Apparition Trail, The (17 page)

The herd, small though it was in comparison to those that blackened the prairie in days gone by, was substantial; I wondered where it had come from. In the past I had seen buffalo bones in such large numbers that they turned the prairie as white as snow for many miles, but in recent years had only rarely seen a herd of this size. The buffalo were nearly gone from the plains, hunted to the very last animal, both by the Indians who traded their hides for rifles, food and whisky — and by the white man, for sport. Soon the Indians would have to settle down on their reserves and become farmers, as the government had been trying to persuade them to do. For the moment, however, the Indians could still hunt; the slaughter below would keep them in meat for several months.

As I watched the women cutting strips from the animal’s haunches, it took me a moment or two to realize that there was something odd about the dead animals below. Many of the buffalo had light-coloured coats. Although the animals were clearly adults by their size, their shaggy pelts were the yellow-brown colour of newborn buffalo calves.

Something was very wrong here. I could feel it in my bones. Suddenly not wanting to be seen by the Indians, I backed away from the edge of the cliff.

I went back the way I had come, walking between the piles of stones that formed a funnel through which the buffalo had charged. I looked around for Chambers, wondering if he had made it the last few yards through the tunnel to safety after losing his clothing. If I didn’t find any sign of him up here, I supposed I’d have to find a source of light and go back into the tunnel itself, to see if his body lay somewhere within. I didn’t relish the thought.

Strangely, although I could find the pile of rocks and brush I had taken shelter behind after emerging from the tunnel, I could not find the opening in the earth itself. I walked back and forth across the area where the buffalo had been stampeded, but saw only hard, bare prairie, dotted here and there with yellow grass that had been crushed under buffalo hooves. Nowhere was there any sign of a cave.

Perplexed, I stood with my hands on my hips, slowly turning in a circle to survey the prairie. There were no trees anywhere, and no sign of the North Saskatchewan River or Victoria Mission. The tunnel I followed must have been longer than I thought.

I heard a swishing sound and a dull thud, and turned around to see what the noise was. I was startled to see an arrow, its head buried in the ground at my feet. I looked up — and saw an Indian standing behind one of the piles of stones and brush some distance away, holding a bow in his hand. I had barely time to fumble for my revolver before he knocked another arrow and shot it.

This one did not miss. It tore a painful crease in my upper thigh as I twisted to yank my revolver out of its holster.

My reaction, however, had saved me. While I could feel blood leaking down my hip, the arrow had glanced off the strange stone in my pocket as I turned, and had been deflected just enough so that it did not skewer my leg.

The Indian lowered his bow and began walking toward me. I could see that his quiver was empty. He cast his bow aside and drew from the belt at his waist a slender stick with a single black feather attached to one end. As he approached, walking slowly and deliberately, he held it above his head and waved it at me, laughing and taunting me.

That was when I recognized him, by his lynx skin bonnet with its five eagle feathers: Wandering Spirit, the Indian who had killed Sergeant Wilde and, reportedly, the Indian agent Quinn — and who was about to do the same to me. His feet were bare, and aside from his breechcloth and cap he wore only a fringed buckskin shirt that had been painted with large black circles and trimmed with fluttering eagle feathers. He strode toward me, eyes glittering with malice, a cruel smile twisting his lips.

My police training took over. “Stop right there!” I yelled, brandishing my revolver. “You are under arrest.”

He ignored me.

I decided that no further warning was required; the man had already wounded a police officer. I aimed my revolver and fired.

Wandering Spirit just kept walking, not even picking up his pace. My bullet had missed.

I shot thrice more — and missed all three times. Cursing my revolver — the Enfield was notorious for its inaccuracy — I took more time with my fifth shot, steadying my hand by holding my wrist as I fired. Wandering Spirit waved his coup stick at me dismissively, as if I were an annoying fly that he was about to swat with it.

With only one bullet left in my revolver, I forced myself to wait until Wandering Spirit was no more than a pace or two away. I pointed the barrel of my revolver straight at his chest and squeezed the trigger. The gun roared and spat flame and smoke. This time, I saw the bullet strike the shirt Wandering Spirit wore. He paused just long enough to brush the flattened lead aside. His laugh was cold and derisive, as he looked me in the eye.

I was sweating so badly that the first cartridge I pulled from the pouch on my belt slipped from my fingers and fell onto the ground. Backing away from Wandering Spirit, I cracked open the cylinder of my revolver. I just managed to push a single cartridge into a chamber before the back of my leg struck something: one of the piles of stones and brush. The arrow that was still hanging from my breeches caught on the brush and tore free, spilling the contents of my pocket to the ground and causing me to gasp as it ripped a fresh gash in my thigh. Forced to a stop, I slammed the cylinder shut and pointed the revolver at Wandering Spirit.

Wandering Spirit said something to me in Cree. Then he raised his coup stick.

Before he could strike me with it, however, a second Indian appeared, materializing out of thin air as if he had heretofore been invisible. He was a short, stoop-shouldered fellow in his senior years, his face scarred by pockmarks. He wore buckskin trousers and moccasins that were heavily beaded, and a bearskin cap from which three eagle feathers hung. Hanging from a thong around his neck was a gigantic bear’s paw, its flesh shrivelled and its claws a dull yellow. I recognized him as Big Bear, the rebellious Cree chief who had refused to sign a treaty or settle on a reserve.

Big Bear’s face was seamed with wrinkles; he looked at me with squinting eyes. I had the sense, from the intensity of his stare, that these were eyes that missed nothing.

When the curious stone that had spilled from my pocket chirped, Big Bear glanced at it, then laid a hand upon Wandering Spirit’s raised arm. With his other hand he pointed at me, saying something in Cree. I understand only a little of the language, but I heard the words “buffalo” and “earth.”

I stood, waiting for Wandering Spirit to strike me, my revolver wavering. I had only one bullet and two targets — and one of them was impervious to bullets.

Wandering Spirit continued to glare at me, but was listening intently to what the other Indian had to say. His voice, although respectful, was filled with barely suppressed anger as he answered. I thought I heard the name of Chief Piapot, and wondered if Wandering Spirit recognized me from our encounter of one year ago. If so, I hoped he remembered that it was Sergeant Wilde who had kicked over the tepees.

I decided that this was not the time to try to question Wandering Spirit about the murder of Tom Quinn or to charge him with assaulting a police officer. While some constables in the North-West Mounted Police had been known to face down entire Indian camps alone, arresting men despite overwhelming odds, I knew that bluster would not save me here. It certainly wasn’t going to cow a man who had brushed away bullets like flies. I knew I was powerless — that I could only watch and listen while this pair decided whether or not to kill me. Lowering my gun, I waited, my thigh throbbing from the stinging cut the arrow had delivered. My stomach was a painful counterpoint, my guts cramping as if the arrow had lodged there, instead.

As Big Bear spoke, I thought I heard another name I recognized: Iniskim. Acting on a hunch, I decided to plead my case. I said the first thing that came into my head.

“I know Iniskim.” I held my hand low, at knee level, as if patting a small child on the head, then pointed to my own eye. “The little girl — the one with pale hair and eyes. She was sick; I gave her mother money for medicine. Is Iniskim here?” I pointed at the ground, repeating her name and the Cree word for “here,” then added, “Is Emily — is her mother here?”

I hoped that Emily would speak in my favour. It was not unknown for an Indian woman to petition for the life of a white man.

Big Bear and Wandering Spirit stared at me, frowning as if puzzled. I wondered if they spoke any English at all. I continued to talk quickly, gesturing all the while and listening to the sounds of the whoops that were coming from below the cliffs, where the buffalo were being butchered.

“I’m not here to interrupt your hunt, or to move you to a reserve,” I told them. “I’m just looking for someone who’s gone missing: a man by the name of Arthur Chambers. He went into a cave that led for some distance underground.” I gestured again at the ground, and saw that my hands were still filthy with soil from my blind run through the tunnel. “The tunnel led here, to the middle of your buffalo run. I’m hoping that Chambers — and Emily and her daughter Iniskim — weren’t trampled, that they managed to….”

I paused then, realizing how foolish I sounded. Big Bear continued to stare at me a moment more, then bent and picked up my tobacco pouch. He sniffed at it, then pulled a pinch of tobacco from it and showed it to Wandering Spirit.

“Yes,” I said, nodding. “It’s tobacco. Would you like a smoke?”

I reached into my pocket for my pipe. Wandering Spirit tensed and raised his coup stick higher, but Big Bear shook his head. I pulled open the case, cracked it open, and assembled the stem and bowl of my pipe.

“Here,” I told Big Bear. “Go ahead. Have a smoke.”

For a long moment, the chief merely stared at the pipe. Then he reached out and took it.

Wandering Spirit grunted and spat on the ground. Then he abruptly turned on his heel and strode away, heading toward the cliffs. As he left, I could hear him muttering under his breath. Even if he hadn’t recognized me from our meeting of a year ago, he’d certainly remember me now.

Big Bear tamped tobacco into the pipe and lit it. He raised it in four different directions, as Piapot had done, then took a long draw. Releasing the smoke slowly through pursed lips, he handed me the pipe. Then he bent down and picked up the curiously shaped stone, carefully using my tobacco pouch to pick it up and folding the pouch shut as he stood.

I jammed the pipe between my teeth, puffing nervously. I wasn’t entirely certain why, but I could see in Big Bear’s eyes that my life was to be spared. I opened my lips to thank him….

He was gone.

One moment the chief had been standing there — the next he had disappeared. All that remained of him was the puff of smoke that he’d blown from his lips a moment earlier.

I looked wildly around. Big Bear hadn’t ducked behind the pile of stones and brush that I stood next to, and there was nowhere else within a dozen yards for him to hide. He had simply vanished, taking the curiously shaped stone and my tobacco pouch with him.

I stood a moment longer, listening to the Indian voices coming from below the cliff. By all accounts, I should have arrested Wandering Spirit. Shooting arrows at a police officer is no small matter. Yet I was still shaken by what I had just observed. I’d seen one man stop bullets and another turn himself invisible. Of what possible use could a revolver and the authority of the law be against the forces of magic? It would hardly serve my commanding officers for me to die in a futile attempt to assert my authority.

I decided to return to Victoria Mission and telegraph Steele at once. Perhaps then a proper search could be mounted for Chambers, Emily, and her daughter.

There was just one problem: I had absolutely no idea in which direction the settlement lay.

I had a notion that the tunnel I’d entered at Victoria Mission had curved predominantly to the southwest, and so I kept the afternoon sun at my left shoulder and trudged northeast. It was a long hot walk up and down rolling hills, without a tree in sight. Despite the fact that my pillbox hat had provided only scant protection from the sun, I mourned its absence as the sun beat down upon my bare head. Eventually I pulled my sweat-soaked undershirt off and draped it over my head.

The only pools of water I passed were crusted with salt; I knew that drinking this alkaline water would at best fail to slake my thirst, and at worst would cause my stomach to cramp even worse than it was already. My mouth became as dry as the dust my boots were kicking up, and at last I gave in and quenched my thirst by drinking the last of my Pinkham’s, which was in the haversack I still had slung over my shoulder. The alcohol in it made me slightly inebriated; perhaps that was what caused me to hallucinate. I kept imagining eyes upon me, and more than once I fancied that I saw a large shape, following me.

I pushed these thoughts from my mind, ignoring them as I did the false “ponds” that heat shimmers were creating. I kept hoping to catch sight of the telegraph line, or to hear the hoot of the riverboat on the North Saskatchewan River, but nary a landmark nor a guiding call presented itself. I trudged along, favouring my injured foot. I’d been relieved to find that the injury was no more than a blood blister where the edge of my foot had been squeezed against my boot by the force of the hoof that had trod upon it. I was lucky to have no broken bones.