by Muriel Gray
Sam had fought off the first wave of nausea that always accompanied entering the spirit state, and now he was just hanging, waiting for whatever it was Calvin wanted to show him.
At first it was dark. Then gradually Sam saw that he was in a room. The cabin. He waited until Calvin caught up with him, and when he felt his presence join him in the dream room, Sam sighed and settled like a floating seed onto this tableau of the past.
It was him. Sixteen years old with a bloody and badly swollen face from the beating Moses had given him, and he was standing staring at the figure in the center of the darkened room. Points of sunlight intruded into the darkness where the blanket over the window had been inexpertly nailed, and the spirit Sam thought how beautiful they were, these pin-points of brilliance, like diamonds.
Moses swayed unsteadily in the middle of the floor, the amulet between his rotten teeth, glaring at the young Sam with wide eyes. He barked at his son, and because of the obstacle in his mouth his words sounded comical rather than threatening.
“What now? Come on, you little fuck. What now?”
Sam’s spirit watched his younger self wrestle with something and he knew what that had been. It was blasphemy even to have proceeded this far with the mock ceremony. But there was hate in that young boy’s eyes. A hate so deep it chilled Sam to see it from outside.
Calvin was approaching. The younger Calvin. Sam’s spirit could feel it. Calvin’s spirit whispered to him, “Yes, Sam. I was there. As you said.”
The Sam in the room was stiffening now, and Sam’s spirit wanted to shout no! to stop the boy from performing this last act of sacrilege. But he was soundless here. This was nothing more than a reflection of the past, not an event that he could alter or direct. His spirit was here to observe.
And as it observed the boy, slowly reciting the words that his father must speak to complete the ritual, his spirit ached with the wrongness of it. This was as far as he remembered. This hideous end to the ritual. What would he see now? What he had always feared? That this boy, previously guilty of nothing more than innocent faith, would become a gory murderer, a psychotic mutilator before the silent witness of his spirit?
Moses shut his eyes and, with the Isksaksin gripped firmly between his teeth, began to chant the words after his son. Sam’s spirit could not feel temperature, but his young self displayed the effect that Moses’ words had created, clutching his arms to his body as the room became icy cold.
Vapor was coming from man’s and boy’s breath now as the room fell below freezing. Calvin Bitterhand was almost there, jumping over the broken fencing that half surrounded the paddock and running through the thistles that stood sentinel over a long-forgotten driveway. Sam’s spirit saw it all at the same time, his mind taking in every movement and detail. Even a mouse rustling beneath a crate in the kitchen was observed by this roaming probe that was his mind. He could see it foraging for food on the garbage-strewn floorboards. Calvin’s mind touched his again, calling for his attention.
“You must look, Sam. Look and remember.”
The room was changing in more than temperature. Something was growing there invisibly. On Moses’ face there was a look of triumph as his eyes grew wide and the amulet dropped from his teeth, swinging back down to rest against his collarbone. Moses was changing too. Subtly at first, and then faster as all the watchers, of both flesh and spirit, gazed on.
What was happening to Moses was too horrible to behold.
The thing that had been Moses was now huge, terrible, crawling with its own degeneration and venom. And its power was beyond measure, filling the room like a yeast growing. The boy was screaming, his body pressed against the plasterboard wall, and his breath panted from his mouth in freezing clouds of vapor.
And then as the young Sam slid to the floor unconscious, the thing started its business, the business that Sam’s spirit was here to witness, and yet still could not. His mind recoiled from the vision so violently that he catapulted his thoughts away from the cabin and sent them hurtling up into the mountains that looked down on the small wooden structure containing such profanity.
But he had seen it. That which he had helped to call without purpose or permission. Seen it and remembered.
Sam’s eyes rolled in the back of his sockets and his head fell forward on his breast. He sat like that for minutes until he realized he was looking with his eyes instead of his mind, and was seeing glowing embers. The red-and-blue life that was still playing over the burning wood comforted him with the vividness of its colors in this great darkness that surrounded him.
He lifted his head slowly and looked across the gloom at Calvin. The old man’s eyes glittered with the reflection of the embers, indicating that he was awake and staring at him.
He could think of nothing to say. It was Calvin who broke their silence. “You fled a second time.”
“I saw.”
“What did you see, Hunting Wolf?”
Sam looked into Calvin’s eyes, jarred at the formality of his address and the ancient tongue with which it was spoken.
“That which I cruelly released.”
“So tell me now. Did you murder your father?”
Sam bent his head again in shame and horror and struggled with the question.
“Not in the way I thought. But you saw as well as I. Yes. I murdered him.”
“The weapon?”
Sam paused, then spoke the name quietly but with rancor. “The Trickster.”
Calvin slapped his knees with a ferocity that made Sam snap his head up. “NO! Do you learn nothing?”
“But the thing… the thing that Moses became…”
“What of it?”
Calvin sounded disappointed, almost petulant. Sam was dumbfounded, and yet at the back of his mind he knew why Calvin’s voice was weary. He had fled a second time. And he was still fleeing. He was not telling himself the truth.
Sam choked back a tear. “Calvin. What did I do?”
The old man leaned back. “Where is the Isksaksin, Sam? You do not wear it.”
Sam didn’t even pause to wonder how Calvin could know that, dressed as he was in his thick plaid jacket and another three layers of cotton, wool and fleece. He merely bowed his head and replied, “At home.”
“Then you must fetch it. Quickly.”
Sam nodded, then spoke in a small voice, still in that ancient formal Cree they used so often in the past, “Tell me first. Tell me what you saw.”
Calvin sat back and Sam watched the firelight make canyons of the lines crisscrossing the old man’s face as he waited for a reply.
“It was impotent. The keeper had not summoned it and so it was trapped in its fury, able only to destroy the impostor who called it, and by doing so, destroy itself. It is so old, so powerful that none can hold it, and it waits its centuries for a chance to break free from one who calls it and who can liberate it.”
Sam breathed his question. “But it is not the Trickster?”
“No. It is the one the Trickster desires you to call. Do you not remember him whispering to you from his prison of rock when you faltered in your plans that day?”
Sam said nothing but Calvin took his silence as affirmative.
“He is powerless in the rock but he can see and hear and sometimes reach out his black jester’s fingers. And he wanted you so badly to call that which you did.”
“Why, Calvin? I am lost.”
The shaman sighed. “I know, my son. That is why I am here. If you are lost when he faces you, then we are all lost.” The fire sparked as if in agreement and Calvin’s voice became eager. “He is a fool. He thinks that if you call that which cannot be contained he will enter you when it takes its leave. Then he would be spirit and shaman flesh, and his evil would know no boundary. The Isksaksin is his boundary. The line he cannot cross.”
“Why, then, do we call up such a demon that could release him?”
Calvin put a finger to his lips. “You have seen why with your spirit, Hunting Wolf. We must not sp
eak it. He is the Trickster that must be tricked.”
Sam stared at him in confusion. “I do not understand.”
“You do. You will. When it is time.”
Sam buried his head in his hands, exhausted and broken.
“Listen to me, Hunting Wolf,” Calvin said sharply.
Sam looked up, imploring Calvin with eyes that were both desperate and respectful. “I am listening, Soaring Eagle. Tell me of my father.”
Calvin’s heart soared like his spirit guide’s name and he looked across at Sam with love. “It left him after the blackness took you. I came into the room as it was wreaking its revenge on the body that had let it come this far. You know what it did. The carnage covered you with its mark. You were like a hunter who has spent the night in the carcass of a slaughtered caribou for warmth, no part of you not bathed in your father’s blood. But it was not at your hand. It was under the vengeful talons of that which Moses called.
“I saw it and thought I would die at the sight. When it turned its great filthy bulk to regard me in the doorway I thought I would never be sane again. But then it turned away and raged harmlessly over your unconscious body, screaming like a tortured soul as its power dissipated and it faded from the room like mist. Then you woke.”
Sam swallowed, remembering that awakening.
“I could not calm your terror nor stop you when you fled. You looked at me, bloodless and clean, then at yourself. And when your eyes alighted on the torn body that had been your father, you made that ill-founded connection and ran from the cabin.” Calvin paused and raised a finger at him. “Where did you go?”
Sam tried to control his face, but it was twitching in agony. “The river. All that blood…”
Calvin nodded. “I took your father’s body and after I prayed over it I took two of those precious parts, lying severed and torn on the floor, and I violated him with them.”
Sam stared at him. “What?”
“The penis. I put it in his mouth. The heart I placed in his rectum.”
Sam could hardly breathe. He stared at Calvin with horror. “Why?”
“Eden told me to.”
Sam was shaking his head, his mouth gaping open, denying what he was hearing.
Calvin remained calm, his tone that of a teacher rather than a madman. “He told me how Moses would die, and that it was important that when he was found that there should be a sign to the one who can save the keeper.” Calvin’s voice dropped. For a moment he lost his lecturing tone and sounded sad. “He failed to tell me that he would die first, at the hand of his own son. But I obeyed him. I took off the amulet and wrapped the body in a skin. It had left its mark, the Isksaksin. Plain as if it had branded him. I buried the body where Eden had told me to, in the sacred burial ground by the river. The ground was so dry, so sandy I thought I would never make the hole big enough. But I toiled in the hot sun, alone except for the crows that circled above me, and laid him down. Then I returned to your cabin, washed the blood from the walls and the floor and waited for you.”
Sam was still aghast. He could not speak and even if he could, he had nothing to say. Calvin looked across at him, still with love in his eyes. “I knew you would come back. I had to give you the Isksaksin.”
Sam found his tongue and spat out the words. “And I took it.”
Calvin nodded. “You had no choice. You are the keeper.”
There was no sound from his young companion. He was just staring at the old shaman as if he had been cheated. Calvin sighed. “He killed himself, Sam. He died because he was evil. Take the stone of guilt from your soul and cast it away.”
Sam fought himself one last time, then, losing the battle, did what he had waited twenty years to do. He put his head back and wailed. The achingly empty wail of grief, shame, fear and pain filled the tunnel, echoing back at them from the hard rock. Calvin Bitterhand bowed his head and closed his eyes, trying to shut out that howl of agony. But he could not. He sat and listened to it, taking the pain it caused him like a punishment.
55
“Sorry. I only got the message half an hour ago that you called.” She ushered him into the foyer quickly before any of the vultures could get a clear shot of her tear-stained face.
Craig was unsure what to do. Katie had obviously been crying for hours, and his first instinct was to hold her, comfort her. But that was out of the question. Under the circumstances.
She looked up at his face and gestured at the crudely fixed Band-Aid on his forehead. “What you do?”
“Fell against the door this morning. Believe that?”
Katie Hunt shrugged. She believed anything now. Anything at all. She looked at Craig’s face and thought how hollow and ill it had gotten since last night. “Eaten today?”
“Sure. I had a late lunch. Sandwich about three-thirty. You?”
Katie shook her head. “Ann’s been in most of the day. Trying to feed me and the kids. Didn’t work.”
“Is she still here?”
“You tell me. Your guys are watching who comes and goes like this is Alcatraz.”
Craig looked at her steadily, refusing to offer the apology she was seeking. Katie relented. “She went about an hour ago. After she helped put the kids to bed.” She turned and led the way through to the den and he followed her silently. The room was uncomfortably tidy. Craig reckoned he knew what Katie’s friend had been busy doing all day. The tools of refuge from crisis or grief: the vacuum and the damp cloth.
He sat down uninvited on the long sofa and waited for her to speak. Katie stood in front of the fireplace, her back to the empty grate as if she were a detective in a corny country-house drama about to unmask the killer. If only, wished Craig.
“I haven’t got news, if that’s what you’re hoping,” she said, reading his face. She looked down at her feet and continued in a smaller voice. “But I’ve got something.”
“Uh-huh?” He sounded weary, not eager.
Katie looked back at him with blue eyes sparkling behind puffy, red skin. “Hope.” She walked over and sat down beside Craig before he had time to respond. “You think I’ve gone crazy, don’t you?”
He studied her face. “Depends. What’s giving you hope?”
Katie sat back heavily into the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah. Maybe I have gone crazy. But it feels better than yesterday. Yesterday I hated my husband.”
“For killing the dog?”
“Partly. Mostly because I thought he’d… I thought he’d harmed Billy.”
“So I believe.”
She sat up and stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“Detachment got a call from Billy’s teacher. When the news broke today.”
Agnes Root. Doing her job. Getting her Indian.
Katie looked at the floor again. “I don’t think he did. Harm him, I mean. I got it wrong.” She looked up at him with a hint of anger and shame. “We all did.”
“Billy told you?”
She nodded.
“That’s all I needed, Craig. I needed to know he hadn’t harmed his son. Now I believe in him again.”
“Even if he’s harmed other people’s sons? Cut them into bits?”
Katie studied his face carefully, trying to see the facial match for the brutality of his words. “Do you believe that?”
Craig McGee churned inside as he thought about what he did and didn’t believe. He was lying last night. Everything had changed. Sure, the sun had come up and the cups in her kitchen were still cups. But that was all. Everything else was different. He had seen it.
His mouth was dry. Honesty was dry work.
“No. I don’t.”
Katie put her face in her hands, leaned forward and sobbed. Maybe with relief, maybe with the shame that she had doubted her love. Craig didn’t know. She sat up, wiped her face and choked back her sobs.
“The stuff Billy’s been saying. It’s crazier than anything we talked about last night. But I believe him about Sam. I do.”
“But not about t
he rest? The crazy stuff.”
“How can I? It’s off the scale.”
“Tell me.”
“Why?”
“I need to know.”
Katie looked at this ill, sallow-skinned man with eyes that were now haunted instead of searching. Only last night he looked strong and determined. Something had happened.
Yes. He did need to know. So she told him.
56
Alberta 1907
Siding Twenty-three
The hare watched him enter, and the pure white of its winter coat let him see it almost immediately. It sat unafraid, unblinking in the middle of the floor.
Far behind it, tiny drops of water running from the end wall of the unfinished tunnel echoed lugubriously as they dripped onto the rubble-strewn floor. Henderson tried to breathe normally, but it was beyond his control. His lungs seemed incapable of retaining oxygen, merely panting the air out again as soon as he drew breath. He stayed framed in the arch of the tunnel for a moment, struggling for that elusive breath, praying for strength, then took two steps inside.
The animal continued to watch him passively. He took another trembling step, then stopped only a few feet away.
Just a hare? An ordinary snowshoe hare evading the biting cold? The tall man narrowed his eyes and looked. The hare’s eyes glinted in the dark, but it was impossible in this half-gloom for Henderson to look into them, to probe for that blackness that he feared would cloud behind the innocent animal’s pupils.
For one moment of blessed relief he believed he was looking at a simple hare. Then there would be a brief respite from this gnawing terror that was threatening to make him vomit. There would be no exorcism.
“Jamesss.”
The hare had spoken. No. It had whispered in a hissing, provocative voice that was almost seductive. God Almighty, it had.