Neil thought about the man in the long white duster. The man who kept begging for help. Maybe he was a ghost, too—a kind of sad warning stirred up from the past. From what he said, he may have been one of the twenty settlers who died up at Conn Creek. One of the innocent folks who had died at the hands of the Wappos while Bloody Fenner pretended to ride off for help.

Neil took Billy Ritchie’s hand and squeezed it.

“You’ve been a lot of help,” he said softly.

“What did you say?” demanded Billy.

“I said, you’ve been a lot of help. I’m beginning to understand things that didn’t make any sense before.”

Billy Ritchie set down his bourbon glass. He stared up at Neil with a sharp, canny look in his eye.

“You’re worried, aren’t you?” he said.

“A little,” admitted Neil.

“You think it’s coming—the day of the dark stars?”

“I’ve seen some signs.”

“What kind of signs?”

“I’ve seen a wooden man. Least, I think I have. And I’ve heard voices from the people who were killed up at Las Posadas.”

Billy Ritchie rubbed his chin. “It doesn’t sound too good, does it?” he said. “It doesn’t sound too good at all.”

“I don’t know what to do,” said Neil. “If it’s really medicine men, then they’ve chosen the kids at my son’s school.”

“They would, if you’re a Fenner. They’d look for a spirit guide, you see. Someone to help them reincarnate themselves. Out there, out in what the Indians used to call the ‘outside,’ the spirits of those medicine men would look for the ghost of someone who once helped them when they were human. Bloody Fenner would be just their man.”

“But what can I do?” asked Neil. “Is there anything I can do about it? I mean, how can I stop it?”

Billy Ritchie brushed cat hairs off his fingers. “I wouldn’t like to say,” he confessed. “That old trapper never got as far as telling me what to do if the day of the dark stars ever actually arrived.”

“But what about all those children? What about my son?”

“It’s going to be worse than that,” said Billy Ritchie. “Well—I know there isn’t nothing worse than your own son being hurt. But the day of the dark stars is when the Indians take an eye for an eye, and you just think about the thousands and thousands of Indians who died because of what the white man did to them. If these medicine men really do turn up, and if they really call down their demons, then we’re going to see death and horror like you can’t even imagine.”