by Lisa Smedman
I tried to wrench free of Wandering Spirit’s grasp, twisting away in a final, desperate attempt for freedom — only to feel the coup stick touch my stomach instead of my chest. My stomach filled with a pain one thousand times more fierce than the cancerous tumour had ever produced, even when the disease was at its worst — and then I knew no more.
I found myself standing in a place very much like the rolling prairie on which I’d just lain, except that everything around me appeared in faded shades of grey. The sky overhead was a uniform, desolate grey, devoid of sun or moon or stars, and the ground underfoot was a similar colour, dotted here and there with crusts of white salt where pools of water had once stood. All around me were endless, rolling hills, with nary man nor beast to be seen. The breeze carried snatches of sound that I took to be voices, but every time I strained to listen, they disappeared into the hiss of the wind.
That wind stirred the grass that tufted here and there like the hair on a mangy animal’s hide. Sand blew around my feet in swirls, dusting across the tops of my boots. I realized then that I was still in uniform — although when I looked down at my riding breeches and the serge of my jacket, both were a leaden grey.
Something other than colour was missing. It took me a moment to realize it, but then I figured out what it was. The familiar, gnawing ache that had filled my stomach these past few months was gone. Suddenly frightened, I wondered if I had lost all connection with my body. I slapped my hand against my face, but neither my cheek nor my hand stung. All sensation had departed — I couldn’t even tell if I was breathing.
Only emotion remained, and foremost was an overwhelming sense of futility. I had failed utterly to do my sworn duty, and had let my fellow policemen down. Chambers was dead, Steele had been transformed into a buffalo, and the Day of Changes had come, despite my utmost efforts. I wasn’t merely visiting the Big Sands this time. I was here permanently — I was dead.
A thought occurred to me: why was I alone? When I’d entered the Big Sands the first time with Sergeant Wilde, we’d ridden into an Indian village populated with the souls of the dead. Yet these ghosts were nowhere to be seen — nor were any others. Chambers had just been killed; surely his ghost was around here somewhere.
I chuckled grimly, thinking that if Chambers were here with me, he would certainly correct my choice of words. He wasn’t a “ghost,” he would say in his most imperious voice. He was an “astral body” and I’d do well to get the terminology correct.
According to what Chambers had taught me, the astral body was unfettered by time and space. I didn’t have to remain in this dismal, lonely place if I didn’t want to. I was free to wander at will.
I was free to fly….
Just as I had done in the canyon at Writing on Stone, I called out to my guardian spirit. It was easier here. After just a moment’s thought, I saw something winging its way toward me. An owl drew nearer and nearer — then swooped down into my body, entering my stomach with a tickle of feathers. An instant later I had become the owl, and was soaring over the sandy wasteland with wings outstretched.
Whooo? the owl asked.
I understood its question at once, but it took me a moment to decide upon my answer. I yearned to find Chambers, but instinctively knew he would be of little use here. Knowledgeable though he was about the astral plane, I suspected that the information collected second-hand by the Society for Psychical Research would pale in comparison with the wisdom of someone who regularly walked the spirit world searching for the souls of the dead.
“Strikes Back,” I answered.
A tree appeared below me. Cradled in its branches I saw a human-sized bundle: a hide-wrapped corpse. I swooped down and settled on a branch next to it, then used my beak to pluck at the thongs that had been laced around it. After a few sharp tugs, the last thong tore free, and the buckskin robe fell open.
I looked down at the body that lay within. Strikes Back had the same hawkish nose and high cheekbones as Red Crow, and wore her hair in the same style: a single braid that lay across her shoulder, next to the rifle that was tucked in the crook of her arm. For a moment I thought I was looking into the face of a man. Certainly her countenance was grim enough. Yet her body had a woman’s curves under her dress, which was decorated at the neck and sleeves with rows of elk teeth.
Suddenly, Strikes Back opened her eyes, causing me to flutter my wings in alarm. Only one of the eyes was intact — the other was a gaping hole. When the corpse sat up, I saw why: a bullet had entered through this eye and blasted its way out of the back of her head, leaving a large and bloody hole.
Her hand shot out and clasped my leg. Forcing myself to stay calm — reminding myself that this was the medicine woman I had been seeking for so long — I met the penetrating stare of her single good eye. Perhaps she could still help me, even though she, too, was now no more than a spirit.
Strikes Back spoke before I did. Although she used her own language, I understood her perfectly.
“Red Owl,” she said. “You have come. I dreamed that you would.”
There wasn’t time to stop and think about the name she’d addressed me by. Somehow, it sounded right — it fit, just like the feathers that now covered my astral body.
“I want you to restore me to life,” I said. “You resurrected Iniskim — can you do the same for me?”
“I could lead you back to your body,” she answered. “But you would die soon afterward. Big Bear’s coup stick has caused the evil spirit in your belly to grow even larger. You would only live a short time with it inside you.”
I didn’t even think to ask how she knew about the coup stick. Instead I was busy fuming at my own stupidity. If I hadn’t tried to wriggle free from Wandering Spirit, the coup stick would have landed on my chest, and might not have killed me. Instead, it had struck my body’s weakest spot.
Strikes Back stared at me with her one good eye, as if listening to my thoughts. Then she gave me a wicked grin. “I can teach you how to heal yourself,” she said.
“You can?” Had I any awareness of my heart, I was certain I would have felt it pounding in my chest. Strikes Back had just offered me my life.
“I can help you live — but first you must do something for me.”
“What?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. The hope that had been surging inside me faded as I remembered the half-breed scout Peter, and his grim comment that he was “still paying” Strikes Back for having saved his life. I wondered what terrible service she would demand of me.
Strikes Back pointed at one of the branches that her bier lay upon. Glancing in that direction, I saw what looked like a chunk of meat impaled upon a bare branch. By the faint pulses that coursed through it, I recognized it at once as a heart — a human heart, still beating — and instinctively knew whose it was.
“Eat it,” Strikes Back said.
If my astral body had been capable of sensation, I am certain that my gorge would have risen in my throat.
“You want me to eat your heart?” I said in a horrified whisper.
“It is the only thing that will set me free. Once it is consumed, I can return to the land of the living — I can be reborn. I would have had it destroyed some time ago, but my servant found the power to refuse me. Now I have found another who can consume it for me: you.”
I didn’t trust Strikes Back. “Teach me how to rid myself of the cancer first.”
She laughed — a dry, croaking chuckle. “You are a hard man. Very well then. There is a healing song that weakens the walls between the human world and the spirit world; it will allow you to reach inside yourself and pull out the evil that is the cause of your sickness. Listen: I will teach it to you now.”
Strikes Back closed her good eye — the empty socket remained open — then began a slow chant. It was in the Blackfoot tongue, and contained many words that I did not understand, but I could feel the song’s power. Even as Strikes Back sang it, the air around us seemed to shimmer. She chanted the song only once, but when she had f
inished it was as if the song had taken root inside my head. I repeated it under my breath. I had no idea what I was whispering, but I was certain that the chant was letter-perfect. The knowledge filled me with immense joy — now I could heal my cancer!
“Good,” Strikes Back said. “Now eat my heart. I cannot lead you from the spirit world until you do.”
I swallowed. If Strikes Back was trapped here in the spirit world, then so was I. The healing song would do me little good if I couldn’t find my way back to my body again.
I hopped onto the branch where the heart was impaled, and used my beak to take a tiny bite. The heart was fresh, warm meat; blood dribbled down my beak. Somehow I choked the tiny piece down, then glanced at Strikes Back.
Her intense frown told me that it wasn’t enough. I had to consume the entire heart.
I did so, bite by bite, forcing the raw chunks of meat down. Only when I swallowed the last piece did the heart stop its quivering beat.
Strikes Back let out a soft sigh. Her body was fading — already I could see through it to the branches behind her. A realization hit me like the chill of ice water: Strikes Back was leaving — and she was not going to take me with her.
“Wait!” I said. “I thought we struck a bargain. You promised to lead me back to my body!”
Strikes Back bared her teeth in a grin. “I made no such promise. I said I would teach you the healing song, and I did. I wouldn’t have taught the song to you if I thought you were able to use it. Not to you, Red Owl — especially when you might use it to undo the Day of Changes. Better that you should remain here, lost in the spirit world.”
“Me?” I asked. “I could reverse the Day of Changes on my own?”
For just a moment, her gloating expression faltered. Then her good eye narrowed. “That is true,” she said slowly. “You have the power within you, but even if you find your body again, I doubt that you will choose to use this power. You want to live — and that is only possible if you use the song I taught you to heal your sickness. If you heal yourself, your power will vanish.
“You have to choose between your power and your life. I think that you will choose to live.”
I stared at her, defiantly meeting her eye as she slowly faded from view. Strikes Back didn’t know me that well. It was true that I wanted to live, but not at any cost. I didn’t want the weight of thousands of poor wretches who had been transformed into buffalo resting upon my conscience. I would rather die doing my duty than live with the knowledge that I was a coward.
In another instant, Strikes Back was gone. I was perched alone on a tree branch, staring down at her empty bier. The rifle still rested upon it, but little else, save for a second pair of moccasins and a knife. The possessions that had accompanied her into the afterlife were few. I avoided touching them, fearful that I would pick up some taint from them.
I was going to fly away from there in owl form, but suddenly had the feeling that this would be a terrible mistake. The landscape around me was featureless; I had no idea in which direction my salvation lay.
I happened to look down through the branches, and saw something I had not noticed before: at the base of the tree, the ground was not the trackless waste it had been at the place where I’d entered the spirit world. The hoof prints of a single horse led up to the tree, then away from it again.
I flew down to the ground — and found myself in human form once more. The owl spirit with which I had bonded seemed to have flown. I squatted down for a closer look at the tracks, and saw something which caused my heart to leap. The horse that had made the tracks was shod — and the horseshoes had been affixed with nails whose heads were shaped like tiny crosses.
Peter had visited the bier recently — and unless I missed my guess, Peter was still alive. Just as I had been living when I’d followed Sergeant Wilde into the Big Sands, so too was Peter now. He’d ridden into this desolate wasteland — and ridden out again. All I had to do to escape from this place was to follow his tracks.
I did so at a run, following the trail of hoof prints away from the tree. In places they crossed a stretch of shifting sand, or were lost among tufts of brittle grass, but by circling carefully around these obstacles I was able to pick up the tracks again.
I followed the trail for what seemed like miles, never tiring and never thirsting. Gradually, I noticed a change in my surroundings. The greyness of the landscape was lifting — I saw a clump of yellow grass here, a patch of blue sky there. The sun appeared in the sky and began to warm my shoulders, and I noticed that the sleeves of my jacket were once again red. My boots were leaving tracks in the sandy soil, and my breathing was gradually becoming more laboured, forcing me to slow my pace to a walk.
As colour and sensation returned, so too did my pain. With each step I took, the agony in my stomach grew. It felt as if a fist were gripping my intestines, twisting them into a hot, tight knot. By the time the world around me returned to normal, I found myself doubled over, barely able to take a step. In another moment I collapsed. I lay on the ground, gasping at the fierce pain, and stared stupidly at my shadow.
After several long moments, I realized that another shadow lay across it — one that was boxy and rectangular. I turned my head, and saw the Manitou Stone looming over me. Fearfully, I glanced around, but saw no sign of Wandering Spirit or any of the other Indians. I’d done it! I had found my body and was back in the land of the living — but for how long I could not say.
A few feet away from me sprawled the body of a large and magnificent buffalo. Forcing myself to my knees, I crawled over to it. I saw with relief that the mighty beast’s chest still rose and fell — Steele was alive! I could do little for him, however, since the buffalo stones that the Indians had placed at the foot of the Manitou Stone were gone. I tried to rouse Steele, but even though I gripped both of his horns, his head was too heavy to lift, let alone shake. I had no smelling salts with which to bring him back to his senses, and so I left him where he lay.
I knelt on the ground, both hands folded over the burning ache in my stomach, and looked cautiously around. The sun had risen well above the horizon, and although it was not yet noon, the tepees that I had seen on the far side of the hill were gone. I suspected, by the height of the sun, that at least three hours had passed — time enough for the Indians to have packed up their travois and gone. They’d obviously assumed that I was dead, and left my body to rot.
I ran a hand through my hair, thankful that I had not been scalped, then picked up my Stetson and jammed it back on my head. Someone or something must have been watching out for me.
I stared at the Manitou Stone, wondering what to do next. The aerograph that had been circling it was gone, either taken by the Indians or flown away on its own. Now that I had found my way back from beyond death’s door, I had to decide what to do next. I thought over the words that had appeared upon the cliff at Writing on Stone: “To end the Day of Changes, start at the beginning. Close the—”
The message had to be the one I had guessed at earlier: Close the door. It made sense to me, now. I knew now that the Manitou Stone was a portal to the astral plane — one that White Buffalo Woman had hoped to use. Chambers, who knew so much more about ley lines, must have guessed the same thing — that was why he’d tried to use the artillery piece to shatter the Manitou Stone and close the door.
A wave of nausea gripped me then, and I vomited onto the ground. When the wracking spasm had stopped, I saw that my bile was streaked with blood. Strikes Back had spoken the truth — I didn’t have long to live. I could feel the tumour in my stomach like a hard, hot lump. Strikes Back had also said I had the power to reverse the Day of Changes, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what I might do to bring this about. I wondered if I should just admit defeat and heal myself instead.
Without consciously intending to, I found myself humming the first few notes of the song Strikes Back had taught me. The song died on my lips, however, when I heard a woman’s anguished cry. Startled, I staggered to
my feet and looked over the Manitou Stone. On the other side of it, I saw the person I’d least expected to find: Stone Keeper. She was on her knees, bent down low with her long dark hair trailing over a tiny, blanket-wrapped bundle. A bloody knife lay by her side. I saw a strand of ash-white hair straggling from within the blanket, and for one horrified moment thought that Stone Keeper had killed her child. Then I saw the blood welling from Stone Keeper’s little finger, and realized what she had done. It was the custom, among the tribes of the Blackfoot Confederacy, to cut off the final joint of a finger when mourning the loss of a loved one. I realized that the blanket must be Iniskim’s shroud, and that the child was dead.
Emily looked up, and her tear-streaked eyes met mine. She seemed unsurprised to find me there. It was almost as if she had known all along that I would return from the dead — and was absorbed in the fact that her child would not.
“Stone Keeper,” I said, falling to my knees beside her. “What happened?”
“Daughter die,” she said in a listless voice. “White Buffalo Woman go to spirit world, but too late. Iniskim die.” She reached for the knife.
I grabbed her hand before she could cut off another finger joint. “Don’t,” I said softly. “You’ve already sacrificed enough.”
When she dropped the knife, I unwrapped the kerchief I’d used to bind up the wound in my palm. It was crusted with my own blood, but it was all I had. Taking Stone Keeper’s injured hand, I wrapped the cleanest portion of the cloth around her severed finger, then squeezed gently to staunch the flow of blood.
Both of us sat in silence. The pain of my cancer still wracked my stomach, but I knew my agony to be less than Stone Keeper’s. She’d lost a child — her only daughter. The chiefs had used the girl, then cast her aside. I supposed that they justified it as the sacrifice of one for the good of the many; Iniskim’s death had made possible the Day of Changes, and the newly transformed buffalo would feed their people for years to come. Yet as I sat beside the cold, dark Manitou Stone, staring down at the tiny corpse in its frayed blanket, I cared little for their reasons. I could only see the terrible consequences.