I look real nice and easy to trust, ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Gonna lead you on the path to self destruct on this crazy train that I conduct.

Waking up for the first time with a beautiful goth clinging to me like a limpet is one of highlights of my life.

The first light of dawn snuck its way past the curtains to play upon Anwyn’s delicate features as she lay with her head on my chest. I’ve remarked before on how almost inhumanly attractive she was without her makeup on, how it seemed she used it to hide her true beauty, and this was never more evident than it was right at that moment. Her near iridescent, pearl-like complexion stood out against my hairy chest, her thin lips, usually black as night, were a pale pink, only a shade darker than the skin of her face, and the silver hoop she wore through her lower lip, which usually stood out in stark relief from that normally dark canvas, now just seemed like it was part and parcel to the whole. Features that normally wore a layer of powder over who knew how much other shit that was well beyond the realm of my knowledge revealed that all of the cosmetic emphasis only served to tone down what was near perfection.

I was gazing at her like that, taking in all that inhuman beauty right next to me, when she snuggled tightly into me, her lips creasing in a smile. She tilted her head back and looked up at me, those gorgeous grey eyes seeking my own. “Took you long enough.”

I squeezed her a little bit, eliciting a contented sigh. “I guess I was a little dense.”

She chuckled. “Dude, I’ve been throwing myself at you for weeks now. When you seemed to backpedal on me I stopped being so aggressive and just started hoping you’d make a move.” She let out a huff of mock exasperation that caused her bangs to flare out wildly. “Which you didn’t, you big doofus. So I put it all on the line last night, figuring that if you were interested I’d force you to make a move, and if you weren’t I’d just give up on you completely.”

“Yeah. You got my attention. And how could I not be interested?”

“Well, I was pretty sure you weren’t gay, but… well, small titty goth girl isn’t a very popular meme.”

I shifted my hand to the part of anatomy she’d mentioned and gave it a gentle squeeze. “They’re just right.”

She moaned. “None of that, Daddy. We have to get on the road… but I think you can keep doing that for another few minutes.”

So I did, watching her get more and more turned on. Just as she started humping my leg, I stopped and began to attempt to untangle my limbs. “I think we both need showers before we go and meet the tribal council.”

“You’re probably right,” she giggled, “wouldn’t want to show up reeking of stale sex. But maybe a little more?”

“Nope.” I got out of the bed and started toward the bathroom.

“Tease!”

“Well, we could save water by showering together…”

---

I really don’t have adequate words to describe Red Lake. The feel of the place is sort of like a giant trailer park except that there are trees between the houses. The atmosphere is somewhere between lower class depression and fierce angry defiance at the world outside their borders. I hate to admit that I felt a little nervous as a white guy driving to the community center where we’d meet the council.

One of the things that stood out during the drive over badly paved roads was what, at first glance, looked like large colorful dog houses sitting on the lawn of almost every doublewide trailer house (or “manufactured home” as is the modern parlance). When I pointed it out to Anwyn she explained that they were Jiibegamig or spirit houses, wooden structures erected over grave sites to give the spirit of a dead relative somewhere to rest, sort of like a ghostly man cave. My brain equated that with cenotaphs or grave stones, and the idea is sort of cool in a morbid way, but it was rather chilling to see swing sets and sandboxes sharing a front yard with someone’s tomb. This is probably my whiteboy sensibilities though, cause to the kids they were just hanging with Grandpa. Who was dead and buried. Right in their front yard. Ok, so it doesn’t sound any better when I say it like that, but far be it from me to criticize other cultures’ burial practices.

The community center is a small brick structure, showing the same ratty deterioration as the rest of the res, painted over graffiti as well as some not so painted over (“MAGA: Moronic Assholes Governing America” was one of the more creative ones; gave me a good chuckle, interspersed as it was with the more prevalent but prosaic “Fuck Trump” tags) lined the exterior walls of the building, some of the bricks had large chunks missing from them due to what looked like high velocity impact, and the overall structure had a look somewhere between “run down” and “held together with duct tape and chewing gum”.

The interior was much more like a modern office, or the town hall of any small Midwestern community, with framed newspaper stories and awards celebrating the various members of the community covering the walls of the reception area. Anwyn presented our credentials and we were quickly ushered down a short hallway into the council chamber which was decked out just like any conference room on the planet. The council ran the gamut of age from late 30s to somewhere close to a century, and a few of them could well have been around when the 1904 Land Act fucked the tribe out of almost three million acres.

My partner was all business, getting as much data as she could right from the jump. Last known locations, any tracks left, all of it. The actual conversation took less than thirty minutes and before I knew what hit me we were back in the car and moving toward the southern shore of Red Lake itself.

“I don’t think it’s a Wendigo.”

I felt a massive amount of relief at that statement. At that point in my career with APA I was more than a little afraid of anything like one of the legendary Big Bads (not that that’s changed much, I just know how to kill them now). “So… why?”

“Wendigo are messy eaters, and don’t consume bones. There would be piles all over the place based on the numbers they’re talking. I’m not saying that something’s not eating them, just that it’s probably not a Wendigo.”

“So, what are we looking for?”

“Beats the fuck out of me.”

The actual lake, Red Lake, is pretty big, and on all but the clearest day you can’t see from one side to the other. It’s not quite as big as Superior, or even Ontario, but at 440 square miles it is the largest body of water entirely in Minnesota. Big land features like that tend to be spiritual magnets and draw in all manner of ghoulies and ghosties. There’s probably some mystic mumbo jumbo about leylines or chi that explain it, but I’ve learned that it’s usually enough just to know that if there’s some sort of legend surrounding something there’s probably more than a little truth behind it.

I almost didn’t see it. I probably wouldn’t have if the light hadn’t been just right. There in the water, about a hundred yards out, was a fishing boat and I couldn’t see a single person in it.

“Anwyn… I think we might have found something…”

(Title: “Bourbon Street” by Jeff Touhy)