Rook & Tooth and Claw

by Graham Masterton

  “Rise now, O Rain Spirit and lend us your strength … Rise up, so that we may see you … Throw back your cloak of clouds and stand in front of us, so that we can witness your return … Rise up, Rain Spirit! Rise up! Rise up!”

  Henry Black Eagle was chanting this so loudly that two passing students stopped to give Jim and him the most peculiar looks. But they had hardly turned away when there was a blinding flash of lightning and a deafening crack, and the cedar tree under which they were sitting was split halfway down its trunk, and instantly burst into flames.

  “Henry! For God’s sake, let’s get out of here!” Jim shouted, trying to untangle his legs.

  But Henry Black Eagle stayed where he was, tapping and tapping the bones, murmuring and singing, while sparks drifted down all around him, and the cedar tree crackled and spat.

  Several people started running toward them. It was then, however, that Henry Black Eagle lifted the bones right over his head and let out a howl like a triumphant animal.

  “Let us see you, O Rain Spirit! Let us see you! Rise up and be our guardian! Rise up and be our protector!”

  As he clacked the bones together one last time, the ground shook with the reverberation of a massive peal of thunder, like all the kettle-drums of all the orchestras in the world, all rolling at once. Even before the first helpers could reach them, rain came blasting out of the sky in a vicious, slanting torrent that almost stopped them in their tracks. The rain drowned the fire in the cedar tree and came rattling down through the branches. Jim looked down toward the football field, and he could see some people running for cover and others holding coats or newspapers over their heads. The game, however, was still going on. West Grove and Azusa were battling for their honour, and neither team was going to let a rainstorm put them off. West Grove were looking for their first victory this season, and Azusa were determined not to be beaten by the Fumblers at any cost. Swathes of rain trailed across the football field like soaking-wet net curtains, and in only a few minutes the grass was half-flooded. The players dodged and kicked and scrimmaged in showers of spray, with rain dripping from their helmets and water spraying from their boots.

  Jim yelled at Henry Black Eagle, “What the hell’s going on? There’s plenty of rain, but where’s the Rain Spirit?”

  “Believe!” Henry Black Eagle shouted back at him. “You have to believe!”

  The rain was so heavy now that Jim could barely see the football field. It spouted off the college guttering and filled up the rosebeds beside the main entrance, until muddy water started to pour over the top of the brickwork and run down the path toward the parking-lot. Many parents and supporters had convertibles, and they had all rushed to the parking-lot to put up their tops.

  Another devastating crack of lightning jumped across the sky, and then the ground shook again.

  “Believe!” screamed Henry Black Eagle. “You have to believe!”

  Jim stood up and walked out from under the cedar tree. He was instantly soaked in freezing rain – his coat hanging from him, his hair plastered flat against his forehead. There is a Rain Spirit, he said to himself. There is a Rain Spirit and I believe in him. I have the gift. I have the vision. I believe in him and I can see him. I believe in him and—

  I can see him!

  There, in the pouring rain, right in front of him, Jim could make out the watery outlines of a tall creature – almost like a man, yet not a man at all. It had a proud, remote face, as colourless as rain, and a body swathed in tumbling, smoking cloud.

  Jim felt its power – cold and sharp and stinging like the rain itself. He had never believed that such spirits existed – that the elements themselves were controlled by living, thinking beings. But here in front of him was the proof, its watery features wavering and pale and distorted, a face from the times when America was being created out of rock and wind and water.

  He dropped to his knees on the grass. He felt exhausted and humble. He felt as if everything he had ever taken for granted had been swept away, like the mud and the leaves that were being swept away by the Rain Spirit’s storm.

  Henry Black Eagle came up and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You can see him, can’t you?” he said.

  Jim nodded. “He’s there. He’s just like the rain.”

  “You don’t know how much I envy you,” said Henry Black Eagle. “To see what a spirit can do, that’s one thing. Rain, thunder, lightning, that’s impressive enough. But to see a spirit’s face—”

  “What do we do now?” Jim asked him. “How do we get him to kill Coyote?”

  “We ask. That’s the only way.”

  Henry Black Eagle knelt down beside him and raised both hands. “O great spirit,” he said, “we have been wronged by the First One To Use Words For Force. He is here today, with my daughter, Catherine White Bird, whose hand he wants to take in marriage. He has deceived me in the same way that he deceived you, O spirit. For my sake, and for my daughter’s sake, I beg you to kill him for me, and take away his heart.”

  Jim kept his eyes on the Rain Spirit but he didn’t see any response. The spirit continued to drift in the rain, its cloud-cloak billowing and fuming. Sometimes it was almost impossible to see if there was anything there at all.

  “Please, great spirit. I abase myself in front of you.” And with that, Henry Black Eagle laid himself flat on the ground, his arms outstretched, while the rain continued to pour down on top of him.

  A black senior called Mo Sharp came up to Jim, his college T-shirt soaking. Mo was academically slow, but he was almost a genius at cabinet-making. “You okay, Mr Rook?” he asked, looking down suspiciously at Henry Black Eagle.

  “Sure, Mo, everything’s cool. You get back down there and cheer us on.”

  “Never saw it rain like this before, Mr Rook.”

  “No, well, neither did I. Maybe you should start building us an Ark.”

  Another crackle of lightning lit up the falling rain like a strobe light. Mo scampered off and Jim turned back to the Rain Spirit. It looked to Jim as if he were fading, as if his cloud-cloak were breaking into fragments.

  “You have to help us!” he shouted. “You can’t leave us to fight Coyote alone! You have to help us! I’ve got the gift of vision! You can have that, if you kill Coyote for us!”

  Jim heard a blur of words in his mind. It was like somebody with a very deep voice whispering very close to his ear. Henry Black Eagle lifted himself from the ground, and said, “Thank you, great spirit. Thank you.”

  “What?” Jim wanted to know.

  “The Rain Spirit has agreed to do it. He will kill Coyote for us. All he wants in return is your gift of vision and one of my fingers.”

  “You’re kidding me. One of your fingers?”

  “Mr Rook – it will be a very small price to pay to get my daughter back.”

  “But you can’t let it take one of your fingers!”

  Henry Black Eagle lifted up his right hand. “It already has,” he said. His middle finger was missing, except for a quarter-inch stump of broken bone. Blood was pouring down the back of his hand and into his sleeve.

  Jim touched his forehead. “He hasn’t taken my vision yet, has he?”

  “Not until he has killed Coyote. He wants you to see him doing it.”

  Jim heard more blurred words. Henry Black Eagle dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around his hand. “We should follow him,” he said. “He is going to find Coyote and rip his heart out.”

  The blurry Rain Spirit turned around and began to move down the slope toward the football field. The rain was still driving down just as fiercely as before, and Jim found it difficult to follow it. It kept fading away, and then reappearing, no more substantial than a drift of smoke from a garden fire.

  They followed it all the way around the back of the bleachers, until it reached the far side of the field. There – almost alone at the very top – stood Dog Brother, his hair streaked with rain, and Catherine, with her collar turned up. Jim walked up the rows of bl
eachers and stood in front of them, with rain pouring from his chin like a faucet.

  “So – what do you want?” asked Dog Brother. “Haven’t you caused me enough trouble?”

  “I’ve come for Catherine,” said Jim. “If you let Catherine go, then maybe I’ll let you go.”

  “I came here to kill you,” said Dog Brother. Droplets of water quivered on his yellow-lensed spectacles. “I came here to destroy everything you touch and everybody you love. Your class of young people are going to die first. Then I’m going to kill anyone who ever meant anything to you, ever. Remember your cousin Laura, whom you loved so much? You remember that poem you wrote her, My Golden Girl, and she couldn’t even read? You’ll know what’s happened to Laura in the next few days, when your mother’s sister calls you up and tells you that she’s dead.”

  “What are you trying to do to me?” Jim yelled at him.

  Dog Brother grinned. “Nothing that you white people didn’t do to me. You killed my people, and when you killed my people, you killed me. Well, now it’s your turn to find out what it’s like.”

  Jim turned to Catherine. Her long hair was dripping in the rain and she looked extremely pale. “Catherine,” he appealed. “Are you just going to stand by and see innocent people killed?”

  “And not just any innocent people,” smiled Dog Brother. “Your fellow-students, Catherine. Your precious Special Class II, where you’ve been learning to forget the Navajo way and the Navajo beliefs – where you’ve been learning to forget me.”

  “If you harm any one of my students—” Jim began, but Dog Brother raised his hand. It was a long, narrow hand – more like a claw than a hand, with a thin, hairy wrist. Dog Brother said, “I’m going to slaughter them all, Mr Rook. David and Sharon and Muffy and Mark. There’s going to be so much blood, you’ll think that you’re drowning in it.”

  “Catherine,” said Jim. “Catherine, please. Think what you’re doing. Those are your friends he’s talking about. He wants to murder all of your friends.”

  Catherine turned her face away but Jim could have sworn that he saw a flicker of response.

  “Catherine,” he repeated. “Listen to me, Catherine.”

  “You can’t stop me,” said Dog Brother. “Your spirits are all much weaker than mine.”

  Jim took three steps back down the bleachers. Thunder bellowed directly overhead, which made him feel as if the sky were falling in. “My spirits may be weaker than yours, Coyote. But yours aren’t. I summon you, great spirit, to rise up and see what Coyote has become. And I bid you destroy him – extinguish his breath, tear out his lungs, pull out his heart.”

  A father with a gingery moustache turned round to Jim and said, “Excuse me, mister. There are kids here. You two guys want to say things like that, take your argument someplace else.”

  “Yes, sorry,” said Jim. But then he flung his arms wide and shouted, “Great spirit, come and kill Coyote! Great spirit, come and tear out his heart!”

  “Jesus,” said the father with the gingery moustache. “The principal’s going to hear about this.”

  But at that moment, a sharp gust of rain snapped across the bleachers, and Jim saw the Rain Spirit climbing up the aisle, its watery face grim with the look of revenge. In one hand it carried a huge and complicated spear, with water continuously pouring from its tip, and raindrops falling from its shaft.

  “Your time has come, Coyote,” said the Rain Spirit, somewhere inside of Jim’s head. “And this isn’t a good day to die.”

  “Wait,” said Dog Brother, raising his hand. “Can’t you allow me one last wish before you kill me?” Catherine clung close to his arm, and even though Jim said, “Catherine! Catherine!” again and again, she wouldn’t look at him.

  The Rain Spirit said, “Why should I grant you any last wishes, after what you did to my daughter?”

  “I simply want to choose the way I die,” said Dog Brother. He was still grinning. All around them, the few spectators who had braved the rain were cheering West Grove toward another touchdown. “Go West Grove! Go West Grove!”

  “You may die any way you wish,” said the Rain Spirit. “Choose, but be quick, My spear is growing impatient for your heart.”

  “You’re the spirit of storms – kill me by lightning! Let me hold up your spear and take the full force of your anger! I’m half a spirit, but I’m half a man, and that will kill me as quickly as snuffing out a torch.”

  The Rain Spirit hesitated for a moment. “Don’t listen to him,” said Jim. “Just stab him, and take out his heart.”

  “If an enemy asks to die in a particular way, then it is shameful not to grant him his wish.”

  “You’re going to give him your spear? That’s good thinking!”

  “I am water, my friend. I am nothing but rain. My own spear cannot harm me.”

  “Well go on, then. Do it. But do it now. And you – Dog Brother – you make sure that Catherine stands well away from you.”

  “Do you think I would harm the most beautiful girl I have ever known?”

  “Just make sure she stays clear, you got it?”

  The Rain Spirit tossed his spear to Dog Brother. Nobody but Jim could see any of these things. They couldn’t see the Rain Spirit, in his tumbling cloak of clouds. They couldn’t see why Dog Brother suddenly lifted his hand as if he were catching something. But Jim could see him standing on the top row of the bleachers with the Rain Spirit’s spear held high in his right hand, pointing up at the hurrying black clouds.

  “I’m ready,” said Dog Brother. He took off his yellow spectacles and revealed eyes that were yellow, too.

  The Rain Spirit lifted one finger to the skies. There was a moment’s pause, while the rain continued to lash down all around them. Then a leader-stroke of lightning came forking out of the clouds, heading right down toward them. Jim stepped back, and pushed back the father with the gingery moustache.

  “Who are you shoving, buddy?” the father demanded, just as the blinding bolt of lightning hit the tip of the Rain Spirit’s spear. How Dog Brother had the split-second timing to do it, Jim would never know. But he threw the spear back at the Rain Spirit, and the Rain Spirit instinctively caught it – right at the instant when the lightning’s return stroke hit it, with more than a quarter of a million volts.

  Jim saw the Rain Spirit’s expression for only a fraction of a second – an agonized mask. Then it exploded into steam, like the ear-splitting blast from a locomotive. Scores of people turned around to see what had happened, but all they saw was the last stray fragments of steam drifting away.

  It kept on raining, however, as if the skies were in mourning for the loss of their spirit, the one who had guided them for century after century, even when the white men came.

  Dog Brother replaced his spectacles and said to Jim, “No spirit can touch me. No man can kill me. Now I’m going to show you what Coyote can do to you, if you make him angry.”

  He turned to Catherine and laid a hand on her shoulder. “No,” said Henry Black Eagle. “Leave her alone.”

  “She isn’t yours any longer, old man,” said Dog Brother. “She’s mine, and she’s going to stay mine. Catherine, let’s see what pain you can inflict on Mr Rook’s team here. You told me they’ve never won a game. Well, let’s see how badly they can lose this one.”

  “Catherine, no!” Jim shouted at her. But already he could see the shadows forming around her head, her shoulders hunching, her eyes beginning to shrink and smoulder scarlet.

  “No!” he said, and tried to grab hold of her arms, but they were already thick and hairy and she pushed him aside.

  Henry Black Eagle couldn’t see Catherine’s transformation, but he knew what was happening to her. He climbed up the bleachers to Dog Brother and tried to seize hold of his coat. “You can’t do this! She’s a child! She can’t change when people are watching her! Leave her alone!”

  “When I’m here, she can change whenever I want her to. And I want her to.” With that, Dog Brother grasped hold of
Henry Black Eagle’s lapels, and head-butted him, so that he fell backward and tumbled halfway down the aisle. There were screams and shouts and George Babouris called up to Jim, “What the hell’s going on, Jim? What’s happening?”

  “Call an ambulance! Call the cops!” Jim told him. “Stop the game! Get everybody out of here!”

  “I just want to know what’s happening!”

  “Do it, George, that’s all I ask! Just do it!”

  Dog Brother came down the bleachers, took hold of Jim’s shoulder, and slapped him across the face. Jim tried to punch him back, but Dog Brother slapped him again.

  Behind him, Catherine had grown taller and darker and now she was bristling, just the way that Jim’s grandfather had predicted. Her claws were like black crescent moons, and she had rows and rows of hideously hooked teeth.

  Dog Brother said, “This is my revenge, white man. This is what happens to people who try to cross me. Catherine White Bird is mine. She was always mine, and she always will be, even when she has given me the child I need, and she becomes nothing more than a beast.”

  George had gone down to the field waving his arms to stop the game. Ben Hunkus was shouting at him and so was the Azusa coach. The players were standing around in muddy bewilderment. The crowd had shrunk away from Dog Brother and Jim, but they would have shrunk away even further if they could have seen the beast that Catherine was gradually becoming.

  “I’m going to murder your children now,” said Dog Brother. “I’m going to murder your children just as the white men murdered our children.”

  He waved his hand, and the Changing Bear Maiden began to descend the steps. All that anybody else could see was Catherine – walking stiffly perhaps, with her shoulders hunched. But Jim could see a huge black shadow-creature with claws and teeth – a creature that could slaughter every young man on the football field and tear their bodies into shreds.

  “Catherine!” he roared. “Catherine, listen to me!”

  Dog Brother kept hold of him, but grinned at him even wider. “It’s no use, Mr Rook. It’s time for the bloodshed.”