Apparition Trail, The (28 page)

The air bicycle dipped slightly.

Another rifle shot rang out. I saw the operator glance at the cliffs and begin to adjust the trim of his machine.

No!
Throwing every ounce of will I had into it, I silently urged him to land.

I don’t know whether I accomplished thought transference or whether the operator simply took pity on the scene below: a half-naked white man, running wildly across the grass and being shot at by Indians. Whatever the reason, the air bicycle descended and landed. With my last ounce of strength, I climbed up onto the rear seat. Strapped all around it was a collection of five-gallon coal oil tins. I perched atop them and clung on for all I was worth.

“Thank you,” I gasped. “You’ve saved my life!”

“Not yet,” he gritted. As he adjusted the angle of the wings, sending us flapping up into the air, a bullet smacked into one of the coal oil tins below me. Immediately I smelled a pungent odour: alcohol. A spray of bright amber liquid arced from the hole the bullet had created, falling in a stream toward the ground.

“Damnation!” The operator wrenched around in his seat to stare at hole. “You’re a bloody expensive bastard to rescue.”

He shoved a lever to one side, and the air bicycle tipped violently. I assumed that it was an evasive manoeuvre, but then realized that he’d set us at an angle to stop the flow of alcohol.

As we rose at this awkward angle into the sky, I clung to the air bicycle’s frame with one hand and peered down at the ground. Our ascent was agonizingly slow; it seemed it was all the air bicycle could do to lift the two of us. On the bluffs below stood an Indian holding a rifle. I thought it might be Wandering Spirit, since the figure wore what looked like a fur cap and patterned shirt, but we were already too far away for me to be sure. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired, but the shot must have gone wide.

As I watched, the Indian suddenly scrambled down into the canyon, out of sight.

The operator of the air bicycle turned and handed me a handkerchief from his pocket.

“Here!” he shouted. “Stuff that into the hole.”

I did as he’d ordered, reaching down and poking the handkerchief into the bullet hole with a finger. The job was made more difficult by the fact that I still held the buffalo stone, but I managed to plug the leak in the tin. The flow of alcohol slowed, then stopped, and the operator trimmed the air bicycle so that it was flying level again. I was glad to have an even perch to sit upon; the ground was already more than a hundred feet below us.

I peered at my rescuer. Judging by his rough attire and heavy beard, he was a man of the frontier. He wore blue wool pants that looked like American military trousers with the stripes torn off, a buckskin shirt, and well-worn boots. His moustache and beard were as wild and untrimmed as his hair, which had been bleached by the sun. He wore no hat — only an operator’s goggles.

I decided that this was a man who meant business: a bandolier hung across his shoulder, and a rifle was tucked into a metal case bolted to the front of the air bicycle frame, just ahead of his seat. Having seen and smelled his cargo, I knew him to be a whisky smuggler — and a wealthy one, if he could afford an air bicycle. Contempt for his profession warred with my gratitude at his having saved me.

“What happened to you, and where in blazes are your shirt and boots?” he asked, glancing back at my bruised and bloody chest. “Why were those Indians after you?”

I gave him only part of the truth. “Another fellow and I were out buffalo hunting, and tangled with Indians when they tried to steal our horses. The Indians captured me and took my boots, but I escaped from them last night. I made my way into one of the canyons in the sandstone bluffs, and hid there the night.”

“That was smart,” he said. “The Indians are afraid of
Aisinaipi
. They won’t venture into it at night.” He laughed, then added with a wink: “Too many evil spirits.”

“
Aisinaipi?
” I asked. “Who or what is that?”

“It’s a Blackfoot word. It means ‘Writing On Stone.’ The local tribes carve drawings into the soft sandstone cliffs, then pretend the spirits did it. They scare each other around the campfire by insisting that these spirits will kill folks who venture down into the canyons at night. They say
Aisinaipi
is a place of visions and magic. It’s superstitious nonsense, but at least it saved your skin.”

I knew otherwise. Magic really did exist: I had seen magical writing on the cliff with my own two eyes. How else to explain a message that exactly answered my unspoken questions — and in the English alphabet, no less.

I decided to change the subject. “What’s your name?”

“Cochrane.”

The name sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.

Cochrane set his controls so that we would continue flying level, and turned to give me a better look. “Who are you?”

Suddenly I realized where I’d heard the operator’s name before. Two years ago, a patrol out of Fort Walsh had arrested a whisky smuggler by the name of Cochrane. The name wouldn’t have stuck in my mind, except for the fact that the fellow was a former North-West Mounted Policeman — one who had, upon completion of his term of duty, turned to a life of crime. He was fined one hundred dollars and released. The experience obviously hadn’t taught him any lessons. As I recall, he’d headed south, back to Montana.

I glanced at the rifle in its case.

“Cochrane,” I said in a level voice. “My name is Corporal Marmaduke Grayburn of the North-West Mounted Police.”

I heard him swear softly under his breath.

“You have been caught in the act of smuggling spirits into the North-West Territories. Normally, I would arrest you, but I am prepared to make you this offer. If you will agree to a brief engagement as a special constable with the force, I will utterly ignore everything I have seen today.” I nodded down at the coal oil tins.

Cochrane’s eyes hardened behind his goggles. He moved a hand to the controls. “I could tip you off your perch. The fall would kill you.”

I gripped the frame of the bicycle a little tighter. “It would,” I agreed. “But how long do you think it would take our men to put two and two together, once they’ve spotted you on your machine? A police officer is killed in a fall out of thin air — and a known criminal is seen flying an air bicycle. It shouldn’t be too hard for even the dimmest sub-constable in the force to puzzle out. You don’t want to hang, do you, Cochrane?”

Cochrane swallowed, as if already feeling the noose about his neck. He shook his head.

“What do I have to do?”

I smiled. “Fly me to the detachment at Medicine Hat. Then you’re free to go.”

Chapter VI

Buffalo hunters — An embarrassing failure — An unexpected reunion — A meeting with Steele — The map reveals a secret — Organizing the patrol — The first setback — An unusual Indian — The story of the medicine woman — We reach the river at last — A startling discovery — A fortunate mishap

We were half way to Medicine Hat, passing over rolling prairie at a height of about four hundred feet, when I heard the crack of rifle shots. Leaning out to the side to peer around Cochrane, I saw a cloud of dust, raised by the hooves of a small herd of buffalo. Six of the shaggy beasts were running flat out across the grass, pursued by three riders who were firing at full gallop. I saw one beast go down, bellowing as it crashed to the earth, and then another. The other animals veered this way and that in a desperate bid to escape.

I noticed then that two of the animals had yellowish-brown hair, like the coat of a newborn buffalo calf. One of these animals suddenly doubled back to charge the riders, weaving to avoid their rifle shots. I watched, horrified, knowing that this was no mere beast, but a human being in buffalo form, fighting desperately for his life. As a rifle cracked and the buffalo went down, I gulped, wondering if I had just witnessed the death of someone I knew.

I tapped Cochrane on the shoulder. “We’ve got to land.”

He glanced down. “You want to join in the hunt?”

“No!” I cried. “I want to save those poor brutes. We must land!”

Cochrane gave me a strange look, then nodded and pulled a lever. The angle of the air bicycle’s wings changed, and we began to descend. I had seen a calculating look in his eye as he glanced back at me, and suspected that he intended to take off again as soon as I was on the ground, but being stranded was a chance I had to take if I was to save the poor wretches below.

I watched in trepidation as we descended. One of the hunters saw the air bicycle’s shadow on the grass, and waved a rifle over his head. Cochrane waved back. The other two hunters were intent upon their game. The two brown buffalo fell, and then the second light-haired one also collapsed in the dust. I groaned, thinking we were too late, but as the hunters dismounted and ran over to this animal, it leaped to its feet and charged them. I cheered, seeing that it had used its human cunning to fool them into thinking it was dead, but my joy was short-lived. Quick as lightning, one of the hunters raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired thrice in quick succession. The animal went down at his feet — for good, this time.

The air bicycle touched the ground, bounced once or twice, then settled. The hunter who had waved to us — a Metis fellow with a huge moustache and bushy black eyebrows, wearing a buckskin vest beaded in the Indian fashion — dismounted from his horse and strode over to us.

“‘Allo!” he called out, looking up at the balloon from which the air bicycle was suspended. “Your balloon
bicyclette
, she is a fine looking….”

He stopped in mid-stride as he saw that I was half-naked, then started to laugh. “
Mon dieu, Monsieur
, are de winds so strong that they ’ave torn off your shirt?”

I ignored him. Jumping down from the coal oil tins on which I was perched, I ran toward the nearest of the light-haired buffalo — the one that had put up so heroic a fight. The buffalo stone was still in my hand. “You don’t realize what you have done,” I shouted at the Metis over my shoulder. “But you will soon enough. This isn’t a buffalo that you shot. It’s a man.”

I stopped and looked down at the great beast. Its tongue hung out of its mouth and blood welled from a bullet hole in its neck. Flies were already buzzing around the wound and landing on its soft brown eyes. I steeled myself for the worst, knowing that when the transformation came, it would not be a pretty sight. For all I knew, this might be a beautiful woman cut down in her prime.

I knelt and touched the buffalo stone to the animal’s forehead.

Nothing happened. The buffalo remained a buffalo.

I stood, stunned. What had I done wrong? Perhaps the stone had to make contact with a particular part of the body. I touched the stone to a hoof, to the spot over the chest where the heart lay, to the mouth. Still nothing.

Behind me, I heard nervous laughter.

“Your friend,” the Metis said. “He is crazy, perhaps?”

The other two hunters were standing a short way off, watching me with a mixture of amusement and puzzlement on their faces. I glanced behind me and saw that Cochrane had shoved his goggles up onto his forehead for a better look.

I ran over to the other light-haired buffalo. The creature was still warm, the wounds in its side still bleeding. One leg was bent at an angle under it, the splintered bone protruding through the flesh. I touched the stone to the dead beast.

Once again, nothing happened.

I stood slowly, then looked in puzzlement at the spiral-shaped stone in my hand, trying to figure out why it had done nothing. Perhaps the stone’s transformative powers only worked on living things.

The hunters laughed again and I glared at them, tempted to strike them with the stone. They needed to be shown what they had just done. They were murderers — even if they didn’t know it.

I must have had a wild look in my eye. The Metis closest to me — a young lad with beardless cheeks — looked nervously at me. He shifted his grip on his rifle, raising it slightly.

Sighing, I lowered the stone. These men were not murderers. They did not realize what they had done.

I walked back to the air bicycle, the hand that held the buffalo stone hanging at my side. Cochrane hadn’t abandoned me after all; his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

I heard a sniff; the Metis hunter closest to the air bicycle had caught the scent of the whisky. He licked his lips. I glanced at the saddlebags on his horse, then back at him. The fellow looked about my size.

“Have you a change of clothing?” I asked. “I’ll trade you the whisky that remains in the punctured tin for a shirt and a pair of moccasins.”

“Done!” the Metis said with a smile. He began rummaging in his saddlebags.

“No you won’t!” Cochrane protested, twisting around on his seat to prevent me from unhitching the punctured tin.

“I’m on the ground now,” I reminded him in a terse whisper. “All I have to do is get these fellows to take me to the nearest detachment and report what I’ve seen, and there will be a warrant out for your arrest. Let me give them this whisky, and I’ll keep quiet.”