by Jessie Cox
“Oh my god!” and the sound of retching. Startled, Ted spun around, his gun clearing leather as he turned.
“Don’t shoot, you crazy bastid! It’s me,” the truck driver yelled.
“What are you doing sneaking up on me?” Ted asked as he holstered his weapon.
“I wasn’t sneakin’. I just came to tell you I am ready to go when you are,” the driver replied. “Then I saw that and puked.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. Just had other things on my mind,” Ted said. “You can go.”
“Not only lost my breakfast, but I think I beshat myself. Now I gotta ride back in it! Christ up a persimmon tree,” the driver muttered as he turned to go.
Ted smothered a hysterical laugh as he watched the driver walking straddle legged back to the tow truck, but the laugh died in his throat as he turned to continue taking pictures of the corpse.
The CSI Team van pulled in behind Ted’s patrol car just as the tow truck was pulling out. Matt Rainwater and his partner Mac Simms, dressed in white coveralls, got out. Mac went to get equipment from the back of the van, while Matt walked over to Ted.
“Hiya, Inspector,” the man said. “Whatcha got?”
Ted looked at the man he thought most likely to resemble an Indian version of Howdy Doody. All he needed was red hair, but Ted also knew that beneath the cutie boy looks was the razor sharp mind of a highly trained professional.
“I’m not sure, Matt,” Ted replied. “I have a body, but the buzzards have made a mess of it.”
Matt pulled a high resolution digital camera from an oversized pocket.
“You’ve taken pictures already?” he asked Ted.
“Yes,” Ted replied, handing over the disposable. “I know that you will take pictures too, but figured we couldn’t have too many.”
“Yeah. Appreciate it,” Matt said, slipping the disposable into his pocket. “You may as well wait in the shade until we finish up here. No need for us all to get sweaty.”
Ted and Mac greeted each other as Mac walked by carrying a portable lab case in each hand.
Once seated on a large tree root in the shade, Ted watched as the men worked. Then getting up, he studied the abandoned house. The first floor was made of natural stone, but the two upper floors were of wood, and he suspected they had been added on years after the first floor was complete. Thinking to take a closer look he started toward the house, but just then the Coroner’s station wagon pulled onto the driveway and worked its way to where the other vehicles were parked. Once stopped, Sam Hall, the County Medical Examiner, and his two assistants, emerged. Sam was a slightly smaller man, about the same height as Ted, but at 50 + years old his hair was snow white, his face wrinkled, and a pot belly hung over his belt. He also had a taste for the most noxious cigars that money could buy. Puffing on one as he got out of the car, he walked toward Ted. His two assistants were left behind unnoticed as they coughed and gagged trying to get a breath of fresh air. Puffing as he walked, he reminded Ted of an old wood-burning steam locomotive chugging down a track.
“I see that we are a bit early,” Sam said as he approached, indicating the CSI team in the field with his cigar. “You think this is a homicide case?”
Ted paused, then said, “I don’t know if it’s homicide. After the way the buzzards mangled the body, it will be your decision if it is or not. However, if the body is who I think it is, there is a crime involved.”
“Who do you think it might be?” Sam asked, taking another puff on his cigar.
“Luke Barrens,” replied Ted. “A small time car thief whose luck ran out. The CSI Team will run his prints and we’ll know for sure.”
Chapter 4
After a breakfast of ham and eggs, with a side of biscuit and gravy, at the cafe that Maggie had opened after Pearl was killed and her heirs had closed her business, putting the building up for sale, Ray drove leisurely home. Home had been his dilapidated mobile, but that, along with his bride-to-be, Pearl, Sara Littlefeather and half the Council of Beloved Women had been blown to pieces by a wedding gift sent by a Tulsa drug dealer and pimp called Rebel Raggs. Now home was nowhere, though he slept in a new brick house supplied by the tribe. Not wanting to face the emptiness of the dwelling just yet, he pulled into the parking lot of a mom and pop convenience store that was almost a mile from his house. Barbara, who owned the store with her dad, Frank, was behind the counter.
“Hi Ray”, she greeted him. “Just getting off shift?”
“Yeah,” replied Ray. “These graveyards are a bear until you get used to them.”
“Grab one of those small bottles of milk,” Barb said. “It will help you sleep.”
Ray went to the cooler and got the milk, along with some eggs. Coming back to the meat counter he said, “I need a pound of that good bacon, a pound of bologna and a pound of cheddar.” While Barb was slicing and weighing his order, Ray added a loaf of bread to his purchases. Looking up, he saw a white dry eraser board. Written on it the Word for the Day was “Sow”. Knowing that Barb’s entire family was regular church going folks, Ray couldn’t figure out in what context the word was meant.
“What does a female pig have to do with The Word of the Day?” he asked, as Barb set the white-wrapped packages in front of him. Barb looked puzzled, then turned to read the sign.
“That’s ‘sow’. Like ‘as you sow, so shall you reap,’” she explained.
“Oh,” Ray said with a grin as he paid. Taking his packages he started for the door. “I bet most of the folks that come in here think you are talking about a pig.”
Once home, Ray put away his purchases and was about to drink the milk when he noticed the message light on his phone blinking. Hitting the play button he listened to the first one and immediately called Dispatch. After a short conversation, he hung up, put the milk in the refrigerator and downed two cold cups of yesterday’s strong black coffee before getting back in his truck to make the drive to the crime scene.
As he turned onto the drive that bordered the field on one side he saw Ted and Sam talking in the shade. Slowing, he pulled to the right and waved, as he recognized Matt and Mac coming toward him in the State van. They both waved as they passed. Ray pulled back onto the road and saw Sam’s assistants drive closer to the corpse, then unload and unfold the wheeled stretcher from the back of the station wagon. Ray parked alongside Ted’s car and, getting out of his truck, paused to watch the two assistants push and tug the stretcher across the uneven ground.
“Hello, Ray. I think we found our fleeing car thief,” Ted said as Ray approached.
“Inspector. Sam,” Ray returned the greeting.
Ray turned and watched as the assistants placed the body in a body bag, then put it on the stretcher and begin the twenty or so feet to the vehicle.
“He wasn’t there last night when I looked,” Ray said. “I’d have seen him if he was.” Then turning to Ted, he asked. “Any idea about the cause of death?”
“Not after what the buzzards did to him,” Ted replied.
“Looks like it’s my turn to work now,” Sam said as he walked to the wagon. “I’ll have something either this evening or tomorrow.”
Ted and Ray watched as Sam joined his two assistants in the station wagon. As it drove away Ted turned to Ray.
“I know that you’ve had no sleep so you are welcome to go home if you’d like, but I want to check the house. You are welcome to come along.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ray replied. “But wait here a minute and I’ll be right back.”
Going to his pickup, Ray took his spare off-duty gun from the holster beneath the seat. Returning to where Ted stood, Ray said, “Let’s go.”
“What kind of a hand cannon do you have there?” Ted asked.
Ray removed the weapon from his hip pocket and unloaded it as he passed it to Ted.
“It’s the Taurus, ‘The Judge, Public Defender’. Chambered for the .45 Colt, it also accepts 2.5 inch .410 shells,” Ray replied. “I load it with shot shells. The first is a #4 bird
shot for snakes, but the next four are .000 buckshot, for snakes of the two legged kind.”
“That is some weapon,” Ted said as he handed the gun back. “Too bad we can’t carry those on duty.”
“There wouldn’t be much chance of just wounding someone with it,” Ray said. “Each of the shotgun shells has three thirty caliber balls in it. That would be similar to shooting someone three times with that nine millimeter you carry.”
“So not only hard to hang onto with those compact grips, but messy as well,” Ted replied.
Reaching the house they agreed that Ray would look around inside while Ted searched the grounds.
Ted was mindful of his dress slacks as he tried to navigate the thorn bushes and debris that surrounded the house.
Inside the house, Ray brushed cobwebs out of his way. He noticed a bum’s bed that was made up of old ragged clothing and scrap cardboard. A few old, dust-covered wine bottles lay scattered about on the filthy floor along with a couple of faded photographs that were curled and frayed. Picking them up, he saw an attractive young woman in 1950’s clothing smiling at him in black and white. The other showed the same woman arm in arm with a man of the same age, in a military uniform.
“Who were you?” Ray wondered. “How did you get here and why were you left behind?”
Ray looked at the photographs of someone’s happier times again before blowing the dust from a wall-mounted shelf and setting the pictures gently on it. Turning, he thought he saw a movement in the shadows. That was when Ted called him from the side of the house. “Probably a rat,” Ray thought as he hurried back outside.
Chapter 5
Amos was tired. His legs ached and his back hurt from riding the mower all day, but this was his secret. He would not let the “Yoneg”, the white men, see him in pain. They might make fun of him behind his back or worse yet, insult him with their pity. Even the Yoneg men were like old women who whispered to each other behind their hands and considered the red race inferior. Straight as a seasoned oak plank, Amos punched his time card and began the six mile trek home.
As he walked he chided himself. Not all whites were bad, he decided. Maggie at the cafe bought the catfish he caught and always gave him a ‘tip’ of a free meal when he delivered them cleaned, filleted and ready for the skillet. Ted Watts always greeted him with respect for an elder and Sam Hall greeted him as a fellow senior; always joking about them going out and chasing women. As if they were still spry fifty-year-olds. Women! That would be a better subject to think about than the pain that ravaged his body. It would make the remaining five miles home be like the slow moving, relentless river that flowed to the joining place of the mighty Arkansas.
Tammy Redwing came to mind. That was one wild woman! He had met her at a women’s roller derby, and the way she knocked those white women skaters to the rink still amazed him to remember. She made the best fry bread he had ever tasted. It all ended when she got that offer from the big league in New York. It was good money and he didn’t blame her for going, but durn, he missed that fry bread. So engrossed in his memories, he didn’t notice the car that slowed, pacing him as he walked down the sidewalk.
“Hey, Amos! Where are you going?” Sam Hall asked.
Amos, hating to stop, not knowing if he could get going again if he did, paused and turned to the car.
“Good evening Doctor Hall,” he said. “I’m going home.”
“Well, get in,” Sam said. I’ll take you home and I need to talk to you.”
Amos hesitated for a moment, but seeing no pity in Sam’s eyes, got into the car. Once seated and the door closed, Sam pulled away from the curb.
“I was just on my way out to your place,” Sam said. “I have a strange case and think I may need some Native wisdom.”
Amos was puzzled. He had heard of no deaths amongst “The People”, so what knowledge would he have that would help a County Coroner?
“There are two cold drinks in the bag on the rear seat,” Sam said. “Help yourself.”
Then, noticing the look that Amos gave him, said, “You and I are brothers of the same weakness. The drinks I speak of are only bottles of cold tea.”
Amos breathed a sigh of relief. Too many years had been wasted to whiskey, until he believed that he could not live without it. It had taken his brother Grayson and the followers of “The Way” a lot of effort to convince him that whiskey was not the Giver of Life, but only a thief’s poison that stole his dignity and made him forsake his honor.
Amos reached into the backseat and brought the bag to the front. The plastic bag dripped condensation from the cold bottles within. Uncapping one, Amos handed it to Sam, before uncapping his and taking a long, deep drink. The cold liquid washed the day’s dust from his throat and refreshed him more than he had thought possible.
“My thanks to you, Doctor,” Amos said.
“Call me Sam,” Sam said. “I hear ‘Doctor’ all day.”
The two men rode in a comfortable silence and soon were at the neat brick home with trimmed lawns that the tribe had provided for Amos.
Once seated on the porch, Sam began.
“My reason for seeking you out is because I have a strange homicide. The cadaver has a crushed skull due to trauma from being hit on the head with a rock, but that did not instantly kill him. Though after death the buzzards fed on his remains, I have discovered a puncture wound with bruising around it. Almost like an intense hickey on his chest. I have no clue as to how something like that could happen and wondered if you ever knew of something like this happening before?”
Amos was silent so long that Sam thought he wasn’t going to answer.
“U’tiun’ta”, Amos whispered as a chill ran down his spine.
“What’s that you say?” Sam asked. “I don’t think I heard you.”
“U’tiun’ta is known to both the Cherokee and the Creek peoples,” Amos said, pausing a moment to gather his thoughts. “U’tiun’ta is what the whites would call a demon. A shape shifter, whose natural appearance is that of an old woman. Her forefinger is made of hard bone, the tip of it shaped like a spearhead. She uses it to puncture her victim’s chest, then drinks his blood until he is dead. It is said that her skin is so tough that no weapon may penetrate it. This is a very bad omen.”
Sam sat back in the chair, processing what he had been told.” A shape shifter who drinks blood,” he thought. “Kinda’ like Bela Lugosi in breechcloth and feathers. Swell.”
“Is there any way to kill this thing, if it really exists?” he asked Amos.
“The legends say the only way to kill U’tiun’ta is to shoot an arrow into her eye in order to reach her brain,” Amos replied.
“Okay. Thanks Amos,” Sam said, as he stood up to leave. “If you think of anything else, let either Ray, Ted Watts or me know.”
“I will,” promised Amos.
Sam was halfway to his car, when Amos spoke again.
“Sam,” Amos said. “If this is U’tuin’ta, it is a great evil of the Creek and Cherokee. Do you not think it would be better if we dealt with it?”
“If it was up to me, I’d say yes,” Sam replied. “But there is a corpse in my morgue whose death must be accounted for.”
Each nodded his farewell and Sam got in his car and left.
Tired. So weary that he wanted nothing more than to sleep, Amos went inside and made a phone call to his brother Grayson.
Grayson answered on the second ring and Amos said, “U’tuint’ta has returned.” then without another word, Amos hung up.
Chapter 6
It waited in the dark recesses of the old house for night to fall. Disturbed from its slumber, it had watched as the large ugly man poked at the old bum’s bed. It had silently hissed in anger when he had dared pick up the pictures it so carelessly left on the floor. It knew that the pictures were a weakness. A dangerous link to the past of what it had been before the change, but the tiny spark of humanity that still lived within it would not allow it to throw them away.
T
he rage heightened its senses and it could hear the man’s heartbeat and could smell the fear upon him. It wanted to attack so badly, to feed on his fear when the bone hard forefinger pierced his chest and the sweet heart blood would satisfy its hunger, for a little while, at least.
But then someone had called from outside and the man was gone.
Ray found Ted standing by the corner of the house. Walking up to him, Ray asked, “Did you call me?”
