Burial Mound

          By now they had been floating in the white mist for close to twenty minutes, primed to go into action.   The rapidly lightening horizon was upon them and gaining intensity with each passing second, sabotaging their efforts to remain concealed.   Daylight meant danger for the two men--the lighter it got, the more  detectable they became. 

     Tony thought he heard a noise.   What was it?   Faintly, growing stronger, the despairing sound of flapping wings.

     They had been sharing the field-glasses on a rotation basis; Jesse monitoring the north-eastern quantrant of the sky for a few minutes, Tony then doing likewise in the south-west.   As it happened, Jesse had been taking his turn with the glasses when the noise was first detected.

     Tony turned and looked at Jesse to see if he had also heard the sound.   But judging by his calm demeanor it seemed that he had not.   "Hear that?" he whispered nervously.

     Jesse lowered the optical instrument to chest level and looked back at Tony.   "I didn't hear--"   But then he heard it, too.   He again raised the binoculars to his eyes and resumed his vigilant watch of the early morning sky.   Through wisps of fog he studied the horizon, but could not perceive anything out of the ordinary.   It was difficult to determine just where the source of the noise was emanating from.   Without the aid of the powerful binoculars, Tony glanced furtively skywards in his assigned section of the heavens.

     The tenuous sound was becoming louder to their strained ears, piercing through the haunted silence like an arrow.   No longer did it seem to be far off over the vast wetland somewhere, but nearby and closing fast.

     The Windigo was coming.

     Several more tense minutes passed.   The two men remained motionless in the raft, watching and listening in fear-filled silence.   "See anything yet?" Tony asked in a barely audible voice.

     Jesse's elbows were resting on his knees in order to better steady the binoculars in his hands.   Without taking his eyes from the lenses he answered, "Nothing at all."

     "What are we watching for anyway?   What does it look like?" Tony asked.

     "Trust me," Jesse responded darkly, "we'll know when the time comes.   There'll be no mistaking it."   He panned the horizon in the same manner a camera-operator might try to establish a long shot in a film.   Suddenly he stopped and did a double-take.   Had he seen something unusual?   Or was his imagination just playing tricks on him?   He adjusted the  focus-dial on the binoculars and was surprised to discover that his fingers were trembling.

     Then he saw it again.