Apparition Trail, The (31 page)

Steele nodded eagerly. “By God, if the Manitou Stone is at the ford, I’d best lead a patrol to the spot myself. Well done, Chambers!”

Chambers beamed under the praise. I still had doubts, however. If the Manitou Stone had come to rest on the banks of the South Saskatchewan, surely the Indians could have guessed where it was long ago. The Assinaboine were allies of the Cree; at some point over the past year, Big Bear must have heard their stories of the buffalo calf “ghost” that was spotted at the ford. He would have come to the same conclusion that Chambers just did.

I stared at the map. The spot on the South Saskatchewan River wasn’t necessarily the end of the ley line — the spiral I’d drawn still had a lot of room at its centre, and looked incomplete.

One other thing nagged at me: the fact that Big Bear was using the ley line’s energy to transform people into buffalo. How could he do this if he didn’t know the spiral’s route?

A thought occurred to me, as I stared at the uneven spaces between the lines I’d drawn and the strange bulging of the curves. I wondered if something was wrong with the spiral — if something had deformed it to the point where it no longer followed its true course. Perhaps the Indians didn’t know where the spiral was now. The spate of disappearances marked on our map may not have been attempts to trigger the Day of Changes. They might instead be the Indians’ way of using magic to plot the spiral’s course.

As I thought about what Chambers had just said about ley lines, I was reminded of another conversation. The whole discussion of ley lines was vaguely familiar. I thought back to Bertrand and the brief mention he’d made of magnetic fields, as he was calibrating the aerograph.

“Are currents of magnetic force the same as lines of etheric force?” I asked.

“Similar, but not the same,” Chambers said. “Etheric forces have an organic flow; while magnetic forces just run north-south. That’s why we have four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west.”

East-west. That was the way the spiral bulged. Bertrand had also mentioned large sources of iron, which could throw an aerograph off course. That was why the aerograph followed the CPR line.

I suddenly realized why Piapot had been so defiant about the railway being built across Indian land. “That’s it!” I shouted.

Both Chambers and Steele turned to look at me.

“The railway line. It’s thrown the shape of the spiral off. That’s why the Indians don’t know where the Manitou Stone wound up. Even if the ford would normally have been the spiral’s end point, the Manitou Stone may not have wound up there. It was thrown off course by the deformed ley line, and overshot its mark. I have a hunch that it’s somewhere in here, instead.”

The three of us stared at the blank space inside the innermost arm of the spiral. It was more than sixty miles across, a barren expanse of sandy ground and alkaline lakes that had yet to be settled. Few trails crossed it, and little was known about it. Searching it for a boulder that stood only as high as a man’s waist could take months, and we had only three weeks.

“The ford is still our best starting point,” Steele said. “I’ll lead the patrol there myself.”

“Sir,” I said. “I’d like to be part of that patrol.”

Steele shook his head. “Sorry, Grayburn. I want you where you’ll be of most use to Q Division: here in this detachment, close to the CPR line. If our other patrols find any light-haired buffalo, we’ll need you on hand to transform them back into human beings again.”

Damnation! I didn’t want to sit idle in Medicine Hat. I also didn’t want Steele to think I was disobeying his order.

“Sir,” I said in a measured voice, “even if you do find Iniskim, your patrol may be attacked by Indians intent on capturing her. You’ll need a way to prevent them from using her to find the Manitou Stone. I can use the buffalo stone to transform Iniskim back into a little girl again. That should blunt her worth to the Indians; I’m certain of it. You’re best to have me on the spot when the albino calf is found.”

I wasn’t sure, of course, that I wanted to use the stone on Iniskim. If I transformed her back into a little girl, would her fever return? I didn’t want to be responsible for a child’s death.

Steele thought a moment, then nodded. “Very well.”

Chambers scrambled to his feet as Steele began gathering up the maps and reports. “Superintendent! You’ll need me as well. If the Manitou Stone is at the ford, a tremendous amount of etheric force could be spilling out into the physical plane at that point. Ley lines are dangerous, and there isn’t a single man in Q Division with any idea of how to deal with them except me. You’ll require my knowledge and expertise.”

“Quite so,” Steele said.

I walked to the end of the table to collect the pouch that held the buffalo stone. Holding it in my hand, I stared at Chambers, pleased to see that he was his old self again. I knew he was right: with his knowledge of ley lines, he was the best man for the job of finding and destroying the Manitou Stone.

Remembering the dream I’d had of the buffalo jump and Chambers’s demise under the Manitou Stone, I prayed the job wouldn’t wind up being his last.

Steele spent the rest of the day organizing the patrol. He chose six regular constables from the detachment, and conscripted Medicine Hat’s aerograph operator over the protests of the detachment’s commanding officer. He told all of us to be ready to set out at dawn the next day. He planned to lead the patrol himself, using the detachment’s air bicycle to reconnoitre.

Steele didn’t want to include a scout on the patrol — they were all either Metis or half breeds, and their Indian blood made them questionable allies in our endeavour — but I convinced him that it was necessary. We needed a man who not only knew the uncharted territory between here and the South Saskatchewan, but one who could track buffalo hoof prints, should any be found.

Steele wished heartily for Jerry Potts, but the man was still missing, presumed killed by the Cree. Steele instead settled upon Louis Leveillee, a Metis who had also served with the mounted police since 1874. Leveillee was half Cree, but his French ancestry predominated. Tall and greying, and in his late sixties, Leveillee was polite to a fault and as loyal to the North-West Mounted Police as Potts was presumed to be.

When we turned out on the parade square the next morning, Leveillee turned a wary eye to the skies above. Rain had been falling steadily all night, and the clouds overhead were grey and thick. It looked as if a deluge was about to begin at any moment. The horses we sat upon whickered and shifted their footing uneasily, their hooves making sucking noises in the mud. Already rainwater was trickling down into my jacket, despite the non-regulation Stetson I wore.

Steele stood beside a cart-mounted device that was pumping hydrogen into the balloon of his air bicycle, one careful eye on the balloon’s pressure gauge. Mounted on the cart were several large brass drums, each lined with glass and filled with sulphuric acid. A central drum, connected to the others by glass tubes, held iron shavings onto which the acid dripped. The resulting chemical reaction produced hydrogen, which escaped through rubber hoses into the air bicycle’s balloon. The hoses were carefully sealed to prevent any gas leakage; all I could hear was the gentle clatter of the perpetual motion device that drove the pumping mechanism.

Leveillee slopped his way across the parade square, nearly losing a boot in the mud. He bowed before Steele, doffing his sodden cap.

“
Excuse moi
, my dear Superintendent,” he said. “Forgive me to impose, but the sky, she looks unsettled today. I fear a storm. Perhaps if we wait—”

Even from where I sat on my horse, I could see Steele’s moustache bristle. “We’ve already been delayed half an hour, and I don’t want to waste any more time. A little rain isn’t going to stop us. We’ll set out at once.”

Leveillee gave a graceful shrug. “As you wish, Superintendent.” The scout hadn’t pressed the issue — but as he walked back to his horse, I could see that he was still casting worried looks up at the heavens.

I glanced in the same direction and thought for a moment that I saw a round black spot among the rolling masses of vapour. My heart nearly faltered as my imagination took flight. Was that the malevolent eye of a thunderbird, looking down at me? But then the eye took on the rosy tint of dawn, and I realized that it was no more than a hole in the clouds.

Even so, I didn’t want to take any chances. Steele had impressed upon me the need to report any hunches or premonitions to him immediately. I wasn’t certain that vague, uneasy feelings qualified, and Steele had been irritated once already by Leveillee’s hesitation — but orders were orders.

“Superintendent,” I called.

A grumble of thunder drowned out my voice. I saw that Steele hadn’t heard me. He flicked a finger against the balloon, listened with a look of satisfaction to its tight
thrum-thrum
, then twisted shut the valve on the sulphuric-acid drum nearest to him. He waved at two constables who stood sheltering in the doorway of the stables to drag the cart away.

Although I’d fortified myself with painkiller that morning, my stomach felt as though it were tied in a knot. The uneasy feeling had grown into a certainty that something bad was about to happen — but I had no idea what.

The constables began to drag the sulphuric acid cart away, muttering expletives under their breath as they forced it through the thick, gooey mud. Then one of them slipped and fell against the cart. I heard the sound of breaking glass, and the faint hiss of escaping gas. The constable stood up, cursing aloud and holding his hand. Blood welled through his fingers.

The gas … I looked wildly around to see if anyone was smoking. No, that wasn’t it: the hissing noise slowed, then stopped.

The constable who had fallen against the cart had cut his hand quite badly. Blood was flowing from it and his face had gone pale. The other man who had been pulling the cart took a look at the wound, then began shouting for someone to call the detachment’s surgeon. I nodded to myself. This mishap had probably been the source of my earlier unease. If this was the worst that was going to happen, all would be well.

The thought made me look up. I saw that the reddish hole in the clouds was still there. It looked even more like a circle, and it was even redder than it had been before.

Suddenly, I realized my mistake. The “hole” was in the western sky — and the sun was rising in the east. That
was
an eye up there: the eye of Thunderbird.

It blinked, and I saw a bolt of lightning streak from it, striking the prairie no more than a mile away. I suddenly realized what it intended.

“Superintendent!” I bellowed. “Get away from the air bicycle.” I turned my horse and waved an arm frantically. “Get away, everyone!”

Steele reacted immediately. He took one look at my wild expression and began to run. The mud, however, slowed him down, making it impossible for him to move quickly. Each step was an eternity for him; he floundered like a man in a nightmare.

I dug my heels into the flanks of my horse and charged to where Steele floundered. “Climb on!” I shouted. With agility amazing in so large a man, Steele clambered up behind me.

“Ride,” he gritted. “Ride!”

We did.

The explosion came before we’d made it two hundred feet. I saw the bolt of lightning streak from the sky, and then the flash of exploding hydrogen blinded me. A wave of heat washed across my back, and I heard a man’s shrill scream.

My horse bolted, but after a moment I got it under control. I turned the panicked animal back in the direction of the parade square, rode up as close to the ruined air bicycle as I dared, and reined my horse to a halt. Even before I did, Steele was off its back and running in the direction of the air bicycle. The hydrogen gas had been consumed in an instant, but the fabric of the balloon was blazing — as were the uniforms of the two constables who had been pulling the cart. Steele knocked them both to the ground, then rolled them in the mud to smother the flames. I saw them rise to their feet a moment later, and was sorry that my premonition of impending danger hadn’t been clearer or come sooner — but they did not seem to be badly harmed. The thick serge of their uniforms had protected them from the worst of it.

I looked around me, and in the gloom counted eight men on horseback. The patrol had all been seated on their horses, ready to depart, and this had saved them. I ran through the list in my mind: six constables, a scout, an aerograph operator, Chambers…. There should have been nine men in the patrol, besides Steele and myself. One person was still unaccounted for — and then I saw why.

A horse had been knocked over by the force of the explosion; as I watched, it struggled to its feet, then bolted away. A moment later, a man rose from the spot where the horse had fallen. I did not recognize him at first, so covered was he in mud, but as soon as he curled his lip in disgust and tried to use the falling rain to wash the mud from his clothes, I had to smile.

“Chambers,” I called out. “Are you all right?”

He blinked up at me, his eyes white against the brown mud. “I am,” he said. Then he looked ruefully down at his suit. “I wish I could say the same for my jacket and trousers. They cost more than sixty dollars!”

Steele stood beside the twisted wreckage of his air bicycle, fists on his hips. Amazingly, one of its perpetual motion wheels was still turning, filling the air with a
click-clatter
noise. Steele glowered at it, then kicked the wheel with a mud-gummed boot. The wheel stopped.