“Okay, beam me up Scotty.” Tinker put down the phone and stepped into the pentagram.
Eight hours behind and nearly five thousand miles away in Vancouver, Henry flicked aside long grey hair, wiped his granny glasses, and checked an identical ‘gram on the floor for the umpteenth time. He returned the detailed instructions to the envelope and picked up another sheet with its spell of utterance. The last page had held only splotches of blood, and it now lay in the centre of the carefully marked-out diagram, a mute reminder of the risks involved.
Henry tugged unconsciously at his Fu Manchu moustache as he enunciated the words. “I summon you by blood of your blood…”
Acrid white smoke poured from the stain like combusting celluloid and grew to a columnar cloud. As he forced himself to continue reading, it coalesced into the form of a large, hairy, and quite naked, man.
“I’ve arrived, and to prove it, I’m here,” announced Tinker.
A piercing screech spun Henry around, but it proved only Marmalade, his geriatric tomcat. Not occasioned by Tinker’s appearance, but rather the brindle bull terrier pup at his feet.
“Make nice, Bonzo,” Tinker hastily instructed. The little Staffs would take on any feline up to, and including, a smilodon. Being a gorphon familiar, Bonzo could size-shift from pigmy shrew up to Shetland pony, one with adamantine teeth capable of masticating plate armour.
Tinker smiled and grabbed Henry’s forearm in the old anarchist shake. “Ta, Henry, that saved me over five hundred quid, jet lag, plus eight hours sandwiched between an infant soprano and some old bag in Depends.” He looked down at his involuntarily nude body. “Pity about the luggage restrictions, though. Did you get anything I can wear?”
A few inches and many pounds of muscle short of Tinker, Henry dug out an old leather jacket, engineer boots and some clothes. “Borrowed these from Elmer, they were getting too tight anyway.”
“So, where is dear cuzzin Elmer?” Tinker inquired, cinching the pants belt up to its last notch. “Not like him to miss an excuse to party.”
“Well,” Henry hesitated. “Actually he’s trying to finish that loaner he promised you.”
Typical Elmer, Tinker figured. Intentions always better than results. He pulled on the scarred, heel-worn boots. “Well, I guess we better go help him.”
The VW stuttered to a halt. Henry had converted it into a pick-up and it could take a small bike at a pinch. Elmer had heard them coming and now his bald dome, surrounded by a frizz of still-black curls, creased in a frown of contrition.
“A couple of the old patches rode in from Alberta,” he said ruefully. “You know how that goes.”
Yeah, party-time, thought Tinker, picturing the club‘s ‘unique‘ colours. The ‘Flying Assholes’ had been a real kick-arse crew of outlaw bikers and Elmer their sergeant-at-arms. Anyone mistaking this genial fatman for a pushover didn’t do it twice.
He checked the bike out: a 1931 ‘101’ Indian with the later Sport Scout top-end, an old bolt-on performance booster. The thru-frame tank lay on the bench and emitted a cloud of rust when decanted. “Looks like an all-nighter,” Tinker sighed. “Got any coke?”
“No, Elmer,” said Tinker patiently. “Coca Cola, the phosphoric acid will etch the tanks. First we put in a few of handfuls of old nuts and bolts, couple of cycles in the tumble dryer wrapped in some blankets, then a nice soak in coke till tomorrow.”
Henry donated a spare VW generator that fitted right into the Indian cradle clamp, then the Bosch magneto had to be fussed over and retimed. Someone had put together an interesting bobber many moons ago, even replaced the original total loss oiling with a ‘33 Motoplane dry sump pump and timing chest.
Fortified by Elmer’s mirror, work proceeded into the small hours. The less mechanically-inclined Henry became designated go-fer, being sent out to an all-night pizza joint and the local booze-can, or shebeen as Tinker called it. Walkies for Bonzo too, who, enticed by unfamiliar smells, had been pawing at the garage door.
Henry returned a trifle shaken, Bonzo with a wag to his tail.
“A local lout lets his rottweiler roam at night terrorizing the neighbourhood,” Henry said, after a restorative toke of hash. “I know you told Bonzo not to get into fights, but it rushed out at us snarling and snapping those great jaws.”
Tinker glared down at the pup, its picture of innocence somewhat marred by a bloodied muzzle. “Okay,” he sighed, not really wanting to know. “What did he do?” Henry reached down to pat the pup. “Darted between its legs and bit the bollocks clean off. Don’t think we’ll be getting much trouble from that brute again.”
“All right,” shouted Dan through the bull horn. “Squamish’s Howe Sound brew pub for lunch, stops on the way at Britannia Beach and Shannon Falls for older bikes and Harley guys to catch up. Anyone not got their package yet, see me.” A Yosemite Sam look-alike and spark plug of the Canadian Indian club, Dan had organised hosting the International Indian Rally. Reservations, route maps, back-up trucks, the works–and as usual all down to him and a couple of buddies.
Bikes peeled out of the Lighthouse Park assembly point, the flat bark from dozens of exhausts echoing through the tall cedars. Off to the notorious coastal twisties of the Sea-to-Sky Highway where mountains crowded you into sheer drops as corners tightened up unexpectedly. Out onto the flats, where the Royal Hudson steam train hit the whistle to a chorus of Indian-face horns and an exchange of waves with the passengers.
Tourists from the train had a closer look at the two-wheeled tribe lined up outside the pub where riders of all ages and nationalities prepared body and bike for the next leg of the shakedown ride. It would be back roads most of the way to Whistler, then a bit further on to the Birkenhead resort and campsite they’d be taking over for the night.
Elmer left with Henry’s back-up VW, however Tinker lingered over another pint of Devil’s Elbow pale ale. Some of the older bikes and riders were pretty slow, so catching up wouldn’t be a problem. The tourist cuties eyeing him and daring each other a couple of tables over had, of course, no bearing on his tardiness. At any event, Dan’s detailed map showed a logging road shortcut, and a pump jockey at the gas station where Tinker filled up had assured him it would be passable.
Yeah, passable to a dirt bike or a 4X4 truck, thought Tinker as his kidneys took another hit. He’d been determined to make it to the top before a piss stop, definitely would be close.
Bonzo went to sniff out a tree to his liking while, more grandly, Tinker peed over the drop, losing himself in the panoramic view. Nothing except sticks, stones and unpolluted air as far as the eye could see. Timeless, pristine, and perfect; not much left like it in Blighty. It was easy to imagine himself as a trail-blazing trapper facing the wilderness alone.
A warning wuff from Bonzo jerked him back to reality. The pup had his nose up, sifting the breeze. He froze into a pointer stance as master came alongside. Tinker caught a whiff of it too: cloying, repellent, a warning-off. The nearest he’d got to skunk had been the smoking variety, and no way Bonzo would be riding with him if he got himself squirted. He started pulling the eager pup back to the bike, then Bonzo braced himself and made a strange noise in the back of his throat.
Now Tinker started to sweat. Gorphons are constitutionally fearless and Bonzo loyal to a fault. The smell came stronger now, like a change of wind from a stockyard. He sure didn’t need the pup’s sensitive nose, however those squinty little eyes were seeing something he couldn’t.
“From your eyes to mine,” he recited, touching fingertips from the pup’s to his own.
A large bush in the shadows of the tree line resolved itself into a heat source. Tinker focused his second sight on it. Oops! make that psychic source, whatever this might be, it radiated an aura of magic.
The bush lurched to its feet, shrugged massive shoulders, and stumped from the shadows, its glamourie pierced.
He grabbed Bonzo and sprinted back to the bike. Furious kicking produced zip, and no time for diagnostic measures. His free hand snapped to the molecule-edged belt knife, unfortunately still on his pants some five thousand miles away. Tinker tore a nail peeling the retaining circlip off the Indian kicker. Not exactly a tomahawk, however it would serve as a five pound ‘mace’ capable of crushing a skull.
Bonzo tore from his grip and raced towards the hulking creature like a small brindled torpedo.
“No, Bonzo,” Tinker hollered. “Full size, you berk.”
Oblivious, the young gorphon flung himself at the monster–leaping up to lick its face and nip playfully at enormous restraining hands.
“Bonzo, you fucking little traitor,” gasped Tinker, frozen in disbelief, and prepared to sell himself dear. That Big Foot stood over twice his size and it sure looked like he was on his own here.
“Fear not, white shaman,” rumbled a voice from the haystack of hair. “Your spirit-dog is true.”
“You can speak?” croaked Tinker. “English?”
“Would not the Woodwose know the words of an Englishman?” said the Sasquatch. “A Fear Liath Mor, the great grey man spoke of in Gaelic, Yeti in the Tibetan tongue?”
Bonzo slunk back to Tinker’s side, confused by master‘s reactions. In the pup’s bestiary of magic, this great animus of forest and mountain ranked as a protector and friend.
“Okay, boy, okay,” soothed Tinker, giving him a pat. Bonzo seldom proved wrong about people, and if he trusted him to sniff out enemies, why not the good guys? He felt a bit silly addressing something that looked like Heap from the pages of ‘40’s ‘Airboy Comics’ with the head of Jo-Jo the Dog-faced Boy. Still, he sensed a silent pleading here, and that sickness tainting the air reminded him of the Fisher King legend .
“Er… is there something I can do for you?” he asked. Not exactly the traditional ‘Father, what ails thee?’ Still, Tinker wasn‘t exactly Parsifal, not even an Androcles.
The great hairy shape shook with mirthless laughter. “Can you give back the red fish to choke the streams with their coupling? Restore my elder trees that brushed the sky? Return oil and ore to the belly of the mother? I want what all want–what we cannot have again. I want the laughing river, yet for me it has run on.”
Tell me about it, thought Tinker, with regrets and losses of his own. However, caught astride a device of iron and internal combustion, he could only fess up. “What can I say?” he mumbled. “It’s all true. We’re naughty little monkeys not long out of the trees. Our brains and hands will take us to the stars, but fucking and fighting will still be what gets us hot.”
“And greed,” said the solemn Sasquatch.
“Insane greed,” Tinker agreed. “Still, there’s hope yet. Denmark’s switching over to wind power and we’re waking up to turning our world into a greenhouse gas oven.”
The creature just looked at him with sad, skeptical eyes.
“Hey, almost all the world’s major cities are ports or on big rivers,” said Tinker. “If we melt the poles we’d lose them.”
“Eight thousand sun circuits ago the northern ice dam broke and released a vast lake,” said the Sasquatch. “In the space of one moon the salt waters of the world rose half the height of a tall man.”
The Flood, thought Tinker. Breached the Bosporus, Pillars of Hercules, and the European land bridge became our Channel.
“The great ice, the melting, all the plagues.” The Sasquatch sighed mightily. “Nothing has ever stopped your kind. Too many, too head-strong and heart-weak.”
Tinker cast down his eyes with nothing to say. The buffalo, passenger pigeon, cod, salmon; fertile plains to dustbowl, farmland to concrete and pollution–the Four Horsemen hardly slowed us down.
“Yeah, well I guess you could say we’re the real Wendigos,” he said finally. “Always gorging, never sated; consuming everything, even our own.”
They gazed silently at each other while Bonzo whined softly and drooped his tail in dejection. Man had forgotten how to husband the green, broken the contract between Flora and Fauna—someday he’d be sorry.
Finally the Sasquatch turned his face away. “Once, many shamans walk and talk with me in the endless woods like Myrddin Emrys, that you call Merlin, who knew me as Brenin Llwyd. Now they too are gone,” he said, moving off. “Magic fades with the wilderness, with the wild ways in man. You are last to listen. I have spoken–look not to see me again.”
Once the rattled-off plug lead had been found and reattached, the Scout started first kick and presently its front wheel kissed the tarmac of the new Whistler highway. Soon he would be riding through big buck developments that had sprawled up the lower slopes of the ski mountains, preparing for another ‘pharmaceutical’ Olympics. They’d even had the nerve to make a Sasquatch doll the mascot, manufactured in China and obviously Pokemon with a fur coat.
Fifty miles beyond that lay the promise of ale, music and the telling of tales around a crackling campfire. Good old times with good old boys enjoying their Indian Summer like a gathering of horse as in days of yore. A little touch of magic in the night.
Yet Tinker couldn’t shake that apparition of an old, sad-eyed giant silently watching the Wendigos turn his world into a wasteland–and nobody could do a damn thing about it.
