The Totem

by David Morrell

  Slaughter gave the injured man to the two men from the ambulance. They stared, and Slaughter looked down at the blood across his own hands and his shirt. "A young boy bit him. That's right, isn't it?" he asked the woman.

  She was nodding.

  "Bit me," Dunlap heard the injured man repeating, his voice distorted, rasping. Added to what he'd been feeling, Dun-lap was fearful that the jagged throat would do the job and make him sick. He had to glance away.

  More sirens, two police cars skidding up the gravel driveway, a dust cloud rising behind them. Slaughter hurried toward them.

  Dunlap frowned in the middle of it all. The two men from the ambulance had opened out the back and set the injured man inside. The woman was inside her car and moving it. Slaughter stood between the cruisers, talking to the officers who'd just arrived.

  Dunlap turned to face the mansion, squinting through the dusk toward the two policemen at the front door. This was all too much. He was shaking even worse as he walked toward the woman who was getting from her car where she had moved it to the side.

  "What is this place?"

  "The Baynard mansion."

  "Who?"

  And Dunlap learned then about Baynard who had been the richest man around here. Back in 1890. "He had cattle all across the valley, and he built this place up here to suit a Southern woman he had married."

  There was something automatic in the way she said it, Dunlap thought. As if she'd said it many times before. He listened with wonder as in bits and pieces she explained how Baynard had brought from the South the wood, the furniture, the bushes, everything to make his wife feel more at home. And then his wife had gone back South one summer where she died. Either that, or else she left him, and he lied about her dying.

  "No one knows for sure," the woman said. "We've tried to find the record of her death. We never managed. She had reasons if she left him. He was hardly ever home, tending business, working as a senator. Plus, there were rumors about certain kinds of parties on the third floor. But he said she died, and everyone agreed to that, and he came back and never left the house again."

  Dunlap was amazed that she seemed more concerned with what she said than with the preparations going on around them. He learned how people said that Baynard wandered through the house for days on end. The cause of death was claimed to be a heart attack, but everyone suspected he just drank himself to death. And one thing more-the rumors that he killed her, that she told him she was leaving, and an overbearing man like him, he flew into such a rage that she was dead before he even knew he'd struck her. Then he hid the body, and he wasted in his grief. At last he killed himself, and people in the family hushed it up.

  "But those are rumors, as I said." The woman shrugged. "Nobody ever proved it, though in recent years they looked for her. They never were successful."

  "But back in eighteen-ninety… how come you know all about this?"

  "I'm a member of the Potter's Field Historical Society."

  "I still don't understand."

  So she explained. "No one lives here. Baynard had two children. They grew up to manage the estate. Then they had children, and this new set gave the mansion to the county to avoid the taxes. They're not very wealthy now. They live in houses down the hill beside the swimming pool. We've fixed this place up just the way it used to be. The plumbing's from the eighteen-nineties. We even shut the power off. To get around at night, you have to use a flashlight, either that or candles or a lantern if you want to be authentic."

  Dunlap faced the mansion. Oh, that's swell, he thought. So now we've got a haunted house. The only thing that's missing is a thunderstorm.

  Well, there wouldn't be a storm, but sundown would do just as fine. He saw the orange distorted disc where it was almost behind the western mountains. In a while, the grounds would be completely dark, except for flashlights, headlights, maybe even candles, lanterns as this woman had suggested, and the search up through the mansion for the little boy. He felt his scalp tighten as the woman said beside him, "Whose child is it?"

  "I don't know."

  Exhausted, Dunlap walked toward Slaughter, who spoke to four policemen.

  "We need nets," Dunlap heard as he came closer.

  "Nets?"

  And Dunlap saw that it was Rettig, standing with the young policeman Dunlap had gone to Slaughter's with this morning. That seemed several days ago.

  "You heard me. Nets. You think that we should club him, do you?" Slaughter asked. "Or shoot him?"

  "But nets, I don't know where you'd find them."

  "Try a sporting-goods store, or that zoo down in the park. Rettig, you're in charge of that. The rest of you, I want you watching both sides of the mansion. Let's get moving."

  They stared at Slaughter. Then they hurried toward the mansion.

  "Hold it," Slaughter told them.

  They spun to face him.

  "Give your keys to this man. I want your headlights on the building."

  They glanced at Dunlap who had not expected this. Instinctively, he held his hand out. Then he had a set of car keys. Mindless, he expected more, but then he realized that Rettig would take one car. These keys fit another. Slaughter's was the third car, and the fourth had been driven by the two policemen who were in the mansion. They separated to watch the sides as Slaughter shoved a ring of keys at him.

  "You understand?"

  "I think so," Dunlap said. "I'll spread the cars out so they're pointed toward the windows."

  "Run the engines. I don't want the batteries to die. And use the searchlights by the sideview mirrors."

  "What about the woman's car?"

  "You've got the right idea."

  Dunlap nodded, running toward the cruisers. Slaughter's car he recognized, and Rettig now was driving down the gravel driveway, siren wailing. Dunlap went toward the car beside where Rettig had been parked, and got in, fumbling for a key to fit, and started the engine. In a while he understood that someone else could just as easily have done this, but the tactic was a way for Slaughter to distract him.

  It helped. There wasn't any doubt about that. Breathing quickly, taken up with interest, Dunlap adjusted to the burning in his stomach. He was glad to be in motion, driving the cruiser toward the mansion, aiming straight ahead and stopping where he judged that the headlights would be most effective. He groped down to turn them on. He found the switch upon the searchlight, and he flicked it, and this right side of the mansion, almost to the second story, was bright against the dusk.

  He got out, running now toward Slaughter's car and did the same, this time aiming toward the left side of the mansion, and the place was lit up there as well. The woman had been watching, and she didn't need to have somebody tell her. She was getting in her car to move it once again, aiming toward the front door, and the sun was down below the mountains, the park a murky gray below him, but the windows reflected all the headlights, and people wouldn't have to stumble in the darkness.

  Dunlap heard another car. He thought it was a cruiser, but the siren wasn't wailing, and he didn't see the silhouette of domelights on the roof. As it stopped where he was watching, he could see the mother and the father. Oh, dear God, no.

  They scrambled out. "Where's Slaughter?"

  "I'm not certain."

  Even as he said that, Slaughter came out from the mansion, standing on the porch, the glare of headlights on him, staring at them. He and the parents approached each other, the parents hurrying.

  "You shouldn't be here," Slaughter told them. Dunlap saw that he was angry. "How'd you know?"

  "We have a neighbor with a police radio. Have you found him?"

  Slaughter pointed toward the upper stories. "He's in there. That's as much as I've been told. I'm asking you to go back home and wait to hear from me."

  Dunlap thought that Slaughter, standing in the headlights' glare, seemed to age a dozen years, his cheeks sagging, dark lines underneath his eyes.

  "But why should he be hiding? Let me go inside and talk to him," the
woman said.

  "No, I don't think so." Slaughter looked down at the ground and scraped a bootsole in the dust. "I think that you should let me handle this." He looked at them.

  "You heard my wife. She's going up to talk to him," the husband said.

  "I'm sorry. I can't let you."

  "That's what you think."

  The husband and wife moved forward. Slaughter stepped ahead to cut them off.

  "Those headlights, those police cars. Hell, you've scared him half to death," the husband said.

  "I didn't want to tell you, but you evidently haven't heard the rest of it. Your son attacked again. A man this time. The man was bitten in the throat."

  The wife froze, her mouth open. "Oh, my God."

  The husband gasped.

  "The man is over in that ambulance. Go take a look, and then you'll know why I can't let you in there."

  They turned toward where Slaughter pointed as the two white-coated men stepped from the back of the ambulance and shut the doors.

  "We've done all we can here," one of them shouted.

  Slaughter nodded, and the two men rushed to get inside the front. The siren started as the engine roared, the lights went on, and they were swerving in a circle, speeding down the gravel driveway.

  Dunlap watched until he couldn't see it anymore. He turned and saw the woman crying.

  "Please. I think that you should leave here," Slaughter said.

  "I want to stay," the woman sobbed.

  Slaughter raised both arms and let them flop down loose against his sides. "At least stay in the car. The best thing you can do is aim your car lights toward the house. And please, don't get in the way. We've got too much to do. I promise, we'll watch out for his safety."

  She wept as her husband held her, both of them nodding.

  "Thank you," Slaughter said.

  They moved weakly toward their car.

  And then they heard it. Everybody did. They all turned, mother, father, Slaughter, Dunlap, the policemen by the house, staring toward the upper levels.

  Deep inside, above there, from which floor wasn't certain, something, someone started howling. It was like a coyote or a dog, a wolf up in the mountains, worse though, mournful, hoarse and hollow, rising, baying, howling, then diminishing, then rising once again.

  It went on two more times like that, chilling, echoing from somewhere deep above there. Dunlap felt his backbone shiver. Then it ended, and the night, except for idling engine motors, finally was quiet.

  "What the hell was that?" a man blurted from the right side of the mansion.

  "I'm not sure I want to know," another shouted back.

  And Slaughter started racing toward the front door of the mansion.

  EIGHT

  The state policemen huddled frightened by the fire. They had planned to reach the lake by sunset, but the dogs kept holding back and whimpering, and the men had traveled slower than they'd wanted. Soon dusk was thick around them, and they never could have seen Bodine even if he'd been ten feet away from them. They had struggled through the underbrush, their arms and legs scratched by bushes, and the dogs had held back so fiercely that the men were forced to grab the dogs and carry them.

  "These dogs of yours are really prizes," one man told the sergeant.

  "I don't understand it. They don't act this way without a reason."

  "Sure, they figure they've gone far enough today. They figure it's about time we carried them."

  "A cougar maybe."

  "Down this low?"

  "A bear then."

  "Come on, Charlie. These dogs just gave out on us. Admit it."

  But the sergeant didn't want to. He was speechless for a moment, a dog held in his arms as he worked through the underbrush. "All right, what about those wild dogs we've been looking for? Maybe they're what my dogs are smelling."

  And everybody else apparently had thought of that already because no one spoke then, and their lack of banter was self-conscious as they struggled through the bushes.

  One man tumbled, breaking branches, groaning as the dog yelped in his arms beneath him.

  "Watch my dog."

  "Your dog? For Christ sake, what about me?"

  "Well, I know plenty of guys like you, but I'll never get another dog like that one."

  "Thanks a lot."

  "No, what he says is true," another said. "He'd never get another dog so lazy."

  And that seemed to bring their spirits back. They laughed a little, waiting as the fallen man got up and struggled to lift the dog.

  "Well, the dog isn't stupid anyhow," someone said. "He figures why walk if someone'll carry him."

  And that helped even better. They were laughing freely as another trooper ordered, "Quiet."

  "What's the matter?"

  "Listen to those noises. Off there to the right."

  They wrestled with the dogs to keep them silent, staring toward the darkness, and they heard it. Branches breaking, fir-tree needles brushing. Not a lot of noise and not too loud, not even close, but there was something nonetheless that they heard moving through the murky forest to the right.

  And then it stopped.

  The dogs struggled harder in their arms.

  "It could be nothing."

  "Well, I don't intend to wait here until I know. That lake can't be too far ahead."

  The sergeant chuckled. "Some tough bunch I brought with me. A little noise, and you boys start to panic."

  "You're the one who mentioned those wild dogs."

  "But think about it. Five of us. Our own dogs. Nothing's going to bother us."

  "So you agree then that those wild dogs could be out there watching us?"

  "No. I agree to nothing. Except that it's late and I'm tired. Let's get moving."

  "That's exactly what I said. Let's get the hell out of here."

  Someone snickered then, and they continued through the underbrush. They glanced from side to side, and when another noise came louder from the right, they increased speed.

  "Heavy pine cones."

  "No, the sky is falling. Don't you know that?"

  "Just shut up."

  At last they were in the open, staring at the murky ripples on the lake. They had a distance yet to go, about a hundred yards, but there were hardly any bushes, just a few trees by the lake, and even in the darkness, they were more at ease now, walking with less tension toward the lake.

  They heard a branch snap behind them, and they turned but kept on walking. As they reached the lake, they sensed the glow before they saw the moon begin to show above the mountains.

  Their inclination was to build a fire, but they had to stake the dogs first, to take care that their leashes were secure. Then they had to feed the dogs, but only one man was required for that, so they let the sergeant do that while they looked around for firewood.

  There wasn't much. People often camped up here, and there weren't many trees by the lake, the dead wood long since gathered, so the men, despite their apprehension, had to go back to the forest. They used flashlights, scanning the trees and bushes first before they stepped in, gathering dead branches, pine cones, fallen leaves, going back, their arms full, toward the sergeant and the dogs beside the lake.

  "Well, what's the matter?" one man asked the sergeant.

  "They're not eating."

  "No wonder. Look at what you gave them."

  "Kibble. That's what they eat every night."

  "They must want something else."

  "They understand they have to eat what they're served."

  "I wish my kids would understand that."

  Another man walked over. "You don't mean to tell me I packed that dog food up here just so your damned pooches could turn their noses up."

  "They look a little sick to me," the first man said.

  "No, they're not sick. They're scared," the sergeant said, and since until now he hadn't acknowledged that there might be trouble, they were struck by his remark. They stood there facing him, then glancing at the dogs.


  "Well, never mind. Let's get that fire started." But the second trooper said that very faintly, and he turned to where the last two men were working on the fire.

  They fumbled with matches, trying to ignite the leaves. One hand shook a little, and a match went out. The other match kept burning, though, and soon the flames spread through the leaves and pine needles, crackling toward the branches, and the branches now were burning, their large flames spreading toward the logs above them.

  The men grouped around the fire, holding their palms out, rubbing them together, then rubbing their arms and shoulders. They glanced at the shimmer on the lake, at the ripple of the fire's light across the trees. They looked at the dogs, then at the darkness around them. It was several seconds before one man said what everybody else was thinking.

  "We don't have a lot of wood."

  "For now it's plenty."

  "But in an hour…"

  "Damn it, then, let's get some more. I'm hungry."

  Even with the crackling of the fire, they heard a noise back in the forest.

  "You go do it. I'll stay here and fix the supper," one man said.

  "Thanks a lot for volunteering."

  The sergeant patted one of his dogs and told it, "That's all right. I'm with you." Then he moved toward his men at the fire. "So you want to do the cooking? That's just fine. You stay and help him. You and you come with me."

  They surprised him when there wasn't any argument. The two men he had chosen were reluctant, that was true, but nonetheless they turned and followed where he led them toward a section of the forest where the noises hadn't been. They aimed their flashlights through the trees before they went in for more wood, and this time they came out with big chunks, stout and heavy branches that would last them. Just to guarantee that the job was done, they made three other trips, always to a different section of the forest, and they came back, dropping wood where they had put the rest, and they could smell the coffee boiling.

  "Not too hot. I don't like coffee that's been burned."

  "Well, you can do the cooking then."

  "I wanted to, but you were too afraid to get the wood. I did it for you."