the neck with a double barreled shotgun?'
Blake let the question hang in the air for a moment.
'That put pressure on us, aye. But the real pressure, Cree, that came from within. It came from the Force itself. Cause, laddie, no one — Indian or white — gets away with the murder of one of our own.'
Suddenly Blake stopped talking and his eyes lost their focus. Almost hypnotically he was staring at a scatter of blood drops spattered across the snow.
'Do ye think I'm ramblin', lad? Well I'll tell ye something. I once picked up a spot of malaria in the tropics, the Ashanti War it was. And it still bothers me every now and then, though it's been twenty-five years.'
Without warning, Blake lashed out with his left hand and yanked the buffalo horn cap from Iron-child's head. In doing so he smeared blood across the heel of his palm. As he brought his arm slowly back he stared at the liquid red. Then with his tongue he began to lick the blood from his hand.
Blake held up the cap.
'Nae much of a trophy, is it, Cree? Nae like my scalp would have bin. Aye, that brings you pride among your people, taking a gray-haired scalp.'
Then once again he stopped talking. Blake shook his head. He rubbed his temple. He licked a final drop of blood from the bristles of his moustache.
'Well, boy, you renegades made a mistake. You made a very bad one. It was nae killing Colebrook. And it was nae killing the others. Your mistake was in prodding Herchmer to put me on your tail.'
Suddenly Blake lashed out with the Enfield, striking the Cree in the mouth. With a sickening crack Iron-child's front teeth exploded in a spray of shattered enamel. His screams of shock and pain ran up and down the Rocky Mountains. Then Blake grabbed him by his braided hair and yanked his head up off the ground.
Iron-child choked on the fragments of teeth as the Mountie spat out his words.
'Herchmer says I'm excessive, lad, but you'll nae find a bad mark on my record. Cause, Cree, the Mounted Police need me much more than I need them. When there's a job of tracking, you know who they call on? And if they hadnae sent me away last year after that mess in Manitoba, they'd have had Almighty Voice just like they'll have you.
'A legend is born, lad, when a man beats the probabilities of life. And I'm the one that gets the ones that ought to get away. Believe me, Cree. The legacy of this Force will be the legacy of me!'
Blake let go of the Indian's hair and threw him back on the ground. Then Iron-child heard the hammer snap as the policeman cocked the Enfield. He watched as Blake once more stood up and began to rub his temple. He saw the pistol rise. He saw the bore of the muzzle. He saw the sunlight glint off the metal of the barrel.
'Dead or alive,' Blake said, 'it's all the same to them. But believe me laddie, it's nae the same to me.'
Then Wilfred Blake pulled the trigger and shot Iron-child between the eyes.
The blast from the shot rang up one side of the valley and down the other.
Blake listened. Then he drew the Enfield muzzle close and sniffed gunsmoke into his lungs.
After several minutes, Blake turned from the body of Iron-child and trudged through the snow across to the unhitched dogsled. He unpacked its contents, rearranged what he did not need, then he built a fire, filled the kettle with snow and put it on to boil.
While the sled dogs fed on dry moose meat, Blake ate biscuits and pemmican. Eventually he brewed some tea, hot and strong, and filled his pipe with tobacco. He sat in the snow drawing deep puffs of smoke into his lungs while he waited for the throbbing to cease.
It wouldn't go away.
What bothered him most of all was that each time the nightmare came, its aftermath took longer. And the dream was occurring more often. Always when he was alone. And always on the hunt.
That worried him.
This time it might have cost him his life, for the nightmare's echo had distracted him right when he required his wits. For almost a quarter century, Blake had lived with the occasional bout of malaria — but this was different. This was far more severe. First the nightmare, always the same. Then on and on, the throbbing. Then the echo daydream.
If only that damn echo would come, then the throbbing would cease.
He'd have to wait it out.
But the pressure in his head was worse, and getting worse each minute. A crushing weight was sending streaks of red pain whirling around his skull. With every beat of his heart, darts of agony like nails were rammed into his temples.
Blake buried his face in his hands…
Suddenly Blake leapt to his feet. He had an uncontrollable urge to move. He kicked the fire savagely, sending sparks and flaming brush exploding across the snow. He trod to the unhitched sled and whistled for the dogs. Running from all directions, they came bounding through the drifts. As he attached the train to the sled, the huskies jumped on one another in play, tangling the traces and back-bands and collar-straps into knots and interlacings. Spanker and Cerf-vola began fighting over the lead.
Blake left them to their frolic, once the train was secure. He busied himself with breaking camp and packing up the sled. Finally, he trudged over to where Iron-child lay sprawled in the snow.
The Enfield had blown out an exit wound the size of a navel orange. Blood spread out like a halo from behind the Cree's head.
Blake grabbed hold of the two hair braids and dragged the corpse to the sled. He tied it securely diagonally with a crosshatch of leather lashings. Then climbing onto the rear runner skates he flicked a whip at the dogs.
With his head bent low, Cerf-vola tugged at the load.
The other dogs followed and the sled began to move.
For hours the huskies panted as they hauled the heavy load, biting frequent mouthfuls of the soft snow through which they toiled. At noon, clouds settled over the mountains; then the upper layer broke to reveal the outer spurs of the Rockies that now flanked Blake on both sides. Blake pulled in on the dog train and brought the sled to a halt.
This was it. They'd reached it, the Indian's 'Bridge of the World.' That hinge where the Rocky Mountains front on a thousand miles of plain.
Blake climbed off the sled.
Then while moving forward to take the lead for the stretch where a false step could mean a fall to the gorge beneath, the Inspector glanced at Iron-child. He saw the open skull, the shattered brain, the tissue hanging in bloody strands out of the cranium. Blood was dripping into the snow. A trail of crimson drops marked the route that the sled had taken. Drops dripping, dripping, dripping drips,
Blake slammed his fists into his eyes as the nightmare came flooding back.
