“Then it’s true?” said Neil. “What Misquamacus said about you was actually true?”
“You say you’ve seen him,” Mr. Erskine retorted. “What do you think?”
Almost swamped with relief, Neil said, “It’s true. It must be true. My God, the whole damned thing is true.”
“That’s what makes it so frightening,” Mr. Erskine pointed out. “Did you say you saw him?”
“Only a form that he took. The form of a wooden man. And he’s been speaking through my son, Toby, who’s eight. He says that he’s coming back to take revenge on the white men. His spirit-his manitou-is going to take possession of Toby and get reborn.”
“Almost the same as it happened before.” said Mr. Erskine soberly. “Listen-will you hold on to the phone while I fix myself a seltzer?”
“Sure,” said Neil, and waited. After a few moments, the phone was picked up again, and Mr. Erskine said, “Do you know what he’s trying to do? Has he given you any kind of idea?”
Neil answered, “Not very clearly. It’s something to do with the day of the dark stars, which is a day when twenty-two of the most powerful medicine men from all ages in history and all different tribes are supposed to get themselves reborn and call down some of the Indian gods. It’s the day when they’re supposed to kill one white man for every Indian who ever died at white hands.”
“That sounds about Misquamacus’s style,” put in Mr. Erskine. “Did you say two of the most powerful medicine men?”
“No, no-twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two? You’ve got to be kidding.”
“That’s the legend. And that’s what Misquamacus told me.”
There was more silence. Then Mr. Erskine said, “Listen, fellow, I’ve got to talk to someone about this. Why don’t you leave me your number, and your name, and 111
call you back.”
“Sure,” said Neil. “My name’s Neil Fenner, and I live in Bodega out in northern California. Not far from Sonoma, you know? My number’s 3467.”
“I got that,” Mr. Erskine told him. “Give me a couple of hours, and I promise I’ll come back to you.”
“Mr. Erskine-”
“Call me Harry, will you? We haven’t met yet, and we don’t know who the hell each other is, but if you’re talking seriously about Misquamacus, then I think we’d better get ourselves on first-name terms.”
“Okay, Harry, that’s fine. But what I wanted to say was that Misquamacus told me he had some kind of personal score to settle.”
“A personal score?”
“That’s right. With you, and with some Indian called Singing Rock. He said that you’d destroyed him when he tried to get himself reborn some time before, and that he was going to fix you for it.”
Harry Erskine sounded uncomfortable. “I see,” he said quietly. “Well, I guess that figures. Misquamacus is the revenge of a whole nation, all wrapped up into one. If he says he’s going to kill us all, then by God, Neil, he means it.”
FIVE
At school that day, Mrs. Novato noticed that her class was curiously quiet and diffident. They went through their morning’s lessons without any fidgeting or misbehaving, and filed out for their lunch break in an orderly way. She sat at her desk, watching them through the window, wondering what it was about them that disturbed her so much.
It was only when she saw them gathered at the far end of the school yard, talking solemnly among themselves, that she realized what it was. None of them had laughed all day. None of them had smiled.
She got up from her seat and walked to the window, eating an apple. She hoped they weren’t catching anything. It was the class outing to Lake Berryessa on Monday, and she didn’t want to have it spoiled by colds or flu.
She was curious to see what the children were doing. Normally, they ran around the yard, playing tag or ball. But today they were standing in a circle, all by themselves, and they had linked arms. They were circling around and around, their feet shuffling as if they were dancing. She had never seen children do anything like that before, and she found it strangely upsetting.
A gray cloud crossed the sun, and the school yard went dull. But’ the children continued to shuffle and sway, and she was sure she could hear them singing.
At that moment, Mr. Saperstein, the visiting music teacher, came in through the school porch and waved a hand to Mrs. Novato in greeting. He was wearing his frayed Panama hat and his frayed linen suit, and he had a camera slung over one shoulder and a flute case over the other.
“Hello, Mrs. Novato. How are you getting along? Doesn’t the weather get worse every year? It’s the Russians and their magnetic fields. We should tell them to stop or pay the price.”
Mrs. Novato was frowning as she stared at the children, and she didn’t answer. Out in the hall, Mr. Saperstein paused, and then came into her classroom and said,
“What’s so fascinating? I could have walked in naked.”
Mrs. Novato looked at him quickly and smiled. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was just fascinated by what my class is doing.”
Mr. Saperstein raised his spectacles and squinted out into the dull sunlight.
“They’re dancing, aren’t they?” he said. “What’s so strange about that?”
“It might not have been strange in the days of square dances and folk festivals,” said Mrs. Novato, “but these children have never danced like that before in their whole lives. They don’t know how.”
Mr. Saperstein shrugged. “They obviously do, or they wouldn’t be doing it. It’s interesting, though. It looks like a Greek folk dance. The way they’re all holding on to each other’s shoulders and jogging around like that.”
He took his camera off his shoulder, made some fussy adjustments for the distance and the light, and then took three pictures of the children as they hopped and danced around.
“I have some reference books on folk dancing at home,” he said. “When I have these developed, I’ll see if that dance looks anything like one of the old-time Greek or Mexican dances. Maybe the children inherited some kind of folk memory. You never know.”
Mrs. Novato nodded absentmindedly. “Thank you, Mr. Saperstein. Td be interested to find out”
The dance broke up almost as quickly as it had begun, and for a while, the children wandered around the school yard, talking quietly or playing games. Today, they kept apart from children from other classes, and if a teacher appeared in the yard, they seemed to turn away and shun her.
Over by the wall of the kindergarten annex, under the shade of a maple, Toby was talking to his best friend, Linus Hopland, while Andy Beaver and Ben Nichelini were squatting beside them drawing patterns in the dust with pointed sticks.
“My daddy almost burned the house down last night,” said Toby. “He was trying to break up this old wardrobe in my room, and he burned it right on the rug. You should have seen my room.”
“Is your old man crazy?” asked Linus, scratching his bright red hair.
“My pa says he is,” put in Andy. “My pa says your pa’s gone bananas. He says your pa was up at police headquarters yesterday, trying to talk George Murray into chasing after ghosts.”
“I don’t think my daddy’s crazy,” said Toby, simply. He spoke with unusual seriousness, and his eyes seemed glazed, as if he were thinking about something else altogether. “I think he’s land of nosy, that’s all. He should learn to keep out of things that don’t concern him.”
“All parents are like that,” said Debbie Spurr, coming across the yard with her yo-yo.
“My mom said that if I had any more dreams, she was going to take me to see a psychiatrist. So all I do now is tell her I don’t dream anymore. Parents are real dumb when you think about it.”
“I think the dreams are good,” said Ben Nichelini. “I had a dream about this man cutting up these women, cutting them into pieces. He cut them right open, tummies and everything, and they were still alive.”
Debbie sat down beside Toby and laid her hand on his shoulder. She was pale
today, and distracted, and she looked waiflike in her thin blue gingham dress. “The dreams are important,” she said. “If we didn’t have the dreams, we wouldn’t know how important we are. We’re important.”
“It’s the blood I like,” said Andy. “Sometimes there’s nothing but blood, and you know it’s their blood, and not yours, and you can practically feel it, it’s all sticky and warm.
We were strong on the day that happened. We felt how strong we were. We knew we could kill them if we tried. I can’t wait for it to happen again.”
Toby said, “We mustn’t speak of it. The time is close. We must join ourselves by the spell of the tree demons before we can act together. Where are the lizards?”
“Daniel and John are bringing them,” said Andy.
“They were out last night collecting them, too. They’ve got a whole boxful.”
Toby looked up at the school clock. “They must hurry. We don’t have much time. I had the dream last night of the final days. I had a dream of revenge against all those who hurt me. This is long, long overdue.”
Linus said, “I dreamed we fell out of the trees on their backs, and we pulled them down so that they were trampled by their horses. I dreamed we dragged a man across seven miles of bush and forest and stony ground, until his body was raw meat and he was screaming to die. The elder ones can do better, though.”
Andy put in, “What did you think of Mrs. Novato this morning? he looked pretty upset to me.”
“She sure did,” agreed Debbie. “Anybody would have thought we weren’t behaving ourselves or something. And she’s been staring out of that window for the whole recess.”
“She’s okay,” said Ben. “At least she told Toby’s dad where to get off.”
“She didn’t so,” argued Toby. “She said we were okay, that’s all. She said the dreams didn’t mean anything.”
Through the stirred-up dust of playtime, Daniel Soscol and John Coretta came across the yard, carefully carrying a large brown cardboard box. They looked from right to left to make sure they weren’t being watched by the teacher in charge, and then they came up to the annex and laid the box down beside the trunk of the maple.
“How many did you get?” asked Toby. His voice was serious again. His childishness seemed to ebb and flow, like someone trying to shout a message across a windy strait. He stood up and watched Daniel take the lid off the box. Inside, clawing and climbing all over each other, were lizards from the roadside and the rocks.
“I got the ten, like you wanted,” said Daniel.
Toby poked the lizards with his finger. “Good. You’d better get everybody together.”
Daniel and John walked off, and went around the playground assembling all the children from Mrs. Novato’s class. They gradually gathered in the corner by the annex, out of sight of the main schoolhouse, and Toby stood up on a root of the maple tree so that he could talk to them.
The children stood quite silent, as if they were dazed. They ignored the stares of children from other classes, and the noise of cops and robbers and tag.
Toby said, “This is the ritual of joining ourselves by the spirits of the tree demons, as it was ordained by the gods of the desert lands and the plains. It joins together the brothers from the hills and the forests and the brothers from the waste places. It binds them so that they can work their wonders together, so that their powers are one. We have little time, so let us begin it now.”
The children stood in two parallel lines, eleven children on each line. Daniel Soscol brought the cardboard box, and Toby took out the first lizard. He held it up by its tail, writhing and jerking, while the first four children drew closer together.
Toby whispered, “Ossadagowah, son of Sadogowah, we bow ourselves before you.
We call upon your powers, feared of elder times, in the days before the white man touched the sacred lands, and we call upon you Nashuna, and you Pa-la-kai, and upon the demons of the lakes and the forests and the crawling beasts upon the earth. We call upon those from beyond the darkest stars, those who have no human shape, and we beg their aid.”
Each of the first four children, Toby and Daniel and Debbie and Petra, took a wriggling leg of the lizard between their lips. Then, at a slight nod from Toby, they each bit into their leg, and the lizard’s limbless body dropped to the dust.
Then Debbie and Petra turned around to the next two children, Andy and John. Toby brought another lizard out of the box and held it dangling between them while he spoke the words of the incantation again. Again, the four children brought their faces together and took one of the reptile’s legs in their mouths. Again, they bit, with a slight crunching sound, and the lizard’s body dropped to the yard.
Andy and John, in their turn, faced the two children behind them, and Toby produced yet another lizard. The ritual was repeated ten times, all the way down the line, until the school yard was littered with the writhing bloody bodies of ten lizards. Daniel Soscol, his face serious, collected them, and put them back in the cardboard box.
Toby continued, “We are joined by the strength of the demons of the trees, and nothing can set us apart. The day is almost here. Let us be heard by the gods of elder times, from beyond the rings which guard the entrances of time and distance.
Let us seek their power in taking our revenge.”
From the classroom window, Mrs. Novato could see the children gathered around Toby, listening to what he was saying with intent faces. She watched them for a while, and then she went across the porch into the next classroom, where Miss Martinez was chalking up the names of trees in preparation for her next lesson.
Mrs. Novato said, “Joan-look out of the window for a moment. Over there, by the annex.”
Miss Martinez put down her chalk and walked to the window. She said, “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“My children. Look at them. What do you think they could be doing?”
“I don’t know,” shrugged Miss Martinez. “Playing, perhaps?”
“Yes, but playing what? They all look so serious. And you never find the whole class playing together like that, not usually.”
Miss Martinez looked for a few moments more, and then went back to her blackboard. “Don’t ask me,” she told Mrs. Novato. “Children are always plotting something or other.”
SIX
That afternoon, out on the wharf at Bodega Bay, while Neil was putting the finishing touches to the brasswork on the White Dove, Dave Conway came out from the fish market and called him.
“Neil-there’s a long-distance call. Sounds like someone called aspirin.”
“Thanks,” said Neil, and climbed onto the jetty. He walked quickly under a sky that was hazy but cloudless, and he wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his hand.
Inside the fish market, there was a sweet, salty smell of crabs and flounders and bass, and the telephone was sticky with scales. He picked it up and said, “Yes?”
“Neil Fenner? This is Harry Erskine. Listen, I have some news for you.”
“News? What kind of news?”
“Bad news, mainly. I talked this morning to John Singing Rock out in South Dakota.
He’s a medicine man, you know? But a modern one. I mean, he knows all the old spells but he tries to apply them in an up-to-date way.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he’d heard of the day of the dark stars, and he was sure that what you told me was genuine.” Neil switched the receiver from one ear to the other. “Is that all? He’s sure I’m genuine? Listen, I wouldn’t have called you if I hadn’t been genuine. I wouldn’t have known your name, even. There was no way I practically got myself killed because of an overworked imagination.”
“You sure didn’t,” said Harry. He sounded as if he were sucking cough drops. “The day of the dark stars is supposed to be mentioned in stories that were handed down by tribes from all over America. Most Indians have heard of it, apparently-either from their parents or their grandparents, but there aren’t many In
dians today who can remember what it’s all supposed to signify. They’ve gotten themselves too integrated, you know? Even Singing Rock sells insurance on the side.”
“Did he say what I could do about it? The trouble I have here is that nobody believes me, not even my wife. Nobody else saw the wooden man but me, and they’re putting the children’s nightmares down to hysteria, or indigestion. Everybody thinks I’m going crazy.”
“You’re not. Singing Rock says that the Hopi have stories about the day of the dark stars, and so do the Oglala Sioux and the Modoc and the Cheyenne and the Wyandotte. The Paiute used to call it the day when the mouth would come out of the sky and devour the white devils, but they always were kind of wordy.”
“So what can I do?” asked Neil. “Can I exorcise these manitous, or what?”
“Not with a bell and a book and a candle. I learned from the last tune I met Misquamacus that you can’t dismiss Red Indian demons with white man’s religion.”
“But how did you destroy Misquamacus before?”
“It’s pretty hard to explain. But Singing Rock says we just don’t have the same kind of situation here at all, and he doesn’t think we could manage a repeat performance.
Last time, Misquamacus was weak and confused and on his own. This time, it sounds as if he’s strong, and on his own territory.”
“You don’t sound very optimistic, Harry.”
‘Tm supposed to sound optimistic? You call me up and tell me twenty-two Indian spirits are after my blood, and I’m supposed to sound optimistic?”
“I'm sorry,” Neil put in hastily. “What I meant was, it sounds like we don’t have an easy way out of this.”
“Listen,” said Harry, “I’m going to fly out to San Francisco on Sunday morning, which is the earliest I can get away. Singing Rock is coming out from South Dakota, and he says he should get to California by Monday morning at the latest.”
“You’re actually coming out to help? Well, that’s terrific.”
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