Cutter and Quinn trudged over the snow-painted mound first, their ponies looking more weary than the boys who rode them. Duck pushed Irving over the incline and into the boulder patch. She had wound Sally’s lead rope several times around her forearm so that her brother’s Fox Trotter wouldn’t trail too far.
While Duck wove through the boulders, Keech guided a grunting Hector up the hill, talking gently to the horse as they ascended. He led Saint Peter, occasionally glancing back at the wounded Ranger who sat in the saddle, moaning in a grave delirium.
Keech followed Duck’s twisting path through the boulders. When he looked down the opposite side of the hill, he saw a bending tree standing at the bottom of the slope, just as Milos Horner had promised. Grinning, he looked back over his shoulder for any sign of pursuers but saw no movement. Whatever was out there was keeping its distance. He returned his attention to the path.
The tree below the hill was a black walnut, its divided trunk favoring a sideways L. The longest of the two boughs pointed north; the shortest steered travelers south. Thick drifts of snow garnished each limb, and tangles of barren branches on both arms reached up to the gray sky.
“Looks like we found it,” Cutter said. “What now?”
Keech shrugged. “Let’s go listen to a shadow, shall we?”
Snow had fallen more generously in this area, so Keech couldn’t see whether four circular stones had been placed around the tree’s base or not. Dismounting Hector, he led Saint Peter to a flat spot and said to the groaning Doyle, “Wait here, Ranger. We’ll get you help soon.”
Never opening his eyes, Doyle muttered something incoherent.
Keech shuffled closer to the black walnut, began kicking snow away from the roots, and saw a perfectly round white stone embedded in the earth. “Moss opal,” he muttered.
“Can we hurry this up?” Cutter said. “I’m freezing.”
After dusting away more powder, Keech found all four stones.
Duck slid off Irving and walked over, then smoothed the toe of one boot over the south-facing stone. “Just like the others.”
Quinn and Cutter dismounted and huddled around the stones.
“I’m stumped,” Quinn said. “What’s moss opal?”
“It’s a precious stone that holds supernatural power,” Keech said, recalling Duck’s lesson on the Middle Ages. “Apparently, it lets you talk to nature spirits and walk around invisible.”
“At least, some folks used to think so,” Duck added.
“I’d say that sounds right silly, but these days, I guess I ain’t so sure,” Quinn said. “So how do we get this nature spirit to talk to us?”
Keech shrugged. “Back at the tree near the Moss farm, Duck and I investigated the stones. We couldn’t figure them out, but we did see something mighty strange.”
“The shadow of the tree moved,” Duck finished. “It turned into a buffalo head, then disappeared.”
“A buffalo head?” Cutter laughed. “Why not? But you never spoke about this before.”
“We didn’t want to say anything in front of Doyle, not before we learned more about his intentions,” Keech said.
Quinn glanced back at the wounded Enforcer. “I wish he was better. He could help us sort all this weird business out.”
“Doyle tried, remember?” Duck said. “He couldn’t find the path back to the Crossing. The Osage refused to give him a single clue.”
Keech pinched his bottom lip as he considered the marker trees, the bending of the trunks, the moss opal stones, the moving shadow. This time, however, they had Horner’s riddle—something Doyle never had. Keech recited it so everyone could hear it once more:
“Follow the rivers and bending trees
to the den of the moon stalker.
Gather the pack and speak his name
before the noontide shift.”
“What’s the moon stalker?” Cutter asked.
“Maybe the Chamelia?” Duck said. “That monster looks like a moon stalker to me.”
“Well, if y’all got plans to find that thing’s den, count me out.” Quinn moved around the tree, inspecting the warped boughs. He dropped to his haunches to scrutinize one of the moss opal stones.
Keech thought of the shadows again—the phantom buffalo, the slithering stick of darkness he’d seen fleetingly at the tree near Mercy Mission. “Let’s look at this thing’s shadow. Maybe we’ll see something.”
“We best hurry,” Cutter said. “Daylight’s dying fast.”
Though dusk was descending over the land, there was enough light in the sky to give them a feeble glimpse of shade. Quinn examined the stones while Cutter and Duck joined Keech at the side of the bent walnut. They watched the L-shaped shadow on the ground. It showed them nothing—no squiggling movement, no phantom buffalo head.
“C’mon, tree, show us something.” Keech peered up at the sky, praying for enough break in the clouds to give them a few more decent moments of light.
Cutter snapped his fingers. “The riddle said a den. You don’t think the Osage would’ve hid Bonfire Crossing inside the giant bear’s den, do you?”
“I can’t imagine the Enforcers and Osage would’ve hidden the Fang and the Char Stone so close together,” Keech said. “Mr. Horner said the artifacts would bring about terrible evil if they got too close to one another.”
“Maybe we should just head south and talk to the Osage ourselves,” Duck suggested.
“That’s a good plan,” Cutter said.
Quinn had been ignoring their banter, his eyes trained intensely on the ground around the tree. Taking a few steps back, he asked, “What did the riddle say again about a pack?”
“‘Gather the pack and speak his name,’” Keech quoted.
Quinn pointed down. “And how many stones are sitting around that tree?”
“Four,” Keech and Duck said in unison.
“I’d say four is enough for a pack,” Quinn said.
Duck’s melancholy face brightened. “We were standing on the stones when we saw the buffalo move, right, Keech?”
“Yes, we were.” Keech hopped over to the walnut. “Everyone, gather around the tree and stand on a stone.”
Each young rider hurried over to a moss opal stone. As soon as their boots landed on the circles, the tree’s blurred shadow began to tremble. The dark shape vibrated on the snow as if rattled by a heavy wind.
“Whoa! Do you see that, too?” Cutter asked.
“This is what the shadow did at the maple,” Keech said.
The shadow began to melt together, reshaping, folding inward. The image was both haunting and beautiful.
Keech dared not move his eyes away, fearing the shadow would disappear as before. As the final fragments of pale sun died away on the horizon, the shadow found its own interior light, turning shades of luminous greens and yellows on the snow.
“Dios mío, it’s glowing,” Cutter said.
The shadow’s gleam sparked with brilliant textures of emerald. The spectral light reminded Keech of a story Pa Abner once told about spook lights, ghostly illuminations that would sometimes appear over marshes. Some folks call them will-o’-the-wisps, but I’ve always called them treasure lights, Pa said. They guide the way to buried treasure.
Keech doubted he was seeing a spook light—they were nowhere near a marsh—but maybe this was the bending tree’s version of showing them buried treasure. Bonfire Crossing, if they were lucky.
The kaleidoscope shadow had been a quivering jumble on the snow, but now it began to rebuild itself into the image of an animal. The distinct visage of an elk materialized before Keech’s eyes. A great rack of antlers took shape, then the animal’s snout, then a thick, bulging neck. Before long, the entire body lay on the eastern side of the walnut, its knobby legs tugging at the surface, as if trying to emerge from the very ground.
“That’s a stag!” said Quinn.
Suddenly, the phantom elk peeled away from its prison of snow. The glimmering green body took on impossible dim
ension, scattering white powder and dirt as it struggled up into the real world, landed on emerald hooves, and shook the moisture off its glowing pelt.
“This ain’t happenin’,” Cutter said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m asleep and dreaming.”
“It’s happening, all right,” Keech said.
“Do you reckon this is the moon stalker?” Duck’s voice was a mere whisper.
“I don’t know.”
Keech wanted to say more, but the phantom elk surprised him by turning its luminous head toward the east. The creature’s snout lifted and appeared to sniff the prairie. Then a loud blustering noise, like Little Eugena’s bugle, issued from its long throat.
“What’s it doing?” Quinn asked.
The ghost elk trumpeted twice more over the territory, as though calling to a distant companion, then suddenly the ghostly beast sprang forward and galloped east across the snowy plain, leaving radiant green hoof tracks in its wake.
“Wait, come back!” Duck exclaimed.
“What do we do now, speak his name?” asked Quinn.
The emerald specter continued several more yards till it reached the fringe of a nearby forest and stopped. The elk tarried by the woods and paced over the snow, as if it were waiting for them to follow. Another rowdy honk echoed over the terrain.
“I think it’s calling to us,” Quinn said.
“‘When the shadows speak, listen,’” Keech said, recalling the words that Sheriff Strahan had told Horner. “I think we’re supposed to follow east.” Stepping off his stone, he raced back to Hector and swung over the saddle. He leaned toward Saint Peter and snatched up the reins. “C’mon!”
Yet as they galloped toward the dark forest, Keech felt a terrible, foreboding twist in his stomach. Maybe it was that old sensation that they were being watched that he’d felt at their camp, or maybe he was just second-guessing his choice.
Lowering his head to the wind, he tucked away the fear so no one else could see it.
CHAPTER 27
DEN OF THE MOON STALKER
Beneath the crescent moon, the young riders followed the winding ghost tracks of the elk. On occasion, the creature’s emerald path would veer north or south, guiding the gang around babbling creeks or over switchbacks. Sometimes it would steer them out of the woods entirely and back onto long stretches of prairie. But always their travels resumed toward the east.
To Keech, the group’s nighttime pursuit of the living shadow felt like an unending path of misery and cold, and as Hector trotted across the untold territory, his mind kept circling back to the images of his family’s demise—the smoldering timbers, Patrick’s cries from the second floor, Sam waving Keech away in the midst of the flames. You’re no leader, a dark thought whispered in Keech’s ear. You drive people to their doom.
Sometime after midnight, the young riders stopped to rest the horses, check on Doyle, and debate the merits of setting another camp.
“We have to push on,” Keech said. “The elk will show us the way.”
“Hang the elk!” Cutter said. “If we don’t camp, the Ranger will die on the trail.”
“We’re so close,” Keech insisted. “I know it. We have to keep riding.”
“All I know is I ain’t crossing back into Missouri,” Quinn said, his teeth chattering so hard from the cold that Keech could hear them. “Dangerous enough for me to be out here in Kansas Territory. I won’t trot back into a slave state.”
They decided to forge on, following the ghost tracks over empty fields of dead winter grass. As the night turned even colder, Keech mumbled appreciation to Horner’s stallion, though deep down he felt like a true villain for saving Hector from Wisdom only to place him into more discomfort.
After dozing a few times in the saddle, Keech gazed across the open plain and saw the horizon at last begin to blush a salmon color. Dawn was approaching. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so relieved to see daybreak.
He remembered the final line of the riddle—before the noontide shift—and wondered if it was a warning. “Everyone, get your second wind,” he told the group. “I think we need to catch up to that elk before noon.”
The gang groaned but picked up the pace.
As the morning sun pushed up into the clouds, the prairie dipped a smidge and turned into another forest. At the wood’s edge, the glowing elk tracks vanished.
The young riders lined up along the lip of the timber, searching for the creature’s path.
“Well, that’s it, the elk’s gone,” Cutter grumbled. “We rode for nothing.”
“Let’s head into the woods and have a look,” Keech suggested.
They didn’t get five paces into the forest before Duck pointed. “Look!”
Standing a few yards away, tucked inside a girdle of wild gooseberry shrubs, was a bending tree. A hefty basswood with twin trunks, cleft at the base, only this one opened up like a giant U.
They approached the bending tree and stopped the ponies inside the gooseberry. Keech swung off Hector and gave a quick pass over Saint Peter and Doyle, who still lay unconscious on the saddle.
Quinn looked around the forest, clearly puzzled. “I thought we was traveling to Bonfire Crossing, not another bending tree.”
“Maybe this one’s another step along the trail,” Duck said, dismounting. She inspected her brother’s Fox Trotter, who stood patiently behind Irving on the lead rope.
“How many of these dumb trees do we have to visit?” Cutter asked.
“Only one way to find out,” Duck replied. “We have to stand on the stones.”
The group worked quickly to untether Doyle and stretch him out on the ground. Afterward, the young riders scattered around the basswood and kicked away the snow that covered the roots. Keech grinned at Duck when four white moss opal stones winked at them in the morning sun.
“Four circles every time,” Quinn noted. “No wonder Ranger Doyle could never solve the riddle. A lone traveler can’t bring the stones to life.”
“Good thing we decided to stick together,” Keech said, then glanced back at the bending tree. “Okay, let’s hear what this shadow has to tell us.”
They stepped onto the moss opal stones and turned their attention to the shadow of the basswood. Keech held his breath, not knowing what to expect. He quietly mumbled portions of the riddle that Sheriff Strahan had passed along to Horner:
“Follow the rivers and bending trees … to the den of the moon stalker.”
“Something’s happening,” Quinn said, pointing.
“Gather the pack and speak his name … before the noontide shift.”
The long shadow of the bending tree fluttered across the snow, just as before, then flowed together into a thick silhouette.
“What is it?” asked Cutter.
The shape of two sharp ears and a long snout began to form. Then a lean, graceful-looking torso, followed by four slender legs and paws. A thick shaggy tail wagged at the transforming shadow’s rear end. Keech gasped when he recognized the profile.
“Of course, a wolf!” he exclaimed. “The wolf stalks the moon!”
Like the birth of the ghost elk miles away, vibrant greens and yellows shot through the phantom creature’s form, turning the shadow into life itself. When the spectral colors filled the figure from snout to paw, it began to writhe on the ground, laboring like the elk to rise into the natural world. The glowing beast lifted its body from the snow, shook the powder free from its head and tail, then raised its ephemeral snout to the sky. No sound issued from the gaping mouth, but Keech knew what it was doing.
“It’s howling,” Duck said, her voice full of wonder.
“This one ain’t running away like the elk did,” Quinn pointed out. “It’s just baying.”
“I don’t understand. We found the den of the moon stalker,” said Cutter. “And we got here before noon broke. What are we supposed to do now?”
Behind them, the ponies nickered and shuffled back and forth as a brisk wind whipped across the woodland, rustling the
bare branches of the gooseberry shrubs.
Quinn repeated the third line of Horner’s riddle: “‘Gather the pack and speak his name.’”
The answer struck Keech. To find Bonfire Crossing, they had to speak the moon stalker’s name to the bending tree. Leaning closer to the U of the basswood, he boldly declared the answer: “Wolf!”
Nothing happened.
Keech flushed with disappointment. “Wolf!” he called again, but the tree offered no response. Neither did the creature silently howling at its unseen moon. Keech glanced around in desperation, but the others only shrugged.
“I’m gonna fetch some wood and build a fire before we freeze,” Cutter said. He shifted on his stone to leave.
“No, wait!” Duck said, throwing her hands up. “Don’t step away!”
Cutter froze on his white circle. “Why?”
Duck turned her attention to Keech. “Ranger Doyle told us that the Enforcers gave the Fang to the Osage elders to hide, right?”
“Right,” Keech said.
“We also know that the Osage worked with the Enforcers to build the protection around Bone Ridge. They created the Floodwood blight and turned a bear into a monster to protect the path. You called the bear by its Osage name when you first saw Wandering Star’s warning in blood, remember?”
“Of course. Wah-sah-peh.” And even as he agreed, Keech knew what Duck was driving at.
For as long as Keech could remember, Pa Abner had called him the Wolf and Sam the Rabbit. When leading the family in lessons on their Native neighbors, Pa had always been eager to share the words and expressions he had learned from the Osage language. My elder friends taught me these words, he would say as he recited the names of all the animals of the forest, including wah-sah-peh for bear and mah-shcheen-kah for Sam’s rabbit. But the very first Osage word Keech remembered learning was the one for wolf.
Feeling tears well up in his eyes and gooseflesh bristle on his arms, he spoke the Osage word for his nickname aloud.
“Shohn-geh!”
The Fang of Bonfire Crossing Page 22
