Apparition Trail, The Read Online Free

Thunderbird bore down on us. Closer … closer … beak open wide and a look of doom in its eye. Just as the beak was about to snap shut on us, the front of the Raven pointed directly at the monster.
    Instead of rising, the air balloon slipped violently to one side as Thunderbird dodged out of the way. Like a kite with its string cut we hurtled sideways, rushing toward the ground at an angle. I held on with the one hand that remained on the handlebars, lowering my revolver at the same time. In front of me, the operator fought with the controls.
    When the ground below stopped rushing up at us and we came level again, Thunderbird was gone. There was no more lightning, and no thunder — just ordinary clouds in the sky. The rain slackened off to a mere drizzle, and after a minute or two it was gone. The sun broke through the clouds, shining down on Regina. I looked down and saw the Mounted Police headquarters bathed in yellow light, and nearly wept with relief as I re-holstered my revolver.
    We landed in the parade square, wheels sinking into foot-deep mud. I alighted from the passenger seat, still trembling, and caught the operator’s eye. He’d pushed up his goggles, and his face was ashen.
    “About drawing my revolver,” I said. “I’m sorry about that, but I—”
    He wasn’t listening. “Did you see it?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. “That … creature?”
    I nodded grimly, then glanced up at a perfectly normal looking sky.
    “No one will believe it,” the operator added.
    “I know,” I said. I touched him on the shoulder. “We’d best keep this to ourselves, eh?”
    He nodded. “How did you know what to do?”
    I shrugged. “Just a hunch.” Then I strode away through the boot-sucking mud.
    By the time I reached the Commissioner’s office, the heat had returned full force and my sodden uniform was steaming. The collar of the jacket, normally stiff against my neck, was damp and drooping and my high brown boots were caked with the thick gooey mud that prairie dwellers call gumbo. I’d gotten the worst of it off by using the scraper outside the door, but my boots had left red smears all the way down the hallway carpet.
    A constable showed me into the empty office, and once inside I stood nervously waiting, wishing my uniform was more presentable. The knot in my stomach was tightening and twisting — I was almost tempted to pull up my shirt and see if the scar from my operation had opened up again, after all these years. The typho-malaria made me feel as dizzy and light headed as I had when the doctor had administered the ether. Yet I didn’t dare sit down in any of the hard-backed oak chairs scattered about the room. I intended to make a good show of it, to be standing properly at attention when the Commissioner entered the room.
    Using the glass front of the wall clock as a mirror, I adjusted my helmet so it sat square on my head. My reddish hair has an unruly curl to it, especially when it is wet. But at least my face was clean below my pale blue eyes. I’d never grown a beard or moustache, despite the fact that regulations permitted it — not after the hilarity that greeted my one feeble attempt to grow whiskers, four years ago. You would think that, at twenty-seven years of age, I would be able to produce a fine crop of whiskers like the ones my father had, but such was not the case.
    The harrowing storm we had just passed through had left me shaken, and I yearned for a calming smoke of my pipe. Yet now that I was within the walls of headquarters, Thunderbird seemed nothing more than a bad dream. Perhaps the pain of my stomach — only now abating to a tolerable level — had caused me to hallucinate. In any case, I had other things to worry about now: the reason for the Commissioner’s summons.
    The wall clock ticked off the seconds to my impending doom — a little faster, now that I was standing near it. The merciless eyes of Queen Victoria bored down at me from a painting that hung on the