Apparition Trail, The (44 page)

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.

I touched the silky hair that protruded from the blanket, intending to tuck it back inside. As I did, I thought of White Buffalo Woman, who had until recently shared this frail body. I wondered how the spirit felt about the chiefs forcing her to enter the world of men before her appointed time.

Foolish men. If they had only waited, I—

Startled, I jerked my hand away. Had that really been White Buffalo Woman speaking? It had sounded like two voices in one: the husky tones of a grown woman, and the higher pitch of a young girl.

A spasm of pain wracked my stomach, and as I blinked away the tears from my eyes, I suddenly realized what I had just done. Somehow, I had summoned the spirit of White Buffalo Woman herself. I had contacted her by touching something that, until recently, had been as close to her as anything in this world could be: Iniskim’s body.

I glanced at Stone Keeper, worried that she would realize what I was doing. I didn’t want her to think that I was using the body of her child, as the chiefs had done. Pretending to be completing the job of tucking in the strand of hair, I focused intently upon my silent words, speaking them with all of the effort of will I could muster.

Tell me, White Buffalo Woman. If the chiefs had waited, what would have happened?

There was a long pause, and for a moment I thought she would not answer.

The Day of Changes would have come when it was meant to — in seven moons more — and I would have led the spirits of the dead buffalo back to the living world. They would cover the land so thickly that it would appear black.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My fingers tightened on the lock of hair.
If I can reverse what was done today — if I can transform my people back into human form again — will that day still come?

It will.

Tell me, White Buffalo Woman — how can I reverse the chiefs’ magic?

I held my breath, waiting for her reply.

Close the circle.

I frowned in puzzlement.
What do you mean?
I asked her.

There was no answer. With those words, White Buffalo Woman faded from my mind.

Try as I might, I couldn’t puzzle out this cryptic message. I could guess part of it — although White Buffalo Woman had used the word “circle,” she was probably referring to the spiral. It could be “closed” — made into a circle — by joining up its beginning and end points, but how?

Then I remembered the dream I’d had, before our patrol set out from Medicine Hat — the one in which I’d lifted a tombstone from a grave and run with it in a panicked circle, then fallen into the grave. I looked up at the Manitou Stone, and saw that its general outline matched that of the tombstone in my dream. The answer suddenly became clear: by moving the Manitou Stone back to its original resting place I could close the circle — and reverse the Day of Changes.

I now knew who had written the words I had read upon the cliff at Writing on Stone. White Buffalo Woman had been trying to give me the answer for some time.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I realized now what had to be done. The circle that White Buffalo Woman had spoken of was a metaphor: to reverse the Day of Changes, I had to close the spiral of the ley line. Somehow, I had to haul the Manitou Stone back to its original resting place. This would reverse the flow of magical energy, thus transforming those who had been turned into buffalo back into human beings again.

I had to do this swiftly. The longer those poor wretches remained in buffalo form, the more chance they had of injuring themselves or of being slaughtered for food by the Indians. I had already thought of how I would transport the heavy stone: if the gun limber and its perpetual motion device were not too badly damaged, I could use the limber like a cart. I even knew how I would find the Manitou Stone’s original resting place: by following the tunnel back to the other end of the spiral. Best of all, I knew that I could accomplish this Herculean task in just one day.

Strikes Back herself had unwittingly given me the clue. A year ago last May, she had used the tunnels — the currents of etheric force — to travel from Fort Macleod to Fort Qu’appelle in just one day. The Manitou Stone had been at Victoria Mission then, and the flow of etheric current was spiralling in a counter-clockwise direction, down through Fort Macleod in a gentle sweep south of the border and back up into Fort Qu’appelle. Because Strikes Back was traveling with the current, she made the journey in a fraction of the time that was passing in the world above.

By the time I first entered the tunnels, the Manitou Stone had been moved: the current of etheric force was flowing in a clockwise direction. I’d been fighting against the current as I traveled from Victoria Mission to the cliffs at Head Smashed In, and so time had flowed more rapidly in the world above.

With luck, the opening I’d created with Stone Keeper’s feather was still in place. Since I now knew the Manitou Stone to be the beginning of the spiral, I could be confident that we would be traveling with the current. If the gun limber could be used to haul the Manitou Stone through the tunnel, we’d close the circle in no time.

Getting the Manitou Stone onto the limber, however, would be no easy task. The stone weighed close to four hundred pounds. Even though the slope of the hill would allow me to position the limber just below it, I’d need Stone Keeper’s help to topple the Manitou Stone onto it. She had no reason to help me — there was no gain in it for her. Iniskim was dead, and moving the Manitou Stone wouldn’t help her.

Suddenly, I realized that I was wrong. In the premonitory dream, the occupant of the grave had awakened when her tombstone was moved. The dream had contained a second message for me: moving the Manitou Stone back to its original resting place would bring Iniskim back to life.

The Manitou Stone was a portal to the astral plane — one that Iniskim’s astral body could use to return to the world of the living, allowing soul and body to become one again. White Buffalo Woman had told me as much herself, when she wrote the words on the cliff face. I could remember her words precisely, as if they had been engraved upon my heart: “Manitou Stone sits on apparition trail. Birth and death are the beginning and end of the trail.”

I had to follow the apparition trail — the ley line — to the point that was both its beginning and its end. This would bring about the end of Iniskim’s death and the beginning of a new life for her.

Following it would also be a beginning and end for me: an end to life, and the beginning of my death. Now that I had a taste of the afterlife, however, I was ready for it. If an eternity in the Big Sands was to be my fate, I would meet it manfully.

“Stone Keeper,” I said softly. “I have spoken to White Buffalo Woman. She told me that, if we can move the Manitou Stone back to its original resting place, Iniskim will be restored to life.”

Stone Keeper sniffed. The look she gave me was cold. “You want make Day of Changes go away,” she said in a voice filled with bitter accusation.

I couldn’t lie. She’d suffered hurt enough.

“That’s true,” I said. “But it’s also true that moving the stone will bring Iniskim back to life. And the Day of Changes will still come — in spring, when the moon has fully turned. White Buffalo Woman will return — on her own terms, this time — and she’ll bring the buffalo back with her.”

I thought I saw a glimmer of hope in Stone Keeper’s eyes. She could hear the certainty in my voice, and must have realized, by my own return from death, that I had powerful “medicine.”

“Winter that come will be cold,” she said. “Like before, no buffalo. Many people die. What good Iniskim live again, if only starve?”

“I’ll see to it that you and your daughter do not starve. I’ll be dead long before winter comes, but there is something I can do this very day.” I nodded at the buffalo that was Superintendent Steele. “I’ll write a note to my commanding officer, instructing that my pension be delivered into your hands, as if you were my wife. I’ll say that Iniskim is my daughter, and must be provided for. I’ll lie and say that you and I met more than a year ago, and that I fathered the girl during our brief meeting. When my superiors read that, they will be honour-bound to abide by my wishes. Will that satisfy you that your daughter will not starve? Will that persuade you to help me move the Manitou Stone?”

When Stone Keeper nodded, I heaved a sigh of relief. Then her mouth fell open, as if she had just realized something, and she laughed out loud.

“You!” she said suddenly. “You speak true. Iniskim your daughter. We make baby.”

I threw my hands up in alarm. “No,” I said. “You’ve misunderstood. It’s just a story I would tell my commanding officer — a lie.”

Stone Keeper shook her head vehemently. “No. You Iniskim’s father. I dream you. Make baby in dream, Red Owl.”

When I realized what she had just called me, I nearly swooned. I’d never told Stone Keeper that my guardian spirit was an owl, and now here she was, using the same name that Strikes Back had bestowed upon me in the Big Sands. Then I remembered how naggingly familiar Stone Keeper had looked when we had first met — just like the Indian woman I had once dreamed about.

I stared down at the lifeless body of Iniskim as the realization dawned upon me. I had visited Stone Keeper in my dreams — in astral form. Our two souls had known each other intimately on the astral plane, and here lay the result. I had unwittingly spoken the plain truth: Iniskim was my daughter.

I clutched my stomach as another wave of pain washed through it, and fought down the bout of nausea that followed. Staggering to my feet, I silently vowed to live for at least as long as it took to carry the Manitou Stone back to its original resting place.

The life of my daughter depended upon it.