LITMIR.BIZ

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awkwardly crab-crawled away from him. It looked as if he had seen a ghost. “You…you're talking! This can't be happening!”

      Jesse then noticed his face. The young man looked remarkably like Jason, but it was not him. Each cheek was marked with a jagged, charcoal line that angled down towards the back of his jaw. A worn, fur-lined blanket slid off his shoulders, exposing his muscular body. His legs were bare, and his lower half was covered only by a leather loincloth. His feet were bare.

      With a sickening feeling growing in his stomach, Jesse looked down at his own feet. Instead of sweatpants and socks, he saw slender, golden legs that ended at a pair of elegant, ebony hooves.

      “No!” shouted Jesse. “Wait! Don't be afraid!”

      The young native man fiercely pointed a finger at him. “I know you! You are the one my grandfather told me about. Stay away!”

      His grandfather? “What are you talking about?” asked Jesse, confused.

      “I can tell by the white mark on your chest,” he accused. “It is shaped like a bolt of lightning, just as he described. During the hunt many years ago, you destroyed our deer pen by attacking us and leaping as no deer had ever done before!”

      “Okay,” Jesse had to admit. “Now that you mention it, I do seem to remember trashing a deer pen a while ago.”

      “It was you,” the young man growled.

      Jesse shrugged inwardly. “But come on, that was a long time ago. And can you blame me for not wanting to be your grandfather's dinner? Tayna and I were just trying to escape.”

      He shook his head violently. “No! You are a bringer of death and destruction! My people nearly ran out of food that winter because of what you did. You destroyed our trap, then vanished before their eyes. You are an animal spirit that must be avoided.”

      “But I can't go yet,” said Jesse, thinking he must have just fallen asleep.

      The young man's eyes narrowed into a wolf-like glare. “Then you are here to challenge me. I am not afraid of you!”

      Suddenly, a knife appeared in his hand and he spun into a crouch, ready to pounce. Jesse gulped with fright. He backed up a step, wondering if he could escape with another mighty leap as he had in his earlier dream. But he realized that the hunter and knife were simply too close.

      Suddenly, an idea came to him. He had to be about the same age as Jason. And he was out in the woods all by himself.

      “Were you out here on your vision quest?” asked Jesse, trying to sound calm.

      “Yes,” he answered, his eyes unblinking and cold. “It is my time of passage into adulthood. I was waiting for my sign, my guardian spirit, to come to me.”

      “Well,” said Jesse, raising his head to look as majestic as possible, “That's me. I'm your guardian spirit.”

      “You?” he cried in disbelief. “You cannot be my spirit. How can a spirit so destructive be sent to look over me? You are trying to trick me!”

      “Wait! Your grandfather has it all wrong about me.”

      “I don't believe you,” he growled.

      “Just listen for a second,” said Jesse, thinking as quickly as he could. “Well…you know that female deer I rescued from your grandfather's pen?”

      Jesse waited for a response. The hunter only squeezed his knife and took a step closer. Jesse gulped and again backed up.

      “That deer was, uh, was very…very…sick. Yes, sick! If your people had eaten her, they would have had stomach cramps, been throwing up…It would not have been a pleasant sight, let me tell you. So I was sent by the Great Spirit to release the sick deer before your people made a terrible mistake by capturing and eating her.”

      The knife lowered a fraction of an inch. “So the Great Spirit sent you to protect us?”

      “Yes!” Jesse breathed, with a sigh of relief. “Exactly!”

      “Couldn't the Great Spirit simply have kept her away from the hunt in the first place?”

      Jesse looked up. “It is not my place to question the Great Spirit.”

      “That is true,” the hunter muttered. “Forgive me, Great Spirit.”

      “Me, too,” Jesse whispered quietly.

      The hunter looked back at Jesse. “So you were only protecting my people. And now you have returned to look after me?”

      “Yes.”

      Jesse wondered if he was digging himself in even deeper. Who was he to tell this young man that he was a guardian spirit? And the line about the Great Spirit sending him to save the hunter's people from Tayna? But on the other hand, who is to say that this whole situation wasn't created by the Great Spirit in the first place? Perhaps he was supposed to be a guardian spirit. It would make about as much sense as everything else that had happened so far.

      The one thing Jesse was sure of, however, was that this was all happening within a dream. The hunting knife pointing at his chest, however, looked very real. He remembered hearing that if you were killed in your dream, then you would also die in real life. Realizing the situation he was now in, he hoped that the saying was dead wrong.

      Slowly, a look of horror crossed the young man's face. He dropped the knife onto the mossy carpet and collapsed, face first before Jesse's hooves.

      “Forgive me, animal spirit! I did not mean to insult you with my reckless display of bravery. You have come from the Great Spirit to protect me and in return, I have insulted and attacked you. Please, do not be angry with me or my people. I ask for your forgiveness!”

      Looking at the young man in front of him, Jesse felt his shoulders slump. Just moments ago, he was a fierce warrior ready to fight to the death with a powerful spiritual being. Now he was humbling himself in the dirt. Jesse was only a kid himself. This did not feel right at all.

      “What's your name?” Jesse asked, softly.

      “Iondaee,” he replied, not looking up.

      “Stand up, Iondaee,” commanded Jesse, in his deepest voice. “You are a brave warrior. You faced me without hesitation, knife in hand. You have passed the test!”

      Iondaee slowly raised his head, unsure of what he had just heard. “Test?”

      Jesse felt a glimmer of hope. “Yes, a test. A test of courage. You were magnificent, by the way. Now, stand up and look at me like the brave warrior I know you are.”

      Iondaee gave a half-smile, rose to his feet and lowered his head reverently. “Thank you for forgiving me, great deer spirit. You called me a warrior. Does that mean I am now ready to replace my father in the band council?”

      Jesse was confused. “Replace your father?”

      “Yes, surely you know about the great sickness of our people and the death of my father.”

      Jesse moved uncomfortably. “Since escaping from your deer pen I…I have been travelling the world, helping others like you. I have only just returned to your area. Please, tell me what has happened while I was away.”

      The hunter knelt down on the ground, the weight of his inner thoughts rounding his shoulders. “It has been a terrible fifteen years, great spirit. Much sadness has come to our people.”

      Jesse lay down beside him. “What has happened?”

      Iondaee picked up the knife and drew a map in the ground. “The white men, the French, came to live in the land of the Wendat five years after your escape from the pen. They brought us wonderful gifts of metal, such as this hunting blade. They wanted to trade with us. In exchange for furs, they would give us even more goods made from metal such as pots, tools and nails. Some neighbouring nations became envious of our growing wealth from trade with the French.”

      “Hold

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