Apparition Trail, The

by Lisa Smedman

  I didn’t need to rein Buck to a halt. He stopped of his own accord, forelegs stiff, and nostrils quivering. Then he let out a low whicker of fear, barely audible in the oppressive stillness. In that same instant, the Sergeant sighed and slumped to the ground in a loose-boned heap.

  A sudden realization chilled me to my very core. I knew in that instant that I had been following a dead man: the dog I had seen in my dreams. I also knew that I was hopelessly lost. I thought I heard the ghostly laughter of savage voices, and the beat of a drum, but it was only my own heart, pounding in my ears.

  A sense of dizziness caused me to sway in the saddle as the drumbeat increased in tempo. I heard a ringing in my ears and instinctively knew that death was hovering near.

  I am not a religious person, and so I did not pray. I cannot say what it was that saw me through that awful moment when I thought my heart would stop. I can only suppose it was the dream, for the feelings I was experiencing now were exactly the emotions I had felt on realizing that I was trapped in the cave with the dead dog. All the while, laughter filled my ears: the evil laughter of the dead.

  I raised a hand to my head, pressing it against my temple in an effort to make the dizziness stop. As the fingers of my hand covered one eye, I closed the other eye.

  Silence. The drumbeat and voices stopped.

  I started, and nearly tore my hand away, but some instinct of self-preservation caused me to keep my eyes screwed tightly shut. I moved my palm fully over both eyes, like a child playing at hide and seek. Then I applied my spurs — lightly — to Buck’s flanks.

  The horse took a step forward.

  Again the spurs, and again another step by my unwilling mount. I let the reins go slack, giving Buck his head. At last, under my prodding, he began to walk.

  I don’t know how long I rode like that, with one hand over my eyes and the other on the pommel of my saddle. It might have been five minutes; it might have been five hours. I only know that Buck eventually came to a halt and no end of urging or spurring would prompt him forward. Once more I felt the heat of the sun on my back.

  Cautiously, I opened my fingers a crack and peered out through it. I can only describe my stupefaction at the scene that lay before me. Just ahead of where Buck had drawn to a halt, Sergeant Wilde and his horse lay still on the ground. The Sergeant’s revolver was in his hand, and a gory bullet hole in the animal’s neck was leaking blood. The Sergeant’s foot was tangled in one stirrup. His leg was bent, but did not appear to be broken.

  Perhaps most curious of all, we were right beside the railway tracks — still within the Cypress Hills. I recognized the area as being only a mile or two away from the detachment. We hadn’t journeyed north at all.

  I slid from my saddle and walked to where the Sergeant lay. His Stetson lay by his side, but his clothes were otherwise undisturbed. When I searched his body, I found no mark on him, save for a faint black smudge on his left breast when I opened his jacket to listen for a heartbeat. I heard none.

  I turned back to Buck, and noticed that his head was drooping. Despite the fact that he had been traveling at a walk, his sides were lathered. I stroked him on the cheek, telling him what a good horse he’d been to bring me home again. It was a sentimental gesture, but heartfelt in that moment.

  For my part, I felt drained and ill, as if I had not slept in several nights — which, of course, was precisely the case.

  “Are you up for one last push for home?” I asked Buck.

  I fancied that he nodded. With all due haste, I rode for the Maple Creek detachment, to report the Sergeant’s untimely death.

  They put the cause of death down to failure of the heart, which is what I put in my report. That explanation appealed to the rational side of me, even though the Sergeant was a hale and hearty man. I needed some explanation for what I had seen, some way to make sense of my strange experience. I decided later that all I had seen and heard had been mere hallucination, provoked by a lack of sleep. Which was the reason, I suppose, why I mentioned my dream in the report in the first place: to make the state I was in known, and to explain why I wasn’t able to minister to the Sergeant.

  In my report, I put down the only sensible explanation: that the Sergeant’s ill-tempered horse had bucked, throwing him from the saddle. With his foot caught in the stirrup and his brains about to be dashed in by pounding hooves, the Sergeant had done the only thing he could to save himself: shoot his mount. And then, in all of the excitement of the moment, his weakened heart had stopped.

  Of course, there was one thing that was never fully explained — something that has made me wonder, all of this time, if my strange dream didn’t in fact contain a grain of truth. When they removed the Sergeant’s clothing to prepare him for burial, the constables who were ministering to him were interrupted by Wilde’s two dogs, which tried to seize their master’s clothing. In the resulting tug-of-war, the constables noticed a peculiar thing.

  We had ridden to Piapot’s camp along the railway line, across terrain that was thickly forested, and had presumably proceeded back to Maple Creek the same way. The weird landscape I had seen — the rolling, barren hills, and sandy ground — could have been nothing more than an illusion.

  Yet both of the Sergeant’s boots contained a trickle of sand.

  When I finished my tale, Superintendent Steele and the Commissioner were silent. Steele nodded at me, a pleased look on his face. The Commissioner picked up the reports and photographs, tapped them against the table to straighten the pile, then slid them back in the folder. As he closed the flap, I noticed it was marked with big block letters in red: confidential.

  I stood uneasily in front of the table, trying to ignore the uncomfortable dampness of my uniform, which was still wet from the rainstorm. Had they believed me?

  Steele was the first to break the silence. He turned to the Commissioner. “The brave with the painted face and lynx-skin war bonnet was Wandering Spirit. He’s a Cree — a member of Big Bear’s band. A war chief, and purportedly one with paranormal powers.”

  The Commissioner nodded slowly, but seemed reluctant to continue in that vein. “Big Bear,” he mused. “Is that the pock-marked little troublemaker who refused to sign Treaty Number Six and tried to discourage the other Cree from signing?”

  “The very same man, Commissioner,” Steele answered. “And now Big Bear is stirring up trouble and discontent once again. For the past few years he’s been traveling from one band to another, trying to get the Indians to set aside their differences and unite in a grand council. He had no success whatsoever, until recently. Over the course of this past year, the various Cree bands have joined together, and Big Bear has even made inroads among the tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy — tribes who are sworn enemies of the Cree. Something’s tipped the balance in his favour, so that even his traditional enemies are willing to bury the tomahawk and join his campaign against the settlement of the North-West. And that something is magic.”

  “Magic?” I couldn’t help but blurt.

  “I’ve been collecting reports of strange occurrences for some time,” Steele said. “Events that cannot be explained by any known means. The first such incident to come to my attention was the sudden overflowing of the Old Man River in the spring of 1881, and the resulting destruction of Fort Macleod when the banks on which the palisade walls were built were undercut. Six constables and one officer were drowned in that flood, and yet upriver and down, the waters of the Old Man River remained within their normal course. With the exception of the immediate vicinity of Fort Macleod, the river did not rise.”

  “I heard about the drownings,” I said. “And the rebuilding of the new fort, well away from the river. But I thought it was a natural flood.” Even as I spoke those words, however, I thought of the strange thunderstorm that had greeted my arrival in Regina, and shivered. I glanced out the window, but saw only clear blue sky.

  “The flood wasn’t any more natural than the rest of the incidents I’ve investigated — or that sto
rm that greeted your arrival,” Steele said grimly.

  The Commissioner nodded. “That was odd, wasn’t it? I’ve never seen a storm come up so fast — or disappear so suddenly.”

  “Quite so, Commissioner,” Steele said. Then he gestured at the folder on the desk. “It’s all in there.”

  Steele summarized his evidence: “Indian agent Tom Quinn, whose body was found on the prairie near Fort Pitt earlier this year, was purportedly killed by a wild animal — probably a lynx, judging by tracks near the body. Yet the attack was unusual in the extreme, in that it was focused exclusively on one part of the body. The cat clawed its way into Quinn’s chest and tore out his heart — which it then presumably ate, since the organ was never found. Quinn appears to have offered no resistance: there were no defensive wounds on his arms, and no claw or bite marks anywhere else on his body.”

  Steele gave a faint shudder, then took a breath and continued. “Equally inexplicable was the strange illness that afflicted the settlement of Swift Current last fall, temporarily rendering blind more than two dozen of its residents. The first cases were in the days immediately following a storm that dropped hailstones bearing an uncanny resemblance to eyeballs on the town.

  “Finally, there was the Peigan woman in Fort Qu’appelle who gave birth just over a year ago to a stillborn child. Acting Hospital Steward Holmes, who delivered the infant, noted the peculiar coloration of its skin and hair, and swore upon a Bible that the child had been dead at birth and that its corpse rested for an entire day upon a bed without exhibiting any signs of life. Yet six months later, while ministering to the same family, he noticed an infant with Indian features, pale skin, and blonde hair. The mother told him a medicine woman used magic to bring her child back to life, the day after its unfortunate birth.”

  The Commissioner listened silently as Steele concluded his list. By the unflinching look in his eye, I could guess that he’d heard Steele spin these fantastic tales before.

  “I never heard of any of this,” I said. “Except for the news of Quinn’s death — and that the animal’s attack was unusual, and may have been an attempt by a man to disguise his handiwork. Quinn wasn’t much loved by the Cree; I assumed one of Big Bear’s warriors had killed him.”

  “Mark my words,” Steele said. “It was an animal that killed Quinn — but not any animal that we’ve encountered before.”

  “The full details of each of these occurrences were collected by Superintendent Steele over the past year,” the Commissioner added. “The uncanny nature of the incidents was hinted at in the official reports from the constables involved, but they were simply too fantastic to be given credence.”

  “You’ve seen evidence of the paranormal at work yourself, Corporal,” Steele continued, fixing me with a serious look. “You and Sergeant Wilde both — although the poor Sergeant didn’t live to tell the tale. That fantastic landscape you rode through was the Big Sands: the Indian version of purgatory and land of the dead. Wandering Spirit used his magic to send you there.”

  A chill ran through my body as I thought back upon the instances Steele had cited, particularly the woman who claimed her child had been raised from the dead. If such magic were possible, could a fatal injury or disease also be cured — be made to vanish without trace? If this so-called Indian “medicine woman” truly had magic at her command, anything might be possible.

  For a wild moment, I wondered if I were dreaming. My hands were still clasped behind my back in the at-ease position. I squeezed one hand with the other until my fingers hurt. No, I was clearly still awake.

  The Commissioner looked directly at Steele. “You believe in the paranormal, don’t you?” he asked.

  Steele gripped his Stetson tightly, then gave a brisk nod. “As much as I do in science.”

  “I don’t know if I do,” the Commissioner said.

  Steele clenched his jaw.

  The Commissioner’s mouth twisted into a slight smile under his moustache. “But after hearing this man’s report, I’m ready to reconsider the reports you’ve assembled for me — especially after seeing that most unusual storm today, first-hand. I’m prepared to consider your request with an open mind. If the Indians really do have paranormal powers that they can use with fatal effect, we need a police force capable of stopping them. Q Division is officially approved.”

  Steele let out a whoop and smacked his Stetson against his thigh. His grin was as wide as the prairie. “Thank you, sir,” he said, then gave a brisk salute. He tucked the Stetson under one arm and strode toward the door.

  “Come along, Corporal,” he told me. “Q Division has its first case — the complexity of which has proved too baffling for the limited wits of Inspector Dickens — and I want you to investigate it. I’m sending you to Fort Pitt, and thence to the Victoria Mission, on the North Saskatchewan River.”

  “What am I to investigate?” I asked.

  “The disappearance of Reverend John McDougall and his family — and of the Manitou Stone.”

  Chapter II

  History of the Manitou Stone — A suspect in the McDougall case — Inspector Dickens’s strange wound — A mysterious traveler — Poker and a pretty woman — A most unusual card game — The Society for Psychical Research — Recollections of two deaths — A ruse revealed — Unseen worlds — A gruesome murder

  Inspector Dickens leaned toward me, cupping a hand behind his ear. “What was that, Corporal Graystone?” he said, in a thick British accent.

  “Grayburn,” I corrected, raising my voice a little louder. I’d forgotten that the Inspector was hard of hearing. “I was hoping you could tell me more about the Manitou Stone. Superintendent Steele thinks it’s connected with the disappearance of the McDougalls.”

  We were seated at the table that served as Inspector Dickens’s desk in his office at Fort Pitt. Messy stacks of papers covered the table, and on top of them sat an opened tin of Crosse & Blackwell’s Yarmouth bloaters. The smoked fish smelled slightly off; I guessed it was due to the heat. Beside the tin stood what looked like a bottle of spirits. Dickens uncorked the bottle and held up a glass.

  “Brandy?” he asked.

  I shook my head, declining it. Outside the window, which had its shutters open, I could hear the whush-whush of the perpetual motion machine that worked the bellows of the nearby blacksmith’s shop. I wondered how the smith could possibly stand to work his forge in this heat.

  “No thank you, sir,” I said, as he moved to fill the glass despite my headshake. “I only drink while I’m off duty.”

  Dickens winked. “I only drink when I’m on duty.” He poured a liberal dose into the glass, and set the bottle on the table in front of him.

  I stared at him a moment, reflecting on the great disparities between Inspector Francis Dickens, who commanded this lonely outpost on the North Saskatchewan River, and the dashing Superintendent Sam Steele. The only thing they had in common was the Mounted Police uniform. Where Steele was athletic and trim, with a clean-shaven chin, Dickens was short, pudgy, and balding, with a long beard that did little to hide his weak chin. His nose and cheeks were veined with red from too-frequent tippling, which he somehow maintained despite the fact that the sale of intoxicating liquors was prohibited in the North-West Territories — a prohibition the Mounted Police were sworn to uphold, although it was as unpopular with them as it was with the settlers.

  Dickens was completely unfit to be an officer, but he had friends in Ottawa who had helped him to purchase his commission. I had heard that no less a personage than Lord Dufferin, the Governor General of Canada, was a friend of the family — which was hardly surprising, given that the Inspector was the son of the famed novelist Charles Dickens.

  I lifted my haversack onto my knees. Dickens, taking a drink of his brandy, watched as I rummaged for the folder that Superintendent Steele had given me. I hoped he wouldn’t see the bottle of Pinkham’s at the bottom of the haversack and mistake it for spirits. I didn’t want him demanding a drink from it, then draining
it dry.

  “You’re not going to ask me to sign one of my father’s novels, are you?” Dickens asked.

  I shook my head, and he emitted a brandy-sweet sigh of relief.

  “Everyone is always asking me to do that,” he added. “Do you know that Chief Sitting Bull himself once called me into his camp by dead of night to autograph a copy of Oliver Twist? This was, of course, after he’d skipped across the ‘medicine line’ into Canada following the battle of Little Bighorn.”

  “Is that so?”

  My scepticism must have been reflected in my voice. Dickens frowned. “It wasn’t even a proper edition. Just a cheap American copy.”

  I nodded in what I hoped was a sympathetic manner, and pulled the photograph I’d been searching for out of the folder. The brownish-black photograph was mounted on card stock and embellished with the photographer’s name in gold script. It was part of a series of views of the North-West Territories, taken a few years ago, which included scenic images of the North Saskatchewan River and Victoria Mission. The small church had been founded in 1863 by John McDougall’s father, George, a Methodist missionary who came west with his family to minister to the Blackfoot Indians. After the elder McDougall froze to death in 1876 in a blizzard while hunting near Calgary, his son John had taken over the mission. Now Reverend John McDougall, his wife, and their six children had disappeared.

  The mission occupied the background of the photograph: a two-story whitewashed log building, set in a clearing on the riverbank. The photographer had focused on a large boulder with a distinctive rectangular shape that stood in the front yard of the mission. John McDougall was shown standing beside this waist-high stone, hands on his hips, his dark wavy hair combed back from his forehead. A full beard hid the set of his lips, but there was a defiant look in his eye. His expression matched what little of his writings I had read: McDougall had railed against the Indians’ “barbarism, shiftlessness, and demon-worship,” and had vowed to use the gospel to wash away “centuries of ignorance.”