Devil Creek

by Stephen Mertz

  "It's a school night," she said briskly. "If I'm asleep, don't wake me."

  She turned away from him and walked back to the house, hearing him back the Jeep out of the driveway. At the front door she turned and watched his taillights disappear down the gravel road.

  She said to herself, "Robin, you're a fool."

  But he was right. A cool-down, that's what they needed. Then they could make up and move on. She'd give him an hour or so at the newspaper office, then she'd call him.

  In the house, she busied herself tidying up around the dining table and the kitchen. This was something Paul often helped her with, and sometimes Mike shared or took over the kitchen duty. She didn't mind tonight. The routine of straightening things, putting away plates and glasses and silverware from the drainer, allowed her to cool down and think.

  Should she be irritated at Mike because he wouldn't tell her what was going on tonight, or concerned that he wasn't telling her anything about it because he didn't want her to worry? Worry about what? Now that was something to worry about.

  At one point, Paul appeared in the hallway that led to the rear of the house.

  "Mom, is everything all right?"

  She was just finishing sponging down the kitchen counter. She rinsed the sponge and dried her hands with the dishtowel.

  "Everything's fine, Paul. Mike had to go down to the newspaper office."

  "He's coming back tonight, isn't he?"

  "Everything's all right, honey."

  "Mom."

  "Paul. Everything's all right."

  "Okay."

  "How's French?"

  "Okay, I guess. I'd better get back to it."

  Everything was all right, she assured herself. This wonderful little family of hers. A son who cared, and a man who had taken on the twin responsibilities of dealing with her and helping to raise her son. Michael had performed admirably in both departments in the year that he'd been her husband. The goof had stood her up on their wedding anniversary, and she'd given him what-for. She chuckled to herself. He wouldn't forget next year's anniversary. There was no doubt in her mind that there would be a third and a fourth wedding anniversary with Mike, and many more to come. She told herself that every marriage had its moments of butting heads.

  She sat at the family roll-top desk in the den and spread out her notes and lesson plans that needed review for the following day.

  The thought occurred to her that she hadn't been feeling or acting quite right before Mike's faux pas. That had fueled her aggravation, but that "off" feeling first started when she was wheeling her grocery cart out of Merrill's supermarket, thinking about an epiphany from the past, when she had spotted that woman speaking with Paul. The woman who had then made a point of getting out of there before Robin could accost her. And there was no doubt in Robin's mind still that the woman had seen her approaching.

  She tried to forget everything, and focus on her work.

  Normally, their den was the most comfortable room in the house for her to relax and work in. It was the family den, of course. The three of them had laid the tile floor together. Mike had his newspaper office. Paul had his room. This den was her place to be alone, more often than not, in addition to the good times they shared in here as a family, watching a movie or eating snacks in front of the fire, or when she and Mike snuggled up on the big couch, necking to tunes from the stereo after Paul turned in for the night. The couch and matching chairs faced the wide screen TV and stereo system. It was too early in the year to build a fire, and she was enjoying the quiet.

  She saw her reflection in the blank, dark TV screen. Even to her own eyes, the way she hunched over the desk made her think of a watch too tightly wound, ready to snap. She could not stop her thoughts and feelings about Mike from intruding on her work to the point of distraction.

  She felt bad about the way her emotions had flared, the way she'd behaved. She should feel guilty, she told herself. Mike wasn't cheating on her. He wasn't that kind of man. And given the way he'd lost his first wife, this was a man who would value what he had more than most and not court heartbreak.

  It happened before they ever met, before Mike moved to Devil Creek to start a new life, exactly as she had, and ended up renting the house next door. . . .

  Her name was Carol.

  As Michael had told it. He and Carol were professors at the university in Albuquerque. Mike had led a rough and tumble life as a soldier and then as a crime reporter. Carol reformed him. She tamed a world-weary tough-guy alcoholic. She got him sober and he became a real human being again.

  She was three months pregnant when she was murdered in their apartment on a night when Mike was teaching a night class on campus.

  Mike was interrogated and, for all he knew, suspected, until a handyman with a record of sex crimes, employed by the apartment complex, was arrested and charged with rape and murder. The handyman committed suicide before the police could interrogate him, but the police had marked the case closed.

  Mike had once told Robin that she and Carol would have been the best of friends, they were so much alike. Though it had been said as an expression of love, hearing this had troubled Robin. Did Mike see her not as herself, only as a projection of a dead love that she reminded him of? No. His love was real, and for her. She knew this.

  Her heart ached whenever she thought of his loss. Of what could only have been unspeakable torment in the face of such tragedy. She respected and joined him in honoring Carol's memory. There was a gold-framed, four-by-six-inch framed portrait of Carol Landware on a mantle, across the den from the roll-top desk, reserved for special framed pictures and mementos of distant or deceased friends and relatives, of happy and special times. How could she not feel an affinity for a woman who had loved the same man she loved, and been lost to him in such a way?

  She wondered how Mike was doing. She glanced at her wristwatch. It was as hour since he'd left. She eyed the telephone.

  When they spoke, she would not let her strain show. She still felt edgy, as if she'd over-amped on too much caffeine although she hadn't had any coffee since the morning. She must not let anything he said irritate her because of her bad mood. She would forgive him for what happened earlier. She smiled. She already had. But she would make sure that he knew. She would let him sweet-talk her out of her edgy feeling.

  Who was that woman in the parking lot? It was bugging her and would not go away.

  Two trains of thought collided in her mind and she gasped as if someone had slugged her in the solar plexus. No, she told herself. What a crazy thought. . . .

  She rose from the roll-top and crossed the den to the mantle of framed photographs and mementos, and then she was holding the gold picture frame and gazing down into the steady, honest eyes, the lovely, high-cheekboned features, framed by shoulder-length blonde hair, of the woman in the photograph, Carol Louise Landware, murdered in Albuquerque two and a half years ago.

  Robin thought, Oh. My. God.

  It was the same face.

  She was gazing down into the face of the woman she had seen speaking with Paul that afternoon in the supermarket parking lot.

  Chapter Eight

  "You know why I'm down here, don't you?" the male voice asked from the portable cassette tape player on Mike's desk.

  Mike wasn't sure he'd recognize the voice if he heard it again, but he was pretty sure that this was not a voice he'd heard before, and certainly not on any of his recent calls on the Sunrise Ridge construction site. This would be the one Del Muskie had told him he'd never seen before.

  A voice replied, "I know, I know, it's those fatalities. Three in such a short time. I really am, uh, embarrassed, sir." Olson cleared his throat. "You did check me out. You know there's never been a blemish on my work record like this, nothing like what's been happening here. I know it doesn't look good, but we're doing the best we can, sir."

  Mike thought, Sir?

  The "office" of The Clarion was the front half of a remodeled residence. A few file cabinets
, a pair of computers, some tables for layouts, and a wide oak desk comprised the furnishings.

  Mike wasn't alone.

  Ben Saunders, the Chief of Police, sat in one of the visitors' chairs, facing Mike's desk. Ben was approaching retirement age. He wore a western shirt, pressed brown slacks and shiny black shoes. His wiry gray hair was receding, and there was the trace of a spare tire around his middle, but his broad middle looked sturdy as the trunk of an oak tree and, even off-duty, his cop eyes were steely and attentive. His Stetson rested on the corner of Mike's desk.

  Even through the tape player's cheap sound reproduction, Cal Olson's tone was humble, almost servile.

  The visiting voice said, "I heard talk that there's some sort of ancient Indian curse on this ground."

  Olson laughed, sounding more like a woman than a man. A nervous laugh.

  "There's Indian curses all over this country. It's a land of superstition. The noble red man, huh? They were savages and before they took to warring against us white folks, they spent a hundred years slaughtering each other. Yeah, something like that happened here. I don't know the details, and I don't want to know. But yeah, I guess when shit happens like people dying, it's only natural for the workers to start talking foolish about ancient curses and—"

  "Stop it, Olson, you're prattling."

  "Yes, sir."

  Mike felt the trace of a grin tug the corners of his mouth. Jay Olson was a balding, red-haired man in his mid-forties with a stocky build, none of it muscle, and a brusque manner, especially around subordinates. This sure was a different side of the man. He heard fear in Olson's voice. He glanced at Ben Saunders.

  The Chief was leaning forward in his chair, taking in every word coming from the tape player.

  The new voice was telling Olson, "Things don't look good, that's for damn sure. People dying left and right. The work pool grumbling about an Indian curse. That would be bad enough, slick. But you've got yourself more than that to deal with, and you know what I'm talking about."

  Olson said, "I'm sure I don't know what this is all about. The work is proceeding on schedule. I'll be bringing this job in on time and under cost."

  There was a clattering noise. That would be Del Muskie making noise with the microwaves and setting up their drinks at the counter of his meal wagon. Whatever was said next grew inaudible.

  Then the new voice said irritably, "Why did you bring us out here from your office?"

  "Why, the sunshine, of course. And I wanted you to try Del's great burgers." Olson's voice was brittle, apprehensive. "The burgers are nuked, but they've been cooked over an open mesquite fire, isn't that right, Del?"

  Muskie's voice popped up, closer to the mic than the others. "Yes sir, Mr. Olson." Del sounded busy. Two microwaves went bing! Del would be busy putting the finishing touches on the burgers.

  The new voice said, "Butt out, rummy."

  Del said, "Yes, sir."

  The new voice said to Olson, "You dragged us out here to eat this rummy's slop so you could buy yourself a few extra minutes to figure out how to handle what you know is coming down on you. And you know what, Olson? I'm letting you do it because I like to watch a worn turn on the hook."

  "I'm sure I don't—"

  "The people I work for don't like being screwed by a hick hustler who ought to know better; and I'm talking about you, numb nuts."

  "Now there's no reason to be talking like that. I—"

  "There's every reason to be talking to you like that, you bush league hustler," said New Voice, "because that's what you are. A punkass chiseler."

  Mike felt his throat go dry. He saw Ben Saunders' eyes narrow.

  Olson said, "I haven't chiseled anybody." He started to say more, but New Voice interrupted.

  "Cork it. We already have you dead to rights. I've seen that stash of Mexican building supplies behind the site."

  Olson said, "Wait, I can explain—"

  New Voice said, "You don't have to explain anything." There was a sneer in the voice. "You don't think chiselers have tried to skim off the outfit before you came along? You never had a chance."

  "We can cut a deal."

  "Oh, we'll cut a deal, all right. Low grade, under-spec building materials, brought in over the Mexican border, substituted for quality materials that you've been selling off at a healthy profit. What's it been since you came to work for us, something like two hundred grand in your pocket?"

  "Can we cut a deal?" Olson said again.

  "How's this for starters?" said New Voice. "Your punk ass is fired. I'm the new project manager."

  "But what about me?" Olson asked in a voice so low, Mike had to tilt forward to hear.

  There was a click! and the office was filled with Patty Loveless singing a ballad too loudly.

  Mike turned the music down, but not off. He'd always liked Patty Loveless. "Well?"

  Ben reached over for his Stetson, but he remained seated, rotating the Stetson around and around between his big-knuckled hands as if this would help him think.

  Finally, he looked across at Mike. "Only crime I can see is in the building inspector's jurisdiction, that is if they are using substandard building materials. I'll put those wheels in motion first thing in the morning."

  "It won't hurt," said Mike, "but these guys are too sharp to get tripped up on the building codes. That Mexican building material was what Del Muskie wanted to show me when I met him tonight. After he heard what he'd recorded, he must have nosed around before he drove off. Those materials will have been moved by now, and Olson would have experts working at disguising inferior building materials if the kickback was so big."

  "Olson's bringing in material across the border from Sonora; that's legal enough ever since NAFTA," said Ben, "so unless charges are filed against him by his employers, my hands are tied."

  "Those guys shot at me."

  "I hate to say it, amigo, but you didn't identify yourself and you were trespassing."

  "You've got a point," said Mike, "but I don't have to like it." Ben's silvery eyebrows drew together. "Now don't do anything stupid."

  "What about this new project manager?"

  Ben said, "What about him? Devil Creek isn't much of a town, but I don't have much of a force to police it with. So the corporation sent a new project manager. That's not police business. Although I've got to say I didn't like the sound of that new fella."

  Mike nodded. "'Chiseler' and 'punkass' aren't words you hear bandied about by corporate execs."

  Ben gave a small shrug. "But until some laws are broken, my hands are tied."

  "Think I'll drop in on Sunrise Ridge tomorrow morning to interview this new project manager for my paper."

  "I said, don't do anything stupid."

  "I heard you. Seems newsworthy, though."

  Ben chuckled. "Olson didn't think much of our local Indian legend." He rose to his feet.

  "One of our legends," said Mike. He walked Ben to the door.

  The legend of Chief Ataka had been recorded by the earliest settlers, who repeated, around the campfires, a tale handed down by the storytellers charged with passing the tribe's history from generation to generation.

  Ataka was the most brutal war chief in tribal history. The land near what was now Devil Creek was his people's sacred hunting ground, fiercely fought over and guarded against marauding tribes from the north and east. It was said that Chief Ataka died in battle at the approximate site where the Sunrise Ridge development was being constructed. As his blood stained the earth those centuries ago, the hard-dying war chief cursed the ground and any who would claim it.

  Ben said, "I wonder what happened to that old Indian shaman, Gray Wolf, who used to live outside town."

  Gray Wolf had been an ancient—or at least ageless—Native American shaman, and perhaps still was, if Mike believed half of what his eyes had seen two years ago, when Gray Wolf had taught him about things like shape-shifting. Mike, Robin and Paul simply could not believe their eyes. The old, "deceased" shaman came back
as—what else—a gray wolf. Even just thinking about it reminded Mike again why the three of them had come clean about everything else that happened, while making a pact with each other to never reveal what they knew—or, more exactly, what they had witnessed—regarding Gray Wolf.

  "Haven't seen him in years," said Mike, which was true enough. "He's gone with the wind."

  This was also factually correct. The old Indian's earthly remains had been cremated over an open fire under the stars, his ashes scattered on a night wind.

  Next to the front porch of the house that served as The Clarion's office, a breeze whispered through the needles of a young pine tree. The house was on a residential street, one-half block off the main drag. There were lights on in the other houses lining the street, but no vehicular traffic.

  Ben raised his eyes to the stars overhead. "This time of year, the nights start getting cool."

  Mike nodded. "It will be jacket weather by next week. Uh, Chief, why did you ask about Gray Wolf?"

  Ben smiled a small smile that conveyed nothing. "Just my old mind picking up dots and wondering if they connect."

  Mike grinned. "Is there any hour of the day when you're not a cop?"

  "Sometimes in my dreams," said Ben, "I play the violin. Not the fiddle like in country music, but the goll-dang violin. In my dream, I'm playing in packed concert halls and I think it's in the old days. You know, like Mozart and Beethoven. I don't know nothing about classical music but there I am in my dream, playing classical music. I don't know what the hell that damn dream is supposed to mean, but when I'm having that dream, that's when I'm not a cop. But the rest of the time? Yeah, I'm trying to connect the dots. I like to know what's going to happen before it happens, if I can."

  Mike said, "Don't we all. So how would a dead old Indian named Gray Wolf fit in with Sunrise Ridge?"

  "I was just asking. Nothing but idle late-night talk. I appreciate you having me over and sharing what you've got on that tape, in case anything does happen."

  "It will."

  "I mean besides you going up to that construction site hot under the collar. Well, goodnight, amigo. You've got a good woman and a good kid depending on you. Play a cool hand, son."