The Shaman's Secret (15 page)

That was it. If anything, the tracks looked like they'd been made by a man walking, wearing deer-hoof shoes.

“The skinwalker's footprints,” said Boy.

When I woke up the next morning, the eerie happenings of the night before seemed a bad dream. No trace remained of the chase through the bushes except a few broken twigs. Had that nocturnal ramble been a fairytale? Some witchery that had sneaked into my mind? With the sun blazing hot above us, normality had returned.

We had a somber breakfast around the still-smoking juniper-wood fire. We ate hash made from mescal, the paste I had seen the women grinding, with the juicy flesh of a cactus and ripe berries. I enjoyed the unusual meal, overhung as it was with the scent of smoke and earth. Somehow food always tastes better out in the wild.

Food, though, was the last thing on any of our minds. Cyril Baker had not recovered from his faint. I went to see him in the wickiup he shared with Waldo and Isaac, where he lay under a pile of animal skins. He looked pale. Of course he always looked pale; even at the best of times the man was a living ghost. But now there was a bluish tinge to his pallor. It was ghastly to look at him, and to my shame
I felt a desperate need to get away. I restrained myself and put a hand on the white arm that rested on the skins.

“Cyril,” I said. His arm was cold and damp. “Can you hear me?”

He did not stir.

“Cyril, it's me, Kit Salter. Can I do anything to help?”

There was not a flicker in his gingery lashes, not a tremble to show he had heard my voice. Waldo was beside me. He coughed and I glanced at his face. His expression was strained, almost as ghastly as Cyril's.

“What
is
the matter, Waldo?” I asked.

“I can't stand it any longer,” he muttered, and crashed out of the tent.

I stayed a little longer, talking to Mr. Baker, speaking kindly to him; I felt more affection for the man than ever before. I was just telling him I believed he was good, would have lived a better life if it wasn't for his brother's evil influence, when he opened his eyes and smiled at me.

“I'm glad you still think there's hope for my soul,” he said. “It's a great comfort.”

I reddened, for I had been babbling on in the belief he was unconscious.

“You do understand, Kit, what happened last night?”

I nodded. I felt it, his brother's dark presence.

“Cecil visited this camp.”

“The deer?” I asked. “He controlled the deer?”

“Yes, the deer
was
Cecil. It must be one of the many shapes he can take at will. He has become a more powerful skinwalker than I ever imagined, Kit. Before I left his side, he would strain to leave his body for an instant. It would be a great task to flit into the body of a pigeon for the merest moments. Now he attacks us openly in the guise of a deer.”

“It was only a deer, not something ferocious,” I said. “I mean, couldn't he have been a bear if he'd wanted to attack us?”

Cyril waved his arms. “You miss the point. It was a warning. Cecil was warning us all, especially me. He was showing me his power.”

“Boy has explained about skinwalking,” I said, slowly, “but I don't really understand. What is your brother's game?”

“As I've told you, he studied the native Indian arts and the black arts for many years. He has great mystical power. You know he is sick, Kit. He is dying. He believes he can cheat death by leaving his body and taking on other forms. This is why he studied the ancient Indian magic for so long.”

“So—it's like a trick he's playing on his own destiny? His body is infected with the Himalayan curse, so he leaves it and takes possession of another creature?”

“Yes, but there are limits to his power. I believe he can only invade another skin for a short time.”

I looked at him for a long moment, the silence heavy between us. Everything seemed to have gone dark, and I
was haunted by fears I couldn't easily name. Cyril Baker didn't help; he just gazed at me with those strangely empty eyes.

“This is awful,” I said finally. “It means your brother could be anywhere … spying on us, trapping us.” I indicated the world through the flap of the wickiup, a peaceful scene of hairy tents and Indians in the sunshine. “Cecil could be in that humming-bird hovering over the cacti, or the eagle that swoops over us while we ride in the desert. In the raccoon or the skunk under our horses' hoofs—”

“Enough!” Cyril raised his hand. “Don't let fear infect you, else Cecil has won.”

When I emerged from the wickiup, the camp was in the midst of preparations for our departure. Even the ancient medicine man had emerged from his tent to see us on our way. He had selected, personally, a horse for me to ride. He indicated which one it was, his dark eyes shining under his thatch of white hair. The horse was a magnificent stallion called Rolling Thunder. Apparently it was a great honor for me, that the famous Far-Seeing Man had himself selected my horse. It showed he liked us and wished us well.

The Apaches were generous to give us several horses, as they were clearly poor and in the midst of a dangerous war with two enemies: the American settlers they called
White Eyes and the Mexicans. I did not think these brave warriors had much chance of survival. Even if the Apaches had stolen and mastered the art of shooting with guns, the Americans would counter with more powerful weapons. What use was an ancient musket against a howitzer or a cannon?

These thoughts were running through my head as we mounted our horses. We were provisioned with some of their mescal paste, a few strips of dried meat and fresh water in our canisters. The Apaches had returned our own clothes, freshly washed and dried in the sun. But Mr. Baker and I both wore deerskin moccasins. Embroidered with beautiful patterns, they came up to my knees and were very soft. Sadly, Baker could not ride and had been propped up behind Waldo on a roan stallion. Waldo was chosen as he was the best rider.

As Waldo took directions to the nearest town, a day and more of hard riding away, I said a silent goodbye to the Apache camp with its wickiups lit up by the streaky sunshine filtering through the pinyon pines, the brook burbling in the distance, the horses chewing contentedly. And the people: the women in their bright beads and buckskins, busy at their domestic tasks; the infants scrabbling besides their mothers; the children playing with bows and arrows. It looked a peaceful, time-honored scene. Then Boy was at my shoulder, her round face showing sadness.

“I come with you,” she said. “I like you, so I will be your guide.”

“You hardly know me.”

“It doesn't matter. I spend much time with Far-Seeing Man. Now I too can see into people souls. You and me, we are—” Boy stopped short, blinking hard and looking into the distance. “Maybe it is not safe for you alone. There are Apaches in the mountains.”

“But, Boy,
you
are an Apache.”

“Other Apaches. Hostiles.”

“Would you really want that? To go back to the world of white settlers? To civilization?”

She shuddered, biting her lip. “I never want be civilized again.”

I had to laugh at that—she said it with such ferocity. Silly to say, but her sudden fierce attachment had produced an answering affection in me. She was so hot-headed, with her eyes flashing with indignation. It must have been hard for her to be accepted as a warrior in a world where women on the whole were wives and mothers, content with domestic work. Boy was a funny thing—odd name and all.

But had I been silly to dismiss her? She had shown real bravery last night, fighting the skinwalker. I was going to shake Boy's hand, because I could hardly embrace her, but she moved away. I understood then that she did not want me to touch her. For a moment I was offended, then
I realized it must seem a strange custom to these Apaches to shake hands.

“I will fight the civilized forever,” she said, holding her hands behind her back. “The White Eyes are cruel and have no respect for the earth or the sky.”

The shaman had appeared at her side and said something to her. She listened, replied angrily and then turned to me. “Far-Seeing Man, he says the White Eyes' day is coming. He says the White Eyes will rule all … He speaks truly, always, but this I can't believe.”

I looked from Boy to Far-Seeing Man and a wave of sadness overwhelmed me. The shaman indeed must be wise to see this future. It struck me as already happening. Many groups of Indians had been defeated by the American settlers, rounded up and sent to live on reservations. Others had been felled in their hundreds of thousands by the diseases that the white man brought with him in his huge ships. Smallpox was fatal, but even relatively mild illnesses like chickenpox and measles killed countless Indians.

Looking at the wickiups and the smoke drifting in the sunshine, I could see no future for this way of life. It was vanishing, and would soon be just a part of history. Better that the Apaches surrendered than be brutally cut down amidst more bloodshed.

“He speaks the truth,” I said. “Nothing, I think, can stop the White Eyes.”

Far-Seeing Man held up a hand, almost as if he understood my words, and spoke rapidly to Boy, who listened with her head tilted.

“The White Eyes' day is coming, but Far-Seeing Man says his day will also end,” she translated. “The foreigners, they do not love the earth that gives us life, but scar it with great gashes of rock and rivers of iron. They dig up its soul looking for silver and gold. The earth is not mother and father to them, but only something they can own. So they will destroy it and in the end the earth will rise up—”

Her words were interrupted because Far-Man began to talk. His eyes rolled so all I could see were the whites. The pupils had almost vanished. A high thin voice came out of his mouth, a voice that spoke English:

“The Black Snake is coming. To the land of the White Sun.”

We had no maps to guide us to the small mining camp, which Boy had said was home to the nearest white men. I rode Rolling Thunder savagely, with desperate speed, through the twisting mountain paths, downward to the arid desert. As we rode, we prayed we were going in the right direction. Several times I wished I had taken up Boy's offer to be our eyes and ears. Having someone who knew exactly which way to go might make the difference in saving Cyril's life.

He was desperately ill. He had come back to consciousness in a state of high fever. He spoke in wild, disconnected sentences about snakes and his beloved twin. His face was white, white as a dying moon. Yellow pus collected in his eyes and dribbled down his face. The last thing he needed was to be ridden so hard, propped up like a tailor's dummy behind Waldo.

We stopped for lunch after four or five hours' riding. Cyril's hands were burning hot. I helped Waldo bring him down
from the horse. We propped him against a pinyon pine and poured a little water into his mouth. His eyes were rolling around as if seeking something. Perhaps he was looking for his brother. When Waldo went to help prepare our basic meal, I tried to get him to eat some dried deer meat, but he shook his head in refusal. Then he groaned, because the motion was painful.

“Be still,” I said. “Don't move if it hurts.”

“I'm sorry, Tabby,” Mr. Baker replied in a clear voice, looking straight in my eyes. “We never meant you any harm, Tabby.”

I froze. Tabby. It was the affectionate family nickname for my mother, my long-dead mother. Her name was Tabitha, but my father always used to refer to her as Tabby. I had a fuzzy memory of calling her that myself.

My mother, Tabitha … Tabby.

But how could Mr. Baker know?

I must have misheard. Or had I used the name when my mother's oval locket was stolen by the bandit?

It was several minutes before I could compose myself to ask the question.

“Are you speaking of my mother, Tabitha—Tabby?” I asked. “How do you know her nickname?”