Bone White

by Ronald Malfi

  Paul approached the door. He reached out and gripped the cold, rusted chain. He tugged on it, and the loose handle broke away from the door with only the barest splintering of wood, like a rotten tooth extracted from diseased gums. He let the handle swing downward on the chain as he dug his fingers around the side of the door and eased it open. The hinges emitted a shrill, ratlike squeal.

  It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the gloom inside. When they did, he saw that it was a good thing he hadn’t walked blindly into the church: There was no floor. The old warped boards had collapsed into a sinkhole, leaving a crater in the middle of the tiny church. The pews that were still visible hung slantways, tilting toward the opening where the rest of the floor should have been, the floorboards beneath them slouching at angles toward the dark pit in the center of the room.

  There were perhaps three feet of sturdy floor just beyond the door, extending out over the hole in the ground like a gangplank. Paul stepped out along the planks while keeping his grip on the door frame. When the planks creaked beneath his boots, he winced and ceased all movement. He was close enough to the edge now to peer down into that dark bowel and see, beyond the spears of floorboards with their splintered edges, the bottom of the drop. It was perhaps thirty feet down, a yawning hollow filled with dirt, straw-colored fauna, and the remaining pews and floorboards all heaped together and coated in a furry gray film of dust. He heard the plinking sound of water drops, and when he glanced up, he could see a rent in the pitched ceiling, as jagged as a lightning bolt, through which a narrow channel of daylight issued. Melting snow dripped down onto the exposed rafters. Paul inhaled and caught the faint odor of animal shit.

  He backed out of the church, closed the door, and fitted the handle’s screws back into their screw holes. Beside his head, the loose shutter screeched, then banged against the peeling, whitewashed side of the church. At least this time there was a cold breeze to account for it.

  When he turned away from the church, he found himself staring at the gradual upward slope of the narrow path that cut into the tree line and up into the woods. The path was now muddy from the melting snow that was dripping off the boughs above it. When he looked more closely, he could make out the muddy boot prints they’d made the night before. They made him feel foolish. Now, more than ever, he was convinced that he’d been imagining things last night, and that there had been nothing out here with him except his own jittery nerves and overtaxed brain.

  He stepped onto the path and proceeded up the incline. The forest around him wasn’t as dense as it had appeared last night in the dark; he could see a fair distance between the widely spaced Sitka trees, with those bulbous, swollen burls in the trunks that reminded him of hornets’ nests, and the silvery rim of the mountains beyond.

  As he walked the path, he took the curl of paper from his pocket and dialed Valerie Drammell’s number. The phone rang several times before Paul was dumped into an automated voice-mailbox. He identified himself, left his contact info, then hung up.

  * * *

  It took about forty-five minutes for him to reach the clearing. Midway through the hike, the dirt path disappeared, and he was left to follow tromped earth toward the top of the ridge. Even more treacherous were the deadfalls and sinkholes he had to climb over or sidestep. When the trees parted and the clearing unfurled before him, Paul had worked himself into a good sweat. The muscles in his legs ached.

  Tiny snowflakes spiraled in the air as Paul surveyed the acres of gray land that stretched clear out to the White Mountains. There was still a crust of snow on the ground, but not enough to cover up the trenches that had been dug in the earth, each trench marked by a system of bright orange vinyl flags staked into the ground. Police tape was strung from tree to tree around the perimeter of the clearing. It was a much larger expanse of land than he had imagined.

  This is where he buried them.

  He followed the police tape, walking the perimeter of the clearing and just studying the layout of the graves—how far apart they were spaced, how deep the holes, now partially filled with snow, looked. There didn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason for the location of each grave—none that Paul could detect, anyway—and for a time, he just stood there, shivering in the cold. The wind skirled, blowing clouds of dusty snow across the clearing.

  Despite his aching muscles and the cold that had begun to penetrate his coat, he walked clear across the glade amid a chorus of water droplets pattering down from the trees, until he’d reached the place where the forest started up again and he began to climb farther up the hillside. The trees stood closer together here, darker and fuller, the ground a muddy miasma of fluorescent-green peat moss, dried orange pine needles, sphagnum, and swampy pools of brown muskeg. There was something else back there, too, beyond the trees and obscured within the shade of the hills, that caught Paul’s attention. And not just his attention—he felt a tightening in his abdomen and a vague yet somehow hostile tug forward. He wended through the trees, careful of his footing, and had only managed to traverse a few yards when he saw what it was that had garnered his curiosity.

  Crosses. There were more crosses back there, similar to the ones that had been erected back on the road leading into town. These appeared much smaller—or maybe they were just farther away—but they were comprised of bleached-white wood the color of bone: a line of perfect crosses running beyond the trees, bisecting the forest from the hills. Unlike the ones back out along the road, however, these seemed to be arranged to form a line of demarcation. A boundary of some kind.

  He heard movement off to his left. It was some distance away, but the sound was too distinct to be droplets of water falling from tree limbs. He looked but could see nothing—the forest was an optical illusion comprised of ramrod tree trunks and large fans of needled boughs.

  He turned back to the crosses, suddenly filled with the urge to go to them. He made it a few yards into the trees until the underbrush—a vast and impassable tangle of bushes and stiff vines—halted any further advancement. The stuff was as inhospitable as barbed concertina wire. And even if he managed to get through it, he could see that the ground beyond sloped toward a narrow fault in the earth, and that the ground itself was pitched at such a severe angle that he’d risk serious injury if he attempted to traverse it.

  With leaves poking at his face and a whip of brittle vine somehow wrapped around his right ankle, Paul wondered what the hell he was doing. He glanced back up at the procession of wooden crosses disappearing into the foothills. Just staring at them now, he was compelled to turn and run back to town—the exact opposite of what he’d wanted to do just moments ago. It reminded him of his conversation with Keith Moore, the reporter back in Fairbanks—how, on the reporter’s two trips to Dread’s Hand, he’d been aware of a nonspecific disquiet sinking into his bones, an overwhelming sense of apprehension: It’s like a sound you can feel in your back teeth.

  He tugged his arms and ankles free of the underbrush, then headed back out of the thicket. It wasn’t exactly like a sound he could feel in his back teeth, but he couldn’t deny the deepening sense of apprehension that was shuttling through his system just from being out here. He wasn’t superstitious enough to contribute it to the town—or even to those unsettling crosses staked into the ground—but he couldn’t deny that the prospect of getting out of these woods was more than just appealing to him.

  He fled back down the hillside toward town.

  17

  He spent the next hour or so visiting the scant few establishments within Dread’s Hand, and showing Danny’s photo to anyone who might pay him fifteen seconds of attention. Few people even spared him that. When the two men working behind the counter at the feed store dismissed him without glancing at the photo on Paul’s phone, Paul addressed the motley selection of patrons who sat around on milk crates in the rear of the store. He explained his situation to the men as they glared at him with tight-lipped indifference. He passed his phone around to them, but no one studied the phot
o of Danny. One grizzled old codger in a tattered hunting jacket had the audacity to scroll right past Danny’s photo, curious as to what else might be on Paul’s cell phone. Paul thanked the men, his tone less than genuine, and engaged in a brief tug-of-war with the old codger before he was able to wrestle his phone away from the man.

  He was met with similar disinterest at the hardware store, which was empty except for a rotund, red-faced fellow reclining in a folding chair behind the counter, watching TV. The moment Paul began to explain his situation, the guy began shaking his head, his swollen red jowls quivering like sacks of gelatin, and held up a hand for Paul to stop talking.

  “No, sir,” said the red-faced fellow, his eyes still glued to the TV. “I ain’t getting involved.”

  “I’m just asking you to look at a photo.”

  “I ain’t getting involved.” He flapped a fat hand toward the door. “Now, go on. Get. Get.”

  Perplexed and frustrated, Paul left.

  By the time he reached the small luncheonette, he was famished. Before claiming a table, he approached the woman behind the counter and showed her the photo of Danny, asked her if she’d seen him. Like many of the others, she shook her head without even looking down at the photo.

  “Do you mind just taking a look anyway?” Paul urged.

  With evident discomfort, the woman glanced down at the photo on Paul’s phone for perhaps half a second.

  “Don’t know him,” she said. She wore a gold crucifix on a chain around her neck, and as Paul stood there forcing a smile across his face, she gathered the crucifix between her thumb and forefinger and began rubbing it.

  “You sure he didn’t come in here about a year ago?”

  “Ain’t never seen him. God’s truth.”

  Paul nodded. “All right.” He glanced around the place and saw that the few patrons were staring at him. Yet he was too hungry to slink back out into the cold with an empty stomach, so he told the woman he’d be staying for lunch. She nodded, but did not seem at all pleased with his decision.

  He was midway through a toasted ham and cheese sandwich when Valerie Drammell called him back on his cell phone. Drammell was apologetic for not getting back to him sooner. When Paul told him where he was, Drammell said he could use a bite himself, and agreed to meet Paul at the luncheonette.

  Drammell arrived less than five minutes after his phone call. He walked right over to Paul’s table as he tugged off his leather gloves. His rubber fire boots stamped wet tracks on the floor.

  “Mr. Gallo,” Drammell said, shaking Paul’s hand, then sitting down opposite him at the small table. “This is nice, meeting like civilized people this time around.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m sorry about last night. Maybe you were right. Maybe all I’d heard was a wolf.” He wasn’t sure he believed that, but he figured it was best to start this meeting off on the right foot. Apologizing couldn’t hurt.

  “No worries. It’s what I get paid for.” Drammell leaned back in his chair and raised a finger into the air. The woman behind the counter nodded at him, cut her gaze toward Paul, then disappeared into the kitchen. “Ain’t eaten nothing all afternoon,” Drammell said.

  “I guess things have been busy out here lately.”

  “That’s the understatement of the year,” Drammell said. He unzipped his coat but didn’t take it off. “How’s your face?”

  “What?”

  Drammell tapped the side of his own nose.

  “Oh,” Paul said. “It’s fine. I’m okay. Think I’m coming down with a cold, though.”

  “You weren’t really dressed for snowshoeing last night, that’s for sure,” Drammell said.

  The woman from behind the counter came over and set a steaming cup of coffee in front of Drammell. “You want your usual, Val?” she asked him.

  “Don’t I always, Tabs?” he said, smiling up at her.

  The woman nodded . . . then glanced at Paul before departing for the kitchen again.

  “I feel like I’ve got two heads,” Paul said.

  Drammell’s eyebrows arched. “How’s that?”

  “It’s just that I get the impression you guys don’t get many visitors out this way.”

  “No, not many. Ain’t no reason for folks to come out here much. There’s some good hunting up in the mountains and there’s the national parks and rec areas nearby, but that’s about it. People travel out here, they stay out along the highway or in RVs at the campsites. But folks out here are a little more on edge than usual, of course, given everything that’s happened.”

  “Tell me about Mallory. Did you know him?”

  “Everyone knew him,” Drammell said. “You don’t live out here and not know everybody. He’d been here for decades, an old bachelor living by himself in the woods. Would sometimes take hunters up into the foothills if they paid him, and he would do some trapping from time to time out by the river, too. Caught most of his food, I guess, though a good number of folks out here do that. He’d always pretty much kept to himself, but a lot of folks out here do that, too. The Hand ain’t the kind of place you choose to live if you’re a . . . I guess, a busybody or someone who likes a lot of company. Folks out here tend to keep to themselves and they know that this is a place where they can do that in peace. No one to bug ’em. That don’t mean they ain’t friendly, Mr. Gallo, but it’s not uncommon for folks to sit in their houses, ’specially when it gets real cold in the winter, for months at a time, jus’ keepin’ to themselves.”

  “Is that what Mallory did? Sit at home for months at a time?”

  “More like years,” Drammell said, and sipped his coffee.

  “Years?”

  “Oh, someone would see him on occasion, coming through town or whatnot, and he’d even come in here from time to time. Loved Tabby’s hot cocoa, is what I heard. But in the past few years, he’d holed himself up in that house of his up Durham Road and just hunkered down.”

  “Not just hunkered down,” Paul said. “He was up to other things, too, obviously.”

  Valerie Drammell splayed his hands and said, “Well, yeah. Maybe he was picking up hitchhikers off the highway. Maybe he was running into them when he was up in the hills, hunting and trapping. Who can tell?”

  He was hunting and trapping, all right, Paul thought.

  “Were any of his victims local?”

  “No,” said Drammell. “None.”

  “My brother came out here about a year ago. You said last night that you remembered the case.” Paul handed Drammell his cell phone, a photo of Danny already on the screen. “That’s him. His name’s Danny Gallo.”

  “Yeah, I remember this photo, too. Troopers brought it up with them from down Fairbanks.” He glanced back up at Paul. “You fellas really look alike.”

  “Do you recall ever seeing my brother here in town?”

  “Nope.”

  “Because I stick out like a fox in the henhouse out here,” Paul continued. “Seems the one thing the people of Dread’s Hand are attuned to is when there’s a stranger among them.”

  Drammell just shrugged his shoulders.

  “What about anyone else? Did you talk to anyone else regarding my brother’s disappearance?”

  “No, sir. No, I didn’t.”

  “No one?”

  “Not a soul.” Drammell set Paul’s phone back down on the table.

  “You get a report of a missing person out here, but you don’t speak to anyone besides the Warrens?”

  “I’m not a police officer, Mr. Gallo. Those boys from Fairbanks, that was their job. I was just tagging along to show ’em where they could get a hot cup of coffee. Having a familiar face showing them around the village made it easier for ’em to talk to the locals, too. Folks out here don’t much care for outsiders, even if they’re cops. Sometimes especially if they’re cops.”

  “Did you read the troopers’ police report?”

  “No, sir.”

  “They spoke to a few other people on their own, showed this picture of my brother a
round the village. No one claimed to have seen him. Not a soul.”

  “All right,” Drammell said, not comprehending.

  “Mr. Drammell, don’t you think that’s odd? I just got here yesterday and every person in this restaurant has peeked at me from over their shoulder at least once since I’ve been sitting here. The lady working behind the counter keeps staring at me like I’m going to shoplift the silverware. Yet my brother came out here and no one can remember seeing him. Doesn’t that sound implausible to you, Mr. Drammell?”

  “Like I said,” Drammell said, picking up his coffee, “people here are quiet. Keep to themselves.”

  The waitress—Tabs, Drammell had called her—brought over a tuna fish sandwich on a kaiser roll and some potato chips. She set the plate down in front of Drammell and touched his shoulder before walking away. Paul’s own coffee cup was empty, but she didn’t ask if he wanted a refill.

  “She own this place or just work here?” Paul asked.

  “That’s Tabby. She’s run this place since they poured the foundation, Mr. Gallo.”

  “This the only place to eat in town?”

  “Well, I suppose. There’s vending machines at the feed store. Sandwiches and sodas and whatnot.”

  “Because I showed her this same picture of Danny when I got here today and she didn’t recognize him, either.”

  Drammell hoisted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. He picked up his sandwich and took a bite. Tuna fish glooped down onto his plate.

  “So, what’s your take on that?” Paul asked him. “My brother didn’t eat the whole time he was here in town?”

  “Maybe he ate at the Moose,” Drammell suggested around a mouthful of sandwich. “Jan sometimes prepares food for the guests. She makes some killer peach cobbler. Or maybe he came into town with his own food. If he was planning to hike out into the mountains, he would have had plenty of rations. If he was smart.” It must have occurred to Drammell—albeit too late—that his last comment was somewhat insensitive, given the situation. He set his sandwich down, blotted mayonnaise from the corners of his mouth with his napkin, and said, “Hey. Sorry. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”