Eye of the cat, p.14
Eye of The cat, page 14
And Dora had liked climbing. True, she had never suggested this, but she had gone along with him. Yes, it had been his idea, not hers.
In his mind’s eye, he saw their diminutive figures upon its face, reaching, hauling themselves higher, reaching. His idea. Tell him why. Tell Hastehogan, god of night, why—so that he may laugh and send a black wind out of the north to blow upon you.
Why?
He had wanted to show her that he did not fear the People’s taboo, that he was better, wiser, more sophisticated than the People. He had wanted to show her that he was not really one of them in spirit, that he was free like her, that he was above such things, that he laughed at them. It did not occur to him until much later that such a thing did not matter to her, that he had been dancing a dance of fears for himself only, that she had never thought him inferior, that his action had been unnecessary, unwarranted, pathetic. But he had needed her. She was a new life in a new, frightening time, and—
When he heard her cry out he turned as rapidly as he could and reached out for her. Eight inches, perhaps, separated their fingertips. And then she was gone, falling. He saw her hit, several times.
Half blinded with tears, he had cursed the mountains and cursed the gods and cursed himself. It was over. He had nothing now. He was nothing…
He cursed again, his eyes darting over the terrain to where, with a flick of its tail, he would have sworn a coyote had stood a moment ago, laughing, before it vanished into the shadows beyond the rise. Fragments of the chants from the old Coyoteway fire ritual came to him:
I will walk in the places where the black clouds come at
me.
I will walk in the places where the rain falls upon me.
I will walk in the places where the lightning flashes at
me.
I will walk in the places where the dark fogs move about
me.
I will walk where the rainbows drift and the thunders roll.
Amid dew and pollen will I walk.
They are upon my feet. They are upon my legs… …
When he reached the spot where he thought he had seen the creature, he searched quickly in the dim light and thought that he detected a pawprint. Not important, though. It meant something. What, he could not say.
He is walking in the water. …
On the trail beyond the mountains.
The medicine is ready.
.…It is his water, a white coyote3s water.
The medicine is ready.
As he passed Many Cherry Canyon he was certain that Cat was on his way. Let it be. This thing seemed destined, if not with Cat at his back then in some other fashion. Let it be. Things were looking different now. The world had been twisted slightly out of focus.
Dark, dark. But his eyes adjusted with unusual clarity. He would pass the cave of the Blue Bull. He would go on. He would take his rations as he walked. He would not rest. He would create another false way at Twin Trail Canyon. After that, he would obscure his passage even further. He would go on. He would walk in the water.
Come after me, Cat. The easy part is almost over.
Weak flash. The wind and the water swallow the thunder. He is laughing and his face is wet.
The black medicine lifts me in his hand… …
The Third Day
When the call came through that Walter Sands was dead, having failed to respond to treatment, Mercy Spender said a prayer, Fisher looked depressed and Mancin looked out of the window. Ironbear poured a cup of coffee, and for a long while no one said anything.
Finally, “I just want to go home,” Fisher said.
“But we reached Singer,” Elizabeth replied.
“If you want to call it that,” he replied. “He’s gone, around the bend. He’s…somewhere else. His mind is running everything through a filter of primitive symbolism. I can’t understand him, and I’m sure he can’t understand me. He thinks he’s deep under the earth, traveling along some ancient path.”
“He is,” Ironbear said. “He is walking the way of the shaman.”
Fisher snorted.
“What do you know about it?”
“Enough to understand some,” he answered. “I got interested in Indian things again when my father died. I even remembered some stuff I’d forgotten for a long time. For all of his education and travels, Singer doesn’t think in completely modern terms. In fact, he doesn’t even think like a modern Indian. He grew up in almost the last possible period and place where someone could live in something close to a neolithic environment. So he’s been to the stars. A part of him’s always been back in those crazy canyons. And he was a shaman—a real one—once. He set out several days ago to go back to that part of himself, intentionally, because he thought it might help him. Now it’s got hold of him, after all those years of repression, and it’s coming back with a vengeance. That’s what I think. I’ve been reading tapes on the Navajos ever since I learned about him, in all of my spare moments here. They’re a lot different from other Indians, even from their neighbors. But they do have certain things in common with the rest of us—and the shaman’s journey often goes underground when things are really tough.”
“‘Us’?” Mancin said, smiling.
“Slip of the tongue,” he answered.
“So you’re saying this vicious alien beast is chasing a crazy Indian,” Mercy stated. “And we just learned that the authorities won’t go into those canyons after them because the place is too treacherous in the weather they’re having. Sounds as if there’s nothing we can do. Even if we coordinate as a group mind, the beast seems able to strike back at us pretty hard—and Singer can’t understand us. Maybe we should go home and let them work it out between themselves.”
“It would be different if there were something we could do,” Fisher said, moving to stand beside Ironbear. “I’m beginning to see how you feel about the guy, but what the hell. If you’re dead, lie down.”
“We could attack the beast,” Ironbear said softly.
“Too damned alien,” Mancin said. “We don’t have the key to his mind. He’d just slap us away like he did last time. Besides, this mass-mind business seems very risky. Not too much has really been done with it, and who knows how we might mess ourselves up? In any kind of cost-benefit analysis of it there’s little to gain against unknown risks.”
Ironbear rose to his feet and turned toward the door.
“Fuck your cost-benefit analysis,” he said as he left the room.
Fisher started after him, but Elizabeth caught his eye.
“Let him go,” she said. “He’s too angry. You don’t want a fight with a friend. There’s nothing you can say to him now.”
Fisher halted near the door.
“I couldn’t reach him then, can’t reach him now,” he said. “I know he’s mad, but…I don’t know. I’ve got a feeling he could do something foolish.”
“Like what?” Mancin asked.
“I don’t know. That’s just it. Maybe I’d better…”
“He’ll brood for a while,” Mancin said, “and then come back and try to talk us into something. Maybe we ought to agree to try to reach Singer and get him to head for some safe spot where he can be picked up. That might work.” “I’ve got a feeling it won’t, but it’s the best suggestion so far. How’ll we know where a good spot is?”
Mancin thought for a time, then, “That friend of Singer’s, the ranger,” he said, “Yellowcloud. He’d know. Where’s the printout with his number on it?”
“Ironbear had it,” Elizabeth said.
“It’s not on his chair. Not on the table either.”
“You don’t think…?”
Ironbear, wait! Elizabeth broadcast. We’re going to help! Come back!
But there was no response.
They headed for the stair.
He was nowhere on the premises, and they guessed that he had tripped out from one of the downstairs boxes. They obtained the number from Information, but no one answered at Yellowcloud’s place. It was not until half an hour later, while they were eating, that someone noticed that a burst-gun was missing from the guard room.
PETROGRAFITI
COYOTE STEALS VOICES FROM ALL LIVING THINGS
Nothing was capable of movement following Coyote’s theft of sound from the world. Not until he was persuaded to call the Sun and Moon to life by giving a great shout and restoring noise to the land At Tse’a haildehe,’ where a piece of rock brought up from the underworld was in the habit of drawing itself apart to form a pair of cliffs and closing again whenever travelers passed between. Nayenezgani today solved the problem by the ingenious use of a piece of elk’s horn
2-RABBIT, 7-WIND. HOME TEAM SUCCESSFUL.
Quetzalcoatl, arriving this morning in Tila, was heard to remark, “Every man has his own rabbit.” This was taken as a good sign by the local population, who responded with tortillas, flowers, incense, butterflies and snakes
Commercial traveler,
passing through
KIT CARSON GO HOME
I KILLED THREE DEER ACROSS THE WAY
BET THEY WERE LAME
SINGERS DO IT IN COLORED SANDS
FOUR APACHES KILLED A NAVAJO NEAR HERE
THAT’S HOW MANY
IT TAKES
SPIDER WOMAN DEMONSTRATES NEW ART
“I believe I’ll call it textiles,” she said, when questioned concerning
SOMEDAY VON DANIKEN WILL SAY
THIS IS AN ASTRONAUT
FORT SUMNER SUCKS
CHANGING WOMAN PUZZLED BY SONS’ BEHAVIOR
“I suppose they get it from their father,” she was heard to say, when told of the latest
BILLY BLACKHORSE SINGER AND
HIS CHINDI PASSED THIS WAY
O-SINGER, O-CHINDI, AT END OF FIRST HALF
BLACK-GOD IS WATCHING
THE YELLOW MEDICINE LIFTS ME IN HIS HAND
When Ironbear occurred within the trip-box in Yellowcloud’s home, the first thing to catch and hold his attention was a shotgun in the other man’s hands, pointed at his midsection from a distance of approximately six feet.
“Drop that gun you’re carrying,” Yellowcloud said. “Sure. Don’t be nervous,” Ironbear answered, letting the weapon fall. “Why are you pointing that thing at me?”
“Are you Indian?”
“Yes.”
“Ha’át’íísh biniinaa yíníya?”
Ironbear shook his head.
“I don’t understand you.”
“You’re not Navajo.”
“Never said I was. Matter of fact, I’m Sioux. Can’t talk that either, though. Except maybe a few words.”
“I’ll say it in English: Why’d you come here?”
“I told you on the phone. I’ve got to find Singer—or the thing that’s after him.”
“I think maybe you’re what’s after him. It’s easy to get rid of bodies around here, especially this time of year.” Ironbear felt his brow grow moist as he read the other man’s thoughts.
“Hold on,” he said. “I want to help the guy. But it’s a long story and I don’t know how much time we’ve got.” Yellowcloud motioned toward a chair with the barrel of his weapon.
“Have a seat. Roll up the rug first, though, and kick it out of the way. I’d hate to mess up a Two Gray Hills.”
As he complied, Ironbear probed hard, trying to penetrate beyond the stream of consciousness. When he found what he was seeking, he was not certain he could wrap his tongue around the syllables, but he tried.
“What did you say?” Yellowcloud asked, the weapon’s barrel wavering slightly.
He repeated it, Yellowcloud’s secret name.
“How’d you know that?” the other asked him.
“I read it in your mind. I’m a paranormal. That’s how I got involved in this thing in the first place.”
“Like a medicine man?”
“I suppose in the old days I would have been one. Anyway, there was a group of us and we were tracking the thing that’s tracking Singer. Now the others want to quit, but I won’t. That’s why I want your help.”
The rain continued as he talked. When the callbox buzzed, Yellowcloud switched it off. Later he got them coffee.
* * *
Running now, into the bowels of the earth, it seemed. Darker and darker. Soon he must slow his pace. The world had almost completely faded about him, save for the sounds—of wind, water, his drumming feet. Slow now. Yes. Now.
Ahead. Something in that stand of trees. Not moving. A light.
He advanced cautiously.
It appeared to be—But no. That was impossible. Yet. There it was. A trip-box. He was positive that it was against regulations to install one in the canyon.
He moved nearer. It certainly looked like a trip-box, there among the trees. He advanced and looked inside.
A strange one, though. No slot for the credit strip. No way to punch coordinates. He entered and studied it more closely. Just an odd red-and-white-flecked button. Without thinking, he moved his thumb forward and pushed it.
A mantle of rainbows swirled before his eyes and was gone. He looked inside. Nothing had changed. He had not been transported anywhere. Yet—
A pale light suffused the canyon now, as if a full moon hung overhead. But there was no moon.
He looked again at the box, and for the first time saw the sight on its side, spirit world, it said. He shrugged and walked away from it. Save for the light, nothing seemed altered.
After some twenty paces, he turned and looked back. The box was gone. The stand of trees stood silvery to his rear, empty of any unnatural presence. To his right, the water gleamed in its rippling progress. The rain which fell into it seemed to be descending in slow motion, more a full-bodied mist than a downpour. And the next flash of lightning seemed a stylized inscription on the heavens.
Plainly marked before him now was the trail he must follow. He set his foot upon it and the wind chanted a staccato song of guidance as he went.
He moved quickly, approaching a bend in the canyon; more slowly then, as his slope steepened and narrowed. He dropped to a wider shelf as his way curved, hurried again as he followed it.
As he made the turn, he saw outlined to his right, ahead, a human figure standing on the opposite bank of the stream, at the very tip of a raised spit of land which projected out into the water. It was a man, and he seemed somehow familiar, and he had a kind of light about him which Billy found disturbing.
He slowed as he drew nearer, for the man was staring directly at him. For a moment, he was not certain how to address him, for he could not recall the circumstances of their acquaintance, and a meeting here struck him as peculiar. Then suddenly he remembered, but by then the other had already greeted him.
He halted and acknowledged the call.
“You are far from home,” he said then, “from where I met you just the other day, in the mountains, herding sheep.”
“Yes, I am,” the other replied, “for I died that same evening.”
A chill came across the back of Billy’s neck.
“I did nothing to you,” he said. “Why do you return to trouble me?”
“I have not returned to trouble you. In fact, I have not returned at all. It is you who have found your way to this place. That makes it different. I will do you no harm.”
“I do not understand.”
“I told you to follow a twisted way,” the old singer said, “and I see that you have. Very twisted. That is good.”
“Not entirely,” Billy told him. “My chindi is still at my back.”
“Your chindi turned right instead of left, following the false trail into Black Rock Canyon. You are still safe for a time.”
“That’s something, anyway,” Billy said. “Maybe I can do it again.”
“Perhaps. But what is it exactly that you.are doing?”
“I am following a trail.”
“And it brought you here. Do you think that we have met by accident?”
“I guess not. Do you know why we met?”
“I know only that I would like to teach you an old song of power.”
“That’s fine. I’ll take all the help I can get,” said Billy, glancing back along the way. “I hope it’s not a real long one, though,”
“It is not,” the old singer told him. “Listen carefully now, for I can only sing it three times for you. To sing it four times is to make it work.”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Here is the song…”
The old man began chanting a song of the calling of Ikne’etso, which Billy followed, understood and had learned by the third time he heard it. When the singer was finished he thanked him, and then asked, “When should I use this song?”
“You will know,” the other answered. “Follow your twisted way now.”
Billy bade him goodbye and continued along the northern slope. He considered looking back, but this time he did not do it. He trekked through the sparkling canyon and images of other worlds and of his life in cities rose and mingled with those about him until it seemed as if his entire life was being melted down and stirred together here. But all of the associated feelings were also swirled together so that it was an emotional white noise which surrounded him.
He passed a crowd of standing stones and they all seemed to have faces, their mouths open, singing windsongs. They were all stationary, but at the far end of the group something came forward out of darkness.
