Eye of Cat Part 19

beside the platform. He smells smoke and grease and hot metal.

The figure on the platform moves toward the first pa.s.sen- ger car, and he now recognizes the old dead singer who had taught him the song. Just before boarding the man turns and waves to him.

His gaze slides back along the coach's windows. Behind every one is a face. He recognizes all of them. They are all people he has known who are now dead - his mother, his grandmother, his uncles, his cousins, two sisters...

Dora.

Dora is the only one who is looking at him. The others stare past, talking with one another, regarding the land- scape, the new pa.s.senger....

Dora is looking directly at him, and her hands are working with the latches at the lower corners of the window. Almost frantically, she is pus.h.i.+ng and lifting.

The whistle blows again. The engine surges. He finds himself running, running toward the train, the car, the win- .

dow....

The train jerks, rattles. The wheels turn.

Dora is still working at the latches. Suddenly the window slides upward. Her mouth is moving. She is shouting, but her words are lost among the noises of the train.

He shouts back. Her name. She is leaning forward out of the window now, right arm extended.

The train is picking up speed, but he is almost beside it.

He reaches. Their hands are perhaps a meter apart. Her lips are still moving, but he cannot hear her words. For a moment his vision swims, and it is as if she were falling.away from him.

He increases his pace and the distance between their hands narrows - two feet, a foot, eight inches....

Their hands clasp, and she smiles. He matches the train's velocity for a moment before the tension begins. Then he realizes that he must let go.

He opens his hand and watches her rush away. He falls.

How long he lies there he does not know. When he looks again, the train is gone. There are no tracks. There is no platform. His outstretched arm lies within the icy stream.

Snow is falling upon him. He rises.

The big flakes drift by. The wind has died. The water sounds are muted. He raises his hand and stares at it like a new and unfamiliar thing within the silence.

After a long while, he turns and seeks the trail again. He continues his journey along it.

Trudging. Alternating elation and depression, finally all mixed together. To have caught her and then had to let her go. To ride Smohalla's ghost-train through the snow. An- other breaking apart. Would there be a putting together again?

He realized then that he was traversing an enormous sand- painting. All of the ground about him was laid out in stylized, multicolored fas.h.i.+on. He walked in the footprints of the rainbow, pa.s.sing between Eth-hay-nah-as.h.i.+ - Those-who- go-together. They were the twins created in the Second world by Begochiddy. First Man and the others had come up from the Underworld along this route. The painting itself was one used in Hozhoni, the Blessingway. His trail fol- lowed the rainbow to the cornstalk, where it changed to the yellow of corn pollen. Upward, upward along the stalk then.

The sky was illuminated by a brilliant flash as he pa.s.sed alongside the female rainbow and the male lightning. Pa.s.sing between the figures of Big Fly, heading north to the yellow pollen footsteps.

Emerge to take up the trail again, pa.s.sing the mouth of the large canyon to the right, continuing northward. Alone, singing. There was beauty in the falling snow. Beauty all around him...

Admire it while you may, tracker.

Cat? You're dead! It is over between us!

Am I, now?

I touched-your limb at the place where you fell. It was stiff and gla.s.sy. There was no life in you.

Have it your way.

Nor could anythirig have gotten out from beneath that heap of stone.

You've convinced me. I will go back and lie down.

Billy looked backward, saw nothing but snowfall within the canyon.

...But I'll find you first.

That shouldn't be too hard.

I am glad to hear you say that.

I like finish what I start. Hurry.

Why don't you wait for me?

I've a trail to follow.

And that is more important than me?

You? You are nothing now.

That is not too pattering. But very well. If we must meet upon your trail again, we will meet upon your trail.

Billy checked his weapons.

You should have taken the train, he said.

I do not understand you, but it does not matter.

But it does, Billy said, rounding another rock and seeing the trail go on.

A whirlwind of snow danced across the water. He heard the thump of a single drumbeat.

... The blue medicine lifts me in his hand.

THE PAIN IN HIS SHOULDER.

had subsided to a dull throbbing. He peered into pockets of shadow as he pa.s.sed them, wondering whether the beast might be waiting to spring upon him, knowing the fear to be irrational since the tracks lay clear before him - and why should it go to the trouble of doubling back to lay in wait for him when it could have taken an extra second to smash him in pa.s.sing back when they had met?

Ironbear cursed, still looking. His breath emerged as plumes of steam before him. His nose was cold and his eyes watered periodically.

Yellowcloud had been right. There was no problem at all in following this trail. Simple and direct. Deep and clear cut.

Was that a movement to the left?

Yes. The wind stirring bushes.

He cursed again. Had his ancestors really led war parties?

So much for genetics...

Jimmy. Don't shut me out!

I won't, Charles. I can use the company.

Where are you? What's happening?

I'm in the canyon, following the thing.

We're here in Arizona, at the hotel near to where the canyons start.

Why?

To help, if we can. You're following the beast? Is Yellow- cloud with you?

He was, but it broke his leg. He's sent for help.

You've met it?

Yeah. Got a sprained shoulder out of the deal. Put a few shots into the thing, though.

Were you unconscious?

Yes.

I wondered why I couldn't reach you for a while there.

Have you been in touch with Singer?

No.

We have. That's one crazy Indian.

I think he knows what he's doing.

Do you know what you're doing?

Being another crazy Indian, I guess.

I'd say.

Looks like we cross the water here.

I think you ought to get out. That's two trails you're following, not one.

It's starting to snow now. G.o.d, I hope it doesn't cover the tracks. Melting when it hits, though. That's good.

Sounds as if that thing almost killed you once.

They're changing shape.

The tracks?

Yeah, and moving nearer the wall. Wonder what that means?

It means you'd better shoot at anything that moves.

Something wet and gla.s.sy here... Wonder what its blood looks like?

How far along are you, anyway?

Don't know. My watch is broken. Seems as if I've been walking forever.

Maybe you'd better stop and rest.

h.e.l.l, no. It's time to try jogging for a while. I've got a feeling. I think I'm near and I think it's hurt.

I don't want to be in your mind if it gets you.

Don't go yet. I'm scared.

I'll wait.

For the next quarter-hour he felt Fisher's silent presence as he ran beside the pleated wall. They did not converse again until he slowed to catch his breath near a turning place.

It's going slow here, sneaking. But there's only a little of that gla.s.sy stuff he observed.

You go slow.

I am. I'll just switch to the blacklight and put on the goggles. I'll get down low and look around the corner.