The Everlasting Road by Wab Kinew

Author:Wab Kinew [Kinew, Wab]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tundra Book Group
Published: 2023-01-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

Waawaate, the real Waawaate, walked along a starry path, his fresh moccasins kicking up stardust as he moved silently forward. He looked to his left and saw a blue light that had been trailing him for as long as he could remember. Has it always been there, even when I walked on Earth? he asked himself. He could not recall the answer.

The sound of water stopped him in his tracks. It was something more than the sound of a creek streaming in the spring with all the runoff of the melted snow, but something less than the roaring rapids that dotted some of the rivers that came near the Rez. He tried to picture the Rez, but came away with nothing. He looked off to his right and studied the infinite blackness of space, dotted here and there with stars that burned more brilliantly than he expected. He was about to look back the way he’d come, but quickly snapped his gaze forward when he recalled the ghastly sight he’d seen the last time he’d looked back along his celestial path.

Far ahead of him, through the fog of the Milky Way, he could see movement. It looked as though the stars were melting, though instead of falling below, they appeared to run along some unseen surface and travel from left to right in front of him. This is where the sound of water is coming from. As he squinted to get a closer look at this river in the night sky, he realized the current was broken in a space directly in front of him. Here, there was a writhing mass of blackness. He couldn’t make anything out beyond that.

Waawaate reached into his pocket and retrieved some tobacco to offer to the path on which he walked. As he finished his prayer offering, he found his moccasins carrying him—suddenly, he was flying forward at a speed so fast the stars around him began to move.

Waawaate recognized what the black, writhing mass was. He recoiled. He tried desperately to plant his moccasins on the starry path in a furious attempt to slow himself down. He traveled with such speed, surely multiple times the speed of light, that for the first few moments, his moccasins merely slid along on the road beneath him. Eventually, they found some traction and he came skidding to a halt directly before a sight that froze him with fear.

As Waawaate stood entirely still, the head of a giant jet-black saber-toothed cat snapped at him with its immense fangs, like a rabid dog on the end of a chain. The beast gnashed and roared in complete silence. Waawaate’s fear petrified him such that he couldn’t step backward. He was helpless to move in any direction as the beast lunged forward, trying to devour him, coming only inches from his face. As it moved from side to side, struggling to find a way free from whatever was keeping it bound to the other side of the stream, Waawaate could see the beast’s snake-like body.

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