The Thirteenth Skull

by Bonnie Ramthun

  But fall in love with him she did, and now they were four months away from their wedding day. And in the past six months Joe had developed a new method for fighting terrorist attacks in gaming, a new way of organizing what was essentially a game board. He was inspired by Eileen Reed, he knew, fed by her intelligence and her own passion for solving problems. They were two sides of a coin, one who liked to solve massive battles and another who solved individual ones.

  The reaction to his new programming was gratifying, he thought glumly as he crouched against the side of a crushed minivan and started to shiver in the cold night air. They’d played six war games in the past three months with his new concept and more and more high-level officers showed up. The Gamers counted the importance of the game on the number of stars on the shoulders of the men and women who played. At Joe’s game last week there were twenty-six stars, a record. Someone among all those stars wasn’t playing for the home team. Joe wiped at his forehead and winced. Someone now wanted him dead.

  Three cars from the minivan he spotted the T-man’s house. It was a doublewide trailer with a white picket fence and it had a lawn and a flower garden. Joe could smell roses in the darkness. Beyond the trailer he could see a vegetable garden with a patch of corn that looked tall and glossy. The T-man liked to garden.

  Outdoor lights suddenly clicked on, bathing the front of the trailer with a brilliant white light. Joe saw a flicker by the dark back door, where the corn grew. He took a shivery breath, wondering what to do.

  The choice was taken out of his hands. There was a meaty hand placed on his shoulder and a cold, thin blade touched his throat. Joe stopped breathing, his belly freezing into ice. He thought of Sully and wondered if she was finished fighting the dragon thing yet. Maybe she could come meet him when the killers finished the job.

  “What’s going on, kid?” The voice, even at a whisper, was familiar, warm and deep. A Santa Claus voice. It was the T-man.

  “Somebody’s trying to kill me,” Joe whispered, trying not to pass out. There were black blots falling in front of his vision, like giant snowflakes. “Accident. They came back to finish me off.”

  “You’re friends with ’Berto Espinoza, right?” The whisper came again. The knife blade disappeared from Joe’s throat without fanfare. The huge hand stayed on his shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Joe whispered. He swallowed past an incredibly large ball of dry in his throat. “Help me. They’re in your junkyard.”

  “Back in the salvage area,” The T-man said calmly. Joe creakily turned his head. The T-man crouched against the same minivan Joe was leaning against, less than a foot away. He was wearing black baggy pants and a soft black jacket. A watch cap covered his head. He wore a black piece of cloth over his mouth and nose, like a cowboy bandana. Under the jacket Joe could see the edge of a striped pajama jacket. The T-man’s feet were bare. His feet were enormous, with long toes that gripped the ground like a monkey. He smelled like old beer and old pot and interrupted sleep. He carried a wireless computer screen in one hand and he positioned it so Joe could see.

  The screen was split into six views, all of the junkyard, all crisp black-and-white. In the salvage area where Joe and ’Berto liked to rummage for parts there were two men, one gigantic and the other plank-like, walking silently in the rows with small black guns held at the ready. The Fat man must have cut the gate chain to get in, and that had alerted the T-man.

  “Why do they want you dead?” The T-man asked. Joe couldn’t see the top part of his face in the darkness. Had he blacked it out, somehow? And what was he, to be woken in the middle of the night and look like that?

  “Sully told me they kill people like me,” Joe said. He felt confused. Had he told the T-man about Sully yet? “I figured out something useful and now they want to kill me. I work out at Schriever—”

  “Say no more,” The T-man said with a brisk nod of his not-there face. “I know about Schriever Air Force Base. Don’t really want to know what goes on out there.” He produced a small object from his pocket and pressed a button. It was a cell phone, Joe realized with relief. The T-man must have modified his phone; it showed no light and made no sound.

  “Hi, Marie, it’s Todd Whitemore. I’ve got some intruders here at the salvage yard and they look armed to me. Can’t tell. Send some of your big boys, right. Send an ambulance, too, we’ve got a vehicular out here.”

  Todd Whitemore powered off the phone and turned to Joe with a flash of teeth.

  “The posse will be here in ten, maybe eleven minutes. Let’s see if your boys are equipped.”

  “Equipped with what?” Joe asked.

  “Police band radio,” Todd said briefly. He looked at the computer screen and nodded. “There they go.”

  On the screen Joe could see Fat man and the Plank man conferring urgently. They made their guns disappear and headed rapidly for the now open gates of the junkyard. They were gone before Joe heard sirens.

  “Damn,” Joe said.

  “You need to get to a hospital,” Todd said. Joe watched as the big man took off his watch cap and bandana and pulled his black jacket over his head. He rubbed his face against the soft black material of his jacket. His hair and beard were snow white and tousled and his face, free of the blacking, looked round in the dim light. His pajama jacket was wildly striped. Todd stood up and stripped off his black pants, revealing pajama bottoms as loudly striped as his top. He balled up his black clothing and cap and grinned at Joe.

  “You look completely different,” Joe said stupidly. Todd had gone from dangerous commando to rumpled homeowner in pajamas in about five seconds.

  “That’s the idea,” Todd said. “Come on inside, when the cops get here they’re going to want a statement. Is your friend Sully somewhere around?”

  “She’s dead,” Joe said.

  “In the car? Are you sure?” Todd said sharply.

  “She’s dead a long time ago,” Joe said, and rubbed at his forehead.

  Todd regarded Joe for a moment.

  “Let’s get you inside,” he said finally. “You’ve got a hell of a bump on the head. Looks like a cut on your arm too.”

  “I better not tell them about Sully,” Joe said as Todd helped him to his feet. The ground seemed too far away, as though he was wearing stilts.

  “This way. What’s your name?”

  “Joe Tanner,” Joe said. Todd nodded as though he knew the name.

  “Best to keep her to yourself,” Todd said. “The police don’t take kindly to apparitions.”

  The brightness of the man’s porch light was overwhelming. Joe realized he’d forgotten the T-man’s name again. There were bright flickering lights, silent now, approaching the junkyard entrance. The T-man opened his front door and hauled Joe into a warm dark kitchen. Tiny blue gas jets lit a stove and the air smelled pleasantly of sweet baking; apple pie, maybe, or cobbler.

  “Hang on, I’ll be right back,” the T-man said, settling Joe into a kitchen chair. He disappeared down the hall with his commando outfit and his computer in hand. He returned a few seconds later, striped pajamas glimmering in the dark, and flicked on the kitchen lights. Joe hissed and covered his eyes. The light felt like knives.

  “Concussion, man,” the T-man said. “You’re going to have to spend the night at the hospital.”

  “They’ll kill me there,” Joe said into his cupped hands. “I have to get to Eileen. That’s what Sully said. I have to get to Eileen.”

  “You’ll die if you have a bleed in your skull and you’re not at the hospital,” the T-man said. Joe lowered his hands and squinted at the man. In the warm glow of the kitchen lights and with his tattoos covered by his pajamas he looked astonishingly like Santa Claus. Santa in his summer striped p.j.s. “On the other hand, once they give you a scan and you’re clear you can get out. I’ve left AMA a few times in my checkered career. That would be Against Medical Advice, and docs don’t take kindly to it.”

  “Who are you?” Joe asked in bewilderment.

  “Just
a junk man,” the T-man said, and winked. Bright revolving lights lit his face and he turned to the door. “But I think those men meant business. They looked like professionals to me. Is your Eileen out of town?”

  “Yeah,” Joe said, “she’s in—”

  “Stop,” The T-man said, holding up his hand. “I don’t want to know where she is. Just in case someone comes around asking questions.”

  There was a brief double-knock at the door and the T-man turned.

  “Come on in, Shelly,” he said with a grin. “Nice to see you again.”

  Shelly Hetrick stepped into the kitchen. She was tall and dark and almost as enormous as the T-man. Her hair was in a complex series of braids and her eyes widened as her eyes met Joe’s.

  “Joe Tanner,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  Joe gave her a weak grin. He knew Shelly. He was beginning to know all the cops in town. One of the advantages to marrying a cop was finding out the people behind all the uniforms and badges. One of the disadvantages was getting a speeding ticket from someone who worked with your future wife.

  “I’m doing okay,” he said. “I was run off the road. And then they tried to come after me.”

  “He’s concussed, but he’s right,” the T-man said calmly. “Someone cut my front gate chain and two men were looking in the yard for him. They had guns. They took off right after I called you.”

  Shelly Hetrick stepped aside to allow the ambulance crew in, two competent looking young paramedics. She frowned and hooked her thumbs in her leather belt.

  “You look like hell, Joe,” she said finally. “Let’s get you to the hospital. I’ll get a statement from Todd and then I’ll come right over to the ER.”

  Joe looked at Todd who nodded slightly, his face showing nothing. Joe had no intention of being there when Shelly Hetrick came by. He had a strong feeling if he stayed at the hospital more than a few hours no one would be taking a statement from him, ever.

  Chapter Four

  The Reed Ranch, Wyoming

  Tracy Reed was long gone to bed, after getting a warm kiss and hug from Eileen and warm hug and kiss from her husband. She would be up before dawn baking biscuits and bread and then feeding chickens and horses. By the time Eileen and Lucy would arrive in the kitchen she would have a mountain of dirty dishes for them. Lucy had gone to bed when Tracy did, Hank’s small head soundly asleep on her shoulder.

  Then it was just Eileen and the guys. Her mother had filled her in on the stories of these men, and although none of them looked like a murderer, any of them could be one. Eileen passed on the cigars but she accepted a small glass of whisky. She made the drink last all evening, taking small sips now and again. She smiled. She observed.

  Howard Magnus didn’t look much like a rock star. He was small, for one, and his graying curly hair was neatly clipped in a ponytail at the back of his head instead of forming a wild mane around his face as it did in the pictures Eileen had seen of him. There were wrinkles around his eyes and mouth and his hands looked weathered and knobby. Howie had more money than Eileen could really comprehend, but he didn’t look like a multi-millionaire, a killer guitar player and a successful music producer. He looked like somebody’s nice grandfather. Except for the eyes. His eyes were blazing sapphire blue, a perennial wild eighteen. Eileen liked him.

  Howard Magnus didn’t pack his bags and leave when Tracy Reed told him about Dr. McBride’s death. He didn’t much care for the archeologists but he did care, very much, about hunting. He’d seen dead bodies before, he assured Tracy and Paul. Rock music was a fatality-inducing industry and he wasn’t the running-away type, never had been. Howie drank and smoked until his wild blue eyes were bloodshot. His hair started to escape his ponytail and formed a fuzzy mane around his head.

  Jimmy Arnold smoked a cigar and made his whisky last as long as Eileen did. He seemed to enjoy himself but there was a reserve about him that caught her interest. He never really joined in. Jimmy, part of Howie’s entourage, was his brother-in-law. He was tall and dark-skinned, bald, and had muscles that bunched visibly underneath his white shirt whenever he moved.

  Mark Plutt, another Howie friend, seemed to be an uncomplicated, happy computer businessman. Eileen’s mother told her that Mark owned a software company that sold millions of games every year. He looked like a computer geek, from his skinny body to his black-framed glasses. He had a sweet, youthful smile and a shock of light brown hair. Howie had searched him out when Mark’s company developed and sold a tremendously successful video game in which deer hunted down the hunters. Howie, a world-renowned hunter, was both offended and tickled by the game where beer-guzzling deer in Day-Glo orange vests tracked down hapless fat hunters. Mark and Howie hit it off and Mark had been convinced to come along on Howie’s scouting expedition to the Reed Ranch. This was their first trip together. He wasn’t a hunter but he liked to hike, he’d said, and scouting for elk and deer sounded like fun. Since the scouting was out-of-season there would be no hunting, just picture-taking.

  He drank wine, not whisky, and knocked off most of a bottle by himself. He shared stories and he, like Jimmy and Howie, told them well.

  Nolan Simmons, the last member of Howie’s group, was a comedian. He was in his twenties, pudgy, with rosy red cheeks, brown eyes and hair, and an infectious, lopsided smile. Nolan was the son of some famous producer or another, Tracy told Eileen, born to so much money he never had to do a day’s work in his life. He spent most of the year touring on second-rate comedy circuits, trying to break into the Big Time with his stand-up routine. Every once in a while he would tire of whacking cockroaches and eating diner food and he’d take a vacation with his father’s money. One of his father’s oldest friends was Howie.

  Eileen would have expected him to dominate the conversation with his funny anecdotes and stories, but he only interjected an occasional joke. Howie chose his companions well, Eileen thought, not a jerk in the whole bunch.

  One of them might be a murderer.

  “Time for me to walk down to check on the women at the jump camp,” Paul said. He looked tired, and Eileen remembered he’d spent the day on horseback scaring up deer and elk to show off to his clients. Spending the day on a horse in the back country was heaven, but tiring heaven.

  “I’ll go with you, Dad,” Eileen offered. Jorie and the other woman, anthropologist Dr. Beryl Penrose, had refused to stay at the ranch house and had returned to the buffalo jump site. Eileen, who hadn’t shared her discovery that Dr. McBride was probably attacked at the jump site, had tried hard to get Jorie and Beryl to stay at the house. They were immovable.

  “I’ll get your jacket,” Paul said to her. The family room smelled of cigar smoke and whisky and horse-sweaty men. Before she’d gone to bed Tracy had turned on the ceiling fan and opened the French doors to the night, which removed the worst of the cigar smoke. Howie and his friends had the vacation attitude; they were ready to drink and smoke and talk all night long.

  “After riding a horse today you’ll feel like you’ve been dipped in cement, tomorrow, Mark,” Howie said, drinking down the last of his whisky. “Good thing Mr. Reed has a nice spa out on the back deck.”

  “The new bunkhouse will have three hot tubs,” Paul said, holding Eileen’s jacket for her. The night was beautiful and clear but cool. Paul shrugged into his own jacket. “Don’t stay up too late, gentlemen, I’d like to show you around Devils Tower tomorrow. By truck, don’t worry, Mark. We’ll give you a day to get your hind end working again.”

  “Good night,” Eileen called, and a half-drunken chorus followed her out the door. Paul closed the French door and whistled softly for Zilla. Zilla appeared instantly, tail wagging. Eileen looked up in the sky and was dizzied by the number of stars. Down in Colorado Springs, where she lived, the night-lights of the city cut out most of the stars. Here at the ranch there was nothing in the way and the stars packed the sky.

  “Beautiful night,” Paul said.

  “Yeah.”

  They started down the pa
th to the buffalo jump, shoulders bumping and Zilla trotting silently at their heels.

  “Do you think one of the hunters killed him?” Paul asked.

  “I’d hate to think it was,” Eileen said. “In order to know who, I need to know why. And I need to know how. The entry wound looked strange to me, not like a typical knife wound. The sheriff took the body, and I don’t know if he’ll share autopsy information with me.”

  “He will, Eileen, give him a little bit of time,” Paul said with a smile in his voice. “He’s never really gotten over you, you know. He’s a good man. He’s just got to come to terms with you. He tried so hard to date you after you broke up with Owen, and you never looked twice at him. It was hard on him, but it was a long time ago. He’ll come around.”

  “I wish I had your confidence,” Eileen said. She’d never told her father about what Richard had tried to do the night of her high school senior prom. There were rumors that came back to her parents, eventually, about Richard trying to kiss her at the park and then falling into the pond when she shoved him back.

  There was more than that to the story, though, which she hadn’t shared with her Dad. Richard had been terribly drunk, more than most of the mildly tipsy crowd that was partying at the lake. He’d come up to her that night and talked to her as she stood with her friends. Most of the prom goers were at the lake, leaning against the rows of parked cars and drinking or smoking or talking. She hadn’t encouraged him, in fact she was as distant as she could be, but somehow the dark and the late hour and the lines of her pretty prom dress made his drunken mind think she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.