Witch's Canyon

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  Trace fell silent. That was okay with Beckett. He didn't want to have to think, but sometimes there was just no avoiding it. Mayor Milner didn't want anything getting in the way of the mall opening, and he understood Milner's position.

  But a man didn't live for a long time in Cedar Wells without hearing whispers of a murder cycle, as that young reporter had called it. Especially when he made his living in law enforcement. People talked about it after a few drinks over at the Plugged Bucket, or at backyard barbecues in the summer when the beer came out of ice-filled coolers and the smoke was thick and nobody listened to anyone else's conversation. And sometimes a sheriff could just be walking down the street and one of the town's oldsters would call him over, summon him with that imperious attitude the truly ancient sometimes assumed when dealing with whippersnappers who were merely in their forties or fifties, and whisper to him that it was this year, wasn't it? Come summer, or spring, or whenever they got it in their head the fortieth anniversary was, people would start to die again. That, finally, was what had convinced him that it was all a local legend—the fact that none of the people who had been adults here forty years before seemed to agree on when it was supposed to happen.

  If he was wrong, though—if it was real, and the forty years was up, and it was all beginning again—then he would be in for a bad week or two, however long it would last. And opening a mall during that time would be a heroically bad idea. Bad enough when there were a few victims spread around the area. How much worse might it be if there were several thousand inside the mall, and whoever or whatever was behind the murder spree decided to try some kind of terrorist stunt? A bomb, a small plane flown into the mall, something like that. The death count could easily rise into the hundreds in a matter of minutes.

  The thing was, could he convince the mayor and the mall management to call it off?

  Not without more evidence than he had so far.

  He had to find that old man. Or the soldier from the mall parking lot. Or whatever had torn up Ralph McCaig. Ideally, they were all the same guy. Jailing one man was a lot easier than jailing a figment or a legend.

  NINE

  Mrs. Frankel, the silver-coiffed librarian, wore perfume just musky enough to make Dean wonder if she had a secret life. He and Sam had returned to the library after their mall visit, with a different goal in mind than last time. Before, they had been in search of information about the previous episodes of unexplained murders, in 1926 and 1966. This time they wanted to find out if the old soldier was the spirit of someone who bore a grudge against the town.

  The fact that neither of them were familiar enough with military uniforms to know precisely when the soldier might have lived would, they realized, make the quest somewhat difficult. Hence the up-close-and-personal conversation with Mrs. Frankel.

  "I'm surprised the Geographic is so interested in the minutiae of our history," she said when Dean explained what they needed.

  "Our readers are an inquisitive bunch," Sam said. "The more interesting details we can provide, the more they like it."

  "Well, here in Cedar Wells and Coconino County, we certainly have our share of 'interesting detail,'" she said. "Lots of kooks, I guess you'd say, have settled here or at least passed through. I can't think of any off the top of my head who might have a grudge like you're describing, though."

  "Maybe the grudge would never have revealed itself," Dean suggested. "Maybe he was just someone who felt like he'd been badly mistreated."

  "That sort of thing happens all the time, of course," Mrs. Frankel said. She twisted a thin gold necklace around her left index finger. Dean noted that there was no wedding ring on her ring finger, although she had definitely introduced herself as Mrs. Frankel. "People feel like local government singles them out for maltreatment, or like it has let them down in some way because their particular case or cause isn't its top priority. And some, of course, have legitimate grievances. I can think of half a dozen of those, but those are all just in the last few years. Going back to the old days... well, that would be a matter of going through the newspapers, I guess. As far back as they go."

  "How far is that?" Sam asked. "The soldier we're looking for might have been here late in the nineteenth century."

  Mrs. Frankel released her knot of necklace and tapped her fingertips against her chin. "Oh, I don't think the papers go that far back. The Canyon County Gazette didn't start publishing until 1920 or thereabouts. Well after the national park was established. Before that, there just weren't enough people in the area to make a newspaper worthwhile."

  "How can we get information on people who might have been here before that?" Dean asked.

  She glanced toward a series of wooden filing cabinets shoved up against one wall. "There are some records from Camp Hualpai, a local military post from the late 1860s to early 1870s. It didn't exist for long, but you're certainly welcome to see what's there."

  Dean caught Sam's eye. That sounded like a lot of hard, boring work. He didn't necessarily have a problem with hard, boring work that had a reasonable chance of success. The problem here was that they were hunting for the proverbial needle in the haystack—complicated further by the fact that they didn't even know in which farmer's field the right haystack could be found. Sam gave a minute shrug.

  "Maybe a little later," Dean said. "We'll definitely keep that in mind."

  Outside, Sam grabbed his arm before they even made it to the car. "I could tell you didn't want to sit in there and read those old files, but do you have any better ideas? We're kind of running out of time here."

  "Of course I have an idea," Dean said. Sam released him and stood on the sidewalk, waiting to hear it. The snow, which started out falling lightly, had intensified, as if the clouds themselves had shredded and spun to the ground as confetti. Since Dean didn't actually have an idea, he watched the sky for a moment, hoping one would come to him. "Only not so much, at the moment."

  "Yeah, that's what I thought. Fortunately, I have one."

  "Why didn't you say so? What is it?"

  "We're looking for a soldier, right? Someone who died in the area, which is why his spirit is still here. So let's check the local cemeteries. We can scan them for electromagnetic frequency activity. If nothing else, sometimes military graves are marked, and if we can find one that's out of the ordinary in some way, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone and dig it up right away."

  Dean smiled. Little brother comes through again.

  "That's good, Sammy. That's good. Can't be too many cemeteries around here, can there?"

  As it turned out, there were three.

  The first one didn't have any graves older than 1954, which it took twenty minutes of wandering, bending over, sometimes scraping off snow that had started to accumulate on headstones, to determine. The second one was behind a Catholic church. A priest looked at them from inside, so they tried their best to appear solemn and respectful as they perused the graves. It was cold enough that Sam pulled up the hood of the sweatshirt he wore under a canvas jacket. Dean had a leather coat on, no hat, but in the pockets were gloves that he tugged onto his hands. Some of the graves here were older. They found a few from the 1890s, but none that could be identified as belonging to military people, and none that suggested unquiet rest, either visually or on their EMF reader.

  "One more to go," Sam said when they were back in the car.

  "Yeah, this was a great freakin' idea," Dean complained. "Freezin' our asses off out there in the snow. I see dead people."

  "We're looking for a dead guy!"

  "I know. I just... I don't like the snow, okay? I mean, snow's cool and all, but I like it better when I'm inside with a hot toddy and a roaring fire."

  "I don't think I've ever had a hot toddy," Sam said. "I don't even think I know what's in it."

  "I don't, either," Dean said. "But I like the idea of it more than I like the idea of losing a toe to frostbite."

  "We're not going to lose any toes, Dean."

  The route to
the third cemetery took them through what passed for a residential neighborhood in Cedar Wells, a couple of blocks off Main Street. The houses were old, mostly wood and brick, with snow covering their slanted roofs and fenced yards. Smoke wafted from a few chimneys, scenting the air and sending gray curls skyward. Snow gathered on the road, except where tires had carved through it, making black streaks that looked like miniature roads themselves, viewed from the clouds.

  Dean slowed, fighting the Impala's desire to fishtail into a parked truck. "You'd think a town like this would have snowplows."

  "They probably have a snowplow," Sam said. "And they're probably using it to keep Main Street clear. And maybe Grand Avenue."

  "All three blocks of it."

  "Hey, it's a small town."

  "Which is gonna get a lot smaller if we don't find this spirit." The more time that passed, the more possibility that other people were dying. Dean hated that possibility, and while he didn't want to snap at his brother, anger pushed itself to the surface.

  Besides, what good was having a brother if you couldn't snap at him once in a while?

  "Dean!" Sam grabbed Dean's sleeve, startling him. He twisted the wheel to his right, started to slide on wet slushy pavement, corrected to the left. The Impala shuddered but maintained course.

  "Don't do that, Sam."

  "Dean, look!"

  Sam pointed to a house up the street, about a quarter of a block away. From the road they could see a screened-in porch in front of the door, three stairs up from the street.

  Emerging from the door was a big, dark bulk. The wrong shape to be a person. "What the hell... ?" Dean stopped in the middle of the lane, watching.

  A black bear nosed out the screen door as if sniffing the air. Apparently finding it to his liking, he pawed it out of the way and dropped to all fours to descend the stairs. Rump swaying, he crossed the snowy yard and headed for the woods behind the house. The screen door, on a spring, slammed closed behind him.

  "A bear just came out of that house," Dean said.

  "Maybe he lives there."

  "Like what? A circus bear? I don't think—"

  "I'm kidding. Come on, we'd better check the place out."

  "Gee, you think?" Dean pulled the car awkwardly toward the curb and got out. Sam was out his door before the vehicle stopped moving. Dean caught up to him as they reached the steps. The air smelled like bear—or like animal, anyway, since Dean wasn't too sure what a bear actually smelled like in person. Muskier than Mrs. Frankel, but not as manure-like as a zoo.

  They climbed the steps. Sam opened the screen door, and they went through; the bear had left the front door open. "Was he raised in a barn?" Dean asked.

  Sam ignored him. Dean didn't blame him a bit. Sam paused and leaned inside the open doorway, holding onto the jamb with both hands. "Hello! Is anyone here?"

  No one answered. He released the jamb and stepped inside, Dean following close behind him. The bear had not been as tidy as he might have. In the front room, a couch was overturned, its cushions spilling onto the carpet. A small table had stood in front of it, but it was splintered now, with only one leg remaining whole. Mud and claw marks marred the off-white carpeting.

  "Why do I feel like Goldilocks?" Sam asked.

  Turnabout being fair play, Dean ignored him. "Anyone home?" he called.

  Still no answer. They walked through the house, which had the taut, tentative feeling of a home that was still occupied. An empty house had its own stillness, but this place felt unsettled. In the kitchen they found out why.

  She was probably fifty, still fit, and when the bear caught up with her, she had been wearing a green terry-cloth bathrobe and fuzzy pink slippers. Her hair was blond and damp, maybe from a shower. The animal had mauled her. It probably swiped her only once with its giant fore paw, but that caught her at the collarbone and tore her head and neck almost completely off her body. A few bits of skin stretched between her neck and shoulders and the remainder of her torso. Blood pooled around her, with shards of bone and cartilage standing in it like islands in a sea of red.

  Dean regarded her for a long moment, finally deciding she wasn't going to tell him anything he didn't already know. "Sammy," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. "I think we need to talk to that bear."

  TEN

  In order to let Ross realize his ranching dream, Juliet Monroe had given up a middle management job at a big industrial design firm back in Chicago. The job had paid well, but provided few of what she called "spiritual benefits," a classic case of having been promoted out of what drew her to it in the first place—the challenge and creativity of rethinking the form and function of toothbrushes and toilet plungers, lamp shades and lasagna dishes. Instead she found herself in a world where only numbers mattered, how many plungers could be moved through Target, Kmart, and Costco, how a few pennies might be shaved from manufacturing costs or freight charges. Given that scenario, she was happy to leave it behind.

  Money was not yet a problem, but looking down the pike she could see where it would become one, especially without Ross and his nearly infallible stock trading instincts. It was like standing on the shore and watching an oncoming tidal wave, knowing it was big enough to swamp her but not quite able to determine how to escape it. There were no industrial design firms here in the wilderness, or many jobs at all outside of low-wage service or retail positions. If it became necessary, she would hunt for one of those, but until then she had focused her ambition on selling the ranch and returning to the city.

  And one other project. Juliet had read studies showing that people married later and later these days, and that single people were too busy with careers and social lives to take the necessary steps to eat well. She included widows and widowers in this category, because although finding the time wasn't a problem for her, sometimes finding the motivation was.

  But living on the ranch, she had learned the pleasures of truly fresh foods. Grass-fed beef that hadn't traveled any farther than the processing house in Williams. Organically grown vegetables and potatoes from her own place or a neighbor's. Eggs fresh from the chickens. Not only was it all healthy, it was environmentally friendlier than supermarket food because it hadn't required long-distance travel.

  The single people she had in mind, however, lived mostly in urban areas. Her idea was to create farm-fresh meals for one, that could be prepared and then flash-frozen or even delivered fresh, ready to be warmed for a few minutes in an oven or microwave. To pull it off would mean creating a network of farms and ranches near major cities, establishing the kitchens that would do the food prep, the methods of delivery, the retail channels. It was a huge undertaking. Juliet thought it could be done, though, and had been devoting most of her time these last few months to working on it, one step at a time. While doing all the planning and calling and long-distance networking, she had also been working in her own kitchen on recipes that would be nutritious and tasty but could provide meals in bulk.

  Tonight she had been planning on trying a dish of chicken parts on a bed of potatoes, garlic, onion, and vegetables. But Stu's story about the massacred cows made her uninterested in meat of any kind. Instead, she figured she would put a couple of frozen mini-pizzas in the oven—proving her point about single people and their quick meals—and save the chicken parts for another day.

  It was just after four o'clock when she heard Stu's boots clomping up the steps outside. She wondered if he was ready for some lemonade. He lived in town, a twenty-five minute drive away, and sometimes stayed for dinner. Juliet was happy to feed him, most times. She liked having a man who smelled of sweat and hard work in her kitchen as she cooked.

  When she saw his face, though, she didn't think he looked like a man who wanted lemonade. "I think we ought to call the sheriff, Juliet," he said, his voice tight with emotion.

  "What is it? Stu, what's—"

  "Time I got back out there, after I talked to you before, there were more of the cows butchered."

  Her stomach churned
at the news. "Who's doing it?"

  "What's doing it, more like, and I just can't tell you. Whatever it is, it's fast and quiet." He sat down at the kitchen table without being asked, pulled his hat off, and rubbed his head briskly. "And one more thing, ma'am. It's just plain mean."

  "How... ?"

  "It just tears those animals up for no good reason. It's not eatin' 'em. It's... well, it's just murder."

  Juliet had a cordless phone on the kitchen counter. Although the counter was a plain wooden butcher-block type, and dominated by an old steel watering can that usually held freshly cut flowers during the spring and summer, the appliances on it were modern. On unsteady legs, she crossed to it, picked it up, and pressed Talk. She held it to her ear, expecting to hear a dial tone.

  Instead she heard dull silence.

  She punched End and Talk again, but nothing changed. The display showed that the battery power was strong. "It's dead," she said. "Wait here, I'll try another one."

  Leaving Stu in the kitchen, she rushed to the bedroom. The phone there was an old-fashioned corded one, which she had always kept on a nightstand beside her bed—even though long experience had taught her that the only calls she got late at night were wrong numbers, or her brothers back in Illinois calling with some kind of trouble, as when her mother had died suddenly a few years back. She lifted the handset. No tone.

  "It must be the line!" she called. As she hurried back into the kitchen, she added, "This storm must have—"

  "Ain't the storm." Stu's certainty unnerved her.

  "Are you sure? Sometimes the lines here go—"

  "There's something out there, Juliet. I don't like even thinkin' like this, much less saying it, but when I was out there in the pasture, movin' the stock, I had this sense. Pricked up the hairs on my arms and neck. It was... hell, I'm no philosopher or anything, I'm just a ranch hand. But I'd swear it felt like I was walking through a soup made of pure evil."