Bear stopped and turned back to him. “Come to the feast. We have cold beer that never makes you angry and you never need to piss away, we have pit-roasted buffalo sweet and melting on your tongue, we have venison chili strong to burn thoughts out of your head and aches out of your bones—name it and you’ll find your wish set in front of you. We have . . . other . . . joys, full measure. Resurrection of the flesh, I think you call it, the Muslim paradise. What point is there to dying, if you can’t enjoy it? Forget Luther and Calvin and that austere Winter God. Heroes have earned better.”
Dennis didn’t move.
Loki, name out of the long-ago, before your Viking ancestors took the Christian God. Red-haired liar, schemer for the pure hell of it, brewer of trouble in Asgard. Loki the Fox, not a Naskeag spirit.
Dennis still smelled fox. What’s the Naskeag equivalent? Native Americans all have their liar trickster spirits, Coyote or Fox or Raven, that bent-over pictogram guy dancing with the flute and the big hard-on. No reason to trust this guy.
“Damn you, Carlsson, get your sorry ass back here!”
Faint and echoing off hard stone, Tranh’s voice called from beyond the woods. Susan’s voice, you sleep with a girl, it puts you on a first-name basis. It’d take him a while to think of her as Susan. Clear away the baggage that both of them had toted. He smiled, seeing her sharp brown face with the vertical nose that wouldn’t hold up a pair of sunglasses, that Gook face, she called it. A good face, a strong face, he’d like seeing that every morning for a long time to come.
Bear, maybe-Bear, shook his head. “You still think you live. You still think you can go back. I should have waited to make you whole.”
The bear-man waved one hand. Dennis felt his toes and arch and heel and ankle freeze, turn hard and rigid and numb, plastic again. Dead again.
Dennis shook his head. Still keeping his sights on the bear-man’s chest, he eased sideways toward his sense-memory of Susan’s voice, foot touching the heavy war-club lying beside that tree. Movement flashed in the corner of his eye, Dennis turned, and now Bear stood between him and the faint voice, blocking his way, without bothering to cross the woodland between.
“Dead. I do not wish to show you more, but you force me.”
Again the bear-man waved his hand. Pain shot through Carlsson’s chest, the Webley dropped from numb hands, and he crouched after it. His hands didn’t work right. He saw blood, blood down his left wrist, blood soaking his pants, running from his side.
But he could still move, still force his hands to find the cold heavy bulk of the Webley, pick it up, raise it against fire in his ribs and belly and arm. He brought the sights back on that shining ochre chest, forced the hammer back to half-cock and then full cock.
“You are true Bear, true warrior’s heart. But those are not the wounds that killed you. You fought then as you fight now, spirit against spirit, Bear’s strength beyond all hope. The spirit enemies did not kill you. They never reached your soul.”
Lightning flashed in the back of Carlsson’s head, and the world went black. Words echoed there in the darkness. “Friendly fire, you call it. Confusion, small space, bodies flying, spinning away from one foe to meet another. The child shot you. One of the spirit creatures hit her as she fired. She is hurt, but will live.”
Blackness, silence, voice again, echoing. “You are dead.”
“Carlsson, you muscle-brained overgrown lout, I know you’re in there. Don’t make me come in after you!”
Susan’s voice, no doubt of that. Still weaker than before, as if further away. On the far side of Bear. Of maybe-Bear, Dennis forced himself to remember. He remembered the rank fox-smell. He remembered the red fur. Spirit Bear had been silver, out on Spirit Point, silver except for the brown muzzle and black nose of a Maine black bear. Spirit Bear had smelled like a bear.
The Spirits lie as easily as men lie.
Dennis forced his eyes open. He focused on the bear-man in front of him. He brought the sights back up, two-handed grip, front sight, rear sight, clear, centered on the fuzzy red bear-man standing between him and Susan.
“You must quit calling to her. If she comes here, she will die. You . . . are . . . dead!”
His finger found the trigger. He pulled hard.
The Webley boomed like thunder and the blackness took his eyes again and he smelled lightning. His sight cleared. The bear-man stood in front of him, holding a shiny lead slug in his palm. The spirit shrugged and shook his head.
“Don’t blame me. I warned you.”
Dennis holstered the Webley and picked up that Naskeag war-club. The spirit vanished. Dennis stood alone in the autumn woods, the club heavy in his hands. He lowered it, but kept it balanced in his right hand, ready.
No reason to trust this place.
“You sorry son-of-a-bitch, you owe me!”
He took one step and then another, following her voice as it seemed to fade into the distance.
XXIX
“You sorry son-of-a-bitch, you promised!”
Susan whispered it again, repeating. Her teeth chattered, the chill of this place eating into her heart. The cave was changing around her, she could feel that damned spirit path closing, the echoes turning harder, the walls turning darker and the shadows lighter until she could see stone again as if those shadows no longer led into further and yet further doors.
Just one more try, and then she was going to step into that circle. To hell with Aunt Jean’s warning. Take the chance of finding him, wherever he wandered, however bad the spirit lands might be. Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, or something.
“Damn you Carlsson, I love you. Please come back.”
Nothing. She felt coldness trickling down her cheeks, icy tears. She lifted her right foot, closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, and stepped.
Her foot never came down. Something hit her, full-body, heavy, big, hard muscles under softness, overpowering strength, she hadn’t taken that gun from Alice, she didn’t have a knife or even a sharp rock, dammit, she started to claw and bite and then her nose woke her brain and she wrapped herself around that furry male stink as if she was trying to force it through her jacket into her skin.
Carlsson.
“You bastard.”
She kept crying. She kept her face pressed into his jacket and let it soak up the tears. His arms wrapped tight around her, something poking into her back, hard, sharp, but she didn’t care. Her feet didn’t reach the ground, no use for support, so she wrapped her legs around him too and squeezed with them. Never let go.
Warm breath in her ear. “I love you too.” Whisper. A kiss on her hair. Movement, walking. Hands shifting to her armpits, lifting her, peeling her off his body, setting her down. She felt cold hardness at her back, stone or concrete, supporting, she squatted against it and let it hold her. She opened her eyes and looked up.
Carlsson. Her nose hadn’t lied.
Darkness framed him, with a halo of flickering light, candles. He reeked of burned gunpowder and the biting aromatic smoke of sweetgrass. Other people moved at the edge of her focus. Bulky shape, white hair, round wrinkled brown face, Aunt Jean. Small skinny shape, black hair, sharp brown young face, Alice. They were still in that cave.
Carlsson squatted and felt his ankle, testing that army surplus foot of his, then feeling his ribs and left arm and the back of his head. “Lying bastard.”
He stood up. He stared at his left hand, blinking, at a club he held. That must be what had been poking into her spine. He set it down, pulled out that huge British pistol and broke it open, checking the cartridges, and then shoved it back into his holster. He turned to Aunt Jean.
“Red-furred son-of-a-bitch tried to tell me I was dead. Looked like a bear’s head on a man’s body, but he smelled of fox. I called him Loki. You got a Naskeag name for the bastard?”
Aunt Jean shook her head with a frown and wrinkled nose, not really disagreeing, maybe didn’t like his army cussing. “Yes, your ancestors would have called him Loki. I will
not speak our name for him, not here, not where I might bring him. Perfide, that one, never to be trusted. Always he does what amuses him. You must tell me your story.”
Shivering again, teeth chattering, Susan felt the stone closing in around her. “P-p-please, can we just get the hell out of here? I’m c-c-cold.”
Alice materialized in front of her, hands on each side of Susan’s forehead, warm, soothing, flowing strength down her spine and into her legs. “Eagle, remember? Traps? She needs to see the sky. We can talk later.”
“Vraiment, I forget. More and more these days, I forget. You must remember for me.”
They gathered things and snuffed candles and snuffed that smoldering sweetgrass braid and gathered them and filled Alice’s backpack and passed out of the cave into the cellar. The door and lock and bar clanged heavy and cold behind them and Susan found she could breathe again. Through the musty cellar shadows and up the steps and out the portico door into gray storm-sky and spitting snow turned bright by contrast and clean winter wind and that door locked guarding its secrets and she almost felt like she could fly.
Now Alice and Aunt Jean were the cold ones, their clothing soaked from the impossible seawater that had tried to drown them, and the four of them hurried through a bitter wind to the boathouse and its welcoming stoves and warm mixed air of breakfast and woodsmoke. Susan clung to Carlsson, to that big slow quiet man who had become an essential part of her life. Not dependent on him, not looking for protection, but claiming her property. He was hers, and nobody was going to threaten that. Ever.
A scream overhead, a second, and she looked up. Eagles. A pair of eagles glowed as if in full sunshine, soaring, stooping, tumbling in mid-air, locking talons in their acrobatic mating dance. Wrong season for that, she thought, and then realized why they were glowing. No sun. That was Eagle, Spirit Eagle and her Mate, celebrating. They plummeted from the deep gray December sky, flared their wings, and landed in the tall pines to either side of the boathouse roof.
Susan shook herself, as if waking from a trance. They still waited in their trees. They still glowed.
Aunt Jean stood in the snow, staring at her. The old Naskeag witch nodded and winked a smile. Just that. Susan felt a blush darkening her brown skin. Newly-weds, that wink said. Worry about the marriage license when you’re pregnant. Naskeags live by older laws.
The eagles leaped up from their trees and climbed into the storm and vanished with another scream. She had their blessing—nothing else much mattered.
They’d be back.
Susan let go of Carlsson’s hand and grabbed Alice by the wrist, the right wrist, not the one she had been testing with a grimace and tentative fingers. “Come on, girl. Get you into the warm and check out those ribs. Carlsson has bandages and antiseptic and all that crap in the treatment room. Unless you think the stuff he’d use for animals isn’t good enough for people.”
“I’ll be okay.” Alice tugged back, but Susan held on.
“No deal. I’m not a doctor, don’t even play one on TV, but I’ve had three courses in backwoods emergency medicine. Fieldwork pseudo-doc, for when the closest road is two days’ hike by washed-out mule trail. And I work with animals, kid. I know the kind of shit those claws get into. Literally. Your tetanus shots up-to-date?”
She paused, remembering Aunt Jean’s plea. This kid needs an older sister. “And when your wrist and ribs are up to it, I know some wicked ski trails out on Eagle Point. Shouldn’t have any more trouble with phantom snowmobiles. Okay?”
The kid relaxed and let Susan pull her through the boathouse door.
o0o
Dennis watched them vanish into the treatment room, latch clicking behind them. She’d be back, Susan, that full-body hug had promised a welcome-home celebration worthy of . . . what? He fumbled for superlatives. Worthy of them, anyway. She’d made it plain she was glad to have him back—back and safe and whole.
Aunt Jean nodded at the closed door. “Oui, I think that one pushes people away because she is afraid they will leave anyway. This way, it is her choice. Be kind to her. She is worth the trouble, n’est ce pas?”
“We’re working on trust. That’s why I had to come back.”
That earned him a lifted eyebrow. “You might not, without her?”
“Temptation, ma tante. That spirit world looked interesting. And I had two feet again, at least for a while. But that was probably a lie.”
“Probably.” She pointed her chin at the club he still carried. “That, that is not a lie. Bear has strong magic, to let you bring a thing from the spirit lands back with you. May I look at it?”
He handed it to her—heavy, smooth gnarled wood dark with rubbed oil or fat, a sticky coat of pitch wrapping the grip, those vicious flints set into the swollen end with pitch glue. Something out of a caveman cartoon, except it had felt light in his hands in battle, dancing balanced like a fine sword, hungry. Like a bear’s claws on the end of his arm.
She set it on the kitchen table, closed her eyes, and ran her fingers over it, head cocked to one side. She smiled and shook her head in wonder. “Vraiment, Bear has strong magic. Très strong. Did you threaten . . . the one you called Loki . . . with this? In the myths of your ancestors, this might have been Thor’s hammer. Deep underneath, all stories are one story, all spirit lands are one land. I wonder how this came to you.”
Dennis thought. The fight, the spirit world, it all jumbled together, confused snatches of freeze-frame like combat often settled in his memory. “I shot at them, all six rounds, then that was in my hands and I used it. Or it used me. I think I picked it up in the cave, rather than in the spirit lands. Maybe that’s why I could bring it back.”
He paused, thinking. “That’s really all I know. I don’t even remember holstering the Webley. Loki, or whatever, he kept his distance. He wasn’t afraid of the pistol. When I picked up the club, he vanished.”
She nodded, eyes open now and studying him across the table. “Strong magic. Keep it close. I think you do not need Naskeag spirits to help you, you and Eagle. Our ancestors set the proper clan to guard Spirit Point.”
She paused and studied him some more. “Remember the lies. Always remember the lies. This land needs the protection of your clan. This land needs Eagle to preserve its wildness. Do not let lies tempt you away from guarding us. The one you know as Loki will offer much, but he always cheats in the giving. Even though giving costs him nothing.”
He studied her face in return. That bruise—she was going to have a black eye, come tomorrow. “Are you hurt? You need to visit Dr. Tranh’s clinic?” He nodded toward the treatment room.
“Eh? This?” She ran fingers over her cheek, testing. “I am old and fat and slow and my hands shake and I think I know everything. It is good that I be reminded of these things, oui? And it is good that young Alice learns she is not perfect, either. She needs more than skill with a gun. If she had kept drumming, the spirits could not have reached us. I will tell her of this thing.”
She pulled out a cigarette, lit it with a kitchen match from the tray high on the stove back, and blew smoke in the four directions, muttering in Naskeag. Then some Latin, he didn’t know it, and finally English, “May God bless this house and guard it. May God guide the souls who live on this land and guard it. World without end, amen.”
A shiver ran down his spine, as if some spirit had touched him and spread into the walls of the old boathouse from the sea and stone and forest beyond. He felt magic, power, blessing, not empty religious noise. Ghost Point, Spirit Point, this was truly sacred ground—these rocks had been strange long before any whiteskin God walked this land.
Aunt Jean stood there, studying his face. “You still fear the memories, fear the nightmares, oui? Fear what might come of them? You do not know if you dare to love, dare to sleep with love? You think you might hurt her? Trust Bear, trust Eagle. They know what they are doing.”
Dennis closed his eyes and sighed, feeling tension leak out of his shoulders. Yes, he’d feared that.
“Mrrrt?” He rubbed against her legs, not just the ankle polish but head-butts and more sniffs. Strange. He didn’t pay much attention to people . . . .
Aunt Jean looked down at the cat and shook her head. “Eh bien, I think Sojourner Truth has been advertising. Our girl-cat would like to meet your boy-cat. I do not know what color they would be, a black mother and orange father. Sort of like you and Dr. Tranh, eh?” And she grinned at him, an earthy knowing grin that answered any lingering questions he might have had about her and Frenchy LeClaire. No, all the Haskell Witches weren’t lesbian.
The treatment-room door opened and two giggling girls walked out. Tranh’s Vietnamese nose and eyes aside, they could have been sisters. Dennis didn’t know how old Susan was, had never asked, but with that “Doctor” and the initials after her name, she had to be thirty, give or take a few. Fifteen years between the two girls, twice Alice’s age. He never would have guessed, to look at them. She’d age well . . . .
Tranh nodded to Aunt Jean. “Doesn’t look like she broke anything. Any sign of infection, or if those ribs don’t quiet down in a day or so, get her to a real doctor. Any other patients?” She narrowed her eyes and studied Dennis.
“I’m fine. Aunt Jean thinks she’s fine. Ask again after they’ve warmed up and dried out. Cold’s an anesthetic—I’ve hurt myself, working outside, never known it until I saw the blood.”
“Non, my children. We leave now. This was important, She-Who-Swims-Dark-Waters was important, but we have other duties. A fire burned last night, an old trailer up near Grants’ Corners, a mother and two children now have no home.” She noticed the look that flashed across Susan’s face. “Non. Not arson, a bad heater. But they need a roof over their heads, and food, and clothing. These things will not grow out of the snowdrifts without help.”
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