by George Wier
“Hello, Mr. Lee. I’m Bill Travis. This is Wolf Dillard. Good trick with the mummy. The Sheriff wants to talk to you. Let’s go.”
“Oh shit,” he said.
“And bring your key,” I said. “We don’t feel like going over that gate again, and I seriously doubt you could.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When we got back into town I decided on a hunch to take a drive by the Library as opposed to going straight to the Sheriff’s Office. It was already three o’clock in the afternoon—a good day and time to bring everything to a close, or at least I hoped.
The Chambers County Library was a block from the western edge of town and about a block and a half from Lee’s trailer. Purcell Lee sat between us and his wide eyes took in the tableau.
Four sheriff’s cruisers, a local police car, and two constable vehicles were up on the lawn around the library at a distance of thirty yards. A number of the townspeople had come out and were lining the block around the library from the other side of the street.
Sheriff Renard stood with his arms on the roof of his car with a bullhorn in front of him but lying on its side. The situation appeared to be ongoing.
Cathy Baha sat in the backseat of the Sheriff’s car, but with her legs outside and her feet on the grass. She and the Sheriff were talking. Cathy noticed us, tapped the Sheriff’s side and pointed. He turned and waved us on over.
We climbed out. I opened the back door for Purcell Lee, and he got out, a hangdog expression on his face. I wanted to keep Franklin in the car, but he refused the offer to jump back inside.
As we walked over, Wolf said, “What was that about not getting shot at?”
“Looks like we managed to catch all the fun,” I said.
As Wolf, Lee, Franklin and I walked up, I noticed Sheriff Renard’s long and hard glare at Lee.
“Is Julie okay,” I asked.
“She’s fine,” Cathy said. “She agreed to stay at the hotel until someone came back for her. The Sheriff thought all of this would be over by now, didn’t you Sheriff?”
Sheriff Renard turned back to face the library and I came up beside him.
“What we’ve got,” he said, “is a crazy man. He’s holed up on the second floor.”
“What about the librarian?”
“She was at home. I sent one of the constables to check. When she didn’t answer the door, he broke her door and went inside. She was in there and frightened out of her mind. She said that a crazy man had taken over the library, and that if she said anything to anybody, he would come and kill her.”
“Damn,” I said. “Has Cooper got a gun?”
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?”
“I think he may have a rifle in there. I’m pretty sure it was him that took at shot at you and Wolf at the mound last night.”
“But he hasn’t fired any shots, has he?” I asked.
“Not exactly.”
“Again, Sheriff. What does that mean?”
Sheriff Renard thumped the roof of his patrol car and Cathy started. “He shot one of my deputies with a tranquilizer dart when he was walking up to the front door of the place.”
“Is your deputy all right?”
“I don’t know. He’ll be out for at least the next day or so. The paramedic had to give him enough adrenalin to keep his heart going. Whatever was in the dart was enough to bring down a...a really big something, but it’s enough to kill a person, for sure.”
“This doesn’t sound like something Cooper would do,” I said. “Or at least, Cooper in his right mind.”
“From what he was yelling out that window at us, I’d say he’s quite a ways from downtown rational. I suspect he hasn’t slept in a few days.”
“That’ll do it,” Cathy said from the back seat. “My brother has always been...unbalanced. But when you make lots of money, people put it down to eccentricity. I don’t want you to shoot him, Sheriff. I promise, if you’ll pull everybody back, I can go in there and get him to come out.”
Sheriff Renard cut his eyes her direction for a hundredth of a second, as if either considering it or dismissing it, or possibly both.
“Hold on a second, Sheriff,” I said. “She may have a valid point. How long have you been out here?”
He glanced at his watch. “About twenty minutes, I’d say.”
“How would you like to make it five or ten more hours?”
“What?”
“That’s how these things usually go. But, it also usually ends badly. Let’s say that one of your deputies—whom I seriously doubt have been in any similar situations in the past—gets a little itchy after hours of waiting. Then, when things are about to settle out, he pulls the trigger and kills someone when maybe a little diplomacy could have done the job. I bears serious consideration.”
Sheriff Renard turned to me.
“Do you seriously expect me to pull all these officers out of here and let this lady go in there and try to reason with that crazy son of a bitch?”
I was fully prepared to answer, but one of the Constables shouted, “Sheriff! Look!”
We looked toward the library. Franklin was trotting up the front steps.
“Franklin!” I shouted.
He stopped, looked at me, then turned and rared back and began clawing at the library door.
“Franklin!” I shouted again. “Bad dog!”
He turned to look at me, then the door opened and Franklin slunk inside.
“Crap,” I said.
*****
Purcell Lee said, “Can I go home now?”
“Not a chance,” the Sheriff said. “And by the way, shut up!”
Cathy got out of the car and stood beside us. “I’m going in there,” she said.
“No you’re not,” Sheriff Renard said.
“Yes she is,” I said. “And I’m going with her. My dog’s in there.”
“Has everyone gone nuts?” the Sheriff said.
“Yeah,” Wolf agreed. “Me too. I’m going as well.”
“Dammit! Wolf, you still got that gun I gave you?”
“Lost it when the Old Man scooped us up and ran. Sorry.”
“Hold on,” the Sheriff said. “Dammit. Okay.” He grabbed the bullhorn and keyed the mic. “Cooper. Three people, unarmed, are coming in there. One of them’s your sister. I promise you, if anything happens to any one of them, or the dog, I’m personally going to stomp your guts into the dirt!”
We waited. No reply.
“All right,” he said. “Go if you’re going. Stay if you’re staying.”
Wolf, Cathy and I took to running. It was a short sprint, but no shots rang out and no one got hit with any darts. We made the front porch, but Wolf was first. The guy was in pretty good shape. He went in first with me barely ahead of Cathy.”
“Evanston!” Cathy called out once we were inside.
No answer.
Franklin barked from upstairs.
We ran. The library whipped past us with its neat rows of shelves and its small, centrally located check-out desk. The stairway began just past the desk. Wolf, ahead of us, took three steps at a time going up. By the time he was halfway up, there was a soft report such as an air rifle might make, followed by a fit of cursing and a lot of racket.
I came up beside Wolf on the second floor. Evanston was on the floor, shaking like a leaf, and Franklin busily tried to lick his face. A tranquilizer dart was hanging from his right pants leg near his ankle.
“Oh Evanston!” Cathy said, and went to his side. I took in the scene all at once. Cooper had fired on Franklin at the top of the stairs, had missed at close range, and the dart had ricocheted and popped him in the ankle.
“Wolf,” I said. “Go to the window and give a shout to the Sheriff. Tell him to get the paramedics up here now.”
While Wolf was summoning the cavalry, Cathy shoved Franklin back and cradled Evanston’s head. “What were you doing?” she asked.
“Karank...awa,” he managed to croak out
, but then his eyes rolled back in his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Julie and I stayed in Chambers County that night. I spent part of the evening giving Franklin a bath in our hotel bathroom. He seemed okay with it. I wasn’t.
Between Purcell Lee—who was not a three thousand-year-old mummy—Wolf Dillard, Sheriff Renard, Cathy Baha, and the stenographic report of Evanston Cooper taken that morning at the hospital in Winnie, all the pieces came together.
Evanston Cooper had become obsessed with finding and capturing Bigfoot. He had—for years, apparently—immersed himself in Bigfoot lore and had dug so far into the past that he had interviewed tribal elders from many of the Indian tribes throughout the Midwest and along the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys. According to Cooper, the Indians had so venerated the Old Man of the Woods, as many of them referred to the creature, that when one died, the family would bring the body to the Indians for burial. The Indians obliged with a full ceremony, including tribal headdress, beads, and an elaborate ceremony. It had always been assumed that Indian burial mounds were strictly for Chiefs and their families. In Cooper’s opinion, that wasn’t the case, and from what I knew of Wolf’s and my Old Man of the Woods, I tended to believe him. He wanted a Bigfoot to put on display to the whole world. He would charge admission and make millions. Also, he wanted his research borne out with solid, irrefutable proof, hence the very real but scientifically questionable archaeological dig.
Randy Marshall was arrested at his getaway retreat on Lake Conroe. He had fired the shot that night that had wounded the Old Man, but Evanston had knocked the gun from his hands before he could fire another. By the time Evanston had replaced the rifle with the tranquilizer gun, the Old Man and his baggage—that is, Wolf Dillard and Bill Travis—were long gone into the night. According to the Sheriff, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department had Randy cooling his heels until Sheriff Renard summoned him back to Anahuac. When I asked him about it, the good Sheriff confided that all he wanted was for the man to spend one night in jail, then be released with the word of warning that he was not welcome back in Chambers County, then or ever.
Purcell Lee admitted to being on Evanston’s payroll, but the night he heard the Old Man outside the library he quickly terminated his employment without notice. He took the mummy he had stashed in his trailer for Evanston, dressed the ancient corpse in his own overalls, unhooked the thing’s mouth and implanted his dentures in it, superglued it all back into place, then hightailed it to higher ground.
I had the opportunity to question Lee on it from the freedom side of the bars he was behind. It was getting on toward lunchtime, and a lot had already happened that morning.
“How did Evanston Cooper get hold of a mummy? And why would you have it? It’s not exactly your...occupation?”
“Because,” he said, his meaty mitts wrapped around the bars of his cell, “what he was doing wasn’t exactly what you’d call moral.”
“Ethical, you mean, right?”
“Oh. Yeah. Ethical. Big words, you know.”
“Uh huh. So what was he doing?” I already knew, but I wanted to hear Lee’s side of things.
“A fellow like that acts like he has all kinds of money. But he don’t. Not really. He kept promising to pay me, but I never seen so much as a dime. Asked him for an advance, once. He told me that if I’d go pick up a package for him in Houston, bring it back and sit on it for a few days until he could sell it to the highest bidder, then he would cut me in.”
“Why’d you do it, then?” I asked.
“Well, I didn’t see much harm, unless it was drugs or something, and then I wouldn’ta done it. But it turned out to be a mummy. I figured the fellah was long dead, and those museums trade them things around. Maybe it wasn’t so bad.”
“The Sheriff is checking into all of that. We’ve got Cooper’s confession.”
“I’d sure like to get out of here,” he said.
I turned to go and said, “Yeah. Most people behind bars are like that.”
I never got the chance to talk to Evanston again while Julie, Franklin and I were in Chambers County. As it turned out, Evanston hadn’t gotten a full dose of the put-down juice from the dart he had tried to get Franklin with. He’d got less than a fifth of it, but it was still enough to put his lights out for awhile. It wasn’t until he was in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital that he woke up abruptly under a dose of adrenaline. He began spilling the beans about everything to everyone and anyone who would listen. He made a spectacle of himself and wasn’t fully satisfied until Sheriff Renard hired a Court Reporter to go take his testimony. Afterwards, the Sheriff had asked him what he was afraid of. Cooper admitted that he was sure that Wolf’s Bigfoot friend was going to come looking for him, and that Westlake Hills in Austin, wasn’t far enough away. From what Wolf had told me about his dealings with the Old Man years before, I didn’t doubt that was true.
I came into Sheriff Renard’s office and dropped down into a chair. He had his feet up on his desk and his hands behind his head with his hat scootched up over his eyes.
“Hell of a day,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“I think it’s about time for us to cut out. We’ve got kids at home, and we’ve got an older kid with more responsibility than she bargained for looking after them.”
“Your daughter. You said she was a deputy. Is she a good one?”
“She’s as good as they come,” I said.
“Sounds like a father saying that.”
“A father is saying that.”
He came forward in his chair, pushed his hat up properly, and said, “Sounds to me like he’s a pretty okay father.”
“He does his best. That reminds me, not to change the subject or anything, but what’s going to happen with that archaeological dig now?”
“The dig permit has been suspended. The property owner has got a few boys out there filling in that damned hole they dug.”
“What about the artifacts that they were supposed to have had in the trailer?” I asked.
“They’re going back in the ground where they belong. I got a promise on that one.”
“Good,” I said, “and nodded.”
Franklin padded into the office and put his head on my lap. Julie followed him a moment later.
“Are we done here?” she asked me.
“Yes ma’am,” Sheriff Renard said. “Done and done.”
“Good,” she said.
“Are we all packed up?” I asked.
Julie frowned. “We’re packed, but the bags are still in the hotel room.”
“Oh,” I said. “We’re almost done, then.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Julie and I said our goodbyes to Sheriff Hamp Renard, Purcell Lee, Wolf Dillard and Cathy Baha outside the hotel. They patted Franklin and he reveled in all the attention. When the handshaking, the back-patting and the kind words were done, we got into the SUV and drove away from Anahuac, pausing briefly at the intersection where we had stopped that first night. I checked my watch. It was coming up on one o’clock and the sun was high in they sky. It looked like a good day to travel.
I glanced back to the Chambers County Library and Julie said, “These places really grow on you, don’t they?”
“That they do.”
“I think I just figured something out.”
“What’s that?”
In answer, she unbuckled her seat belt, leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
I turned and frowned at her. “Answer, please.”
She had a mischievous smile on her face. “All along I thought I had snagged a Texas man. The fact of the matter is, you’re not a Texas man.”
“I’m not? What am I, then?”
“You are Texas,” she said.
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “No, no. I don’t think so.”
“Remember,” she said. “I’m the Hierophant. According to Cathy, that means I’m the font of all wisdom. So what I say must be true.”
“While that may or may not be so, you’re my wife and the mother of my children, so please listen when I tell you, I am not Texas. In fact sometimes I’m not sure there really is such a place. I think someone made it up.”
She gave me a kiss and I returned it, then slid back over and put her safety belt on. Franklin stuck his head up front and tried to kiss me as well.
“Bad dog,” I told him, and wiped my cheek.
*****
It happened mere minutes later, when we were no more than a few miles outside of town. A feeling came over me, and I remembered the pained face of the Old Man in moonlight and the side wash of a flashlight held by bloody, trembling hands. I remembered La Mer hummed by two friends and grunted by a third.
I pulled over to the side of the highway, rolled down the window and turned the car off.
“What?” Julie asked.
“Um...a minute, please. We’ll be right back. Come on, Franklin.”
I looked both ways, then Franklin and I crossed the highway. I stepped gingerly through the loose barbed wire fence and went into the trees with Franklin running on ahead.
The odor was in my nose and buzzing in my brain.
When I was perhaps a hundred yards away from the highway, Franklin suddenly tucked his tail between his legs and lay down among the weeds.
I waited.
He stepped from behind a tree, his silver fur shimmering where scant patches of sunlight penetrating the canopy overhead touched it.
“Hello,” I said.
He began grunting La Mer.
“How’s the leg?” I asked.
He slapped his thigh with an oversized paw. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was smiling.
“What did you want to tell me?” I asked.
He shook his head slowly, then he pointed at Franklin.
“Franklin?” I nodded.
“Aaang-iiin.”
Franklin pawed the air in obeisance. The Old Man bent and laid his hand on Franklin’s belly. I stood there, transfixed. Something was happening, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what it was.