Beneath a Winter Moon

by Shawson M Hebert

  Alastair smiled. “I don’t want it found, Thomas…but I am afraid it is too late.”

  “Tell me about the animal. Will it return? Will it come here?”

  “Oh yes, there is no doubt about it. If you are not out of here by tonight, it will definitely come.”

  “Are we safe in here? If it comes, will it obey you?” He sighed. “Do you have some kind of hold over it?”

  Alastair laughed. “It’s not a pet, I already told you. No, I won’t be able to stop it from attacking, and no, you are not safe here.” Alastair waited, but Thomas didn’t take the bait. “The only possibility you have for your safety and the safety of your friends lies with two possibilities. You either let me go right now, or gather up your gear and leave…head for the lake as fast as you can.”

  Thomas felt a slight shiver as Alastair finished. The man’s face was solid stone and he had not so much as twitched. Try as he might, Thomas could not shake the feeling that Alastair spoke the truth…or at the very least the man believed his own words. “Even if we could leave now, that thing out there could easily attack us…pick us off one by one. Even if one of us gets a good shot at it, it would only be because the damned thing ambushed another of us.” He paused. “By the time one of us gets off a shot, it will probably have killed the other. Besides, Delmar is sick and I can’t take a chance on moving him.”

  “Then let me go. It is the only way.”

  Thomas shook his head. “I wish we’d never seen your trail out at the generator. I wish you had gotten too far ahead of us…and I wish we hadn’t seen your contraption out there. But that’s not what happened. You’re here because you are involved with the attacks and because you’ve tipped your hand in that you have a lot more to hide.” He straightened. “I won’t let you go.”

  “Then say your prayers, for what good it will do.”

  Thomas glanced over at the gun cabinet. “We have an arsenal in here, and besides… your door and that huge bolt look like they would hold up to a battering ram. If that thing comes calling, we will kill it before it ever gets inside the cabin.”

  Alastair leaned forward and looked deep into Thomas’s eyes. “You are wrong, lad. You are dead wrong.”

  Thomas steeled himself and refused to give an inch to the fear that clawed at his shirttails. “You just stay put and don’t do anything…stupid. You wouldn’t be the first man I’ve shot, and if I think you are a threat, believe me…I will kill you.”

  Alastair chuckled and held up his hands, gesturing at the zip ties and rope. “What harm can I possibly do?”

  Thomas took the rocking chair from in front of the fire and placed it so that it was opposite Delmar’s sleeping form. Jenny still lay on the couch and Thomas could not tell if she was sleeping, but he hoped that she had been. He hoped she hadn’t heard his conversation with Alastair. Jack came over to lie down between the rocker and Delmar, and Thomas leaned over to lay a hand on the dog. As he stroked the soft fur, he replayed Alastair’s words in his mind. Alastair’s voice broke the silence.

  “Was it the military…that you shot someone?” he called out. “I see the luminous tape sewn into the back of your backpack. They are called cat-eyes are they not? I’ve only seen them on military uniforms and gear.”

  Thomas stopped rocking the chair, but did not answer.

  “I have to tell you, lad…combat is nothing like what you will face if you don’t let me leave. You can’t begin to imagine how much you and your friends will suffer.”

  Thomas began rocking again. He didn’t turn to look at Alastair, but he heard Jenny suck in a breath and he realized she was not asleep, and had likely heard everything. “Alastair, if you say anything else that might scare Jenny, I’ll gag you. If that doesn’t work, the butt of my rifle will.”

  Alastair did not reply, but the low chuckle was enough for Thomas. He jumped up from the chair and commanded Jack to stay. He went to the kitchen and began furiously looking through places he hadn’t searched before. “Once again,” he said when he found what he was looking for. “Everyone has some.” He took the silver roll of duct tape and tore a strip about as long as his forearm. Alastair started to protest but Thomas shoved the tape over his mouth and around his face. Just to be sure, he placed another strip over the first.

  He pulled hard on Alastair’s ponytail until the man’s head was snapped back as far as it would go. “I’m beginning not to like you….and I swear to you if you don’t keep your mouth closed, you won’t be in any shape to get onto a helicopter, much less to hold in a cell.” He slammed Alastair’s face into the table and heard the soft crack of cartilage as the man’s nose impacted. He yanked the head back, surprisingly pleased at the blood that he saw on the man’s face. “Oops. I’m sorry about that.” Tears rolled down Alastair’s face as he clenched his eyes shut in pain. Thomas saw the man’s pain, and again was a little pleased…but the look also calmed him. He shoved Alastair’s head to the side, but not with much force. “Not a word,” he growled, then walked back to the rocking chair.

  The next two hours passed without incident. Alastair had fallen asleep, his bloody face pressed against the table. Jenny had slept as well, and it took all of Thomas’s bearing to keep himself from dosing. Delmar’s condition had not changed, and Thomas did not even pretend that he knew what to do, other than to keep the man as comfortable as he could. He let Jack outside long enough for the dog to relieve himself, and upon opening the door he had hoped to see that the weather had cleared. The gusts of stinging snow dashed those hopes.

  Once he was back in the cabin, he felt that if he sat back down in the chair, nothing would prevent him from falling into a deep sleep. He had already toyed with the idea of searching through Alastair’s room, where he saw a desk, earlier. The man was a mystery. Jeremiah Johnson…call me Alastair, it’s my real name. Oh, by the way, I have a wild beast that I take care of out in the mountains. He’s a real killer. Thomas shrugged and walked past Alastair’s sleeping form and into the bedroom. He heard Jack’s claws clicking on the wooden floor behind him. “Shhhhh,” he whispered to the dog. “We’re investigating.”

  The Captain’s desk inside Alastair’s room was amazing. Thomas had seen one before, the twin cabinets on the left and right, the slanted desktop covered with felt so that papers would not slide down…and the desktop that lifted to reveal a large cubby for storing books or papers. These desks had been a favorite of Union officers, who usually held a rank higher than that of a Captain, and was a prized item today in the antiquities trade. He admired the desk for a moment and then began to search through its contents. Inside the cubby were several historical novels and a textbook…the subject was the rise of Scotland from farmland to the land of education and opportunity. He closed the desktop and opened the desk’s right side cabinet. He found bills, receipts, a checkbook, some keys, paperclips, pens, pencils and mailing supplies. The left cabinet held a stack of photographs…very old photographs…wrapped with a rubber band. Thomas removed the rubber band and rummaged through the photos.

  They were all in black and white and appeared to be photographs of Alastair’s family; the man in most of the photos had to have been his father or perhaps grandfather…as the resemblance was striking. They were photos taken during World War II. Several of them depicted a man in the uniform of the 101st Airborne. In one photo, the soldier sported Lieutenant Colonel’s bars on his lapels and a large stack of ribbons on his chest. He was smiling and had his arm around a captain as they held mugs of beer for the camera. In another, the Lieutenant Colonel stood with a group of paratroopers, all wearing their parachutes, their faces camouflaged and with weapons hanging from their sides. Written on the back of the photo was “June 6th, 1944.”

  “D-Day…I’ll be damned,” Thomas muttered. He scanned through the rest of the photos, still amazed at the subject’s resemblance to Alastair. The man in the photos must have been his grandfather, as he looked to be at least forty years old. If Alastair was in his forties, then the man would have been neari
ng sixty when Alastair was born. Thomas shrugged. The colonel might have been a late starter. Many of the photos were from after the war…the man standing beside a 1955 Ford Thunderbird, in another he smiled while standing next to what appeared to be an early 1960s Harley Davidson. That must be Alastair’s father, Thomas thought….though the man in the 1960’s photo looks to be the exact same man in the World War II photos…but that isn’t possible.

  Thomas set the photos back in their place and reached in to remove a letter-sized leather binder. The leather was old…very old. Although Alastair could feel the oil between his fingers, the leather was still cracked and brittle in several areas, especially in the fold. Someone took great care to preserve this.

  On the cover of the leather binder was some sort of family crest. The crest was obviously Scottish, in the familiar circular belt and buckle pattern. Inside the circle was a bull’s head, a banner near each horn. Underneath was a length of twisted rope. The motto, barely readable now, said “Hold Fast.” The crest had once been painted, but the colors were faded and the leather beneath was cracked.

  Thomas opened the folder. Inside were papers that had yellowed with age. He shuffled through them carefully, as though he cared about Alastair’s things, which he did not…but he had respect for anything that had lasted this long, and felt it would be wrong to mishandle them.

  One particular paper caught his eye. It was thick and didn’t feel like paper at all. It felt more like…skin? Handwritten on the paper in a thick, beautiful, font were the words, “Alastair McLeod.” It appeared to be some sort of orders…a set of instructions that placed this Alastair in charge of tax collection for areas north of Edinburgh, Scotland “and West to the sea” it read. The date on the parchment was 1849.

  “Amazing,’ Thomas muttered. Jeremiah…Alastair…had to be at least fifth generation. Thomas wasn’t even sure he could trace his family farther back than both sets of his grandparents. Keeping up with the family history had not been a goal of his mother or father. Thomas flipped through some more of the old papers and stopped and stared at the sheet on the bottom on the pile. It was from 1977 and it read:

  VIRGINIA

  City of Fairfax : Circuit Court

  September 7, 1977

  In the matter of the change of name of Alastair Sims to Jeremiah Johnson: CIVIL No. 12778122

  PETITION FOR CHANGE OF NAME

  Comes now the petitioner(s) seeking a change of name pursuant to Virginia Code and respectfully states the oath as follows:

  Thomas went on to read that Alastair, 41 years of age at the date listed on the paperwork, requested to change his name for “personal reasons,” swearing “no fraudulent purpose or to infringe on the rights of others.”

  1977? Forty-one years old in 1977? Thomas thought. No way was this petitioner the same man who now sat bound, taped, and bloodied in his own kitchen. It had to be Alastair’s father. But that could not be right, either…it just didn’t fit. A forgery? Thomas frowned and tried to reconcile what he’d seen, but finally decided that no matter how intriguing the documents were, they had no bearing on his current crisis. He closed the folder and put it back in the desk. He would look into it later, if he had a chance.

  He found some other old and interesting items in the bedroom. A small leather pouch of old silver coins, apparently English and from the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, some silver buttons that looked like those from a military uniform, a plaque with WWII medals inside and a folded flag, and also a bayonet of a type that Thomas had never seen before. On a night table beside the small bed lay a dagger with a nine-inch blade that had to be pure silver. The blade was about five inches long and sharpened on both edges.

  Etched into the dagger’s blade was an image of a man and a wolf. The etching was of a man who was leaning, a sickle in hand, toward the menacing wolf as it poised to leap. On the opposite side of the blade was a small inscription in beautiful cursive: “With God’s Mercy.” Thomas thought that it was very strange, to say the least…and not just a little creepy. A blade made from silver, he thought as a cold shiver fluttered down his spine. There was something sinister about the weapon…something familiar, too.

  Thomas left the bedroom, carrying the knife with him. He placed the odd weapon in his cargo pocket as he entered the kitchen. He wanted to tell Alastair that he had seen the photographs, the name-change, family history…but he decided he’d rather just leave the man gagged for now. Alastair opened his eyes, as if aware that Thomas was watching him. He seemed to smile under the gag, and then lay his head back on the table and closed his eyes.

  Thomas tapped on the table. Alastair opened his eyes again and lifted his head. “If I remove the gag, will you give me your word that there will be no more scare tactics? Nothing that would scare Jenny?”

  Alastair nodded, so Thomas moved behind him and started to remove the tape. There was no way to ease the pain, so he yanked it free, flinching as he heard the sharp, tearing sound of the tape peeling away from the man’s skin. Alastair sighed with relief, then shook his head and stretched his jaw, yawning with a groan. Thomas frowned. The man’s nose showed no signs of the injury from when he slammed his head onto the table. He took a closer look. Amazing, he thought. He shrugged it off. “Mind if I take a look at your rifles?”

  “Would it do any good?” Alastair asked.

  “As a matter of fact, it would.”

  “Will you get me some water, please, Thomas?”

  “Sure.”

  Once Alastair had taken a drink of the water, he said, “Go ahead and look. He smiled. After all, mi casa es su casa.”

  Thomas ignored him and walked over to check on Delmar. His breathing seemed to be better…slower and more…normal. The fever was still there, but perhaps not quite as bad. Thomas patted Jack, and then stepped to the gun cabinet. He had seen a rifle that looked out of place, and he was curious. He pulled the rifle from its felt-lined seat and held it, nodding with satisfaction. He looked down at the scope. The thin, black tube spanned the entire length of the barrel.

  “That is a Moissan Nagant,” Alastair said, casually, pronouncing it as mo-seen nah-gon. Thomas looked over at him and started to say something but Alastair spoke first.

  “The Moissan Nagant was created and employed by the Russians, but its design was said to have been stolen from the Finnish. It utilizes the ever-popular 7.62 round…it was not only fantastic for the long shot, but also had great military potential because it was so rugged and easy to maintain. The Russians ended up selling the rifles to countries all over the world. The Viet Cong came to appreciate its simplicity, stamina, and accuracy. If you will notice, Thomas, that particular rifle has the letters V, K, and T stamped just above the breech. That means…”

  “Means that I am holding one manufactured by the Finnish, not the Russians. But those letters aren’t just letters indicating Finland…they actually stand for Valtion Kirvaaritehdas…the name of the factory that produced it. It’s known by most…simply as the Valmet factory,” Thomas said, unable to hide the satisfaction.

  Alastair smiled. “You do indeed know your rifles. I applaud you.”

  “Actually,” Thomas said, as he set the rifle back into its place in the rack and picked up the one next to it, “It’s not that I am an expert on just any rifle—I’m not. I learned about the Nagant when I studied the history of the war in Viet Nam. U.S. soldiers came across these rifles quite a lot…especially during counter-sniper operations.” He paused to look into the breech of the Winchester rifle he was now holding. “In fact, they were the Viet Cong’s sniper rifle of choice. When the Nagant is paired up with a cheap, but still magnificent Unertl scope, it’s one hell of a military grade sniper rifle…especially for third world countries that couldn’t afford much else.” He put the Winchester back in place and took out a double-barreled shotgun that was so tall it barely fit into the cabinet.

  “Now this is really impressive,” Thomas said, whistling as he opened the breach to expose barrels large
enough to hold rolls of quarters. The double triggers stood exceptionally tall and the scrollwork was amazing. “I bet this would stop an elephant in its tracks.”

  “Are you familiar with it?” Alastair asked.

  Thomas shook his head. “Nope…but I bet it wouldn’t take much to get to know this darling.”

  Alastair appreciated the way Thomas held and obviously revered the shotgun…and for a moment, he pitied that this man had to die. It was a waste, he knew, and now he felt it was a shame as well. “That’s a Hollis and Sons ten gauge boxlock rifle, made in England. I believe that one was shipped out in 1866, after the civil war. And yes, with the right shells it would probably stop an elephant…one shot placed in the head and down the animal would go.” He chuckled.

  “You have rounds for it?”

  Alastair frowned, but nodded his head. “Indeed, in the bottom drawer. I had the rifle pins modified to better accept a newer quality shell. You will find the round quite impressive.”

  Thomas knelt down and pulled out the drawer at the base of the cabinet. He mulled through many boxes of ammunition until he found what he was looking for. Alastair was right. The rounds were very impressive. Impressive enough to instill a confidence in him that there was no way an animal…any North American animal…could withstand a direct hit from one. Something else caught his eye. Among the various packages of ammunition was a black, metal container perhaps an inch thick and six inches square. Without taking the container out of the drawer, he opened it. He saw inside four tranquilizer darts approximately the same diameter as the 10-gauge shells. Well, now, he thought. Something tells me they aren’t for the indigenous wildlife.

  “What are the tranquilizers for?” Thomas asked, holding the open box up so that Alastair could see.