Apparition Trail, The

by Lisa Smedman

  I wondered if whites, whose only “guardian spirits” were angels in human form — and saints, like the one on the amulet around Peter’s neck — would be afforded the same protection by these guardians. Somehow, I doubted it. The McDougalls had been devout Methodists, and yet their faith had not protected them.

  An even more startling epiphany struck me: if we were unable to prevent the Day of Changes from occurring, I, the only white man with an animal guardian spirit, would not be transformed into a buffalo. I personally had nothing to fear from the Day of Changes. Like the Indians, I was immune.

  A spasm of pain gripped my stomach, reminding me that I was not immune to all things.

  When I’d joined the North-West Mounted Police, I’d been driven by a thirst for adventure and the desire to spend my life doing something more than working at a humdrum job in a tobacco shop. Over the past five years, however, a sense of duty had grown in me as I realized that I was bringing law and order to what had once been wilderness. I was not merely having adventures — I was helping to forge a new land. If I could prevent the Day of Changes from occurring, I would have the satisfaction of having accomplished something truly noble and enduring before I died.

  I rose to my feet, intending to report my conclusions to Steele at once. Just at that moment, however, he strode into the mess. Before I could utter a word, he ordered Bertrand to set his cider down and get back on his horse, and told me to mount up.

  “Healthy horses have arrived at last!” he cried. “We can finally ride north.”

  I followed Steele outside into the square, giving him a quick summation of my thoughts as I trotted along beside him. Across the parade square, two constables were tying up the dozen horses that had been shipped by boxcar from Moose Jaw. I stopped in my tracks as I recognized a gelding that was a familiar dun colour. The ochre handprint was long since gone from his flank, but I knew the bronco at once by the familiar defiant toss of his head. As if sensing my eyes upon him, the horse yanked hard on the lead rope, ripping it from the hand of the man who was trying to tie him to the rail.

  “By God,” I said to Steele. “That’s my old horse, Buck!”

  Steele’s grin seemed to reach to the very tips of his moustache. “I know. I thought he might come in handy. Would you like to ride him?” Without waiting for my answer — he knew it would be yes — he turned to shout at the other men who would be part of the patrol. “Boots and saddles, men. Mount up!”

  I ran to get my saddle, grinning all the way. Buck had seen me safely out of the Big Sands — the Indian purgatory. I had no doubt that he’d see me through whatever else came my way.

  After three long days on the trail, we were finally approaching the spot where the spiral on the map crossed the South Saskatchewan River. The sky was free of clouds, and the air was still and hot. I rode near the back of the patrol, next to Bertrand, who had trailed behind the others throughout our ride. The aerograph operator sat on his horse like a loose sack of oats, complaining bitterly about his aches and pains and the dust that collected on his thick-lensed spectacles. The back of his shirt was drenched with sweat — I wondered how one man could have so much water in him — and his hair was plastered to his forehead. He smelled like a man who had not washed in three months — not just three days.

  I reined in Buck, letting Bertrand get well downwind of me. After a moment his horse disappeared behind a rise; all I could see of him were the two aerographs that he’d tied to his pommel. I would have thought that he’d carry them in a box, but he said their mechanisms were too delicate. Instead, they bobbed along a few feet over his head, hanging from their sausage-shaped balloons with mechanical wings gently flapping and noses pointed in the direction of Regina.

  When they, too, disappeared below the rise, I kicked my horse forward. I heard voices up ahead, and as I topped the rise I saw that we’d reached the South Saskatchewan River. It lay before me in the bottom of a wide valley. Nearly as wide as a small lake, it was studded with gravel bars. A faint trail led down to the river’s edge; the patrol was winding its way down along it, their thirsty horses trotting toward the water. I laughed aloud at the sight of Bertrand’s flabby body bouncing this way and that; he had no idea how to use his stirrups.

  I reined Buck to a stop and looked around. Judging by the gravel bars and the way the river slowed and widened, we’d come to the ford that Davis had spoken of, but I saw no sign of the Manitou Stone — just a jumble of smaller river rocks along the water’s edge. There was no sign of Iniskim, either. Leveillee had been told to keep a careful eye out for the tracks of a buffalo calf, but the scout hadn’t seen any during our journey. The only tracks he’d spotted were those of a lone rider, who had crossed at an angle to our path earlier that day. It wasn’t an Indian pony, Leveillee said: the hooves of the horse were shod.

  The rest of the patrol were letting their horses drink. Two of the constables had dismounted, and were lifting off the pack horses the crates of dynamite we’d brought along, just in case we found the Manitou Stone. Steele trotted back and forth behind the rest of the men, pointing out the areas across the river he wanted searched. That was the logical place to start: according to Davis, Iniskim’s ghost had been spotted on the north side of the river when it had made its appearance two years ago. We just had to find the way across.

  Leveillee had already ridden his horse into the river and was using it to test the water’s depth. Bertrand, meanwhile, had dismounted from his horse and sprawled on the sandy riverbank. He looked too exhausted to care that his horse was untended. Fortunately, it was a placid animal and merely stood in the river, drinking.

  Chambers had dismounted. He squatted by the river, trailing his fingers in the water as if he were trying to read it like Braille.

  Steele glanced in my direction. “Corporal Grayburn!” he shouted. “What are you doing up there? Have you seen something?”

  I started to shake my head. Then a flash of white caught my eye. My heart raced — but then I realized that it wasn’t a white buffalo calf, after all. It was something small and square that fluttered in the breeze about five hundred feet to my left, at the base of an outcropping of rust-coloured rock.

  “Maybe,” I shouted back at Steele. “I’ll let you know.”

  I turned Buck to the left and rode along the rise. The white object turned out to be the fluttering pages of a book. It lay in a clump of grass, its pages flipping back and forth in the breeze. Someone had left a marker in it, and as the wind rustled the pages again, the piece of paper came free. As it blew past me, I recognized the bookmark as a twenty-five-cent shinplaster.

  I dropped the reins and leaped down from the saddle. Sweeping up the book, I saw that it was a collection of hymns. With trembling hands, I opened the front cover. The hymnbook was inscribed with the name Frederick Baldwin — it was the very same book that I’d given to Emily on board the North West.

  My eyes ranged up and down the river. “Emily!” I shouted. “Are you here?” I turned toward the bluffs and cupped a hand against my mouth. “Emily!”

  I heard pounding hooves. Glancing back at the river, I saw Steele spurring his horse up the bank toward me. When he reached me, I held up the hymnbook.

  “Sir! This hymnal is the one I gave to Emily. She couldn’t have carried it here if she’d been turned into a buffalo. That means I was right — she must be a woman still. She’s alive — and looking for her child.”

  Steele nodded, only half listening. His eyes were fixed on the outcropping of reddish rock behind me.

  “Amazing,” he exclaimed. “From up here, it doesn’t look like anything at all.” He nodded benevolently down at me. “Good job, Grayburn. If you hadn’t drawn my attention to it, I’d never have noticed.”

  He waved at the rest of the patrol. “Corporal! Send the scout up. If we’re going to find buffalo tracks anywhere, it will be up here.”

  I turned around and looked at the rocky outcropping. It appeared natural enough, but for a moment I wondered if I’d
missed something — whether the tunnel through which Emily must have walked to this spot lay open behind me.

  It didn’t. The bluff was just an outcropping of stone, one of many along the riverbank. The only thing that made it stand out from the rest, as far as I could tell, was that it seemed to contain a fair amount of iron, judging by the rust stains on its surface.

  Steele grinned broadly down at me from under the shadow of his Stetson. “Don’t look so perplexed, Corporal. All you need do is ride down to the river, and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  I shoved the hymnbook into my pocket and did as instructed, passing Leveillee on the way down. When I reached the river, where the rest of the patrol stood pointing, I turned my horse around. Only then did I see what Steele had been so excited about. From this vantage point, the rocky outcropping looked exactly like a buffalo’s head. It had two jutting stones where the horns should be, and was the same reddish-brown colour as a buffalo skin.

  As I dismounted and let Buck drink from the river, Chambers walked over to me. He stared up at the outcropping with one palm raised, as if he were feeling for a source of heat. River water ran down his fingers and dripped from his wrist.

  “The flow of etheric force is strong here,” he said. “That buffalo-shaped rock appears to be channelling it.”

  I didn’t feel a thing — and the sceptic in me wondered if Chambers did. He hadn’t even noticed the rock until it was pointed out to him, and now he was claiming that it emitted energy like a beacon. Even so, I nodded in silent agreement. The outcropping projected a sense of strength and protection. I could see why the ghost of the stillborn Iniskim would be drawn to it. The massive buffalo head would have drawn her like a magnet.

  As I mused on this thought, my eye fell on Bertrand. The aerograph operator was struggling with his horse, trying ineptly to unsaddle it. The two aerographs were still tied to the pommel, and when he at last wrenched the saddle from his horse’s back they were yanked down past the animal’s face. Spooked by the sudden movement, the horse reared and lashed out with its forefeet. Bertrand staggered back, nearly collapsing under the heavy saddle.

  Instead of helping Bertrand, the constables laughed and whooped, enjoying the spectacle. Then one of the horse’s feet struck the saddle, knocking it from Bertrand’s arms. He toppled backward into the river, dropping the saddle on the sand.

  The constables laughed all the harder.

  The horse’s kick must have loosened one of the wires that tethered the aerographs. Like a suddenly released kite, one aerograph soared into the air. Constables scrambled this way and that, trying to grab its wire as a dripping Bertrand, his thick glasses askew on his face, screamed insults at them from the river. The aerograph floated over all of their heads, trailing its wire past their grasping hands.

  Instinctively, I grabbed for it as it sailed past me. I caught the very end of the wire, and quickly twisted my hand so that it wound around my wrist. I smiled as the other constables cheered. I noticed that the wings of the aerograph had sped up as soon as I grasped the wire. That didn’t surprise me — but something else did. The aerograph was no longer pointed east, in the direction of Regina. Instead it seemed to be straining to go to the west, its propellers turning ever faster and wings flapping out a frenzied beat. It wanted to be set free….

  I let it go.

  The aerograph picked up speed, as if it had been caught by a strong gust of wind. It zoomed up at a steep angle, directly toward the spot where Steele and the scout stood. Their backs were to it at first, but then one of their horses spooked. The two men saw the aerograph just in time, and ducked out of the way as it soared past their heads. The machine slammed into the rocky outcropping, its bag bursting with a loud pop.

  Although this was the first time I had stood in this spot beside the South Saskatchewan, I had the strangest sense that I had seen this comedy acted out once before. Then I realized that I had: but from a different perspective. I’d been dreaming at the time.

  Steele leaped on his horse and kicked it into a trot, and within moments was down at the riverbank. His livid face was as red as his jacket. “That was valuable government property!” he shouted. “Who is responsible for its destruction?”

  The constables weren’t laughing now. They all seemed to be looking at the ground — and at me, out of the corners of their eyes. Steele turned his horse to where I stood, fire in his eye. I could see that I was going to get an earful — and I knew full well why. We’d brought only two aerographs with us, and each could be sent in only one direction: to carry reports back to Commissioner Irvine in Regina. Without knowing our precise location, there was no way for the operator in Regina to send the device back to us again. He could come close by using a map, but maps of this area were hardly precise. It seemed nothing short of a miracle that we’d come to the right spot ourselves. We’d somehow come straight to the very place we were looking for, as if we were birds blown by the breeze — or as if we were aerographs, drawn by an invisible current of etheric or magnetic force.

  Even so, I couldn’t help but smile. “Superintendent!” I cried.

  Steele glared at me. “What is it, Corporal?”

  “We don’t need Iniskim to find the Manitou Stone,” I said, my smile growing larger by the moment. “We can use the aerograph to find it!”

  Chapter VII

  Calibrating the aerograph — The lost patrol — Unlocking a mystery — Putting Bertrand on course — Questions around a campfire — Emily’s story — A terrible truth revealed — Strange coincidences — Indian attack! — An unexpected return — Unfortunate losses — Descent into darkness

  Steele was quick to agree with my suggestion, especially after Chambers concurred with my conclusions. The buffalo-shaped outcropping had to be a channel for etheric force, directing and giving shape to the ley line — and it was clear from its reddish hue that the rock contained a large amount of iron.

  Iron, I concluded, must be the key element that enabled stones to channel etheric force. For my proof I only had to point to the CPR tracks, which were interacting with the ley line in so dramatic a fashion as to seriously deform its spiral shape. I reasoned that the Manitou Stone must also contain significant amounts of this metal. Iron was something the aerograph was naturally attracted to, and so the aerograph would home in on the Manitou Stone as well.

  All that was required was for the aerograph to be calibrated to negate both the rocky outcropping here at the ford and the railway line to the south. If the aerograph could be made to confine itself to the blank spot at the centre of the spiral I’d drawn on Steele’s map, it would lead our patrol to the Manitou Stone. We’d be able to head straight for the stone, and wouldn’t be slowed down by having to follow the curving spiral of the ley line. Even if the Indians were ahead of us now, we’d ultimately beat them in the race to the Manitou Stone.

  Bertrand grumbled and muttered about the complex adjustments that would be required, but Steele would hear none of it. He ordered the aerograph operator to begin the calibrations at once, regardless of the fact that it would be dark soon. Steele was well aware that Bertrand could calibrate his aerographs by touch, even in pitch darkness, and refused to listen to the special constable’s excuses.

  Steele ordered the rest of the patrol to use the daylight that remained to search the area for signs of Iniskim. He also told us to keep an eye out for signs of the four-man patrol that had been working its way west along the river from Saskatchewan Landing; the patrol should have reached the ford ahead of us. It was odd that we’d seen no sign of them.

  We soon found out why. No more than thirty minutes after we began searching, Leveillee gave a shout. I was closest to him, and I spurred Buck across a shallow spot in the river and up the opposite bank to the place where the scout was crouched. As I dismounted, Leveillee stood, holding a scrap of red serge and a torn riding boot. I smelled the sickly sweet odour of rot, and in the failing light saw the bloated body of a horse behind some rocks. Pieces of torn cl
othing were scattered all around, and a tangled bridle hung from a tree branch. All of these items were cast in a lurid glow by the reddish light of the setting sun.

  I was glad that Chambers wasn’t the one to have found this. He didn’t need any more reminders of his own terrible transformation.

  Leveillee gestured at the rocky ground. “My dear Corporal, I fear I ’ave nothing but bad news. You see these tracks? Four men ride toward the river, down the slope ’ere, several days ago. They ’ave not dismount; there is no boot print ’ere. Instead only hoof print of horse that is panic. Then buffalo print — more than two, perhaps t’ree or four animal — and horses fall: ’ere … and there … and there….”

  The scout looked around thoughtfully. “Something very strange ’appen ’ere. Horses scatter — but buffalo run in a bunch down to river, even though they ’ave fear, too. You see that? Buffalo so frighten, he make night soil there.”

  Leveillee walked around, pointing at marks on the ground that were invisible to my eyes. “One horse drag his leg, go this way some distance and probably die, one run this way, and one run that way. Fourth horse, he has broken legs and die, as you can see. As for men riding horses…”

  He held up the scrap of red serge — the arm of a jacket, split open from shoulder to cuff — and waited for me to provide an explanation. He had been told nothing about the Day of Changes, but the look in his eye suggested that he had figured out for himself what had happened here at the ford.

  “Those poor wretches,” I muttered, looking around at the torn clothing. “They were turned into buffalo.”

  Leveillee nodded, and placed the sleeve and boot gently on the ground. He seemed relieved to learn that someone else had reached the same conclusion that he had — that he was not going mad, after all.