The Manitou Read online

  “Did you find out anything more about it?”

  “Not a great deal, but enough to give me a clear idea of what approach I’m going to have to take. You’ve heard of Gitche Manitou, the Great Spirit? Well, what we’re dealing with here is the spirit, or manitou, of this particular medicine man. He is obviously very strong, which means that even in his previous lifetime in the 1650s, he was into his fourth or fifth reincarnation. You see, each time a manitou lives on earth as a human being, he gains more knowledge and more strength. By the time he is into his seventh or eighth reincarnation, he is ready to join Gitche Manitou forever as a permanent spirit. It’s like graduation.”

  I changed lanes. “There’s a similar kind of concept in European spiritualism. What I want to know is, how do you defeat a manitou like this?”

  Singing Rock fished in his pocket for a small cigar and lit it.

  “I’m not saying it’s easy,” he said. “In fact, the whole business is touch-and-go. But the basic principle is this. Every magical spell, according to its strength, can be diverted. You can’t nullify it. You can’t stop it in its tracks. It has its own spiritual momentum, and to arrest that momentum would be like trying to stand in front of an express train. But you can divert that express train and send it back the way it came. All you need then is enough strength to alter its course through three-hundred-and-sixty degrees.”

  “It may be easier than you think,” I said. “The doctors made X-rays of this medicine man when he was still in a fetal stage, and it looks as though they’ve deformed or injured him.”

  “That won’t make any difference,” said Singing Rock. “The spell was made when he was still whole and well, and that’s what counts.”

  “Can you actually make him leave Karen Tandy?”

  “I hope so. I don’t think I’ll have the power to divert him right back to the 1650s. That would take a very strong and experienced medicine man—somebody much more powerful than me. But what I can do is get him out of her, reverse the growth inside her, and redirect it to someone else.”

  I felt a chill. “Someone else? But you can’t wish that on someone else. What’s the point of saving Karen Tandy’s life if we kill another person?”

  Singing Rock puffed at his cigar. “I’m sorry, Mr. Erskine. I thought you understood the problems. There’s no other way of doing it.”

  “But who will the manitou go to?”

  “It could be anybody. You have to realize that he’ll be fighting for his own existence, and he’ll look for any host that is weak and receptive.”

  I sighed. All of a sudden, I felt very tired. It’s not at all easy, battling against something that doesn’t know the meaning of physical exhaustion, and which is totally committed to its own survival.

  “If what you’re saying is true, Singing Rock, then you might as well fly straight back to South Dakota.”

  Singing Rock frowned. “But surely you wouldn’t object if we transferred the manitou to someone useless—like a hopeless drug addict, maybe, or a bum from the Bowery, or a Negro criminal?”

  “Singing Rock, that’s out of the question. This whole thing has happened because one race exercised prejudice against another. If it hadn’t been for the way the Dutch threatened this medicine man back in 1650, he wouldn’t be here now, threatening us. I can’t see that there’s any justification for doing the same thing all over again to another racial minority. I mean, we’d just be perpetuating the evil.”

  The Indian medicine man in the mohair suit looked across at me curiously.

  “That’s pretty funny, hearing that from a white man,” he said. “My father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather before him, they all felt the same way about white men. Unscrupulous devils with hearts of stone. Now, when you’ve finally taught us how to be as hard and uncompromising as you, you turn soft on us.”

  The Cougar hissed along the wet highway. A ray of yellow sunlight fell across our laps.

  “Well, maybe it’s easy for us to be soft now,” I said. “We’ve got everything we want, and now we’ve done that, we can afford to be charitable. But whatever the reason, I can’t justify transferring the manitou into someone else, no matter what race they are, and no matter how broken-down they are. It just goes against the grain.”

  “Okay,” said Singing Rock. “Then we have an alternative. But I warn you, it’s much more dangerous.”

  “What is it?”

  “We wait until the medicine man emerges from Karen Tandy’s body.”

  “But that will kill her—she’ll be dead.”

  “In the accepted sense, yes. But her own manitou, or spirit, will continue to live inside the medicine man. So she won’t be past saving.”

  By now, we were well into Manhattan, and I slowed up and stopped at a red light.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It isn’t easy, I admit,” said Singing Rock. “But once the medicine man has emerged, we’ll have some ability to deal with him physically. We may be able to imprison him, provided we do it with spells as well as bars. And then we can actually force him to return Karen Tandy’s manitou to her.”

  “Force him?” I asked. “How?”

  “By invoking the power of Gitche Manitou. All lesser manitous are subject to the greater influence of the Great Spirit”

  “But couldn’t he do the same thing—and kill you?”

  Singing Rock thoughtfully sucked his cigar. “Of course. That’s the chance I’d have to take.”

  “And would you take it?”

  “If it was worth my while.”

  “And how much is worth my while.”

  “Twenty thousand dollars.”

  I grimaced. “Okay. I don’t blame you. I’d want a hell of a lot more than that to risk my life.”

  “In that case,” said Singing Rock, tossing his cigar out of the window, “thirty thousand.”

  By now, it was all up to Karen Tandy’s parents. No one else could pay the price of Singing Rock’s medicine, and no one else had the right to let him work it. I took Singing Rock back to my flat on Tenth Avenue, and he showered and drank coffee while I called up Karen’s parents. I told them who I was, and they invited me over for lunch. I just hoped their food wouldn’t stick in their throats when they heard what Singing Rock was suggesting.

  We reached Mrs. Karmann’s apartment at one o’clock. The glazier had been around that morning, and the window that had been smashed during the seance was repaired. It was warm and expensive and cozy in there, but there was a distinctly awkward atmosphere.

  Jeremy Tandy was a dry-looking, fair-haired man in his middle fifties. He wore a dark Nixonite suit, and his shirt was white and immaculate. His face had something of the elfishness of Karen, but it was matured and beaten into a harder and less compromising form.

  His wife, Erica Tandy, was a light, slight woman with brown flowing hair and startlingly large eyes. She wore a black Dior suit, and contrasted it with simple gold jewelry. I was fascinated by her long gleaming fingernails, and her $5,000 Piaget wristwatch.

  Mrs. Karmann was there, too, fussing around and trying to make everybody feel comfortable. She needn’t have bothered. We all felt awkward and odd, and no amount of small talk could do anything about it.

  “I’m Harry Erskine,” I said, wringing Jeremy Tandy’s hand as firmly as I could. “And this is Mr. Singing Rock, from South Dakota.”

  “Just Singing Rock will do,” said Singing Rock.

  We sat down on chairs and settees, and Jeremy Tandy passed round cigarettes.

  “Dr. Hughes told me you had an interest in my daughter’s case,” said Jeremy Tandy. “But so far he hasn’t told me who you are or what you do. Do you think you can enlighten me?”

  I coughed. “Mr. Tandy—Mrs. Tandy. A lot of what I’m going so say now will sound far-fetched. All I can tell you is that I was just as skeptical as you when I first found out about it. But the evidence is so overwhelming that everyone who knows anything about your daughter’s illness has had to agree tha
t this is probably—I won’t say definitely—the cause of it.”

  Step by step, I explained how Karen had come to me and told me about her dream. I told them how I had tracked down the Dutch ship, and how Amelia had raised the spirit of the medicine man. I told them about the reincarnation of medicine men, and our visit to Dr. Snow in Albany. And then I told them about Singing Rock, and what he was going to try to do, and how much it would cost.

  Jeremy Tandy listened to all this impassively. Every now and then he sipped at a glass of brandy, and he chain-smoked as he listened, but otherwise his face betrayed no sign of emotion.

  When I’d finished, he sat back and looked at his wife. She seemed bewildered and confused, and I couldn’t blame her. When you told it straight and cold, it was a pretty fantastic thing to swallow.

  Jeremy Tandy leaned forward and looked me square in the eye.

  “Is this a con?” he asked grittily. “If it is, tell me right out now, and we’ll let it go at that.”

  I shook my head. “Mr. Tandy, I know it sounds incredible, but if you call Dr. Hughes he will tell you the same story. And you have a cast-iron guarantee that it isn’t a con. You don’t have to pay any money at all until Karen is well. If she doesn’t recover, that will mean that Singing Rock here has failed, and so he won’t be needing the money anyway. If he fails, he may die.”

  Singing Rock nodded soberly.

  Jeremy Tandy stood up and paced the floor like a puma in a cage.

  “My daughter’s sick,” he snapped. “They tell me she’s dying. Then they tell me she’s giving birth to a three-hundred-year-old medicine man. Then they tell me I’m going to need another medicine man to get rid of the first medicine man, and that’s going to cost me thirty thousand bucks.”

  He turned to me.

  “Now is that bullshit, or is that bullshit?” he asked.

  I tried not to lose my temper. “Mr. Tandy, I know it sounds crazy. But why don’t you just call Dr. Hughes? Dr. Hughes is a world expert on tumors. He knows more about tumors than I know about the New York subway, and I’ve been traveling on it since I was knee high to a high knee. Call him. Find out. But don’t waste any time, because Karen is dying and as far as everyone can see there’s only one way to save her.”

  Jeremy Tandy stopped pacing, and stared at me with his head on one side.

  “Do you really mean that you’re not kidding?” he said.

  “No, Mr. Tandy, I am not kidding. I am serious. Ask Mrs. Karmann here. She saw the face on the table, didn’t you, Mrs. Karmann?”

  Mrs. Karmann nodded. “It’s true, Jerry. I saw it with my own eyes. I trust Mr. Erskine. He isn’t lying.”

  Mrs. Tandy reached up and took her husband’s hand. “Jerry, darling, if it’s the only way—we must do it.”

  There was a long silence. Singing Rock brought out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. Somehow I never imagined that Indian medicine men needed handkerchiefs.

  Finally, Jeremy Tandy threw up his hands.

  “All right,” he said. “You win. All I want is my daughter back again, sound and well, and if you can do that you can have sixty thousand bucks.”

  “Thirty is okay,” said Singing Rock, and when he said that, I think that Jeremy Tandy finally believed that the manitou was for real.

  After lunch, I drove Singing Rock up to meet Dr. Hughes at the Sisters of Jerusalem Hospital. Karen was under very heavy sedation, and there was a male nurse constantly at her bedside. Dr. Hughes took us down to see her and for the first time, Singing Rock saw exactly what he was up against. He stood at a respectful distance from the manitou, gazing at it above his surgical mask with worried eyes.

  “Phew,” he said softly. “That’s something.”

  Jack Hughes stood nervously beside him. “What do you think, Singing Rock?”

  “To quote a hackneyed line from old cowboy films, Dr. Hughes, this is heap powerful medicine. I’ve seen a lot of weird things—but this...”

  “Come on,” said Jack, “let’s get out of here.”

  We went back to his office and sat down. Singing Rock pulled a tissue from the box on Jack Hughes’ desk and carefully mopped his forehead.

  “Well,” said Jack. “What’s our plan of action?”

  “The first thing I’d say is that we don’t have long,” said Singing Rock. “The way that manitou’s growing, we’ll need to be ready by tomorrow at the latest. What I’ll have to do is mark out a magic circle around the bed, so that when the medicine man comes out, he can’t cross it. That will hold him long enough to give me time to try and subjugate him with my own medicines. At least, I hope it will. It’s quite possible that he’s powerful enough to cross any magic circle I’m able to draw. I just don’t know—and I won’t know—until he actually appears. It depends on how much the X-rays have affected him. The original spell, the spell which he used to have himself reborn, is just as strong as he was able to make it in 1650. But any new spells he tries to cast may be hampered by what you’ve done to him. On the other hand, they may not. I can’t count on it. They may have made him much more vengeful, and his magic more evil.”

  Jack Hughes sighed. “You don’t sound very hopeful.”

  “How can I be?” said Singing Rock. “This is strictly David and Goliath. If I can hit him with a stone from my puny slingshot, I may be lucky and knock him out. But if I miss, then he’s going to flatten me.”

  “Is there anything you need?” I asked him. “Any occult aids?”

  Singing Rock shook his head. “I brought all my goodies with me. If we can fetch my small suitcase out of your car, Harry, I could start right away by drawing the medicine circle. That will give us some protection, at least.”

  Dr. Hughes picked up the phone and asked for a porter. When the man arrived, he sent him down to my car in the basement, with instructions to collect Singing Rock’s case.

  “Whatever you do,” said Singing Rock, “you mustn’t disturb Karen Tandy’s body when the medicine man has left her. It mustn’t be touched under any circumstances. If you disturb it even slightly, then the chances of her manitou being able to return to it and being revitalized will be practically nil.”

  “Supposing the medicine man disturbs it himself...” I asked.

  Singing Rock looked unhappy. “If that happens, then we’re probably wasting our time.”

  Jack Hughes said: “What I don’t understand is why we can’t just shoot him. He’s a human being; after all, with normal flesh and blood.”

  “That would defeat everything we’ve tried to do,” said Singing Rock. “If you shoot him, his spirits will go to what the Indians used to call the Happy Hunting Grounds. His spirit, and Karen Tandy’s spirit, and any other spirits he may have collected during his several lifetimes. If you kill him that way, then Karen Tandy will be gone for good. He possesses her manitou, and only he can release it. Voluntarily, or under duress.”

  “And you don’t think there’s any chance of him releasing it voluntarily...” asked Jack Hughes.

  “Not a hope.” said Singing Rock.

  “And what do you think your chances are of being able to force it out of him?”

  Singing Rock scratched his cheek thoughtfully. “Three percent,” he said. “That’s if I’m lucky.”

  At that moment,the porter came up with the case. Singing Rock took it, laid it on Dr. Hughes’ desk, and opened it. As far as I could see, it was crammed with old hair and bones and packets of powder.

  “Okay,” said the medicine man. “Everything’s here. Let’s go down and draw the circle.”

  We went downstairs again, and into Karen Tandy’s private room. She was lying exactly as before, white-faced, with the swollen lump reaching almost down to her waist. Singing Rock didn’t look at her, but busied himself taking powders and bones out of his case and laying them neatly on the floor.

  “I want you to understand,” he said, “that once I have drawn this circle it must not be touched or disturbed in any way. You can cross it, but you must be ext
remely careful not to smudge it or break it. If it’s even slightly broken, then it’s useless.”

  Dr. Hughes said: “Okay. I’ll make sure that everyone who comes in here knows about that.”

  Singing Rock went down on his hands and knees, and poured a circular track of red powder from a paper packet all the way around the bed. Then, inside it, he poured a circular track of white powder. At regular intervals he laid down dry white human bones, and spoke a soft incantation over each of them. Then he laid a garland of human hair all around the circle—old scalps from his tribe’s historic totem.

  “Gitche Manitou, protect me,” he prayed. “Gitche Manitou, hear me and protect me.”

  As he said these words, I felt a cold thrill slide down my back. Karen, on the bed, had opened one eye, and was staring fixedly across at Singing Rock with a quiet malevolence.

  “Singing Rock,” I said gently, and pointed.

  Singing Rock turned, and saw the single hate-filled eye. He licked his lips nervously, and then spoke to Karen in a quiet, strained voice.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “Where do you come from?”

  There was silence at first, but then Karen Tandy whispered hoarsely: “I—am—much—mightier—than—you. Your—medicine—is—of—no—consequence—to—me. I—will—soon—slay—you—little—brother.”

  “What is your name?” said Singing Rock.

  “My—name—is—Misquamacus—I—will—soon—slay—you—little—brother—from—the—plains.”

  Singing Rock stepped back nervously, staring at the single eye. Even when the eye dropped shut again, he was rubbing his hands in agitation against his surgical robe.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked him.

  “It’s Misquamacus,” he whispered, as though he were afraid of being overhead. “He’s one of the most notorious and powerful medicine men of all Indian history.”

  “You’ve heard of him?”

  “Anyone who knows anything about Indian magic has heard of him. Even the Sioux knew about him, way back before the white men came. He was considered to be the greatest of all medicine men, and he was in contact with manitous and demons that no other medicine man would dare to summon.”