Page 300 of Chaos has a Name
“I found something aboutThe Hollow, and what is going on here.”
He was all ears.
The more they all knew, the better of a chance they had to fight this.
“What do you have?”
Going to the bookmarked page that she’d saved with a piece of paper, Elizabeth found the spot that she’d marked to read to her partners in this.
“It’s very Native American-y,” she admitted.
Well, yeah.
They were on a reservation.
Reading it, there was nothing left to the imagination. It was also pretty cut-and-dry.
‘There was a curse, and one day, a medicine man told the tribal leader that in order to abate the Wendigo, and the missing people, they needed a sacrifice. They were certain the number of declining Natives was supernatural.’
When she finished, Chris shrugged.
“I mean, it’s not an airport on the rez. You don’t have to announce your arrival or departure, unless you’re not Native.”
She was aware.
Only, there was more.
Elizabeth continued.
‘The elders agreed to the sacrifice, willing to offer up one for the safety of the whole, so they picked someone from the tribe who was a bad example of being part of the tribe.’
Chris lifted an eyebrow.
“And sacrificed him? Just like that? They picked someone they didn’t like, and killed him to appease a myth?” he asked.
She nodded.
As people who fought for justice, there was a line between protecting themselves and taking the law into their own hands.
It was a thin line.
“From what I read after that, post-sacrifice, almost immediately, their livestock and lives improved. Things were better and they attributed that to the sacrifice to the Wendigo. It looks as if we found out where and how this mess started. It began with fearmongering and men who wanted power by isolating someone they didn’t like.”
Yeah, that sounded about right for the times.
“When was this?” Chris asked.
“This was right around the depression. I’m willing to bet the times and coincidences made this a no-brainer for the people who did it. It was right about when Timothy was a child.”
Chris sighed.
“Craziness. I like to solve my issues with science, and not like this. A Wendigo, Elizabeth? Really?”
It was time to play devil’s advocate for the Natives who had propagated this nightmare long ago.
“Imagine one hundred years ago what people would think if they saw MATE. They’d think it was magic—not science. You have to account for the times, handsome. What we think is backward, isn’t in the time it happened.”
Yeah, his wife had a point.
