Rook & Tooth and Claw

by Graham Masterton

  “Grab hold of her all the same. And for God’s sake don’t let her go.”

  Russell said, “You’re right. This is weird. Do you want to tell me what’s going down here, or what?”

  “I’m not at all sure,” Jim told him. “But I’m worried that it’s something real bad.”

  “It’s not like that voodoo business, is it? I mean that scared me. I had nightmares about that for weeks.”

  “I don’t know. But if I can depend on you to grab Catherine if you see her, and to tell me if anything really bizarre happens—”

  “Sure thing, Mr Rook. I’ll do it. You don’t have to worry about me.”

  It was then that Jim looked up and saw a figure silhouetted between the trees. The air was hazy with barbecue-smoke, and a lot of students and parents were coming and going, right across his field of sight. He looked again, and frowned, because the woman had disappeared, but all the same he said, “Excuse me,” to Russell, left the table, and began walking right toward the trees. He stopped, and looked around. He caught the faintest smile of white musk on the wind, as well as that tingle of psychic electricity. He thought he could hear a hand-slapped drumbeat, too: one beat, then a pause, then another beat.

  He went back to the table. Russell had already finished his hamburger and was writing down how many calories he had consumed on his diet chart.

  “They tell us to be totally honest – just like this was confession or something.”

  “What happens if you secretly eat a whole pack of Reece’s Pieces? What happens then?”

  Russell flushed. It was obvious to Jim that he had eaten a whole pack of Reece’s Pieces, or something similar, and kept it all to himself.

  “You jog five times round the football field and hope you’ve burned it all off, that’s all. These diets, these days they’re very forgiving.”

  “OK … but just remember this. Forgiving is not a mood I want to see from you this afternoon. I want you to go out there and kill those guys. You’re a battering-ram, Russell. I want you to batter. I want people in twenty years to say, ‘Do you remember that Saturday? That was the Saturday that Russell Gloach single-handedly road-rollered Azusa into the turf. He was great. He was like a one-man elephant stampede.’”

  “You watch me,” grinned Russell.

  But Jim said, “Something else may happen, too. Something totally unexpected. And if that happens, I want you to be ready for that, too.”

  “Something unexpected? Like what?”

  “Like – I don’t know. As bad as that voodoo thing, maybe worse.”

  Russell suddenly looked serious. “You mean this, don’t you, Mr Rook?”

  “Yes, Russell, I do. Today isn’t going to be a normal day, believe me. Look at those clouds, over in the east. The wind has changed around. Whatever happens this afternoon, remember your class, remember your friends, and do whatever you think is right.”

  “I’m not sure I get it, Mr Rook.”

  “You’ll get it when the time comes, believe me.”

  “OK, Mr Rook.” He stared down sadly at his empty plate. “Do you know what I used to have for breakfast, only six weeks ago? Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, with crispy bacon and french-fried potatoes.”

  “That’s what killed Elvis,” said Jim.

  “Oh, sure, I know that. I wouldn’t go so far as that. I made sure I had a tomato and a lettuce-leaf with it.”

  By three o’clock, when the game was due to kick off, the sky had become completely overcast. In the distance, over the Santa Monica mountains, lightning was flashing behind the clouds like a curtained-off photo-booth. The West Grove college band was playing Pasadena as if they were anxious to get it over with, and their pom-pom girls were leaping and strutting. There was a strong smell of electricity in the air.

  Jim sat on the bleachers at the south end of the field and kept on checking his watch. Henry Black Eagle hadn’t turned up yet, but he tried to tell himself not to be so anxious. There was no sign of Coyote or Catherine, and for all he knew they had decided that it was enough to vandalize Jim’s classroom, without causing any further damage. But he didn’t want to bet on it.

  Just as West Grove kicked off, George Babouris arrived, with Valerie Neagle. George was wearing a purple windbreaker that was two sizes too tight for him and Valerie Neagle was dressed in a leopard-print dress with a décolletage that was two inches too low for her age. As the crowd stood up and applauded, Jim manoeuvered his way next to Valerie and said, “Hi. You’re looking very striking.”

  “Why, thank you,” said Valerie, and printed a big red kiss on his right cheek. “I always knew you had taste.”

  “Listen,” said Jim, “this isn’t really the time and the place, but I wondered if I could talk to Mrs Vaizey?”

  Valerie blinked her mascara-speckled eyelashes at him. “You want to talk to Mrs Vaizey? What about?”

  “Something’s going to happen here today … something bad. I need Mrs Vaizey to talk to the spirit world for me.”

  Valerie’s next words were drowned in a roar of applause as Azusa scored their first goal. George covered his face with his hands and Ray Vito, who was sitting three rows behind them, let out a long string of Italian expletives, many of them involving mothers and hunchbacks and paraplegics.

  “What did you say?” asked Jim.

  “I said that Mrs Vaizey has left me. She decided that it was time for her to fade away.”

  “Now? She decided to fade away now?”

  Valerie shrugged. “I couldn’t stop her, Jim. She said she’d clung on long enough, and it was all becoming too tiring for her.”

  “But now? Just when I really need her?”

  “I’m sorry, Jim. She was talking to your grandfather, and they both faded away together.”

  Jim said, “I don’t believe this. They both warned me that I was in danger. They both predicted that I was going to be killed. And now they’ve gone, and left me to face up to this situation on my own.”

  “Mrs Vaizey left a message for you.”

  “Oh, yes? What was it? ‘Rest in peace’?”

  “No. She said that you really didn’t need her any longer. You had powers enough of your own. She said that you ought to have faith in yourself, and what you can do.”

  “That’s terrific. The trouble is, I don’t know what I can do. I was very much hoping that Mrs Vaizey could tell me.”

  “Well, search me,” said Valerie. “That’s all she said. Then she just … melted away, you know? I had the sweetest sensation – the sweetest, most blissful sensation – and she was gone.”

  “We’ve scored!” George bellowed, so close to Jim’s ear that it almost burst his eardrum. “Magro’s scored! Did you see that run! That boy’s a genius!”

  Jim took hold of Valerie’s hand and kissed her. “Thanks, Valerie. If you ever feel Mrs Vaizey again, you can tell her how much I miss her.”

  He sat down again. The afternoon was even darker now, and the clouds began to trail across the sky like sheets soaked in Indian ink. George said, “Hope it doesn’t rain. I’ve left my sandals out in the yard.”

  “Your sandals?”

  “They’re Greek. I bought them in Agnos Ioannis. They’re great so long as you never get them wet. Otherwise they curl up like dried fish.”

  While George was talking, Jim looked across the football field, past the ducking, tackling, helmeted players – past the crowd of supporters from Azusa, waving Azusa Community College pennants and banners. Standing at the very top of the bleachers on the opposite end of the field were two dark figures, almost silhouetted against the threatening sky. Catherine White Bird, her long hair flying loose, in a big-shouldered black leather coat; and Dog Brother, in a long grey poncho, his eyes concealed by yellow-tinted glasses. Coyote, the First One To Use Words For Force, here at West Grove Community College.

  Jim said, “You’ll have to excuse me, George,” and pushed his way along the row of cheering West Grove students until he reached the aisle. He kept his
eyes on Dog Brother and Catherine as he circled the football field. He wasn’t sure whether they had seen him or not, but the likely betting was that they had.

  “Hi, Mr Rook!” said Sue-Robin Caufield, as she jiggled her pom-poms by the touchline. “Isn’t this a great game? Isn’t that Azusa full-back just swoony? I think I’m going to the wrong college. For boys, anyway,” she quickly corrected herself. “Not for education.”

  Jim gave her a smile and a nod, although he hardly heard her. One of Azusa’s guards had ducked through the West Grove defence for a touchdown, and suddenly everybody was on their feet. For a moment he lost sight of Dog Brother and Catherine, and he had to keep jumping up to see if he could catch sight of them. But then a last ray of sunshine reflected like a heliograph from from Dog Brother’s yellow glasses, and he located them again. He didn’t quite know what he was going to do when he reached them, but they were dangerous, both of them, and he didn’t want them here at West Grove, threatening his students.

  He had almost reached the other end of the field when he felt a tremendous slap on the back. He turned around and instinctively lifted his arm to protect himself, but it was only Ben Hunkus, the football coach. “What a game, Jim! I got a feeling in my water we’re going to win this one! Pass it, Beidermeyer, for Christ’s sake, you’re not married to the damn thing!”

  “Ben, I want you to keep your eyes open,” said Jim. “The person who killed Martin is here.”

  “You know who it is? I thought it was them Indian boys.”

  “No, it wasn’t. But I can’t explain who really did it, not just yet.”

  “Just give me the name, Jim, and I’ll have my boys pile on top of him, until you can call the cops.”

  “Not as easy as that, Ben. All you can for now is to watch out for anything unusual.”

  “OK, Jim. Whatever you say.”

  Jim had reached the bleachers where Dog Brother and Catherine were sitting. As he climbed the aisle, however, West Grove were awarded another four downs, with only 15 yards to go to the Azusa goal line. The crowd stood up in unison, and started cheering and whistling and chanting, and in the confusion he lost sight of Dog Brother and Catherine for a second time.

  He picked the row in which he guessed they were standing, and elbowed his way along it. “Pardon me, excuse me. Sorry. Pardon me. Sorry.”

  When he reached the place where he had last seen them, however, they were gone. He desperately looked all around him. He caught the arm of a large man with a golfing hat on backward, so that his hair sprouted out of the front. “Pardon me, sir. Did you see two people standing here a moment ago? A girl in a black coat and a man with a pair of yellow sunglasses.”

  The man turned around and looked behind him as if he expected them to be hiding behind his enormous rump. Then he looked back at Jim and dumbly shook his head.

  Jim pushed his way further along the row. Azusa had regained control of the ball and the excitement had subsided. As everybody sat down again, Jim was able to see all around the field. He couldn’t understand how Dog Brother and Catherine could have escaped without his seeing them.

  Well, he thought, there’s one sure-fire way to find out where they are.

  He lifted the whistle from around his neck and blew it. The large man in the golfing hat stared at him in dull curiosity. He waited, his eyes scanning the field and the college grounds beyond. Nothing – no sign of Dog Brother or Catherine anywhere. He blew the whistle again, and then again.

  It was then that Dog Brother raised both his arms and Jim caught sight of them, although he couldn’t believe where they were. They were standing on the opposite side of the field, only a few rows away from the place where Jim had been talking to George Babouris. It was impossible. Nobody could have made their way all around the field in only a few seconds, not even an Olympic runner. Yet there they were, and now they knew for sure that he was here, and that he was watching them.

  At that moment, Jim began to understand the immense occult power of what he was up against, and for the first time in a long time he felt profoundly afraid.

  Chapter Ten

  He climbed down from the bleachers and walked toward the college buildings. The sky was completely dark now, and a strong wind was buffeting the bushes. He wasn’t at all sure what he was going to do. He couldn’t call the police, because he couldn’t prove that Dog Brother and Catherine had done anything wrong. And now that Mrs Vaizey had faded away, he couldn’t even call on his only adviser from the spirit world.

  He had almost reached the main entrance when Henry Black Eagle appeared from the direction of the parking-lot, dressed in his black fringed buckskin jacket and wearing a headband. He was carrying a small rolled-up parcel of buffalo-hide, tied tightly with waxed cords and decorated with faded old feathers.

  “I managed to talk to Paul and Grey Cloud,” he said. “They’re both very worried that Coyote has come here. He’s very vengeful, you know, and they think that he intends to kill many people to show you that he is greater than all of your white man’s spirits.”

  “Did they give you any ideas how to stop him?”

  “They say the same as all of the legends. Coyote must be killed by one of his own kind, and his heart must be taken away from him. The only spirit who hates Coyote more than he fears him is the Rain Spirit. The story says that Coyote tricked his daughter into having sex with him, and that after she had done so, she died of shame, because she was supposed to be keeping herself pure for a noble hunter called Deer Slayer.”

  “So how do we go about enlisting the help of this Rain Spirit?”

  Henry Black Eagle lifted the buffalo-hide bundle. “In here, there are sacred bones which Grey Cloud brought back from the Wide Ruins reservation. They were used to call the Rain Spirit in times of drought. This time we shall have to ask him to do us another kind of favour.”

  “Won’t he want something in return?”

  Henry Black Eagle said, “Yes. He will want a gift. What do you think you could offer him?”

  “It depends what kind of gift he likes. I mean, what do you give to a Rain Spirit who’s probably got everything?”

  “You could give him your gift of supernatural vision.”

  “He’d really take it?”

  “Why not? It’s a gift like any other. One man gave his singing voice to the Buffalo Spirit, in exchange for bringing his family plenty to eat.”

  Jim frowned. When he first discovered that he could see spirits, he would have given his vision away to anybody who could have taken it, and been glad to be rid of it. But now it seemed so natural and normal that it would be like having one eye taken out. All the same, a man could still see with one eye, and what was important was saving Catherine and ridding the world of Coyote.

  “All right,” he said. “He can have my vision, if he wants it. I don’t really have anything else.”

  “You’re lucky you have that,” Henry Black Eagle told him. “Sometimes a spirit will ask for a hand or a foot, or even a man’s virility.”

  “The vision, OK? He can have the vision.”

  “Then we must hurry,” said Henry Black Eagle. “Have you seen Coyote and Catherine here already?”

  “The last time I saw them was in the crowd. I tried to go after them, but when I got to where they were standing, they were way over on the opposite side of the field.”

  “What would you have done, even if you had caught up with them?”

  Jim shrugged. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought it through.”

  “With Coyote, you must. He is too cunning to be faced head-on. Now, let’s get under those cedars, and see what we can do to call up the Rain Spirit.”

  There was more cheering from the football field as Russell Gloach caught a perfect 20-yard pass from Micky McGuiver.

  “Run with it, Russell!” the captain was screaming. “Get those goddamned legs moving!”

  Jim didn’t try to see what was happening. He could imagine Russell lumbering along at his usual elephantine pace,
and knew that he would be lucky to cover more than a yard before the Azusa quarter-backs brought him down. He followed Henry Black Eagle to the three tall cedars which stood on a rise at the north-west corner of the college. Underneath their overhanging branches it was quiet and dark and sheltered from the wind.

  Henry Black Eagle sat cross-legged on the ground and untied the buffalo-hide parcel. Jim stood beside him and watched. “I’m not a wonder-worker myself,” said Henry Black Eagle, “so I will have to rely on your spiritual gifts to contact the Rain Spirit. All I can do is to perform the ritual.”

  He rolled the hide out flat. Inside were five yellowed bones, which looked to Jim like old human arm-bones. The ends of each of them were tied with hanks of hair and faded red ribbons. Henry Black Eagle picked up two of them and tapped them together, in a quick, hesitant rhythm.

  “Sit in front of me,” he instructed Jim. “Empty your mind of any thoughts about Coyote and Catherine. Empty your mind of any thoughts about yourself – any fears, any questions, any doubts. Your mind should become as dark and as empty as the universe beyond the stars, where there are no more stars, only blackness, and that is where the Great Old Ones live, far beyond the reach of men.”

  Jim eased himself cross-legged onto the dry turf. He hadn’t sat like this since he had last eaten at Koto, the Japanese restaurant, and then he had spent the rest of the evening walking like Groucho Marx. Henry Black Eagle tapped the bones again, and then again, and each time the rhythm because faster and more frenzied. He began to hum, and then to sing, both in Navajo and in English.

  “The Rain Spirit walks in the west… He lives on top of the highest mountains, wrapped in clouds for a cloak … He carries water in his cloak and spreads it on the dry ground … He is generous and just, the protector of all life … We ask him now to appear so that we may honour him, and to ask of him a special favor …”

  This went on and on, in a monotonous warbling singsong. Jim didn’t need to make much of an effort to empty his mind – Henry Black Eagle’s singing was so hypnotic that it emptied it for him. He kept his eyes open, but he could feel all conscious thought sliding out of his head. Soon there was nothing but blackness and emptiness.