Rook & Tooth and Claw

by Graham Masterton

  “Catherine,” Jim repeated. “Catherine, this creature isn’t you. It’s only an illusion. Magic, trickery, that’s all it is. You’re still inside there, Catherine, someplace. Catherine White Bird, who’s free. Catherine White Bird, who wants a life of her own.”

  “You can’t stop her, Mr Rook,” smiled Dog Brother. “Why don’t you sit down and enjoy the spectacle, mmh? It’s going to be better than the Roman games.”

  “Catherine,” Jim pleaded. “You never wanted to go back to the reservations, did you? You never wanted to be Dog Brother’s bride? Come on, Catherine, listen to me. You have to break free. You have to be you!

  He paused for breath, and then he recited,

  ‘Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree

  It cannot say what loves have come and gone;

  I only know that summer sang in me

  A little while, that sings in me no more.’

  The shadowy spirit-beast hesitated. It turned its head toward Jim and there was a look of hurt in its eyes, a look of deepest hurt.

  “Go!” Dog Brother commanded it. “Go and rip their lungs out! Go bite off their heads! Come on, heads! I want to see some heads!”

  But the Changing Bear Maiden stayed where she was; and then she turned, and came back toward Dog Brother and towered over him, her fur streaked with rain.

  “Kill,” said Dog Brother, unconvincingly. But the Changing Bear Maiden loomed over him and wouldn’t move.

  “Kill!” Dog Brother screamed at her. “Kill the bastards before I kill you!”

  Without warning, the Changing Bear Maiden slammed her claws into Dog Brother’s shoulder. He let out a high-pitched shriek and tried to wrestle himself away. But the Changing Bear Maiden lifted him completely off the bleachers until his feet were kicking in the air like a hanged man.

  “Let me go!” he shouted. “Let me go!”

  But he was half a man, as well as half a spirit, and he didn’t have the strength to tear himself free. And even though it needed one of his own kind to kill him, she was the same – half-beast, half-spirit – and that was what he had forgotten.

  She let out a roar that made Jim’s skin prickle all the way down his back. Then she ripped open his chest with a single catastrophic blow, tearing through skin and muscle and ribs, and she dragged out his living heart. She held it up in one bloodstained claw, and roared again.

  Jim heard more screams all around him. To the horrified crowd, it must have looked as if Catherine had pulled out Dog Brother’s heart. There was blood spraying everywhere, and Dog Brother staggered and slipped and fell on the bleachers, clutching his chest, coughing and gasping.

  He held up his hand toward the Changing Bear Maiden, to give him back his heart, but she took one step backward and downward, and then another, and with every step the shadows around her the bristles began to fade, and the shadows melted more. The claws shrank and the eyes stopped glowing. By the seventh step, she was Catherine again, her face white with shock, still holding Dog Brother’s heart, but Catherine again.

  Dog Brother heaved himself up and grasped hold of the metal handrail. “Catherine,” he said, “give me back my heart.”

  Catherine stood with his heart held up in the air. Blood and rain were running down her sleeve. She turned to Jim and looked at him in desperation.

  “I love you, Catherine,” said Dog Brother. “Please, give me back my heart.”

  Jim mouthed one word. “Don’t.”

  Dog Brother came down the steps, one by one. His bloody hands slid down the handrail, inch by inch. “Please, Catherine, I’m begging you.”

  Catherine took another step back and Dog Brother lunged at her, but he lost his footing and tumbled at her feet. He lay sprawled across the bleachers, one foot shuddering. Then he lay still. Blood ran down the steps onto the grass below. Henry Black Eagle went across and put his arm around Catherine’s shoulders and held her tight. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You don’t know how sorry I am.”

  “Is he dead?” asked Catherine.

  “He’s half-human but he’s half-spirit, too. He can survive for quite a time without a heart.”

  “He looks dead.”

  Jim looked around the football field. The spectators were all standing in the rain staring at them, confused and frightened. He could sirens in the distance. On the field itself, the players stood like statues. Dog Brother lay on the steps, broken and silent, with the rain soaking his coat and his blood dripping from the bleachers onto the ground below.

  “Come on,” Jim told Catherine, holding out his hand. “You’d better give me that.”

  At that moment, however, Dog Brother lashed out and caught hold of Catherine’s ankle. She stumbled, colliding against her father, who stumbled too. Dog Brother struggled up onto his feet and seized hold of her arm, trying to snatch his heart away from her.

  “Catherine!” shouted Jim, and held both hands up, even higher. He didn’t realise that Catherine had thrown him the heart until it came flying toward him, spraying blood like a pinwheel. He caught it and it landed in his hands with a sharp flap, with its protruding arteries still attached. Cupping it closely, he jumped and bounded down the wet bleachers, trying to avoid the dumbfounded spectators, some of whom caught at his coat in a half-hearted attempt to stop him, simply because they didn’t understand what was happening.

  Dog Brother came leaping after him, and both of them slithered and tripped on the wet woodwork, although Jim managed to keep his balance until he reached the field. He cannoned his way through a crowd of milling spectators, and then he ran up the field as fast as he could, dodging in between the players. The rain lashed his face like a bucketful of cold salt, and his shoes splashed in the puddles.

  He thought he was clear. He thought he must be clear. But then he glanced back over his shoulder and saw that Dog Brother was only five or six yards behind him, and closing. His chest was hanging open. His lungs were blown up like bloody balloons. Yet he kept on running and his yellow eyes were glaring with hatred. Jim suddenly realised that he didn’t have the speed or the stamina to get away.

  “Mo!” he shouted, to one of West Grove’s tackles, Mo Newton. “Mo, take this and run with it!”

  He threw the heart to Mo and Mo caught it before he realized what it was.

  “What the hell is this, man? This is gross!”

  “Run with it!” Jim yelled at him.

  Mo started to run and Mo was fast, but Dog Brother was faster, even with his body ripped open. He swerved past Jim and just had time to say, “Bastard!” before he was running through the rain after Mo. Like Jim, Mo must have thought that he was clear, and by the time he reached the 20-yard line he started to ease off. But then Dog Brother lashed at his football shirt, and tore the back of it wide open, and Mo realised that he didn’t have a chance of getting away. He called, “Ron!” and threw the heart to Ron Hubbard, one of their half-backs, who caught it one-handed and started running back toward the Azusa goal with it.

  All around the field, the crowd watched it disbelief as Dog Brother came running after Ron Hubbard, gaining on him yard after yard. He was half-human, and he couldn’t survive for very long without a heart, but he was running for his own survival, and that made all the difference. Ron Hubbard threw the heart to Keith Altham, the quarter-back, who passed it on almost immediately to Denzil Green, another tackle. Denzil was quick-footed and liked to play football for laughs, and he danced and skipped in front of Dog Brother, holding up his heart like a football trophy, and then twirling around just out of his reach.

  But then Dog Brother caught hold of his helmet and wrenched it around, and all Denzil could do was hurl the heart wildly in any direction. The only player anywhere near was Russell Gloach, who caught it neatly, stared at it in complete disgust, but then went lumbering off up the field, his big legs working and his boots kicking up spray.

  “Run, Russell!” Jim bellowed at him. “For God’s sake, run!”

  Russell kept up his heavy, measured jog; and all the
time Dog Brother was catching up with him, his coat-tails flying, his teeth gritted, his face a mask of complete hatred. He was only three yards behind Russell when Russell looked around and saw him coming.

  It was a transformation. Russell arched back his head, filled out his chest, and began to run faster. Dog Brother lashed out at him, but missed him, and Russell ran faster still. The rain gradually began to clear as he sped through the puddles, past the 35-yard line, past the 50-yard line, kicking up fountains of spray. Everybody cheered and whistled and clapped, even though most of them didn’t understand what was happening, and didn’t realise that Dog Brother’s chest was gaping open.

  Dog Brother lost his footing by the 50-yard line, and tripped, and fell to his knees. Russell ran all the way to the goal line and performed a little triumphant ballet of his own. The clouds had almost passed over now, and the air was warm and steamy. Jim walked over to Dog Brother and stood beside him. Dog Brother was close to collapse. He took off his yellow spectacles and wiped them, and then he looked up at Jim and there was an expression on his face which wasn’t hatred, or anger. It was more like resignation.

  “Well, white man, it seems like you’ve beaten me, after all.”

  Jim said nothing. Three policemen were approaching, across the grass, and he lifted his hand to warn them to keep their distance.

  “Maybe I should have realised that times have changed,” said Dog Brother. He spat a string of blood onto the ground. “Maybe I should have realised that the world doesn’t have a place for creatures like me any longer.”

  “You want me to feel sympathetic? Because of you, an innocent young boy was murdered, and I lost a woman I loved – and whatever I think about John Three Names, he didn’t deserve to die, either.”

  “If I could have my heart back—” said Dog Brother.

  “I’m not giving you your heart back. Your days on this earth are over, Coyote.”

  “But you forget. I have power over death. Lives are taken away – yes. But lives can be given back again, can’t they?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about a deal, white man. I’m talking about getting my heart back.”

  “You mean you can bring these people back to life? What are you talking about? The woman I loved, she had her head taken off, and then her body was burned. She was a sacrifice to you.”

  “What’s a sacrifice? A gift, that’s all. And gifts can always be returned.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Dog Brother lowered his head, and coughed more blood. “That’s your privilege. But wouldn’t it be wonderul if it were true?”

  Jim was silent for a very long time. He looked around the field and saw the spectators all anxiously milling around. He saw the teams watching him in bewilderment. He saw the clouds blowing away and the sun coming out.

  “If I give you back your heart,” he said, “you have to promise me one thing. You have to promise to leave Catherine White Bird alone, for ever. You have to go back to Fort Defiance, and if you want a bride, you have to find yourself a Navajo girl who really wants to marry you.

  “If I even smell you anywhere near Catherine White Bird again, then by God I’ll come after you and you’ll wish that you were never even thought of.”

  Dog Brother nodded. “Don’t worry, Mr Rook. I won’t touch her again.”

  Jim beckoned to Russell and Russell brought the heart over. “You deserve a medal,” said Jim, and gave Russell an affectionate cuff. Then he handed the heart to Dog Brother, who looked at it for a moment, and then took it, and stowed it into his chest like a man putting his wallet away. He passed his hand down the front of his body and his bones knitted together with an odd creaking sound, and his skin mended itself over his wound like melting wax.

  He stood up. “Perhaps I should have realised that times have changed,” he said, almost regretfully. “So many of us died, but that was a long time ago now, the way you humans look at things, at least. Maybe it’s time to forget.”

  He lifted up the whistle that was hanging around Jim’s neck. “If you ever feel the need for some spiritual reinforcements, why don’t you whistle?”

  At that moment, Catherine White Bird came up, closely followed by Henry Black Eagle. “I don’t know how to thank you,” she said.

  “You can start by forgiving your father,” Jim told her. “And then you can get the best English grades ever.”

  He turned around to talk to Dog Brother, but Dog Brother had vanished. He hadn’t even left any footprints. The sun shone on the wet football field and there was a sharp smell of ozone. The game had been played in which both sides had lost; and his encounter with Coyote was over.

  Catherine took hold of his hand and walked back to the college with him. She was wet and her hair was straggly but she was still very beautiful. “Do you ever date your students?” she asked him, squeezing his hand. He smiled at her and squeezed her hand back. “No,” he said. “Never.”

  Later that evening, in the West Grove mortuary, the body of Martin Amato, the football captain, suddenly twitched and stirred. In another mortuary, in Window Rock, Arizona, the body of John Three Names, the Navajo journalist, uttered a low, vibrant moan.

  And behind the Navajo Nation Inn, the wind started to blow like a small tornado, and blue lights started to flicker. Dust and ashes were blown up into the air.

  Then, slowly, a woman’s hand appeared out of the ground.

  About the Author

  Graham Masterton (born 16 January 1946 in Edinburgh) is a British horror author. Originally editor of Mayfair and the British edition of Penthouse, Graham Masterton’s first novel The Manitou was released in 1976. This novel was adapted in 1978 for the film The Manitou.