Published: 25 Sep 2025
Chapter 18 – Unexpected Threats
Now that Preston and Bailey were heading to the breeder’s place of business to see if Bailey hit it off with one of the other dogs, Devin and I got in the SUV so we could head out to the hunting camp. We had already agreed to look around and see if we could find anything else that might help us identify who the chest belonged to.
We’d even brought along Gramps and Pops leather boots to wear to protect our feet, seeing we could make any physical adjustments necessary to fit into them comfortably. We also found pairs of work gloves that Gramps and Pops kept at the house that we could use to protect our hands, now that we had boots to protect our feet.
Since we were going directly from the dog park to the hunting camp and planning to run around as dogs first, Devin never transitioned back into himself after we left the dog park. He also didn’t go into the hunting cabin with me when I went inside to undress, and as soon as I came back outside and had hidden the key, I transitioned into Buck and we went for a run.
After chasing each other around for a while, we went farther into the woods to sniff around and see if we could pick up any human scent, no matter how faint it was. The father into the woods we went, the trees had suffered less and less damage and we didn’t spot or sniff out anything of interest. Seeing we didn’t find what we were looking for, we went back to the hunting camp to change.
I transitioned first and retrieved both keys, since I had hidden the key to the SUV along with the key to the cabin, and I unlocked the SUV first, so Devin could get his clothes. After I unlocked the cabin door and opened it, and Devin had transitioned and retrieved his clothes out of the SUV, I let Devin go inside first. Before I followed him, I locked the SUV remotely, and then I went inside to change as well.
After we put on our underwear, we slipped on jeans and long sleeve shirts, and then we put on the boots that we’d borrowed from the house, before putting on our jackets. Finally, we grabbed the work gloves to take with us, and then I locked the cabin door and we headed out to the wooded area again, to see if we could find anything of interest.
We started at the spot where we’d originally found the chest and began a closer look at the area surrounding that location. Even though we were able to move more of the debris without worrying about cuts and splinters, we didn’t find anything else that would help us understand who’d buried the chest. We fanned out from there and expanded our search, hoping we might find other items that had been buried in this area as well, but we came up empty. We were deeply disappointed as we left the woods and started walking back to the cabin. As we were crossing the open meadow, we heard something that alarmed us. It was the sound of a loud male voice speaking from somewhere off to our left, so we instinctively turned in that direction to see who was speaking.
It didn’t take long for us to locate a lone figure standing at the far end of the meadow, and it definitely wasn’t what we expected. We merely looked at each other in disbelief for a couple of seconds, and then Devin spoke.
“Is that what I think it is?”
“It sure looks that way,” I replied. Neither of us panicked, though, as we stared at the evil skinwalker as it continued shouting at us. We were unable to understand what it was saying, because it wasn’t speaking in a language that we couldn’t understand, but it didn’t appear to make a difference to the speaker.
“Do you think that’s the same skinwalker we saw when we were on vacation with your parents, or do you think it’s a different one?”
“I’m not sure, although it resembles the one we saw previously. I just can’t believe it followed us here.”
“It might have followed our scent when it was in animal form.”
“I’m not sure how that would be possible, seeing we were traveling in my dad’s SUV and we went to my house first, before using your SUV to go to the cabin for a while before returning to my house. After that, we drove here, so that would have been a lot of traveling for it to do just to wind up here.”
“Do you think it might be trying to put a spell on us, or maybe even a curse?”
“I have no idea what it’s trying to do, so I think you’d better call Pops or Gramps as soon as we get back to the house. They might be able to tell us what we should do next.”
“But it isn’t transitioning into anything threatening so it can attack us,” Devin pointed out, “and it’s not making any aggressive moves, so do you still think it’s dangerous.” .
“Maybe not physically, but we don’t know what its saying, and like you hinted at, it might be casting a spell or putting a curse on us. We have to remember that it was once a powerful medicine man that some might call a witch, so its words might be threatening and his actions could be more aggressive than you think.”
“Ok, let’s head back to the SUV and see if it follows us there. If it does, we can always go somewhere deserted and transition into something to scare it off, but if it doesn’t follow us, then we’ll just go to the house and I’ll call Gramps as soon as we get there.”
“Ok, let’s go then!”
The skinwalker didn’t make any move to follow us, although we don’t know why he didn’t, especially after traveling all this way just to let us know that it was around. During the ride, we debated if it was the same skinwalker as before, or possibly another skinwalker that had discovered we’d helped Gramps, Pops, the shaman, and his son kill a different skinwalker. Maybe this was its attempt to curse us with some deadly disease to keep us from killing it, or any others of its kind, because we had no idea what it was saying back there.
As soon as we reached at the house, Devin called Gramps to tell him about the trespasser at the hunting camp. “We have no idea what it was saying to us, but we were wondering if it might have been a spell or a curse?”
“We also were wondering if you and Pops thought we might have to kill this one too,” I quickly added.
“My dad might be able to answer those questions better than I can, so I’ll get in touch with him and see what he thinks. I’ll call you back as soon as I’ve spoken with him.”
Once the call ended, we sat down on the couch in the living room and didn’t move, since we were unsure what we should do next. On a normal Saturday after we’d gone to the hunting camp, we would have gone to the dining hall to have lunch, and then we would have hit the books, but we didn’t do either of those things today. We were too concerned about what the skinwalker might be up to, so we merely sat there, in total silence, as we waited for Gramps to call
I know my mind was working overtime as I mulled over the situation, and I was fairly certain that Devin was doing the same thing, because eventually the sense of dread overcame Devin and he spoke.
“Do you think it might have even followed us here, to the house, without us knowing?”
“I don’t think it would venture into a populated area like this and that’s why it showed up at the hunting camp instead. It didn’t seem to be a threat, at least not physically, but that might be due to the fact that there are two of us. And if it’s the same skinwalker that we saw on vacation, then its already aware that we can pose a huge threat to it.”
“I hope you’re right about that, but I’m afraid it was doing something nefarious that we just don’t understand. It might be attempting to weaken or negate our ability as skinwalkers so we’re no longer a threat to it.”
“I hope Pops can give us an idea about what it might be up to and what we should do next.”
We didn’t hear back from Gramps or Pops for about a half hour, and we both jumped when Devin’s phone range. He answered it, but only after he’d calmed down slightly.
“I talked to my dad about this and we’ll meet you at the hunting camp when you get there tomorrow. Approximately what time do you think that will be?”
“We usually get to the dog park around 8:00, and then we stay there for about an hour before we head to the hunting camp. My best guess is that we’ll arrive there around 9:30.”
“Ok, we’ll leave here in plenty of time to get there by then. I just hope the skinwalker you saw will show up while we’re there.”
“I don’t think it would have come all this way just to show up once,” I replied.
“Yes, that’s probably true, and there’s a good chance it’s even staying out there waiting for you to show up again. We would’ve driven out there tonight, but we’d promised to take our wives out this evening, so we’ll see you boys in the morning.”
Now that we knew Gramps and Pops would be joining us the next day, Devin and I attempted to focus on our assignments, because we were already in the crunch period at the end of the semester. We did that until we went to bed, but I’m afraid it wasn’t a restful slumber, since neither of us slept very soundly. I know that I kept waking up after hearing every unusual sound that night, since I was afraid the skinwalker might be breaking into the house. I could tell Devin also woke up some of those times, although we never spoke and merely kept alert until we eventually gave into our weariness and fell back asleep.
When we arrived at the dog park the next morning, I went there as myself, which I normally did on Sunday. Preston was already there and seemed eager to speak to me when we arrived.
“Michael, it’s nice to see you again, and I take it that Devin filled you in about what I did yesterday.”
“Yes, he told me you were going to let Bailey choose a companion, so I take it the golden colored Cocker Spaniel is yours as well, since I don’t see any other owners around.”
When we arrived there and before I went to speak with Preston, I’d glanced around and spotted Bailey and a golden Cocker Spaniel heading in our direction. I quickly surmised that the other Cocker Spaniel was the companion that Bailey had chosen the previous day, so I reached down and unhooked Bear from his leash.
“Yes, Bailey was immediately attracted to her shortly after we got to the breeder’s kennel. I’m not sure if it was because of her stunning appearance or if there was another reason that Bailey was attracted to her, but Bailey hit it off as quickly with Finn, as she had with Bear.”
“So, the new dog’s name is Finn? Did you choose that name yourself or did she already have it.”
“It was already her name and she’s about a year younger than Bailey, so she’s beyond the puppy stage. She’s also house trained and had obedience training as well, so this should work out quite well for me after you and Bear go home for Christmas. The only thing I have left to do is to call the vet to set up an appointment to have her spayed.”
“Isn’t Finn an unusual name for a dog?”
“I asked the breeder the same question and his response enlightened me. He explained that Finn is Irish for ‘fair skinned or fair haired’, and I believe it suits her perfectly, due to the color of her coat. He also had a male black Cocker Spaniel and its name was Bran, which he explained was Irish for “raven.”
“And Bailey wasn’t interested in Bran?”
“They sniffed each other, and hung around together briefly, but that’s about all they did. Bailey did the same with the other dogs that were there as well, including one with a duller golden fur, another that had a white coat, one that was white and brown, and another that was white and black. But Bailey spent most of her time almost entirely hanging around with Finn.”
“Could you tell why she chose Finn over the other dogs?”
“I have a feeling that it was Finn’s golden fur that caused Bailey to be attracted to Finn in the first place, but I don’t believe it was the only reason why she chose Finn over the other dogs. I believe there was something about her that only another dog would understand, and Bailey spent most of her time with Finn, so I asked the breeder how much he wanted for her.”
“Was she expensive?”
“I thought the price he was asking was reasonable, but I still haggled with him and got him to lower his price a bit. It was a skill I learned from one of my professors in graduate school, when he told us that in some cultures you should always haggle over the price of things, because it’s expected.”
“That must be a good skill to have.”
“Yes, it is, and he would demonstrate the best ways to do it. After seeing Bailey and Finn together, I like the contrast between Finn’s golden fur and Bailey’s chocolate colored coat. The contrast in their appearance might make people think the two are very different, but so far I’ve discovered they’re very much alike.”
“And they both seem to be strongly attracted to Bear.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that as well.”
Bear and Finn had immediately began sniffing each other as soon as they met, but eventually Bailey started to eagerly vie for Bear’s attention as well. I hope this doesn’t create a rivalry between her and Finn and they continue to get along well with one another.
“I’m glad to see that Finn is getting along with Bear as well,” Preston stated as we watched the three of them racing around the open area.
“Did Bailey and Finn sleep in the beds that you purchased for them without any problems?”
“Yes, once I showed Finn her bed, and Bailey curled up on her bed, Finn seemed to understand and got comfortable as well. The only thing I’m worried about is that I saw a bit of competition starting over certain toys when the other one was playing with it. I bought several different toys for them, so I hope the competing over certain items doesn’t get out of hand.”
“Yes, I hope they get along this well at home as well.”
We watched the three dogs raced around for a while, and then Bailey and Bear led Finn back to the obstacle course and demonstrated how the different stations worked. Finn appeared to be catching on quite quickly, but she was uneasy about navigating the doggy teeter totter at first. As we were watching them move from one station to the next, Preston made a comment, but it had nothing to do with what the dogs were doing.
“Michael, do you remember the discussion we had after Halloween?” he asked, and it immediately made alarm bells go off in my brain.
“Uh, we had several conversations around that time, so I’m not sure which one you’re talking about,” I lied, as I wondered where he was going with this.
“I’m referring to the conversation we had after you and Devin won the Halloween costume contest. It started when I joked about wondering if you two might be shapeshifters after you’d successfully pulled off a very realistic disguise as being cheerleaders.”
“Oh, yeah. I kind of forgot about that comment.”
“Well, I’ve thought about you questioning if shapeshifters were only a myth, and I realized that many of my students may also feel the same way. For that reason, I’ve designed a topic to explore in one of the courses I’ll be teaching next year, and I just want to get your reaction to it, and to let you know that you and Devin inspired me to do this.”
I was worried where he might be going with this, but I couldn’t let him know that, so I claimed ignorance instead. “I’m not sure that I understand what you mean.”
“I want to challenge my anthology students to start thinking outside of the box and not to immediately scoff off different possibilities. I want them to consider new possibilities, staring with taking the legends about ancient beings that were able to shapeshift into various animals or other humans. Hell, maybe even some, if not all, of the early gods and rulers the ancients worshipped and revered might have actually been shapeshifters.”
“How could that be? Didn’t their gods live for thousands of years, so how would that even be possible?”
“Let’s start by looking at the Bible. Didn’t Methuselah, Enoch, Noah, and a group of others mentioned in the Bible supposedly live for hundreds of years?”
“Yeah, but I never took that seriously.”
“That’s exactly what I want to challenge my students NOT to do. The longevity they enjoyed might have been partially genetic, and it might have also had to do with the fact that bacteria and viruses hadn’t developed into life threatening diseases yet. And it wasn’t only the biblical figures that lived extremely long lives, because there were also stories such as those about the wizard Merlin living for centuries. He was also reported to have turned the young King Arthur into different creatures in order to teach him different lessons about life.”
“So, you’re saying Merlin and King Arthur were shapeshifters?’
“No, but what I’m getting at is if there were reports of figures in the Bible, and other ancient religious leaders in rulers in the middle and far east that lived for hundreds of years. There was even a list of antediluvian Sumerian Kings that were reported as having ruled for thousands of years. One of those kings was even described as having ruled for nearly 29,000 years, so think about how long he must have lived to be able to rule so long, since his father also ruled for thousands of years as well.”
“But doesn’t antediluvian mean before the great flood, so wouldn’t all of those types of people have drowned?”
“Not if there were shapeshifters living at the time, because they might have been able to change into aquatic creatures so their race could survive, and possibly they still exist today. What I want to encourage my students to do is not to immediately dismiss these ideas as being impossible. I want them to consider that if multiple cultures that had no contact with each other all told similar stories and held similar beliefs, then maybe there’s something to them. Maybe there really are shapeshifters and they live for hundreds or thousands of years, but they’re non-threatening to the rest of the world because they exist among us.”
“But if that’s the case, shouldn’t we all be living really long lives now?”
“Things apparently changed after the great flood, because even the figures from the Bible began to live shorter and shorter life spans. That might have had something to do with the mixing of genes with others that didn’t live such long lives.”
“Come on, who would they have mixed their genes with after the flood, because everyone else was dead?”
“But you’re overlooking one possibility. Noah’s sons had wives and they might not have come from the same pure genetic line as Noah’s family. If that was the case, then they may have been responsible for diluting the gene pool and gradually shortening the lives of Noah’s descendants. This could’ve continued over many generations as the families intermarried and the life spans got shorter and shorter with each generation.”
“But don’t we live longer than the people from the Middle Ages?”
“Yes, the average life span during that time would have been around 30 to 40 years, but that was impacted by the high infant mortality rate. Some of those people probably lived until they were in their 50s or 60s, and that trend continued through the 18th century. The trend started to be reversed slightly with the advancements in medicine and technology that were made during the 19th and 20th centuries, and the life spans started slowly increasing.”
“Wouldn’t shapeshifters have suffered from the same problem?”
“Not if the members of their race hadn’t bred with others with shorter life spans. It’s possible that they might have remained in isolated communities and avoided the problem that was affecting the other races, so they’re able to survive for hundreds or thousands of years. And if that is the case, the rest of us would probably never know there was any difference.”
“You’ve totally lost me now. I guess in theory that if there were such things as shapeshifters that it might be possible that they could live for hundreds rf thousands of years. Then again, maybe they’re just space aliens,” I quipped.
He’d raised some interesting questions after that, but I didn’t want him to think that he’d convinced me. I also began to wonder if we were now facing two separate threats – the evil skinwalkers as well as Preston. That’s when I pulled out my phone and glanced at the time.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to call Bear and leave now. I’ve got to take him back to his owner before I meet up with Devin, because we have something planned for this afternoon.
“Ok, then I’ll see Devin tomorrow and you again next Sunday, but think about what we’ve discussed.”
“I will, and good luck with Finn and Bailey,” I added before I called Bear’s name.
He must have realized that I was ready to leave, because he raced toward me with Bailey and Finn close at his heels. After hooking him to his leash, I said goodbye to Bailey, and Finn first, and then bid farewell to Preston again, and then Bear and I walked over to the SUV. After I opened the rear door and let Bear get into the back, I slid behind the wheel and started the engine. Once we were out of sight of the dog park, Devin transitioned into himself and I began telling him about my conversation with Preston.
“Fuck, I was hoping he wasn’t serious when he mentioned the shapeshifter idea before, but now I’m not so sure. I hope we didn’t screw up so badly that we made him suspect about us as well.”
“My fear is that he uses us as an example for why he’s suddenly so intrigued with the idea of shapeshifter that it get others to wonder if we might have been shapeshifters as well.”
“Then I hope they don’t come hunting for us,” Devin responded.
“Yeah, me too. I’m not sure if Preston is thinking about us that way, but we’ll have to be careful over the next few months until we graduate. After that, we probably won’t ever see him again.”
Devin didn’t transition into Bear again, but he didn’t get dressed either, and after we reached the hunting camp, we found Gramps and Pops waiting for us. After I took the key and opened the pad lock, I let them go inside before Devin opened the door of the SUV, grabbed all of his clothes, and hurried into the cabin, and then I followed him inside.”
“How do you want to do this?” I asked once we were all together. “Do you want to do this as ourselves, or as dogs?”
“We should all remain as we are now and see if the evil skinwalker shows up first,” Pops responded. “You said it was talking or yelling at you, but you couldn’t understand what it was saying, right?”
“Yeah, it was yelling some kind of language that I didn’t understand,” Devin answered. “It didn’t make any threatening moves toward us, though, but I didn’t get the feeling that it was wishing us a pleasant day either.”
“Ok, then let’s walk out to the meadow and see if it’s there.”
Devin had to hurriedly get dressed so he could join us, and then we set out to see if the skinwalker was present. Since he didn’t seem to be anywhere around, Pops wanted to know about the chest.
“Show me where you found it and then we can look around some more. Maybe we’ll find something else.”
“We’ve already done that, both like this and as Bear and Buck, but there’s nothing else out here. I’m not even sure how Devin detected the scent that led him too the chest in the first place, since it was obviously buried before the 1970s and the scent was really faint.”
“Then you boys have obviously forgotten some important information about being a dog and possibly been lax when transitioning into your doggy counterparts.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “I know dogs are capable of smelling things we can’t as humans, but would they be able to recognize a weak scent from more than fifty years ago?”
“Let me remind you about a few facts before I answer your question. Humans have 5-6 million olfactory, or smell, receptors in their noses and dogs have 100 million to 300 million of those receptors in their noses. This huge difference in the number of olfactory receptors, coupled with the fact that the olfactory lobe in a dog’s brain is notably larger than in a human’s brain gives the dogs a huge advantage. It is estimated that a dog’s sense of smell is 10,000 to 100,000 times more sensitive than a human’s, so yes, dogs can detect faint odors from log ago. In fact, a cadaver dog was once used to locate the remains of people that had been dead for 3,000 years.”
“I knew that a dog’s sense of smell was better, but I’ll admit that I didn’t realize it was that much better than a human’s ability to smell, or that the part of their brain that interprets the smells is also larger.”
“Then don’t forget that little tidbit and make certain to pass it along to your sons once the attain the ability to transition.”
“Don’t worry. We won’t forget,” I answered for both of us.
“Good, then let’s look around here for a bit longer to see if we can find anything else, and if we can’t do it as ourselves and the evil skinwalker doesn’t show, then we’ll come back here as dogs.”
After looking around for a while longer, Pops pointed something out. “It appears that your friend has returned,” he stated as he pointed at the figure standing at the far end of the meadow.
“Yes, that’s the same one,” Devin confirmed.
“Let’s step into the meadow, but don’t make any aggressive moves in its direction, since there are four of us this time and we don’t want to scare him off.”
As soon as we walked out into the meadow and turned to face it, we remained stationary and waited to see how it might respond. At first it seemed to be judging our intent, and as soon as it was certain that we hadn’t brought the others so we could attack it, it spoke. Once again, it was speaking in a language that I didn’t understand, but as soon as it stopped speaking, Pops spoke to it in what I could only assume was the same language.
“Do you really understand what it’s saying?” I asked.
“Yes, I do. It’s an ancient dialect of Navajo that was in common use during the time before the Spanish arrived in the southwest portion of what is now the United States.”
“You aren’t that old, so how do you know how to speak it?” Devin demanded.
“There were older members in the Navajo tribe that I first lived with that still spoke that particular dialect. They would use it to share thoughts and ideas they wanted to keep secret from others, because they thought most of the other Navajos couldn’t understand it. In fact, the younger members of the tribe felt their elders were just speaking gibberish, so they didn’t have any interest in learning it. However, I paid attention, and over time I was able to figure out the differences and nuances between the Navajo language that had been in use nearly 1,000 earlier.”
“Then what did it say?”
“It said that it had made a huge mistake when the Spanish started making slaves of its people and chose to become a skinwalker to find a way to destroy them.”
“Ok, so is that why it has been following us?”
“He didn’t mention anything about that, so let me ask him.”
Gramps then spoke to it in ancient Navajo again, and then the evil skinwalker responded. When it finished speaking, Pops turned to speak with us.
“He says that he immediately sensed something different about you when he tried to read your thoughts, because he learned thatl you could also change into an animal form, like he did. He was just surprised when you changed into two large creatures that he had never seen and didn’t recognize.”
“I think it means Big Foot and the polar bear,” Devin clarified.
“But once it knew we were skinwalkers, why did it keep following us?” I asked.
“He said that he saw you were different from him and weren’t created for evil or questionable purposes, and he was hoping you’d either help him to no longer to be a skinwalker or to be more like you. He said that you have friends and are around a lot of other people, and he has been very lonely for so many moons that he’s lost count – his words not mine. He also told me that no humans and very few animals want to be around him for very long, so he’s pretty much been all alone since the day he became a skinwalker.”
“But we don’t know how to do what it wants.”
“You might not be able to help him, but I’m hoping my friend Tokala, the hataalii, can help this poor creature out.”
“So, you’re going to contact the shaman and have him come here as well?”
“No, we’ll take this one to Tokala, rather than having the hataalii come here.”
“I thought you were going to help us look around first, to see if we can find anything else that might relate to the chest.”
“Yes, so let me tell our new friend here about what we’re going to do first, before we take him to someone who might be able to help him.”
After Pops said that, he turned and spoke to the evil skinwalker again, and when he finished, the evil skinwalker ran away.
“Why did he leave. Didn’t he trust you?”
“I’m not sure, but he had a look of understanding on his face before he ran off, so let’s wait a few minutes to see if he returns.”
I was afraid we were just wasting our time, but five minutes later the skinwalker returned, and he was carrying something in his hands. He walked directly up to Pops and spoke with him for quite a while, and when the skinwalker finished, it handed whatever it had been carrying to Pops. Pops then turned toward us and handed the objects that he had been given to Devin, and then Pops spoke.
“His name is Atsa, which is the Navajo word for eagle. He said his father saw an eagle the evening before his mother went into labor, so his father gave him that name. His father told him that someday he’d grow up to become a wise and capable hataalii, like his father and grandfather had been. On the day you found the chest in the dirt, he came over to see what else might be there, and that’s when he found these. He took them, because he thought they might convince you to help him.”
It tuned out that the objects Atsa had returned with were two pieces of wood, and they both appeared to have been coated with some sort of wood sealant. As Devin held them in front of his body, we noticed that both boards had dirt clinking to them, but then I noticed something else.
“They must have once been a solid piece of wood at one time, because each one had a one jagged edge and three smooth sides,” I pointed out.
“And the jagged edges don’t appear to have been covered in the same sealant as the rest of the wood,” Devin added, and then he looked more closely at the first piece. As we noticed earlier, there were places where dirt still adhered to it, but where the dirt wasn’t stuck to the surface, there appeared to be parts of letters carved into it.
“We’ll have to clean the dirt off these boards before we can tell what the letters say, since we don’t have anything here that we can use to do it with,” I said, and Devin nodded in agreement. He then held out the other piece for us to examine, but that one didn’t appear to have anything carved on it. That’s when Devin flipped it over so we could look at the other side, and once again there appeared to be portions of letters carved into that piece as well.
“You’ll probably need some water to wash the dirt off,” Pops stated, “because not only is the dirt stuck to the surface of the wood, but it also appears to be embedded in the letters that are carved into it.”
“Ok, I guess we’ll have to go back to the house to wash the dirt off and see what it says,” I stated, “but are you going to take Atsa back to the house with us?”
“No, I think it would be difficult to explain his presence if anyone else saw us arrive there, especially if we consider the way he’s dressed, so we’ll take him with us and head directly to the Navajo reservation. If we’re fortunate, the hataalii will be able to help Atsa.”
“Won’t he die if the shaman makes it so he’s no longer an evil skinwalker?” Devin asked.
“If Atsa is merely changed back into a mere mortal again, and considering how old he probably is, that would be true. However, I’m hopeful that the hataalii will be able to convert him from an evil skinwalker into a good one like us.”
“Yeah, I hope that’s possible too.”
“It’s a long way to the reservation from here, so won’t you have to stop and eat?” I asked.
“Yes, I suppose we will.”
“But how can you do that if you don’t want Atsa to be seen by other people, because you won’t be able to take him into a restaurant with you?”
“That’s true, so we’ll have two options. The first would be for Jacob to park in the back corner of the parking lot and then go into the restaurant alone to get three meals to go. The other option would be for us to find a remote area where we can stop and transition into animals so we can hunt and make a kill. If we’re successful, we can all fill up on that before continuing our journey.”
“Yeah, I guess you could do that too.”
“Ok, we’ll head out with Atsa now, and you two can take these boards back to the house and clean them up so you can see if they help you find what you’re looking for.”
“Do you think Atsa will be ok riding in Gramps SUV with you?”
“I’ll explain the situation to him the best I can, but since he’s seen you boys riding in one before, and we’ll be with him, then I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
We all walked back to our vehicles, and as Pops was explaining the situation to Atsa, Devin placed the boards in the back of his SUV. As he was doing that, I retrieved the key to the cabin out of the ashtray and unlocked the door to the cabin.
“Aren’t you going back to the house?” Pops asked when he saw what we were doing.
“Yes, but we want to go for a run first,” Devin replied, “and we’ll head back to the house after we’ve done that.”
“Ok. I’ll call you when we get back from the reservation and let you know what Tokala says. Maybe you’ll be able to tell me about what you discover on those boards at the same time.”
“Yeah, we’ll do that, and have a safe trip.”
They eventually convinced Atsa to get in the SUV with them, but we entered the hunting cabin before they drove away. When we came out, they were long gone, so we went for a run to work out some of the tension and anxiety over our initial encounter with Atsa.
Bear and Buck raced around the field for a while, but we also followed Atsa’s scent to see where he’d been staying before he showed himself to us. He must have been watching us for quite a while, because Devin said he noticed the same scent while we were investigating the damage to the trees previously. He claimed that at the time he thought it was merely the scent of an unfamiliar animal, possibly someone’s exotic pet, when we went back to look around the area where we’d discovered the chest.
Atsa must have gone to that area after we took the chest away and found those boards that we had overlooked. Maybe he did it as an animal first and realized the chest and the boards carried the same scent, and as he admitted to Pops later, he assumed they might be valuable to us. That’s whey he decided to keep them, so he might be able to use them as an incentive to get us to help him. I’m glad we called Pops and Gramps about this and they’d offered to come and help us, because without Pops, we’d never have known what Atsa was trying to tell us.
The only payment our authors receive for their efforts are your emails. Bill W deserves to hear from you if you are reading his stories. BWstories8 at AOL dot Com.
If you are using webmail please include, on the subject line, [CR] (name of story). This let’s the author know 2 things: Where you read the story and which story you are writing about.
5,980 views