It was a man, a very familiar man, who stood leaning against the last windsinger, smiling. He was garbed according to the latest fashion, his hair was styled, his hands well manicured.

  “Hello, Billy,” he said in English, and the voice was his own.

  He saw then that the man was himself, as he could have been had he never come back to this place.

  “That’s right. I am your shadow,” the other said. “I am the part of yourself you chose to neglect, to thrust aside when you elected to return to the blanket because you were afraid of being me.”

  “Would I have liked being you?”

  The other shrugged.

  “I think so. Time and chance, that’s all. You and Dora would eventually have moved to a city after you’d proved to your own satisfaction how free you’d become. You took a chance and failed. If you’d succeeded you would have come this route. Time and chance. Eight inches of space. Such is the stuff lives are bent by.”

  “You are saying that if I’d proved how free I had become I still wouldn’t really have been free?”

  “What’s free?” said the other, a faint green light beginning to play about his head. “To travel all good paths, I suppose. And you restricted yourself. I am a way that you did not go, an important way. I might have been a part of you, a saving part, but you slighted me in your pride that you knew best.”

  He smiled again, and Billy saw that he had grown fangs.

  “I know you,” Billy said then. “You are my chindi, my real chindi, aren’t you?”

  “And if I am,” the other said, “and if you think me evil, you see me so for all of the wrong reasons. I am your negative self. Not better, not worse, only unrealized. You summoned me a long time ago by running from a part of yourself. You cannot destroy a negation.”

  “Let’s find out,” Billy said, and he raised the laser snub-gun and triggered it.

  The flash of light passed through his double with no visible effect.

  “That is not the way to deal with me,” said the other.

  “Then the hell with you! Why should I deal with you at all?”

  “Because I can destroy you.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  “I am not quite strong enough yet. So keep running, keep regressing into the primitive and I will grow in strength as you do. Then, when we meet again…” The other dropped suddenly to all fours and took on the semblance of Cat, single eye glistening, “…I will be your adversary by any name.”

  Billy drew the tazer and fired it. It vanished within the other’s body, and the other became his double again and rose, lunging at him, the dart and cable falling to the ground and rewinding automatically.

  Billy swung his left fist and it seemed to connect with something. His double fell back upon the ground. Billy turned and began running.

  “Yes, flee. Give me strength,” it called out after him.

  When he looked back, Billy saw only a faint greenish glow near the place of the windsingers. He continued to hurry, until it vanished with another turning of the way. The voices of the windsingers faded. He slowed again.

  The canyon widened once more; the stream was broader and flowed more slowly. He seemed to see distorted faces, both human and animal, within the water.

  He had felt himself the object of scrutiny for some time now. But the feeling was growing stronger, and he cast about, seeking its source among fugitive forms amid shadow and water.

  Cat?

  No reply, which could mean anything. But no broadcast 140 apprehensions either—unless they came on only to be lost amid the emotional turbulence.

  Cat? If it is you, let’s have it out. Any time now. I’m ready whenever you are.

  Then he passed a sharp projection of the canyon wall and he knew that it was not Cat whose presence he had felt. For now he beheld the strange entity which regarded him, and its appearance meshed with the sensation.

  It looked like a giant totem pole. His people had never made totem poles. They were a thing of the people of the Northwest. Yet this one seemed somehow appropriate to the moment if incongruous to the place. It towered, and it bore four faces—and possibly a shadowy fifth, at the very top. There were the countenances of two women, one heavy-featured, one lean, and two men, one black and one white. And above them it seemed that a smiling masculine face hovered, smokelike. All of their eyes were fixed upon him, and he knew that he beheld no carving but a thing alive.

  “Billy Blackhorse Singer,” a neuter-gendered voice addressed him.

  “I hear you,” he replied.

  “You must halt your journey here,” it stated.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Your mission has been accomplished. You have nothing to gain by further flight.”

  “Who are you?” he said.

  “We are your guardian spirits. We wish to preserve you from your pursuer. Climb the wall here. Wait at the top. You will be met there after a time and borne to safety.”

  Billy’s gaze shifted away from the spirit tower to regard the ground at his feet and the prospect before him.

  “But I still see my trail out within this canyon,” he said finally. “I should not depart it here.”

  “It is a false trail.”

  “No,” he said. “This much I know: I must follow it to its end.”

  “That way lies death.”

  He was silent again for a time. Then, “Still must I follow it,” he said. “Some things are more important than others. Even than death.”

  “What are these things? Why must you follow this trail?”

  He took several deep breaths and continued to stare at the ground, as if considering it for the first time.

  “I await myself at its ending,” he said at last, “as I should be. If I do not follow this trail, it will be a different sort of death.”

  “Worse, I think,” he added.

  “We may not be able to help you if you go on.”

  “Then that is as it must be,” he said. “Thank you for trying.”

  “We hear you,” said the totem as it sank slowly into the ground, face by face sliding from view beneath stone, until only the final, shadowy one remained for an instant, smiling, it seemed, at him. “Gamble, then,” it seemed to whisper, and then it, too, was gone.

  He rubbed his eyes, but nothing changed. He went on.

  .…I walk on an invisible arch, feet ready to bear me anywhere.

  * * *

  outcoming fra thplatz fwaters flwng awa thheadtopped tre andriving now to each where five now four apartapart horse on the mountain ghoti in thrivr selves towar bodystake like a longflwung water its several bays to go and places of ourown heads to sort sisters in the sky old men beneath the ground while coyote trail ahead blackbrid shadow overall and brotherone within the chalce of minds a partapartatrapatrap.

  “My God!” Elizabeth said, sinking back into her chair.

  Alex Mancin poured a glass of water and drained it.

  “Yes,” said Fisher, massaging his temples.

  Mercy Spender commenced a coughing spell which lasted for close to half a minute.

  “Now what?” Fisher said softly.

  Mancin shook his head.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ironbear was right about his thinking he’s in another world,” Elizabeth said. “We’re not going to move him.”

  “The hell with that,” Fisher said. “We tried, and we got through, even if he did turn us into a totem. That’s not what’s bothering me, and you know it.”

  “He was there,” Mercy said, “in the spirit.”

  “Somebody call the hospital and make sure Sands is really dead,” Fisher said.

  “I don’t see how they could be mistaken, Charles,” Elizabeth said. “But Mercy is right. He was with us, somehow, and it seems as if he’s still somewhere near.”

  “Yes,” Mercy put in. “He is here.”

  “You don’t need the spirit hypothesis for what I think happened,” Mancin finally stated.

  “What do you mean?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Just the memory of how he died. We were all of us together, functioning as that single entity of which we understand so little. I think that the trauma of his death served to produce something like a holograph of his mind within our greater consciousness. When we are apart like this it is weakened, but we all bear fainter versions, which is why we seem to have this sense of his presence. When we recreated the larger entity just now, the recombination of the traces was sufficient to reproduce a total functioning replica of his mind as it was.”

  “You see him as a special kind of memory when we are in that state?” Elizabeth asked. “Will it fade eventually, do you think?”

  “Who can say?”

  “So what do we do now?” Fisher asked.

  “Check on Singer, I suppose, at regular intervals,” Mancin said, “and renew the invitation to be picked up if he’ll climb to some recognizable feature.”

  “He’ll just keep refusing. You saw how fixed that mental set of his was.”

  “Probably—unless something happens to change it. You never know. But I’ve been thinking about some of the things Ironbear said. He’s owed the chance, and we seem the only ones who can give it to him.”

  “Okay by me. It seems harmless enough. Just don’t ask me to go after that alien beast again. Once was enough.”

  “I’m not too anxious to touch it myself.”

  “What about Ironbear?”

  “What about him?”

  “Shouldn’t we try to get in touch and let him know what we’re doing?”

  “What for? He’s mad. He’ll just shut us out. Let him call us when he’s ready.”

  “I’d hate to see him do anything foolish.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like go after that thing and find it.”

  Mancin nodded.

  “Maybe you’re right. I still don’t think he’d listen, but—”

  “He might listen to me,” Fisher said, “but I’m not sure I can reach him myself at this distance.”

  “Why don’t we locate the nearest trip-box to that canyon and go there?” Elizabeth said. “It will probably make everything easier.”

  “Aren’t Indian reservations dry?” Mercy asked.

  “Let’s tell Tedders and get our stuff together. We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes,” Fisher said.

  “Walter thinks it’s a good idea, too,” Mercy said.

  * * *

  There is danger where I walk, in my moccasins, leggings, shirt of black obsidian.

  My belt is a black arrowsnake.

  Black snakes coil and rear about my head.

  The zigzag lightning flashes from my feet, my knees, my speaking tongue.

  I wear a disk of pollen upon my head.

  The snakes eat it.

  There is danger where I walk.

  I am become something frightful.

  I am whirlwind and gray bear.

  The lightning plays about me.

  There is danger where I walk.

  * * *

  “I dropped him back here,” Yellowcloud said, jabbing at the map, and Ironbear nodded, staring down at the outline of the long, sprawled canyons.

  The rain, growing sleetlike, pelted against the floatcar in which they sat, parked near the canyon’s rim. Reflexively, Ironbear raised the collar of his borrowed jacket. Pretty good fit. Lucky we’re both the same size, he decided.

  “I watched for a time,” Yellowcloud continued, “to make sure he got down okay. He did, and I saw that he headed east then.” His finger moved along the map and halted again. “Now, at this point,” he went on, “he could have turned right into Black Rock Canyon or he could have kept on along Canyon del Muerto proper. What do you think?”

  “Me? How should I know?”

  “You’re the witch-man. Can’t you hold a stick over the map, or something like that, and tell?”

  Ironbear studied the map more closely.

  “Not exactly,” he said. “I can feel him out there, down there. But a rock wall’s just a rock wall to me, whether I’m seeing it through his eyes or my own. However…” He placed his finger on the map and moved it. “I’d guess he continued along del Muerto. He wanted lots of room, and Black Rock seems to dead-end too soon.”

  “Good, good. I feel he went that way, too. He chose a spot before it on purpose, I’d say. I’ll bet the trail gets confused at the junction.” Yellowcloud folded the map, turned off the interior light and started the engine. “Since we both agree,” he said, turning the wheel, “I’ll bet I can save us some time. I’ll bet that if we head on up the rim, past that branch, and if we climb down into del Muerto, we’ll pick up his trail along one of the walls.”

  “It’ll be kind of dark.”

  “I’ve got goggles and dark-lights. Full spectrum, too.”

  “Can you figure out where he might be from where you dropped him and how fast he might be going?”

  “Bet I can make a good guess. But we don’t want to come down right on top of him now.”

  “Why not?”

  “If something’s after him, he’s liable to shoot at anything he sees coming.”

  “You’ve got a point there.”

  “So we’ll go down around Many Turkey cave, Blue Bull Cave—right before the canyon widens. Should be easier to pick up the trail where it’s narrow. Then we’ll ignore any false signs leading into Twin Trail Canyon and start on after him.”

  Winds buffeted the small car as it made its way across a nearly trailless expanse, turning regularly to avoid boulders and dips which dropped too abruptly.

  “…Then I guess we just provide him with extra firepower.”

  “I’d like to try talking him out of it,” Ironbear said. Yellowcloud laughed.

  “Sure. You do that,” he said.

  Ironbear scanned the other’s thoughts, saw his impression of the man.

  “Oh, well,” he said. “At least I learned to shoot in the P-Patroi.”

  “You were P-Patrol? I almost joined that.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Afraid I’d get claustrophobia in one of those beer cans in the sky. I like to be able to see a long way off.”

  They were silent for a time as they traveled through the 145 blackness, dim shapes about them, snowflakes spinning in the headlight beams, changing back to rain, back to snowflakes again.

  Then, “That thing that’s after him,” Yellowcloud said, “you say it’s as smart as a man?”

  “In its way, yeah. Maybe smarter.”

  “Billy may still have an edge, you know. He’ll probably be mad to see us.”

  “That beast has chased him all over the world. It’s built for killing, and it hates him.”

  “Even Kit Carson was afraid to go into these canyons after the Navajo. Had to starve us out in the dead of winter.”

  “Why was he scared?”

  “The place was made for ambushes. Anyone who knows his way around down there could hold off a superior force, maybe slaughter it.”

  “This beast can read thoughts.”

  “So it reads that there’s someone up ahead waiting to kill it. Doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know that. And if it keeps following that’s what could happen.”

  “It can change shape.”

  “It’s still got to move in order to make progress. That makes it a target. Billy’s armed now. It won’t have it as easy as you seem to think.”

  “Then why’d you decide to come?”

  “I don’t like to see any outsider chasing Navajos on our land. And I couldn’t let a Sioux have the first shot at the thing.”

  Without Yellowcloud, I wouldn’t be worth much out here, Ironbear told himself. Even the little kids around here must know more than I do about getting around in this terrain, tracking, hunting, survival. I’m a damn fool for butting into this at all, physically. The only things I know about being an Indian come from Alaska, and that was a long time ago. So why am I here? I keep saying I like Singer, but why? Because he was some kind of a hero? I don’t really think that’s it. I think it’s because he’s an old-style Indian, and because my father might have been that way. At least I think of him that way. Could I be trying to pay off a debt of guilt here? It’s possible, I guess. And all of my music had an Indian beat to it…

  The car slowed, worked its way into the shelter of a stone outcrop, came to a halt. The snow had turned back to rain, a slow, cold drizzle here.

  “Are we there?” he asked.

  “Almost,” Yellowcloud replied. “There’s an easy way down near here. Well, relatively easy. Let me get us some lights and I’ll show you.”

  Outside, they donned small packs and slung their weapons. Yellowcloud shined his light toward the canyon.

  “Follow me,” he said. “There was a slide here a few years ago. Made a sort of trail. We’ll be more sheltered once we reach the bottom.”

  Ironbear fell in behind him and they made their way to the rim of the canyon. Its floor was invisible, and the rocks immediately before him looked jagged and slippery. He said nothing, and shortly they began the descent, Yellowcloud playing his light before them.

  As they climbed, the force of the rainfall lessened, until about halfway down they entered the full rainshadow of the wall and it ceased entirely. The rocks were drier and the pace of their descent increased. He listened to the wind and the noises of the rain.

  Moving from rock to rock, he came, after a time, to wonder whether there was indeed a bottom. It began to seem as if they had been descending forever and that the rest of time would be a simple repetition of the grasping and lowering. Then he heard Yellowcloud call out, “Here we are!” and shortly thereafter he found himself standing on the canyon’s floor, stony shapes distorted and flowing in the blacklight.

  “Just stay put for a minute,” Yellowcloud said. “I don’t want any trails messed up.” Then, “Can you use that trick of yours to tell whether there’s anyone nearby?” he asked.

  “There doesn’t seem to be,” Ironbear replied a few moments later.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20