Now she could relax some. “Guess your friend doesn’t like back-seat driving either. Or maybe he was trying to shut you up,” she told Vern.
Reluctantly, Adriana called for a paramedic to meet her further down the road. Another twenty thousand volts, and the fat bastard shut up. She looked over his injury, and then she got a first aid kit from the trunk. She quickly wrapped some gauze over the injured shoulder, just enough to stop the bleeding and for show. She knew she was in trouble already; didn’t need to make it worse.
Adrianna was exhausted from the excitement and adrenalin rush when she finished. She brushed off her sweaty forehead, and realized for the first time that there was quite a bit of blood on her forearm. She glanced at the mirror, and noticed that she had a few badly-bleeding lacerations on her face. Her hand had bled too, and now, to her horror, she realized that the steering wheel had become very slippery.
By now there were several civilian cars, trucks, and eighteen-wheelers formed up behind her, keeping their distance. Her lights were long gone, shot to pieces, and the siren made an awful noise. She shut it all off, and started to drive carefully away from there. She reached the intersection before Deadman’s Curve and saw that the lane nearest the edge had been cordoned off, and many warning signs had been erected with yellow lights. There were some vehicles there doing road construction and putting up a very sturdy, tall security fence. A worker with a yellow flag motioned for her to advance slowly. He looked very shook up, and Adriana noticed many orange cones rolling around.
“Sorry, officer, but we have to ask you to stop.”
Adrianna just lifted her eyebrows.
“Another damn accident—an old truck just flew straight through the new guardrail and fence we’re building.”
Adrianna, sounding concerned said, “What about the police SUV following it?”
“Fine, just fine—but the other truck…well, it won’t make the Indie 500 any time soon.”
After some minor commotion, she was allowed to proceed; and during the wait she decided to explain to Carlos the simple truth: she’d taken the suspect into custody and was taking him in when his partner tried to spring him—and kill her in the process.
“Great. Mr. Know-It-All,” Adrianna groaned as she slowed her car. A large officer in short sleeves stood before her, flexing his enormous tanned muscles. He wore mirrored aviator glasses, and with a perfect set of bleached, perfect teeth, smiled widely as he walked towards Adrianna while chewing on a giant wad of gum…and yes, here came the fucking bubble. She slowed her car to a stop near the accident site at Deadman’s Curve.
“Howdy there, Adrianna. Woman, you seen better days. Looked at yourself in the mirror lately? Heard you been out hunting in the mountains, and I was on my way to assist—and then this shit.” He gestured toward the crash site.
“Howdy, Dex. Yeah, our radios are real pieces of shit up here…they need to do something about ‘em.”
“I know what you mean. You okay? I can take the perp off your hands if you want me too.”
“I’m all right; I’ll take him from here. Have to meet up with the paramedics down the road, and then make sure someone babysits the thing in the back once he’s in the hospital. What about the other guy?”
“Your call. Looking forwarding to reading your report on this one and the guy who went over the cliff; bastard flew straight through the railing.”
“Is he alive?”
“Don’t know yet. Waiting for back-up before heading down there—rescue workers can’t do anything until we say it’s okay. By the way, will you be going to the fall party?”
Adrianna licked her lips while undressing Dex in her mind from head to toe. “Oh, yeah.”
“Well, let me know if you need to be escorted by a real man.”
“Who’d you have in mind, slick?”
He gestured with both hands towards himself, smiling widely.
“In your dreams, cowboy. Well, I have to get going. Think I can hear the ambulance down the road.” Adrianna thought for a moment and then said, “What concerns me most for now is whether Carlos will have a shit-fit when he sees my car.”
“Relax, I doubt he will. Besides, he ain’t in today.”
“What you mean?”
“He left town, I guess this morning. Left a note with that old dragon lady in his office that he’ll be back in a day or two.”
“He’s on vacation now?”
“I doubt it’s vacation, because his family is still around, but he’s sure been acting a bit off ever since that bear hunt last weekend.”
* * * * *
CARLOS PARKED his rental car outside the large main building. It was white, with a wraparound porch. The house lay on top of a hill and provided a beautiful panorama for the visitors. There were a few barns and a long, white wooden fence surrounding the typical South Texas ranch. A couple of young girls rode two horses in a large circle, while an instructor stood in the middle, calling out instructions. It was a hot day even though it was fall, definitely nothing like Skull Creek. Instead of cool, damp weather, here it was dry heat. Carlos could see a dust devil in the distance, and some real tumbleweeds skating over the sandy landscape, just like this was some old-time Western movie.
He used the doorbell but didn’t hear any ringing, so he knocked on the door instead. After a moment, a woman in her seventies, with a friendly smile and a heavy Mexican accent, greeted him at the door. “Sheriff Carlos da Silva,” he announced. “I’m here to meet Special Agent Perez.”
“Welcome, sheriff, my name is Penelope, and my husband Anthony is waiting for you in the back.”
They walked through the airy home; it was cool, nicely decorated, very clean, and smelled fresh. When they reached the back porch, Penelope pointed towards an old man sitting in a rocking chair with a cowboy hat over his eyes, his legs propped up on the porch rail, ending in cowboy boots. She left Carlos and walked into the kitchen behind them. Carlos could smell fresh coffee being brewed and something baking in the oven, reminding him that he’d skipped breakfast and lunch.
He approached the resting man carefully.
“I’m awake. Just resting my eyes is all.” The man gestured for Carlos to seat himself in a similar rocking chair next to him. “Welcome to our home, Carlos da Silva…we meet again. It’s been a long time—say, fifty years?”
“You remember?”
“How can I not? It was my first case as a Special Agent across the border—nothing forgettable about it.”
Anthony Perez lifted his hat and peered at the surroundings. The two girls were galloping their horses away towards a small lake.
“Nice view and place you got here,” Carlos ventured.
Perez just nodded. Carlos was still standing, hesitant.
From his breast pocket, Anthony took out two large Havana cigars and handed one to Carlos. “Guess it’s time for celebrating our reunion, huh?”
“No thank you, sir, those things can kill you.”
Anthony turned his head and eyed Carlos as he finally stood up, then extended his hand to Carlos, who grabbed it. The old man had a firm grip. He held Carlos’s hand tight, and forced Carlos forward; and then he whispered, while staring in the Sheriff’s eyes, “And so can monsters.”
Please, Malik, I…Carlos needs your help. All I’m asking is for you to take a look at what’s down in the basement.”
“You said it yourself. He locked the door, and you don’t know where the key is. Sorry, Anna-Maria, both of you are my friends, and I don’t want to ruin what we have.”
“You know, Carlos and I, we don’t keep any secrets from each other. I saw some of the drawings, but I really need you to look for yourself.”
Malik took a deep breath, and looked up at the ceiling. “Why is it so important? It’s probably some old cold case he’s been working on. People in law enforcement do it all the time, instead of a hobby, I guess.”
“But that’s the problem, Malik. In all the years we’ve been together, he’s never brought work
home with him. I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“I can feel that something is very wrong, but I just don’t know what it is—and Carlos has been like a zombie ever since that bear hunt this past weekend. He hasn’t slept since then, and has hardly left the basement; and when he did, he made sure it was locked and he even ordered me and the kids not to go down there.”
“Well, there’s you answer.”
“But please! As our friend, if only you could go down there and check and see what he is doing… I remember seeing some strange picture of… I think it was a werewolf, or something monstrous like you see in the movies.”
“You sure he’s not just doing something to surprise you guys?”
“Yes, I’m sure, because whatever it is he’s doing, it’s got him spooked.”
Malik scowled. “Bullshit! The Carlos I know is afraid of no man. Listen, I’d love to help, but on this, I can’t.” Malik put on his hat and walked to the kitchen door.
“Malik, he’s not afraid. He’s terrified.”
Malik held the doorknob; he looked down, and then he turned his head, looking at a desperate Anna-Maria as her tears poured down.
“Whatever we find in the basement must never see daylight if it’s as bad as you think. Promise me.”
* * * * *
THE OLD man said, “It was the worst case I ever saw in all my time working with the FBI. Thirty-eight people slaughtered, nine of them children, even two infants. All the bodies tossed into a dry riverbed and then set on fire. The village was set on fire, too—miracle, really, that you survived. But from the looks of you, I see you don’t remember much, do you?”
Carlos shook his head.
“So what brings you here?”
“Something triggered a memory, one I guess I’ve been hiding from.” Carlos explained what had happened in Skull Creek, and when part of the old memory had returned. He also explained how he had located Special Agent Perez’s phone number and address thanks to some newspaper clippings.
“Not hiding, but suppressed,” Perez said. “People, especially children, have that ability whenever they’ve lived through something traumatic. It’s quite normal, you know. You were only five years old, and the only witness to a horrible crime. To top it off you were an American citizen, which is why my partner Harvey Cole and I were assigned the job. If I remember correctly, your father was born American and your mother was a legal immigrant from Mexico.” Anthony Perez smiled dryly. “If I may ask, what triggered your memory after all these years?”
Carlos looked at the ground. “At first, I thought I saw something, and it reminded me of something I couldn’t put my finger on. But that was just a bear, I think. No, what really made me remember was…”
“The smell?”
Carlos looked up abruptly. There had been nothing mentioned about that horrible, bestial smell in any of the newspaper clippings, or anywhere in the few documents he had found. Perez nodded. “We kept that information to ourselves, and as a law enforcement officer yourself, I don’t have to explain why.”
“Yeah, I know. To keep the idiots out and away from the investigation.”
“Yes. Anyway, you were a young child, and the entire case became strictly classified, because drug cartels don’t care about the age of a witness. Your testimony made no sense to anyone, and when we went to the site of the former village we found nothing there.”
“Nothing?”
“Not at the village. But you see, Carlos, I had a great partner—you know, the old-fashioned kind who never left any loose ends. He always went with what he had, and he eventually became a legend in the FBI. He was my friend and mentor for many years. Anyway, Harvey and I went back and this time he brought a tracker, a Mexican Apache woman, with us.”
He motioned his head towards Penelope.
“Yep, she looks a lot younger than I, don’t she? But we’re the same age, and you did meet her once in the hospital.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Not surprised.” Both looked at Penelope while she was setting a table with a pot of coffee, lemonade, cups, glasses and some homemade cinnamon buns. Steam and fragrance from the fresh-baked buns filled the air. She turned to them and said, “Well, gentlemen, let’s eat.”
The three of them sat down, and the two young girls rode up and tied their horses to a fence nearby. The instructor was in the far distance, riding another horse.
“Meet our grandkids, Trouble and More Trouble,” Perez said.
“Come on, Grandpa, we’re your little angels, and you know it!” the older girl said.
The old man almost spit his coffee out.
“’Angels ain’t the word I would use to describe you, considering what you guys did at school recently.”
“Yeah, well, stupid teachers anyway.”
“The one with the mouth is Trudy, and the other one is Trish. Both in high school, and whenever they get in trouble, our son and his wife sends them to us to do chores around the farm. Not entirely a successful enterprise when it comes to punishment, I think.”
“Oh, you love it, old man.”
“See? The younger one…it mouths off, too. Girls, this is Sheriff Carlos from up north.” Perez emphasized the word “sheriff.”
All of them enjoyed the afternoon snack. Once they finished. the girls kissed their grandparents goodbye and then hurried back to the horses, laughing aloud.
“I think they get themselves into trouble just so they can have their parents drive fifty miles and drop them off here,” Penelope said.
“Point taken, my beautiful wife, and we must never tell our son that.”
There was an eerie silence but for the laughter from the girls riding back and forth in the distance.
“Why don’t you tell Carlos what you found that day fifty years ago, my dear tracker.”
Penelope smiled at his taunt and said, while looking at Carlos, “I will never forget that day, young man. We started tracking in circles around the village, and eventually we found an old truck that had broken down, and some tracks leading north from it. There were three of them, two adults and a child; of course, there was nothing indicating that they were the criminals, but it was all we had, and it seemed that they’d come from the village a couple miles away. The truck had been hidden near some trees and covered with brush. If they hadn’t covered it, I guess we wouldn’t have thought much about it. Cars and trucks break down in the desert all the time.”
Anthony poured some lemonade into three glasses, and all of them drank deeply to combat the region’s dry heat.
Anthony continued where his wife had stopped. “Eventually we reached the river, and all the tracks were gone. For two days, we followed the river bank on both sides, but found nothing.
“Dear husband, you forgot the most important thing we found.”
“Oh yes. Sorry, it’s been a long time, so why don’t you fill in the blanks.”
“I found some hair on a tree next to a fresh engraving on a border post. It was a strange word…let me think. Croatoan, I think it was, but I don’t know what it means. Harvey, however, did find out that there has been a native tribe back east that was called that, didn’t make much sense though. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but I remember a foul smell. Harvey Cole, being very meticulous, immediately bagged the hair, because he remembered that you had mentioned something about a really bad-smelling monster.”
“Now let me continue. I’m sure Carlos is in a hurry.”
“I’m fine. Just needed to fill in the blanks, but no, I don’t want to impose on you guys for too long.”
Anthony only waved his hand in the air. “No imposition. Anyway, Harvey took some of the samples and sent them to D.C. Back then, we didn’t have all these high-tech gizmos like they do now, but a few months later when the case was more or less cold, unfortunately, we got the results back…unfortunately, I say, because our boss made us stop the investigation.”
“What happened?”
“Well, C
arlos, turned out the hair came from a lion, of all things. The African kind, Panthera leo. That pretty much shut us down, to my partner’s despair. Personally, I had just met this beautiful senorita, and my mind wasn’t really where it ought to have been. Years went by, and here we are.”
Penelope and Anthony smiled at each other.
“No, there is one thing more, my love,” she said. “You forgot about the box from Harvey Cole, the one his executor sent you.”
“Oh yes, the box! As you know, Carlos, many of us in law enforcement never stop investigating the cold cases, not even after retirement. I got this box almost twenty years ago, and I only looked in it once, and guess what case is in the box? Yours, Carlos. I never had any interest in it like my partner must have had. But even as the years went by and we were assigned to different locations, we always kept in contact. Through all that time, he never mentioned that he was still investigated this old case, except for one instance. In the ‘60s and ‘70s there were reports of a so-called “skunk ape-man” in Florida, and the description fit your monster. I know Harvey went down there a few times, it’s all in his notes; but he found nothing. Later on, back in the mid-nineties when my wife and I were on vacation in Florida, cruising the West Coast and the Everglades, we used to listen to a morning show from Tampa, and they did mention something about the “skunk ape” and interviewed some idiot in the Everglades who claimed to be an expert on the subject.”
The Lumberjack Page 21
