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"One day, in one of my lives, I hope to be far greater than Misquamacus," he
said.
Harry raised an eyebrow. "You're trying to tell me that you've lived before,
too?"
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Singing Rock smiled. "It always used to amuse the Indians, before they began
to understand how callous the white men actually were, how much the white men
knew about living, and how little they understood about life."
"You're in a very philosophical mood."
Singing Rock pulled across a weather-bleached chair and sat down, resting one
booted foot on the veranda railing. "Maybe I am," he said quietly. "But I
believe we'll be facing Misquamacus again tonight, and this time he'll be
ready for us."
Harry walked to the edge of the veranda and rested his hands on the railing.
He felt unpleasantly sticky and hot, and the afternoon seemed completely
airless. Even out here, it was like being shut in a cupboard. The smoke from
the cigarette drifted lazily away in blue puffs.
"Well," he said, "I suppose it's a great honor to be first on the zapping list
of the greatest Indian medicine man who ever lived. Just think, I may never
have to eat at the Chock full o' Nuts again."
Neil said, "Have you worked out who most of the medicine men are?"
"Yes," said Singing Rock. "They come from the times before the white men
arrived on our shores, in those ancient days when Indian magic was at its
height. In those days, the gods themselves were supposed to have walked
America, and these medicine men worked out their apprenticeships as shamans
and wonderworkers with the gods themselves to guide them. Their power is
inestimable. Together, under the direction of Misquamacus, they will be
devastating."
"Do you have a plan?" asked Neil.
"Sure," put in Harry. "We promise them beads and firewater, just like we used
to do in the old days. Then, when they're trying on their beads and drinking
their firewater, we steal their sacred medicine circle and build a downtown
shopping mall on it."
Singing Rock took out a pack of chewing tobacco and grinned. "I'm sorry,
Harry. It won't work a second time."
Neil bit his lip. "Listen," he said, "that's my son out there. My son and all
my son's friends. What's going to happen to them?"
With a measured bite, Singing Rock took a mouthful of tobacco and chewed it
steadily for a moment. Then he spat out onto the dust.
"That's something I've been meaning to talk to you about," he said, in his
deep, serious voice. "You have to understand that if Misquamacus successfully
emerges out of Toby's mind and takes on physical shape, then the drain of
energy which Toby suffers will almost certainly be fatal."
Neil felt as if someone had hit him from behind. "What?" he said weakly.
Singing Rock lifted both his hands. "I am telling you that because you must be
prepared for the very worst. There is very little chance that once the
medicine men have used those children to reincarnate themselves, they will
allow them to live."
"Then what's the use?" asked Neil. His face was very white. "What's the use of
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trying to save them at all?"
"It's not just the children," said Harry. "We're trying to prevent this whole
state from being torn apart. But there's something else, too, isn't there,
Singing Rock?"
Singing Rock hesitated, then nodded. "I guess you have a right to know the
best as well as the worst. If by any slim chance we do manage to defeat these
medicine men, and send them back to the outside, then the children will be
restored unharmed. It is hard to explain to a white man why this should
happen, but there is an eternal natural principle in Red Indian magic of
balance and redress. A sort of occult Newton's Law."
Neil turned away and walked to the end of the veranda. Harry glanced at
Singing Rock with an expression that suggested he might go after him and try
to reassure him, but Singing Rock shook his head.
"Leave him. If he's going to help us, he has to face up to the truth."
Neil heard Singing Rock's words, but he didn't turn around. He looked out over
the small yard that, until last week, had been his plain but happy home. With
a feeling that brought tears to his eyes, he noticed that Toby had left his
Tonka bulldozer out by the woodshed. He would have been annoyed normally, in
case it rained and the bulldozer got rusty. But now it didn't matter. Toby was
never going to play with it again. It might as well stay there.
Inside the house, the telephone was ringing. He guessed it was probably Mr.
Saperstein, but somehow he couldn't summon the energy to move from where he
was. He heard Harry go inside and bang the kitchen door. His senses seemed to
be dulled, and all he wanted to do was find a bed someplace and go to sleep.
Out of the corner of his eye, though, he was sure he could see something
wavering in the grass beyond the fence. He peered more intently, and shaded
his face against the dull, coarse light that filtered through the heavy
clouds. There was something out there that was shifting and flapping like a
pale transparent flag. Then it began to grow clearer, an instant photograph
developing on plain paper. It was the figure of Dunbar, in his wide-brimmed
hat and his coat, and with his gun belt slung low around his hips.
"Singing Rock!" said Neil, breathlessly.
Singing Rock raised his eyes, and then quickly looked to the place where Neil
was pointing.
"It's Dunbar!" said Neil. "That's him-the man in the long white duster coat!"
The Indian medicine man rose to his feet. As he did so, Dunbar lifted his hat
from his head and waved once. Then, gradually, like the morning mist from the
ocean, he faded away again.
"Did you see him?" asked Neil, almost frantic. "Did you see him out there?"
Singing Rock said, "Yes, I saw him."
"Thank God. Thank God for that. I was beginning to think I was imagining him."
"I don't know that his warnings can do anything to help us," said Singing
Rock. "It looks to me as though he's just some disturbed spirit, vaguely
manifesting himself around the fringe of all this astral activity."
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Neil didn't take his eyes away from the grassy slope where Dunbar had
vanished. 'Tm not so sure," he said softly. "I believe he helped me when the
wooden man was after me, and I believe he's going to try to help me now.
Whenever he appears, I have this feeling of reassurance."
Singing Rock looked briefly over at the hills beyond the fence. "Don't rely
too much on spirits," he said. "Some of them are very treacherous. We have
stories in South Dakota of demons who would take the shape of friendly dogs,
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