Eye of Cat Part 11

"Guess we should."

He let Jimmy drop him on the northward bulge of the rim above the area containing the Antelope House ruin. Since he bad had the ride he had decided to come this much farther eastward. Had he walked over, he would have descended at a point several miles farther to the west. Jimmy would have taken him even farther eastward had he wished, but that would have been less useful, starting him at a place beyond the point where Black Rock Canyon branched off from Canyon del Muerto proper. He wanted to pa.s.s that point on foot and confuse the trail there. If he made things too easy Cat would become suspicious.

Staring downward into the broad, serpentine canyon, he saw a wide band of dully gleaming water pa.s.sing down its

center, as he had suspected, It was not yet as deep as he had seen it on occasions in the past, rushing with the seasonal meltoff between orange, salmon and gray walls, splashing the bases of obelisklike stands of stone, cascading over irregularities, rippling about boulders, bearing the mud and detritus of its pa.s.sage on toward the Chinle Wash, creating pockets of quicksand all over the canyon floor. Several hundred of the People made their homes there during the warmer months, but they all moved out for the,winter. The place would be deserted now.

A light rain was falling, making the wall rocks slippery. He cast about for the safest way down. There, to the left.

He moved to the spot he had selected and studied it more closely. Yes. It could be done. He checked his pack and commenced the descent. The way led down to the high, firm talus slope which followed the wall's base.

Partway down, he paused to adjust his pack, brush off moisture and look sideways and back in at the petroglyph of a life-sized antelope. There were a number of them about, along with those of other quadrupeds, turkeys, human fig- ures, concentric circles; some of them continued onto the fourth-story level of the large ruin built against the base of the cliff. His people had done none of these. They went back to the Great Pueblo period, in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, work of the old Anasazi. He worked his way down and around, and the going suddenly became easier.

Here the slant and overhang of the wall protected him from the rainfall.

When he reached the bottom he turned to the east, the splashing waters off to the right, faded gra.s.ses and scrubby trees about him on the slope. He made no effort to conceal his pa.s.sage but advanced with long, purposeful strides.

Across the water at the base of the opposite cliff stood Battle Cove Ruin, a small masonry structure with white, red, yellow and green petroglyphs. It, too, went back to the Great Pueblo days. As a boy he might have feared such places, feared rousing the vengeful spirits of the Old Ones.

On the other hand, he would probably have gone through them on a dare, he decided.

Jagged lightning danced somewhere in the east - ik- ne'eka'a. A slow roll of thunder followed. He felt that Cat was probably in Arizona by now, having seen the Canyon de Ch.e.l.ly Monument in his mind, the Canyon del Muerto branch in particular. Locating the trip-box at the Thunder-

bird Lodge would be kind of esoteric, though. Doubtless Cat would have arrived by way of Chinle - which meant that he stil had a long way to come, even if he had gotten in a few hours ago.

Good. Black Rock Canyon was not that far ahead.

The track of the wind upon my fingertips, mark of my mortality.

The track of the rain upon my hand, mark of the waiting world.

A song that rises unbidden within me, mark of my spirit.

The light of that half-place where his mount danced for Crazy Horse, mark of that other world where powers still walk, stones talk and nothing is what it seems to be.

We will meet in an old place.

The earth will tremble. The stones will drink.

Things forgotten are shadows.

The shadows will be as real as wind and rain and song and light, there in the old place.

Spider Woman atop your rock, I would greet you, but I am going the other way.

Only a fool would pursue a Navajo into the Canyon of Death.

Only a fool would go there at all when the waters are running.

I am going to an old place.

He who follows must go there, too.

Windmark, raintouch, songrise, light, with me, on me, in me, about me.

It is good to be a fool when the time is right.

I am a son of the Sun and Changing Woman.

I go to an old place.

Na-ya!

When Cat emerged from the trip-box at Chinle he wore a dark cloak, gla.s.ses and floppy-hat disguise. The station was empty now, though he could see a couple of minutes into the

past in a limited fashion with his infrared vision and knew from the heat signatures that two people had recently been standing inside the doorway for a while. He moved forward and looked outside. Yes. A man and a woman were walking away. Presumably one had met the other here and they had stood talking for a time before going on their way. As he watched, they crossed the street and entered a cafe to his left. Their thoughts served to remind him that for many hours he had been growing hungry. Without moving, his eye also took in countless images of the nearby wall map. He was getting the idea of such things better now, and he would remember all of the markings on this one. When he saw something which corresponded to a feature, he would have his directions, though he felt he already knew them. In the meantime, he would follow his feelings and his hunger while gaining impressions.

He departed the station. Half of the sky was overcast and the clouds seemed to be moving to cover more. He felt the dampness and negative ionization in the air.

He pa.s.sed along the street. Three men rounded the corner and stared at him for an unusually long while. Stranger.

Odd. Very odd, he read. Something funny about that one, the way he moves... Images then. Childhood fears. Old stories. Similar in ways to Billy's stream of consciousness.

More people approaching from the rear. No design to their movement in his direction. But the same curiosity flowing.

He selected. He broadcast fears and old forebodings: Flee! Man-wolf, shapeshifter! Gnawer of corpses! I will shoot corruption into your bodies, blow the dust of corpses into your lungs. Wolf, wearer of the skin. I will track you and rend you!

The men at his back hastily turned into an open shop.

Those before him halted, then quickly crossed the street.

Almost amused, he continued to broadcast the feelings for a time after they had departed. It cleared the way before him.

People would begin to emerge from buildings and halt, then return within, as if suddenly recalling something undone inside, experiencing the resurgence of childhood fears. Bet- ter to give in and rationalize later than to brave them out for no reason.

But they are real, he reflected. I am the shapeshifter who could strike you down without effort. I could have stepped from your nightmare legends....

He picked the direction of the Chinle Wash from a retreat- ing mind, turned at the next corner and again at the follow- ing one.

Silly. No one in sight now. There will be no trouble, he decided.

Stretching and contracting, he bent forward. Soon he was loping along the street. Not far, not too far. This way was indeed north. The town thinned out, fell away. He departed the roadway, ran beside it, cut across country. Better, better. Soon now. Yes. Downhill. Trees and desiccated gra.s.ses. A faint flash of light. Much later, a soft growl from the eastern sky.

Down, down into a barrenness of sand and moist earth, detached tree limbs and half-sunken stones. Firm enough, firm enough to run and - He halted. Ahead, a primitive sentience, wandering.

Automatically he fell into a stalking mode of progress.

Hunger remembered in this almost delicious spot, save for the moisture. Slow now, beyond the next bend...

He halted again as soon as he saw the canine, a lean, black dog, sniffing about the heaps of rubble. Parts of it might do, if he diluted them....

He sprang forward. The dog did not even raise its head until his third bounding movement, and by then it was too late. It let out one short whimpering noise before the pro- jected feelings. .h.i.t it, and then Cat's left paw shattered its spine.

Cat raised his muzzle from tearing at the carca.s.s and swiveled his head so as to cover every direction, including straight up, with his many-faceted gaze. Nothing. Nothing moving but the wind and its consequences. Yet... He had felt as if something were watching him. But no.

He fell to tearing the bones free, breaking them, grinding them, swallowing them along with large gulps of sand. Not as good as crunching the tube-crawlers back home, but better than the synthetic fare they had given him at the Inst.i.tute. Much better. In his mind, he roamed again the dry plains, fearing nothing but - What? Again. He shook himself and ran his gaze entirely around the horizon. There was nothing, yet he felt as if something were stalking him.

He dropped into a lower position, spitting out pieces of dog, baring his fangs, listening, watching. What could there

be to fear? There was nothing on this planet that he would not face. Yet he felt menaced by something he did not understand. Even when he had met with krel, long ago, he had known where he stood. Now, though...

He sent forth a paralyzing wave of feelings and waited.

Nothing. No indication that anything had felt it. Could this be like dreaming?

Time ticked nets about him. The sky flared briefly beyond his right shoulder.

Gradually the tension went out of him. Gone now.

Strange. Very strange. Could it be something about this place?

He finished his meal, thinking again of the days of the hunt on the plains of his own world, where only one thing could cause such uneasiness in him....

It struck.

Whatever it was, it fell upon him like a boulder out of nowhere. He bunched his legs beneath him and sprang straight up into the air when it hit, head thrown back, a sharp hissing noise pa.s.sing his throat. For an instant, his vision swam and the world grew dim. But already his mind was spinning. This he could understand, after a fashion.

Among his kind the mating battles were always preceded by a psychic a.s.sault from the challenger. This was somehow similar, and he possessed the equipment to join it.

He could not tell exactly what it was doing inside his head, but he struck at it with all of his hate, with the desire to rend.

And then it was gone.

He fell across the carca.s.s of the dog, teeth still bared, slipping back into an earlier mode of existence. Where was the other? When would he strike? He ranged with all of his senses about the area, waiting. But there was nothing there.

After a long while, the tension flowed away. Nothing was coming. Whatever it had been, it was not one of his own kind, and it had not been a battle challenge that he had felt. It troubled him that there was something in the area which he did not understand. He turned toward the north and began walking.

Mercy Spender and Charles Fisher, who sat at either side of him, reached to catch hold of Walter Sands's shoulders as he slumped forward.

"Get him up onto the table - quick!" Elizabeth said.

"He just fainted," Fisher said. "I think we ought to lower .

his head."

"Listen to his chest! I was still with him. I felt his heart stop."

"Oh, my! Somebody give us a hand!"

They moved him onto the table and listened for a heart- beat, but there was none. Mercy began hammering on his chest.

"You know what you're doing?" Ironbear asked her.

"Yes. I started nursing training once," she grunted. "I remember this part. Somebody send for help."

Elizabeth crossed to the intercom.

"I didn't know he had a bad heart," Fisher said.

"I don't think he did either," Mancin replied, "or we'd probably have learned that when we gave each other a look.

The shock when the thing struck back must have gotten to him. We shouldn't have let Ironbear talk us into going in."

"Not his fault," Mercy said, still working.

"And we all agreed," Fisher said. "The time seemed perfect, while it was remembering. And we did learn some- thing..."

Elizabeth reached Tedders. They grew silent as they lis- tened to her relay the information.

"Just a moment ago. Just a moment ago," Fisher said, "and he was with us."

"It seems as if he still is," Mancin said.

"We're going to have to try to reach Singer," Elizabeth said, crossing the room and taking her seat again.

"That's going to be hard - and what do we really have to tell him?" Fisher asked.

"Everything we know," Ironbear said, "And who knows what form it would take, that strange state of mind he's in?" Mercy asked. "We might be better off simply calling for that force Mancin suggested."