not want to be recovered. I ponder the fate of my brother and the rest of me over black tea and a red orange crackling fire by my bed underneath the stars.

Counsel is needed. Return to the elders, hat in hand and make needed amends and plead for the wisdom of natives. Monstrously unappealing on multiple levels. Asking forgiveness and then immediately asking for favors while subsequently revealing myself to be the cause of great danger to them yet again.

Courage and bravado tell me to suit up with sword and shield and take my brother back by force. Not a terrible solution as I have a mighty hero in my midst, however I have no idea what this battle could to to the larger story and if my brother does not want to come back, one of us could very well die.

Nine, what of nine and its power? A full reconciliation is in order. But not yet. Nothing yet ever. A mantra or unfortunate life philosophy. Loose ends unraveling in whipping wind, in wavy water. My mind is pulled back to the Lodge. Back to Leah and the wizard. What does a man who leaves everything undone do with so much practical advice? Wisdom hanging in the air like ideas, blessings left alone for someone else to take for their own. A coiled and pressed spring, built up with potential energy ignored for someone else’s skyrocket. Nothing yet ever.

Set me free, why don’t you? Every inch of you, Lacy. Fear laced with cardamom. Appeal, comfort, and the realest of real love. Poured out over hot iron to boil, seething and dissipated into the air. Nothing is real and everything dies.