Singing Rock rested his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Neil’s right,” he said. “There could be terrible consequences if the police decide to use their weapons. At the moment, they don’t know what they’ve got on their hands. A mysterious busload of children with frozen windows, and a police car that’s blown up. They’re going to tread wary. But when the medicine men start bringing down the first of the demons, then it’s going to be all hell around here, and we could just as easily get ourselves killed as anybody else. Bullets, as a New York taxi driver once told me, ain’t got eyes.”

Harry blew out smoke. It seemed to hang where he had exhaled it, a motionless cloud in the still, humid air. Across the lake, it was now so dark that it was impossible to distinguish the hills on the opposite shore, and the water itself seemed to be heaving and foaming in unhealthy excitement.

“Okay,” he agreed. “But if you can convince the Highway Patrol that there are twenty-two medicine men in there, you’re a better man than I am, Singing Rock.”

The three of them walked across the road to where a group of seven or eight policemen were watching the bus and talking among themselves. One of them had a map spread out on the roof of a patrol car, and he seemed to be discussing the possibility of bringing skyhook helicopters in across the lake to lift the bus bodily off the bridge.

“The trouble is, we have a cold factor which is unknown,” he was saying, “and we also have no idea what’s going on in that vehicle. The last thing we can afford is to injure children unnecessarily.”

Neil introduced himself. The police captain was an officer of the old school, with a uniform that looked as if it had only just come back from the dry cleaner, and shoes polished to the brilliance of fresh-poured tar. His face was ruddy and blemished with liver spots, but his eyes were small and intense, like a polecat’s, and his mustache was neat and prickly.

“I’m Captain Myers, Highway Patrol,” he said, extending his hand. “Are these two gentlemen parents, too?”

Harry said, “I wish I was, but you know how it is. My date got the chicken pox.”

The captain frowned. “We’re trying to keep unauthorized people away from this area. We have a serious and delicate problem here, with a great many young lives at stake, and we really don’t need civilian interference.”

In his quietest, most dignified voice, Singing Rock said, “Captain Myers, we believe we know what’s happening here, and we believe we may be able to prevent a disaster, if you let us try.”

“Who are you?” demanded Captain Myers.

“They call me John Singing Rock. I am a medicine man from the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. A Sioux.”