The young riders reached the round boulders just as dusk rolled over the prairie.
When Keech spotted them—a cluster of large sandstone masses that stood on the crest of a broad white promontory—he thought of giant cannonballs left to rust in the Kansas weather. There were at least two dozen of them, each capped by a layer of snow, and they formed a natural rampart of sorts on the flat top of the knoll.
Keech drew rein below the strange formations. “This must be the place. Mr. Horner said the bending tree would be down the hill. Let’s head to the other side.”
Cutter and Quinn trudged over the snow-painted mound first, their ponies looking more weary than the boys who rode them. Duck pushed Irving over the incline and into the boulder patch. She had wound Sally’s lead rope several times around her forearm so that her brother’s Fox Trotter wouldn’t trail too far.
While Duck wove through the boulders, Keech guided a grunting Hector up the hill, talking gently to the horse as they ascended. He led Saint Peter, occasionally glancing back at the wounded Ranger who sat in the saddle, moaning in a grave delirium.
Keech followed Duck’s twisting path through the boulders. When he looked down the opposite side of the hill, he saw a bending tree standing at the bottom of the slope, just as Milos Horner had promised. Grinning, he looked back over his shoulder for any sign of pursuers but saw no movement. Whatever was out there was keeping its distance. He returned his attention to the path.
The tree below the hill was a black walnut, its divided trunk favoring a sideways L. The longest of the two boughs pointed north; the shortest steered travelers south. Thick drifts of snow garnished each limb, and tangles of barren branches on both arms reached up to the gray sky.
“Looks like we found it,” Cutter said. “What now?”
Keech shrugged. “Let’s go listen to a shadow, shall we?”
Snow had fallen more generously in this area, so Keech couldn’t see whether four circular stones had been placed around the tree’s base or not. Dismounting Hector, he led Saint Peter to a flat spot and said to the groaning Doyle, “Wait here, Ranger. We’ll get you help soon.”
Never opening his eyes, Doyle muttered something incoherent.
Keech shuffled closer to the black walnut, began kicking snow away from the roots, and saw a perfectly round white stone embedded in the earth. “Moss opal,” he muttered.
“Can we hurry this up?” Cutter said. “I’m freezing.”
After dusting away more powder, Keech found all four stones.
Duck slid off Irving and walked over, then smoothed the toe of one boot over the south-facing stone. “Just like the others.”
Quinn and Cutter dismounted and huddled around the stones.
“I’m stumped,” Quinn said. “What’s moss opal?”
“It’s a precious stone that holds supernatural power,” Keech said, recalling Duck’s lesson on the Middle Ages. “Apparently, it lets you talk to nature spirits and walk around invisible.”
“At least, some folks used to think so,” Duck added.
“I’d say that sounds right silly, but these days, I guess I ain’t so sure,” Quinn said. “So how do we get this nature spirit to talk to us?”
Keech shrugged. “Back at the tree near the Moss farm, Duck and I investigated the stones. We couldn’t figure them out, but we did see something mighty strange.”
“The shadow of the tree moved,” Duck finished. “It turned into a buffalo head, then disappeared.”
“A buffalo head?” Cutter laughed. “Why not? But you never spoke about this before.”
“We didn’t want to say anything in front of Doyle, not before we learned more about his intentions,” Keech said.
Quinn glanced back at the wounded Enforcer. “I wish he was better. He could help us sort all this weird business out.”
“Doyle tried, remember?” Duck said. “He couldn’t find the path back to the Crossing. The Osage refused to give him a single clue.”
Keech pinched his bottom lip as he considered the marker trees, the bending of the trunks, the moss opal stones, the moving shadow. This time, however, they had Horner’s riddle—something Doyle never had. Keech recited it so everyone could hear it once more:
“Follow the rivers and bending trees
to the den of the moon stalker.
Gather the pack and speak his name
before the noontide shift.”
“What’s the moon stalker?” Cutter asked.
“Maybe the Chamelia?” Duck said. “That monster looks like a moon stalker to me.”
“Well, if y’all got plans to find that thing’s den, count me out.” Quinn moved around the tree, inspecting the warped boughs. He dropped to his haunches to scrutinize one of the moss opal stones.
Keech thought of the shadows again—the phantom buffalo, the slithering stick of darkness he’d seen fleetingly at the tree near Mercy Mission. “Let’s look at this thing’s shadow. Maybe we’ll see something.”
“We best hurry,” Cutter said. “Daylight’s dying fast.”
Though dusk was descending over the land, there was enough light in the sky to give them a feeble glimpse of shade. Quinn examined the stones while Cutter and Duck joined Keech at the side of the bent walnut. They watched the L-shaped shadow on the ground. It showed them nothing—no squiggling movement, no phantom buffalo head.
“C’mon, tree, show us something.” Keech peered up at the sky, praying for enough break in the clouds to give them a few more decent moments of light.
Cutter snapped his fingers. “The riddle said a den. You don’t think the Osage would’ve hid Bonfire Crossing inside the giant bear’s den, do you?”
“I can’t imagine the Enforcers and Osage would’ve hidden the Fang and the Char Stone so close together,” Keech said. “Mr. Horner said the artifacts would bring about terrible evil if they got too close to one another.”
“Maybe we should just head south and talk to the Osage ourselves,” Duck suggested.
“That’s a good plan,” Cutter said.
Quinn had been ignoring their banter, his eyes trained intensely on the ground around the tree. Taking a few steps back, he asked, “What did the riddle say again about a pack?”
“‘Gather the pack and speak his name,’” Keech quoted.
Quinn pointed down. “And how many stones are sitting around that tree?”
“Four,” Keech and Duck said in unison.
“I’d say four is enough for a pack,” Quinn said.
Duck’s melancholy face brightened. “We were standing on the stones when we saw the buffalo move, right, Keech?”
“Yes, we were.” Keech hopped over to the walnut. “Everyone, gather around the tree and stand on a stone.”
Each young rider hurried over to a moss opal stone. As soon as their boots landed on the circles, the tree’s blurred shadow began to tremble. The dark shape vibrated on the snow as if rattled by a heavy wind.
“Whoa! Do you see that, too?” Cutter asked.
“This is what the shadow did at the maple,” Keech said.
The shadow began to melt together, reshaping, folding inward. The image was both haunting and beautiful.
Keech dared not move his eyes away, fearing the shadow would disappear as before. As the final fragments of pale sun died away on the horizon, the shadow found its own interior light, turning shades of luminous greens and yellows on the snow.
“Dios mío, it’s glowing,” Cutter said.
The shadow’s gleam sparked with brilliant textures of emerald. The spectral light reminded Keech of a story Pa Abner once told about spook lights, ghostly illuminations that would sometimes appear over marshes. Some folks call them will-o’-the-wisps, but I’ve always called them treasure lights, Pa said. They guide the way to buried treasure.
Keech doubted he was seeing a spook light—they were nowhere near a marsh—but maybe this was the bending tree’s version of showing them buried treasure. Bonfire Crossing, if they were lucky.
The kaleidoscope shadow had been a quivering jumble on the snow, but now it began to rebuild itself into the image of an animal. The distinct visage of an elk materialized before Keech’s eyes. A great rack of antlers took shape, then the animal’s snout, then a thick, bulging neck. Before long, the entire body lay on the eastern side of the walnut, its knobby legs tugging at the surface, as if trying to emerge from the very ground.
“That’s a stag!” said Quinn.
Suddenly, the phantom elk peeled away from its prison of snow. The glimmering green body took on impossible dimension, scattering white powder and dirt as it struggled up into the real world, landed on emerald hooves, and shook the moisture off its glowing pelt.
“This ain’t happenin’,” Cutter said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m asleep and dreaming.”
“It’s happening, all right,” Keech said.
“Do you reckon this is the moon stalker?” Duck’s voice was a mere whisper.
“I don’t know.”
Keech wanted to say more, but the phantom elk surprised him by turning its luminous head toward the east. The creature’s snout lifted and appeared to sniff the prairie. Then a loud blustering noise, like Little Eugena’s bugle, issued from its long throat.
“What’s it doing?” Quinn asked.
The ghost elk trumpeted twice more over the territory, as though calling to a distant companion, then suddenly the ghostly beast sprang forward and galloped east across the snowy plain, leaving radiant green hoof tracks in its wake.
“Wait, come back!” Duck exclaimed.
“What do we do now, speak his name?” asked Quinn.
The emerald specter continued several more yards till it reached the fringe of a nearby forest and stopped. The elk tarried by the woods and paced over the snow, as if it were waiting for them to follow. Another rowdy honk echoed over the terrain.
“I think it’s calling to us,” Quinn said.
“‘When the shadows speak, listen,’” Keech said, recalling the words that Sheriff Strahan had told Horner. “I think we’re supposed to follow east.” Stepping off his stone, he raced back to Hector and swung over the saddle. He leaned toward Saint Peter and snatched up the reins. “C’mon!”
Yet as they galloped toward the dark forest, Keech felt a terrible, foreboding twist in his stomach. Maybe it was that old sensation that they were being watched that he’d felt at their camp, or maybe he was just second-guessing his choice.
Lowering his head to the wind, he tucked away the fear so no one else could see it.