Apparition Trail, The Read Free Page B

nearly knocked me from my seat.
    When I could see again, I noticed a curious thing. The clouds were darkest and thickest directly over Regina. And there were two lighter circles — holes in the cloud — that looked distinctly like eyes. The hair at the back of my neck prickled as I fancied that they were looking straight at me.
    Then they blinked.
    My mouth fell open in wonder as the cloud took on an ever more distinctive pattern. I could see it clearly now: the roundish head in which the eyes were placed, the curved beak, the widespread wings. In that moment, I recognized the creature as the one that had figured so prominently in the stories told by Mary Smoke, the elderly Cree woman who’d done our cleaning at Fort Walsh — stories she’d told me as I sat with her in the evenings over a pipe of Old Chum tobacco.
    Thunderbird.
    It was all nonsense, of course: Indian superstition and balderdash. That was a storm cloud over Regina, not some fantastical monster. But as I saw lightning crackle from those eyes and felt the baleful glare of Thunderbird upon me, I at last understood the premonitory dream that had awakened me early that morning. A fate far worse than dishonourable discharge awaited me in the skies over Regina. When that black, evil bird caught me, I would die.
    I found that I had to turn my head to watch Thunderbird, and that prompted a realization: the operator was turning the air bicycle about. At the same time, he shouted an explanation: “We’ve no choice. We can’t put down in Regina in this weather. We’ll have to run before the storm.”
    I nodded, but my attention was still fixed on the shifting clouds that now were behind us. Mighty wings flapped as Thunderbird ceased hovering over Regina and set out in pursuit. Whatever the thing was — storm or monster — it was fast. I could see that it would catch us — and when it did, it would buffet our air bicycle until it was torn apart.
    There was nothing I could do except prepare to meet my maker. Or was there? Frantically, I thought back to the stories I’d been told by Mary Smoke. There was one about Thunderbird that came to mind now. The great storm maker might be the most powerful of creatures, but he had been laid low by one that was smaller and more cunning — by a small black bird that had tricked Thunderbird into losing his eyesight. As a result, there was one animal Thunderbird feared: the raven.
    I glanced up at the lettering on the side of the balloon. It was a crazy, desperate idea, based on superstition rather than science, but it was the only one I had.
    “We’ll be torn to pieces if we try to outrun the storm,” I shouted at the operator over the drumming of the rain on the balloon overhead. “But if you turn us about, there’s a way we might get through. Turn the air bicycle quickly, so that it points directly at the largest thunderhead. It’s our only chance!”
    “You’re mad!” the operator shouted back. “If we do that, we could wind up caught in an updraft that will force us into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. If we climb to a point where the air pressure is too low, the bag will burst!”
    A fresh wave of pain gripped my stomach as another lightning bolt streaked out from Thunderbird’s eye toward the ground. Knowing that it was do or die, I released one of my hands from the handlebars and fumbled open the flap of my holster. The rain made everything slippery, and I nearly dropped my revolver as I pulled it out. I tapped the butt against the operator’s shoulder to get his attention, then raised the gun until the barrel was touching the balloon overhead.
    Thunderbird was almost upon us.
    “Turn us now! Point the air bicycle at the thunderhead or I’ll explode the balloon with a shot from my revolver!” I screamed.
    I had no such intention. But the wild look in my eye must have convinced the operator. Furious, his lips set in a thin white line, he turned the air bicycle about.
    The boiling clouds that were