Apparition Trail, The

by Lisa Smedman

  As we rose at this awkward angle into the sky, I clung to the air bicycle’s frame with one hand and peered down at the ground. Our ascent was agonizingly slow; it seemed it was all the air bicycle could do to lift the two of us. On the bluffs below stood an Indian holding a rifle. I thought it might be Wandering Spirit, since the figure wore what looked like a fur cap and patterned shirt, but we were already too far away for me to be sure. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired, but the shot must have gone wide.

  As I watched, the Indian suddenly scrambled down into the canyon, out of sight.

  The operator of the air bicycle turned and handed me a handkerchief from his pocket.

  “Here!” he shouted. “Stuff that into the hole.”

  I did as he’d ordered, reaching down and poking the handkerchief into the bullet hole with a finger. The job was made more difficult by the fact that I still held the buffalo stone, but I managed to plug the leak in the tin. The flow of alcohol slowed, then stopped, and the operator trimmed the air bicycle so that it was flying level again. I was glad to have an even perch to sit upon; the ground was already more than a hundred feet below us.

  I peered at my rescuer. Judging by his rough attire and heavy beard, he was a man of the frontier. He wore blue wool pants that looked like American military trousers with the stripes torn off, a buckskin shirt, and well-worn boots. His moustache and beard were as wild and untrimmed as his hair, which had been bleached by the sun. He wore no hat — only an operator’s goggles.

  I decided that this was a man who meant business: a bandolier hung across his shoulder, and a rifle was tucked into a metal case bolted to the front of the air bicycle frame, just ahead of his seat. Having seen and smelled his cargo, I knew him to be a whisky smuggler — and a wealthy one, if he could afford an air bicycle. Contempt for his profession warred with my gratitude at his having saved me.

  “What happened to you, and where in blazes are your shirt and boots?” he asked, glancing back at my bruised and bloody chest. “Why were those Indians after you?”

  I gave him only part of the truth. “Another fellow and I were out buffalo hunting, and tangled with Indians when they tried to steal our horses. The Indians captured me and took my boots, but I escaped from them last night. I made my way into one of the canyons in the sandstone bluffs, and hid there the night.”

  “That was smart,” he said. “The Indians are afraid of Aisinaipi. They won’t venture into it at night.” He laughed, then added with a wink: “Too many evil spirits.”

  “Aisinaipi?” I asked. “Who or what is that?”

  “It’s a Blackfoot word. It means ‘Writing On Stone.’ The local tribes carve drawings into the soft sandstone cliffs, then pretend the spirits did it. They scare each other around the campfire by insisting that these spirits will kill folks who venture down into the canyons at night. They say Aisinaipi is a place of visions and magic. It’s superstitious nonsense, but at least it saved your skin.”

  I knew otherwise. Magic really did exist: I had seen magical writing on the cliff with my own two eyes. How else to explain a message that exactly answered my unspoken questions — and in the English alphabet, no less.

  I decided to change the subject. “What’s your name?”

  “Cochrane.”

  The name sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.

  Cochrane set his controls so that we would continue flying level, and turned to give me a better look. “Who are you?”

  Suddenly I realized where I’d heard the operator’s name before. Two years ago, a patrol out of Fort Walsh had arrested a whisky smuggler by the name of Cochrane. The name wouldn’t have stuck in my mind, except for the fact that the fellow was a former North-West Mounted Policeman — one who had, upon completion of his term of duty, turned to a life of crime. He was fined one hundred dollars and released. The experience obviously hadn’t taught him any lessons. As I recall, he’d headed south, back to Montana.

  I glanced at the rifle in its case.

  “Cochrane,” I said in a level voice. “My name is Corporal Marmaduke Grayburn of the North-West Mounted Police.”

  I heard him swear softly under his breath.

  “You have been caught in the act of smuggling spirits into the North-West Territories. Normally, I would arrest you, but I am prepared to make you this offer. If you will agree to a brief engagement as a special constable with the force, I will utterly ignore everything I have seen today.” I nodded down at the coal oil tins.

  Cochrane’s eyes hardened behind his goggles. He moved a hand to the controls. “I could tip you off your perch. The fall would kill you.”

  I gripped the frame of the bicycle a little tighter. “It would,” I agreed. “But how long do you think it would take our men to put two and two together, once they’ve spotted you on your machine? A police officer is killed in a fall out of thin air — and a known criminal is seen flying an air bicycle. It shouldn’t be too hard for even the dimmest sub-constable in the force to puzzle out. You don’t want to hang, do you, Cochrane?”

  Cochrane swallowed, as if already feeling the noose about his neck. He shook his head.

  “What do I have to do?”

  I smiled. “Fly me to the detachment at Medicine Hat. Then you’re free to go.”

  Chapter VI

  Buffalo hunters — An embarrassing failure — An unexpected reunion — A meeting with Steele — The map reveals a secret — Organizing the patrol — The first setback — An unusual Indian — The story of the medicine woman — We reach the river at last — A startling discovery — A fortunate mishap

  We were half way to Medicine Hat, passing over rolling prairie at a height of about four hundred feet, when I heard the crack of rifle shots. Leaning out to the side to peer around Cochrane, I saw a cloud of dust, raised by the hooves of a small herd of buffalo. Six of the shaggy beasts were running flat out across the grass, pursued by three riders who were firing at full gallop. I saw one beast go down, bellowing as it crashed to the earth, and then another. The other animals veered this way and that in a desperate bid to escape.

  I noticed then that two of the animals had yellowish-brown hair, like the coat of a newborn buffalo calf. One of these animals suddenly doubled back to charge the riders, weaving to avoid their rifle shots. I watched, horrified, knowing that this was no mere beast, but a human being in buffalo form, fighting desperately for his life. As a rifle cracked and the buffalo went down, I gulped, wondering if I had just witnessed the death of someone I knew.

  I tapped Cochrane on the shoulder. “We’ve got to land.”

  He glanced down. “You want to join in the hunt?”

  “No!” I cried. “I want to save those poor brutes. We must land!”

  Cochrane gave me a strange look, then nodded and pulled a lever. The angle of the air bicycle’s wings changed, and we began to descend. I had seen a calculating look in his eye as he glanced back at me, and suspected that he intended to take off again as soon as I was on the ground, but being stranded was a chance I had to take if I was to save the poor wretches below.

  I watched in trepidation as we descended. One of the hunters saw the air bicycle’s shadow on the grass, and waved a rifle over his head. Cochrane waved back. The other two hunters were intent upon their game. The two brown buffalo fell, and then the second light-haired one also collapsed in the dust. I groaned, thinking we were too late, but as the hunters dismounted and ran over to this animal, it leaped to its feet and charged them. I cheered, seeing that it had used its human cunning to fool them into thinking it was dead, but my joy was short-lived. Quick as lightning, one of the hunters raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired thrice in quick succession. The animal went down at his feet — for good, this time.

  The air bicycle touched the ground, bounced once or twice, then settled. The hunter who had waved to us — a Metis fellow with a huge moustache and bushy black eyebrows, wearing a buckskin vest beaded in the Indian fashion — dismounted from his horse a
nd strode over to us.

  “‘Allo!” he called out, looking up at the balloon from which the air bicycle was suspended. “Your balloon bicyclette, she is a fine looking….”

  He stopped in mid-stride as he saw that I was half-naked, then started to laugh. “Mon dieu, Monsieur, are de winds so strong that they ’ave torn off your shirt?”

  I ignored him. Jumping down from the coal oil tins on which I was perched, I ran toward the nearest of the light-haired buffalo — the one that had put up so heroic a fight. The buffalo stone was still in my hand. “You don’t realize what you have done,” I shouted at the Metis over my shoulder. “But you will soon enough. This isn’t a buffalo that you shot. It’s a man.”

  I stopped and looked down at the great beast. Its tongue hung out of its mouth and blood welled from a bullet hole in its neck. Flies were already buzzing around the wound and landing on its soft brown eyes. I steeled myself for the worst, knowing that when the transformation came, it would not be a pretty sight. For all I knew, this might be a beautiful woman cut down in her prime.

  I knelt and touched the buffalo stone to the animal’s forehead.

  Nothing happened. The buffalo remained a buffalo.

  I stood, stunned. What had I done wrong? Perhaps the stone had to make contact with a particular part of the body. I touched the stone to a hoof, to the spot over the chest where the heart lay, to the mouth. Still nothing.

  Behind me, I heard nervous laughter.

  “Your friend,” the Metis said. “He is crazy, perhaps?”

  The other two hunters were standing a short way off, watching me with a mixture of amusement and puzzlement on their faces. I glanced behind me and saw that Cochrane had shoved his goggles up onto his forehead for a better look.

  I ran over to the other light-haired buffalo. The creature was still warm, the wounds in its side still bleeding. One leg was bent at an angle under it, the splintered bone protruding through the flesh. I touched the stone to the dead beast.

  Once again, nothing happened.

  I stood slowly, then looked in puzzlement at the spiral-shaped stone in my hand, trying to figure out why it had done nothing. Perhaps the stone’s transformative powers only worked on living things.

  The hunters laughed again and I glared at them, tempted to strike them with the stone. They needed to be shown what they had just done. They were murderers — even if they didn’t know it.

  I must have had a wild look in my eye. The Metis closest to me — a young lad with beardless cheeks — looked nervously at me. He shifted his grip on his rifle, raising it slightly.

  Sighing, I lowered the stone. These men were not murderers. They did not realize what they had done.

  I walked back to the air bicycle, the hand that held the buffalo stone hanging at my side. Cochrane hadn’t abandoned me after all; his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

  I heard a sniff; the Metis hunter closest to the air bicycle had caught the scent of the whisky. He licked his lips. I glanced at the saddlebags on his horse, then back at him. The fellow looked about my size.

  “Have you a change of clothing?” I asked. “I’ll trade you the whisky that remains in the punctured tin for a shirt and a pair of moccasins.”

  “Done!” the Metis said with a smile. He began rummaging in his saddlebags.

  “No you won’t!” Cochrane protested, twisting around on his seat to prevent me from unhitching the punctured tin.

  “I’m on the ground now,” I reminded him in a terse whisper. “All I have to do is get these fellows to take me to the nearest detachment and report what I’ve seen, and there will be a warrant out for your arrest. Let me give them this whisky, and I’ll keep quiet.”

  Cochrane thought about that a moment. Grumbling, he unfastened the punctured tin from the air bicycle, then lifted it and sloshed its contents back and forth. It didn’t sound like there was much whisky left inside; that probably made his decision easier. When the Metis handed me a buckskin shirt and worn-looking moccasins, Cochrane handed him the tin. The Metis’ grin stretched to the ends of his moustache, and he waved his fellows to him with a whoop.

  I pulled on the shirt and moccasins. The heavy buckskin shirt irritated the punctures on my chest, but at least my nakedness was covered now. I climbed up behind Cochrane.

  “Right,” I said. “On to Medicine Hat.”

  Cochrane set the wings to flapping and the air bicycle rose into the air. “I’ll fly you to the outskirts of town,” he said. “But no more stopping to trade away my whisky. Agreed?”

  I grinned. “Agreed.”

  When we were level and winging our way northeast again, Cochrane turned on his seat. “What was that you said? That business about buffalo being men?”

  “It’s rather a complicated story. And you probably wouldn’t believe it.”

  He glanced at the buffalo stone, which I still held clenched in my fist. “What’s that in your hand?”

  I debated a moment, then decided to tell him the truth. I’d observed his curiosity, and hoped that if I whetted it some more, he would agree to land again, should we see another fair-haired buffalo.

  “It’s a buffalo stone,” I answered. “It has the power to transform human beings into buffalo. I thought it could also do the reverse — that it could undo these transformations. I seem to have been wrong.”

  He made no reply; he probably thought I was a madman. We traveled in silence for a time. I listened to the flapping of the wings and the rush of air, lost in my thoughts as I watched the sausage-shaped shadow of the air bicycle sweep across the prairie below. Perhaps the buffalo stone had lost its power. Perhaps only Indians could work its magic. Perhaps….

  I glanced down at the grassy prairie that rolled in gentle hills like an ocean below us. I had the distinct impression that our course was off — that we should be headed more to the right. I noted the position of the sun, and saw that the air bicycle was indeed pointed to the northeast, the direction in which Medicine Hat lay. Yet the feeling that we had strayed off course was growing stronger by the minute.

  I tapped Cochrane on the shoulder and pointed to the west. “We need to go that way.”

  “Not if you want me to take you to Medicine Hat,” Cochrane protested.

  “Turn the air bicycle,” I insisted. “We need to go to the west, just for a little while. There’s … something in that direction I need to see.”

  I was thankful that Cochrane didn’t ask what it was. I couldn’t have said myself what inner voice I was following, or where it was leading me. All I know was that when Cochrane changed course, my sense of unease lessened dramatically.

  After a few minutes we passed over a coulee with a small creek at the bottom of it. About a dozen buffalo stood in it, drinking the muddy water. When the shadow of the air bicycle passed over them they broke into a bellowing run, splashing away down the coulee. One of them, however, stood its ground and craned its massive head back to look up at us. As its dark eyes searched the heavens, I felt compelled to meet their gaze. I stared at the great, defiant creature and saw that it was lighter than the rest.

  “There!” I cried, pointing it out to Cochrane. “Land the air bicycle next to that one.”

  “All right — but I’ll have to circle ’round so we’re parallel with the coulee first.”

  I didn’t stop to wonder why Cochrane was suddenly so willing to land. I watched the light-haired buffalo as we circled over the coulee. The other animals were long gone by now, having at last run up one of the banks and thundered away across the prairie. I watched the animal below, realizing now that its silent call was what had led me to this spot. I hoped it was Chambers, but I didn’t see any fabric around its neck. If this was Chambers, he’d lost his black silk tie.

  As we circled, the buffalo began to run back and forth in a seemingly random manner, but I soon realized that its movements had purpose. It was stamping out a word in the dust. As I recognized the first letter — an H — my heart pounded in my chest. I knew I’
d found my missing special constable.

  “Chambers!” I yelled. “Hang on. I’m coming.”

  The beast glanced up at me, a hopeful look in its eye.

  As soon as we landed, I sprang off the back of the air bicycle and ran toward the buffalo, the stone in my hand. The beast stood perfectly still, watching me as it squatted on its haunches. Just as I was about to touch the stone to the buffalo’s forehead, I hesitated, remembering my dream. If this was Chambers, would transforming him back into a man kill him?

  As if sensing my hesitation, the buffalo suddenly lurched to its feet and bellowed. I jerked back from it, the hand holding the stone still raised. Behind me, I heard the metallic click of a weapon being cocked. I whirled around and saw Cochrane shouldering his rifle.

  “Don’t shoot!” I shouted. “It’s a man.”

  Then I realized my mistake. Cochrane’s rifle was pointed at me, not at the buffalo. The coulee I stood in was a rugged, desolate spot. If Cochrane had it in mind to murder me and leave my body here, he’d probably get away with it. I had foolishly neglected to tell the Metis who I was, and was no longer wearing my uniform. Even if a police patrol stumbled across my body, they’d have no way to identify it.

  Fortunately, Cochrane had not yet worked up nerve enough to shoot. Slowly, not wanting to startle him, I lowered the hand that held the buffalo stone. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the buffalo take a step forward to meet it. Then the stone touched its great, shaggy head, just between the horns.

  A cry came from the great beast’s lips — a human cry — and suddenly the massive creature that had stood beside me was gone. In its place was a naked man, bent over in the dust on his hands and knees, tousled black ringlets hiding his face. He looked up — and in the same instant that I recognized Chambers’s sweaty and dust-grimed face, I heard Cochrane gasp.

  “Almighty God!” he croaked. “You were right. It is a man.”

  The rifle hung forgotten in Cochrane’s hands. He stared with a dumbfounded look at me, the stone in my hand, and the naked man beside me.