Heart of Ice (Deadman Series Book 6)

by Linell Jeppsen

  Heart of Ice

  Book 6 of the Deadman Series

  by

  Linell Jeppsen

  Kindle Edition

  © Copyright 2015 Linell Jeppsen (as revised)

  Wolfpack Publishing

  48 Rock Creek Road

  Clinton, Montana 59825

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.

  ISBN: 978-1-62918-885-0

  Table of Contents:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  A Sample Chapter from The Guardians: Episode 1

  About the Author

  Case File #6

  May 18th, 1909

  Since I first opened the doors to The Wilcox and Son Detective Agency, I have made a habit of documenting each and every one of our case files. This has served two purposes. First, it is a good way to protect my son Chance and myself against reprisal from an unhappy client. Secondly, good testimony pertaining to the acts performed by this investigation agency stands up well in a court of law, especially signed affidavits when the injured party in a lawsuit—usually the crook involved—tries to claim wrongdoing on our part.

  There is another reason. Although I have been a lawman most of my adult life and am even now a licensed attorney, there are good lessons to be learned in the pursuit of justice. As my dear, deceased wife Iris once told me, “People are not always black and white, Matthew. People come in all shades of gray. Some, so-called Good People do heinous things and some Bad Folk are heroes. To be a good marshal, I think you must look into the gray of things…”

  On our first case, I put my own son’s life in mortal danger; by the grace of God, Chance survived that encounter. I now know a hundred different and safer things we could have done to bring a dirty boxer and his trainers down. Our second big case was won by luck alone and only with a lot of help from the people involved. Again, I now know that Chance and I ran blindly into a situation that could have gotten everyone I hold dear killed.

  That case was resolved more or less satisfactorily but I have learned a few things since starting my detective agency: No. 1 - Get as many facts as humanly possible before rushing into danger; No. 2 - Take copious notes; and No. 3 - Be prepared for anything. This philosophy has served us well so far. But there are some things no man or woman can even dream of, much less anticipate.

  What happened to my son on a frigid, moonlit night in October of 1908 is one of those things no human being can reckon or prepare for.

  He survived the experience, thank God, but at great risk to both body and soul. My son is not the same happy, carefree young man he was before that night and, I dare say, he will be forever changed…both for the worse and the better. For sure, he is looking into the “gray of things” now.

  So, that’s what I am doing…trying to document Case File #6. But I admit to being stumped. This is, by far, the strangest case my son and I have ever taken on, the most hazardous. And now that we have survived to tell the tale, it is a case that remains unsolved and one that will always be kept hidden from prying eyes.

  I will share this report with Chance, his wife Hannah and my wife, Annie. After we have studied what happened, separated fact from fantasy, and tried to the best of our ability to report the truth as it unfolded, I will seal this case file away.

  Forever.

  -Matthew Wilcox

  Part One

  Lenny

  Heart of Ice

  His huge round eyes

  bulge out of his head, lidless eyes

  rolling in red blood of pain,

  always rolling, blood sockets

  behind them.

  ~George Bowering

  Chapter One

  Winter 1847

  Lenny “The Spoon”—named for his habit of pinning two tin spoons to the front of his coat—Turnbull sat on a high branch of an ice-encrusted pine tree, chewing a finger joint and watching thoughtfully as young Miles Manning buried what was left of his cousin’s body in a 12-foot-high snowdrift.

  The lad was sawing Samuel Tarley’s limbs off, one by one, starting and staring about in alarm at the slightest sound… the high chitter of a chipmunk, the whispery sound of frail branches giving way under the ever-shifting weight of the heavy wet snow, the sharp crack of larger tree limbs succumbing to the ravages of the latest winter storm.

  Lenny knew almost to the minute when the Donner/Reed party had finally resorted to cannibalism. He couldn’t really blame them. One mishap after another had haunted the pilgrims’ passage ever since they had abandoned the famous Oregon Trail and followed the ill-advised Hastings Cutoff trail into the Wasatch Range of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains.

  Between losing most of their oxen and horseflesh to Indians while crossing the Great Salt Lake Desert and getting snowed in here along the Humboldt River, the sixty people left to rot away in these high hills were literally starving to death.

  Again and again, Lenny wished he could have followed the last wagon train heading over the Oregon Trail into Montana rather than these sorry critters but the teamsters for that outfit were a tough bunch and had chased him off when he approached.

  He knew why, although he didn’t think it was either fair or smart on their part. Lenny was a dwarf; at least that was what that doc in Kansas City had said after offering Lenny two-bits a day to be a test study. Lenny had declined the doctor’s offer and ran away but now he had a name for his peculiar condition.

  He stood only 4’8’’ tall and, although his body was as bent and crooked as a gnarled branch, it was lean and strong. His face, however, was a fright and he knew it. His brow protruded over tiny, close-set brown eyes and his jaw was as underslung as that of an old, toothless mule. His mud-brown and gray hair, beard and eyebrows grew as wild as a patch of thistles as he had neither the desire nor the money to visit a barber.

  His teeth—or, at least, what was left of them—were rotten and Lenny suspected the reek of them flew away in front of him in a foul cloud. He had often seen members of the party rear away in disgust whenever he came close. Although, he smirked, what made them think they smelled any sweeter, he couldn’t fathom; he could, even now, smell the stench of their meager encampment from a half mile away which was one good reason most of the edible wildlife in the region had fled.

  Yet despite the lack of easy game, Lenny was a good hunter… unlike many of the beleaguered people he had trailed after on this doomed trek out west. Over the last few months, he had left many a rabbit, skunk, gopher, and fish close to the main camp to help out though he had never received an acknowledgment or thanks.

  Lenny had been born and raised in the Ozark Mountains and, although his pa treated him worse than he did his pack of bloodhounds, Evan Turnbull knew an extra set of hands when he saw one. He had trained his young, twisted son to hunt, fish and scavenge all manner of foodstuffs for the rest of the family members, of whom there were many.

  In fact, all of Evan’s children either gathered food together fo
r the communal cook pot, suffered a beating, or—in one case—were kicked out for good and made to fend for themselves. So Lenny had found comfort in heading out on his own to fetch the family meal for, if his father treated him badly, his brothers and sisters treated him worse.

  Lenny’s ma, Mary Turnbull, had died from birthing-fever when he was thirteen years old. When she was alive, she protected her youngest son from his sibling’s hatred but now they tormented him with regular beatings, teased him mercilessly and called him names. Often, as he made his way home at night after a successful day of hunting or fishing, his older brothers would set upon him and steal his bounty.

  Many a time he did not darken the doorway of his family home at all. He would rather go to sleep hungry than suffer his sibling’s scorn or his old man’s wrath when he showed up empty-handed.

  When he was seventeen, his two sisters headed into the nearby township to attend church and, hopefully, catch the eyes of some eligible young men. They were accompanied by Lenny’s oldest brother whose job was to bring grain, flour, lard and horse oats back home after the service.

  The day went well enough, although no new gentlemen came to call. Three days later, Maryanne—Lenny’s oldest sister—came down with typhoid; soon after, the whole family lay dying inside the rough-hewn walls of the cabin they called home.

  Lenny was not there…he had received such a harsh beating the week before after, once again, having his bounty forcibly removed, he had decided to spend the next week or so in a hidden cave close by a stream. He ate well, slept peacefully, and caught enough pink and green trout to share.

  Cheerful, he whistled his way back to the house, only stopping long enough to gaze about and wonder where his older brothers and sisters were. Cautiously, he stepped out from the tree line into the weed-infested front yard.

  He stared about the empty yard and felt a chill of foreboding. It was quiet… too quiet. Their old plow-horse nosed his empty grain bucket and their sow, Gertie—seeing him approach—squealed mournfully and was shrilly echoed by her many piglets. Gazing into Gertie’s empty water trough, Lenny wondered why his family members had allowed the pig, one of their best means of stocking up on winter stores, and her brood to run dry.

  Walking over to the well, he put enough water in the animals’ troughs to keep them from bellowing and then made his way slowly toward the house. Once or twice, while fetching the water he had smelled a foul odor wafting on the afternoon breeze. He knew that smell and he knew the sound of fat and lazy bottleneck flies as well…something in that house was dead.

  Lenny paused outside the front door and then he heard a faint voice say, “Lenny, is that you?” Pushing open the door, he saw his father lying on the floor of the house by a cold stove.

  Staring about in shock, Lenny saw that—except for his pa and his little sister, Hester—almost all of his family members were dead. The smell was overwhelming and, even as he watched, a cloud of blue bellies fell over Hester’s face like a black lace veil. The little girl had stopped breathing and, although Lenny brought fresh water and tried to slap the life back into her body, he knew she would not be coming back to breathe air again.

  He tried as best as he knew how to keep his pa alive but Evan died later that night. The next day, Lenny tried to bury his family members but the ground was as hard as rock; he broke two spades and their one good shovel before giving up on the notion.

  He put blankets over the dead bodies and mumbled a little prayer over each of them, although he doubted whether they would have done much but dance over him had their positions been reversed. Then he prowled about the place and finally found his pa’s meager stash of gold and a few paper dollars.

  Lenny packed up as much as his puny shoulders could carry and packed a cloth bag full of food. He tried as hard as he could to keep from fingering things knowing, instinctively, the sickness was anything but gone.

  Staring around at the oft-hated but intimately familiar house he had grown up in, he shrugged and poured kerosene on the floors and walls of the cabin, then lit a wooden match. Dropping it, Lenny stepped outside and pulled the pigpen’s gate to the side so Gertie and her little ones could escape before he went to search for the horse’s ancient saddle in the barn.

  It took some time and a vast amount of patience to saddle the horse; the old gelding had not been ridden for years. It objected to having the creaky old leather on its back and it didn’t help matters that flames were starting to shoot out the front door and windows of the house. Finally, Lenny was able to climb aboard just as the house went up in a roar and a whoosh of heat.

  The horse reared up in terror as sparks and burning ash fell like fireworks on the ground around them and Lenny dug his heels into the animal’s flanks. With a squeal, the old horse took off at a full gallop with Lenny clinging to his back like a burr.

  And so, with eight dollars and twenty-two cents to his name, Lenny Turnbull took the first road in a series of highways and byways leading, ultimately, to the fiery gates of Hell.

  Chapter Two

  The Temptation

  As soon as young Miles had taken his leave, Lenny scrambled down out of the tree and scurried over to the snow bank and its hidden treasure. He dug around for a moment and grabbed hold of… something. Pulling it out, Lenny grinned as he saw the top part of a leg, thigh bone still attached.

  He ran as fast as his snowshoes would allow toward a small ice cave by the river. He had dug the cave himself and it had served him well; it was close to running water and away from the prying eyes of the rest of the party.

  Lenny was no fool. He had seen the look in some of the people’s eyes; the feral gleam of hunger that made them think of him as less than a human being and more as an edible beast with his small, twisted body and scarred, homely face.

  He stashed the thigh bone in his own cache of snow and bent over the river water to wash his hands. The body part must be days old, at least… the stench of decay told Lenny the meat must be eaten soon or not at all. Maybe tonight, he thought, I will build a small fire in the shelter and cook the meat off the bone.

  Catching sight of himself in a still part of the shallows, he cringed. He had never been a pretty sight but now, with the hideous scar that ran laterally across his face, he looked like something that belonged in a freak show. Remembering how he came about it, Lenny sighed, dried his hands on his coat and sat under a sheltering pine tree.

  After leaving his family home, Lenny and his horse had made their way south. For the most part, he kept to himself. One thing he knew because his pa had told him so was that he was an insult to nature; that people would drive him off or even try to kill him if they saw him. This worked well as a deterrent to society for a while.

  He stayed close to pastures so his horse wouldn’t starve and he lived off the land’s bounty. There were plenty of rabbits, coons, gophers, and fish in the streams. Lenny had actually never eaten so well in his life. But, one day, he was tempted by the apple trees in an orchard; there were a number of them in a large clearing, all hanging heavy and fragrant with ripe fruit. Not knowing the name of such a farming enterprise or how proud the owner of that orchard was, Lenny climbed into a tree and picked as many apples as his pockets would hold and stashed them in the horse’s saddlebags.

  When his pockets were empty, he scrambled up again to refill them with as much fruit as he could carry. He was so busy plucking the red orbs he didn’t notice being surrounded by the orchard owner, his son, and a few farm hands until he was halfway down to the ground.

  He paused, wide-eyed, as he saw the men’s angry faces and shouted, “I got money! I can pay for these…”

  But an intense spear of pain lanced through Lenny’s body and he screamed in agony. One of the men had plunged his pitchfork through the fatty tissue of the dwarf’s right buttock. His suddenly nerveless fingers let go their grip and he plunged five feet to the ground in a dead faint.

  Lenny woke up in the back of a wagon. His butt was on fire and he wept at the pain of
it. The scabby old wagon shuddered and jolted along the road; every time its wheels hit a particularly deep pothole, Lenny wanted to scream out loud but he didn’t dare make a sound.

  The first time he did the angry old man who owned the orchard had turned around and clobbered him over the head with the butt of his rifle.

  “You best shut yer hole, freak,” the man had growled. “We’re taking yer inta jail for theft. If justice serves, ye’ll hang fer it but, if nuthin’ else, ye’ll surely spend time in the stocks!”

  Lenny didn’t know what “stocks” meant but it didn’t sound good so he wept in silence. He had noticed that his old gelding was hitched to the wagon and couldn’t help but wonder if it would also go to the stocks or if the farmer planned to keep the horse for his own. Didn’t seem fair, either way. Turning on his left side, he closed his eyes and slept for a little while until he awoke to the sound of voices speaking over the top of his head.

  “Whatcha got there, Abraham?” a gruff voice spoke.

  “A thief, Mayor, big and bold as brass! We caught him stealing apples from our orchard!” the old farmer exclaimed.

  “Thieves need ter be hanged, the way I see it!” another voice chimed in and Lenny stared about in fright.

  “What’s wrong with his hind-end?” a big, mild-looking man with a too-small hat perched high on his head asked.

  “It was self-defense! This rascal came a-flying outta that tree like a wildcat and I was forced to defend myself!”

  “Well, looks like your ‘hellcat’ was obliging enough to turn tail when you got your lick in, eh, Tom?”