Touchstone Season Two Box Set

by Andy Conway

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s an order, Beadle. There’s too much at stake here to make a palaver over some drunken foreigner getting out of hand. It’s all taken care of now and there’ll be no more fuss.”

  Xavier Varley stepped in with a soothing voice like treacle. “I think under the circumstances it might be best to hire as many carriages as you need to escort every one of them back to their camp. Closed carriages. With a police escort.”

  Trevis nodded and released his grip on Beadle’s coat sleeve. “Excellent idea. We’ll take their horses back with them, but we don’t want anyone seeing a band of cowboys and Indians riding back across the city. And that includes Colonel Cody too. I hear he’s rather partial to giving out a stump speech at every street corner. See to it, Beadle.”

  Trevis turned his back and engaged Varley in low tones, no doubt to debate the exact architecture of the spider’s web of favours that would cover the whole affair.

  Beadle trudged over to Macpherson, anger boiling his liver, and patted his sergeant on the shoulder, whispering that there was no need for statements.

  Macpherson looked puzzled, but one glance at the two Chief Superintendents in their top hats was enough. He snapped his notebook closed and shoved it in his pocket.

  “So what happens now, sir?”

  “The show goes on,” said Beadle.

  He drew his team of constables together and told them what they had to do, and he heard Buffalo Bill instructing his performers, forbidding any of them to talk about this. Ever.

  They would be taken back to Aston and continue with their Wild West show for another three weeks, during which time numerous shows would accommodate policemen and their families, and no one would ever know what had happened this night.

  The Chief Superintendents rode off into the night, no doubt to converse over brandy and cigars. A fleet of Clarence carriages arrived to escort all the cowboys and all the Indians back to Aston, a constable riding shotgun alongside each cabman, and the curtains drawn.

  When they had all gone and only his own carriage waited, Beadle climbed the wooden steps to the dovecote again.

  “Sir?”

  He ignored his sergeant, pushed the door open and peered inside the round room, striking a match to see nothing but the inside of a great barrel made of brick.

  There was no sign that Bright Star Falling had ever been there. No. Wait. Something there on the floor.

  He crouched down, squinting in the light.

  A feather.

  He turned it over in the match light. A dove feather surely, and exactly what one might expect to find in a dovecote. But this white feather was larger than any dove’s feather, and its upper third was black. It was more like an eagle feather. A red spot too, painted on. Or perhaps just a blotch of clay.

  The match guttered, scorched his fingers and dropped to the floor, plunging the room into darkness.

  He pocketed the feather and felt his way back to the door and the Moseley night beyond it, grateful that he wasn’t required to make any sense of it.

  Epilogue

  THE FOG CLEARED AND Katherine inhaled a familiar scent. Sweet honeysuckle. Breathing charm. But also oil and smoke and steam, and just the hint of fresh tea.

  A station platform, a cluster of huts across the silver tracks, a rest room behind her.

  A board that said KINGS HEATH.

  She knew this place. She had been here before, and she knew that she was no longer in 1887, but also that she was not yet in her own time, the time she had known as home. This was outside of time.

  This was the station at the end of time.

  She looked up and down the platform, but there was no one else there. The fog circled the station so she could see nothing beyond a hundred-yard circle, the silver tracks leading into nothing but cloud.

  Music. And the cosy percussion of cutlery.

  She pushed the door to the rest room and entered to find a tearoom that she recognized immediately.

  The nice old lady behind the counter smiled to her.

  “Renee,” she said.

  “Hello, Katherine, my dear. You’ve been away a while.”

  She found her feet walking across to the marble counter, where Renee was already pouring a cup of tea from the giant urn. She slid the bone china cup and saucer across to her.

  “Eleven years,” she said.

  “Is it really that long?” said Renee. “My, how the time flies. You’re...”

  Renee stopped herself, looking Katherine up and down. Her white woman’s dress was dirty and torn in places, and she could feel the dirt and tears caked on her face. Her hands were filthy.

  “Well, you’re looking like you’ve been through the wars, if you don’t mind me saying so, bab.”

  Katherine smiled, inhaling the sweet fragrance of the tea. “Yes. It’s been a bit of an adventure.”

  “Are you taking the same train as your gentleman friend?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “He’s been waiting a while.” Renee nodded to the man who was sitting behind Katherine’s right shoulder.

  She turned and expected to see Peter Wethers. But it wasn’t him.

  A candle on the table lit his face, carved out of red flint and he sat with a cup of tea before him, dressed in a black suit and derby hat, a single eagle feather hanging from his ear.

  Katherine took her cup and saucer and sat opposite him, lowering her eyes in deference. “Tatanka Iyotanke,” she said.

  Sitting Bull.

  “So, it is you.” He raised a finger as if to bless her, pointing to the space between her eyes. “Did you find your home?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then why are you not there?”

  “I’m nearly there,” she said. “I think this is the last stop before home.”

  He nodded, satisfied.

  “But why are you here?” she asked. “Why are you waiting at this station?”

  “I am not here,” he said. “There is no station. There is no train. You know this.”

  She nodded. It seemed so true. She raised the cup to her lips and tasted the tea, savouring it. Beautiful.

  “I am in my lodge at Madison Square Garden in New York. I am touring with Buffalo Bill in his Wild West show,” he said. “This is a vision. I will go home to my reservation and tell my people that I have seen you and you have told me there is a way for us to find freedom from the white man again.”

  “But I haven’t said that.”

  A train came from somewhere beyond the fog, hissing steam, its engine grinding to a halt at the platform outside.

  “You are here,” said Sitting Bull. “You have shown me a way forward. That is what this means. I will tell them you came to me again.”

  “They won’t believe you. They never trusted me. I have a bad heart.”

  Sitting Bull smiled. “You remember my vision about the soldiers riding into the camp upside down. It was fulfilled. We killed Long Hair and all his soldiers. That was a great day. I shall tell my people to prepare for one final act of rebellion.”

  “It will end in death,” she said.

  “I have seen the entire Lakota nation, dancing, driving back the whites with our dance.”

  “It is a dance of death.”

  “Then it shall be a good day to die. To die free, gazing at the open sky with the eagle above us. I will not die on a reservation, in chains, drinking coffee, getting fat on bacon.” He stood up and said, “I shall remember you, Bright Star Falling.”

  “Where are you going?”

  The train whistled.

  “The future calls me,” he said, and stepped outside.

  She stared down at her tea, the milk swirling, hypnotizing her. She wanted to run but she could not move.

  The white ghost at her breast.

  She hooked it over her head and examined the leather bundle.

  Little Star had saved her, just as he had prophesied in his dream. She remembered him telling her excitedly how he’d fal
len from the sky, that morning after the Battle of the Rosebud.

  I fell down and down and down to a building that was shaped like a totem pole. I flew like a swooping bird straight through a hole in the roof and I was inside it. It was as tall as a tipi, but so dark inside. A round room. Like being inside a beehive. And you were there, wearing the dress and bonnet of a white woman, and there was a white man and a white woman there too. The man pointed a gun at you and he made to kill you, but I struck him and counted coup like a warrior.

  He had hugged her with such sudden ferocity, she had been amazed at how real his dream was to him.

  My sweet sister. You looked so scared and lost and afraid. I was happy to save you.

  It was time to let him go.

  She pulled open the leather bundle and emptied out his lock of black hair.

  She pressed it to her lips and said, “Thechihila.”

  It crackled and singed in the candle flame and Little Star’s spirit rose in a column of black smoke and then was gone.

  He was free now, free to roam the spirit world.

  Outside, beyond the frosted glass windows, the carriage doors of the train slammed shut. There was another sharp whistle and the engine groaned into life again.

  She got up, her chair scraping on the wooden floorboards, and rushed for the door.

  Sitting Bull was nowhere on the platform. The train was pulling out of the station and disappearing into the cloud of fog and steam.

  Fear and abandonment gripped her and she felt like she had that first moment she’d fallen from the sky, lost and alone on the plains. Or when she had set out that night through the snow to Wolf Mountain.

  Alone in a vast hinterland.

  She looked up and down the platform as the clouds of steam dissipated.

  A shadow came walking through the fog. The outline of a man. Not Sitting Bull. A man in a suit, wearing a derby hat.

  Peter Wethers.

  He came through the fog, paused and took her in, sizing her up. And then there was warmth in his eyes and he broke into a smile and she felt a flush of something inside that was like an arrow through her heart and also the sweetest pleasure. She knew this must be what they called love, and that she was alive again, and this man might take her to that place she had longed for.

  She rushed into his arms.

  That place she called home.

  Acknowledgements

  SEVERAL HISTORICAL sources have been invaluable in building a picture of Buffalo Bill’s 1887 Wild West tour.

  Tom F. Cunningham's site, The Scottish National Buffalo Bill Archive – www.snbba.co.uk – provides a thorough analysis and comparison of newspaper reports and passenger lists to build a reliable picture of which Indians toured the UK with Buffalo Bill. I have consulted it continuously throughout the writing of Bright Star Rising. Also Buffalo Bill’s own account of his British tour, The Wild West in England (The Papers of William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody). William F. Cody (author), Frank Christianson (editor). University of Nebraska Press. (2012)

  An amazing, diligent team of editors – Lorna Rose, David Wake, Nicky Tate – and my launch team – Hoyden Callaway, David Cline, Paul Gray, Marie McCraney, Brian Richards and Lee Sharp – who all made sure the book was a much more satisfying read, made sense and was free of errors, although I would stress that any remaining errors, especially historical errors, are all my own doing.

  Historical Notes

  GRANDMOTHER ENGLAND. Queen Victoria.

  A shabby pencil hawker. This is, of course, William Bury, Jack the Ripper suspect and the subject of the book Buried in Time. He makes two appearances in this book, and each time invokes a premonition of death. When Katherine feels that her heart has been burned to ashes, she is perhaps sensing the fate of Ripper victim Mary Kelly.

  The great, white church. Christ Church dominated what was then City Council Square (now Victoria Square) in Birmingham, roughly taking up the entire plot of what is now the home of the ‘Floozy in the Jacuzzi’. It stood from 1805 to 1899, and featured heavily in Buried in Time.

  Tiyáta. [New Lakota Dictionary Online] Home.

  Ella Irving. I had almost completed the novel before I discovered an interesting snippet of information regarding her ancestry. According to the ancestry.com community ‘Tiyospaye: An Oglala Genealogy Resource’, compiled by Mike Stevens, she was, before her marriage, Ellen Bissonett of the Kiyuska Oglala Lakota Sioux, and was the daughter of Rocky Bear, who also stalks these pages as Red Shirt’s lieutenant.

  Sharpshooter Lillian Smith. Lillian Frances Smith, “the champion California huntress’, was 16 years old at the time of this tour and already a trick shooter of great repute, directly competing with Annie Oakley.

  Aston Lower Grounds. Situated in the former grounds of Jacobean stately home, Aston Hall, the Lower Grounds were originally the kitchen garden of Aston Hall’s owner Sir Thomas Holte. It later became a Victorian amusement park with an aquarium, a great hall and theatre. In 1887, it hosted Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Ten years later it became the home of Aston Villa Football Club.

  Buffalo Bill. The 1887-88 tour comprised of six months of London shows, three weeks in Birmingham and five months in Salford.

  William ‘Bronco Bill’ Irving joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West from the start in 1883, and had a reputation as a superb bronco rider. He married into Red Cloud’s family (see the note on Ella Irving) and was fluent in Lakota. Louis S Warren’s Buffalo Bill’s America - William Cody and the Wild West Show (Vintage Books USA, 2006).

  Annie Oakley. Aged 27 as this story commences (although at this time she was claiming to be only 20), Annie Oakley was the world famous sharpshooter. She, in fact, never came to Birmingham with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, having left the show following the London run. But in this case I have forsaken historical accuracy for historical fantasy.

  Wimbledon. Annie Oakley had embarrassed Lillian Smith at the British Rifle Association’s annual contest at Wimbledon only three months before. Smith’s poor performance at the annual Wimbledon rifle competition (as opposed to Oakley's favourable performance) brought mocking coverage by both the British and American press. On Tuesday 19th July, two thousand people witnessed Lillian Smith’s disastrous attempt to hit the running deer target. Her first two bullets missed entirely and the next shots hit the haunch. At Wimbledon, shooters who hit the haunch had to pay a fine, because hitting the haunch was considered worse than not hitting the animal at all. Lillian made excuses that the rifle was heavier than her own and promised to return on Thursday with her own rifle, but she never returned and never paid the fine. Annie Oakley came the next day, Wednesday, and hit such a good record that Prince Edward pushed his way through the crowd to congratulate her. Annie had thus beaten Lillian at her own game, as Lillian was considered the rifle expert, Annie the shotgun expert. Buffalo Bill did not show his face at all. (Shirl Kasper, Annie Oakley. University of Oklahoma Press, 1992.)

  Frank Butler. Annie Oakley’s husband. An Irish immigrant to America, Frank Butler was a marksman of some repute, who discovered Annie as a 15-year-old girl who outgunned him in a contest. He married Annie in 1882 when she was 22, although there is some documentary evidence that they married much earlier than that, in 1876, ten days after Annie’s 16th birthday. The reason for the fabrication of the later date was either because Frank was not yet technically divorced from his first wife, or to make the lie about Annie’s age more believable (as she would have been married at the age of nine).

  Peter Wethers is a minor character in Touchstone 3: All the Time in the World, set in 1966, and also stars in spin-off short story: The Reluctant Time Traveller.

  Gabriel Dumont (Métis leader) joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1886, receiving top billing as crack marksman and rebel leader.

  Rocky Bear. There is little written about this imposing Lakota brave, but he is pictured always by the side of Red Shirt on the first European tour. His apparent position of high rank is not reflected in the London programme notes for the tou
r, where he is merely listed as one of the Cut Off Band of Sioux and not one of the seven chiefs.

  Black Elk. At the time, a young man of 23 years, Black Elk would later become famous as a Lakota holy man, through the book Black Elk Speaks, recorded and translated by John Neihardt.

  Swift Hawk. The passenger list of the Persian Monarch which sailed from Hull on 6th May 1888, arriving at New York on the 21st, lists Swift Hawk as a 22-year-old man.

  Little Chief (Blackbird). “On Tuesday, 29th November 1887, Blackbird was convicted by the Aston magistrates of being drunk, after he had been found in a state of incapability in the Reservoir Tavern on the Lichfield Road on the previous night, Monday 28th. His name is not otherwise known in connection with the 1887-88 season.” That the name ‘Blackbird’ does not otherwise appear on any lists of the Show Indians is puzzling, and I have deduced that Blackbird might in fact be Little Chief, whose child, Red Penny, had died of convulsions at the Wild West camp, West Brompton, London, on 15th August 1887. Little Chief was in some measure compensated by the birth of a daughter, in the Wild West camp in Salford during the early hours of Wednesday, 8th February 1888. The child, Frances Victoria Alexandra, was baptised at St Clement’s Church, Salford, a week later, on Wednesday, 15th. The Courier, 16th August 1888, identifies Good Robe as Little Chief’s wife and the mother of the child. The same source discloses that the child would be known among her own people as Over the Sea. Tom F. Cunningham, The Scottish National Buffalo Bill Archive. www.snbba.co.uk

  Surrounded by the Enemy. This is not the same Surrounded who plays a minor role in Bright Star Falling. The character who buys Little Star and Katherine’s wakan bees is my own invention, his name chosen purely for its symbolic properties. The character with the tour in Birmingham is a real life member of the first Wild West European tour. Surrounded died from a lung infection at the age of 22 on the next stage of the tour, in Salford.