Apparition Trail, The

by Lisa Smedman

  I turned and grabbed my saddle.

  “No time,” Potts gritted.

  “But—”

  “Ride now or die.”

  Potts dropped the lead rope and spurred his horse away. I started to saddle my horse, but she was nervous, and skittered away. Now I could hear the war whoops of the approaching Cree.

  I was a seasoned rider, but I knew I’d never outrun the Indians if I had to ride bareback. “Damn you!” I cried, grabbing the horse’s lead rope. “Hold still.”

  I heard the crack of a rifle. A bullet whizzed past me. Another slammed with a dull thud into the leather of my saddlebag. The mare shied away, and nearly tugged the lead rope from my hand. Giving up on my saddle, I threw it aside and scrambled awkwardly onto her bare back as more bullets buzzed past my ears like angry wasps. There was no time to pick up my saddlebags and rifle; I left them where they lay. I’d need both hands just to stay on the horse’s back.

  There was no need to dig in my spurs. With the first touch of my heels, the mare leaped forward. She was sweaty from her gallop across the prairie, but at least she hadn’t had a man on her back. She still had some speed in her. As the Indians behind me whooped and howled like wolves that have scented blood, the mare shot forward like a cannon ball. I gripped as tightly as I could with my knees, clung onto her mane and the lead rope, and hunkered down low, praying that a bullet wouldn’t find my back.

  I rode hard, keeping my eyes on Potts, who had drawn a good distance ahead and to the left of me while I had been frantically trying to saddle my horse. He rode up a rise that was dotted with trees, then disappeared down the other side. I twisted around, trying to see how close our pursuers were. Close!

  I was just about over the rise when my horse shied violently as a bird flew up from a bush. Somehow, I managed to hang on. The mare topped the rise and charged down the other side toward a wide expanse of slow, deep water that I knew must be the Bow River. I clung to her for all I was worth, teeth rattling as I yanked on the rope around her neck, trying to stop her before she plunged into the river. Fording it would do no good; the water would slow us down, making me a perfect target. I caught just a glimpse of Potts — and wondered why he was riding the other way, up the bank — and then heard a ragged volley of gunshots behind me.

  The mare skidded to a stop at the river’s edge and stood with flanks heaving. Behind me, hidden by the riverbank, a battle raged.

  My mind raced as I tried to think what to do. My Winchester was gone but I still had my revolver, holstered at my hip. Potts was obviously making a show of it, probably using his favourite tactic of riding straight back at the enemy in an effort to startle them. My best chance would have been to ride as hard and fast as I could along the riverbank, and leave the half-breed to his fate — but that was the coward’s way out.

  There was only one thing to do: turn around and brazen it out. Perhaps the Indians would respect the red tunic I wore and the revolver in my hand.

  If not, my tunic would be even redder, soon enough.

  I drew my revolver. Behind me was silence. Potts had either gotten away — or he was dead.

  I yanked the mare’s lead rope to turn her, but she had other things in mind. She’d lowered her head to drink in the few seconds that I sat catching my breath, and now that she’d gotten over her fright, she got up to her old antics. She raised her forefoot and brought it down with a splash in the water, soaking my leg, then whinnied in delight.

  I heard the sound of hooves on the riverbank above. Twisting to take a look, I saw the tips of a feathered war bonnet coming into view above the bank. Heart pounding, I spurred the mare and yanked the lead rope hard — but instead of turning she reared up on her hind legs and came down with both forelegs in the water, sending up an even larger splash than before.

  It caught me by surprise. Bereft of a saddle and stirrups, and unable to steady myself, I toppled sideways. It probably saved my life. I heard the crack of a rifle shot as I tumbled from the mare’s back and heard the whiz of a bullet pass my ear. Then I fell headlong into the river. Water closed over my head.

  I thrashed my way into a sitting position, wiping water from my eyes with one hand and feeling about in the muddy river bottom with the other. My revolver was gone. Something was splashing in the water next to me: it was the mare, still enjoying her game.

  I heard the click of a rifle being cocked, and as the mare moved to the side, I at last saw the fate that awaited me. Standing on the shore next to their panting ponies were a dozen Indians, with rifles pointed at my chest and an angry look in their eyes. There was only one thing in my favour: they hadn’t shot me yet.

  I stood up with as much dignity as I could muster, ignoring the water that was streaming from my sodden uniform. I steeled my voice and fixed them with a stern look.

  “I am a North-West Mounted Police corporal,” I told them. “If you shoot me, other red coats will come, and hunt you down and hang you like dogs.”

  The Indians laughed. It wasn’t the response I’d expected.

  I heard the sound of another horse, and braced myself. For a moment I thought it was Potts, coming to my aid. My heart lifted, then sank again as I realized that the Indians were singularly unconcerned by the sound. In another moment, a familiar rider came over the rise and trotted his pony up to the edge of the river.

  Big Bear pointed a wiry finger at me, and then at my mare, who still stood at the river’s edge, splashing a forefoot into the water.

  “You come,” the chief said in barely recognizable English. “Come horse.” Then he added something in Cree — a long, rambling speech.

  I understood only one word, and it was in the language of his enemies.

  Iniskim.

  Chapter V

  A meeting of chiefs — Inside the shaking tepee — Animal spirits — Two more disappearances — Flight into darkness — Writing On Stone — Wise advice from an owl — Trapped! —A fortuitous arrival

  The Indians did not bind me, but I was their captive just the same. For three long days we rode south, fording the Belly River and crossing two coulees that lesser rivers had carved into the rolling prairie. All during that time braves rode at either side of me, watching with wary eyes lest I try to spur my horse into a gallop. Even had I been inclined to test my mettle against a dozen warriors, I would have had little chance of success. I had lost both my Winchester — which I thought I saw one of the Indians carrying — and my revolver. The Indians had even taken my boots, forcing me to ride in stocking feet.

  I kept hoping that Potts was alive — that he would appear to blaze bullets at my captors and provide me with an opportunity to escape. At the very least I hoped he was tracking us. At one point I saw a moving shape that might have been a man — or merely a large animal — but there was no clear sign of Potts. I wondered if he was lying dead on the prairie. One of the horses the Cree were leading looked suspiciously like the one Potts had been riding, but I never got close enough to it to see if it had an S — the brand that all police scouts’ horses are marked with — on its shoulder.

  There were a dozen Cree in all. Big Bear rode near the head of the band, as did Wandering Spirit, who was mounted on a tall grey mare with fluttering eagle feathers tied in her tail and mane. All were men, traveling light without tepees or travois — a war party, I suspected. None of them seemed to speak any English — either that, or they were simply not inclined to answer my questions. They pretended not to recognize the name McDougall, and simply grunted and looked away whenever I demanded to know what was going on and where they were taking me.

  We ate very little, just a mouthful of pemmican each noon and night. By the end of the third day, I was light-headed with hunger. The constant ache of hunger had joined the incessant pangs in my stomach. More than once I found my eyes tearing and I wished heartily that I still had my painkiller. I’d even settle for the traders’ firewater — anything to dull the pain. I struggled to keep my face composed; I didn’t want the Indians thinking I was fri
ghtened of them. My continued survival probably depended as much on not appearing a coward as it did on anything else.

  The first two nights we camped out under the open skies, with only the tiniest of campfires to warm us. I’d lost my blankets, and had only my jacket to fend off the night’s chill. Sleep was difficult, especially since the braves took it in turn to sit and watch me all night. When it was Wandering Spirit’s turn, I deliberately rolled over so that my back was toward him. I didn’t need to be a student of thought transference to feel his hostile intentions as his eyes bored into my back. I ignored him as best I could, but found my eyes drawn to the moon, which had passed its zenith and was starting to wane. When it was full again, the Day of Changes would come. I chafed at my captivity, wishing I could make my way back to a police detachment. I needed to tell Steele what I had learned before it was too late.

  On the third evening we arrived at a bluff overlooking a river that meandered back and forth across a flat, grassy plain. The slope that lay between this plain and the ridge on which we halted our horses was a maze of sandstone that nature had sculpted into fantastic shapes. Large domes of darker stone capped burnt-orange pillars that were pitted with holes. Birds swooped in and out of these small, smooth-walled caves, delivering insects to their cheeping nestlings. Between these rocky spires, the sandy soil was dotted with tufts of grass and the occasional stand of stunted trees.

  I recognized the river at once from its colour: that of dark brown tea diluted with milk. The Milk River flowed east to west, not ten miles from the American border. The coulees leading to the south through the maze of sandstone columns on the opposite side of the plain had been a favourite hiding place for American whisky smugglers for decades.

  I thought we would make our way down to the river to water the horses, but instead Big Bear signalled his men to turn and follow the bluffs. After another mile or so, I saw why: ahead was a large number of Indians, already unsaddling their horses and turning them out to graze on the dry grass. There must have been a hundred of them — all men, and all armed. They seemed to be in two large groups, each keeping a little apart from the other. As we rode closer, several of them discharged rifles into the air and whooped. Others welcomed our party by beating wide flat drums and chanting. Several cast suspicious looks in my direction as our group dismounted.

  Leaving one of his warriors to watch me, Big Bear strode forward and clasped the arms of a fellow I recognized at once by his long, hawkish nose and square jaw: Chief Piapot. Close by was a tall, distinguished looking fellow with a long, proud face and aristocratic bearing: the Cree chief, Poundmaker. His hair, which hung to his hips, was tied back in a red bandanna, and a scalp lock at his forehead was wrapped with a tuft of glossy fur that looked like mink skin. He stood taller than the other men and carried a fearsome war club in which three knife blades were embedded.

  I also recognized, from my days patrolling out of Fort Walsh, the Cree chiefs Little Pine and Beardy. Little Pine was old and wrinkled, bent over a walking stick and peering about through squinting eyes as if he were having difficulty seeing. Yet despite his infirmities, he had a proud bearing.

  Beardy — a nickname he’d been given due to his straggly chin whiskers — wore leggings trimmed with jingling silver buckles. On his head was a fur hat topped with a single eagle feather, its tip tufted with red wool. Like Big Bear, Beardy had been reluctant to sign a treaty and settle down on a reserve. And like Piapot, he’d tried to stop the influx of white settlers to the prairies. Just four years ago, the North-West Mounted Police had to deal with Beardy’s tribe when it tried to impose a toll on travelers using the Carlton Trail, harassing and threatening those who would not pay.

  As Big Bear approached, Beardy raised his right hand to the sky in the Indian salute. It seemed this was to be a council meeting of the Cree chiefs. I wondered if they had come together to meet with Louis Riel, or one of his emissaries. I’d heard the Metis leader was back in the North-West Territories, trying to goad the Indians into a rebellion, but I didn’t see Riel or any of his men among the crowd.

  As I was studying the second group of Indians — the ones who stood several yards apart from the Cree chiefs — I noticed something odd. Several of them were wearing leggings painted with diagonal black stripes: the hallmark of a Blackfoot warrior. All of them were casting dark, suspicious looks at the Cree and held their weapons at the ready, as if they expected a fight to break out at any moment.

  Standing in front of this second group were three men, who, from their bearing, I took to be chiefs. The most imposing of the three wore his hair loose to the shoulder and had hollow cheeks and narrow, watchful eyes. His shirt was fringed with fluttering black feathers under each arm. He carried an eagle wing, mounted on a handle like a fan, in one hand. Beside him stood one of his braves, holding an umbrella over the chief’s head to shade him from the sun.

  Standing just behind this chief and to his right, in the position reserved for secondary chiefs, was a stocky man with drooping eyes and a down-turned mouth. His eyes were shaded by a Liberty hat that had an eagle feather jutting out the back, but I could see that they were fixed malevolently upon the Cree warriors. His jacket was open, and on his bare chest were jagged red scars that must have come from the sun dance, an ordeal in which braves pierce themselves with sticks attached to rawhide thongs, then dance until these skewers tear free. I winced, thinking that these ancient injuries must have hurt even more than the pains that even now wracked my stomach.

  The third chief wore on his belt a round leather shield painted with the figure of an antlered deer. An impressive headdress of eagle feathers crowned his head in a ring, standing straight up in the shape of a top hat, with strips of white fur hanging down on either side of his head like thick strands of hair. He stood aloof with arms folded against the trade beads that draped his chest, his eyes fixed on some distant point. When he did deign to look at the Cree chiefs, his expression hardened. It was obvious that he did not care for them much.

  I turned to the Cree warrior who was guarding me, and pointed the foremost of these three men out, making the Indian sign for “Who?” The brave responded by gesturing toward his feet: the chief was a Blackfoot.

  I stared at the head chief again, and noticed a stuffed crow’s head peeping from the top of the feathered war bonnet he wore. I realized then who he was: Crowfoot, leader of the Blackfoot Confederacy. What was he doing here, at a meeting of Cree chiefs?

  The brave beside me pointed at the chief next to Crowfoot — the one with the scars on his chest — and made the Indian sign for the Blood tribe, drawing his forefinger across his lips from left to right. He spoke the fellow’s name slowly in Cree, repeating the name twice. Fortunately the words were simple ones that I could understand: Red Crow. Then he pointed at the chief with the shield, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand into his cheek to make the Indian sign for the Peigan tribe. This chief’s name was also a word I understood: Mountain.

  I looked back and forth between the two groups of warriors in amazement. The Cree and the Blackfoot Confederacy tribes were sworn enemies. According to reports from missionaries that worked among the Blood tribe, Chief Red Crow was just looking for an excuse to fight the Cree, and hoped that Riel would persuade the enemy tribe to rebel. That way, he could slaughter Cree with the government’s blessing.

  Red Crow scowled at the Cree chiefs as if waiting for them to make a move, and his warriors milled restlessly behind him. I was thankful for the Indian custom of proving one’s manhood by waiting for the enemy to take the first shot — it seemed to be the only thing preventing immediate bloodshed.

  When the Cree chiefs were done greeting each other, they turned toward the three Blackfoot Confederacy chiefs. Crowfoot was the one they approached first. Poundmaker greeted him, and when Crowfoot returned the salutation, I thought I heard him use the word “son.” The two seemed on very friendly terms, despite the traditional animosity between their two tribes, and it took me a moment to realize why. T
hen I remembered the stories I’d heard about Poundmaker: that he’d spent a portion of his childhood as a captive in a Blackfoot camp, and had come to be adopted by its chief. I now realized that chief must have been Crowfoot. It explained why Poundmaker was taking the lead, and not Big Bear. Poundmaker could speak both Cree and Blackfoot — and had an ally in the enemy camp.

  After Poundmaker finished speaking with Crowfoot, Big Bear formally greeted each of the Blackfoot Confederacy chiefs in turn, then waved forward one of his men who carried a hide bundle. Big Bear solemnly unwrapped the bundle, then gestured for Crowfoot to take what lay inside. The Blackfoot chief lifted from the bundle a long, straight-stemmed pipe with the figure of an animal next to its high, narrow bowl. The pipe was carved of white stone, and smudged with red ochre. Crowfoot turned and showed it to his warriors, who shouted their approval, then he handed it to Red Crow. The Blood chief held it up in turn, then passed it to Mountain — who handed it back to Poundmaker, instead of to Big Bear. Poundmaker’s eyes widened, but he quickly composed himself and handed the pipe to Big Bear, who gave Mountain a glowering look.

  It must have been a deliberate slight. Mountain’s tribe and Big Bear’s people had fought each other in one of the bloodiest battles in Indian history, just fourteen years ago. It was a miracle that their warriors had not already come to blows here today, and that Big Bear was containing himself in the face of this insult from his traditional enemy. If ever there was a peace pipe, this must be it.