Shadow on the Sun Page 12

  “He’s telling them that they must give this ceremony undivided attention and never smile or laugh or do a single thing to displease him or he’ll be forced to call a halt to the rite, leaving them unprotected.”

  Smile? Boutelle thought. Laugh? Who could possibly do either under these conditions?

  “The ceremony will first inform them how this terror came to be,” Finley finished.

  Boutelle shivered. In the darkness, fear comes far too easily, he thought. No wonder nighttime was the time when terror flourished.

  The shaman had stopped speaking now. In the heavy silence, Boutelle heard only faint rustling sounds as the waiting Apaches shifted slightly on the ground, a few of them coughing softly.

  “Who was speaking?” he asked Finley in a whisper, more to hear the sound of his own voice than out of curiosity.

  “The band’s shaman,” Finley replied.

  “How did he become that?” Boutelle asked.

  “By receiving a power grant from the mountain spirits in a vision experience,” Finley answered matter-of-factly.

  Boutelle was about to respond, then changed his mind. How could one respond to such a statement? It was too far beyond the world he knew and accepted.

  He started as a fire brand seemed to burst forth from nowhere. He saw it moving in the darkness like a flaming insect.

  Then the bonfire was ignited and its stacked wood flamed up with a crackling roar.

  Now he could see the Apaches gathered in a giant circle around the mounting fire, all of them seated cross-legged, their faces reflecting the flames like burnished oak, their dark eyes glowing as they stared at the fire. Who were they? he wondered. What were they thinking? Once again, he felt completely foreign to the moment, trapped in some unearthly vision.

  He glanced at Finley. The agent was looking steadily toward the fire. Even he seemed alien to Boutelle now. Clearly, Finley was a part of all this, accepting what was happening without question. An odd image flitted across Boutelle’s mind: him dancing at a New York City ball, wearing dress clothes, chatting casually.

  The image seemed a million miles and years from this experience.

  His legs jerked in reflexively as drums began to thud with a slow, regular beat, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four.

  He looked toward the fire. The shaman was standing beside it. Boutelle could see now how very old the man was, his coarse black hair streaked with gray. He was beginning to speak, his voice rising and falling with a sound reminiscent of the cries of coyotes. He wondered what the shaman was saying.

  Finley looked intently at the medicine man as he spoke. The old man was beginning the history of a creature named Vandaih.

  First a tall brave emerged from the darkness, moving to the beat of the drums. He danced in erratic circles as though deranged or drunk. When other braves appeared, he withdrew from its sheath a long knife and began to slash symbolically at them. The other braves clutched at their chests and fell to the ground in convulsing death.

  Vandaih continued dancing, his expression one of maddened glee. Figures dressed as women danced from the darkness to the one-two-three-four beat of the drums, and Vandaih clutched at them, taking them in symbolic rape.

  Finally, two braves grabbed him from each side and forced him into the darkness as the shaman spoke of how Vandaih, for all his sins against his people, had to suffer condemnation.

  Boutelle leaned over to ask what was happening, and Finley quickly told him.

  He was in the middle of a sentence when they both jumped and Finley’s voice broke off as a figure leapt clumsily into the firelight.

  The figure was that of a giant bird, its wings made from branches, its head a crude mask which emphasized its curving beak, the figure barefoot, toes curled in to approximate the look of talons.

  As the shaman spoke, Boutelle leaned in to whisper in Finley’s ear, “What’s happening?”

  “As condemnation for his grievous sins,” Finley told him, “the tribe medicine man turned Vandaih into an eagle.”

  Boutelle felt a momentary sense of derision relaxing him. An eagle? he thought. All this about some ancient Indian transformed into an eagle?

  It wasn’t over though. The history continued as the eagle form danced crazily in the firelight, twisting in apparent agony and thrashing its giant wings.

  “Vandaih, desperate in his blighted loneliness,” the shaman continued, “conceived a hideous plan.”

  Another dancer, dressed as a woman, materialized from the darkness, and after moving with her in a grotesque dance of courting, the eagle suddenly grabbed her and dragged her off into the night.

  “He carried off a woman who was not an Indian but whose skin was white,” Finley whispered to Boutelle, repeating what the shaman had said.

  Boutelle shuddered, angry at himself for doing so. This is ridiculous, he thought. Each new element of the history was more preposterous than the one before.

  He leaned close to Finley and told him so.

  Was that a smile of amusement on the agent’s lips? It seemed too ominous for that.

  “If you think everything that’s happened up to now is ridiculous,” Finley whispered, “you’re going to love this new part.” The smile, Boutelle now saw, was definitely not one of amusement.

  The man dressed as a woman reappeared and from beneath her bulky costume drew forth what Boutelle took to be—

  “A child?” he whispered incredulously. “He’s telling us there was a child?”

  The woman moved into the darkness, carrying the child form.

  “Thus this child whose father was an eagle and whose mother was a white woman grew to manhood,” the medicine man continued. Finley decided not to translate his words to Boutelle. The young man was having trouble enough as it was. He only wished he could be equally disdainful. On the face of it, it was absurdly superstitious. Still, all these things had happened in the past two days. Things there was no way of denying, much less explaining.

  And here in the darkness of this forest glade, with the crackling fire and the endless four-beat thudding of the drums and the silent forms of the Apaches as they sat and watched and undoubtedly believed, it was virtually impossible to deny it.

  He flinched as another figure jumped out from the darkness.

  “So grew to manhood the issue of this unholy union,” the shaman went on. “Vandaih, the man now cursed to be for all time an eagle, its father; the abducted and ravished white woman, its mother.”

  The man now spun abruptly into the darkness to return seconds later, holding wings, a grotesque mask across his face.

  “This malevolent child was capable in times of anger or fear of changing himself at will, of sprouting great black wings instead of arms, of creating talons where his hands had been and dreadful, beaked features for a face. In short, to be a hideous creature, part man, part eagle.”

  Finley felt obliged to pass along this information, even knowing what Boutelle’s reaction would most likely be. He whispered into the young man’s ear and saw from Boutelle’s scowl that his reaction was exactly as expected.

  “Do you believe all this?” Boutelle demanded of him, his voice loud enough to make Finley shake his head in warning. Boutelle withdrew into angry silence, unable to tell whether it was truly anger that shook him or dread. Was his disbelief becoming more intense the closer he came to losing it?

  He started again as an Apache, garbed as a shaman, leapt from the darkness followed by six braves who grabbed the half man–half eagle form and held him by his lashing wings while the shaman drew a knife with a black blade from beneath his robe and appeared to plunge it into the eagle man’s chest.

  “The people, through the intervention of their medicine man,” Finley whispered to Boutelle, “managed to kill the halfling son by stabbing him to death with an obsidian blade, the only substance able to pierce his accursed skin.”

  He didn’t look to see what Boutelle’s reaction to that was. He already knew.

  The eagle man, now
limp, was dragged into the darkness. In a matter of seconds, the braves and their shaman returned, moving, as always, to the one-two-three-four beating of the drums. They carried in their arms what looked like torn pieces of bird and man.

  “They also killed Vandaih and the halfling’s mother to prevent their further union,” the shaman said. “The son, part man, part eagle, they beheaded, burying at separate, distant points the halfling’s head and body.”

  Finley interpreted. Boutelle closed his eyes, trying to resist the rise of cold foreboding in himself. But all he could think of—a chilling memory in his mind’s eye—was the thick, jagged scar around the stranger’s neck, a scar which could well mark a deep cut that—

  No! He bit his teeth together so rabidly that streaks of pain shot through his jaw. He would not allow himself to believe—

  He opened his eyes and looked at the fire in dismay.

  A small man garbed in black was dancing in the firelight to the one-two-three-four pulsing of the drums. He tried to block his mind from sensing who the figure represented as the shaman spoke. Don’t tell me, he thought, silently addressing Finley. But the agent, never pausing, leaned over to translate. “An eon of moons later, a little man with white skin and brightly curious eyes—a man of schooling—came to our Pinal Spring band and requested to see feats of magic performed by the tribal shaman.”

  The shaman himself approached the little man in black and, clutching him by the arm, forcefully ejected him into the night. As he did, he spoke, “I told this man named Dodge that what he asked was not a thing we could provide. The man was thrust away in anger.”

  Boutelle felt cold now, almost sick. He tried to resist the mounting disquiet, but it was becoming more and more difficult for him. Too many elements were falling into place. The history of some ancient happening was now a history of today, too close to ignore, much less reject.

  The drumbeat—one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four—seemed to alter his heartbeat, taking it over as he watched the small man in black circle the fire and finally come upon an old man seated in the shadows. Don’t tell me, he thought, but knew it was in vain as Finley translated the grimly voiced words of the shaman.

  “The small man with the bright eyes would not be dissuaded, traveling to the far-off dwelling place of the Night Doctor.”

  For the first time since the ceremony had begun, Boutelle heard a shocking intake of breath from the watching members of the band. The shaman threw them an angry glance but clearly felt that their reaction to this information was justified for he did not rebuke them further, but only went on with his story. Boutelle sat in stricken silence, listening to Finley’s whisper, knowing that he was unable now to fight away acceptance of this dreadful history.

  “The Night Doctor had been banished from the tribe for tampering with evil powers,” the shaman continued, even though he knew his people were aware of this, Finley understood.

  The small man in black feigned putting coins into the palm of the Night Doctor, who nodded. Boutelle shook as the drumbeat started to increase in speed though still retaining, endlessly, the one-two-three-four rhythm.

  “And, for the gain of Dodge’s money, the banished Night Doctor performed an abominable rite,” the shaman said. Finley translated the words into Boutelle’s ear.

  His heartbeat had increased now, driven by the mesmerizing beat of the drums. One-two-three-four—faster, faster. Boutelle sat frozen, staring at the scene taking place at the fire.

  The Night Doctor summoning back from the dead the son of Vandaih and joining head to body.

  He shuddered as the small man in black leapt off into darkness, bolting from the invocation, causing the Night Doctor’s dance to become one of horror as the eagle man escaped.

  “The small man, terrified by what he saw—the connecting of the halfling’s head to its body—fled the ceremony,” the shaman said, “destroying, by that flight, the Night Doctor’s control of the ritual and permitting the son of Vandaih to break from his control and move freely in the world again.”

  Boutelle felt the cold fingers of his hands twitching on his lap as he watched the man portraying the Night Doctor sprinkle some kind of dust over himself and whirl into the darkness.

  “The Night Doctor could only cast a spell upon himself and gain protection from the halfling.”

  The eagle man now leapt into the firelight again, dancing in a fury.

  “The son of Vandaih, maddened by frustration, was unable to locate the Night Doctor and destroy him so that he could assure his freedom for all time.

  “So the halfling set out instead to find the small man, Dodge. The only person who might take him to the hiding place of the Night Doctor.”

  Finley stopped repeating the shaman’s words into Boutelle’s ear, and they sat in motionless silence as the scourging rite commenced.

  There was an audible stir from the watching members of the band as ritual dancers appeared from the darkness, four masked figures wearing painted wooden headdresses, short buckskin skirts, and moccasins, their bodies naked from the waist up and painted black, white, green, and yellow. They danced around the circle to the one-two-three-four beat—now slow again—as though searching for something.

  Boutelle winced as he looked at the dancer’s gaan masks, the laths of which were made of split yucca secured to each other and to supporting framework pieces with buckskin thongs. The U-shaped headpieces slid down on each side of their heads with only slits for eyes and mouth. The colorful headdresses had snakes painted on them.

  Boutelle was back in the dream again as he watched the dancers moving in unison to the constant thudding of the drums. They each held matching wands made of sotol laths with three crosspieces with which they gestured as they danced. Boutelle’s eyes slipped out of focus and he saw, in front of him, four shapeless forms moving like figures in his dream, the beat of the drums pervading his brain and body.

  He started, focusing his eyes again, as another figure suddenly appeared, dancing around the four. He wore a G-string around his middle, the upper part of his body coated with white clay. Like the other dancers, he wore a mask with slits for eyes and mouth. The headdress of his mask was larger, though, with long wing feathers of an eagle as the upright pieces. In his hand he carried the middle tail feathers of an eagle, and the other dancers averted their faces from him.

  “Who is he supposed to be?” Boutelle leaned over to whisper.

  “The Black One,” Finley told him. “A special kind of mountain spirit who protects the Apaches and their territories.”

  Boutelle nodded, staring at the dancers. Once again, the drumbeats seemed to have taken control of his heart so that he felt a part of the ceremony, as though his consciousness was being absorbed by the sight and sound of it.

  He felt himself tensing as the dancers started throwing powder in the air and in the fire where it sparked like short-lived fireflies. He wanted to ask Finley what they were doing but didn’t have the strength.

  Finley seemed to read his thoughts and leaned in close to whisper, “That’s cattail pollen they’re throwing. Very important as a ceremonial offering to Usen to help them resist the powers of the halfling.”

  Usen? Boutelle thought. Again, Finley seemed to read his mind. “The giver of life,” he whispered.

  Boutelle thought he nodded but didn’t. He sat unmoving, barely conscious of his body, attention fixed on the ritual dancers as they circled the dwindling fire, the Black One sometimes leading, other times following. Boutelle noticed that whenever the Black One passed in front of the observing Apaches, they lowered their heads as though afraid to look at him.

  He kept sinking deeper and deeper into a thoughtless state, almost stupefied, his eyes held fast to the movement of the fire-lit dancers as they danced in unison to the hypnotic one-two-three-four rhythm of the drums.

  He barely stirred as the shaman now appeared, clearly addressing the Black One. He had no idea what the shaman was saying, although he assumed that it was some form of reque
st for protection by the Black One.

  Only Finley understood the words as the medicine man first praised the Black One for his strength and omnipotence, then told him what he had to do to the evil and curse-laden son of Vandaih: Tear him into a hundred pieces and bury them at the four corners of the earth, sinking the halfling’s head in the deepest waters of the deepest sea.

  Boutelle’s legs twitched, his glazed eyes blinking suddenly as Finley took him by the arms.

  “Come,” the agent murmured.

  Boutelle almost fell as he stood, his legs without feeling. Then, as Finley supported him, he started walking stiffly with the agent around the outside edges of the still-continuing ceremony.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Finley didn’t answer, only guided the younger man across the border of the forest floor.

  “What is it?” he repeated.

  Finley pointed ahead with his free hand. Looking in that direction, Boutelle saw, by the peripheral light of the fire, the figure of Braided Feather moving toward his shelter.

  “Why is he leaving the ceremony?” he asked.

  “Why indeed?” Finley questioned back.

  The old chief looked around as they approached, his expression grave. Boutelle listened as Finley spoke with the chief. Then Finley turned away, leading Boutelle from the shelter.

  After they’d walked some yards, Finley sat down and leaned against a pine trunk. Boutelle sat beside him, wondering what was happening. In the distance, he could see the ritual still taking place, the firelight now waning noticeably.

  “Finley, what is it?” he asked.

  The agent sighed. “It’s all a waste of time,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The ceremony.”

  “I don’t understand,” Boutelle responded. “Then why are they—”

  “To keep their people from total panic,” Finley said. “But the shaman and Braided Feather know that the ritual is pointless.”

  Boutelle stared at him, not knowing what to say.

  “The Night Doctor brought this on,” Finley told him. “He invoked the demon and only he can put an end to it.”