Free Rampage by Lee Mellor

the lives of his wife, five children, brother, and mother-in-law, at two hundred pounds Swift Runner looked surprisingly well-nourished. Dark rumours began circulating in the Native community. Though he appeared meek in the daylight hours, Swift Runner was plagued by horrific nightmares. He drew further suspicion upon himself when he attempted to lure a group of children away on a hunting trip. Noting signs of something sinister and familiar in his behaviour — quirks that may have gone unnoticed by Caucasians — several Cree reported to a local priest that Swift Runner was a “Windigo”: a cannibal killer possessed by a demonic spirit. The surprisingly open-minded clergyman contacted North-West Mounted Police Superintendent Jarvis in Fort Saskatchewan, and on May 27, 1879, Swift Runner was arrested under suspicion of murdering his family. Though he denied the allegations, the prisoner’s flat affect and contradictory statements failed to convince his accusers otherwise. He told of how his wife had become inconsolable, shooting herself dead after learning that their son had perished from hunger. The rest of his family had starved shortly after.
    Determined to get to the bottom of it, Sergeant Richard Steele organized a small party to search the area 128 kilometres north of Fort Saskatchewan where they believed Swift Runner’s family had camped. Clapped in irons, the stolid Cree accompanied them along the trail in a Red River cart, his mind churning like the twin wheels through the prairie mud. As they neared their destination, he became belligerent and twice attempted escape. Rather than directing them to the camp, he seemed to be intentionally misleading them. Luckily, a guide named Brazeau had heard of Swift Runner’s penchant for muss-kee-wah-bwee — a concoction made up of alcohol and tobacco — which they used to ply the uncooperative prisoner. As the drink slowly took hold, Swift Runner lowered his guard, and slurred “Wahabankee keezikow , ” or, “Tomorrow I’ll show you.”
    The skeletal remains of Swift Runner’s family, brought in as evidence by the North-West Mounted Police.
Glenbow Archive
    The next day, the drunken captive stumbled through the bush, followed closely by the RCMP officers. Upon reaching his destination, he raised his head to the sky and let out a blood-curdling howl. Nearby they found the remains of a camp: a teepee that Swift Runner had supposedly ingested had actually been folded and concealed in the undergrowth. Empty animal traps dangled from the branches. All around them was a garden of bones, picked clean by scavengers. Though Swift Runner attributed them to ravaging bears, the discovery of a child’s sock crammed into an empty skull suggested otherwise. Worse yet was the cooking pot laden with human fat. Overcome by nausea, several of the searchers hurried to empty their stomachs in the woods. The sound of vomiting was muted only by the cries of one enraged officer, who screamed a torrent of obscenities into the heavens. When the searchers had finally composed themselves, they set about the task of recovering the evidence. Swift Runner looked on drowsily as they filled their sacks with bones. What remains they couldn’t take with them they buried hastily before heading back to Fort Saskatchewan. Not long after arriving, Swift Runner confessed that he had “made beef” of his family. Poking his finger into the socket of a skull on Superintendent Jarvis’s desk, he muttered, “This is my wife.”
    Transformation
    There was a time when the “brute” had loved and been loved by his family. Born in a teepee on a blustery winter’s night, probably in 1839, the babe had been named “Swift Runner” several days later by an elderly shaman. The shaman had done so at a feast to honour the newborn’s arrival, during which each member of the community had taken turns cradling Swift Runner, reciting his name, and wishing him a life of happiness. For a time, fate had honoured