Apparition Trail, The (33 page)

Laughing at his own joke, the farrier walked away. Peter had already ridden out of sight to the north, on his way back to the Battleford detachment. I wondered if the cross-studded horseshoes really did bring protection — if there really was something to Peter’s newly adopted Catholic faith. Raised by a sceptical father, I’d been brought up to believe that religion was just so much superstition. It was balderdash — just like premonitory dreams, and magic. Except now I knew that magic was real.

Peter was gone, but he’d given me a starting point for finding the “manly hearted” Strikes Back: Fort Macleod. Another possible source of information was coming from that very detachment, even now. I just had to wait for him to arrive.

That night, I had a strange dream. I was standing in a graveyard, much like the one at Victoria Mission. All around me were mounds of freshly turned earth, each of them a grave. All were marked with rough wooden crosses, except for one, which had a tombstone. Curious as to whose grave it might be, I walked over to read the inscription.

There was none: the tombstone was a solid black slab of stone, with nary a word upon it.

A burning curiosity filled me — whose grave was it? With the sudden insight that comes upon one sometimes in dreams, I realized that the tombstone was weighing down the person who had been buried here. I had only to lift it and she would rise to the surface, revealing her face to me.

I bent down and grasped the stone, then gave a mighty tug. Despite its weight, it came up easily in my arms, revealing a hole in the earth. I saw movement below, and realized that the occupant of the grave had suddenly become animated. Suddenly terrified, my thoughts filled with wild imaginings at the horrific form this morbid creature might take. I ran from that spot, still holding the tombstone in my arms. The corpse hauled itself out of the grave and followed me, running low and swift to the ground like a beast. Its feet had become hooves, and they were striking the ground with a
tick-tick-tick-tick
noise that was counting off the seconds to my death.

I staggered onward, then realized that I was running in a circle. The empty grave lay directly in my path. Unable to stop myself, I plunged headlong into it. As I fell, the tombstone rolled back into place, sealing the grave shut — but not before I caught a glimpse of a buffalo, haloed by the moon, staring down at me with a smile on its lips as my doom descended upon me….

I woke up in a cold sweat, my legs flailing. Something was indeed ticking in the darkness, and for a wild moment I fancied that it was part of my dream. I slammed a hand down upon it — and the ticking stopped. I realized belatedly that it was only my watch — that it had inexplicably started working again.

I rolled over and pulled the blanket up closer to my chin. Then slumber found me once more.

The next morning, Bertrand at last straggled in to the Medicine Hat detachment on one of the few horses from his detachment that had not been struck down by illness. He was surprised by the warm greeting I gave him. As he climbed down from his horse, complaining loudly about chafed calves and saddle sores, I invited him into the mess and bought him a glass of cider. As soon as he was settled I asked him if he knew of a white trader named Davis who had married a Blood woman. I hoped he could tell me more of the history of Strikes Back.

Bertrand was quite curt and gave me a suspicious look, but he did know the full name of the fellow — D. W. Davis, an American out of Montana. Bertrand also added one key fact: Strikes Back had deserted her husband in May of 1883. He even remembered the date: Victoria Day.

On that day, the trading post had just received a shipment of tinned goods that would be used to enliven the annual celebration of the Queen’s birthday. Bertrand had gone to the trading post to pick them up, and found the jilted husband of Strikes Back smashing bottles of cider against a wall.

As I put the two stories together, something gave me pause: the dates. How could Strikes Back have been in Fort Macleod and in Fort Qu’appelle on the same day? The two settlements were four hundred and fifty miles apart. It simply was not possible — unless magic was involved.

I knew from personal experience of one way a person could travel a great distance by magic: by passing through a tunnel like the one I’d entered at Victoria Mission. I wondered if Strikes Back had walked into a cave at Fort Macleod and exited it later that same day at Fort Qu’appelle. Time flowed at a different rate in the tunnel than it did above ground. In my case, nearly three weeks had sped by while I walked through the tunnel. Strikes Back, an accomplished medicine woman, had been able to produce the opposite effect: only a few hours had elapsed while she’d made a journey of several hundred miles.

It seemed logical to conclude that Strikes Back had used the tunnels to reach Fort Qu’appelle, but one thing puzzled me. Upon entering the tunnel, why had she not been transformed into a buffalo?

Just like me, Strikes Back must have been able to pass through the tunnels without being transformed. And so had Emily, since I didn’t find any shreds of her clothing next to those of Chambers. I sat and thought about that, as Bertrand drank his cider. What commonalty did Strikes Back, Emily, and I share?

As pain clenched my stomach, I suddenly knew the answer: all three of us had nearly died at one point in our lives. My heart had faltered on the operating table, Emily had nearly died of blood loss while giving birth to Iniskim, and Strikes Back had been frozen in a snowdrift. For one brief moment, each of us had a foot inside death’s door. Perhaps because we had already been “reborn” once, the magic that turned humans into adult buffalo with the light-coloured coats of newborn calves no longer worked on us.

That would explain why I could handle the buffalo stone, and why it had not transformed the dead buffalo back into human beings again. Its transformative magic only worked on living creatures. People like myself, who had “died” at one point in our lives, were counted among the dead.

One question remained, however. I’d seen Big Bear carefully pick up the buffalo stone in my tobacco pouch. He’d obviously feared its magic — which must work on white and Indian alike. Why then, when the Day of Changes came, were the Indians so confident that only whites would be turned into buffalo?

What protection did the Indians have that white people did not?

As I was pondering the question, my eyes fell on a pair of antlers that had been mounted as a trophy on the wall. They reminded me of the deer form that Chief Mountain had taken, when Poundmaker’s magic sent those gathered inside the shaking tepee into the spirit world.

Suddenly, I realized why the Indians would not be affected by the Day of Changes. Every Indian had a guardian spirit — a protector in animal form. The magic of these animal spirits might not be able to prevent the transformation wrought by actually touching a buffalo stone, but it was a shield against the less direct magic of the Day of Changes.

I wondered if whites, whose only “guardian spirits” were angels in human form — and saints, like the one on the amulet around Peter’s neck — would be afforded the same protection by these guardians. Somehow, I doubted it. The McDougalls had been devout Methodists, and yet their faith had not protected them.

An even more startling epiphany struck me: if we were unable to prevent the Day of Changes from occurring, I, the only white man with an animal guardian spirit, would not be transformed into a buffalo. I personally had nothing to fear from the Day of Changes. Like the Indians, I was immune.

A spasm of pain gripped my stomach, reminding me that I was not immune to all things.

When I’d joined the North-West Mounted Police, I’d been driven by a thirst for adventure and the desire to spend my life doing something more than working at a humdrum job in a tobacco shop. Over the past five years, however, a sense of duty had grown in me as I realized that I was bringing law and order to what had once been wilderness. I was not merely having adventures — I was helping to forge a new land. If I could prevent the Day of Changes from occurring, I would have the satisfaction of having accomplished something truly noble and enduring before I died.

I rose to my feet, intending to report my conclusions to Steele at once. Just at that moment, however, he strode into the mess. Before I could utter a word, he ordered Bertrand to set his cider down and get back on his horse, and told me to mount up.

“Healthy horses have arrived at last!” he cried. “We can finally ride north.”

I followed Steele outside into the square, giving him a quick summation of my thoughts as I trotted along beside him. Across the parade square, two constables were tying up the dozen horses that had been shipped by boxcar from Moose Jaw. I stopped in my tracks as I recognized a gelding that was a familiar dun colour. The ochre handprint was long since gone from his flank, but I knew the bronco at once by the familiar defiant toss of his head. As if sensing my eyes upon him, the horse yanked hard on the lead rope, ripping it from the hand of the man who was trying to tie him to the rail.

“By God,” I said to Steele. “That’s my old horse, Buck!”

Steele’s grin seemed to reach to the very tips of his moustache. “I know. I thought he might come in handy. Would you like to ride him?” Without waiting for my answer — he knew it would be yes — he turned to shout at the other men who would be part of the patrol. “Boots and saddles, men. Mount up!”

I ran to get my saddle, grinning all the way. Buck had seen me safely out of the Big Sands — the Indian purgatory. I had no doubt that he’d see me through whatever else came my way.

After three long days on the trail, we were finally approaching the spot where the spiral on the map crossed the South Saskatchewan River. The sky was free of clouds, and the air was still and hot. I rode near the back of the patrol, next to Bertrand, who had trailed behind the others throughout our ride. The aerograph operator sat on his horse like a loose sack of oats, complaining bitterly about his aches and pains and the dust that collected on his thick-lensed spectacles. The back of his shirt was drenched with sweat — I wondered how one man could have so much water in him — and his hair was plastered to his forehead. He smelled like a man who had not washed in three months — not just three days.

I reined in Buck, letting Bertrand get well downwind of me. After a moment his horse disappeared behind a rise; all I could see of him were the two aerographs that he’d tied to his pommel. I would have thought that he’d carry them in a box, but he said their mechanisms were too delicate. Instead, they bobbed along a few feet over his head, hanging from their sausage-shaped balloons with mechanical wings gently flapping and noses pointed in the direction of Regina.

When they, too, disappeared below the rise, I kicked my horse forward. I heard voices up ahead, and as I topped the rise I saw that we’d reached the South Saskatchewan River. It lay before me in the bottom of a wide valley. Nearly as wide as a small lake, it was studded with gravel bars. A faint trail led down to the river’s edge; the patrol was winding its way down along it, their thirsty horses trotting toward the water. I laughed aloud at the sight of Bertrand’s flabby body bouncing this way and that; he had no idea how to use his stirrups.

I reined Buck to a stop and looked around. Judging by the gravel bars and the way the river slowed and widened, we’d come to the ford that Davis had spoken of, but I saw no sign of the Manitou Stone — just a jumble of smaller river rocks along the water’s edge. There was no sign of Iniskim, either. Leveillee had been told to keep a careful eye out for the tracks of a buffalo calf, but the scout hadn’t seen any during our journey. The only tracks he’d spotted were those of a lone rider, who had crossed at an angle to our path earlier that day. It wasn’t an Indian pony, Leveillee said: the hooves of the horse were shod.

The rest of the patrol were letting their horses drink. Two of the constables had dismounted, and were lifting off the pack horses the crates of dynamite we’d brought along, just in case we found the Manitou Stone. Steele trotted back and forth behind the rest of the men, pointing out the areas across the river he wanted searched. That was the logical place to start: according to Davis, Iniskim’s ghost had been spotted on the north side of the river when it had made its appearance two years ago. We just had to find the way across.

Leveillee had already ridden his horse into the river and was using it to test the water’s depth. Bertrand, meanwhile, had dismounted from his horse and sprawled on the sandy riverbank. He looked too exhausted to care that his horse was untended. Fortunately, it was a placid animal and merely stood in the river, drinking.

Chambers had dismounted. He squatted by the river, trailing his fingers in the water as if he were trying to read it like Braille.

Steele glanced in my direction. “Corporal Grayburn!” he shouted. “What are you doing up there? Have you seen something?”

I started to shake my head. Then a flash of white caught my eye. My heart raced — but then I realized that it wasn’t a white buffalo calf, after all. It was something small and square that fluttered in the breeze about five hundred feet to my left, at the base of an outcropping of rust-coloured rock.

“Maybe,” I shouted back at Steele. “I’ll let you know.”

I turned Buck to the left and rode along the rise. The white object turned out to be the fluttering pages of a book. It lay in a clump of grass, its pages flipping back and forth in the breeze. Someone had left a marker in it, and as the wind rustled the pages again, the piece of paper came free. As it blew past me, I recognized the bookmark as a twenty-five-cent shinplaster.