The Shaman's Secret (9 page)

Aunt Hilda and Rachel were both gentle with me.
Indeed, after a good bacon breakfast with the bright California sunshine streaming through the window, it was hard to believe in my night fears.

After breakfast Rachel and I went to collect our bags and things. As soon as I entered our room, I knew something was wrong. Not that anything had been disarranged—but I could sense something. Rachel didn't notice anything and we packed away our nightgowns and toothbrushes and so on while she chattered on about the amazing beauty of the West. She was nervous about the trip through the desert, where nothing grew except cacti. Finally everything was ready for our departure. Except one thing.

“Have you got my hairbrush?” I asked Rachel.

“No.” She turned round and scanned the room. There was no place to hide a mouse in the dingy little chamber. Just bare wooden floorboards, a chest of drawers, a wash bowl with a cracked mirror above it.

“Have you looked in the chest of drawers?”

“Why would I put my hairbrush in a chest of drawers?” I replied. “I left it by the washbasin. I know I did.”

I could conjure up a picture of my hairbrush. Wooden-backed, full of my tangled brown hair.

“Rachel, I brushed my hair before breakfast. I know I
did, and then I left it right there.” I pointed to the empty space by the wash bowl.

It was a mystery of the kind you will be familiar with. You lose a favorite hairclip or purse. Usually you blame imps, or borrowers, or your own absentmindedness, but this time the disappearance of my hairbrush struck both of us as odd.

Rachel looked at the floor and stifled a small scream. There on the boards was the print of dusty shoe. A large shoe, far too large for either of us—or Aunt Hilda. I saw another footprint by the door—clearer than the first.

That settled it. Though the room was dingy, it was very clean and the floor had been mopped before our arrival. The footprint belonged to a stranger. While we had breakfasted downstairs, someone—a man, by the size of his feet—had crept up here and stolen my hairbrush.

“Who would want your grubby old hairbrush?” Rachel said. She attempted a smile. “Unless it's Waldo, as a sort of love token.”

I blushed. “What are you talking about?” I said. “He can hardly stand the sight of me these days.”

“Witchcraft,” Rachel whispered. “Witches were stealing your hair. What do they say? A lock of hair, a piece of skin, fingernail clippings. That's what witches use, isn't it? This smells of witchcraft.”

“Rubbish. All that stuff is just gibberish. Look out of the window at the mountains and that green grass and the pigs snuffling at the trough. That's what is real. All the rest is just—”

“That's what you
say
, Kit,” Rachel interrupted. “I know what you're up to. You're keeping something from me … I saw how you looked a moment ago, just because your hairbrush was lost. Well, tell me that's normal.”

“It is normal,” I said. But I was lying. Nothing about this situation was normal. Not the feeling of something crawling in my head. Not the fear the missing hairbrush had stirred up in me. Not the snake, which had moved infinitesimally up my arm. I couldn't bother Rachel with all this though. Her dread would only make me feel even worse. Luckily Aunt Hilda bellowed from below that the stagecoach was waiting, so with a hurried exclamation I picked up my bags and went outside for my shoes.

But they were gone. Rachel's pair was there, outside our door. But my own sturdy brown brogues had vanished. At that moment Rachel came out of the room, and when she saw my face she looked terrified.

I rushed downstairs.

“Has anyone seen my shoes?” I asked Aunt Hilda, who was carrying her bag out of the door.

“They are outside your room.”

“No, they're not. They've disappeared.”

She sighed impatiently. “I'll show you.”

Rachel and I trooped up the stairs after her and there, lying outside our door, just where I had left them, were my shoes. My dusty brown shoes.

Either they had vanished and then returned. Or both Rachel and I were going mad.

Our passage through California to Arizona should have been wonderful. Giant sequoia trees, vertical cliffs, canyons and cascading waterfalls gradually gave way to parched deserts dotted with cacti. But we were too frightened, pushed ourselves too hard, to take pleasure in the landscape. Always we seemed to go on the hardest route, down trails rutted by the men and women who had come before us, those hardy pioneers. We kept away, though, from the main stagecoach stations. Cyril Baker had been badly scared by the reported sighting of his brother. When he heard the story of the ghostly shoes, he became as jumpy as a startled deer.

I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. He was living on his nerves, hardly eating. His white skin had taken on a bluish tinge and he was so thin a breeze could blow him over. I wondered if I looked as awful as he did. Our affliction had made a strange sort of friendship between us. After a day or two of our journey, Cyril had managed to boot Waldo off the shotgun position next to the driver. Now he rode
with my aunt. He said he wanted to be on the lookout. I knew he was armed, like the driver and Waldo. We were bristling with pistols, which should have made us feel safer. It didn't. The more guns there are around, the less secure you feel.

The journey became harder every day. As we left California's almond-scented climes, we saw fewer people. The occasional wary Indian, face painted with ochre. A couple of squaws, their babies tied in a bundle to their backs. Now and then a lonely rancher or wild-eyed cowboy. Sand blew in our faces, putting a burning screen before our eyes, making us gasp for air. Our throats rasped as we poured sips of warm water down them. But we had to be careful. Mr. Baker had brought plenty of supplies—the explanation for the boxes on top of the stagecoach—but as we came down off the Panamint Mountains and into Death Valley water was more precious than gold.

This valley is the hottest place in America, with a sun that scorched our horses as they labored, panting, to pull our coach. Our cowboy hats protected us from the worst of it, but the sun still bored fiery spikes into our heads. The pioneers who had traveled out here in search of riches in the gold rush had named this area Death Valley. Like us they were in a frantic hurry. I hoped we would be luckier than they were and would not lose members of our expedition to sunstroke and dehydration.

Waldo sat next to me on the ride through the valley, pressing into me and shading me from the sun coming in through the window. We were both sweating, damp with exhaustion. He paid no attention to me. Still, he seemed a little less hostile. Before we entered the desert, he had seemed to take pains to sit as far away from me as possible.

When all the others were dozing I took my opportunity to say a few words to him.

“Waldo,” I whispered, “I've never thanked you properly for what you did for me. When I was in a coma, I mean.”

He shifted uncomfortably, trying to move his arm away from me. I noticed his face was pink, his lip beaded with sweat.

“It was nothing,” he murmured.

“I could hardly have been very good company.”

“You were more … relaxing … than usual, certainly.”

I flushed. “That's not very kind.”

He shrugged. “Maybe your coma knocked some sense into you.”

“What? You think I'm better off in a coma?”

“I didn't say that.”

I looked at him. His blue eyes gleamed at me through layers of sweat and grime. A lock of sun-streaked hair fell into his eyes.

“Look, Waldo, I was just trying to say thank you. Why do we have to argue? Why—”

“Why can't we just be friends?” he interrupted, finishing my sentence. “Because friends respect each other. Friends listen to each other. You've never taken the blindest bit of notice of what I say. You always charge along in your own bullish way, and I feel, frankly, that you're not
safe
. You—”

“That's not fair,” I cut in. “You said yourself I was quieter—look, Rachel said you sat with me all the time when I was ill. I was just trying to be polite because she said—” I stopped suddenly because I noticed that in the heat of the argument we had raised our voices. Aunt Hilda, Rachel and Isaac had woken up and were all staring at us, grinning like idiots.

“It's just like the good old days,” Isaac said. “Waldo and Kit at daggers drawn.”

“Just a little lovers' tiff,” Aunt Hilda said. “Take no notice.”

I bit my lip, humiliated. Waldo moved further away, which is hard to do when squeezed into a sweltering stagecoach.

“You're quite mistaken, ma'am,” he said to Aunt Hilda. “Your niece and I can barely tolerate each other.”

I was so angry and ashamed I could hardly look at anyone. Well, here it was in black and white. Waldo could barely tolerate me. And I'd thought he was a friend, a good friend.

I'd have to try to be more formal with him in the future.

Aunt Hilda hadn't had enough of embarrassing us both:
“Stuff and nonsense, Waldo. You adore my niece. Anyone would. Stop talking guff.” She grunted. “Look at you two. Carrying on like a couple of—”

Midway through her sentence she stopped as gunfire cut her off. One, two, three shots. Thunderclaps that reverberated deafeningly around the interior of the stagecoach. We were cantering down a steep road which was overhung by a sharp slab of reddish rock covered in pinyon pines and thorny shrubs. Now our horses lurched to a halt in a cloud of dust. The seven black mares and one tawny stallion all neighing and rocking in alarm. Our coach swayed giddily from side to side.

Peering out in front of us, I couldn't see anyone firing a gun, just the desert stretching away down below in monotonous whirls of sand. Then a man on horseback emerged from a crack in the rock. He had a coiled length of rope slung over one arm and a pistol pointing straight at Mr. Baker.

“I got y'all covered,” the man boomed. “Anyone moves and your friend gets hisself a bullet right through the neck.”

“Driver!” Aunt Hilda shrieked. “Shoot him.”

A flour sack covered the rider's face, with holes cut out for his eyes.

“Don't try anything,” he said. Lazily he waved his gun toward some bushes. “My men have got you pegged out and hung up to dry.”

Glinting from the bushes were the barrels of other guns. One, two, three, four … I counted at least five. One of the unseen bandits let out a warning volley, which whistled over our heads and exploded harmlessly in the desert.

“Now y'all get out the coach. Fast—before my men peg you full of holes.”

“Driver!” Hilda shrieked again as we clambered out of the coach and lined up at its side. “Waldo! Do something!”

“Calm down, Aunt Hilda,” I hissed. My heart was hammering, my hands clammy. “If we give them our money, they'll leave us alone.”

The driver wasn't putting up any manner of fight. He
was dismounting, his hands held over his head. The bandit threw him a coil of the rope he was wearing.

“Tie that guy up,” he ordered, pointing to Baker. “Hands together real tight.”

The driver tied Baker's hands together and shoved him down the track at the side of the road.

“Faster!” the masked outlaw urged Baker. “Quit stallin'. Ain't no lawman gonna save your sorry soul.”

While the bandit's attention was distracted, Waldo slid his pistol, a nickel-plated Colt 54, small but lethal, out of its holster and slipped it into his left boot. He did it in one swift movement, turning away from the outlaws in the bushes. I don't think anyone noticed except me.

Then he pressed against me for a moment. He breathed in my ear: “If you get a chance, distract them.”

With Baker tied up, the outlaw turned his attention to the rest of us. He jumped off his horse and, shooing the shaking driver in front of him, came round to the stagecoach. I noticed the duster coat he wore, made of sand-colored linen, was tattered and had several patches. Close up his stovepipe hat was worn. He walked up and down inspecting us as we stood alongside the coach. Finally he came to a stop. His eyes were on Rachel, following her through the holes in the sack.

“You ever been to Dodge City?” he asked her

“I'm English.”

“I saw this singer there, looked just like you.” The outlaw let out a low whistle and his gun barrel skimmed Rachel's hair. “Why, I believe a pretty little gal like you could have a mighty fine time in Dodge.”

Rachel drew closer to me.

My thoughts were racing. If this gang intended to harm Rachel, it would be better to take our chances right now. I glanced at Waldo and he nodded. I planned to cause a diversion, faint on the outlaw, groaning theatrically and using his body as cover. Perhaps we could get Waldo's pistol on him before his men in the bushes started shooting. But the outlaw was too quick. Noticing Waldo's empty holster hanging off his belt, he grabbed him by the collar. If I made a mistake now, he would blow Waldo's head off.