by Andy Conway
“I am not Bright Star Falling,” she sang. “I am Katherine Bright.”
She didn’t know she was calling out to the spirits till she came to herself again, half way down the long road they called New Street. The crowds lined the sidewalks, ragged children, men and women, looking and pointing. A little girl cried and covered her eyes and her mother laughed.
“Are you well, Bright Star Falling?” said Ella, daughter of Rocky Bear, wife of Bronco Bill.
Katherine nodded.
Ella let go of the reins and patted her on the arm. Katherine could see from the looks the winyanpi exchanged that she’d frightened them.
“I am Katherine Bright!” she cried, and felt tears on her face.
Sharpshooter Lillian Smith came speeding alongside, her taffeta dress bunching up, making her look even fatter than she was already, red silk neckerchief flouncing, her brown curls peeking out from under her wide-brimmed sun hat. She called out to Ella, “Tell that crazy bitch to quit her hollering. She’s spooking the horses!”
The sharp-faced prairie pig sneered and kicked her horse on, racing up front, no doubt to tell Colonel ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody all about it, like the snide little two-face she was.
Katherine spat in her direction but said nothing as the procession turned left, up Corporation Street.
A man with a camera on a tripod, bent over, cloaked in black, flashed pictures that spooked the horses some more, but they clopped up the hill, which was like an old friend to her, smiling and comforting her and saying Don’t you know me?
As they sped to a canter and headed out of the city centre, she knew that she had come from this town — not from the sky at all — and that it was here she would find out who Katherine Bright really was.
But she wondered if, when she came face to face with herself, she might turn away in fear of what she saw.
3
MRS HUDSON CAUGHT HER reflection in the sheen of the photograph. Through Buffalo Bill, she saw herself: old and tired, at the end of it all.
The loft room was empty. Everything packed up. A lone cyclamen plant on the windowsill, deep pink flames defiant of winter.
Colonel William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody gazed out from the photograph, a twinkle in his eyes: the man who had taken the Wild West to Queen Victoria and was on the verge of conquering Europe.
A hundred and thirty years ago.
“What a thing to see,” she said. “Right here in Birmingham. Just imagine it.”
Mitch shrugged, stroking his waxed moustache into Dali points. He was already far, far away. Just this last chore to perform before he too retired.
She wondered where, or when, he was going to go, but didn’t like to ask.
She shuffled the stack of photographs – the dramatis personae of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West – descending on Birmingham on that day in 1887: Annie Oakley, kind eyes and a warm smile; sharpshooter Lillian Smith, a squat girl with a severe fringe and sour face; Bronco Bill, dressed half-cowboy and half-Indian, with his beautiful native wife Ella; Chief Red Shirt, so handsome, with eyes a woman could swoon into. No wonder Queen Victoria had fallen for him.
And Katherine.
Katherine Bright stared out from the tintype photograph, her lips set to a grimace, her eyes blazing defiance. A Native American woman with fair hair. Bright Star Falling, it said at the bottom of the photograph. Lakota interpreter. But it was Katherine Bright. There was no mistaking it.
What she had seen was etched on her face. She had been banished to the far-flung Plains with no memory of who she was or what she’d done. Yet somehow she’d fought her way back to Birmingham.
“The poor girl,” Mrs Hudson sighed. “What on earth did we do to her?”
“She knows what she did,” said Mitch.
“That’s the problem. She doesn’t know at all.”
Mitch held out his hand. “We have to go.”
She gave him the photographs, all but one, and he tucked them into his folder with the other papers.
“Twelve noon. First of November, 1977,” she said, fixing the date in her mind.
Mitch repeated it, intoning it almost as a chant. She took his cold hand. The room folded in on itself with a waft of concentrated vinegar, ripe and overpowering.
Darkroom chemicals.
Furniture appeared around the room, and a bench along one wall with chemical trays. Photographs hanging from a line. The cyclamen plant no longer on the windowsill.
She let go of Mitch’s hand.
Pete Wethers was sitting in an armchair, smoking a cigarette. “Damn,” he said, “it’s creepy the way you two appear out of nowhere like that.”
He looked softer, Mrs Hudson thought. Family life had blurred his edges. Happiness suited him. She allowed herself a swell of pride at her role in that. Giving him this apartment had saved him from the bread line; giving him a role in their cabal had given him a purpose.
“Have you been waiting long?” she asked.
“An hour. Sandra’s back in a minute.”
Mrs Hudson sank into the other armchair with a sigh. “Let’s get to business then.”
Mitch took a wooden chair, the folder on his lap, and said, “We’d like you to meet Buffalo Bill on New Street.”
Pete’s mouth fell open. Mrs Hudson pushed the photograph into his hand. Pete nodded as he scanned it. Native Americans riding down New Street.
“November third, 1887, to be exact,” she said.
“It should be easy,” said Mitch.
Pete glared at Mitch, and Mrs Hudson knew it was going to be more difficult than they had imagined.
“Ninety years? I’ve never gone that far,” Pete said. “You know that.”
“You need to get over this block,” said Mitch. “It’s perfectly easy to travel outside your own lifetime. We’ve all done it. I’m doing it now.”
“You’re not born yet?”
“I’m born next year. 1978. But I’ve gone back to the thirties, and even further.”
“So why me?” asked Pete. “Why don’t you go and get her?”
Mrs Hudson wondered just how much they should tell him without compromising the plan. “We think she might recognize us.”
“She’ll recognize me too,” said Pete. “She broke my bloody camera.”
In 1966. Yes. That had happened. Would Katherine remember that? Would she know Pete Wethers when he turned up in 1887?
“We think she’ll probably not remember most of what happened,” said Mitch. “Amnesia is a feature of the, er, process she’s been through. But she’s more likely to remember us than you.”
“And why’s that? What did you do to her?”
Of course, they’d done nothing to Katherine. Rachel had sent her through decades to a remote corner of the world. Rachel had banished her. But it had been in self-defence. Katherine had tried to murder Rachel.
So why do I feel guilty? Mrs Hudson thought.
Mitch leaned forward. “Do you love your wife, Pete?”
“Course I do. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“And your child?”
“Are you taking the Mick? ’Course I love my daughter.”
“That’s why you’re the best for this. Newly married, a lovely daughter. You’ve got a lot to hang onto.”
“Good reasons for not travelling to a place I don’t know. A place that’s risky.”
Mrs Hudson leaned in, trying to pour honey over them. “The thing about Katherine is that she can have an adverse effect on the minds of men who come into contact with her.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s a succubus,” said Mitch. “She will seduce you, use you for her own ends and devour you.”
“We don’t know that,” laughed Mrs Hudson. “Mitch has some rather extreme theories on the matter, but she has led at least one man astray, and her own poor self, I might add. But, we have no idea if that’s still a part of her, or if she presents any danger whatsoever. That’s what we’d like you to find out.”
“So you need a happy family man? Someone who won’t be tempted.”
“Plus she smashed your camera in 1966,” said Mitch. “So you probably hate her.”
Pete stared at the photograph of Bright Star Falling, Lakota interpreter. “You need to tell me what happened to her.”
Mitch handed over the file. “Everything is here.”
Inside was a sheaf of dense type, a wad of Victorian banknotes, a letter, and a few printed calling cards bearing the name Peter Wethers, Esq.
“All you have to do,” said Mrs Hudson, “is use the letters of introduction to get yourself attached to Buffalo Bill’s tour as a reporter, and then talk to her. Make an assessment of her psychological profile.”
“Her what?”
“Find out if she’s still crazy,” said Mitch.
The door sounded downstairs. Pete’s wife returning.
“We’ll go,” said Mrs Hudson. “Good luck.”
They both stood. Pete left the folder on the armchair, got up too and walked to the door.
“Oh, if you have to contact us,” Mrs Hudson added. “Meet us at the station.”
Pete paused, looking from her to Mitch, looking for clues. “The station? Why there?”
Mrs Hudson shrugged and smiled. “This room won’t be in use after tomorrow. My tomorrow.”
There. She’d said it. It was the end.
Pete nodded and left, shutting the door behind him, his footsteps drumming down the stairs.
“Are we doing the right thing? Mrs Hudson asked. “If Katherine remembers who she is, then... who knows? She has such power.”
“It’s a fact finding mission. He’ll be back here safe and sound in no time.”
“And what if he falls for her?”
“There is that danger. You know what she is,” Mitch said.
Mrs Hudson sighed. “I do hope he loves his wife and his little girl as much as he says.”
“And his love is stronger than Katherine’s magic.”
She reached out and took his hand. “I think you underestimate the power of love.”
She closed her eyes and took a breath, and in a moment, the smell of concentrated vinegar disappeared leaving only the sweet scent of cyclamen.
4
THE PROCESSION WOUND its way north, Buffalo Bill riding an open carriage at the head, waving to every person in the city, the Cowboy Band playing a relentless marching crescendo that didn’t let up for an hour.
They came out of their hovels and beer houses all around, lining the dirt streets to see this parade of cowboys and Indians. All four miles from Birmingham’s city centre, the hawkers handed out flybills. By sunset there would be no one in the entire city who didn’t know that Buffalo Bill’s Wild West was here for three weeks, shows twice daily.
Katherine scanned their dirty faces for someone she might recognize. Would someone call out to her? Would a voice cry out, “Katherine! Where have you been?”
She had waited so long, for this. And now, she did not know if it was home or not. As the show had played for months in London, she’d wondered with growing intensity at the next date on their tour.
Birmingham.
It was a name she knew even though she had no memory of it. It sparkled in her mind with possibility and she knew this was a place she might find her past.
She had no memory of her life before that moment she had woken, lying on the plains. Sometimes the spirits would whisper in her ear, but their whispers were always blown away on the wind, and their visions danced always on her shoulder, just out of sight. When she listened, the wind would mock her. When she turned, they would disappear, like frightened deer.
All the way to Aston Lower Grounds, they gawped and cheered, but no one called her name. The crowd watched them file through to the open stretch of plain where the tent gang had already raised most of the camp.
Two steam trains had pulled the entire entourage into New Street Station that morning, fresh from London and the gruelling four-month blur of shows. Two hundred performers and their horses alighted for the parade, while the trains had continued on to Aston to set up the arena and camp: a town of caravans, marquee tents and tipis, edging a giant arena and grandstand.
Katherine marvelled at the organisation. It was like an army on the move. Greater and more organized than the army that had come to Little Bighorn to be slaughtered. But it was not as great as the camp by the banks of that river, when it had seemed that the entire Lakota nation had come out to live free for one last summer.
She clutched the white ghost hanging at her breast in a tight leather bundle. A reflex, she noticed, every time she thought about Little Star and the years she'd lived with him.
Buffalo Bill jumped from his carriage and clapped his white gloved hands together with a yelp of delight, greeting his marquee tent with its buffalo head and Stars and Stripes hanging above the door, as if he was returning home.
Katherine filed by the smaller tents and caravans of the white performers, then the giant commissariat tent, where the kitchens were already assembled, to feed the two hundred performers their three meals a day.
She housed her horse at the canvas stables, whispering in its ear.
Forgive me for scaring you. I felt my home cry out to me.
Pulling her blanket tighter around her, she trudged along to the Indian camp, passing the show buffalo. Eighteen of them, sad looking. The last of their race, shipped across the ocean to be gawked at by peanut-chomping crowds before they disappeared from the face of the Earth forever.
Like us. Like the Lakota.
Even sadder were the ten elk in their pen. She passed the five Texan steers, and the handful of donkeys, and the two deer, and remembered the pleasure of hunting on the plains.
But I am not Lakota.
The tipis pierced the sky, being raised, one by one, by those who had not been chosen to ride through the city to advertise themselves to the populace.
She strode on along the rows, ignoring the looks they gave her, the rumour of her vision already buzzing through the camp like a swarm of angry bees.
All of the tipis were raised except her own, the poles dumped on the grass, the buffalo hide rolled up. She choked back a sob of anger and did not look for help.
Her tipi was smaller than the others, which were built for families. She laid out her buffalo hide on the flat grass and put the north-south poles across it, pointing to the south, and the door pole across that at an angle, its tip pointing to the west, where the sun was already sinking in the English sky. She bound them together with a clove knot and looped it under and over the poles, her fingers cold, red and cracked.
It was winter here, but not so cold as the winter in Montana, and her belly was full, for which she was grateful. A memory of pitching her tipi on the flight to Canada, after the battle of the Little Bighorn, came to her, unbidden, making her shiver. The saddest of times.
The cold, the hunger, the loneliness.
She shook it off. This was not so cold. Only damp. England was a wet country. She had known that before their ship arrived. She had always known that. She had been here before.
“Bronco Bill’s squaw tells me you had some kinda vision.”
Two Face Lillian on her horse, grinning her pig-face grin.
Katherine ignored her and knelt down to tie the poles together, her knees cracking under her as she strained so tight, gritting her teeth and swearing under her breath, imaging the rope was around Two Face Lillian’s neck. It was firm and tight in a moment.
“Some kinda crazy talk vision, like you’s some kinda medicine woman or something.”
She let the pain fade from her fingers before she stepped up and away, stamping her moccasined foot on the base of the north-south poles and pulling with all her might at the straw rope. The poles rose to meet her, and Lillian Smith, the pig-faced sharp shooter, wheeled her horse back and circled, still grinning.
Katherine tottered, straining with the effort, and caught a glimpse of the winyanpi watching h
er, but gritted her teeth again, refusing to ask for their help. The poles almost fell, but with a cry of anger she pulled them so they pierced the sky.
“You ain’t no medicine woman,” Lil taunted.
Triumphant, determined they should not fall now she had the poles erect, she quickly wrapped the rope around her arm, like a coiled snake, pulling it taut. The poles stayed fast. She felt Two Face Lil willing them to collapse.
“Only chiefs can be medicine men. Even I know that. Only men. Hell, they’re medicine men, not medicine women.”
Katherine lifted her foot from the base of the poles and gently shifted the north pole away, letting it dig into the grass every inch or two to keep it all upright, until she had inched it to the north. She moved inside her pyramid of light and positioned the door pole a little, then went back to the north pole again till it was good and true.
Out of the corner of her eye she sensed Two Face Lil’s disappointment, and smiled to herself.
“You’re just a redhead white woman turned squaw. No better than the rest of us, even if you stick your nose in the air like a cat doing its business.”
It was easy now to add the other poles, resting them against the apex in turn, creating her tipi’s skeleton.
Two Face Lil turned sharply at the sound of an approaching man on horseback and beamed a sickly smile.
Katherine looked up to see Red Shirt astride his horse. He nodded to Two Face Lil and she beamed her false hyena smile as he jumped to the grass.
“Bright Star Falling,” he said, in Lakotan. “Why do you raise your tipi alone?”
“It’s not a problem for me, Chief Red Shirt,” she answered, looking into his eyes.
Every winyan would avert her eyes when talking to a man, especially a chief, but this was the one thing she’d never do. She was Lakota in her heart, but she wouldn’t do that.
Two Face Lil looked from one to the other, like a dog watching a conversation she could never understand and only hoping they were talking about her dinner. “Now don’t go thinking you’s special now, just ’cause you can talk that Indian baby talk, y’hear?”
Katherine smiled, seeing the truth: that poor Two Face Lil was in love with Red Shirt but she would destroy her love rather than ever speak it.