How the West Was Weird, Vol. 2

by Barry Reese

  “We are doing what we can Seth. Help has just arrived and the Constable and I will ride out and look for sign of your partner. In the meantime I advise you to stay near the post until we can find and kill these rogue animals.”

  “They're not animals,” said Seth. “I've been trapping up here for twenty years and I've never seen the like. There's evil out there and by gar if you do nothing to put a stop to it then I will. Jim Bailey was supposed to meet me two days back to bring in the winter lines and all I found was blood and tracks the like of which I've never seen before. And this.” He lifted a leather food bag onto the table and opened it for all to see. It was a human foot, and it had been severed.

  Constable Jones recoiled from the sight and even Seth seemed taken back at what he had revealed.

  “Clearly he was a victim of one of his own traps,” said Jones.

  “I fear not,” I said. “If I may.” I picked it up and exa-mined the cut. “This is not a trap accident. The cut is too clean. This has been cut by something sharp, like a scythe.” I looked up to see that the fair-skinned man had left and through the window I could see Melmoth grab him by the arm and say something. Whatever it was did not seem well-received because the man shrugged himself free and headed out of the settlement.

  “A scythe you say,” said Seth. “There's no scythe in the world sharp enough to take off a man's foot. And even if there was, where's the rest of him?” With that he walked out, leaving what was left of his friend on the table.

  I signed in and stowed my gear. Jones watched me and said, “Will you ride with me, Constable Fraser? I have things to show you.”

  “Gladly,” I said.

  We saddled up and rode southwest – out of the post. I wanted to have a look around as I always believed that understanding the lay of the land helped in understanding the people on it. So many decisions men make are defined by where they are in the world. Pathways follow the line of least resistance; people build near water or in places that have good arable land and wood, animals and men hunt where there is prey.

  The immediate area around the post had been denuded of trees, used no doubt to fuel the barge that ran on to Fort Chipewyan. It was strange to see the land so bare, the only trees those down in the wash by the creeks, which were harder to cut down and therefore ignored by loggers paid by volume of work.

  “We're safe from attack here,” said Jones, pointing to the hills, as if he were living in the pre-treaty west and we were due for an onslaught at any moment. “The clearing of the trees gives us a clear line of fire and I have a spotter out all the time, in case they come.”

  “Do you know what it is that's coming?” I said.

  “Darned if I do and I am near mad with waiting for it. We've not been able to do much through the winter months. I've been meaning to ride out and see what I can, but if you will shoulder that responsibility I'd be glad of it.”

  “I will. I've done some tracking”

  Jones was silent for a moment. “This has me wearied, Fraser. I'm not a fearsome man but at least give me some-thing I can understand. This, whatever this is, is beyond my ken. When I reported the first incident over a year ago I think that Edmonton thought I had gone mad.”

  “A year ago?”

  “You seem surprised. It takes a while for political wheels to turn. Now you're here and I hope you can solve what is going on. There are nineteen people missing...”

  I reined in, so shocked was I. “Constable Jones, did you say nineteen?”

  “Didn't they tell you? When they said they were sending an expert up I thought they had fully briefed you.”

  Now was not the time to enlighten him on my lack of expertise, not until Melmoth and I had further words.

  “And was that the first foot that's been brought back in?”

  “No. The seventh. And they were all cut the same way.

  Four.

  Over the next two weeks I rode the land around the post, looking for sign of anything strange. Early rains combined with a late thaw had made the area marshy and muddy and apart from the place where Seth had found the foot all other sign had been obliterated. Seth's spot served only to cloud the story. There were strange tracks, it was true, larger than a bear yet lighter on the ground. For a black bear to leave tracks that size it would weigh at least five hundred pounds. Whatever had been here was about half that weight, with a sure two-footed running span of nearly eight feet and what looked like a rudimentary fifth toe opposable to the others.

  Melmoth barely stopped in long enough that first day to buy provisions. By the time Jones and I had arrived back in town, having circled the entire area, he had already headed out. On a couple of days I had cut his trail. He left little enough of it but I remembered it to recognise his short step and lightness in the foot. He seemed to be circling the post in ever increasing trails. I could find him if I had to, but I suspected he would come in when he was ready, though I dearly wished to ask him more.

  I puzzled over what manner of creature was out there. Was it a new species or an aberration? Was it indeed a peon of Satan? I was troubled about the strangeness of the prints it left. I asked around the post for any and all information. I heard plenty of theories, mostly from people who had heard from other people or had enlarged on their own fears while imbibing. The most sensible point I heard in listening to stories about packs of wild panthers the size of bears, eight foot tall mountain men covered in hair and prehistoric monsters, was from the lady who ran the store and restaurant. She brought me back to what Melmoth had said. “Clearly there is something out there with all these people going missing. You need to think of two things Constable Fraser. What is happening to the bodies, and where do they go that they can't be found?”

  There were also two other bits of information that came from Constable Jones.

  “We don't know, truly, how many are dead. Nineteen is a count of the white people. The natives may have lost twice as many, but they won't tell us. And I've been looking further into the dates these events have occurred. Given a day or two's latitude for reporting an incident or our finding out about it, they all seem to have taken place round about the full moon. Does that mean anything?”

  “I don't know,” I said. I hadn't told him about the tracks. I did now. He listened in silence and I could see he didn't like what he was hearing.

  “So what do you think, Fraser? Is this a wild dog? What kind of an animal could it be? That would explain the full moon, dogs always go a bit strange at that time of the month. But what kind of behemoth could do this?

  “I don't know. I have seen pictures of dogs trained to serve in the Alps to rescue people that can be as big as two hundred pounds. Maybe if one like that bred with a wolf...”

  Jones clutched at this like a Yukon miner down to the last tin of tack. “Yes that must be it. A giant dog or wolf. That would explain a lot.” It wouldn't, but it would keep him happy contending with something he could imagine as well as giving the locals something concrete to talk about. As a theory, it didn't explain the scythe-like cut on the ankles, or the upright posture of some of the reports, or the sheer size I had calculated from the marks I had seen. For those, I suspected I needed Melmoth.

  Most everyone was eager to talk to me especially in light of the new tale that had spread quickly from Constable Jones. All except Gevauden, the strange man I had briefly seen the first day and then only fleetingly since. He avoided me for the most part, and when I had seen him at the local gathering place or down at the dining store I always managed to miss talking to him. Jones was no help either. “Gevauden? He's always been around.”

  “Well what does he do, is he a trapper, a logger?”

  “I don't rightly know,” said Jones. “He's just, Gevauden.”

  While out riding I frequently came across more of the oily tar and I was convinced that Melmoth was right. Far from the ooze being a sign of hell it seemed that the local Miskanaw and Cree people used it to light smudges to keep the blackfly away as well as to waterproof t
heir canoes and seal their log cabins. It was not especially flammable but when mixed with kerosene could burn long and bright. Anyway it was definitely nothing more than a naturally occurring substance.

  The next day Melmoth came back to the post. He rode into town shortly after sunup, an unusual occurrence that indicated he had been travelling all night. I waited for him to clean up and refresh himself before I went looking for him but he surprised me by sending the bath house boy to fetch me.

  “I need your help,” he said. “We must leave right away. Seth is out there hunting for them and I fear the hunter will soon become the hunted.”

  “I need to ask you some questions,” I said.

  “And I will answer any and all as soon as I can. I ask only that you bring your telescope so that we may observe from afar as well as your rifle. Let us travel fast, for we have a hard day's ride ahead of us. Tell me, are you as good a shot as MacNab says?”

  “I have hunted since I was five to fill the pot. Time was if I went out with four bullets and only came back with three rabbits, my Dad would want to know why. I guess you learn to shoot real good when you're poor and hungry.”

  “Good, you'll have need of it.”

  *

  Bart called out to Erica. “Hey this bit's different.”

  “Just keep reading,” said Erica.

  “Tell me,” said Bart.

  “You need to read it,” said Erica. “If you thought that first part was strange, wait till you read the next bit.”

  *

  Five. The continuation of the testimony of Constable Robert Fraser.

  My name is Melmoth. I am a traveller. I made a promise to a young man to finish this tale and just as he kept his promise to me so too shall I to him.

  We rode out from Fort McMurray heading in an easterly direction to where the marshy lands lay. I liked Fraser, in truth I had chosen him. Although he had questions aplenty, he also had patience. I had been looking for the attributes I had once found in one other man. He was called Galeas, a parfit, gentil knyght as I told my old friend Geoff Chaucer, and damme if he didn't steal the line for his tales. Fraser was the closest I had come in a long while to such nobility and purity of spirit, and I would need such a warrior to go up against the evil I had discovered.

  Understand this, there is pure evil in this world, and I who am doomed to roam the earth until the second coming have one escape and one escape only. If I were to find and then have this evil defeated, my own sin would be atoned and I would be free to rest.

  I had recognised the presence as soon as we had arrived in Fort McMurray, and it was confirmed when Gevauden tried to sneak away unseen. “You,” I said. “I thought Antoine killed you in 1765.”

  He pulled away from me. “Jew,” he said. “Stay out of this. This is our home now.”

  “But you are killing humans again,” I said as he disap-peared away from the post. “You must be stopped. You will be stopped.”

  I had followed their trail for over a century but the sighting of the Were who now called himself Gevauden was my confirmation. They had left Europe licking their wounds and nearly decimated, down to two, and they had found solace in India, then Tibet, then across Africa before venturing onto North American soil for the first time five years back. I estimated there were eight of them by now, given their normal reproduction cycle, and if they had had the blood lust for even half that time then there were at least forty more deaths unaccounted for.

  We were five miles out before I chose to speak. “I am going to tell you things you will find hard to believe. Accept all the lesser truths for what they are, for when you see the big truth you will have no reason to disbelieve the others.”

  “I will try,” said Fraser, “and I will give you the benefit of my patience only for as long as we do not endanger anyone.”

  “Then we must ride quick for I fear that the trapper known as Seth is putting himself in harm's way, and reason would not stop him. He is a man consumed by anger and such men seldom stop and think.”

  “He wants justice for his friend,” said Fraser. “It's understandable.”

  “What he seeks,” I said harshly, “is revenge for his lover.” Fraser blanched at this and I said, “Oh grow up. Two men live together for twenty years as trappers, doing the only job that offers them the privacy to live as they choose and you think them to be just friends. MacNab was right. You are an innocent. Seth is not thinking and that is going to get him killed. Did you ever hear the saying ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’?”

  “I believe I have read it in Edmund Burke,” said Fraser.

  “He stole it from Pope. In any event, we are following a fool and with any luck we will also be the avenging angels.”

  “Then tell me what I need to understand.”

  “First, I have spent the last two weeks looking for their sign. I know you have as well but I have been tracking them for a long time and their trail is invisible to normal eyes.”

  “How long have you been hunting them?”

  “This time, about a hundred and thirty-five years. But there have been other times.”

  “I see,” he said though he clearly didn't. “And what is the nature of our prey?”

  “They are four breeding pairs called Weres. They live among us as humans, although in this case only the one called Gevauden has assimilated enough to have the self control to be in our company.”

  “Self control?” said Fraser.

  “These Weres transform at the full moon into wolf-like creatures, and over the course of the three brightest nights of that time of the month they hunt and consume their prey. And I mean consume their prey. The reason why there is no evidence is that everything, save that one foot is eaten, bones and all. It is hard for them to come down and mingle with us for all they see is the slake to their bloodlust.”

  “Then why do they leave the foot?”

  “I pray you never need to find that out.”

  We rode in silence for some five minutes, heading into the swampy lands left behind by the thaw and early rain. Then at a clearing the Constable nudged past me, rode forward a bit and turned around to face me. “There is much I don't understand, but if my reading of you is correct you have the air of an honest man. As fantastical as this is, I will ride with you as you are my best chance to catch Seth in time. If you commit a crime, I will arrest you. If you have lied to me, my report will say so, and if this all some cruel prank you will face the full force of the law on our return. Within those constraints, let us go forward.”

  Oh he was magnificently pious this man. He could even have taught Francis Assissi a thing or two, and he was as smugly self-righteous as they come. “Agreed,” I said. “Now let me tell you how we will kill them. They have to be destroyed as they have astonishing rejuvenative powers. That can be done in many ways, but sudden dissembly is the best.”

  “How have you done it in the past?” said Fraser.

  “I have seen them burnt to ashes, tied across a cannon and shot to pieces, boiled in oil until their flesh has melted off, and hanged, quartered and quartered again. But those were the older wolves. At every regeneration they evolve more. And when they transform now they go from normal sized human to gigantic wolf form with razor sharp claws fully nine inches long. During their regeneration periods they subsume part of their surroundings and I think that this last time they have absorbed part of the size of the bear and the meanness of the wolverine. They will be hard to kill but fortunately their lair is suited to what we need. How far can you shoot accurately with that rifle?”

  “I have made a four inch grouping at three hundred yards on open sights,” said Fraser.

  “Well the distance will be no more than two hundred and fifty yards, but the target will be something small and metal, a belt buckle or a clasp on a bag. Do you think you can make that shot?”

  “I believe I can.”

  “Good we will lay up just before dark and give them the night. This will best be done at dawn.”


  There were three things I hadn't told Fraser. I had found them not due to superior tracking skills but by watching likely victims, and two more people had died while I had done this, both locals. There would also be one more death before we could kill them. And my tarnished soul would not allow me to kill them, which was why I needed my parfit gentil knyght.

  We came to the lookout I had scouted and tied the horses well down the slope, then we crawled up and looked through our telescopes. Their lair was an open space above the marshy area. It was surrounded by more of the oozing oil sands, but more importantly there was natural gas seepage of the type seen at Pelican portage. The wolves’ lair was above the gas. It would not be above the wrath that rained down on them.

  It was also just as I had feared. The monsters had transformed already, and they had Seth lying unconscious in the middle of them.

  “We must save him,” said Fraser.

  “How?” I said. “Look at them.” They were lying on the grass, each about eight foot long, their mouths bared in a rictus of teeth and their claws menacing as they protruded from their paw-shaped hands. Seth began to stir and the werewolves raised themselves and began to bay as the sun started to fall behind the hill.

  “We cannot stop them until morning, and they need to be here, sated. If there was the slightest chance of saving him I would, but if we went down there we would become their next meal.”

  “I can shoot them,” said Fraser.

  “They are impervious. No we must wait until morning when the marsh air is heaviest. Do you see those rocks over there?” I pointed. “That is where the gas leaks out. During the day it is dissipated by the breeze, but in early morning it sits there, just below them, the source of our respite. Promise me one thing Fraser. When you hear the screams, don't look.”

  He looked at me in horror as the full force of what was going to happen came upon him.

  Six.