Revenge of the Manitou

NINE

There was a sharp rattle of gunfire. But it was only because they knew what was going to happen that Harry and Neil and Singing Rock could follow the fatal action of the next split second. Misquamacus swept his arm across in front of him, dismissing the manitous of each bullet, and returning them to where they came from.

Unprepared, unprotected, the ten young guardsmen were shot down where they were kneeling-killed by their own bullets. They died on the road in dark stains of blood, twisted and crumpled like sleeping children. There was a stunned silence over the bridge and its surroundings, and even the news reporters stared without speaking. A brief sharp odor of gunpowder drifted away on the unsettled wind. The echoes died away.

Singing Rock bowed his head. “They never listen,” he said softly. “They never, ever listen. O ancient gods, protect us.”

It was too late now. A further detachment of National Guardsmen was running forward with rifles and rocket launchers, and making their way through the fallen bodies of their comrades. They knelt on the roadway and aimed their weapons, while corpsmen ran out with stretchers to collect the bodies.

In the middle of the bridge, Misquamacus was spreading his arms, and he was beginning to recite the words of the summoning of Nashuna and Pa-la-kai and Coyote. His voice was deep, and it rumbled with the same timbre as the wind, and the vibrations that shook from the storm across the lake. The other medicine men turned inward to face each other, and spread their arms too, ignoring the intense line of guardsmen who were aiming their weapons at them.

“Pick a target carefully,” instructed the National Guard colonel. “Then shoot at will until you’ve brought it down.”

There was a nervous pause. Then: “Fire!”

The second holocaust was worse than the first. Both Neil and Harry dropped down to the dusty roadside as a shrieking, sparkling hail of automatic rifle fire burst over them in all directions. The NBC news reporter beside them was hit in the face, and keeled over backward in a spray of blood. Police and soldiers and spectators twisted and fell, and bullets shattered automobile windows and pierced gas tanks. Four Highway Patrol cars exploded and burst into flames, and the night was lurid with orange fire and the rank odor of blazing gasoline.

The National Guard colonel still couldn’t comprehend that the guardsmen’s own bullets were being turned against them, and he ordered another detachment of sharpshooters forward. Harry, crouched on the ground, said/”For God’s sake, Singing Rock, you’ve got to tell them!”

Singing Rock said, “There’s only one thing I can do. I have seen it done by a great elder of my tribe, and I have heard it said that Crazy Horse could do it.”

Harry said, “Don’t take any stupid risks! Just go tell the National Guard that they’re decimating us!”

They heard another order to fire, and there was another sharp crackle of rifles.

Instantly, Singing Rock flung back his head and stretched wide his arms.

It happened so fast that Harry couldn’t really see what was going on. But the entire salvo of rifle fire flashed in a wide curve away from Misquamacus and headed for Singing Rock. Singing Rock spread his fingers, and the bullets sprayed off his hands in a screeching, whining burst of fire and hot lead. Then there were nothing but echoes, and they were gone.

Harry stood up. Singing Rock was silent and pale, and there were beads of perspiration glistening on his forehead.

“You deliberately attracted those bullets,” said Harry, hoarsely. “You dumb Indian, you. What would have happened if Crazy Horse’s spell hadn’t worked? They would have blown you away. Straight to the happy hunting grounds with no stop for lunch.”

Singing Rock wouldn’t look at him. “I have to trust my spells,” he replied quietly. “If I lose my faith in my magic, what do I have left?”

Harry let out a long breath. “Okay. But next time, why not just duck when the bullets start flying? All right?”

Singing Rock nodded. There wasn’t tune for any more banter. The night was crisscrossed with flashing spotlights, and hideous with the whooping of sirens, but over it all they could still hear Misquamacus as he completed the incantation for calling down the first of the Indian demons. They could feel the rumble of thunder through their feet, and the lightning that had stalked the distant hills was now flickering closer.

“Listen,” said Singing Rock. “Between them, those medicine men are calling down Nashuna and Pa-la-kai and Coyote. The demons won’t be able to resist their summons, because they’re too powerful, all together like that.”

Neil, wiping a smudge of dirt from his face, said, “What are we going to do if they do call the demons down? How can we possibly fight them?”

Singing Rock took a look at the spirit cage he had left on the fence. So far it was quiet, and showed no signs of activity. He rearranged the ribbons and beads, and finished casting the powders he had brought with him.

Then he said, “What you have to remember is that almost every demon can be appeased. Some demons want blood, others want manitous. If you can offer a demon what he needs to survive and maintain his strength on the great outside, then you can usually succeed in dismissing him.”

“Usually?” asked Harry. “How often is usually?”

“More often than never,” replied Singing Rock. “And right now, we’re clinging on to every straw we’ve got.”

There was an ear-splitting burst of thunder, and they looked in fear up at the sky. All the way down the dark length of the lake, huge trees of forked lightning sizzled and crackled, and the air reeked of electricity. Then darkness swamped them again, and the heavy clouds rolled over the mountains and blotted out the stars and the moon and the night sky.

Misquamacus was calling now, at the top of his voice. “Nashuna, we summon you!

Nashuna, we command you! Nashuna, god of darkness, we summon you!”

Above the circle of medicine men, a hundred feet in the air, a roiling knot of darkness appeared, darker than the clouds. Out of its threatening, amorphous midst, Harry could make out scores of what looked like red glittering eyes, evil and ravenous, and from beneath its cloudy bulk, dark smoky tentacles trailed toward the ground. The spirit cage on the fence began to rattle and shake as if it were being’worried by a mad dog. ‘

There were heavy bursts of gunfire from police and soldiers on both sides of the bridge, and again both Highway Patrolmen and onlookers were cut down by slicing bullets. Over the transmitter, Harry and Neil could hear the National Guard colonel insisting on a cease-fire, and phoning Travis Air-Force Base for an air strike.

Singing Rock, though, was totally preoccupied by Misquamacus, and by the huge bulk of Nashuna the demon of darkness. He stepped forward now, through the lines of police cars, and walked to the end of the bridge. Harry, from where he was crouching, was sure that he could see Misquamacus bare his teeth and smile.

Singing Rock was caught in the floodlight, one man alone against twenty-two, and against all the terrible powers of the elder gods, and Misquamacus was at last going to get his revenge.

Misquamacus raised one arm. Singing Rock stopped, only thirty or forty feet away from the circle of wonderworkers.

In his distant, strange, echoing voice, Misquamacus called: “Why do you fight me, little brother? Why do you defy me?”

Singing Rock didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his medicine bones and beat them together over his head in a complicated rhythm. Then he pointed one bone up to the sky, up toward the dark bulk of Nashuna, and spun the other bone in his free hand.

Misquamacus suddenly understood what Singing Rock was doing, and raised his own arm toward Nashuna. But he was moments too late. Singing Rock’s incantation was completed, and he abruptly pointed his second bone toward Neem, the bringer of thunder, one of the most celebrated wonder-workers of all time.

There was a roaring, grinding, screeching sound like a cliff collapsing. Neem, a muscular Indian in a buffalo-horn helmet, crossed his arms in front of him to prevent Singing Rock’s spell from reaching him. For almost a minute, the two of them struggled against each other, with Misquamacus powerless to intervene. Branches of lightning spat and fizzed around them, with sparks showering across the road surface. From where he was standing, Harry could see that Singing Rock was hunched forward with effort, and that the arm which was still raised toward the grim shape of Nashuna was trembling with effort.

Suddenly, there was a horrendous scream. Neem, the bringer of thunder, had fallen to his knees. Singing Rock was almost standing over him now, pointing one bone toward his body and keeping the other bone directed at Nashuna. The rumbling noises were deafening, and Harry felt sure the whole bridge was going to collapse.

“Nashuna, demon of darkness, I give you this being’s darkness for your stores of night!” called Singing Rock, in a high, strained voice. “Take his darkness as my sacrifice, and go back to the great outside!”

Neem fell to the road. He tried once to claw his way toward Singing Rock, but he knew that he was defeated. Singing Rock had been too quick, too direct, and had used one of the most powerful sacrificial spells. Dying, the thunder-bringer shrieked in agony, as his skin peeled away from his body, transparent layer by transparent layer, and as his muscles and membranes and bones were bared. He fell apart like a dissected flower, while his inner darkness, the secret shadows inside his body, were drawn through Singing Rock’s steadily pointing bone and funneled into the black knots of Na-shuna’s maw by the other, upright, bone.

There was another peal of thunder, and Nashuna was gone. Singing Rock stepped away from the spread-out remains of Neem the medicine man, warily watching Misquamacus. No emotion showed on Misquamacus’ face, but he kept his arms raised as a protection against Singing Rock’s magic.

“You have defied me,” said Misquamacus. “Not for the first time, but for the second time. You will die for this, and your manitou will wander the great outside forever, in constant agony of mind and body. I, Misquamacus, promise you this!”

Singing Rock said nothing, but abruptly turned his back on Misquamacus and walked off the bridge. He came back to Harry and Neil and set his bones back in his case with almost casual professionalism. It was only when he turned to look at Harry that the strain on his face really showed. He was white with effort, and his eyes seemed to have lost all expression.

“How can you turn your back on him?” asked Neil. “Why doesn’t he strike you down?”

Singing Rock dabbed ‘at his forehead with his handkerchief. “He let me go because we’ve declared this a kind of contest. There are rules to any contest, and the rules to this one are that you don’t unleash your medicine on anyone whose back is turned.”

Captain Myers came across from the protection of his Highway Patrol car. He said briskly, “I thought I told you jokers to stay out of this. I thought I specifically ordered you out of here.”

“It’s just as well you didn’t,” Harry told him. “You’d all be lying around like cut-up frogs by now.”

“I demand to know what’s going on here,” said the captain.

Singing Rock sorted through his case. “What’s going on here is that I’m saving your life,” he said brusquely. “Now, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of my way and let me get on with it.”

“But what the hell did you do out there?” demanded Captain Myers. “What was all that stuff with the bone’s?”

“It’s very easy,” said Singing Rock, taking out two leather pouches of powder.

“Nashuna is the demon of darkness, and darkness to him is like a blood transfusion.

Everybody has inner darkness, physical and mental. I gave Nashuna the inner darkness of Neem, that medicine man there, and Nashuna was satisfied and went away. I’m afraid you have to understand that the inner darkness of a great medicine man is worth a great deal more to Nashuna than that of a captain of the Highway Patrol. He might have had to dissect a few hundred policemen to achieve the same result.”

“Listen, you refugee from a traveling sideshow,” snapped Captain Myers, “I’m ordering you off this area at once. If you try to make your way back again, I’ll personally make sure that you’re shot.”

Singing Rock said, “If you make me leave, then I assure you that you won’t be here to shoot me.”

On the fence, the spirit cage began to rattle and shake again. Singing Rock turned around to listen to it, and then said, “It’s Pa-la-kai. Misquamacus has summoned down the demon of blood.”

“The demon of blood?” asked Captain Myers. “This sounds like a goddamn horror comic.”

There was more thunder and blinding lightning, and for a few seconds Misquamacus and his medicine men were silhouetted by what looked like floating globes of light, intensely brilliant suns that swam above their heads. Harry, his hand raised to shield his face, could just make out the blue-white outline of something within that intense light source before the bridge and the creek were plunged into darkness again, and all he could see were red and green spots in front of his eyes.

Singing Rock went forward again, and stood in the gloom facing the bridge where Misquamacus had formed his circle. He called, “O spirits of wind, I call you now to help me. O spirits of the storm, give me your strength. I call upon you, hurricanes and whirlwinds, to give me your power.”

Captain Myers said, “What the hell is that idiot doing? Doesn’t he know he’s going to get himself killed?”

Harry held the captain back. “Don’t go after him. Give him a chance. He knows the risks better than you do.”

A faint breeze began to disturb the grass around them. Then the breeze rose to a soft wind, and whistled through the fence, and through the bones of the spirit cage.

In a few seconds, the wind had whipped up even harder, and clouds of dust were blown up from the sides of the highway. In a minute, it had become a shrieking gale, and they couldn’t even hear themselves speak.

Behind Misquamacus, in the center of his medicine circle, the swimming globes of Pa-la-kai, the demon of blood, flared up again. They were brighter than the sun, brighter than anything Harry had ever seen before. In the end, he found it impossible to look. The dazzling globes were slowly floating together to form one shat-teringly brilliant sun.

With his eyes screwed up against the light, Harry watched Singing Rock anxiously.

He could see that the Indian was already tired, pitting his magic against Misquamacus and twenty other medicine men, any one of whom was more experienced and more powerful than Singing Rock could be in three lifetimes. And as the demon shone and shone, and slowly brought himself together into one supremely evil and unconquerable shape, Singing Rock’s head fell onto his chest, and his arms gradually dropped.

The gale-force winds, which had sprung up so quickly, began to die away.

“Come on, damn you,” whispered Harry. “You can’t let him beat you now. Come on, damn you. Come on!”

But Singing Rock was exhausted. He sank down on one knee, and held his hands to his head to concentrate on the spell he was trying to work. And meanwhile Pa-la-kai, in all his ravenous majesty and brilliance, swelled larger and brighter and ever more devastating. Out of his dazzling maw came a cacophony of gruesome howls and shrieks of bloodlust, and he rose again, high over Singing Rock, to take his sacrificial due.

Singing Rock raised his eyes. Harry could see that he was almost blinded by the light of Pa-la-kai. Neil, standing close by, said, “He’s finished, Harry. He can’t fight that. He must be finished.”

Singing Rock spread his arms. Only a few feet awaj now, Misquamacus stood over him in his eagle-winged headdress, tall and triumphant and vengefully straight-backed. Behind Misquamacus, in a silent semicircle, stood the greatest of the Indian wonder-workers,

“Pa-la-kai!” howled Misquamacus. “I give you this traitor’s blood! I give you every drop that flows in his veins, every ounce in his heart! This is your sacrifice, Pa-la-kai, master of death! This is your reward, Pa-la-kai, god of blood!”

Singing Rock, instead of collapsing, staggered to his feet and sprayed his medicine powders in a crisscross pattern. His eyes were wild, and his whole face was contorted with the effort of what he was doing. In a stentorian voice, he called:

“Ossadagowah! By the commands of the elder gods, by the forbidden words of.

Sadogowah, by the thousand deaths and the thousand lives, I bid you to appear!”

Misquamacus paused, taken completely by surprise. He stared at Singing Rock in disbelief. Singing Rock had actually dared to summon the demon whom no Indian medicine men ever dared to summon, the beast in no human shape whom Misquamacus had been intending to use himself to call up Ka-tua-la-hu, the one who slept beneath the waters.

Even though Ossadagowah was dangerous to any human, no matter how many sacrifices were placed before him, he was almost always inclined to favor those who summoned him from the great outside, and for a while, anyway, he would do their bidding. This time, in this manifestation, that meant Singing Rock’s bidding.

Singing Rook had scarcely spoken when a strange cold cloudiness began to form over the bridge. The cloudiness widened and slowly settled downward, misting the bright globes of Pa-la-kai and making them shine with dim opalescence. In a few minutes, the fires of Pa-la-kai had died and dimmed, and there was nothing over the bridge except that chilly white miasma of evil.

“Ossadagowah, most revered son of Sadogowah, hungry one from the great outside, I offer you these wonder-workers,” called Singing Rock. Again, he cast his powders.

“I give you their blood and their brains and their very spirits to grind between your teeth. I give you their essence to absorb in your selfness. I give you this and offer you my prayer.”

The white cloud coiled and twisted like fat transparent white maggots. It uttered a noise, too, like nothing Harry had ever heard. A doleful, hideous groaning sound, that made him feel cold all over. The sound of a being who was without pity, without emotion, without any recognizable soul. Harry knew what Singing Rock had risked, summoning Ossadagowah. He had risked himself, and everyone else around them, and maybe thousands of others. Only a great wonder-worker could seal Ossadagowah back on the great outside, and there were only two wonder-workers living who were capable of doing it. Singing Rock, if he was at the peak of his strength, which he wasn’t; and Misquamacus.

Misquamacus knew that, too. He knew that Singing Rock had outwitted him. He paused for a moment, his face lifted toward the cold, waving tentacles of Ossadagowah, and then he reached into his costume. He produced a small gray tablet of stone, and held it toward Ossadagowah. At the same time, he started to chant and sing, quickly and loudly, and-Harry thought-almost desperately.

Ossadagowah groaned again, and his groaning shook the earth beneath their feet.

His cloudiness seemed to spread wider, and his tentacles thrashed the air. Then, very gradually, the coils of his amorphous form started to fold in on themselves and disappear, and within a few moments his whole being had vanished.

Now Misquamacus faced Singing Rock alone. But the ancient wonder-worker turned his back on Singing Rock contemptuously for a while, and raised his arms to address the other medicine men. They spoke among themselves, their faces grim and vengeful, and then, when they had decided on what they were going to do, they turned and faced Singing Rock again.

Misquamacus and Singing Rock spoke to each other for a while. Harry tried to catch what they were saying, but they were talking quietly and with little emotion, and when he did catch an occasional word, it sounded as if it was in some Indian language. It could have been a challenge from one medicine man to another. It could have been a demand from Misquamacus that Singing Rock should leave the side of the white men and fight instead for his blood brothers. Whatever it was, Singing Rock shook his head at the end of it, and walked back through the lines of police cars without another word.

“What’s happening?” demanded Captain Myers. “What’s going on out there?”

Singing Rock knelt down by his case and put away his powders and his amulets.

Then he stood up and looked from Harry to Neil to Captain Myers.

“What you saw just now was just a skirmish,” he said. “I caught Misquamacus off-balance, and I managed to prevent him from unleashing those demons on the countryside. But, as you can see, he is scarcely tired, and I am exhausted. He has twenty other wonderworkers to back him up, and twenty other wonderworkers to call up the most terrible of gods from elder times. He says that even without Ossadagowah, he will raise Ka-tua-la-hu from the waters, and that will mean the end of us all.”

Captain Myers bristled with anger. “What is this?” he snapped. “This is a whole bunch of clouds and optical illusions and stuff like that, and you’re trying to tell me it’s dangerous? The only thing that’s dangerous around here, fellow, is that gang of terrorists out on the bridge there.”

“Terrorists?” queried Singing Rock. “You really think they’re terrorists?”

“They stole the school bus, kidnapped the kids, blew the bus up. Then they shot down thirty people. What else would you call them?”

“Captain,” said Singing Rock, “if all that is true, then where are the children’s bodies?”

“Blown up, I guess,” said the captain grumpily.

“And where are their weapons, those terrorists? Can you see any of them carrying a gun?”

“They’re concealed. Russian-made concealed weapons.”

“Concealed where?” asked Harry dryly. “In their hats?”

Captain Myers didn’t answer.

Singing Rock said, “I tried to tell you before, captain, and you just wouldn’t listen.

Those men out there are reincarnated medicine men from many centuries past. In a while, they will raise from Lake Berryessa a god known as Ka-tua-la-hu, and Ka-tua-la-hu will loll all of us.”

Captain Myers pulled at his ear. “Ka-tua-la-hu, huh?”

“That’s right. A beast in no human shape. The most terrible and feared of all the elde* gods. The spawn of the Great Old One himself.”

Captain Myers looked perplexed. He walked a little way away, and then he came back and said, “Ka-tua-la-hu?”

Singing Rock nodded. “K you look out on the bridge, you can see that they’re beginning to call him already.” The captain shaded his eyes from the floodlights, and squinted for a while at Misquamacus and his medicine men. Then he stalked off to make a report over the transmitter.

Singing Rock pressed his fingers to his eyes. Harry watched him for a while, and then said, “Is there anything I can do?”

Singing Rock shook his head. “This is turning out to be a duel. The only trouble is, there are twenty-two of them-well, twenty-one now, if that makes any difference-and only one of me. I can’t fight them very much longer.”

“What about Ka-tua-la-hu? What can we do against him?”

Singing Rock shrugged. “I really don’t know. And even if I did, I don’t think I’d have the strength to do anything about it.”

Neil said, “You can’t give up now. If you beat them, I’ll get Toby back. Please.”

Singing Rock said, “I’m doing whatever I can, Neil. I promise you. But you mustn’t hold out too much hope.” Neil said, “I’ve always had hope. Dammit, I’ve had hope when there was nothing eke. When everybody thought I was crazy.” “But, Neil-” said Harry.

“But nothing,” interrupted Neil. “The point is that white men beat the Indians once, including their medicine men, and if they did it once they can do it again. If Misquamacus was so great, how come the prairies are all farms now, and all the buffalo are dead, and the elder gods are all forgotten? How come the Indians are all living on reservations?”

Singing Rock tiredly ran his hand through his hah-. “The Indians lost because they lost faith in their magic,” he said. “It wasn’t anything to do with the power of medicine men like Misquamacus. It was just that the medicine men couldn’t do anything without the support of their nations.”

“I don’t believe it,” snapped Neil. “I believe the white man won the West because he worked harder and fought harder and because he wouldn’t ever give in.”

“Neil,” said Harry, trying to calm his down.

“I don’t believe the Indians lost faith,” repeated Neil. “I just believe that the white men were stronger, and that was all.”

There was a rumbling noise from the direction of the lake. A humid wind blew for a while, and then died away. It left a strange smell behind it, a smell of fish and cold fog. All along the shores of Lake Berryessa, the water began to foam and grow agitated. A small tidal wave even washed into Pope Creek, below the bridge, in a swill of muddy froth.

Singing Rock turned and stared at the bridge. He could see Misquamacus, illuminated by the police floodlights, swaying from side to side and singing in a piercing, high-pitched tone.

“He’s nearly finished calling the old one,” said Singing Rock. “When all twenty-one of them recite the summoning together, then the waters will open and you will see Ka-tua-la-hu. Well, I hope you won’t. Neil, Harry, you’d better get in that pickup and burn it on out of here. We’re not going to stand much of a chance now.” “John,” said Harry, “I’m not leaving you here.” “You have to,” insisted Singing Rock. “You’re no damned use to me anyway.” “John-I’m not going, and that’s final.” Singing Rock looked at Harry for a moment, and then offered his hand. “All right,” he said, softly. “I appreciate your staying. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Out on the lake, a huge, cold fog was rising in the darkness, and the waters were gurgling and seething in horrible anticipation. The earth cracked beneath their feet, and the temperature dropped lower and lower with each passing minute. Around them, police and reporters ran around in confusion. Only on the bridge itself was there any calm at all, an eye in the storm, as Misquamacus began to make slow beckoning gestures toward the lake, summoning Ka-tua-la-hu, the terrible elder god.

“I guess this is almost our last chance,” said Singing Rock. “Misquamacus is really preoccupied now. It’s going to take all of his strength to raise up Ka-tua-la-hu without the help of Ossadagowah, and all the strength of his friends as well. I’m going out there again.”

He opened up his case and took out two war axes, each one decorated with scalps and feathers. Then he gave Harry one last look, and made his way back through the barricades toward the bridge.

Harry called: “Take care, will you?” But he wasn’t sure if Singing Rock had heard him.

Now, hundreds of feet above the churning surface of Lake Berryessa, the grayish fog rose in the dim and terrifying shape of the elder god. It was so dark that Ka-tua-la-hu’s writhing form was scarcely visible, but as he strained his eyes, Harry could see something that looked like a nest of wriggling, repulsive serpents; something that disturbingly reminded him of every nightmare he’d ever had. It was the raw essence of fear and repulsion; the loathsome horror that crawled on the fringes of the night. It was the ancient lingering memory that still makes men afraid of things that creep and things that slide, even though they have consciously forgotten why. It was Ka-tua-la-hu, the spawn of the Great Old One, the most hideous god of madness and fear.

All twenty-one medicine men on the bridge had now raised their arms in obeisance to the elder god, and were singing a low, warbling incantation. They stood in their oweaoo, their circle, and they drew the overwhelming fog cloud nearer.

Singing Rock reached the end of the bridge and stood there alone for a moment, swinging a war ax in each hand. Then he whooped out a long challenging call, a mocking call that ridiculed Misquamacus and every other medicine man, a call that any Indian with any pride could not ignore.

Harry could see Misquamacus waver with indecision. But then the wonder-worker turned and left the other twenty medicine men to continue their call to Ka-tua-la-hu, who now loomed over them all in an immense boiling bank of evil clouds, and he faced Singing Rock with an expression of burned-out patience and deep revenge.

Singing Rock took two or three steps forward, and then he began to whirl one of the axes around and around until it was a blur. Misquamacus crouched down slightly in anticipation, but his eyes never left Singing Rock’s face, and he looked confident and contemptuous. Harry, over by the fence, found that he was digging his fingernails into the palm of his hand.

The magical ax flashed from Singing Rock’s hand and flew toward Misquamacus, turning end over end. But even before it was halfway there, Misquamacus gave a quick sweep of his arm, and the ax seemed to burst and turn into a black owl, which screeched once and then flapped away on the wind.

Singing Rock swung the second ax, faster and faster, and he threw it at Misquamacus with a hoarse cry of warlike vengeance. But Misquamacus was quicker, and stronger. His arm swept across his chest again, and the ax turned in midair and flew back toward Singing Rock. Harry watched in horror as Singing Rock tried to dodge it, but the speed and power of Misquamacus’ magic made it unstoppable and unavoidable. With a sharp chopping sound that Harry could hear from seventy feet away, Singing Rock’s head was knocked from his shoulders.

For an agonizing second, Singing Rock’s decapitated body stood alone on the bridge, with a fountain of blood spraying from his severed neck. But then he twisted and collapsed beside his own head and lay still.

Harry turned away, his stomach heaving. He felt totally stunned, totally shattered.

Without realizing it, he dropped to his knees, and stayed there while Misquamacus stalked back triumphant to his circle of medicine men, and joined his strength once more to the summoning of Ka-tua-la-hu.

Neil said, “Harry-what the hell can we do now? Harry!”

Harry looked up. His eyes were watering from retching. He said, “I’m damned if I know. Singing Rock was the expert.”

“Harry-we’ve got to do something! Look!” Behind him, the writhing cloud of Ka-tua-la-hu was almost at the bridge itself, and its pale slimy tentacles were lashing out at the foam-wracked shores of the lake. The whole grotesque god was trumpeting now, trumpeting in evil and hungry delight, with a noise that sounded like dozens of tortured whales. Across on the other side of the bridge, Harry saw three National Guardsmen running as a tentacle lashed toward them. It caught them all, and dragged them shrieking into the boiling lake.

“We’ve just got to get out of here!” shouted Harry. “That thing’s going to kill us all!”

“But we can’t!” Neil insisted. “What about the children? What about all the people who are going to die?”

“I’m not a goddamned martyr!” Harry yelled back. “I’m a goddamned mystic!”

Already, policemen and soldiers were running past them and scrambling up the loose dirt and rocks of the hillside. A cold, foul wind was blowing-a wind that stank of silvery fish skins and fetid flesh. Out of the mass of serpents, another tentacle flailed toward the shore, and a policeman was crushed and pulled into the water.

There was a high-pitched screaming sound, and suddenly five Air Force jets, all flying in tight formation, came streaking northward along the length of the lake. They passed the cloudy bulk of Ka-tua-la-hu, and Harry saw the hot scarlet-blue flames from their tail pipes as they used reheat to climb and bank and circle away.

Ka-tua-la-hu screeched and groaned, and another roiling mass of tentacles appeared from the upper clouds.

Harry and Neil could hear what was happening over the abandoned transmitter. The National Guard had pulled back a half-mile, and their colonel was trying to direct the air strike from Dyer Creek.

“Air strike to ground. What do you want us to sap”?”

“The bridge there. The Pope Creek bridge. You see where that land of gray fog stuff is?”

“We’re coming back for another run there. We don’t see the bridge too clearly.”

“Where that gray fog stuff is. That stuff with all the tentacles like a damned octopus.”

“An octopus? What is this? We don’t see any octopus.”

Harry and Neil could hear the jets rumbling behind the hills. Then they flashed into sight again, still flying tightly together, and made a curving pass over the bridge and off into the clouds to the south. They were followed by a sharp sonic bang.

“We see the bridge and the cloud mass. You want the bridge knocked out!”

“That’s right. Knock out the bridge, and see what you get when you fire a few rockets into that fog.”

“Okay, ground. We’re coming in for a trial run, then we’ll get at it.”

Again, the whistle of the jets came nearer. But as they appeared over the hills, there was an abrupt garbling of sound over the transmitter, and a chilling, screaming noise.

“What’s happened? I can’t seel I can’t see any-thingl”

“Oh, Christ, my eyes are gone! My eyes]”

The five jets thundered overhead, but this time they were wildly out of formation. Two of them collided almost over the creek side where Harry and Neil were crouched, and there was a monstrous explosion and a rolling ball of fire that spun across the valley and crashed onto the hillside opposite. The other three tumbled out of sight, but Harry and Neil heard three dull thumps in the distance and saw the flash of igniting fuel.

Harry wiped sweat from his face and looked up at the towering bulk of Ka-tua-la-hu, white and heaving and infinitely evil, a mass of wriggling tentacles and cloudy horror.

“Well, Neil, I guess we’re on our own.”

Neil slowly shook his head. “We’re not on our own. We never have been. These Indians have called up all their old spirits and demons and ghosts to help them, why the hell don’t we call up oursT’

“What are you talking about?” said Harry. “Are you crazy?”

“That’s exactly what I’m not. I’ve been stupid, that’s all. Dunbar helped me once and he’ll do it again. That’s what he was trying to tell me. The Indians may have massacred those white settlers up here at Conn Creek, but they made a mistake when they chose to use that massacre as a focusing point for all this. They disturbed the spirits of the settlers, right? They disturbed Dun-bar’s ghost. And what I said about the white men licking the Red Indians is true. They licked them because they were stronger, and better armed, and better organized, and in the end they were more determined.”

“Greedier, too,” said Harry.

“Sure they were greedy. But their greed was what made their determination even stronger. And they’re not only determined, they’re here. They must be. They’re just waiting for us to call them, like that monster was waiting for the Indians to call him.”

“You’re going to call them?” said Harry. “Now I know you’re out of your mind.”

Neil stood up. “You bet I’m going to call them. We’re going to win this tune, Harry.

We won in the old days and we’re going to win again. My ancestor started all this, and it’s up to me to set it right.”

Harry tried to grab his arm, but Neil ran off through the lines of deserted police cars, ducking and weaving. The ravenous cloud of Ka-tua-la-hu was almost over them now, its tentacles blindly searching for human flesh. Harry saw one white serpent slither across the ground and catch an unsuspecting jackrabbit, instantly tearing it into a bloody rag with a crushed skull and bulging eyes.

Neil made it to the bridge. The twenty-one Indians were still standing there in their magic circle, using all their powers now to bring Ka-tua-la-hu out of the lake and across the countryside, to devour and ravage and take revenge on the white man.

Misquamacus was standing in the center of the circle, his head back and his eyes closed, his fists pressed against his chest. Out of his mouth came an endless howling ululation, a sound as ancient and timeless as the first man who ever called on the elder gods to wreak death on his enemies.

Neil, alone, shouted: “Dunbar! Dunbar! I need you!”

His voice sounded pitifully small amid the screeching of the Indian medicine men and the astral moaning of Ka-tua-la-hu. But he called again and again: “Dunbar! Dunbar!

Dunbar!”

Harry yelled: “Neil! It’s no damned good! Get out of there!”

“Dunbar!” howled Neil. “Dunbar, for God’s sake, help me\”

Harry rubbed dust from his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether he was imagining things or not, but there seemed to be more people on the bridge. Their figures were faint at first, almost invisible, but as Neil shouted “Dunbar!” over and over again, their shades seem to gather substance and shape.

They didn’t take on complete solidity. Harry could still see the shadowy railing of the bridge through their bodies. But they were solid enough to recognize. Twenty lean, rangy men in mackinaws and buckskin shirts and long dusters, with beaten-up hats and drooping mustaches. Twenty hard-bitten old-time settlers, with rifles and guns.

And a little way behind them, on the hillside, stood twenty women in bonnets and capes, and a group of silent, unmoving children.

They were the ghosts of the Wappo massacre at Las Posadas, the spirits of 1830

returned. The people whom Bloody Fenner had led to their deaths, and whom his descendant was now calling to take their revenge, the white man’s revenge on the Indians.

The medicine men lowered their arms, and stood facing the ghostly white settlers in cautious bewilderment. But the settlers didn’t step forward. They simply raised their rifles, took ami at the medicine men, and fired. There was a flat, unreal report, and smoke appeared to drift away on the wind. The medicine men collapsed to the road.

At the same time, as the incantations of the medicine men ceased, a deep, groaning sound emerged from the shape of Ka-tua-la-hu. The ground shook again, like a huge earthquake, and the night sky was ripped with lightning and peal after peal of shattering thunder.

In a final devastating burst of noise, the elder god rolled back into the lashing waters of Lake Berryessa, and sank in a turmoil of foam beneath its surface. It left behind that cold stench of the deep and dark waters that lapped and splashed and lapped again, but the god was gone.

Harry ran up to the bridge. Neil was still standing there, exhausted and alone. The bodies of the medicine men were strewn everywhere, their painted faces against the asphalt, their costumes bloodied and torn. Harry circled around them gingerly, looking for Misquamacus. Neil followed close behind.

Then Harry heard a voice. He looked up through the drifting powder smoke, and there at the end of the bridge stood Misquamacus, with Broken Fire, the Paiute medicine man, beside him. Both of the wonderworkers had been wounded by the ghostly bullets of Dunbar’s settlers. Misquamacus’ right arm hung beside him, dripping with blood, and there was a dark stain on Broken Fire’s breeches. But Misquamacus’ face was still deeply marked with anger and revenge, and he fixed Harry with eyes that glittered and burned.

“You think you have defeated me, white man, but I shall destroy you, too, just as I destroyed your traitorous friend. First, though, Broken Fire will burn the man Fenner, so that you may see what I have in store for you.”

Broken Fire raised his hand, just as Andy Beaver had done, and pointed it toward Neil. Harry tried to take a step forward, but Misquamacus made a sweep of his left arm, and Harry felt as if he was paralyzed, unable to move another step. Broken Fire chanted the ritual words to create fire, and gave a low, penetrating cry.

As he did so, however, there was a curious vibration in the air between him and Neil.

For a brief moment, Harry was sure that he could see the outline of a young man, with one hand raised, protecting Neil from the magic that projected from Broken Fire’s outstretched finger.

There was a roaring gout of flame from Broken Fire’s hand, but it flared up against the ghostly outline of the young man, and enveloped Broken Fire instead. The medicine man screamed in agony as the fire seared his face and his bare chest, and he dropped to the road in a struggling, twisting mass of flames. After a while, he lay still.

Misquamacus turned to Harry.

“Your legacy has always been one of death and destruction, white man. You have slain my people and raped my women and destroyed my prairies and forests. Now you have dismissed even my greatest gods. I sought revenge on you and the one called Singing Rock, and on all white men and their running dogs, but revenge has sought me instead. This is my last life on this earth and I must now go to the great outside unfulfilled.

“I could kill you now, but I shall not. I want you to remember me instead for the rest of your moons, that you knew and fought against Misquamacus, the greatest of the wonder-workers of ancient times. I want you to know, too, that even on the great outside I shall seek a way to revenge myself for what you have done, and that you will never be safe from my anger.”

The medicine man raised his hand in the Indian sign which means “so be it,” and then turned away. All Harry and Neil could do was watch him disappear into the smoke and the darkness.

But even as they stood there, they heard voices behind them. Small, young hesitant voices. They turned, and there on. the bridge where the bodies of the medicine men had been lying were the children of Bodega school. Linus Hapland, with his scruffy, red hair, Petra Delsada, Ben Nichelini. Debhie Spurr, and Daniel Soscol. Even old Doughty was there. They turned again, and where the burning body of Broken Fire had been stood Andy Beaver, dazed but alive. And out of the smoke into which Misquamacus had walked, shyly at first, but then with a rush, came Toby.

Neil knelt down and flung his arms around Toby and cried openly. Harry watched him for a while, and then went to the parapet of the bridge, took out a cigarette, and lit it. He didn’t want to go look at the body of Singing Rock. He wanted to remember his Indian friend the way he always had been before-dignified, wise, tolerant, and humorous. What lay on the bridge were only mortal remains, after all. Singing Rock’s real self, his manitou, was now on the great outside, in the magical hunting grounds where the wonder-workers prepared themselves for each fresh incarnation.

He took a Iqng drag at his cigarette and then brushed tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. He thought he must be getting old. The wind always seemed to make him weep.

They sat in the kitchen at Neil’s house, polishing off the remains of one of Susan’s cheese-and-bacon pies, with fresh broccoli and red potatoes. Then Neil brought some more beer out of the fridge, and they drank a quiet toast to survival, and maybe to Dunbar, too.

Harry said, “It was too near this time. I don’t ever want to meet that goddamned Misquamacus again as long as I live.”

Susan gave him a gentle smile. “The best thing you can do now is forget it. It won’t happen again, will it? Not like this.”

“I don’t think so,” said Harry. Then he added, “No, it won’t.”

Neil drank beer and said nothing. Toby, at the other end of the table, was playing lumberjacks with the stalks of his broccoli, cutting them up and floating them downriver on the cheese sauce.

Harry said, “I still don’t know what happened with Broken Fire. I thought he was going to burn you up like a cheap hamburger out there on the bridge.”

Neil lowered his eyes. “I don’t know, either. But I’ve got a kind of hunch. I don’t know whether you saw anything in the air between me and that medicine man, but I could swear I glimpsed my dead brother Jimmy for a moment. It was as if he was acting as a shield between me and that fire.”

Neil set down his glass. “You remember what Singing Rock said about Broken Fire?

His magic didn’t work too well against the spirits of people who had been killed by white man’s technology. Well, that was how Jimmy was killed. We were out working on our car, him and me, and I accidentally let the jack slip and he was crushed.”

There was a pause. Susan and Toby and Harry all looked at him in silence, and let him come to terms by himself with what had happened.

“What I learned out there,” said Neil, “was that Jimmy doesn’t blame me. He protected me, and saved my life, just like the spirits of all those settlers protected the American heritage that they’d help to found. I believe the spirits of the past are with us all the tune, whether they’re good or whether they’re evil, whether they’re fancy and frightening or whether they’re plain and helpful. I still don’t understand it all, and I don’t suppose I ever shall, but I thank God that the world is made the way it is.”

Harry Erskine finished his beer, wiped his mouth, and stood up. “I’m going to have to make a move,” he said, “or else I’m going to miss that plane.”

“How long are you going to stay in Dakota?” asked Susan.

“Just long enough to make sure that Singing Rock gets buried the way a great medicine man should. Then it’s straight back to New York.”

Susan smiled. “Well, you call and see us again, you hear?”

Harry nodded. “Thanks for the lunch. It was terrific.”

They walked out to Neil’s pickup and Harry threw his suitcase in the back. Susan and Toby stood by the kitchen door waving as he climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door.

“So long,” called Harry. “And stay away from Indian medicine men from now on.”

Toby grinned and lifted his hand for a second in the same sign that Misquamacus had made before he vanished. The Indian sign for “so be it.” Then the sign was gone, and the boy was simply waving.

Harry looked at Neil and tried to appear cheerful.

“Nice boy you’ve got there,” he said, and reached for his cigarettes.