The manitou (14 page)

“And you don’t
think there’s any chance of him releasing it voluntarily...” asked Jack Hughes.

“Not a hope.”
said Singing Rock.

“And what do
you think your chances are of being able to force it out of him?”

Singing Rock
scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “Three percent,” he said. “That’s if I’m
lucky.”

At that moment,
the porter came up with the case. Singing Rock took it, laid it on Dr. Hughes’

desk
, and opened it. As far as I could see, it was crammed
with old hair and bones and packets of powder.

“Okay,” said
the medicine man. “Everything’s here. Let’s go down and draw the circle.”

We went
downstairs again, and into Karen Tandy’s private room. She was lying exactly as
before, white-faced, with the swollen lump reaching almost down to her waist.
Singing Rock didn’t look at her, but busied
himself
taking powders and bones out of his case and laying them neatly on the floor.

“I want you to
understand,” he said, “that once I have drawn this circle it must not be
touched or disturbed in any way. You can cross it, but you must be extremely
careful not to smudge it or break it. If it’s even slightly broken, then it’s
useless.”

Dr. Hughes
said: “Okay. I’ll make sure that everyone who comes in here knows about that.”

Singing Rock
went down on his hands and knees, and poured a circular track of red powder
from a paper packet all the way around the bed. Then, inside it, he poured a
circular track of white powder. At regular intervals he laid down dry white
human bones, and spoke a soft incantation over each of them. Then he laid a
garland of human hair all around the circle – old scalps from his tribe’s
historic totem.

“Gitche
Manitou, protect me,” he prayed. “Gitche Manitou, hear me and protect me.”

As he said
these words, I felt a cold thrill slide down my back. Karen, on the bed, had
opened one eye, and was staring fixedly across at Singing Rock with a quiet
malevolence.

“Singing Rock,”
I said gently, and pointed.

Singing Rock
turned, and saw the single hate-filled eye. He licked his lips nervously, and
then spoke to Karen in a quiet, strained voice.

“Who are you?”
he asked. “Where do you come from?”

There was
silence at first, but then Karen Tandy whispered hoarsely: “I – am – much –
mightier – than – you.
Your – medicine – is – of – no –
consequence – to – me.
I – will – soon – slay –

you
– little – brother.”

“What is your
name?” said Singing Rock.

“My – name – is
– Misquamacus – I – will – soon – slay – you – little – brother – from – the –

plains
.”

Singing Rock
stepped back nervously, staring at the single eye. Even when the eye dropped
shut again, he was rubbing his hands in agitation against his surgical robe.

“What’s the
matter?” I asked him.

“It’s
Misquamacus,” he whispered, as though he were afraid of being overhead. “He’s
one of the most notorious and powerful medicine men of all Indian history.”

“You’ve heard
of him?”

“Anyone who
knows anything about Indian magic has heard of him. Even the Sioux knew about
him, way back before the white men came. He was considered to be the greatest
of all medicine men, and he was in contact with manitous and demons that no
other medicine man would dare to summon.”

“What does that
mean?” said Jack Hughes anxiously. “Does that mean you can’t fight him?”

Singing Rock was
sweating under his surgical face mask. “Oh, I can fight him, all right. But I
don’t give much for my chances of winning. Misquamacus was said to be able to
control even the most ancient and wicked of Indian spirits. There were some
manitous that were so old and evil that by the time the first white men arrived
in America, they were only known in legend and stories by most tribes. But
Misquamacus regularly called them for his own use. If he calls on them now,
today, I just can’t imagine what will happen.”

“But what can a
spirit do?” I asked him. “Can they actually hurt people who don’t believe in
them?”

“Of course,”
explained Singing Rock. “Just because you don’t believe a tiger is going to
maul you, that
doesn’t
prevent it from doing so, does
it? Once these manitous have been summoned into the physical world, they have
physical powers and physical existence.”

“Holy Christ,”
said Dr. Hughes.

Singing Rock
sniffed. “He won’t help you. These demons have nothing to do with Christianity
at all. You can fight Christian demons with crucifixes and holy water, but
these demons will just laugh at you.”

“This circle,”
I said, pointing to the ring of powder and bones. “Do you think this will hold
him?”

Singing Rock
shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not for more than a few minutes, anyway. It
might just give me the time to work a couple of spells on him, something to
hold him down for longer. But Misquamacus was one of the greatest of
circle-markers himself He could draw circles that would hold back the most
terrible spirits. This circle is the strongest one I’m capable of drawing, but
he’ll know how to break through that without any difficulty at all.”

“What I’m
worried about is Karen,” said Jack Hughes. “If we’re going to have a full-scale
battle of
wizards
right here in her room, do you think
she can possibly survive it?”

“Dr. Hughes,”
said Singing Rock. “This is all-or-nothing. If I win this battle, then she will
survive. If I don’t, then I can’t give you any guarantees about who will
survive. With a medicine man as strong as Misquamacus, we might all of us die.
You don’t seem to understand what these manitous are. When I say they’re
powerful, I don’t just mean they can knock a man over. If they’re released from
limbo without any control on them at all, they could wipe out this hospital,
this whole block, this city.”

“Oh, come on,
now,” said Dr. Hughes. Singing Rock made a last check of his medicine circle,
and then led us out of Karen Tandy’s room. In the corridor, we peeled off our
face masks and untied out robes.

“All I can say
is – wait and see,” said Singing Rock. “Now, I could use a meal and a beer. Is
there anywhere to eat in this hospital?”

“Follow me,”
said Jack Hughes. “It’s going to be along night, so we might as well fuel up
now.”

I checked the
time.
Five-oh-five.
By this time tomorrow, we would
know whether we had won. If we hadn’t, I couldn’t even imagine what
five-oh-five on Tuesday evening would bring.

Lieutenant
Marino of the NYPD was waiting for me in Dr. Hughes’ office when we got back
from eating. He was sitting patiently with his hands in his lap his black
brush-cut hair sticking up like Mickey Spillane before his weekly visit to the
barber.

“Mr. Erskine?”
he said, rising to shake my hand.

I looked at him
cautiously. “Did you want something, lieutenant?”

“Oh, this and that.
You must be Dr. Hughes, sir,” he said to
Jack. “I’m Lieutenant Marino.” He flashed his badge.

“This is
Singing Rock,” I said, introducing Singing Rock.

“Pleased to
know you,” replied Lieutenant Marino. There was hand-shaking all round.

“Is there any
problem?” I said.

“You could say
that,” said Lieutenant Marino. “Do you know two people called Amelia Crusoe and
Stewart MacArthur?”

“Of course,
they’re old friends of mine. What’s the trouble?”

“They’re dead,”
said Lieutenant Marino. “There was a fire in their apartment in the Village
this morning, and they were both killed.”

I felt weird
and trembly all over. I found a seat and sat down, and Dr. Hughes fetched out
his bottle of bourbon and poured me a glass. I swallowed a long mouthful.
Lieutenant Marino passed me a cigarette, and lit it for me. When I spoke, my
voice was dry and croaky.

“God, that’s
terrible,” I said. “How did it happen?”

“We don’t
know,” shrugged Marino. “I was hoping that maybe you had some ideas about
that.”

“What do you
mean? What kind of ideas could I have about it? I’ve only just found out.”

Lieutenant
Marino leaned forward confidentially. “Mr. Erskine, on Saturday morning, an old
lady called Mrs. Herz fell down a flight of steps and died. This is Monday. Two
people are caught in a strange kind of flash fire in their apartment, and they
die. All of these people have something in common. They’re all friends of
yours. Now, do you think I’m right to make a routine inquiry, or don’t you?”

I sat back. My
hands were shaking like two old men with the palsy.

“I guess you’re
right But I have a witness who can tell you where I was this morning. I was up
at La Guardia collecting Singing Rock here from his flight from South Dakota.”

“Is that true?”
Lieutenant Marino asked Singing Rock.

Singing Rock
nodded. He seemed to be thoughtful and preoccupied, and I wondered just what
was turning over in his mind.

“Okay,” said
Lieutenant Marino, standing up. “That’s all I wanted. I’m sorry I had to bring
you such bad news.”

He got ready to
leave, but Singing Rock held his arm.

“Lieutenant,”
he said. “Do you know what actually happened – with these two people?”

“It’s hard to
tell,” replied Marino. “It seems as though the fire was instantaneous – more of
a bomb than a fire. Both of the bodies were cindered up. We’re checking for
explosives now, but there wasn’t any blast damage, so I don’t know whether
we’ll find any. It may have been some kind of freak electrical fault. We won’t
know for two or three days.”

“Okay,
lieutenant,” said Singing Rock quietly. “Thank you.”

Lieutenant
Marino went to the door.

“Mr. Erskine,
I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t leave town for a day or so. I’d like to
know where to reach you in case there are any further inquiries.”

“Sure,” I told
him softly. “I’ll be around.”

As soon as he’d
gone, Singing Rock came over to me and laid his hand on my shoulder.

“Harry,” he
said, “I’m sorry. But now we know exactly what we’re fighting against.”

“You don’t
think that...”

“No, I don’t
think it,” he said, “I know it. Your friends annoyed Misquamacus by calling him
up at that seance of yours. He probably only appeared to find out who it was
that was daring to call him out of limbo. Misquamacus is quite capable of
invoking fire like that. In plains medicine, they used to call it the
‘lightning-that-sees,’ because it was completely selective. It only hit those
people that the medicine man wanted to kill.”

Dr. Hughes
frowned. “But Harry here was at that seance as well. Why hasn’t Misquamacus done
the same to him?”

“Because of
me,” said Singing Rock. “I may not be the greatest medicine man there ever was,
but I am protected from simple sorcery like that by my amulets, and those who
are friendly to me and who are around me will be protected as well. I imagine
that because Misquamacus isn’t properly reborn yet, he isn’t able to work his
full magic. I’m only guessing, of course.”

“I can hardly
believe it,” said Jack Hughes. “Here we are in a technological age, and a
creature from four hundred years ago can destroy someone miles away in the
Village with a flash of fire.

What the hell
is it all about?”

“It’s about
magic,” said Singing Rock. “Real magic is created by the way that man uses his
environment – the rocks, the trees, the water, the earth, the fire and the sky.
And the spirits, too, the manitous.
Today, we’ve
forgotten how to call on all these things to help us. We’ve forgotten how to
work real magic. But it can still be done. The spirits are still there, ready
to be invoked.

A century to a
spirit is like a millisecond to us. They’re immortal and patient, but they’re
also powerful and hungry. It takes a very strong man and a brave man to call
them out of limbo. It takes an even stronger one to send them back there, and
seal the gateway they came through.”

“Do you know
something, Singing Rock?” said Dr. Hughes. “The way you talk, you really give
me the creeps.”

Singing Rock
looked at him pragmatically. “You have every reason to have the creeps. This is
probably the creepiest thing that’s ever happened.”

T
hroughout Monday night, Singing Rock and I were to take it in
turns to watch over Karen Tandy. We both agreed that Dr. Hughes ought to go
home and get a full night’s sleep, because if we did manage to restore Karen’s
manitou to her body, then he would need to be as fit and fresh as possible to
deal with any resuscitation that might be urgently needed.

We commandeered
the hospital room next to Karen’s, and while Singing Rock slept, I sat in the
corridor on a hard chair, watching the window of our patient’s firmly closed
door. There was a male nurse inside with her, in case she needed medical
attention, but he had been warned that if he saw anything at all unusual, he
was to bang on the door and call me.

I managed to
find a copy of Dr. Snow’s book about the Hidatsa Indians in the library, and I
read it by the bald fluorescent hospital light. Most of it was pretty dry, but
he was obviously well up on the sorcery of medicine men.

By two in the
morning, my eyelids began to droop, and I began to feel as though there was
nothing I wanted more than a hot shower, a stiff drink and ten hours of sack
time. I twisted myself around in my chair to wake myself up a bit, but it
wasn’t long before a relaxed and cloudy feeling started to seep over me again.

Without
realizing it, I began to doze, and as I dozed, I began to dream. I dreamed I
was surrounded by a warm and slippery darkness, but it wasn’t claustrophobic or
suffocating. It felt womb-like and comfortable, and it was giving me strength
and nourishment. I felt as if I was waiting for something to happen – waiting
for the right moment. When that moment came, I would have to slide out of this
warm darkness into some chilly and unknown place.
Somewhere
frightening and alien.