I have finished the story, but I have become frustrated with the ending. I managed to write one, yet, to be honest, it is nothing more than a synopsis of the climax and ending. I was struggling with imagining the world and being in it, which paralyzed my writing. However, now, I am free to begin work on the second draft. So that is some good news.

At the start of the New Year, I hope to post the chapters of the second draft. It will be interesting to see it changes. Hopefully, for the better.

Chapter 23

The Stranger led them through the open plains. For hours Bart walked, fumbling behind the horse that Kate rode. She protested when he collapsed. The Stranger pulled the reins. The horse snorted. 

“Untie me!” Kate shouted. 

The Stranger dismounted, striding leisurely through the grass as he approached. “Ah, what a beautiful day for a stroll.” He undid the knot tying her hand to the horn of the saddle. Kate slid off the horse and ran to Bart’s aid. He had fallen face first into the grass. She rolled him over. Sweat glistened on his temples. He wheezed through chapped lips. 

On her knees in the grass, she said, “He needs water.” 

“That’s something I do not have,” the Stranger said. “Never saw a need.” 

Kate glared up at him. 

But, then there came a sound. Faint. A quiet rumbling. Like the tremors of an earthquake. Kate scanned the flat horizon, but there was nothing. Bart coughed. Spittle clung to the corners of his mouth. Another sound now. The gentle swish of grass, as if a breeze was blowing over the plain. The Stranger pulled his revolver. The grind of iron against leather. He cocked the hammer back as he prowled a little ahead. Kate looked where he aimed and saw the woman approaching. She was still far off. A figure all in white. 

“Good afternoon, my lady,” the stranger shouted.

The woman made no acknowledgement, but kept on, despite the Stranger raising his pistol and aiming it at her. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she said. 

“Ooo,” he smiled. “A riddle? And why shouldn’t I pull this little trigger?” 

“Because you want to know what I know.” 

He tilted his head and scratched his pale chin with the barrel of the pistol, waiting as the woman approached, stopping fifteen feet away from him. A breeze rustled the grass, churning it like ocean waves, tossing the woman’s gray hair so it billowed like the smoke of a campfire. 

“Well,” the Stranger said. “Tell me what it is you know that I want to know.” 

“First, I talk to She Laughs at Fire.” 

Kate still cradled Bart’s head. The woman in white wore a white wooly robe over a white cotton dress. She reached into the white wooly robe. The Stranger pointed his pistol at her. “What are you doing?” 

The woman in white stared at him. “Is one of the Restless afraid of an old woman?” 

The Stranger’s rheumatic eyes narrowed. “I know what you are and I’m not going back.” 

“I assure you,” she said. “I have no intention of sending you back to the protection of the depths.”

“Then what is in your robe?”

“It is something for her,” she said. “Clothes.” 

The woman pulled out a shawl. The fabric was red and gray, with black lines along its edges. In a corner, were the outlines of two diamonds, spaced as far as about as eyes on a face. Within each diamond was a black dot.

“Put it on,” the woman said. 

“Do you have water?” Kate asked. 

The woman in white tossed Kate a canteen. She opened it and gently dripped water between Bart’s lips. He gasped, licking his chapped lips, desperate for more. The woman knelt beside Kate, taking the canteen from her hands. “My name is Buffalo Hump and I have made a promise to your father to help you, She Laughs at Fire. I will tend to him, but I want you to drape the shawl over your head. Do it now.” 

Kate put on the shawl. 

As the fabric fell on her head and shoulders, she felt an immediate change. She closed her eyes. It was like diving into a lake, a sort of falling, plunging into a blurry darkness that enveloped and cradled her. Yet, at the same time it was like being under the blankets in the blue light hours of the early morn in the Fall. When there’s no sweat at all, but only the cool smoothness of the touch of her own skin. And then she opened her eyes. 

She was a coyote. She gazed down at Bart there beside her, and then down to her left fore paw. It was orange against the grass. She twisted around, and smelled her own tail. 

“There’s not much time,” Buffalo Hump said, as she knelt down beside the dehydrated Bart. She lifted a canteen to his lips. “One Who Bites Ankles is coming and you must enter into the Spirit World to find your father.” 

“Is he not alive?” Kate said, in her coyote form. 

“It’s not as simple as that,” Buffalo Hump said. 

“Ok, fine,” Kate said. “How do I enter into the Spirit World?”

With lightning speed, Buffalo Hump grabbed up the saber and hacked off the head of the Stranger. It fell to the ground, rolling and cussing. His body staggered like a zombie to find it, but Buffalo Hump nudged it aside and kicked it in the butt. 

“What am I to do now?” The Stranger’s head snapped. 

“Help She laughs at Fire of course,” Buffalo Hump said. 

Then coyotes howled in the distance. “They are coming,” Buffalo Hump said.

Bart sat up, groaning, and stunned at Kate’s appearance. Kate licked his hand. 

“Remove the shawl,” Buffalo Hump said and Kate returned to human form. Buffalo Hump tossed the Stranger’s head into Kate’s arms and performed a ritual, whereupon Kate stepped outside her own body, a soul drifting. 

“Step through,” Buffalo Hump said and Kate’s soul did, disappearing behind the veil. 

Bart drank more from the canteen, “Now what?” 

Bart and Buffalo Hump helped Kate to forge a special knife and they go find the Armadillo Shaman in the coyote camp. Kate sneaks into the camp and kills the Armadillo Shaman who is dressed in her father’s clothes. However, an alarm was raised, and when she is found skinning the corpse of her father, the tribe seeks justice, and the Hunters pursue her. She runs away, along Bart and Buffalo Hump, who then get far enough away, where they can perform the ritual to enter the Spirit World. Kate enters via the Stranger’s head as a conduit, but once on the other side, he is unwilling to help her, for whenever she drops his head, he will be gathered back up by the goblins. However, the goblins are already chasing after, the Armadillo Shaman still has power in the Spirit World. Unable to fend them off, Kate dons her shawl, and runs and the Stranger, seeking his own revenge, hoping to ruin the Armadillo Shaman’s plan leads Kate to her Father, where she finds him in a little adobe on the plain. He’s dressed in the Armadillo Shaman’s clothes. So, he’s an Armadillo. 

Meanwhile, Bart and Buffalo Hump, are fending off the Hunter’s and One Who Bites Ankles as they attack Kate. 

Kate’s father then tells her that due to the spell of the Armadillo, that their souls are linked and that she must kill her father to free her father of the shaman’s clothes, so that her father can be free. Kate is unwilling of course: 

“Give me the knife, there is no other way,” He Who Sniffs the Sky said.

“I can’t.” 

“How else can I be with the Great Spirit? Shall I remain trapped in clothes that are not mine?”

“No.” 

“Then do it.” 

“Father.” 

“Our Father is the Great Spirit. We are his children.” 

“You are my Father! And I am your daughter!” 

“But who gave me you,” And he stroked her cheek (he’s an armadillo and she a coyote [to comical?] “Who blessed me with such a wonderful and brilliant daughter?” 

Kate gives him the knife. 

“It won’t be long, daughter. And we will be together again. All of us.” 

Kate left the adobe. She comes back to find her father dead. As the goblins approach, she removes the Armadillo Shaman’s clothes. The Stranger smiles and wishes to destroy the clothes, fully destroying the Shaman so the goblins drag the Shaman’s soul to Hell. The Stranger smiles grateful for another trophy. Kate returns to the living world. 

Bart has killed One who Bites Ankles and Buffalo Hump is there. Kate must remain in exile because of her supposed crime. 

The End.