by Lisa Smedman
I made my way, shivering, through the maze of sculpted sandstone. I had no jacket and one leg of my breeches was torn and fluttering. Walking in my stocking feet, I had to tread carefully to avoid sharp-ended twigs and the numerous clumps of cactus. Fortunately, the moon was rising. It was still three-quarters full. However, this meant that anyone searching for me would have an easier time of it.
Just as I started out, a rock tumbled from up above. I pressed myself against a spire of sandstone, fearful that someone had found me. I clenched my only weapon — the buffalo stone — tightly in my hand, even though I knew it would do me little good if someone chose to shoot at me from the bluffs above. I waited there until I was shivering, but the attack I anticipated never came.
I took a deliberately winding path after that, staying well inside the canyons between the spires of rock. The ground was broken and rolling, and several times I had to climb up a slope and scramble down the other side. It was slippery climbing on the sandy soil, especially with the buffalo stone still in my hand. I used holes in the stone walls as natural handholds for a time, but once when I put my hand inside a deeper hole, I felt something slither over my fingers and out onto the ledge I was trying to climb onto. I could not let go of my handhold for fear of falling, and so I used my free hand, which held the buffalo stone, to strike the snake and knock it from the ledge. Only after my heart stopped pounding did I realize that it had probably been no more than a garter snake, since I hadn’t heard any warning rattle. I counted myself lucky that the stone, which had brushed against the snake as I struck it, hadn’t turned the animal into a buffalo, or it would have knocked me to the ground.
I avoided the holes after that.
The fear that had spurred me earlier in my wild run from the tepee left me drained and exhausted when it ebbed. The knot of pain in my stomach was back, and the hunger that lay beneath it was a dull rumble. My lips were dry; I yearned for water. Yet I daren’t go near the river. Not yet.
As I slid down yet another slope, I thought I heard a whispered voice. I froze, listening, but heard only the sifting trickle of sand. I hoped it had been just my imagination, and not one pursuer whispering to another. I looked up at the spires of rock that surrounded me, but saw no one.
Standing in one spot only caused me to start shivering again. I decided it was best to keep moving. I glanced around, trying to find an easy path, and saw that the easiest route led past a wide cliff of flat sandstone. I began moving toward it.
I stopped abruptly after just two steps. A moment ago, the cliff face had been dull and smooth. Now I could see lines scratched into it. They had appeared as if by magic. I tried to tell myself that it was only the angle of the moonlight that had changed, that I had moved into a position where the shadows that filled the grooves in the rock became visible, but a tingling sensation at the back of my neck as my hairs rose told me otherwise.
As if drawn by a magnet, I moved closer to the cliff face. The scratches in the stone began just above my head; I reached up a hand to touch them. The sandstone was soft, and a piece of it sloughed off under my fingers, shattering into sandy fragments as it hit the ground with a thud. I jerked my hand away and looked around, fearful that the noise might be heard by my pursuers.
I had to step back to see the entire cliff. I expected to see stick figures or other primitive Indian carvings, but the scratches in the sandstone seemed to be only a random jumble of crisscrossing lines. I shrugged, and was just about to continue on my way, when something stopped me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that made sense among the scratches: a word, in capital letters. THOMAS.
It had been years since I had used my real name, but the sight of it carved there in the cliff stopped me cold. Logic would put it down to chance — some settler or hunter named Thomas must have carved it there — but my intuitive mind insisted that I pay attention. This was something more than mere coincidence: it was a message, aimed at me. Yet I couldn’t read it. The moon was bright, but the canyon in which I stood was filled with deep shadow. I could barely make out my surroundings, let alone the markings on the cliff.
As I stood staring up at the cliff in the darkness, I wished I hadn’t lost my jacket, which had my pipe in one of its pockets. There’s nothing like a good smoke to steady the nerves and help one concentrate — and I couldn’t concentrate, not with my stomach cramping and my flesh scraped raw by my tumble down the bluffs. How I wished for some Pinkham’s — even a mere drop of the stuff would be a welcome balm.
I started to fold my arms across my naked chest, but quickly drew them away as they drove deeper the cactus spines that were still embedded there.
The night air was chilly against my skin, yet it was nothing compared to the shiver that rushed through my body when a hoot echoed from the cliff above. My heart pounding, I looked up. Inside one of the caves that pockmarked the cliff something stirred. A head swivelled, and large round eyes looked down at me. Then the owl launched itself from the cliff, and flapped away into the night.
“I wish I had your eyes,” I whispered, watching the owl as it flew away.
Yooo … dooo….
I blinked in surprise. Had the owl actually spoken to me in words I could understand?
It seemed no stranger than anything else that had happened to me this night. I wondered if my earlier transformation into an owl had rendered me capable of communicating with these birds — and that thought gave rise to another, even more peculiar notion.
When Poundmaker had worked his magic inside the shaking tepee, he said we had entered the “spirit world.” Presumably this was the Indian name for what the Society for Psychical Research called the “astral plane.” Somehow, Poundmaker’s magic had caused our perceptions to shift to our astral bodies.
According to Chambers’s pamphlet, our astral bodies should have been human in form, mirror images of our physical bodies — yet each of the Indians in the tepee had appeared as a different animal. Now that I had time to think about it, I could guess why. Indians believe in guardian spirits — powerful animal spirits that watch over and protect them. The Indians go through elaborate rituals to seek them out, going out into the wilderness and doing without food and drink and sleep until the spirit appears to them and forms a mystic bond with them.
I’d always thought these rituals to be superstitious nonsense or the product of hallucination, but now I knew otherwise. Magic really did exist. So too did spirits, like the bear that watched over Big Bear, the mink that guarded Poundmaker, and the lynx that was the guardian spirit of Wandering Spirit. When our perceptions had been shifted to the astral plane, each of the Indians had either assumed the same shape as his animal guardian spirit — or had merged his astral body with that of the spirit. We’d spoken to each other not in the diverse tongues of men, but in the universal language of the spirits.
It made sense, but one thing still baffled me. Why had I been transformed into an owl? I’d never even seen an owl, aside from the pictures in the storybooks my mother had read to me when I was a child. Was it possible that a guardian spirit watched over me too? Could some mystic bond have been forged without my knowing it?
Chambers had said that sensitives could see with their astral bodies. Did that mean that I could merge with it in astral space and use its all-seeing eyes to read the markings on the cliff?
I tried to concentrate, imagining that I was an owl. I even set the buffalo stone down on the ground and held out my arms like wings, stretching out my hands until my fingers ached. I hooted, I hunkered down like an owl on a branch, and I forced my eyes open wide, turning my head slowly from side to side, but nothing happened. The night just grew darker, the cliff in front of me more indistinct.
I dropped my arms to my sides. I was exhausted, hungry, and thirsty — and aching in a hundred different places. I couldn’t do it.
I winced, and grabbed at my midriff as my stomach cramped. This cramp was a bad one; it nearly doubled me over. The movement caused me to look at the cliff from
a new angle. Just as I was squeezing my eyes shut, I saw another word.
MANITOU.
My eyes widened, and in that moment the word disappeared back into the gloom. I straightened as the stomach cramp eased, and cursed my involuntary reaction. If only I’d kept my eyes half-squinted shut….
No, that wasn’t it at all. What was it that Chambers had said, during the guessing game on the riverboat? He’d talked about how discomfort contributed to a successful result. The anxiety I felt at being surrounded by spectators on the riverboat had augmented my ability to guess which card would appear next. Would another form of discomfort — physical pain — increase my chances at using my astral body to view the cliff in front of me?
I raised a hand to my chest and located one of the cactus spines. With a vicious tug, I yanked it free. Then I found another, more deeply buried than the last. As I wrenched it out of my flesh, I felt a trickle of blood roll down my bare chest. My eyes began to water. I forced them open wide, refusing to blink.
By the time I’d pulled a half-dozen spines out of my flesh, my body was flushed. I no longer felt the cold night air. It was as if my skin were wrapped in a gauzy covering of soft, downy feathers….
There! Was the air really getting brighter? Whatever the reason, I could see clearly now. Straining not to blink, I yanked the last cactus spine out of my chest and stared up at the cliff. The message scratched upon it was plain to me now. I read the words eagerly.
MANITOU STONE SITS ON APPARITION TRAIL.
“A clue!” I whispered under my breath — one that would surely lead me to the Manitou Stone, if only I could puzzle out its meaning. Yet I wanted more. I not only needed to know where to find the stone — but how to destroy it when I did. That way, the Day of Changes would never come.
Other words were carved at an angle to the rest of the message. I turned my head to read them.
BIRTH AND DEATH ARE THE BEGINNING AND END OF THE TRAIL. TO END THE DAY OF CHANGES, START AT THE BEGINNING. CLOSE THE….
The message ended in a broken patch of stone. My heart sank as I realized that the crumbling indentation was the spot I’d touched earlier. I cursed my own stupidity and searched the cliff face for the conclusion of the message. There was none. The words I’d already read were the only ones on the cliff.
Close the what? I wondered. Try as I might, I could not come up with the answer. The only thing that sprang to mind was “close the door” — but that didn’t make any sense. Worse yet, the words on the cliff were fading, becoming meaningless cracks and lines once more.
The cliff before me seemed to tilt to one side, and I realized that I was swaying on my feet. Excitement and exertion had taken their toll; it was all I could do to keep my eyes open. The night now was as dark as it had been before; my mind was fully back in my physical body and could no longer perceive with an owl’s keen sight. If I pressed on, I’d probably tumble off another bluff. I needed somewhere protected to wait out the night.
I looked around and saw a larger hole in one of the spires of sandstone. I approached it carefully, and used a stick to prod around inside. Satisfied that there were no rattlesnakes within, I crawled inside. The hole was just large enough to accommodate a man who assumed a curled-up position. I crawled into it, and rested my head on my arm.
A wind had started to blow, and as I listened to it I realized that it would be erasing my tracks across the sandy soil, making it harder for the Indians to find me. I thanked whatever was responsible, be it God or guardian spirit. As I lay there, thinking of disappearing footprints, I was reminded of my dream of being lost on the prairie. I wondered if Iniskim had at last emerged from the tunnels that ran under the earth. Was she wandering alone somewhere, lost and confused?
Back in the tepee, I’d been certain that I had no idea where the girl might be, but now that I had time to think about it, I had a hunch where she might be headed. According to Constable Davis, the white buffalo calf that I’d surmised was the “ghost” of the stillborn Iniskim — and which I now knew was her astral body in animal form — had been spotted by the Assinaboine on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River. If Iniskim had gone there once before in astral form, she might return to the spot again, now that she had actually been transformed into a buffalo.
For a few moments, my excitement at having figured out where Iniskim might be headed kept me awake, but eventually exhaustion overtook me. My eyes closed, and I was lulled to sleep by the whisper of blowing sand.
When I woke up, my knees and elbows were hot. It took me a moment to realize why: the sun was well up in the sky and its rays were slanting into the hole in which I lay. I clambered out and stretched the stiffness out of my arms and legs. My mouth was dry and my hair dusty. I scratched an itch on my chest, and my fingernails came away with dried blood from the cactus-spine punctures.
Through a crack between two pillars of rock I saw a patch of green grass and the milky-coloured river that wound across it. A lone bird soared in the distance, above the sandstone bluffs on the far side of the river. I didn’t really want to risk venturing out into such open country, but if I didn’t drink something soon I would become faint. When I relieved myself, my urine emerged as a deep yellow trickle. I needed water.
I reached into the hole I’d slept in and retrieved the buffalo stone. I stared at it, tracing a finger around its spiral. In the sunlight the stone shone metallic gold and green. I rolled it in my hand, wondering how its magic was triggered. When I’d first found the stone, it had been encased in a leather-thong wrapping, which I’d discarded. Big Bear had marvelled at the fact that I could touch the bare stone and not be transformed into a buffalo, and the other Indians had recoiled from it.
I made my way cautiously down through the maze of rock toward the river. I paused just before the spot where the canyon opened onto the grassy plain. Birds swooped back and forth overhead, and from either side came the sounds of nestlings cheeping, snug inside holes in the rock. I also heard the rustle of grass beside the river as the wind stirred it, and the yip of a coyote off to my right. Another coyote answered it from the left.
I stopped, suddenly realizing something. Coyotes sleep during the day. Those weren’t animals: those were Indians, signalling to one another.
I looked wildly around. Had they spotted me? A noise like the scuffing of a foot came from somewhere above and behind me. I spun around, and thought I saw the tip of a rifle that was pulled quickly back behind a rock.
Maybe it was just a branch moving, I told myself. Maybe they hadn’t found me, after all.
Then I saw a tiny flash of sunlight from the cliff that rose to my right. The Indians keeping silent, signalling to one another with mirrors — and they were close. There was no other direction for me to go in, save out onto the open grassland.
I searched the grassy plain ahead of me for a hiding place, but there was none. I glanced behind me again. There was no further sign of the Indians. I gripped the buffalo stone tightly in my fist, trying to decide whether to make a stand in the canyon — where they could shoot me from above, like an animal in a pit — or try to flee across the open grass toward the river. As I stood there, my mind whirling, I heard a peculiar sound: the whuff, whuff, whuff of wings.
There! Just flying into view, on the far side of the river, was the “bird” I’d seen earlier: an air bicycle, with an operator sitting at the controls. He had to be a police officer — perhaps even one from Q Division. Had Steele himself come to rescue me?
I leaped to my feet and waved, but the operator did not see me. Instead he turned the air bicycle so that its balloon presented its full length to me, and began to follow the Milk River.
He hadn’t seen me! In another moment, the air bicycle would be well beyond my reach.
Screwing up my courage, I ran for the mouth of the canyon. As I burst out into the knee-high grass, running for all I was worth, I heard a shout behind me, then the crack of a rifle. I have no idea how close the bullet came — the wind in the grass and my own t
hudding footsteps hid the sound of the bullet striking. I ran as hard as I could, zigzagging back and forth to present a more difficult target. I tried to shout to the operator of the air bicycle, but the exertion of my run left me almost breathless. A second rifle shot, however, got his attention. I saw a goggled face turn toward me, and I waved my hands above my head, imploring him to land.
I was halfway between the bluffs and the river now, and my legs felt as if they were on fire. I didn’t stop, however. Forcing myself onward, I ran straight for the air bicycle, hoping that it would stop for me.
The air bicycle dipped slightly.
Another rifle shot rang out. I saw the operator glance at the cliffs and begin to adjust the trim of his machine.
No! Throwing every ounce of will I had into it, I silently urged him to land.
I don’t know whether I accomplished thought transference or whether the operator simply took pity on the scene below: a half-naked white man, running wildly across the grass and being shot at by Indians. Whatever the reason, the air bicycle descended and landed. With my last ounce of strength, I climbed up onto the rear seat. Strapped all around it was a collection of five-gallon coal oil tins. I perched atop them and clung on for all I was worth.
“Thank you,” I gasped. “You’ve saved my life!”
“Not yet,” he gritted. As he adjusted the angle of the wings, sending us flapping up into the air, a bullet smacked into one of the coal oil tins below me. Immediately I smelled a pungent odour: alcohol. A spray of bright amber liquid arced from the hole the bullet had created, falling in a stream toward the ground.
“Damnation!” The operator wrenched around in his seat to stare at hole. “You’re a bloody expensive bastard to rescue.”
He shoved a lever to one side, and the air bicycle tipped violently. I assumed that it was an evasive manoeuvre, but then realized that he’d set us at an angle to stop the flow of alcohol.