by Rehder, Ben
“Didn’t see him in time,” said the driver, who had climbed out of the cab of the truck. “Just never saw him.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Red said. “Meskin ran right in front of you.”
Billy Don knelt down beside Jorge, grabbed his hand, and said something in Spanish.
“Oo, mi Dios! Chupacabra!” Jorge replied between clenched teeth, followed by a bunch of other words Red didn’t understand.
“Que?” Billy Don asked.
“What’s he babbling about?” Red asked.
Jorge’s eyes got wide, and he said it again, much louder. “Chupacabra!” Then he made the mistake of looking down at his ruined leg and promptly passed out.
Billy Don looked up at Red. “What do we do now?”
“Well hell, Billy Don, we gotta get the boy an ambulance,” he hissed.
But what he was thinking was, There goes my damn schedule.
2
SEARCY WASN’T EXACTLY pointing the pistol at Duke, just sort of holding it in front of him.
This was the kind of situation Duke had always worried about. For years, Duke had made a comfortable living by finding ways to gain access to beautiful animals so that wealthy hunters like Searcy could shoot them. Duke thought of himself as a broker, a man who paired hunters with the animals of their wettest dreams. He had set people up with all kinds of trophies, but white-tailed deer were the biggest market by far. And yeah, sometimes Duke had to skirt a few laws to get what the hunter wanted. Other times, if he really wanted to make good money in this business, he had to think outside the box. Which is what he’d done two years ago, when he’d first pulled off one of the most brilliant and profitable swindles ever concocted.
It was so slick, nobody had ever figured it out. Until now. Frankly, Duke couldn’t blame Searcy for being a tad peeved.
“Take it easy,” Duke said, his palms toward Searcy. “No reason to get all crazy on me.”
“I just want my money.”
Duke spoke softly. “I can understand that. You got ripped off, and now you wanna set things straight. Who can blame you? Just don’t take it out on the wrong guy.”
Duke was thinking there still might be a peaceful way out of this. Just return the guy’s money, smooth-talk him a little, maybe even offer to take him on a free hunt—just to show there were no hard feelings. Duke could afford to give up the cash. What he couldn’t afford was a guy like Searcy bad-mouthing him around the county.
But Searcy pushed him even further into a corner.
“I’m walking out of here with my money,” Searcy said. “I paid cash, I want cash back. Then I’m gonna talk to the game warden and let him know what kind of operation you’re running.”
Duke could feel his heart pounding. If Searcy made good on his threat, Duke would be facing a lynch mob. Once word got out, every hunter Duke had ever guided would double-check their mounts for authenticity, and several of them would find reason to be seriously pissed off. Once the authorities got involved, Duke’d be looking at a return to the joint.
Duke held one hand up in the Boy Scout’s gesture. “Mr. Searcy, one last time, I swear to you, I had nothing to do with this mess.” With his other hand, Duke was reaching back behind him, feeling for the screwdriver on the desk.
Searcy waved his gun in Duke’s direction. “Go on, now. Get my money. I’m sure you’ve got it stashed around here somewhere.”
Duke found something with his hand—but it turned out to be the stapler. “See, now, I don’t have any problem paying you back. No sir. You deserve it.” He was buying time, still fumbling with his hand. Where was that damn screwdriver! “But see, I don’t exactly have it on me,” Duke said.
“Bullshit,” Searcy said, coming around with the revolver now. “You’re lying to—”
That’s when Duke’s hand found what it was looking for.
* * *
It was the final day of deer season, and Blanco County game warden John Marlin was thrilled. Yes, the season was the most exciting part of the year, but it was also the most tiring. It was an around-the-clock job, checking hunting camps during the day, chasing spotlighters at night. The weekends were especially hectic, and he was lucky to get a couple hours’ sleep each night.
Then there were idiots who shouldn’t be let loose in the woods with firearms, like the two Marlin had just pulled over on the side of Highway 281, north of Johnson City. He had spotted blood on the rear door, saw that the driver was wearing camo, and decided to do a license check.
“Looks like y’all had some luck this morning,” Marlin said as the driver lowered the window.
“Yes, sir,” the middle-aged driver said, nodding, clearly excited. “Shot my first buck. I got him tagged and everything, no problem.”
Marlin peered through the side window, seeing a medium-size six-point lying on a tarp in the rear of the SUV. “If you’ll cut your engine for me, sir, I’d like to take a quick look.”
The man complied, and Marlin opened the rear of the vehicle. It was eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning in early January. But this was Texas, where winter didn’t have much bite, and today the temperature was hovering around seventy. The interior of the vehicle, with the sun shining in, was probably at least eighty.
“You planning on icing him down?” Marlin asked.
This time, the passenger replied. He could have been the driver’s twin: middle-aged, wearing freshly creased camos and some sort of safari hat he had probably ordered off the Internet. “Think we need to?”
“That depends. Where you headed?”
“Back up to Dallas.”
Marlin shook his head. Most hunters were knowledgeable, law-abiding, salt-of-the-earth types. In fact, Marlin would stack hunters, as a group, up against the general population any day. But occasionally he ran into a pair like this. Utterly clueless. It was a four-hour drive to Dallas, which meant the venison would have plenty of time to spoil.
“When you shoot a deer,” Marlin said, “you wanna get the carcass cooled down as soon as possible. This thing would be better quartered and in an ice chest. You realize it’s a violation if you fail to keep the meat in edible condition?”
“Yes, sir, I understand that,” the passenger replied. “I’ve hunted before.”
Marlin examined the tag that was attached with twine to the animal’s ear. There were small abbreviations for each month, plus the numbers 1 through 31, running along the border of the tag. “Then you should know you’re supposed to cut the month and date out, rather than marking it with a pen,” Marlin said.
“Well, uh, we were a little unclear on that,” the man said.
Marlin glanced down at the Winchester he had noticed lying parallel to the deer. It wasn’t in a rifle case, but was left to slide around in the rear compartment as the vehicle moved. That was dangerous in itself, but the hunters had made an even bigger mistake. “Whose rifle?”
“Mine,” said the passenger.
“You mind?” Marlin asked, gesturing toward the rifle.
“No, go ahead.”
Marlin lifted the rifle and worked the bolt. It was unloaded, but that wasn’t what concerned him. Around the butt of the stock was an elastic band that was designed to hold bullets. This one was filled to the max.
“Guess you didn’t do any shooting this weekend,” Marlin said.
“I was waiting for a nice buck. Could have taken a couple of does.”
“Good thing you didn’t. This rifle is a thirty-aught-six and you’re hunting with ammo for a three-oh-eight.”
There was a brief pause as the hunters considered that fact.
“I, uh—is that a problem? I kinda figured since they were nearly the same caliber…”
“Thing probably would have blown up in your face,” Marlin said. He heard the driver mutter, “Glen, you dumbass” under his breath. Glen, grimacing with embarrassment, opted to remain quiet for the moment.
Marlin was about to chastise the men further when he heard his unit number being called over hi
s truck’s radio. “What I want you to do is get some ice on this deer, notch those numbers, and secure this rifle. Put it in a case or something.”
Both men mumbled that they would, and Marlin told them to have a safe trip.
Back in his state-issued Dodge Ram, Marlin keyed the radio mike and spoke his unit number. The reply was from Deputy Ernie Turpin: “Hey, John, can you swing over here to Flat Creek Road and take a look at something?”
“What you got?”
“Aw, we had a Mexican guy get hit by a truck earlier this morning. Garza was talking to him over at the hospital, and this guy was really freaking out. Said he saw some kind of weird animal chewing on a goat. Anyway, I found the goat, and I was wondering if you could take a look at it. I don’t know what the big deal is, but Garza was getting kind of worked up about it. I called Trey Sweeney, too, and he’s en route.”
“No problem,” Marlin replied, somewhat puzzled. “Did Garza say what kind of animal this guy saw?” Bobby Garza was the Blanco County sheriff, the most fluent Spanish speaker in the department. Trey Sweeney was the state wildlife biologist assigned to Blanco County.
“Yeah, some kind of weird thing I’ve never heard of,” Turpin replied. “A Spanish word. Coopa something? Coopacobra?”
Marlin grinned. Surely Turpin was joking. “Chupacabra?”
“Yeah, that’s it!” Turpin said. “Chupacabra. What the hell is that, anyway?”
Duke would have preferred to talk it out, to strike some kind of deal they could both live with.
But Searcy had to be an asshole about it all. He had to act like a big man and put the pressure on. Goddamn it, he hadn’t given Duke time to figure a better way out. And what was Searcy thinking, coming in here with a gun? All that did was force Duke’s hand.
Yeah, it was more or less Searcy’s fault. That’s what Duke was thinking as his arm came whipping around, the screwdriver clenched in his sweaty fist.
The thing was, Duke didn’t really want to hurt the guy too bad. Just take the gun away from him, scare him away for good.
Duke was aiming for the meaty part of the guy’s upper arm. Just the arm, that’s all. To make him drop the revolver.
But Searcy saw what was coming. He raised his hand and tried to deflect the blow, but he was too late. All he did was bump Duke’s forearm and change the path of the screwdriver.
And it plunged into the flesh on the side of the man’s neck, just below the ear. It sank in all the way up to the handle.
Then there was silence. Duke was wondering if he should pull the screwdriver out or leave it in, and he was starting to freak because of the fucked-up look on Searcy’s face.
Just then, the phone rang, and Duke twitched.
Searcy made a hacking sound, like a cat choking on a hairball. His revolver bounced on the linoleum floor.
The phone rang again.
Duke grabbed Searcy by both shoulders, easing him gently out of the chair and onto the floor.
The phone rang again.
Searcy’s eyes became still, and just that quick, he was gone. Duke had always wondered what it was like to kill a guy. It’s a fucked-up mess, that’s what it is, he thought.
Duke turned and grabbed the phone, just to shut it up. “What?”
“We got a problem.” Damn, that’s just what Searcy had said. But this time, it was Kyle Dawson, Duke’s best friend.
“Shit, what now?”
Kyle told him.
Duke sighed heavily and plopped down into his leather chair. “You’re right, Kyle. I’d say that’s a definite problem.”
3
MARLIN SPOTTED DEPUTY Ernie Turpin’s cruiser and Trey Sweeney’s old Jeep on a remote stretch of Flat Creek Road, but neither man was in sight. Marlin tapped his horn as he stepped from his truck, and he heard Ernie give a directional shout from within the thickly wooded ranch.
He found them about fifty yards into the brush. Ernie was standing with his hands on his hips, staring down at a small dead goat, while Trey was circling the carcass, snapping photographs with an expensive Nikon.
Marlin always had to suppress a grin when he saw Trey. Most people around Blanco County referred to him as “eccentric” or “colorful.” The less tactful ones called him “downright peculiar.” Marlin knew from experience that Trey, a man with an off-the-charts IQ and a wild imagination, didn’t pay much attention to what was said. The biologist had an unruly beard, round-lensed glasses, and a thick mop of auburn hair, which hid the fact that he was missing an ear. It had been removed by a black bear several years before, when Trey, doing research, had trespassed into the bear’s den while it was hibernating. As Trey had once said over several rounds of beers, “The bear decided to relieve me of that particular appendage, and I was in no position to argue.”
When Trey saw Marlin approaching, he immediately began speaking at a rapid clip. “John, you gotta see this. We’ve got this dead goat here, no wounds at all except fang punctures in its neck like a dog’s been after it, and sure, that’s the first thing I thought, until I took a look around and found some tracks over there under that oak tree, and damn if I can tell what they came from, and you and I both know I can identify the track of every damn critter that wanders these woods.” Trey was making a come-with-me gesture now, as hopped-up as a kid at a carnival, wanting to show Marlin the tracks.
Marlin glanced at Ernie, who shrugged and said, “Looks like a damn coyote to me, but y’all are the experts.”
The area around the slaughtered goat was too grassy to hold tracks, but ten yards away, Trey pointed out half a dozen fresh prints in firm mud. Like the tracks from a coyote or a dog, each of these prints had four toe pads, with claw marks evident in front of each toe.
Trey knelt down beside one of the tracks. “Look here. See how the pads are grouped together a lot tighter than a coyote’s or a dog’s? Besides, the two middle toes on either of those animals are the same length. This animal has one middle toe that is clearly longer than the other. More of a dominant toe. And—”
Marlin waved a hand. “Hold on a second, Trey. Let’s just start at the beginning, okay? I haven’t even heard what the Mexican man said. The guy who got hit by the truck.”
Trey looked over at Ernie. The deputy said, “It was a wetback out here working with those two rednecks, Red O’Brien and his running buddy, the big guy.”
“Billy Don Craddock,” Marlin said. He knew the men well. He had caught them poaching so often, he could probably recite their driver’s license numbers from memory. Just last year, Marlin had gotten a call about suspicious activity on a county road west of Blanco. He’d responded quickly and found a truck driving in circles in a large pasture. It turned out to be Red O’Brien driving, and Billy Don Craddock was in the bed of the truck. With a rope. Trying to lasso a terrified deer. Marlin had been tempted to use the lasso on both of them.
“Yeah, Craddock.” Ernie nodded. “Anyway, I responded to the call, we got an ambulance out here, and the Mexican was about halfway loco, going on about—” He looked at Marlin. “What was that animal we talked about?”
“Chupacabra.”
“Exactly. He kept saying that word, but I couldn’t understand anything else. One of the paramedics spoke pretty good Spanish, so he told me the guy said he saw a chupacabra. Hell, I never even heard of one, so I just wrote it up in my report. When I got back to the station and told Garza, he wanted to talk to this Mexican guy himself at the hospital. About thirty minutes later, he radioed and told me to come back here, locate this goat, and call both of you. That’s all I know. Garza said he’d be in touch.”
Marlin took a moment to let that information soak in. Bobby Garza was about as intelligent and levelheaded as they come, and Marlin couldn’t imagine that the sheriff would place any credence in an alleged chupacabra sighting. Of course, smarter men than Garza professed to believe that Martians are among us and the Earth is flat.
“So what do you think?” Trey asked, still kneeling by the tracks. “Weird, huh?”
>
Marlin squatted for a closer look. “I don’t know, Trey. Yeah, they look a little unusual, but come on. How many different breeds of dogs are there? It’s not like all of their tracks look exactly the same.”
Trey shook his head. “I don’t think this is a dog. Or a coyote or fox.”
“Cougar?” Ernie offered.
“No, not with the claws showing,” Marlin said. A cougar, also known as a mountain lion or a panther, has retractable claws, which don’t show in its prints.
“And these aren’t round enough for a cougar,” Trey added.
“Well, damn, would someone just tell me what a chupacabra is?” Ernie asked, getting fidgety.
Marlin replied first: “What it is, is a myth. A fantasy creature, kind of like Bigfoot. I think it started—where was it, Trey?—in Mexico?”
“It’s been reported all over Latin America, but most of the sightings have been in Puerto Rico.”
“Alleged sightings,” Marlin added.
“Whatever,” Trey muttered.
“Okay,” Ernie said, looking from Marlin to Trey, “but what is it supposed to be?”
Marlin said, “You don’t believe in all that crap, do you, Trey?”
Trey let out something like an indignant huff. “I’m not saying this is a chupacabra, because I don’t know what it is. I’m just saying it’s something different, not a dog or coyote. And remember, just because you don’t believe in the chupacabra doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. For all we know, there could be dozens—hell, thousands—of unidentified species out there. We discover something new every year. You have to keep an open mind; you know that.”
Marlin felt like he was back in college, receiving a talking-to from a disappointed professor. He grinned but said nothing. He’d learned long ago that there wasn’t much use in arguing with Trey. And besides, it was too damn tough to keep up with the biologist in a serious debate. The three men stood in silence for a moment, surrounded by the gentle sounds of the woods.
“Goatsucker,” Trey said softly.
“What?” Ernie asked.
