Fur Magic Read online

  “The Changer?” Cory asked, his shame in betraying his alarm lost for a moment in curiosity.

  It was Uncle Jasper who answered, his voice serious as if he were telling something that was a proven fact. “Coyote—he’s the Changer. For our tribe, the Nez Percé, he wears that form, for some other tribes he is the Raven. Before the coming of the white men there were my own people here. But before them the Old People, the animals. Only they were not as they are today. No, they lived in tribes, and were the rulers of the world. They had their hunting grounds, their warpaths, their peace fires.”

  “But the Changer,” Ned was rolling a cigarette with loose tobacco and paper, and now he cut in as Uncle Jasper paused to drink more coffee, “he never wanted things to be the same. It was in him to change them around. Some say he made the Indian because he wanted to see a new kind of animal.”

  “Only he tried a last change,” Uncle Jasper took up the story again, “and it was the Great Spirit who defeated him. So then, some way, he was sent out to live on an island in the sea. When enough time passes and the white man puts an end to the world through his muddlin’, then the Changer shall return and turn the world over so the People, the animals, will rule again.”

  “Could be that story has somethin’,” commented Mr. Baynes, “considerin’ all we keep hearin’ of world news. Most animals I’ve seen run their lives with a lot more sense than we seem to be showin’ lately.” He raised his own cup of coffee to the direction from which the coyote yelp had sounded. “Good mornin’ to you, Changer. Only I don’t think you’ll get a chance to try turnin’ the world yet a while.”

  “When,” Cory asked, “is he supposed to turn the world over?”

  Uncle Jasper smiled. “Well, you may just be alive to see it, son. I think the legend collectors have it figured out for about the year 2000, white man’s time. But that’s a good way off yet, and now we have some horses to look at.”

  Cory’s fork scraped on his plate. Horses—but there were only two saddles in the jeep. He glanced—unnoticed, he hoped—at the rail beside the corral. One there—that would be Ned’s. Maybe—maybe Uncle Jasper would not force him to say right out what he had been trying to get up courage enough to say all morning—that he could not, just could not, ride today.

  But Uncle Jasper was talking to Ned. “Seen any more smoke?”

  “Not yet. But it’s time. Sometimes he just rides in without warnin’—you know how he does.”

  Uncle Jasper looked down now at Cory. “You can help me, Cory.”

  “How?” the boy asked warily. Was Uncle Jasper just making up some job around here to cover up for him? He felt a little sick—after all his big plans and wanting to make Uncle Jasper glad he had asked him—and Dad proud of him—

  “Black Elk is due about now. He is an important man, Cory, and he generally stops here before goin’ on to the ranch. There’s a line phone in there.” Uncle Jasper nodded at the cabin. “But Black Elk keeps to the old ways, he won’t ever use it. If he comes, you can phone in and they’ll send the other jeep up to drive him down. He does like a jeep ride.”

  “You mean the old man still travels around by himself?” demanded Mr. Baynes. “Why, he must be near a hundred!”

  “Close to that,” agreed Uncle Jasper. “He was with Chief Joseph on the Great March. His uncle was Lightning Tongue, the last of the big medicine men. And Black Elk was his pupil, made his fastin’ trip for a spirit guide and all. He says it’s his medicine that keeps him young. Ned sighted a smoke from the peaks three days ago, which means he’s on the trail. And he likes to spend a little time at the spring.” Uncle Jasper nodded to the bubbling water. “Place means a lot to him, though he’s never said why. Has something to do with the old days. He may stay to inspect any colts we bring down. Still has a master eye for a horse. They used to pay him well, our breeders, to pow-wow for them. Most of the old ones believed he could get them a five-finger colt every time. But that’s something else he won’t talk about any more. Says the old times are slippin’ away and no one cares—makes him disappointed with us.” Uncle Jasper finished his coffee.

  “What is a five-finger colt?” Cory wanted to know.

  “A perfectly marked Appaloosa has five well-placed spots on the haunches, and that makes a five-finger horse. Not all of them have it, even if they are carefully bred. They give us Nez Percé the credit for developin’ the Appaloosa breed, but whether that’s just legend or not”—he shrugged—“who knows. We did and do have good luck raisin’ them. And now they’re in big favour, for which we can thank fortune.

  “So, Cory, if you’ll stay here and wait for Black Elk, phone in if he wants to go on down to the ranch, that will be a help. If he wants to wait, tell him we’ll be back before the sun touches Two Ears. He doesn’t hold with watch-measured time.”

  Mr. Baynes and Ned had already gone on to the corral, making ready to rope out their mounts.

  “All right, Uncle Jasper.” Cory stood up. “I’ll stay right here.”

  But as the men saddled up and prepared to ride for the high country, Cory had to struggle not to call out that he wanted to go with them, that somehow he would stick on a horse, that he was willing to walk all the way, but that he could not stay here alone.

  Uncle Jasper rode over with a last message. “Don’t forget the phone. And your lunch is in a box in the jeep. Don’t wander off—this country can be tricky when you don’t know it. But you’ve got good sense, Cory, and I know you can be depended upon not to get lost.”

  At least Uncle Jasper gave him that much credit, thought Cory, and tried to take some comfort from that. But he knew that he had fallen far below the standard Cliff Alder’s son should have kept.

  After they were gone, Cory went and sat in the jeep. Somehow, with the sun-warmed seat under him, he felt more secure. He had thought that once the men were gone it would be quiet. But now when he listened he heard all kinds of other sounds. A bird flew down from the roof of the cabin and pecked at some of the crumbs from breakfast. And some brownish animal shuffled around the far end of the cabin, plainly intent upon its own affairs, paying no attention to Cory. But he watched it carefully until it disappeared.

  Finally he got out of the jeep, to gather up the plates and pans and carry them to the spring basin, scrubbing them clean with sand. It was something to do. Ned had taken the bow and quiver—Cory thought again of the cougar.

  What if it hunted, or wandered, up this way? Would the cabin be a safe place to hide? But if there was a phone inside—

  He pushed open the door, wanting to be sure. After the bright sunlight of the clearing, the inside was dusty dark. Cory stood blinking on the threshold until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Two bunks, now stripped to their bare boards, were built against the far wall. A stove was to one side, a box half full of wooden lengths beside it. There was a wall cupboard, its door open to show another pile of plates, a row of cans, and some tin cups.

  In the centre of the room was a table with four chairs. But on the wall to the left, stretched out tightly by pegs, was a skin. Of what kind of animal Cory did not know, but it was large. It had been scraped free of hair and on it were paintings. He moved closer. The paintings had been drawn in red and yellow and black, all colours so faded now that in the half-light he could hardly make them out.

  There were horses with the spotted hindquarters of the Appaloosa breed. There were men, some with feathers on their heads, others wearing crude little hats. The hatted men carried guns, while the feathered ones were armed with bows and only a few guns. Cory realized that this was meant to tell the story of some old battle.

  As he came out into the open again, he heard once more the challenging yelp of a coyote, and he wondered if it was angry because he was there—that, as Ned had said, it wanted to come down looking for camp food. A fresh wind blew, but it was warmer than it had been at dawn. He pulled off his sweater and dropped it on the back seat of the jeep.

  This Black Elk, Mr. Baynes had said he was very old.
And Uncle Jasper had said he had been with Chief Joseph on the retreat when the Nez Percé had been driven from their lands and had fled towards the Canadian border.

  Cory had read about that. He had always wanted to know about the Nez Percé, because of Dad and Uncle Jasper. But Uncle Jasper had never lived on a reservation, because his father, too, had had this ranch. And Uncle Jasper had been in college when the Korean War broke out, and then he enlisted in Dad’s outfit.

  Somehow he found it hard to think of Uncle Jasper as a real Indian. When they had come through town to the ranch four days ago, Cory had seen other Indians. Most of them were dressed like ranchers. There had been just one old man with grey braids falling from under his hat.

  If this Black Elk was so old, maybe he wore braids and looked more like the Indians in the books. Cory tried to imagine how Uncle Jasper would appear if he were dressed as his ancestors in bead-and-quill-trimmed buckskin, with his hair long, and scalps on his quiver.

  Scalps—Cory thought of the ragged fringe on Ned’s quiver strap. Had those really been scalps?

  Strong Medicine

  Cory had no desire to wander far from the cabin; Uncle Jasper need not have worried about that. But as the morning grew late he walked along the cliff behind the cabin out in the bright sun. Thus he discovered a crevice behind the spring. Or rather he fell into it, his boots slipping on the rock as he climbed for a better look at the valley stretching on from the line camp.

  A small bush that guarded the entrance to the opening broke under his weight, and his head and shoulders were suddenly in darkness as he lay on his back, kicking in surprise and shock. He threw out his arms and they struck painfully against rock walls, scraping off skin against those rough surfaces. As he fought to sit up his struggles grew wilder, for he felt as if he were caught in a trap.

  Then he pushed against earth under him, and sat up, facing out into the open. There was a queer smell here and he rested on something soft that moved under his hip as if it were alive.

  He jerked away as far as he could, and felt under him fur and skin. Had he landed on some animal? No, this was more like a bag.

  Edging forward, Cory came into the open, bringing his find with him. It was a bag of yellowish-brown skin, strips of fur dangling from it. There were pictures on the bag, like those on the skin on the cabin wall, and some feathers tied to the strips of fur. Though it was shaped as a bag it had no opening, Cory discovered as he turned it around in his hands.

  He got to his feet stiffly, the tumble having started all of yesterday’s bruises aching again. Bringing the bag with him, he went to the jeep to hunt in the storage compartment for a torch. With this in his hand he returned to the crevice, shining the light into the rock-walled pocket.

  Against the back leaned a wooden pole from which hung feathers on bead-sewn strings. And there was a covered basket of woven grasses. Suddenly Cory remembered something Uncle Jasper had said about Black Elk, that there was a place here he visited. Maybe this was it. These things looked new, or at least not as if they had been here for years and years from the real Indian days. Perhaps he had better put everything back just as he had found it. But the top of the basket was squashed in; he must have broken it when he landed.

  Cory tried to pull it loose. Inside was a turtle shell broken straight across. And when he picked it up some pebbles fell from it. Nothing was going to fix that again. He would just have to tell Uncle Jasper about it later. But at least it was an accident. And if he put everything back—

  He went to the jeep for the skin bag. And he had that strange feeling for an instant as he laid his hand on it that it was alive in some way. Maybe this was just because it had been warmed by the sun. But he was glad to get rid of it; he laid it beside the smashed turtle shell in the basket, then pushed the broken bush as a cork to stopper the crevice.

  Here the overflow of the spring basin trickled into a thread of brook. Cory knelt to wash his hands, and saw the flick of a fish tail going downstream. He wiped his palms on the sun-warmed grass and looked at a tall rock. At least that had no breaks in it, and if he climbed to its top he would have a good view of the valley.

  From the jeep he got the field glasses he had brought this morning. These in hand, he climbed to the top of the rock.

  The stream from the basin joined a larger rivulet and finally a wider flow of water. Grass grew high and there were clumps of tall bushes or low trees. From one of these copses below moved brown animals. Cows? But this was a horse ranch. Cory adjusted the glasses. Out of the distance moved great shaggy bodies burdened with coarse tangles of hair on their shoulders and heads—buffalo!

  Unbelieving, Cory watched the big, horned head of the first animal he had focused upon rise, a wisp of grass now hanging from the powerful, bearded jaws as the bull chewed with satisfaction. One, two, three of them, then a smaller one—a calf. But buffalo had been gone from this country for a long time. They were only to be seen in parks or zoos. Could some have hidden out wild in the hills?

  Grazing their way slowly, the buffalo reached the water, stood to drink their fill, the water dripping from their throat hair as they raised their heads now and then to look about. Suddenly the big bull moved back a length, faced the way they had come, his head dropping lower, horns ready. The other two adults copied him, setting the calf behind the safe wall of their own bodies.

  Cory turned the glasses in the direction the bull faced. He saw movement in the tall grass. Wolf?

  Whatever was there was certainly larger than the coyote Uncle Jasper had pointed out to him when they had driven to the ranch from the airport. Yet it looked like that animal.

  Then—

  Cory blinked.

  The coyote-shaped head rose higher than that of any animal. It was not a coyote at all but a mask worn by a man, an animal hide over his head and shoulders. Yet, Cory would have sworn that at first he had seen a very large but real coyote.

  As the man in the mask moved forward, Cory saw that he wore not only the furred hide about his head and shoulders but that below he had on the fringed buckskins of a history-book Indian.

  He did not carry a gun or even bow and arrows as Uncle Jasper and Ned used. Instead, in one hand, he held a feather-trimmed pole such as Cory had seen in the crevice, the feathers fluttering in the breeze. In the other was a turtle-shell box, just like the broken one, mounted on a handle, and this he shook back and forth. He was not walking directly forwards, but taking quick, short steps, two forward, one back, in a kind of dance.

  The uneasiness Cory had felt in the crevice returned. He had a strange, frightening feeling that though the man in the mask had no field glasses, though he had not even looked towards Cory huddled on the sun-warmed rock, he knew the boy watched him and for that he was angry.

  Was—was this Black Elk? But Uncle Jasper, Mr. Baynes, they had both said Black Elk was an old man. Somehow Cory did not think the masked dancer was old; he moved too quickly, too easily, though of course Cory could not see his face.

  Now the boy could hear a low murmur of sound, and a sharp click-click. Cory wanted to slide down the rock, put it between him and the dancer. Yet at that moment he could not move; his arms and legs would not obey his frightened mind.

  The feathered pole in the dancer’s hand began to swing back and forth and Cory watched it, even though he did not want to. His fear grew stronger. Back and forth, back and forth—now that murmur of sound was louder and he thought he could almost distinguish words, though he could not understand them. And he must—not! That much he was now sure of.

  He fought against what seemed to keep his hands holding the glasses to his eyes. He must not watch that swinging pole—With a jerk Cory managed to drop the glasses. He sat there in the strong heat of the sun, cold and gasping, as if he had just crawled out of the chilled water of a mountain stream where he had come near to drowning.

  Now when he dared to look again, the buffalo were only brown lumps. And he could not see the coyote-masked dancer at all. With a choked cry
of relief, Cory slid down on the opposite side of the rock, glad to have that as an additional wall between him and the valley, and ran for the jeep.

  Once more he climbed into its seat, his fingers curling around the steering wheel, shivering all through his body. But this—this was real! Slowly he began to feel warm inside again, and he relaxed.

  Cory did not know how long he sat there. But the sun was high and hot on his head, and he was hungry when he finally roused himself to reach into the back and get his lunch box. In his mind he had gone over and over what he had seen, or thought he had seen. Buffalo—three big ones and a calf, and then the man in the coyote mask dancing. He was sure, almost, that he had seen it all. Yet, was any of it real?

  There was only one way to prove it—go down there and look. Even if they had all gone by now, they would have left tracks. But—could he?

  Cory’s head turned slowly from right to left, once more that chill crept up his spine. It was all very peaceful—ordinary—right here. He had unwrapped one of the big meat sandwiches and sat with it as yet untasted in his hand. If he did not go down there—right now—he never could.

  And if he did not, then he would have this to remember—that Cory Alder was a coward. What he would not quite admit to himself yesterday after the horse had thrown him, what he had felt in the dark of the night when he heard all those strange sounds, was very plain. Cory Alder was a coward—a boy Uncle Jasper would be ashamed to have around. And what about Dad—Dad who had two medals for bravery—what would he think if he knew what Cory felt right now? Afraid of a horse, of the dark, of animals, of the country?

  Dad would be on his way downhill right now. He would look for tracks. He would even stand right up to face a buffalo, or that dancer with his feather-strung pole and his coyote mask. That is what Dad—or Uncle Jasper—would do.

  Cory dropped the sandwich on the seat and crawled stiffly out of the jeep. His lower lip was caught between his teeth, his hands balled into fists. He began deliberately to walk back towards the rock, but he did not take the field glasses this time. No, he would not sit far off and look through those, he was going—down there!