In the days before the white man came to the Northeastern shores of America, the confederacy met regularly. Each year they came to the council fires — the men of the tribes of the Pequots, Penobscots, Delawares, Mun-sees, Narragansetts, and Mohicans.
At the council fires, they considered the future welfare of the tribes. But some who had visions said a bad time was coming. A strange race, numerous as leaves upon the trees, would come from the sunrise and crowd out the people of the confederacy.
Many refused to listen to these dreary prophecies. But one word was whispered, as if it was the name of a secret weapon which might be used if the invaders came.
The word was wamagemeswak.
– In the year 1751, John Stevens claimed narrow stretch of land far up the Penobscot River. He felt a certain sympathy for the Indians who had been forced to leave it. It was good land, heavily timbered, with fresh water at hand. With his plenty
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son, Martin,
Stevens set to work to clear space on which he planned to build a house and plant crops.
As he worked, John saw in his mind a cabin raised, fields planted, smoke coming from a chimney. When Martin married, there would be room for his cabin, too. If all went well, he could send back to Boston by next spring for his wife, Molly. She hadn’t been well lately, and John had left her there with her family.
One sultry afternoon as the two men worked, John noticed something new and strange. Everything around them seemed unnaturally quiet. The birds were hushed, there was no rustle of leaves. Even the sound of the river seemed muffled and far away.
He signaled Martin. Puzzled, the young man put down his axe.
“Line, nothing.”
“That’s just the point, lad. There’s nothing to hear but the noise our axes are making. The place is as quiet as a tomb.”
Martin cocked his head and listened. His own voice dropped to a whisper as he said,
“You’re right, Father. Why is it so, do you suppose?”
John shook his head. “These woods aren’t like the woods back in England. They say the devil prowls them. It’s the devil’s own quiet, for sure.” Then seeing that Martin was un-easy, John broke off with a short laugh. “Come on. We’re scaring ourselves like a pair of old grannies. Maybe a storm is coming, and that’s put a hush over things. Let’s double our own noise and make the woods ring.”
Welcoming a chance to work off their ner-vousness, the two men set to work cutting timber. By sundown, they were almost too tired to think. They built a fire and roasted a rabbit Martin had shot earlier in the day.
When the meal was finished, it was all they could do to keep their eyes open long enough to bank the fire and make beds of dry leaves.
The moon was dropping behind the trees when John woke suddenly. A sharp pain in his right hand had yanked him back to conscious-ness. He opened his eyes just in time to see something thin and brown straighten up from his side and scuttle away into the underbrush.
Blood was trickling from his hand. He reached for his musket and jumped to his feet. Martin awoke as he fired.
“What is it, Father?”
“I don’t know. Some animal, I think. Bit me on the hand, then ran off. I didn’t get a good look at it.”
“Your hand’s bleeding. I’ll get some water.” When Martin had washed away the blood, he whistled in dismay. “The beast took a wedge out of your hand. Just missed cutting the tendon. It’s an odd shape for a bite.” And it was. The flesh looked as if it had been gouged, leaving a red cavity shaped like a triangle. Looking at it, John felt suddenly cold.
What kind of an animal left a mark like that?
By morning, John’s hand was red and swol-len, and his eyes were glazed with fever. He mumbled about cutting more timber, but fell back when he tried to rise.
“It’s no good, Father,”
Martin told him.
“Whatever bit you left a poison. I’ll put a poultice on it. But you must bide here and rest.”
By afternoon, the red swelling was moving up John’s arm, and he was tossing in delirium.
“The wound should be cauterized,” Martin told himself — and knew he would have to do it. He heated the edge of his axe in the hot coals. Then, setting his teeth, he applied it to the wound. John, out of his head with fever, scarcely seemed to notice.
When it grew dark, Martin built up the fire, and sat down with his father’s musket to keep watch. From time to time, he bathed the sick man’s face and forced water between his lips.
Later, he wondered what would have happened if he had dropped off to sleep. But he didn’t. And because worry and nerves kept him awake and alert, he saw the wamagemes-wak.
At first it was just a glimpse out of the corner of his eye. Something very thin and brown, almost the height of a man, flashed into view
—then vanished. Martin jumped to his feet.
He looked directly at the spot under the trees where the thing had appeared. But now there was nothing there. Earlier he had made a rough torch of rags wound around the end of a stripped branch. He lit this now and held it aloft. Still nothing … just trees and under-growth… .
No, wait! A flicker of movement. Then a thin brown shape, like a wizened old man. An In-dian? No, more like some long-dead mummy.
The figure stood sideways, not seeming to be aware of Martin. He got a quick impression of a hollow eye socket, a sunken profile, as if the creature had no nose.
His heart was thudding in his chest. “What do you want?” he croaked. “Who are you?”
It was like a conjuring trick. The thing started to turn in his direction — and disap-peared!
With a single bound, Martin covered the distance between the fire and the spot where the thing had been. He moved the torch slowly back and forth so that even the darkness beyond the trees was lighted up. Nothing . . .
no one. ..
Then the hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. He swung around. The thing was there, by the fire, bending over his father.
He could see the hungry, caved-in profile. The dark hole that was its mouth was lined with tiny, pointed teeth.
Martin rushed forward, the torch held out like a lance. He saw the bony shape straighten, start to turn in his direction — and vanish. A current of cold air moved past him, and he felt a stinging pain in his left shoulder.
He didn’t need to look at it to know there would be a wedge-shaped bite there. He sat down by the fire, and reached for his axe.
The pain of the cauterization left him dizzy and sick. “I mustn’t faint…” he told himself.
“Must stay awake … keep watch…” But it was no use. He toppled over into uncon-ciousness.
Much later he opened his eyes. Even before he struggled to sit up, he knew that someone was watching him. An Indian girl was sitting beside his father, looking at him steadily.
To the end of his life, Martin was never sure that he actually heard her speak to him. Sometimes he thought her voice had only been in his mind. But he never forgot what she said.
“A canoe is waiting beyond. Take your father and go, or you will both die.”
She stood up, then bent over him. Her eyes glittered in the firelight. “It will never be your land. Wamagemeswak guards it. Wamagemes-wak will devour all whites who come here.”
“Maybe it’s a dream,” Martin told himself.
He remembered asking, “What is wamagemes-wak?”
“A demon called up by those who know how to do such things. Wamagemeswak are always hungry. Hunger is all they know. No man can look them in the face, for they are so thin you can see them only from the side. Your fire-sticks cannot harm them, for they are already dead. No matter how many whites come to this place, wamagemeswak will destroy them all.”
“Then why have you come to help us?”
“Many of my people say it is bad medicine to call up such as wamagemeswak. When it has finished with the whites, will it not turn on us? But this wamagemeswak is bound to this land by the river. It will not follow you.
“Now you must take your father and go.
Never come back. Never let your children’s children come back. Never sell the land. Hold it, keep it empty. No white man can come here and live.”
The canoe was waiting where she said it would be. The river’s current took the two men downstream to the settlement near Penobscot Bay. But Martin did not report his experience to anyone but his.
mother. Who else would
believe such a tale?
Years later he set it all down on paper for
– his descendants to read. But in case they should think his mind was unsound, he made sure to first call in his lawyer. Papers were drawn up to make sure that the tract on the river would never be sold or occupied.
Today the tract is a fenced-in stretch of woodland. Trespassers are no problem because it is so thickly overgrown. But once the bones of a deer were found near the fence, with odd, wedge-shaped marks on them. Did the deer encounter a ravenous creature so thin that it could only be seen from the side?
hexafu 