by Jeff Chapman
“What have you done to her?”
“The Wise One needs a voice to speak,” whispered Opossum-shifter. “Listen.”
“Is she—?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. Dead. I feared what I might hear next because my gut told me Isobel had fallen to a worse condition.
“No. Not gone,” said Opossum-shifter. The Wise One moved its jaws, side to side and up and down. The shells clicked together with the movement, and when it bared its teeth, the mask mimicked a living skull.
“Bring her back.”
The Wise One slowly cocked its head to one side and then the other.
“You seek me.” The Wise One spoke a bit like a very old woman or someone so old no one could tell the difference. There was a trace of Isobel’s cockiness in that voice or maybe that was wishful thinking. Since it animated Isobel’s body and I hoped a woman would be less cruel, I thought of the Wise One as female and adjusted my manners as if I was talking to my grandma. She shook her head. “White men.”
“Where’s Isobel? What’s become of her?”
“You brought a young basket. Supple and strong. It is not broken.” The Wise One breathed deeply and exhaled, stretching her arms at the same time, as if enjoying the act itself.
A man in a panic, my grandma said, is most like to shoot off his foot. I needed to get a grip on myself.
“When I have spoken, she will be yours again, as certain as birds welcome the rising sun and bats greet the moon. Few come for wisdom. These days have grown dark, and my people let a storm cloud blind their sun. But it is good to feel blood in my veins and wind in my throat, even if my heart drips tears.” She stretched her arms and again flexed her fingers.
I resolved to talk through my business in a hurry. The quicker we were done, the quicker I’d have Isobel back and be on my way...if I had the knife. The Wise One leaned over the bowl above the fire and fanned the steam, inhaling great gulps of it. I’d wondered if it was stew or a concoction to stimulate the mind. Seemed to be the latter. The blacks of her eyes grew large, crowding out the colored part.
“Release him. I hold no council with prisoners.”
Opossum-shifter did as the Wise One commanded but not in the spirit of kindness. He let go, and I fell, taking the brunt of the hard-packed floor with my knees.
“When a hunter kills a beaver, his village downstream may flood, and so it is with this body. I am beyond your harm.”
I nodded, still gnawing through the beaver angle. “And you’ll not harm her? No matter what I say?”
“Wisdom is nourishment. It is not a spear or an arrow.”
I related the whole tale of my dealings with Marzby. She groaned when I talked about the Pig-man, but her steady gaze didn’t waver by even an eyelash when I spoke of Marzby’s interest in the blade.
“The power. The white man is a greedy fox who kills all the hares.”
“He don’t need no knife to inflict pain. He can just point at you and do that. What’s this blade goin’ to do for him?”
“Has the woman a child?”
“Not yet, but they want one somethin’ fierce.”
The Wise One nodded.
With all the disparaging remarks made about white men, I didn’t feel right asking for the blade and giving nothing back. “What can I trade you for the knife? I don’t know the first thing about judgin’ its worth so you’ll have to be honest.”
The Wise One ignored my question and continued with her own. “She is a young woman?”
“Yes, she is young. But I don’t need the blade forever. I don’t want to own it. What I’m drivin’ at is maybe I could burrow it for a day or two.”
The Wise One shook her head. “He is a wicked man, this witch Marzby, a Dark One. He sends a prairie dog to do a snake’s work.”
Not even Orville had called me a prairie dog. “Maybe you can tell me why he’s mixed up a prairie dog in this mess.”
“He has no power here. The spirits of the people are strong.”
“Glad to hear somethin’ can stand against him. Maybe you could bless that blade with the people’s power? So Marzby can’t use it.”
“The blade must not feel his grip. Its hunger will join his. A woman gives life and life is power. It lives within her as the power to soar lives in the feathers of an eagle. He means to cut out her power.”
“You mean he’s gonna kill her?”
“The knife is a channel, like a ditch through a field. With the knife, he will harvest.”
If what the Wise One said was true, Marzby didn’t need Orville for his plan and he had no intentions of releasing Nellie. Pitting Wilbur and me against each other with the promise of releasing one prisoner was Marzby’s sick means of prodding us to work harder and faster.
“I take it you’re not gonna let me have the blade.”
“The most noble of gifts is sacrifice. A few must die to save the many.”
I felt another prairie dog story coming on, so I cut her short. “You mean I’m just to let ’em die?” My voice rose with my anger. “Let Marzby feed ’em to his damned pig?”
Dirt scraped across the floor behind me. Opossum-shifter was rising to his knees to thwart any violence I might be considering, but my time with Orville hadn’t been wasted, no matter what Orville said out of habit. Between me and the Wise One lay the blade, inches from the fire. Desperation is the mother of invention, my grandma said, and inventing a plan ain’t much different than devising a corn sheller. I was far more wily than Opossum-shifter reckoned.
“Why don’t you send that big coyote to help me?”
“Their power is here.”
“What about a blade that looks like that one?”
The Wise One shook her head. “Evil will follow as darkness follows the sun. Go now. We speak no more of this Dark One.”
I was prepared to carry on arguing until the cows and the horses and the pigs came home. Didn’t seem to me the Wise One had delved all that deep into her wisdom. What did she care if an evil white man killed a couple other white folk? As long as he didn’t acquire more magical strength, Marzby was thwarted. I was fixing to articulate that very thought when her head drooped.
Was the mask shrinking?
Chapter Fourteen
The edge of the mask crawled across Isobel’s hair like so many ants dragging a worm back to their fellows. Shimmering waves clouded my vision, turning straight lines into curves, the way the world looks through the bottom of a glass. The buckskin moved, and then the Wise One’s clothes dropped to a heap at Isobel’s knees. She was back in her homespun dress. The mask tilted, casting Isobel’s eyes and mouth in deeper shadow, and seemed to hang from her hair. Isobel groaned as the mask fell from her face onto the buckskin garments, which coughed dust.
Isobel’s head lolled. Her skin had a greenish hue. If her gut was the only part suffering after a spirit possession, she’d be a lucky girl. At least her eyes had returned to chocolate, gone were the red and yellow ones. Isobel moaned. She pressed one hand to her forehead, the other to her belly. “What happened? I’m feelin’ mighty poorly.”
Opossum-shifter gripped my shoulders and lifted me. I figured he expected me to turn on him. My mind churned with an idea. The Wise One might be safe from me, but I could make it so no one could talk to her. When Opossum-shifter had me nearly standing, I pulled my legs up and fell out of his grip. He grunted a curse. I had a momentary advantage at best. I lunged toward Isobel. With one motion, I sent the knife skittering to her knees and grabbed the mask, sticking a finger through the eyehole. I rolled toward the fire and snatched up a flaming brand. Heat singed my fingers but I held on. Opossum-shifter got a grip on my ankles. Can’t say if he saw my plan, but he was too slow. He yanked my leg, twisting me onto my back. I held the mask within an inch of the burning stick. White shells turned black where the flames kissed them.
Opossum-shifter didn’t twitch a muscle, except for his eyes. His gaze flicked between me and the mask. His eyes narrowed and widened in turn, fear and anger m
ixing in his countenance, like a jackrabbit caught between an owl and a coyote. So this here mask was important.
“Let go of my leg.”
Opossum-shifter didn’t comply, so I lowered the mask into the flame. Smoke twisted up from the blackening sinews that bound the shells together, a sickening smell like burnt leather.
He shrieked and let loose my ankle, as if burning the mask was akin to burning off his own ear. I blew the red specs of burning sinew between the shells to black. No great harm, I reckoned. A patch of those pearly shells was now the color of coal, but they hadn’t unraveled. Now I knew what mix of cards I held, a straight flush, and Opossum-shifter knew it too.
“Isobel, pick up the blade.” I wasn’t about to let Opossum-shifter stray from my sight.
A loud belch and the wet splatter of her last meal answered me. Opossum-shifter wrinkled his nose. I didn’t envy him his animal sense of smell. Isobel hacked and spat.
“Got the blade?”
Isobel groaned. “I fear I’m gonna be sick again.”
I scooted backward, holding the mask a hair’s breadth from the flaming stick, and hoped I didn’t land my behind in Isobel’s sick. “Get the knife, girl. I can’t get it myself.”
“Got it—” Another burst of splattering vomit cut her short.
Opossum-shifter sidestepped toward the cavern entrance.
“Hold it right there, mister.” I let the flames lick a different edge of the mask. “I’ll burn it to ash if you cross me. Back to where you were and be quick about it.”
Opossum-shifter retreated. I didn’t dare drop the mask and brand. With my back against the cavern wall, I dug in my heels, inching my back up the side of the cavern and catching every bone in my spine in every cranny along the way. The wall wasn’t as smooth as it appeared.
Isobel knelt where the Wise One had left her, the blade in one hand and the other hovering over her mouth.
“Isobel, get yerself over here. We gots to skedaddle.”
“I hate bein’ sick.”
“Come on.”
She shuffled toward me on her knees, making slow progress. The sooner she got some fresh air down her gullet, the better she’d feel, and she wasn’t the only one desperate for a change of air. The stink from the steaming pot and Isobel’s sick was raising my own bile.
Opossum-shifter’s narrow-eyed gaze followed us. His nose twitched. He was planning how to attack us or trap us, I reckoned. Heat seared my fingers, forcing me to edge my grip farther down the brand which was growing blacker and shorter by the minute. The top half-inch flaked off as gray ash. The same fate awaited my fingers if we didn’t pry our way out of this fix right quick. I glanced at the fire, hoping in vain for a longer stick.
“Tell your coyote friend to get hisself back here.”
Opossum-shifter twitched his head no.
“I swear I’ll burn this old trinket and grind what’s left to dust.” Threatening him at every turn was a mighty tiresome business, but like a stubborn old sow, he needed a lot of prodding.
Opossum-shifter pursed his lips. Shrill whistles echoed through the tunnels. Time would tell what he’d told Coyote-shifter: a summons, a warning, a plan to double-cross?
“Can you walk yet?”
“I reckon so,” sighed Isobel. She struggled to her feet and pressed her hand gripping the blade against the wall. She wavered like a dried up, top-heavy grass stem gone to seed. Making a run for it would not be an immediate option.
“Whatever you do,” I told Isobel. “Don’t drop that knife.”
Isobel squeezed her forehead and groaned in answer.
Coyote-shifter came loping past the cavern entrance. He sat on his haunches in the tunnel and took in the situation with a single sweep of his extra-big head. His gaze settled on me. His lips retracted in a snarl.
“Now Isobel and I are goin’ to walk outa here and you two are goin’ to watch. I’ll ditch this here mask when we’re away. I’m sure you two can sniff it out. Do we have a peace treaty?”
The blade. Whether I heard those words with my ears or in my head, I couldn’t tell, maybe both.
“I got a use for that. I’ll bring it back in good time. If my grandma taught me anything, it was not to lie. You can depend on this here knife comin’ back.”
I stepped toward the tunnel, hooking Isobel’s arm with my elbow.
“You go first,” I told Isobel. “I’m a step behind you.”
The shifters watched us, and I stared back. A growl rumbled in Coyote-shifter’s throat. Their yellow eyes glowed, hungry and angry, the Coyote-shifter’s mood eye a red inferno. They’d rip us to pieces if they got a chance. I shook the mask and the brand to remind them of the stakes. Over my shoulder, the entrance was a smudge of white in a wall of black.
“Don’t run,” I told Isobel. “If you fall or drop that blade, our goose is roasted and burned.”
“Hold that fire up higher. I can’t see a blessed thing.”
I held the mask and fire above my head. A draft along the ceiling whipped the flame as if those skulls watching us were trying to blow it out. With me walking backward and Isobel forward, we crept toward freedom. I’d hoped the shifters would stay put and give us a head start, but like my grandma said, Hoping for good luck is like eating sour berries and expecting not to get sick. The shifters kept pace with our retreat. Their eyes stabbed the darkness with circles of yellow and red. They weren’t going to let us go without a fight.
“Feel like you can run?” I asked Isobel.
“If somethin’s chasin’ me.”
“We’ve gotta run for the horse. I’ll distract them with the mask. That oughta hold up at least one of them.”
“I can see out the entrance now.”
I heard a chickadee and another answer. Sunlight reached in through the entrance and fell across my feet. The beat of Isobel’s footfalls rose to a trot and I matched her pace, though stepping backward. I yelped and dropped the stick when the flames scorched my fingers. The fire snuffed out as the stick fell. The mask was no good without the threatening fire. Gray forms wrapped loosely in the gloom charged toward us.
As I stepped backward out of the cave, the sun flashed across my vision, blinding, like cresting a hill into a sunrise.
“Run!” I shouted.
Isobel scampered away through the grass, which sighed with her passing as her footfalls quickly faded. The eyes in the cavern rose and fell as they grew larger. The shifters were running too.
My first inclination was to fling the mask into the birch trees and chase after Isobel, but what if they thought I still had it? With no time to forge a better plan, I flung the mask into the cave. At least one of them, I reckoned, would have to take it back to the cavern.
My fingers gripped the handle of my knife and pulled it free of its sheath, as I followed Isobel’s trail along the base of the hill. Coyote-shifter bounded through the grass behind me, panting in that wet way dogs do. I pumped my legs faster and focused my attention on the ground, watching for rocks and logs. Some I leapt over; others I dodged. If I tripped now, the consequences didn’t bare thinking. My feet pounded the ground. I gulped air through my wide-open mouth. The panting grew closer, gaining on me with every stride.
I splashed through the edge of a meandering stream, the runoff from the spring. A horse neighed. My heart was already pounding too hard to flutter with joy, but my spirits lifted. Maggie wouldn’t be much use in a long chase, but a well-aimed kick from one of those frying-pan-sized hooves would give Coyote-shifter a sore head to remember for weeks.
A paw slapped me. The hard tips of claws scraped down the back of my leg. I fought the urge to look behind me. The loss of a quarter step would be the end of me, and Orville and Nellie. Sweat rolled into the corner of my eye, stinging something fierce. As I turned the corner of a stand of live oaks, Maggie whinnied, and there was Isobel, reigns in hand, looking like a toy astride the massive draft horse.
“Jimmy!” she screamed. “Run, Jimmy!”
Her
wide-eyed, terror-stricken face, taut as a drawn bow, told me all I needed to know about my pursuer. Paws pounded the earth a step behind me. Panting roared in my ears like a windstorm. Twenty yards more to Maggie, a few more strides. Thinking I’d need both hands to spring onto Maggie’s back, I thrust my knife at its sheath. Missed. I glanced down at my belt and got the knife in. That little twist of my shoulders was all Coyote-shifter needed. Fur, teeth, and claws came down upon my back.
Chapter Fifteen
I leapt to my right and hit the dirt hard before Coyote-shifter’s jaws could grip my neck. My shoulder took the brunt of it, and with my arms tucked, I rolled over twice, which saved me from a broken arm. Coyote-shifter landed where I should’ve been. I scrambled to my knees, wincing at a shooting pain in my shoulder. Savage eyes, yellow and red, turned on me. Bared fangs snapped with fury. The beast’s shoulders bulged with angry muscle. His hind legs coiled to spring again. No chance of escape this time.
I reached for my knife. Coyote-shifter hesitated. His head twitched as Isobel charged to my side, shouting, waving the black blade in one hand and her jagged-tipped broken staff in the other. The clever girl must’ve retrieved it outside the cave. I got to my feet to face Coyote-shifter with my knife at the ready. Our odds hadn’t improved much. Once Opossum-shifter arrived, I feared this standoff would come to a violent and bloody conclusion. Coyote-shifter growled, switching his gaze between us. What was it the Wise One said? Something about their power being here? Distance from the hill might be our chance if they got weaker the farther they ventured.
“Back away,” I said to Isobel.
“I ain’t runnin’ from no fight.”
“We gotta get away from the hill. That’s where they’re strong.”
I stepped backward. Isobel followed. Coyote-shifter snapped his teeth and matched our step. How long could we keep this up before he charged?
A gun blast roared through the trees to my left. A shotgun, both barrels by the sound of it. Isobel and I staggered backward as the report thumped in my chest.
