“Bang.”
The creature exploded in the sky.
CHAPTER 34
WHEN THE DOOR CLOSES
Edgar Doyle stood at the restless brim of the western ocean, his bare feet submerged in the frothy water. He stared out at the steadily climbing sun, hands propped on his hips. When Keech approached and stood beside him, the Ranger doffed his hat. “Hello, Mr. Blackwood.”
“How’s the leg?”
Doyle peered down at the ragged tear in his trousers. “Right as rain. The Fang is a powerful tool.” He smiled. “Too bad it didn’t heal my trousers, though.”
“The elders told us it wouldn’t cure John Wesley.”
The Ranger glanced back toward the cove, where John Wesley and Cutter were keeping watch over the small, gangly Shifter. “They’re right. John will never be the same. He’s not suffering a sickness. What’s happened to my boy is a kind of rebirth.”
Keech recalled Buffalo Woman’s words. Your friend has become a new form. There is no remedy, only acceptance. He didn’t know whether to feel a profound sadness for John Wesley or a curious excitement for the boy’s new abilities.
“One thing I’ve been wondering,” Keech said. “The amulet shards. They never worked on the Chamelia. Why is that?”
“The silver never worked because the Prime didn’t create the beast,” Doyle said. “Rules of magic can be chaotic, but they are still rules. The shards only work against creatures of the Prime.”
Keech scratched his head. “But Big Ben touched the shard at one point and was unhurt. Back in Wisdom. Wasn’t he a creature of the Prime?”
“No. Big Ben was only a man, born of natural means. His powers came from the Prime, sure enough, but the Reverend kept him charged, always feeding him energy the way a bird feeds her young.”
Keech slowly nodded, realizing that Big Ben had most likely brought about his own undoing by facing the Protectors and burning through his powers when he snuffed out the bonfire.
The Ranger pointed to the blue-gray sky. “I saw what you did to Rose’s crow. Impressive. You found your focus.”
“I reckon the crocodile has one less tooth,” Keech said.
Doyle chuckled. “You know, not even your father, Bill, could do that. Nor Isaiah. You have a true gift for tapping the energies. I expect you all do. Bennett’s daughter, Mr. Revels, even your friend Cutter, though he doesn’t know it. If you draw from one another and listen to the tune of the world, you can conquer whatever lies in your path.”
“We’ll be okay,” Keech said. “What about you? Will you take John Wesley back to your home and rebury Eliza? John needs his family whole again. His ma is gone. He needs to know his pa is with him.”
Doyle stared across the glistening sweep of the ocean. After a time, he wiped a tear from his eye. “You’re right. He does need his family whole again.”
Somewhere farther up the coast, seagulls chirped and squawked at the tide—a melody Keech had never heard before. He wondered at the myriad voices the world contained.
Doyle drew out his pocket watch and looked at the time. “It’s past ten in the morning. We should get back to Kansas.”
Back at the cove, Buffalo Woman called out to everyone. The elders were summoning the company for a talk. Keech waited for Doyle to slip back into his moccasins, but the Ranger only stood in the water.
“You’re not coming?”
“This is your discussion, Mr. Blackwood. My fellow Enforcers and I have played our part. We caused a lot of pain in our time. I tried to turn my back on that life when I stopped using the name Red Jeffreys, but I lost their trust when I broke my Oath of Memory. The elders will want to speak only to you. Now go. Learn what you need to learn.”
The two elders gathered everyone into a close circle next to the bonfire, whose towering flames were quickly fading. Two of the Protectors, Big Moon and Yellow Hawk, remained apart from the others, standing near the body of their fallen brother, Whipping Feather. The rest stood next to their ponies, nursing small cuts and bruises. John Wesley didn’t want to leave the side of the Chamelia, which had withered down to a shivering coyote. Whatever was happening to the creature, it seemed helpless now. The beast couldn’t even stand, much less attack.
Holding the Fang of Barachiel on her palm, Buffalo Woman began to speak, occasionally gesturing to the ill-fated blaze behind her. Though Keech couldn’t understand most of her words, he could hear a mixture of sadness and consolation in the woman’s voice. When Keech looked to Strong Heart for the translation, she explained that when Big Ben seized the Fang, he destroyed the heart of the bonfire, the enchanted core that the Enforcers themselves had created to protect the artifact.
Keech’s cheeks flushed with shame. “I’m sorry. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t.”
“This ain’t your fault,” Duck said. “It’s Rose’s.”
“Can’t somebody just fix it?” Quinn asked. “Throw a few more logs on to stoke the cinders?”
Strong Heart relayed the question, and when Buffalo Woman answered, the girl said to the young riders, “Understand, it was never ours to fix. The elders were only guarding the dagger, just as the Protectors defended the Crossing.”
The girl concluded by saying that the elders’ long mission to watch over the Fang on this sacred ground was complete. There was no longer any reason to remain on the Oregon Coast. The elders and Protectors would return to their homes and families in the Osage territories.
“What about the Fang?” asked John Wesley. “Will you take it back to Kansas?”
To answer his question, Buffalo Woman offered the Fang to Keech. “You have all proved yourselves,” she said, again surprising him by speaking in English. “We want you to accept this. Protect it, as we have.”
“No.” Keech shook his head. “We can’t take that. We’re not strong enough.” He looked to the Protectors for some kind of backup, but not even Strong Heart or Strong Bones debated.
“You have everything you need to protect the Fang,” Buffalo Woman said.
Duck looked at the dagger like someone pondering a difficult puzzle. “We should try. The Osage have been protecting it for so long. They’ve done their part. Now it’s our turn.”
“It healed Papa from his curse wound,” John Wesley added.
“Yeah, but it can’t heal you,” Cutter said.
“Maybe Duck’s right. Maybe we should try,” Quinn said.
“Are we sure?” Keech asked.
They all looked at one another, silent, till Cutter shrugged. “You heard the woman. We’ve proved ourselves.”
Keech’s hand quivered when he took the relic from Buffalo Woman. There was undoubtable danger in accepting such an object, but that had never stopped the Lost Causes. Finally, he nodded. “We’ll keep it safe.”
Buffalo Woman said something else, her face turning toward the mountains, disquiet slipping across her features. When the gang looked to Strong Heart for the interpretation, the girl frowned gravely as she mulled over the elder’s words.
“Well?” said Duck. “What’d she say?”
Strong Heart shook her head. “She says that to protect the Fang, you must also travel to a place in the Western mountains.”
A cold, snail-like foreboding crawled up Keech’s spine when he heard Strong Heart’s translation. He remembered their earlier conversation about the three sites of power. There’s another place deep in the mountains of the West, and yet another to the north, the one you call the Palace.
“Buffalo Woman says you must go to the House of Mah-shcheen-kah,” the girl continued.
“What’s that mean?” asked Cutter.
“It means the House of the Rabbit,” Keech said—and recalled Sam’s voice again: I’m the Rabbit, remember? I can run just as fast in bare feet.…
Strong Heart went on with Buffalo Woman’s message. “You must go to the House of the Rabbit and look for the Key.”
“The Key!” said Quinn. “That’s what Doyle mentioned back on the prairie! He said
the Enforcers had to hide the other artifacts, like the Key.”
“Sounds like we’ve got another mission,” Keech said. He began to wonder if this had been Milos Horner’s intention when he had asked the Lost Causes to pursue a man named McCarty.
Buffalo Woman spoke in English again. “The bonfire is dying,” she said, pointing back to the sputtering blaze. “The House of the Rabbit will be next to fall. You must hurry to find it first and take the Key. The Scorpion must not find it.” She spoke the rest in Osage.
Strong Heart concluded for her. “If the Scorpion finds the Key, she says, the land will lose the sun.”
The darkest shiver Keech had ever felt cascaded down his spine.
The elders’ conversation turned to the gateway, the mysterious door of light that unlocked Bonfire Crossing. They had declared that the door should forever shut so that Rose or any other monsters like him could never infiltrate the powerful coastline again.
“Now we go home,” Buffalo Woman said, and the circle dispersed.
The young riders and Doyle gathered their horses. With the Fang of Barachiel tucked in a deerskin sheath that Strong Bones had given him, Keech followed the Protectors and his weary trailmates back over the beach and to the bent cedar tree.
There had been a brief discussion about the Chamelia, whether the feeble creature should accompany them or not, but John Wesley insisted that he wouldn’t leave the beast. He scooped the coyote-thing into his arms and walked on foot behind his father and Saint Peter.
The two elders carried no belongings except for the buffalo robes on their backs, and the old pair never looked back at the dwindling bonfire. Once the company reached the bending tree, Strong Bones called out with a clear voice, “Shohn-geh.”
Brilliant light sparked between the cedar trunks as the door that spanned entire territories opened once more. The shimmering rift revealed a peaceful day on the other side. Through the flickers of impossible light, a snow-covered clearing appeared, illuminated by the bending tree’s vibrant glow. A sparrow called from a nearby forest, and cottonwood limbs moaned in the wind.
The Protectors stepped through the door, carrying their fallen companion, Whipping Feather. Doyle and Cutter and Quinn crossed over next, then Duck with her brother’s Fox Trotter on the lead rope.
Holding the weakened Chamelia in his arms, John Wesley asked, “You coming, Keech?”
“Right behind you.”
As John stepped into the light with the Shifter, Keech gave the vast ocean, the beach, the crescent cove, and the dying bonfire one final look. “Well, Pa, we found the Fang,” he said. “Now just guide us to this Key, and maybe we can finish Rose for good.”
Only the delicate whistle of the sea breeze answered his plea.
Turning to the cedar tree, Keech let Hector guide him through the door of light. The salty wind faded from his nostrils; the swelling noise of the ocean surf died away. The warmth of Bonfire Crossing vanished, replaced by the deep chill of a snow-dusted landscape.
The others were waiting for him in the white clearing, their coats pulled up against a frigid afternoon. Bracing against the cold, Keech guided Hector a few more steps and saw that he’d just emerged from a crooked box elder tree, shaped like a leaning V. It was not the basswood tree the young riders had opened to enter Bonfire Crossing. Their passage across the Territories had taken them somewhere new.
“Don’t worry, we’re still in Kansas,” Quinn said. “Strong Heart said we landed about a mile away from a big buffalo run.”
Reining her brown pony, Strong Heart smiled. “The Great Osage Trail. It follows the buffalo paths of the Wah-zha-zhe.” She pointed to the south.
“Otherwise known as the Santa Fe Trail,” Doyle said, riding up next to Keech. “Your posse is lucky, Mr. Blackwood. Though you’re a great distance from where you first entered the gateway, the tree dropped you off near a major wagon route. You can follow it where you will. East to civilization, or west if you want.”
Keech glanced around the Kansas landscape. The forest where the sparrow had been singing began a few yards to the north. The path itself—the Santa Fe Trail—was nowhere to be seen, but Quinn had said the route was only a mile or so from the tree.
“So what happens now?” asked Cutter.
“Now we seal the Crossing and go home,” Strong Heart said.
Yellow Hawk and Big Moon helped the two elders down from their horses, and the old pair shuffled over to the moss opal stones planted around the tree. Strong Bones stepped on the third stone, kicking away layers of snow. Buffalo Woman called out, “Red Jeffreys. Come. This task belongs to you.”
Doyle joined Strong Bones and the elders on the stones, and before Keech could ask why they needed Doyle, the Ranger began to speak a strange chant, different from the incantation he’d used in Wisdom. The sounds belonged to no language Keech had ever heard, and when Doyle was finished, a sudden wind kicked up, a chill rush that rattled the bending tree’s curtain of light. Keech felt a vibration stiffen the cold air, the way a room thickens when all the doors shut at once. Then Strong Bones began to speak the Osage words for various animals, including tseh for buffalo, weh-ts’-ah for snake, oh-pxohn for elk, and finally shohn-geh for wolf.
A thunderous crack sounded between the illuminated trunks, and the distinct shape of the shadow wolf appeared inside the light. The animal’s muzzle pointed skyward, as if howling to its unseen moon, and then the wolf leaped out of view. The dazzling light blinked out as the animal vanished, and the vibration in the air fell away.
The four attendants stepped off the stones.
“What just happened?” asked Cutter.
Returning to Saint Peter, Doyle said, “The magics of the world hold their own secret language. A long time ago, the Enforcers learned a special form connected to the Prime, and we used it to tap into Bonfire Crossing. But because Rose also knows the secret language, we knew we had to conceal the Fang’s hideaway using another means.”
“The elders allowed the Enforcers to use certain words as a way to hold the door closed,” Strong Heart continued.
“You used words as locks,” said Quinn, fascinated.
“More like camouflage,” added Doyle. “The point is, no one will ever open Bonfire Crossing again, unless the place itself wills it.”
Keech pondered the bending tree one last time, then turned to the elders, Buffalo Woman and Doesn’t Fear Thunder. Both looked tired, the faces of people who look ready to see their old homes and acquaintances. “Thank you for your help,” he said to them. “And thank you for being a friend to my fathers. They took a wrong path together, but in the end, they stood true. I’ll do my best to honor them both.”
Though the old pair said nothing in response, Keech saw what might have been appreciation on their faces. They raised their hands, palms out, to the young riders. Each of the kids returned the gesture.
Keech finally turned to Strong Bones, who had mounted back up and was swiveling his pony toward to the east. “Wah-hu Sah-kee,” he said, using the man’s Osage name. “I’m sorry we brought you and your friends such trouble. And I’m sorry about Whipping Feather.”
Strong Bones returned a small nod. “I will tell his family you stood beside him.” With that, he motioned for the company to begin riding, but then Quinn called out to Strong Heart, stopping them. The boy stammered at first, as though he’d forgotten what he wanted to say, but then he cleared his throat and spoke clearly. “I’m glad we met you, Strong Heart. I hope we cross paths again.”
“Weh-wee-nah, Quinn Revels. Thank you for saving my life,” the girl said.
Quinn peeled off his forage cap. “I hope you find your brother. I know what it feels like to miss somebody.”
Strong Heart smiled, her round face framed by pale sunlight. “When I see him again, I’ll tell Wandering Star that you fought with the Protectors and helped save the Fang.”
Keech’s heart tumbled at the words. He prayed he had just heard wrong. “Strong Heart, what name did you say?�
�
She gave him a puzzled look. “In my language, I call him Mee-kah-k’-eh Moin. In English, you would say—”
“Wandering Star,” Edgar Doyle finished, his mouth hinging open.
Sudden worry twisted Strong Heart’s features. “You know my brother?”
The Enforcer’s story echoed in Keech’s mind: His name was Wandering Star. He was a nice young man, smart and funny. He’d spent much of his youth training with his uncle to be a Protector of the Crossing.
The other young riders had fallen into their own silent daze.
“Strong Heart, I’m afraid your brother is gone,” Keech said. “He died in a cave in Missouri helping the Enforcer. That’s why you know Edgar Doyle. Because he came to your encampment looking for the Fang.”
“And my brother rode after him,” Strong Heart finished, her face darkening. “But how do you know he’s gone?”
“We saw him.” Keech hated to speak the words, but there was nothing for it. “We were passing through a cave, and we stumbled upon his body.”
Strong Heart asked Doyle, “Is this true?”
Doyle’s gaze didn’t budge from Saint Peter’s reins. “I’m afraid so. I led Wandering Star to his doom. I didn’t know he was your brother. If I’d known, I would’ve told you the moment I saw you. I’m sorry.”
Keech could tell the news had drained the girl’s remaining strength. A tear plummeted down her cheek, and she slumped heavily on the saddle. “I feared as much.”
“I’m sorry, Strong Heart,” said Keech. “What will you do now? I mean, now that you know?”
Strong Heart took a slow, measured breath, even as the tears fell. “I will mourn for Wandering Star. I’ll ask Wah-kahn-dah to guide his spirit and give him peace.”
Saying no more, the girl reined her pony to the east. The Protectors opened their ranks, and she slipped in among them. Buffalo Woman murmured something to her, and the Osage troop began to ride.
They didn’t reach ten paces before Duck called out, “Strong Heart, wait!”
The group paused, and Strong Heart looked back, wiping her face.
The Fang of Bonfire Crossing Page 28