Calvin had been speechless with hate, but his fingers had tightened round the neck of his own beer. Moses leaned forward slightly and tapped the amulet with a finger.

‘You think I don’t know how to use this, huh? But you and Eden teach Sam good, and if I have to beat it out of your spineless little shit of a boyfriend, I gonna get to know the secret.’ He laughed again. ‘How you be likin’ that, medicine man? Huh? How you be likin’ that?’

If Moses had not been sober, perhaps the bottle that Calvin swung at his face would have made contact with those high cheekbones, would have split open the flesh and made the blood spray. But Moses had been too fast. Calvin came to on the sidewalk outside the hotel where the barman had thrown Moses and the remains of Moses’s handiwork and lay there sobbing for at least half an hour until the barman came back out and moved him on with a kick.

Eden’s cabin lay empty for years, until someone burned it down, the women saying it was ‘noisy’ with spirits which scared the children who played in the long grass inside the fence.

But Calvin was back there now in his mind, his sweat trying to sneak inside his eyelids, as he sat with them screwed tight thinking of everything Eden had said on the eve of his death.

He could not call the Thunder Spirit again. It had spoken and it would not speak again. He would have to call the Eagle Spirit and begin his transportation without the benefit of any further knowledge. Calvin gasped for air and bowed his head again. How could he continue? If he were to make any more errors, let just one more rogue spirit into the sweat-lodge, he knew it would kill him. He began to chant and prayed silently that his impure thoughts of hatred and revenge be forgiven by the love of the Great Spirit.

Outside the tiny dome of canvas and wood, the snow started to fall again, and the aspens and birches and willows prepared themselves for their own battle, with the brilliant white weight that would threaten to snap their delicate limbs.

32

‘Life goes on.’ Becker, passing by with papers in his hand, said it with a smile as Craig emerged from his office to ask Holly for four more coffees. Life going on for Craig McGee meant an annual meeting with the heads of security from the three biggest hotels in Silver. He made a crooked mouth at the remark and went back into his office, where Jeff McIntyre, the goon from The Rocky Mountain Chateau was taking out a pack of cigarettes.

He looked up at Craig. ‘Mind if I …?’

‘Yes, I would mind, Mr McIntyre. The detachment went smoke-free in October.’ Craig closed the office door and sat back down.