Huh? he thought, coming back to the moment. He’d just showered the previous night, and the cool morning meant he wasn’t in any danger of breaking a sweat. Even so, he could definitely smell something, and that something was definitely him.
Dallas lifted each arm and took a mighty whiff of each pit. Sweat, Old Spice, laundry detergent, no fabric softener. He’d be captain of the Vikings cheerleading squad before he used fabric softener. The shirt was mostly clean, no spilled beer or other such things on this one yet. Swiveling his head, he snuffed and whuffed, pulling the morning air in and out of his nose. He still smelled him, but it wasn’t coming from him. Wholly confused, he started to pace a zigzag back and forth between bushes and trees. The zigs and zags became a lopsided loop, then a series of crisscrosses over the circle he’d just wandered. The more he concentrated, the more he could smell himself, always so close, always just out of reach.
He expanded the radius of his haphazard search. When he finally keyed in on the source of his scent, his head dropped down, and his long legs took him straight to a wide oak. Bending over at the waist, he placed his palms against the bark and brought his face so close it tickled the skin on the tip of his nose.
“That’s it! That’s me! I’m in the tree!” he crowed, any thought of stealth lost in his excitement. Wiggling and pacing back and forth, he sniffed again and again.
“Ha! Knew I’d find me. Ain’t nobody can hide from old Dallas, especially not myself!”
The absurdity of the moment caught up with him. He sniffed more carefully and realized with a growing sense of surprise that he smelled his own pee. Expecting himself to be disgusted, he realized that it wasn’t a bad smell, just a specific smell that stood out from all the others. Dallas stepped back and looked at the oak. Memories of having to pee on his trek back yesterday surfacing, he realized he had found one of the unlucky trees he’d repurposed as a commode. Dallas accepted the realization and gave up on trying to feel disgusted. His pee didn’t really smell bad. It was just him. Nothing to get all weird about. Just a smell. His smell.
Standing straight, he raised his nose to the light breeze rustling the leaves. It took a moment, but he caught the scent again. Faint but still unmistakably him.
“I’d make a damn strange tour guide, that’s a sure thing,” he chuckled.
It didn’t take long to find the second tree he’d peed on the day before. A quick snuff confirmed it was his. With a satisfied nod, he cast about to catch the scent again and continued deeper into the woods.
Nearing the third tree, he pulled up short, a new scent pressing itself hard against his nostrils. Dallas’s eyes narrowed, and a low growl passed his lips. The scent of urine was definitely not human. Other smells wended their way forward. Fur, musk. In a leap of intuition, Dallas recognized it as a wolf. The scent was fresh. Maybe an hour old, two at most. Eyes narrowing further, Dallas glowered in annoyance.
“Who the hell do you think you are? My tree. Mine!”
The sound of a zipper followed, and Dallas let a fresh stream go, taking care to completely obliterate the wolf’s scent. Finished, he squared his shoulders and raised his chin in defiance.
“This tree’s taken, wolfy!” Dallas declared. Business done, he turned to get his bearings and recognized the small rise he’d reached the previous day. Unlike before when voices had reached him on the evening breeze, now there were just the sounds of the Wisconsin woods. Birds twittered, leaves rustled, squirrels chattered their domestic disputes. Ready for an end to the suspense, Dallas walked up the small rise and looked down upon something completely unexpected.
A clearing waited, maybe a quarter of the size of Lambeau Field and bathed in the early morning sun. A small, decrepit cabin sat near the tree line, giving off an air of tired acceptance. Just past the cabin, an old pickup and a familiar moped sat at odd angles, as if the owners originally thought it’d be fun to collide demolition derby style but parked instead.
Dallas registered these details in an off-hand sort of way, but they didn’t give him pause. It was what occupied the rest of the clearing that made him wonder about those C.I.A. guys. Tires, plywood cubbies, stacks of hay bales, and lengths of barbed wire were spaced along what looked to be an obstacle course. Between and around them, large plywood cut-outs decorated the rest of the course. Two-by-four frames held them upright, and most were facing the various obstacles. Squinting slightly into the rising sun, Dallas discerned that the cut-outs were painted to resemble…
People? Bears? Tigers? No. Nothing so common. Plus, those all had four limbs, and some of the cut-outs had decidedly more than four. Turning his head, he spied what looked like a man with tentacles instead of arms, and another that was quite clearly a buxom woman with a giraffe head holding a staff.
“C.I.A. my ass,” he mumbled quietly. “Unless terrorists have gotten mighty strange.”
With a cavalier shrug, Dallas straightened his flannel, pushed his hair back with his fingers, and started a brisk walk down to the clearing, singing his favorite song along the way.
“Packers! Go, you Packers, go and get ‘em, Go, you fighting fools upset ‘em,
Smash their line with all your might, A touchdown, Packers, Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight!
On, you Green and Gold, to glory, Win this game the same old story,
Fight, you Packers, Fight, and bring the bacon home to OLD GREEN BAY!”
He cut a diagonal path through the course toward the old cabin. About halfway in, Dallas watched an arrow fly past his shoulder and heard it thunk heavily as it struck the nearest plywood monster.
“You missed,” he observed, looking with curiosity at the blunted tip of the arrow on the ground. It wouldn’t puncture skin if it hit, but it would hurt like the dickens and leave a nasty bruise.
“I never miss,” a voice Dallas recognized shot back. “If I’d meant to hit you, I’da hit you.”
“Uh huh. Whatever, Randall. Seems like the only time you can even come close to getting a piece of me is when you’re a sneaky little shit about it,” Dallas said with a mean grin.
The breeze stirred, and he lifted his head. A sniff confirmed what his ears suspected. His assailant was hiding out in a plywood structure twenty or so yards away. It was about the size and shape of a box truck, complete with painted wheels on the side. Turning toward Randall’s hiding place, he moved confidently forward.
A glint of sunlight revealed the head of another arrow through a thin slit between two boards a split second before the arrow was loosed. Rather than dodging, Dallas calmly plucked it out of the air when the tip was mere inches from his chest.
Damn. I really am a badass, he thought with a self-assured shrug and proceeded to use the arrow’s plastic fletching to scratch an itch on his back.
“If you’re supposed to be a terrorist, this country’s got nothing to worry about,” he said.
A popping sound only slightly preceded the sensation of a fist-sized mass hitting him with the force of a freight train just above the kidney. The impact knocked him forward, and he grunted in pained surprise. Apparently, Randall wasn’t the only one there. Turning as he stumbled, Dallas spied a blue bean bag on the ground right as another pop split the air.
This time, he was ready. Years of high school contact sports, a job doing physical labor, and a much higher than average bar-brawl to bar-outing ratio had honed Dallas’s reflexes and made him the tough son of a bitch he prided himself on being. Turning his unintentional stumble into an intentional somersault, he tucked his shoulder and rolled off at an angle. The sound of a second beanbag whistling past was accompanied by a gruff, “Shit!” from somewhere behind him. Coming fluidly to his feet, he switched gears and charged the box truck structure where Randall was hiding. Last time Dallas checked, arrows tended to do a little more damage than bean bags.
Apparently, Randall wasn’t expecting a head-on assault because he gave a high pitched yelp and fired off a hasty shot from his bow. The arrow sailed wide as Dallas rounded the right side of the st
ructure, flinging a hand out to catch the two-by-four frame’s edge. As he suspected, the back was open, just like the back of a delivery truck would be. When he swung around, his momentum carried him straight at his assailant.
Randall wasn’t a slug, but he didn’t have time to both drop his bow and raise his arms to defend himself. Dallas’s fist connected with the side of his face at the same moment the bow hit the ground with a twang.
“Ahhh!” Randall screamed in pain. “You broke my damn face again!”
Dallas didn’t let up. He fired a few quick body shots into Randall’s torso and followed with a sharp jab right between his eyes. The blow stunned Randall long enough for Dallas to slide his pocket knife free and wrap Randall up from behind, blade pressed firmly against his jugular.
“Whoa! Don’t! Don’t kill me! It’s a test! It’s just a test!” Randall screamed. His words devolved into gasping gibberish as Dallas torqued his shoulder and pressed the knife’s tip until it broke skin, releasing a trickle of very bright blood down Randall’s neck.
“Well, looky here!” he said in a clear, calm voice. Despite all the excitement, Dallas’s heart rate was steady, and his breath came slow and easy. He felt completely relaxed, which he realized in a detached way might be considered odd given the circumstances.
With a shrug for life’s perplexities, he continued. “When I got up today, I thought maybe I’d get some pussy. This wasn’t quite what I had in mind though.”
Randall hissed through clenched teeth and momentarily tensed but relaxed when he felt Dallas’s iron grip on his wrist tighten.
“Easy boy. I think it’s high time you introduced your friends and started to explain things.” Dallas coaxed Randall into a sideways shuffle. When they reached the open side of the enclosure, he shoved Randall’s head out.
After taking a deep breath through his nose, Dallas hollered out. “I know there’s a punk with a bean bag gun and a lady who I really hope looks as good as she smells. C’mon out so we can get acquainted proper-like.”
Silence hung for a few moments. Birds eventually resumed their incessant chattering, and a light breeze ruffled the leaves of trees circling the clearing. Otherwise, the only sounds were Dallas’s calm and Randall’s not-so-calm breathing until he heard a slow clapping.
“Well done! Excellent! Glad to see I was right,” the voice said. “This vamp killer is every bit as tough as I’d hoped. Glad this little town has something to offer. Aletia, let’s put down our toys and meet our new recruit.”
“Qué demonios, Colton! I didn’t get to use mine,” a sultry and softly accented voice complained, words clearly coming from a pouting mouth.
“Tia, darling. Not on our company.”
“You got to use your toy on our mala compañía.”
“Manners, Aletia! Manners,” the man named Colton chastised. “And I would’ve gotten my ass kicked six ways to Sunday right after our new friend finished up with Randall, isn’t that right, Dallas? Now come out of there and say hello. No more arrows or bean bags, I promise.”
Dallas gave Randall a shove and walked him out into the open. With a magnanimous smile, he removed the knife from Randall’s neck and released the wrist he’d been holding behind the man’s back. The knife’s handle was making his palm itch, so he quickly folded it back up and returned it to his pocket.
“That sounds mighty fine,” he agreed graciously. “I’m Dallas Emory Vinter, owner and proprietor of That Blows HVAC and Goddamn Hero of Trappersville, but you knew all that, I suppose.” Placing a boot firmly on Randall’s backside, he kicked and sent his former captive face first into the grass.
Turning his attention to the man that had greeted him with a beanbag to the kidney, Dallas continued.
“I imagine you’re some type of commanding officer or whatnot, and you probably think I should be saluting. Well, I got news for you, buddy. One, I ain’t enlisted in your little F.B.I, C.I.A., N.S.A.B.C.-whatever club you got goin’ on here, and two, I don’t salute little punks that ambush me, unless you call what happened to Randall’s face a salute. So I guess you’d better get a beer to wash down your disappointment but do it later. Right now, I expect you to start talking. You recruited me, right? Damn right, you did! So.”
Dallas cracked the knuckles on first one meaty fist and then the other before crossing his arms across his chest. Staring straight at the man who still seemed to think he was in charge, he asked, “Who the hell are you, what the hell is all this, and when do I start hunting terrorists?”
Chapter 11
“A long time ago,” the man named Colton started, “humans weren’t exactly top of the food chain, so to speak.”
The air of potential violence had subsided a bit. Randall had settled onto a broad stump, alternately massaging the new, darkening bruise on his jaw and dabbing at the still bleeding cut on his neck. Despite having gotten the best of him again, Dallas knew Randall wasn’t one to be trifled with. Never mind the sad goatee, unfortunate widow’s peak and dorky moped. Wiry muscles wrapped his lean frame, and his eyes had the particular glint of one that fought dirty as a rule. Occasionally, he glanced up at Dallas with an expression that was less than congenial.
Well, can’t blame the guy, Dallas thought without rancor. I did bust his face a couple of times.
The woman Aletia stood idly beside Randall, a mild look of disdain on her movie-star gorgeous face. One hand rested on a hip so perfectly curved scientists could’ve used it to calibrate their instruments. The other arm hung languidly at her side, an odd-looking corded thing dangling from her hand. Two strands of braided leather hung down almost to the ground. The end of each braid had a small metal sphere attached. From their scuffed appearance, and the weathered look of the leather braids, the strange whip appeared to be well-used, but Dallas couldn’t quite discern its function. He didn’t spend much time thinking about it though. He much preferred to look at the dark, unblemished skin of her beautiful face framed in long strands of black hair. Eyeliner so deep in color it was just a shade away from the skin beneath was liberally applied, and emerald green eyes glinted dangerously beneath impossibly long lashes. The lips that at the moment were frowning in judgment of Randall gave the impression that, if they did smile, it was a smile that would guarantee you the best night of your life followed by a trip to the emergency room.
Dallas sat transfixed, trying to figure out where she was from. Mexico? South America? Spain? Growing up in rural Wisconsin didn’t give him much experience in such matters, but he realized he didn’t much care where she came from. It was enough that she was here. Finally tearing his eyes away from the exotic Aletia, he looked at Colton. It was a little disconcerting since Dallas felt like he could’ve been looking in the mirror. Colton was about his age, closer to thirty-five than thirty, and about his height, probably coming in around six-foot-one before pulling on the cowboy boots that could’ve come straight from Dallas’s mud room. He had the same quarterback physique with wide shoulders, long arms, and the hands of a guy used to actual, honest-to-god, break-a-sweat work. His shoulder-length hair was a coarse, dark brown with hints of silver at the temples, giving his otherwise rough appearance a sophisticated edge. Here was a man that would never run home and cry to momma. Colton had the self-contained, hard-baked look of a man who solved his own problems.
Standing there in worn jeans and a faded flannel with his thumbs looped in a wide leather belt fastened with a damn impressive brass buckle, Dallas figured they could’ve easily been cousins, maybe even brothers, and felt an immediate kinship to the man. That said, he was still annoyed that Colton was taking the long way around to answering his questions.
“Science would have you believe a thing or two about the evolution of our species and our relationship with the beasts of the earth,” Colton continued, aware of but unconcerned by Dallas’s scrutiny. “And those scientists would be right about most things. I’m not going tell you science is a lie, because it isn’t. History, that’s the one who’s a bald-face liar.”
Colton rolled his shoulders and settled into his story, low voice rolling with a practiced cadence.
“You see, history was written mainly by churches and tyrants, and far too often, the latter held too much sway over the former. If you look far enough back in history, you’ll learn that some churches knew the truth of things, but the tyrants didn’t want all of those things being widely known. They didn’t want the oppressed population getting spooked and unruly, if you follow. So when it came to writing the history books, most of what you get is a carefully redacted version of events.”
Dallas held up his hand to interrupt.
“This sounds like the start of a nice story, but I think you’d better cut to the chase. I don’t listen to history lectures until my third, no, my fourth beer.”
Aletia gave Colton a look and started to twirl the two-corded whip in a lazy circle. Colton chuckled softly before saying, “Easy, now. He’s right. We should probably clear up the basics before this good fellow loses his patience and takes it out on Randall’s face again.
“Told you he’s tough,” Randall groused. “Not that I couldn’t take you,” he continued, pointing pointedly at Dallas. “You’re just lucky Colton didn’t want you hurt.”
“Is that a fact?” Dallas asked innocently. “Well, that’s awfully sporting of you, Colton. You’re a right gentleman. Now, if you don’t mind, answers, pronto, or I’m blowing this Popsicle stand. I swear, you government types take forever to do anything.”
Colton shook his head. “Not government Dallas, and we’re not hunting terrorists. I’m not really sure where you got that idea from. I believe Randall was quite clear when he said we’re a part of something much more important. I mentioned that history has left us an incomplete version of what’s gone before. More specifically, history would have you believe that there were humans, and there were animals, and that’s all that there ever was.”
Monsters in the Midwest (Book 2): Northwoods Wolfman Page 6
