The Devil's Breath

by R. R. Irvine

  “That’s up to a jury,” answered the sheriff.

  Keene kept circling.

  “In addition to your crew,” Graham said, “there are also local casualties.”

  “Huh?”

  “Two councilmen are dead.”

  “In a town the size of Moondance?” Keene’s wide-eyed stare was matched only by that of the girl, Marilyn.

  “Of course, if it wasn’t Yeba Kah, God knows what we might be up against out here,” Graham added. He smiled maliciously.

  “I think somebody had better explain exactly what’s going on,” Keene said. His tone and manner left the mayor little choice. So, haltingly, the story came out. And with remarkably few edits, Graham noted. Yeba Kah, however, sounded as good as convicted.

  When the mayor finished, Keene glanced at the members of his crew. The only thing showing on their faces were spots of color from the icy wind that had begun gusting out of the west.

  “What now?” Keene asked, though it wasn’t clear to whom his question was addressed.

  “I’ll have to take Yeba Kah back to town,” said the sheriff. “Maybe we should all go back.”

  “Good God, man, I’ve got a deadline,” Keene sputtered, “a show to tape.”

  “He’s right, Alden,” the mayor said to Sheriff Fisk. “What’s another day or two?”

  “You mean, keep the Indian with us?”

  “There’s also my other network commitments to be considered,” Keene put in. “We’ve taped ahead five days. After that someone has to fill in for me. And in my business, that’s asking for trouble. You never know when your replacement might be permanent. So we either tape now, as planned, or forget „The American Huntsman’ altogether.”

  Mayor Benyon nodded forcefully at the sheriff.

  “Today is Tuesday,” Keene said. “By Friday I have to be on my way back to the Coast. But it’s your decision, whether or not you want me to make your Hunting Ground famous.”

  “You can go on without me,” Fisk said.

  Then he and the mayor went into a huddle. Graham never had any doubt about the outcome, even as the two men glanced at Jimmy Keene like quarterbacks trying to assess the opposition.

  As for Keene, his eyes went blank. He was giving nothing away.

  “Yeba Kah is a suspect, nothing more,” Graham heard the mayor say. “We have no proof about anything.”

  Keene heard it, too, and smiled.

  “All right, all right. But the handcuffs stay on.” The sheriff was red in the face and trembling with anger.

  26

  JIMMY KEENE wrinkled his nose. At first he thought the tingling sensation in his nostrils signaled the onslaught of a sneeze. But then the smell came, elusive, something he couldn’t quite place, but which made him uneasy just the same.

  “Do you smell anything?” he asked the mayor.

  “No,” the man grunted, all his energy taken up with the steep trail they were climbing.

  “Like what?” asked the sheriff, his tone belligerent.

  “I don’t know. But it reminds me of something.”

  The sheriff snorted derisively. “You big city people just don’t recognize fresh air when you smell it.”

  Keene shrugged. He must be imagining things. Still, he knew there was something wrong. Even his mouth had a strange taste to it.

  The Indian, who’d been walking just ahead of Keene, alongside the sheriff, fell back to whisper, “I smell it too.”

  “What is it?”

  The Indian nodded. “Death.”

  “Shit,” Keene muttered. “Get away from me.”

  “As you wish.” The Indian returned to his place in the line of march.

  Keene dug out a handkerchief and blew his nose. But that didn’t make the smell go away. In fact, the aroma kept intensifying as the party climbed.

  Suddenly the smell became a stench and brought Keene to a lurching halt. Now he recognized it for what it was—blood.

  The last time he’d smelled it so strongly was when he was six years old.

  Keene shook his head. He held his nose and tried breathing through his mouth. But there was no escaping it.

  Memory, triggered by smell, overwhelmed him. He was a child again, watching his grandfather handle a reluctant turkey, whose squawking was only outdone by the flapping of its wings. But the fuss didn’t faze the old man.

  “Nothing to it,” he told the boy, nodding at the knee-high tree stump that stood right outside the kitchen door. Two ten-penny nails had been driven into the wood. A stout piece of wire was wound around one of them.

  With practiced ease, the old man pressed the bird’s neck against the flat top of the darkly stained stump. Then he fastened the turkey there, using the wire to hold it between the nails.

  All the while, the bird kept beating its wings frantically as if it knew exactly what was in store for it.

  “Does he?” the boy asked. “Does he know we’re going to eat him?”

  “He’s just a dumb bird,” replied the old man as he tested the edge of his hatchet against his thumb.

  The boy wanted to look away, but couldn’t tear his eyes from the struggling turkey.

  “I used to wring their necks,” said his grandfather. “But chopping their heads off is better. It purifies them by allowing all the blood to drain off. It makes for better eating, I’ll tell you.”

  He raised the hatchet, closing one eye to take proper aim.

  “No,” the boy moaned.

  “We have to eat.”

  The hatchet swung.

  The instant the turkey’s head flew off, its body came loose from the wire loop. The headless bird started hopping around the base of the stump.

  The boy whimpered.

  “That darn bird is dead and doesn’t know it,” complained the old man.

  Suddenly the turkey flapped its wings and sprang at the boy. It landed on Jimmy’s head and dug its talons into his hair. Warm blood splashed down his face and into his eyes. The smell of it clogged his nostrils.

  Blinded, he ran toward the house, but tripped over the stump and landed on the decapitated head, which crunched beneath him.

  A sharp stab of nausea brought Keene back to the present. With both hands, he reached up to touch his face. His sweat felt like blood.

  He doubled over and threw up. The mayor rushed over to give Keene a hand, but the TV star waved away the offer.

  “I’m all right now,” he said. “But, by God, the next shot I get is going to be a good one. No kill of mine is going to get up and walk away. I’ll blow its legs off first.”

  He checked his rifle that he’d retrieved from the sheriff, then turned to the mayor. “How long before we get a look at this fabulous valley you’ve been talking about?”

  Benyon gestured to indicate the valley was just over the next ridge.

  “It’s a sacred place,” said the Indian.

  There was nothing to say to that, so Keene started climbing on his own. The others followed.

  At the summit, Keene paused to catch his breath. The mayor had not misled him. The valley was special, not a rerun of the harsh land through which they’d been traveling for the past several hours.

  So green and lush was it, that the valley was like coming upon Shangri-la. Even the wind seemed different, warm and softly fragrant like the resin from an aging Christmas tree.

  “Hurry,” Keene called to the others. He was anxious to descend into this hunter’s paradise.

  “Does it have a name?” he asked breathlessly when they joined him at last.

  Mayor Benyon and the sheriff exchanged quick glances, the kind that Keene often used on his show to denigrate unruly guests. “Well?” he demanded. The bastards had probably named it after Brigham Young.

  “They don’t want to answer you,” said the Indian. “They fear this place.”

  “Nonsense,” said Benyon. “We brought you here, didn’t we?”

  “This is the very heart of our Hunting Ground,” the sheriff added.

 
“What’s it called then?”

  “It was named years ago,” the mayor said, “in pioneer times.”

  “For Godsake,” Keene blurted, “out with it I’m not some kid you have to protect from goblins.”

  “My people named it centuries ago,” said the Indian. “They called it Isakakate, the land of the Great Spirit, Koshari.”

  “And you?” Keene asked the mayor.

  “The Devil’s Mouth.”

  Keene forced a laugh. “Well then, don’t you think we ought to rename it? After all, if you’re going to make it a tourist attraction, you can’t very well ask people to step into The Devil’s Mouth.”

  “Do you have any suggestions?” asked the mayor.

  “Well,” Keene began, then deliberately paused to scratch his head as if in serious thought. “It doesn’t look like a mouth, the devil’s or anyone else’s.”

  “Not from here anyway,” said Benyon, who then shrugged as if giving clearance to Keene’s christening.

  Keene opened his mouth but the Indian spoke first.

  “A new name changes nothing. Whatever you call this valley, it will always belong to Koshari. Here, all life is His. He is all life. He is the Keeper of the Game. Kill a single animal and you strike at God himself.”

  Goosebumps scurried up Keene’s spine.

  “Kill and you will be killed,” Yeba Kah added.

  Those last words came out as if they’d been rehearsed. To Keene, they sounded completely phony. He clicked his tongue derisively. “Jesus, and to think you had me going there for a minute. You really did. Me. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Don’t make fun of him,” Marilyn said. She was staring at the Indian’s hands, which were cuffed behind his back. “He’s only telling us what he believes.”

  Keene sighed. “I think we ought to name this valley Shangri-la.”

  “Don’t joke about it,” she cried, her voice threatening to break.

  “I’m not.”

  “You frighten me when you talk like that.” She hugged herself. “Don’t you remember? No one could ever leave Shangri-la. If they did, they grew old and ugly. And when they died, they looked like withered mummies.”

  “But if they stayed,” Keene added, “they remained young and lived forever.”

  “Not here. We can’t stay here.”

  Damn, Keene thought. He’d forgotten the bit about age catching up with anyone attempting to leave Shangri-la. But then, this was no movie set. This was real and unbelievably beautiful, a pristine, luxuriant forest, not stunted by altitude. It seemed like a different world.

  Even so, he should have remembered Marilyn’s hang-up about old age. The thought of it terrified her. “I’ll kill myself when the wrinkles come,” she said often enough.

  With her, old age held the same terrors that headless birds did for him.

  “I don’t want to go any farther,” she said.

  Awkwardly, because he still had his rifle in one hand, Keene took Marilyn in his arms. “We’ll forget about the name. I’m sure the mayor can come up with something better anyway.”

  As she snuggled against him, he saw the Indian smiling triumphantly.

  ******

  In the next instant, Graham couldn’t believe his eyes. Keene flung the girl aside, dropped to one knee, raised his rifle, and fired in one smooth motion.

  Graham didn’t have time to look away, though he would have preferred to. Instead, his artist’s eye recorded each bit of action: the elk looking magnificent, large, antlered, vibrant with life, even as the explosion from the .30-06 started Graham’s ears ringing.

  A puff of dust rose from the animal’s flank where the bullet struck. The impact knocked the elk to its knees, where it foundered until a second bullet put an end to its struggles.

  Keene fired again.

  “He’s dead,” the sheriff said.

  “The bastard’s still kicking,” Keene cried. Another cartridge slammed into the breech of his rifle. “I won’t have him getting up.”

  “He won’t,” assured the sheriff.

  “Good shooting,” said the mayor. “It might even be a record head.”

  “You think so?” Keene beamed momentarily, then his face darkened. “How are we going to get it back to town?”

  “We’ll pick the skin up on the way back,” Sheriff Fisk said. “This weather’s a break. Too cold for flies. We can hang it in a tree.”

  Graham fumbled with his notebook. He wanted to sketch Keene leaning on his rifle, the perfect portrait of a hunter.

  “This is fantastic,” Keene rhapsodized.

  “Maybe so,” said Jarman, his cameraman, “but you’d better give me some warning next time. I didn’t get anything on tape. Hell, I didn’t even have time to move before you started shooting.”

  “Sorry,” Keene said without the slightest trace of sorrow.

  Jarman swore.

  Sid Norris nodded at the girl and said, “Get the sound gear ready.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Do what he says,” Keene ordered. “This is my career we’re talking about.” His tone left her no leeway.

  She followed Jarman to one of the burros, where they quickly unloaded their equipment.

  When Jarman had the camera on his shoulder, with the girl carrying the portable sound gear, Keene said, “Now let’s take a good look at that elk of mine.”

  Yeba Kah followed, with Graham at his heels.

  “It is done,” said the Indian, nodding at Graham. “Nothing can protect you now, even though I counted your uncle as my friend.”

  The amount of damage inflicted by the .30-06 appalled Graham. Blood was everywhere. Pieces of flesh and fur had been splattered over several square yards. On the lowest branch of a nearby pine tree, a strip of bloody hide hung like a garish Christmas ornament.

  “Glorious,” Keene said.

  “A good head,” the mayor responded. “But I think we can do better.”

  Graham felt sick at heart.

  The sheriff, who’d been kneeling next to the kill, stood up, wiped his hands, and said, “As long as we’ve got the Indian with us, we might as well put him to work. He can skin your elk.”

  “A good idea,” put in the mayor.

  The sheriff unlocked Yeba Kah’s handcuffs and then, carefully, handed the Indian a knife, blade first. All the while, Fisk kept one hand on the butt of his pistol.

  Yeba Kah took the offering gingerly.

  “I hope you’re not going to give me any trouble,” the sheriff said.

  “Me?” Yeba Kah grinned so widely his face seemed on the verge of splitting in two.

  Then, without another word, he knelt beside the elk and sliced off the animal’s testicles. When he held out the bloody trophies, all color drained from Sheriff Fisk’s face. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly.

  “Too bad I didn’t have a straight razor,” the Indian said. “There’s nothing better for this kind of work.”

  The change in the sheriff was instantaneous. He seemed to collapse in upon himself as if his bones had suddenly disintegrated. Wretching sounds came from his throat.

  “I saw that happen to a man once,” he explained when he’d recovered enough to speak. “It was the worst thing I ever saw. He was alive when it happened. God, how he screamed.”

  “That’s a bad way to die,” said Sid Norris. “But there are worse ways.”

  “Like what?” asked the sheriff. He’d recuperated sufficiently to sound almost truculent.

  “Burning to death.”

  “No.” Fisk shuddered and pressed his legs together.

  “I saw my brother burn to death,” Norris said. “Then and there, I knew there was nothing worse.”

  Boyd Jarman interrupted. “How do you want me to handle this?”

  His question was directed at Keene, but it was Sid Norris who answered. “Keep tape rolling.” He cleared his throat before adding, “Watch out for the blood. I don’t want to see too much of it, otherwise Jimmy will come out looking like a butche
r.”

  “Death without fuss or muss,” Jarman said. “I’ve got you.” He spoke softly to Marilyn. “Keep rolling background sound on everything. We can sweeten it later if Jimmy doesn’t like it.”

  She answered with a pathetic smile.

  Jarman focused and went to work. Sid stayed beside him pointing out shots. But Jarman knew his work; it had become second nature.

  He didn’t have to think in order to work. Instead, he contemplated the girl, Marilyn. A few hours ago he would have described her as strictly a sex object. But now her pinched face had turned the color of concrete, and her skin had taken on a texture to match.

  Her fear of this place had given him a glimpse of what she would look like in a few years, when the bloom of youth had gone.

  Quick to bloom, quick to seed. That was Marilyn, all right. That was the kind of woman Keene surrounded himself with. Dumb sperm receptacles, he called them.

  But Jarman was beginning to believe that Marilyn wasn’t as dumb as she pretended. She certainly had shown good sense when it came to that Shangri-la bullshit. The place gave Jarman the creeps.

  “Just keep an eye on your audio meter and you’ll be fine,” he told her.

  Sid Norris tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Give me a slow pan down from that gloomy sky.” The producer sounded himself again. “It will give us the perfect mood—the intrepid Jimmy Keene fighting his way through stormy weather in search of sport so that his fans can sit home and watch in comfort.”

  “You know,” Jarman said without taking his eye from the viewfinder, “you’re beginning to sound almost human.”

  Jarman stopped talking to concentrate on getting the clouds. “Up there,” he said a moment later, pointing at the sky. “That looks like a storm to me.”

  “Perfect,” Norris said happily. “Now a close-up of the elk’s head. We probably can’t use it, but go ahead anyway.”

  Jarman moved in, then suddenly wished that he hadn’t. The elk’s head had no eyes, only bloody holes.

  Jarman blinked. Hunting wasn’t merely killing; it was maiming, and nobody had the right to do that, not even to a dead animal.

  His feelings, he knew, were irrational. Dead was dead. The eyes could be of no further use to the elk. But still, the idea of such mutilation revolted him.