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Walker pushed the canoe away from the shore and disappeared up into the trees, leaving Dan drifting on the water. The chaotic noise had quieted, replaced by an occasional eerie whistle. As his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark Dan could see shadows moving among the trees, but he couldn’t make out who or what was causing them. Sitting there, confused and helpless, was not a feeling he liked, but to even dip a paddle in the water could let de los Santos know someone was out there.
It was more than half-an-hour later when Walker reappeared, a dark shadow on the beach, and called him back in. The whistles now seemed to all come from a single location at the head of the cove.
“What the hell is going on,” Dan whispered as the keel of the canoe scraped over the gravel. “And don’t give me any of this Man Eater shit. Is de los Santos here? Is everyone okay?”
“Whoa, slow down.” Walker climbed in, dug his paddle into the water and turned the canoe back towards Dreamspeaker. “It’s all looked after. Time to get a little rest. You can pick your man up in the morning.”
“Walker . . .”
“No. You need to listen. This is our business now. This man has murdered two of our people and stolen our sacred regalia. He’s learning there’s a cost.”
“Walker, I’m responsible. I brought you here. If anybody gets hurt it’s going to be on my head.”
The canoe bumped against the swim grid and Walker reached out a hand to steady it. As he was tying the line they heard a quick flurry of rattles and a single, frantic scream. His grin gleamed briefly.
“You worry too much. Get some rest.”
***
DAN DIDN’T REST. HE couldn’t. He spent the rest of the night trying to come up with some way of controlling the situation, but there was nothing he could do. To go back to shore in a place he was unfamiliar with, and with who knew how many people running around in the dark, was a recipe for disaster. Markleson was right. This was a circus, and he was the one who had created it.
Dawn found him sitting out on deck, his face haggard. Although it had been quiet for the last couple of hours, the night had been filled with occasional hoots and whistles followed by what sounded like someone or something running on the rocks or crashing through the trees. Across from him, Walker lay on his mat, quietly watching. He didn’t sleep much, and he still refused to use any of the bunks inside, but unlike Dan, he appeared rested.
“Looks like you both could use some coffee,” Claire said, carrying two steaming mugs from the galley.
“What I could use is knowing what the hell is going on.” Dan snapped as he glared at Walker.
“I told you what was going on,” Walker said. “Mr. de los Santos is getting a taste of his own medicine.”
“That makes no sense Walker, and you know it.”
“It does to me and the people here, and we’re the ones he stole from. It’s our brothers he killed.”
Dan sighed. “Do you at least want to tell me if I should be calling for assistance—or for an ambulance.”
“I don’t think you’ll need any help with this one.”
Walker’s calm grin was infuriating and Dan turned away to stare out over the water.
“So you’re saying he’ll just walk out and give himself up?”
“Nah. The people here will let us know where he is, but you’ll probably have to go in and get him. Don’t think he’ll be in any condition to walk out by himself.”
Dan stared at him in horror. “Are you telling me they hurt him? Those screams I heard weren’t just fear? Damn it Walker, if they attacked him they could be charged with assault—and we may lose any case we have against him!”
Walker’s answer was drowned by a series of sharp, bird-like whistles coming from a group of three men who had appeared on the shore.
“Time to go,” Walker said. “You might want to bring a blanket.”
***
“DON’T LOOK TOO DANGEROUS now does he?” Walker was standing on top of a steep bank, surrounded by a group of men wearing elaborate wooden masks. His face was impassive as he looked down at the man cowering in the rocks below.
Dan had seen the photo of Martin de los Santos taken on his arrival at Vancouver airport, and he had seen the man himself at the Spirit Gallery in Darwin. What huddled below him now didn’t look anything like either version. More apparition than human, de los Santos lay curled into a ball, his knees drawn up near his chin, his hair braided with strands of green string and strips of fabric threaded with bark and moss hanging from his shoulders. His skin was pale, as if all the blood had leached out of it, and long strands of wet hair straggled across his face.
“What the hell happened here?” Dan asked.
“I already told you. He got a taste of his own medicine,” Walker answered.
“You’re going to have to explain that to me, Walker. Is this about that weird message you and Charles Eden sent out? All that stuff about the Hamatsa and Baxbak . . . Baxw . . .whoever. I never did understand it.”
Walker smiled. “The name is Baxwbakwalanuxwsiwe, also known as Cannibal Woman, or Man-Eater at the North End of the World. She has four man-eating birds as her companions and they take possession of a Hamatsa initiate when he’s sent out into the forest to fast before he enters the T’seka ceremony.” He pointed to each of the masked men in turn. “That one is Crooked Beak of Heaven. Next to him is Huxhugwadsayi: he’s a kind of crane. Over there is Hamasiwe, sort of a smaller version of Crooked Beak of Heaven, and this last one with the really long beak is a man-eating Raven. They have to be tamed and controlled. It’s all done through dance using whistles and rattles.”
Dan stared at him in disbelief. “You mean they tried to catch this guy with whistles and rattles? They could have been killed!”
“Worked, didn’t it?” The unrepentant grin was back and Walker gestured to the almost unrecognizable shape that was now on his hands and knees rocking back and forth below them making sounds somewhere between sobbing and keening. “This guy was using our stories to steal from us and murder our people. He was dressing up as one of our spiritual beings, using that to camouflage himself in case he was seen. To be able do that he has to have studied our culture. Got to know it. We just turned it all back on him. Made it real.”
Dan looked back at the sight below him, trying to make sense of what Walker had said. Was it possible? Could someone like Martin de los Santos, the man he had spent weeks trying to catch, a man who travelled the globe stealing valuable objects and murdering anyone who got in his way, be reduced to this whimpering shell by a few people dressed up in masks and blowing whistles?
“So you’re saying these guys made him believe they were spirits? Man-eating spirits? That’s all it took to do this? Seems like it would take more.”
Walker shrugged. “Why? He has to have been living in some kind of fantasy world. You said he spent most of his time when he wasn’t stealing and killing thinking of himself as some Voudou spirit.”
Dan hadn’t thought of that, but Walker was right, and the same idea could probably be applied to the people living on Porcher Island. It would certainly help explain why Samantha Chauvet called herself Erzulie. It could even explain why they wanted the things they had stolen, although that was something he needed to think through a little more.
“So you’re saying because he believed he was a spirit it made it easy to convince him a bunch of other spirits were after him.”
“Something like that.”
It was starting to make an odd kind of sense and Dan nodded. “Guess he figured he was sort of invisible, sneaking up on a bunch of unsuspecting people sleeping peacefully in their beds. He wasn’t expecting to see all these weird shapes creeping about in the forest looking like the creatures whose masks he had stolen, hooting at him from the shadows.” He laughed. “Hell, that would probably freak me out too.”
He looked at the men who had now removed their masks and were staring down at the spectacle below. “Guess I’d better go talk to him. See what he has to say.”
He started to clamber down, but as soon as he got near, de los Santos began to scream hysterically, calling out to someone or something named Papa Legba, asking him to get Baron Samedi to close the gates to the spirit world. Dan reached out a hand to try and calm him, but that only made it worse. The screams rose in pitch until they sounded like the cries of a wounded animal and when the man started to throw himself against the rocks, Dan backed off.
“I think I’m going to need some help,” he said. “I can’t let him hurt himself.”
Walker held out the blanket he had carried up from the canoe. “Told you to bring a blanket.”