There was a roaring, grinding, screeching sound like a cliff collapsing. Neem, a muscular Indian in a buffalo-horn helmet, crossed his arms in front of him to prevent Singing Rock’s spell from reaching him. For almost a minute, the two of them struggled against each other, with Misquamacus powerless to intervene. Branches of lightning spat and fizzed around them, with sparks showering across the road surface. From where he was standing, Harry could see that Singing Rock was hunched forward with effort, and that the arm which was still raised toward the grim shape of Nashuna was trembling with effort.
Suddenly, there was a horrendous scream. Neem, the bringer of thunder, had fallen to his knees. Singing Rock was almost standing over him now, pointing one bone toward his body and keeping the other bone directed at Nashuna. The rumbling noises were deafening, and Harry felt sure the whole bridge was going to collapse.
“Nashuna, demon of darkness, I give you this being’s darkness for your stores of night!” called Singing Rock, in a high, strained voice. “Take his darkness as my sacrifice, and go back to the great outside!”
Neem fell to the road. He tried once to claw his way toward Singing Rock, but he knew that he was defeated. Singing Rock had been too quick, too direct, and had used one of the most powerful sacrificial spells. Dying, the thunder-bringer shrieked in agony, as his skin peeled away from his body, transparent layer by transparent layer, and as his muscles and membranes and bones were bared. He fell apart like a dissected flower, while his inner darkness, the secret shadows inside his body, were drawn through Singing Rock’s steadily pointing bone and funneled into the black knots of Na-shuna’s maw by the other, upright, bone.
There was another peal of thunder, and Nashuna was gone. Singing Rock stepped away from the spread-out remains of Neem the medicine man, warily watching Misquamacus. No emotion showed on Misquamacus’ face, but he kept his arms raised as a protection against Singing Rock’s magic.
“You have defied me,” said Misquamacus. “Not for the first time, but for the second time. You will die for this, and your manitou will wander the great outside forever, in constant agony of mind and body. I, Misquamacus, promise you this!”
Singing Rock said nothing, but abruptly turned his back on Misquamacus and walked off the bridge. He came back to Harry and Neil and set his bones back in his case with almost casual professionalism. It was only when he turned to look at Harry that the strain on his face really showed. He was white with effort, and his eyes seemed to have lost all expression.
“How can you turn your back on him?” asked Neil. “Why doesn’t he strike you down?”
Singing Rock dabbed ‘at his forehead with his handkerchief. “He let me go because we’ve declared this a kind of contest. There are rules to any contest, and the rules to this one are that you don’t unleash your medicine on anyone whose back is turned.”
Captain Myers came across from the protection of his Highway Patrol car. He said briskly, “I thought I told you jokers to stay out of this. I thought I specifically ordered you out of here.”
“It’s just as well you didn’t,” Harry told him. “You’d all be lying around like cut-up frogs by now.”
“I demand to know what’s going on here,” said the captain.
Singing Rock sorted through his case. “What’s going on here is that I’m saving your life,” he said brusquely. “Now, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of my way and let me get on with it.”
“But what the hell did you do out there?” demanded Captain Myers. “What was all that stuff with the bone’s?”
“It’s very easy,” said Singing Rock, taking out two leather pouches of powder.
“Nashuna is the demon of darkness, and darkness to him is like a blood transfusion.
Everybody has inner darkness, physical and mental. I gave Nashuna the inner darkness of Neem, that medicine man there, and Nashuna was satisfied and went away. I’m afraid you have to understand that the inner darkness of a great medicine man is worth a great deal more to Nashuna than that of a captain of the Highway Patrol. He might have had to dissect a few hundred policemen to achieve the same result.”
“Listen, you refugee from a traveling sideshow,” snapped Captain Myers, “I’m ordering you off this area at once. If you try to make your way back again, I’ll personally make sure that you’re shot.”
Singing Rock said, “If you make me leave, then I assure you that you won’t be here to shoot me.”
On the fence, the spirit cage began to rattle and shake again. Singing Rock turned around to listen to it, and then said, “It’s Pa-la-kai. Misquamacus has summoned down the demon of blood.”
“The demon of blood?” asked Captain Myers. “This sounds like a goddamn horror comic.”
There was more thunder and blinding lightning, and for a few seconds Misquamacus and his medicine men were silhouetted by what looked like floating globes of light, intensely brilliant suns that swam above their heads. Harry, his hand raised to shield his face, could just make out the blue-white outline of something within that intense light source before the bridge and the creek were plunged into darkness again, and all he could see were red and green spots in front of his eyes.
Singing Rock went forward again, and stood in the gloom facing the bridge where Misquamacus had formed his circle. He called, “O spirits of wind, I call you now to help me. O spirits of the storm, give me your strength. I call upon you, hurricanes and whirlwinds, to give me your power.”
Captain Myers said, “What the hell is that idiot doing? Doesn’t he know he’s going to get himself killed?”
Harry held the captain back. “Don’t go after him. Give him a chance. He knows the risks better than you do.”
A faint breeze began to disturb the grass around them. Then the breeze rose to a soft wind, and whistled through the fence, and through the bones of the spirit cage.
In a few seconds, the wind had whipped up even harder, and clouds of dust were blown up from the sides of the highway. In a minute, it had become a shrieking gale, and they couldn’t even hear themselves speak.
Behind Misquamacus, in the center of his medicine circle, the swimming globes of Pa-la-kai, the demon of blood, flared up again. They were brighter than the sun, brighter than anything Harry had ever seen before. In the end, he found it impossible to look. The dazzling globes were slowly floating together to form one shat-teringly brilliant sun.
With his eyes screwed up against the light, Harry watched Singing Rock anxiously.
He could see that the Indian was already tired, pitting his magic against Misquamacus and twenty other medicine men, any one of whom was more experienced and more powerful than Singing Rock could be in three lifetimes. And as the demon shone and shone, and slowly brought himself together into one supremely evil and unconquerable shape, Singing Rock’s head fell onto his chest, and his arms gradually dropped.
The gale-force winds, which had sprung up so quickly, began to die away.
“Come on, damn you,” whispered Harry. “You can’t let him beat you now. Come on, damn you. Come on!”
But Singing Rock was exhausted. He sank down on one knee, and held his hands to his head to concentrate on the spell he was trying to work. And meanwhile Pa-la-kai, in all his ravenous majesty and brilliance, swelled larger and brighter and ever more devastating. Out of his dazzling maw came a cacophony of gruesome howls and shrieks of bloodlust, and he rose again, high over Singing Rock, to take his sacrificial due.
Singing Rock raised his eyes. Harry could see that he was almost blinded by the light of Pa-la-kai. Neil, standing close by, said, “He’s finished, Harry. He can’t fight that. He must be finished.”
Singing Rock spread his arms. Only a few feet awaj now, Misquamacus stood over him in his eagle-winged headdress, tall and triumphant and vengefully straight-backed. Behind Misquamacus, in a silent semicircle, stood the greatest of the Indian wonder-workers,
“Pa-la-kai!” howled Misquamacus. “I give you this traitor’s blood! I give yo
u every drop that flows in his veins, every ounce in his heart! This is your sacrifice, Pa-la-kai, master of death! This is your reward, Pa-la-kai, god of blood!”
Singing Rock, instead of collapsing, staggered to his feet and sprayed his medicine powders in a crisscross pattern. His eyes were wild, and his whole face was contorted with the effort of what he was doing. In a stentorian voice, he called:
“Ossadagowah! By the commands of the elder gods, by the forbidden words of.
Sadogowah, by the thousand deaths and the thousand lives, I bid you to appear!”
Misquamacus paused, taken completely by surprise. He stared at Singing Rock in disbelief. Singing Rock had actually dared to summon the demon whom no Indian medicine men ever dared to summon, the beast in no human shape whom Misquamacus had been intending to use himself to call up Ka-tua-la-hu, the one who slept beneath the waters.
Even though Ossadagowah was dangerous to any human, no matter how many sacrifices were placed before him, he was almost always inclined to favor those who summoned him from the great outside, and for a while, anyway, he would do their bidding. This time, in this manifestation, that meant Singing Rock’s bidding.
Singing Rook had scarcely spoken when a strange cold cloudiness began to form over the bridge. The cloudiness widened and slowly settled downward, misting the bright globes of Pa-la-kai and making them shine with dim opalescence. In a few minutes, the fires of Pa-la-kai had died and dimmed, and there was nothing over the bridge except that chilly white miasma of evil.
“Ossadagowah, most revered son of Sadogowah, hungry one from the great outside, I offer you these wonder-workers,” called Singing Rock. Again, he cast his powders.
“I give you their blood and their brains and their very spirits to grind between your teeth. I give you their essence to absorb in your selfness. I give you this and offer you my prayer.”
The white cloud coiled and twisted like fat transparent white maggots. It uttered a noise, too, like nothing Harry had ever heard. A doleful, hideous groaning sound, that made him feel cold all over. The sound of a being who was without pity, without emotion, without any recognizable soul. Harry knew what Singing Rock had risked, summoning Ossadagowah. He had risked himself, and everyone else around them, and maybe thousands of others. Only a great wonder-worker could seal Ossadagowah back on the great outside, and there were only two wonder-workers living who were capable of doing it. Singing Rock, if he was at the peak of his strength, which he wasn’t; and Misquamacus.
Misquamacus knew that, too. He knew that Singing Rock had outwitted him. He paused for a moment, his face lifted toward the cold, waving tentacles of Ossadagowah, and then he reached into his costume. He produced a small gray tablet of stone, and held it toward Ossadagowah. At the same time, he started to chant and sing, quickly and loudly, and-Harry thought-almost desperately.
Ossadagowah groaned again, and his groaning shook the earth beneath their feet.
His cloudiness seemed to spread wider, and his tentacles thrashed the air. Then, very gradually, the coils of his amorphous form started to fold in on themselves and disappear, and within a few moments his whole being had vanished.
Now Misquamacus faced Singing Rock alone. But the ancient wonder-worker turned his back on Singing Rock contemptuously for a while, and raised his arms to address the other medicine men. They spoke among themselves, their faces grim and vengeful, and then, when they had decided on what they were going to do, they turned and faced Singing Rock again.
Misquamacus and Singing Rock spoke to each other for a while. Harry tried to catch what they were saying, but they were talking quietly and with little emotion, and when he did catch an occasional word, it sounded as if it was in some Indian language. It could have been a challenge from one medicine man to another. It could have been a demand from Misquamacus that Singing Rock should leave the side of the white men and fight instead for his blood brothers. Whatever it was, Singing Rock shook his head at the end of it, and walked back through the lines of police cars without another word.
“What’s happening?” demanded Captain Myers. “What’s going on out there?”
Singing Rock knelt down by his case and put away his powders and his amulets.
Then he stood up and looked from Harry to Neil to Captain Myers.
“What you saw just now was just a skirmish,” he said. “I caught Misquamacus off-balance, and I managed to prevent him from unleashing those demons on the countryside. But, as you can see, he is scarcely tired, and I am exhausted. He has twenty other wonderworkers to back him up, and twenty other wonderworkers to call up the most terrible of gods from elder times. He says that even without Ossadagowah, he will raise Ka-tua-la-hu from the waters, and that will mean the end of us all.”
Captain Myers bristled with anger. “What is this?” he snapped. “This is a whole bunch of clouds and optical illusions and stuff like that, and you’re trying to tell me it’s dangerous? The only thing that’s dangerous around here, fellow, is that gang of terrorists out on the bridge there.”
“Terrorists?” queried Singing Rock. “You really think they’re terrorists?”
“They stole the school bus, kidnapped the kids, blew the bus up. Then they shot down thirty people. What else would you call them?”
“Captain,” said Singing Rock, “if all that is true, then where are the children’s bodies?”
“Blown up, I guess,” said the captain grumpily.
“And where are their weapons, those terrorists? Can you see any of them carrying a gun?”
“They’re concealed. Russian-made concealed weapons.”
“Concealed where?” asked Harry dryly. “In their hats?”
Captain Myers didn’t answer.
Singing Rock said, “I tried to tell you before, captain, and you just wouldn’t listen.
Those men out there are reincarnated medicine men from many centuries past. In a while, they will raise from Lake Berryessa a god known as Ka-tua-la-hu, and Ka-tua-la-hu will loll all of us.”
Captain Myers pulled at his ear. “Ka-tua-la-hu, huh?”
“That’s right. A beast in no human shape. The most terrible and feared of all the elde* gods. The spawn of the Great Old One himself.”
Captain Myers looked perplexed. He walked a little way away, and then he came back and said, “Ka-tua-la-hu?”
Singing Rock nodded. “K you look out on the bridge, you can see that they’re beginning to call him already.” The captain shaded his eyes from the floodlights, and squinted for a while at Misquamacus and his medicine men. Then he stalked off to make a report over the transmitter.
Singing Rock pressed his fingers to his eyes. Harry watched him for a while, and then said, “Is there anything I can do?”
Singing Rock shook his head. “This is turning out to be a duel. The only trouble is, there are twenty-two of them-well, twenty-one now, if that makes any difference-and only one of me. I can’t fight them very much longer.”
“What about Ka-tua-la-hu? What can we do against him?”
Singing Rock shrugged. “I really don’t know. And even if I did, I don’t think I’d have the strength to do anything about it.”
Neil said, “You can’t give up now. If you beat them, I’ll get Toby back. Please.”
Singing Rock said, “I’m doing whatever I can, Neil. I promise you. But you mustn’t hold out too much hope.” Neil said, “I’ve always had hope. Dammit, I’ve had hope when there was nothing eke. When everybody thought I was crazy.” “But, Neil-” said Harry.
“But nothing,” interrupted Neil. “The point is that white men beat the Indians once, including their medicine men, and if they did it once they can do it again. If Misquamacus was so great, how come the prairies are all farms now, and all the buffalo are dead, and the elder gods are all forgotten? How come the Indians are all living on reservations?”
Singing Rock tiredly ran his hand through his hah-. “The Indians lost because they lost faith in their magic,” he said. “It wasn’t anythin
g to do with the power of medicine men like Misquamacus. It was just that the medicine men couldn’t do anything without the support of their nations.”
“I don’t believe it,” snapped Neil. “I believe the white man won the West because he worked harder and fought harder and because he wouldn’t ever give in.”
“Neil,” said Harry, trying to calm his down.
“I don’t believe the Indians lost faith,” repeated Neil. “I just believe that the white men were stronger, and that was all.”
There was a rumbling noise from the direction of the lake. A humid wind blew for a while, and then died away. It left a strange smell behind it, a smell of fish and cold fog. All along the shores of Lake Berryessa, the water began to foam and grow agitated. A small tidal wave even washed into Pope Creek, below the bridge, in a swill of muddy froth.
Singing Rock turned and stared at the bridge. He could see Misquamacus, illuminated by the police floodlights, swaying from side to side and singing in a piercing, high-pitched tone.
“He’s nearly finished calling the old one,” said Singing Rock. “When all twenty-one of them recite the summoning together, then the waters will open and you will see Ka-tua-la-hu. Well, I hope you won’t. Neil, Harry, you’d better get in that pickup and burn it on out of here. We’re not going to stand much of a chance now.” “John,” said Harry, “I’m not leaving you here.” “You have to,” insisted Singing Rock. “You’re no damned use to me anyway.” “John-I’m not going, and that’s final.” Singing Rock looked at Harry for a moment, and then offered his hand. “All right,” he said, softly. “I appreciate your staying. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Out on the lake, a huge, cold fog was rising in the darkness, and the waters were gurgling and seething in horrible anticipation. The earth cracked beneath their feet, and the temperature dropped lower and lower with each passing minute. Around them, police and reporters ran around in confusion. Only on the bridge itself was there any calm at all, an eye in the storm, as Misquamacus began to make slow beckoning gestures toward the lake, summoning Ka-tua-la-hu, the terrible elder god.
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