by Lisa Smedman
My tobacco pouch had fallen from my pocket. I picked it up, then pulled out my pipe and refilled it with a fresh pinch of Imperial Mixture. It took two matches to light the pipe, but after a puff or two my hands became steadier.
“Chambers?” I called out. “Have you found anything?”
A distant voice replied: “Not yet. The cave goes quite a way in.”
I waited a moment more.
“Chambers?”
I thought I heard a muffled reply, but couldn’t be certain. I stepped closer to the cave mouth, shivering as I did so.
“Chambers?”
As I came to the very mouth of the cave, I fancied I could hear a curious rumbling sound inside it. The noise was almost like that of falling water, and I wondered if a stream lay within the gloomy depths of the cave. The angle of the bank overhead screened the interior of the cave from the sun; I could see no more than a few feet inside, to a point where the cavern — which had more of the appearance of a mine tunnel than of a natural cave — curved around a bend.
“Chambers!” I shouted into its depths. “Can you hear me? Come out of there at once!”
I puffed nervously on my pipe. Something had happened to Chambers; the feeling was growing upon me by the minute. Was he lying somewhere inside the cave even now, injured and unable to call out?
I felt a pang of shame. I, a police officer sworn to his duty, had done nothing to stop Chambers from entering a place of potential danger. I let him go into the cave alone, just as I had let poor George Johnston ride away up the trail to his death. I must say I didn’t like Chambers much, but dislike should never stand in the way of a policeman doing his duty.
My mind was made up: I was going inside, even if my doom lay within. First, however, I pulled out my police report book and tore out a fresh page. I quickly noted the date and time, and recorded a description of the curious stone I had found, my meeting with Emily, my conversation with Chambers in the graveyard and his claims that he had followed Abigail McDougall’s ghost to this spot, and my impressions of the cave. Then I folded it and wrote upon the top in block letters:
TO THE FINDER OF THIS LETTER. PLEASE CONVEY IT WITH ALL DUE HASTE TO SUPT. S. STEELE, NWMP HEADQUARTERS, REGINA.
I debated a moment, then added: A REWARD SHALL BE PAID UPON DELIVERY. I thought that, given the urgency of his recent telegram, Steele would not complain about a cash expenditure.
I placed the letter on a large rock where someone would easily find it, then used another stone to weigh it down. Then I took a branch and wedged it into the gravel, hanging my hat upon it like a flag. The gold trim around the edge of the pillbox hat sparkled in the sun, and was certain to catch someone’s eye. Short of running through the woods to the settlement to deliver the letter to the traders and then running back to this spot again — during which time an injured Chambers might well die — it was the best I could do.
I squared my shoulders and faced the cave, my pipe clenched grimly in my teeth. I took a step forward — then paused, just on the threshold, as something white caught my attention. Was that a feather, tucked into a crevice at one side of the cave? I looked closer, and saw that the lower shaft of the feather was wrapped in red wool. The feather seemed to have been deliberately placed in this spot, and I had the overwhelming sense that this was significant. I was reminded of Chief Piapot’s pipe, and the single eagle feather that hung from it.
On the day that Sergeant Wilde and I had confronted Piapot at the end of the CPR tracks, the chief had lifted his pipe in a ritual gesture before rising to speak to us. I’d seen Indians do the same when they invoked their gods. I suspected it was some sort of protective gesture, like a Catholic making the sign of the cross.
Whatever was in the cave, I wanted all of the protection from it I could get. I raised my own pipe in front of me, then moved it to the left, then above my head, and then to the right, as Piapot had done that day. At first I felt slightly foolish doing it, but by the time I was done it felt natural, not odd at all. I took one last draw on the pipe, then knocked the rest of the tobacco out, took the pipe apart, and put it inside its case. Only then did I feel ready to enter the cave.
I stepped inside, and immediately noted the change in temperature. The cave was quite a bit cooler than the air outside. The walls were of gravel-leavened earth; I could smell fresh soil, as if it had been recently dug — and something else: a faint, musky smell. The floor of the cave was soft underfoot; I could see Chambers’s boot prints clearly. I also saw a second pair of footprints, made by someone small and light on their feet and wearing moccasins. That person had walked this way earlier; Chambers’s boot prints overlapped many of the moccasin prints. I drew the only logical conclusion: for some reason, Emily had entered this cave ahead of us.
The muffled rumbling sound I’d heard earlier was coming from deeper inside the cave. I struck a match as I reached the bend, beyond which the sunlight did not penetrate. I held the burning match above my head, breathing in its sulphur smell. The light was feeble, but it was sufficient to show me that the cavern continued on for some distance, descending slightly into the earth.
I followed the cavern, squatting every now and then to strike another match and look at the footprints on the floor of the passage. The walls around me were as regular as those of a mine tunnel, but without timber supports. I wondered how it had been dug — and what was keeping it up.
I came to another tunnel joined at an angle to the one I was in, like a tributary feeding into a stream. I looked into it and saw a profusion of hoof prints, all so large that they could have been made by only the largest of plains creatures: the buffalo.
I decided to carry on the way I had been going, along the main tunnel, and head toward the rumbling noise. Chambers’s boot prints and the moccasin prints led in that direction, and I saw spent matches upon the ground underfoot: more evidence of his passage.
I continued on for a few steps more, striking another match. I was more than halfway through my box of matches already, and was trying to decide whether I should turn about at this point and use the remaining matches to illuminate my way back. Then I saw a roundish, misshapen object lying in the tunnel up ahead. I walked over to it and squatted down on the ground, lowering the match to illuminate it. There was no mistaking the brown derby with its black satin hatband, even in its current state. The derby was crushed and mud-smeared; it looked as though someone — or something — had trod upon it.
“Chambers?” I called out, my voice muffled by the soft earthen walls of the tunnel. “Where are you?”
The match went out. Shivering in the sudden darkness, I quickly lit another. I walked a pace or two more, looking for Chambers’s boot prints, but saw none. The floor of the cavern was completely covered in buffalo hoof prints now — and in something else, I saw to my horror: shreds of clothing that looked as though they had been torn apart by wolves.
I had to light yet another match to get a closer look. My inspection confirmed what I suspected, and only added to the dread I felt. The torn clothing included scraps of brown serge that had been a Norfolk jacket, the cloth from a shirt, and a scattering of buttons that had come from trousers, next to the remains of a button gaiter. Like the clothing I’d found in the McDougall home, all of it had been torn to pieces, yet there was no blood upon any of it. I picked up a scrap of serge and caught the scent of Chambers’s cologne and a whiff of Brilliantine, despite the fact that the air all around me smelled strongly of a musky odour that could only have been buffalo.
As I set the scrap of jacket down again and lit another match, I spotted something that chilled my heart: a tiny buckskin dress and one beaded moccasin, just large enough for a year-old. The clothing was intact — not torn like Chambers’s garments — but had been trampled. I touched the tiny moccasin gently, wondering what terrible fate had befallen the poor, sick girl who had worn it. I hoped that Emily had merely removed Iniskim’s clothing to ease her fever, and that mother and daughter had managed to escape the tunnel b
efore the buffalo whose hoof prints were at my feet had swept through it. I didn’t see any of Emily’s clothing, which lent weight to my hope.
I pressed forward, making my way through the darkness mainly by feel, in order to preserve my store of matches. I trailed my hand along the right wall, and more than once felt it plunge into the empty space of another tributary tunnel. Each time it did, I lit a match and searched for footprints, but all I saw was a mass of hoof prints that filled the tunnel from one side to the other. I decided to keep to the main tunnel.
As I moved onward, the tunnel I was following slowly began to ascend. The musky smell was stronger now; the air was filled with the odour of the shaggy buffalo. Yet the animals that had produced the odour seemed to be as invisible as ghosts.
The hairs at the back of my neck were prickling, and a shiver coursed through my body. I fancied that I could feel a chill wind stirring my hair; it seemed to be flowing from somewhere behind me. Yet when I lit a match, the flame did not flicker, but burned with a steady light. Whatever current was flowing through this tunnel had no physical effect.
My match went out. In that same instant the rumbling noise I had been hearing became magnified. It was not only coming from the tunnel in front of me now; it was also coming from the tunnel behind — and the ground underfoot was trembling. A trickle of dirt from the roof of the cavern sifted down onto my shoulders. Was the roof about to cave in?
I fumbled to get another match lit, but in my haste, the box fell from my hands. Matches spilled around my feet. I immediately crouched and scooped them up, but I could not find the box. I tried striking a match on my boot, with my fingernail, and on my brass buttons, but it would not light.
The rumbling that was coming from behind me was almost upon me now, although the sound was nearly eclipsed by the hammering of my own heart. I was about to be trampled to death by what sounded like a herd of buffalo, charging toward me at top speed through the utter darkness of the tunnel.
No — not utter darkness. I could see a dim light, somewhere down the tunnel in front of me.
Abandoning my matches, I turned and ran. The ground underfoot trembled as if an earthquake was shaking it, and it was all I could do to keep my footing. I ran blindly, my hands stretched out in front of me, letting my instincts tell me where to turn. More than once I crashed headlong into the soft walls of the tunnel, then staggered away, spitting dirt. All the while, the sound of buffalo running behind me grew louder and louder — now I could hear the snorts of the great beasts and smell their breath as the rush of their approach pushed a hot breeze against my back.
The patch of light in front of me was growing brighter. Rounding another bend, I could see an opening ahead: a cavern mouth, with blue sky and sunshine beyond it. I ran toward it, my lungs aching as I struggled to run up the tunnel, which had developed a steep upward slope. I could not pause: the rumbling was almost upon me.
I nearly wept with relief as I ran the last few steps and burst out of the tunnel and into brilliant sunshine. Then I realized my mistake: I had not reached a place of safety. The rumbling noise I’d heard inside the tunnel was still all around me, filling my ears like the roar of an ocean. I jumped to one side as a dark and monstrous shape hurtled past: a buffalo.
I whirled around, and saw that I stood upon a grassy plain that was filled with the shaggy beasts. Dust hung in the air in thick clouds and the earth shook with the rumble of their passage. An entire herd was thundering past me, and more buffalo still were spilling from the tunnel I’d just emerged from, flowing up and out of it like a living fountain. I leaped this way and that, dodging the charging monsters as they roared past. I saw a flash of something white hurtling toward me, and threw up my hands in alarm. It veered suddenly back the way it had come, treading heavily upon my foot as it turned, and then it was lost in the dust and noise.
By some miracle, I stumbled in the direction of a pile of stones and brush, favouring my bruised and throbbing foot. The buffalo flowed to either side of the obstruction like a river around a rock, turning it into a crude shelter. I sagged gratefully into this place of safety, panting from my exertions.
At last able to look around me, I saw that my place of refuge was one of several piles of stones, set up at regular intervals like the posts of a fence. The buffalo were streaming between them; every time the herd veered to the side, a figure would leap up from behind a screen of brush and whoop and wave a blanket, forcing the buffalo back into the herd. Beyond the piles of stones, other Indians were riding back and forth on horses, shooting arrows into the few buffalo that were bold enough to hurtle past the waving blankets. Despite their efforts, one or two of the great beasts escaped, and thundered away.
I had no idea where I was. I knew only that I’d somehow blundered into the middle of a buffalo hunt.
The last of the buffalo herd thundered past me, leaving dust hanging in their wake. I stood, taking care to remain behind the pile of stones, and watched them rumble away. They charged up a slight incline, then suddenly disappeared.
So did the noise of their hooves.
In the stillness that followed, I heard a number of the mighty animals bellowing in pain, and the excited whoops of Indians. Those Indians I’d seen waving blankets earlier were now all running toward the spot where the herd had disappeared. Those who were on horseback finished dispatching the few buffalo that were still within range, then rode after their tribesmen.
I looked back at the hole I’d emerged from, and shuddered. Nothing on heaven or earth could persuade me to go back into that gloomy tunnel. Instead, I turned and ran after the Indians.
It took me a few moments to get to the spot where the buffalo herd had disappeared. I skidded to a stop just in time. Yawning before me was a precipice; another step or two and I would have plunged to my death. The slope of the ground had hidden it from me until I was almost upon it; I could see why the panicked buffalo had charged right over the edge.
Below me was a scene of carnage. An entire herd of buffalo, close to one hundred of the mighty beasts, lay strewn upon the rocks below. They had fallen more than fifty feet to their deaths, and those that the fall had not slain were being filled with arrows by the Indians below. As I watched, one of the shaggy beasts staggered to its feet, then collapsed with a bellow as an arrow found its throat.
One of the piles of stones and shrubs was nearby, just at the edge of the cliff. I squatted down behind it, screening myself from the view of those below.
Several dozen Indians were swarming over the downed buffalo like ants. The men whooped and danced, their bows held high in their fists, while the women set about the task of butchering the great beasts. Arms bloody to the elbow, they thrust their knives into the thick, shaggy hides, peeling them back from the steaming flesh. One of them plunged her hand deep inside the body of a horned bull, then pulled out what looked like its heart. She handed it to an Indian brave, who ate it raw, blood running down his cheeks and chin. Other Indians — those who had leaped out from behind the rock-and-brush blinds to wave blankets and frighten the buffalo toward the edge — now were climbing carefully down to join the others below.
The herd, small though it was in comparison to those that blackened the prairie in days gone by, was substantial; I wondered where it had come from. In the past I had seen buffalo bones in such large numbers that they turned the prairie as white as snow for many miles, but in recent years had only rarely seen a herd of this size. The buffalo were nearly gone from the plains, hunted to the very last animal, both by the Indians who traded their hides for rifles, food and whisky — and by the white man, for sport. Soon the Indians would have to settle down on their reserves and become farmers, as the government had been trying to persuade them to do. For the moment, however, the Indians could still hunt; the slaughter below would keep them in meat for several months.
As I watched the women cutting strips from the animal’s haunches, it took me a moment or two to realize that there was something odd about the dead animals bel
ow. Many of the buffalo had light-coloured coats. Although the animals were clearly adults by their size, their shaggy pelts were the yellow-brown colour of newborn buffalo calves.
Something was very wrong here. I could feel it in my bones. Suddenly not wanting to be seen by the Indians, I backed away from the edge of the cliff.
I went back the way I had come, walking between the piles of stones that formed a funnel through which the buffalo had charged. I looked around for Chambers, wondering if he had made it the last few yards through the tunnel to safety after losing his clothing. If I didn’t find any sign of him up here, I supposed I’d have to find a source of light and go back into the tunnel itself, to see if his body lay somewhere within. I didn’t relish the thought.
Strangely, although I could find the pile of rocks and brush I had taken shelter behind after emerging from the tunnel, I could not find the opening in the earth itself. I walked back and forth across the area where the buffalo had been stampeded, but saw only hard, bare prairie, dotted here and there with yellow grass that had been crushed under buffalo hooves. Nowhere was there any sign of a cave.
Perplexed, I stood with my hands on my hips, slowly turning in a circle to survey the prairie. There were no trees anywhere, and no sign of the North Saskatchewan River or Victoria Mission. The tunnel I followed must have been longer than I thought.
I heard a swishing sound and a dull thud, and turned around to see what the noise was. I was startled to see an arrow, its head buried in the ground at my feet. I looked up — and saw an Indian standing behind one of the piles of stones and brush some distance away, holding a bow in his hand. I had barely time to fumble for my revolver before he knocked another arrow and shot it.
This one did not miss. It tore a painful crease in my upper thigh as I twisted to yank my revolver out of its holster.
My reaction, however, had saved me. While I could feel blood leaking down my hip, the arrow had glanced off the strange stone in my pocket as I turned, and had been deflected just enough so that it did not skewer my leg.