*****
Karen heard truck doors slam from inside the kitchen and met Jeff at the end of the driveway barely an hour after he had left. “So? What happened? Did you find anything? Why does that pack look like its still got something in it?”
“We found the spot, but there was nothing there but a deep hole,” Jeff said.
“Well, I think the boys found and took something from someone they shouldn’t have and now they are angry and want it back. So why didn’t you just leave that skull up there so they wouldn’t bother us anymore?” Karen confronted Jeff.
“What are you saying? You think I know who chased the boys and broke your window?” Jeff replied incredulously.
“Well, don’t you? You make one phone call and within minutes four brothers show up with rifles. Aren’t you plugged in to all of the secret tribal stuff that goes on around here, protecting the land and such?”
“Yeah, maybe I am. We all stick together and we are here for you, too. But we had nothing to do with this and I would know if it was one of us.” Jeff understood that he was talking to a mother protecting her kids.
“Well, I don’t buy into this superstitious legend about the Old One’s,” Karen moved back toward the house.
“You’re probably right. I mean what are the chances of the boys stumbling across the grave of a Sasquatch when people have been looking for that evidence for what, hundreds of years?” Jeff was attempting to placate his sister’s fears. “I am going to get some things at my place and will be back soon. I’ll ask Bill and Larry to stick around until I get back in case you get any more rock throwers.”
“Wait. You might as well take Ricky’s buddy Gary home over on Sockeye Crescent before his parents come looking for him,” Karen said as she entered the kitchen.
Gary was only too happy to leave. The thought of Bigfoot running after him through the forest would haunt his dreams for years to come. Karen wasn’t too happy about Ricky going with them but she couldn’t very well deny him taking his scared little friend home. She could only guess at the phone call she would get later from the kid’s parents wondering what kind of scary movies she had let them stay up all night watching on Halloween weekend.
Ricky let his friend ride shotgun while he sat in the back and stared out the window behind him. As the sun rolled behind the Coast Mountains he watched the strange orange light dance on the dead trees standing amongst the living in the forest. Listening to the crunch of the gravel beneath the truck tires, the crook of the road slowly straightened to reveal that old cedar stump where he used to meet his friend, now piled high with smooth red stones. Ricky closed his eyes and felt the warm glow of the stones long after they would have passed from view and knew what he had to do.
That night was Devil’s night, the night before Halloween. There was no moon and it was black outside of the city but the stars seemed to be enough to light the sky. Karen turned in early to read in bed. The boys stayed up till the early morning hours talking about what they had learned of the Old One’s on the Internet and discussing legends and theories with Uncle Jeff. No one knew what to do with the skull now that the gravesite had been moved. They did however agree not to tell anyone of their discovery. It would be pointless anyway since they needed the skull to prove their story and they knew they couldn’t keep it. No one would ever believe them and they were not sure they cared.
Ricky lay there with his clothes on inside his sleeping bag for a long time until he was sure Lex and Tommy were asleep. Uncle Jeff had gone upstairs to sleep in his room some time ago. He grabbed the backpack off of the kitchen table and picked up his boots, registering that the clock read 4:15. Carefully and quietly he walked past the others sliding open the door to step out onto the deck. It was really dark and took awhile for his eyes to adjust as he sat there lacing up his boots, watching his foggy breath dissipate in the radiance of the deck lights.
Walking along the road he couldn’t see anything other than the frost glittering off the gravel in the faint starlight. He snickered to himself at how aptly Crystal Street was named. A dark figure ahead took three strides and crossed the road. Ricky froze in his tracks wondering if he was doing the smart thing being out here alone. As he listened, still, without the crunch of gravel below his feet, came sounds of several entities moving about him off the road. “Clack! Clack!” came a sound like two stones banging together some distance ahead, but how far he couldn’t be sure. He walked for a couple of minutes and heard “Clack! Clack!” once again but this time to his right, off of the road.
Ricky stood there a long while unsure of heading into the darkness off of the road. Suddenly a ray of green and purple light flickered across the dark sky from the Hazelton Mountains in the east, to his right. It was much too early to be sunrise but what could it be otherwise, Ricky wondered. Again, “Clack! Clack!” the sound of the stones beckoned him forward and he could now see the cedar stump by the light in the sky. Forward he waded through the ferns and tall grasses thoroughly soaking his clothes.
The stump was bare; there were no stones. Ricky looked about but there was only silence and that thin ray of unusual light in the sky, maybe two fingers wide. He fumbled with the backpack and got the skull out and placed it on the stump and waited. Nothing. And he waited. Minutes passed and still he waited. The ray in the sky began to get brighter and broader. Ricky looked up and watched as the eastern horizon fluoresced in the most spectacular range of greens, reds and purple he had ever seen. A ribbon of light undulated atop the mountains like the dance of a dozen snakes, all of different colors. “The aurora borealis!” Ricky said aloud to himself as he looked up in awe. He had been told of this and even looked up videos on the Internet but the real thing was entirely different. He was mesmerized.
Ricky had no idea how long he stood there watching the light show but as it faded he remembered what brought him there and looked back to the stump to find the skull gone. He hurriedly looked about to find some trace of the Old One’s who took the skull but the darkness was returning and the lights in the sky had diminished his night vision. Ricky detected a faint glistening from the surface of the stump and put his hand out to feel three smooth stones. They were too dark to see so he put them in the backpack and stumbled in the darkness back to the road.
The walk home was somehow different than the walk to the cedar stump. Ricky had touched something outside of himself that made him feel as though he belonged here, in this time. He didn’t feel so much apart as part of this place now. The land had accepted him.
He stepped up onto the deck at the back of the house and sat down on the bench. “I took the skull and did what I had to do,” said Ricky.
“I know little, brother. I know,” said Uncle Jeff as he leaned forward opposite Ricky out of the shadows and into the light.
Unclasping the backpack Ricky dumped three stones onto the deck between them. One green. One red. One purple.
A Guest for Halloween: A Lex & Ricky Mystery Page 11
