Witch's Canyon

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  "An arrow?" Sam asked.

  "That's right. The killings happen in all sorts of ways. Guns, knives, arrows, everything."

  "What about animal attacks?"

  "That, too," Cal said.

  "Cal, honestly, I don't think—" Eileen began.

  "Don't tell me, Eileen. I was there. Forty years ago, it was, and now it's happening again. It don't do no good to pretend it's not."

  "But nobody knows why?" Dean asked. "Or who's behind it?"

  "I heard the sheriffs had a suspect today," Cal said. "Or—what did Trace call him when he was in here, Eileen?"

  "A person of interest," Eileen said.

  "That's right, a person of interest. Witnesses saw some old codger with a long gun near one of the scenes."

  "An old man?" Sam asked. "Was he dressed in a military uniform?"

  "No. I heard about that, too, over at the shopping center. Jim Beckett don't think the two are the same man. For one thing, the attacks happened too close together, timewise, but far apart in distance. Unless the old guy had a truck or something, which nobody saw, he couldn't have got to Brittany Gardner's place that fast."

  Sam wasn't so sure about that. The old soldier hadn't seemed particularly spry, but he hadn't been particularly substantial, either. The way he phased in and out of visibility made him a spirit, most likely, and spirits weren't bound by the same laws of physics as human beings. The only part that didn't add up was losing the uniform and gaining a rifle.

  "Boys, your food's getting cold while you listen to Cal here," Eileen said. "And I can tell you from personal experience that Cal can talk all night if you let him."

  Sam looked down at his plate. The gravy had started to congeal on his untouched meal. And I was so hungry.

  But Cal was the first person who seemed willing to discuss the murder cycle openly, instead of pretending it wasn't happening.

  Cal regarded the Winchesters for a long moment, gave one somber nod, then drained his cup, put some bills on the table, and picked up his newspaper. "I'll be going, then," he said. "You boys be careful. And if you heed my advice, you'll get yourselves gone, quicker instead of slower."

  "Thanks, Cal," Dean said. "We'll keep that in mind."

  Cal sauntered out of the café, Eileen watching him leave before scooping up the cash. "He means well," she said. "He's just a little on the excitable side."

  He didn't look that excitable to me, Sam thought, finally digging into his dinner. Excitable like a judge, maybe.

  Or an undertaker.

  Cal Pohlens lived three blocks from the Wagon Wheel, with his wife Lorene and a half-blind house cat who was too mean to die, or too dumb—he hadn't decided which. The feline was mostly Lorene's, but since she had taken sick and spent most of her days in a wheelchair and most of her nights hooked up to a ventilator, he wasn't sure who really took care of who. She didn't eat much these days, so he'd taken to getting more and more of his meals at the Wheel. It helped him to get away from the house, to take some fresh air, and to see other people now and again.

  He was halfway home when something caught his eye.

  A dark shape had passed just beyond the half-circle glow thrown by a motion light above the Richardsons' door. The motion had been furtive, like someone, or something, ducking into the shadows before he or it could be seen. Cal slipped a hand into the pocket of his Carhartt barn coat and gripped the .38 revolver he carried there. He took a few steps forward, until he could see into the shadows at the side of the Richardson house.

  The figure was still on the move. This time it passed through a stray slice of moonlight cutting through the trees of the property next door, and he saw an old man in a heavy coat and a hunting cap, the kind with flaps that tied up on top or could be let down over your ears. He carried a rifle at port arms. When he saw Cal looking at him, he darted from the light, vanishing into the black shadows behind the Richardsons' place.

  "You there!" Cal shouted. "Come back here!"

  The old man didn't answer. Any other time, any other year, Cal might have thought he had imagined it, or he might rightly have believed that he'd had one too many at the Plugged Bucket. But he hadn't had a drink since the first of December. He wanted his hands steady and his mind sharp. Leaving Lorene alone except for that damn cat wasn't the best idea, maybe, but he needed some time to himself, and he needed to eat. Most hours of the day and night he was right there with her, and anything that wanted to kill her would have to face him first.

  In his other coat pocket, Cal had a cell phone. He drew out both hands at once, .38 in his right, phone in his left, and started down the Richardsons' driveway. With his left hand he flipped the phone open and punched 911, and in a moment Susannah Brighton, the night dispatcher, answered.

  "It's Cal Pohlens, Susannah," he said. "I'm outside Lew and Billie Richardsons' place on School, and I just saw some old bastard with a rifle sneaking around the back."

  "An old man?" Susannah asked.

  "Twice my age if he's a day," Cal replied. "I'm surprised he don't need a walker, but he can move pretty good."

  "I'll dispatch some officers right away, Cal," she said. "You just stay back and point them in the right direction when they get there. And be careful."

  "Yes'm," he said, and ended his call. He dropped the phone back into his pocket but kept the pistol out. "Screw that," he mumbled to himself. Lew Richardson wasn't exactly his friend—man had borrowed a chain saw ten years ago, and gave it back two years later with the chain about rusted through and the engine fouled. But Lew was a neighbor, and he'd be damned if he would just stand around with his thumb up his ass while the old man killed Lew and Billie.

  Alert for anything, finger resting lightly on the trigger, Cal headed down the driveway. He kept his tread soft, checking the ground every couple of steps to make sure he didn't step on anything that might make noise. If he did, the snow quieted it.

  When he reached the back corner of the house, he squeezed in close to the wall and came around slowly. The old man was still back there, about ten feet from the kitchen door, hunkered down behind a bush just out of the light that spilled from the windows. He studied the house something fierce, and that old gun—was it an old Henry rifle?—was pointed right at it.

  Cal didn't want the guy to get off a shot at Billie or Lew. He showed himself, leveling his .38 at the man's torso. "Drop that antique and come out of there," he demanded. "Right now, before I lose patience and just shoot—"

  His command was interrupted by the kitchen door swinging open with a bang and a shape launching out of it. Cal tore his gaze from the old man and caught the briefest glimpse of someone who looked like a rancher—not a modern rancher, but one from a century past, wearing cotton dungarees and a plaid shirt and plain, heavy boots, carrying a big bowie-type knife—just before the man slammed into him and bulled him to the ground. Cal heard two shots ring out, one his own, which went wild, and one that must have been from the old guy with the Henry rifle. That one struck the rancher—Cal saw the impact as the bullet hit him in the temple and saw his head swing from the force, saw tissue and bone fly from an exit wound on the other side.

  What it didn't do was stop him or seem to slow him down at all. The rancher landed astride Cal, and he took the thick-bladed, heavy bowie, grabbed Cal's hair with his left hand, and commenced sawing at Cal's scalp. Cal screamed and screamed, thought maybe he heard one more shot, thought maybe he saw a puff of dust from a bullet that might have passed through the rancher's plaid shirt, but he couldn't be sure about any of that because his own screams drowned everything out and his own blood was splashing into his eyes.

  A third shot sounded, and this time Cal was pretty sure he heard it. Blinking away the stinging blood, he saw the old man, not six feet from the guy who was scalping him alive. The rancher's face showed pain this time, his mouth dropping open, his head tilting toward Cal. For the first time, Cal saw that the rancher had lost his own scalp; the top of his head was shorn down to the bone in spots, although no bl
ood showed there.

  The rancher slumped forward, sliding off Cal and falling to the ground beside him. Cal tried to move, to gain his feet, to run away or shoot or do anything, but he was too weak. Cold and weak. Lying in the snow, the scalped rancher just inches away, he watched the man blink in and out like a flashlight with a drained battery. He was there and then he wasn't and then he was, and then he was gone. Cal didn't think he was coming back, but by then everything had grown dark, so he wasn't at all sure.

  THIRTEEN

  A siren pierced the quiet of Main Street.

  "Let's go," Sam said.

  Dean threw money on the table. Eileen caught his gaze as he shrugged into his coat. "Thanks, guys," she called.

  "Food was great," Sam assured her. He had eaten about half his dinner, Dean guessed. Dean had wolfed down a little more, but he'd been eating as Cal was talking, while Sam had been listening.

  They rushed outside, ran for the car. Dean got his door open while Sam was still running around to the passenger side, and he had the engine roaring by the time Sam sat down. Checking the rear view, he lurched out into the road. Sam was thrown back into the seat, still wrestling with the seat belt. By the time they were under way, the siren had stopped.

  "That's not far away," Dean said.

  "Not at all." Sam pointed to the left. "I think it went down there, maybe to the street that parallels this one."

  Dean turned left at the corner. When they reached the next street—School Street, the sign said, and another sign warned of a 15 MPH SPEED LIMIT WHEN SCHOOL IS IN SESSION—he could see the sheriff's SUV, roof lights flashing, less than a block away. He pulled up across the street from the SUV, and they were just climbing out of the Impala when another siren sounded. They stayed where they were, out of the way, while another sheriff's office vehicle raced in and Sheriff Jim Beckett jumped out. He had a grim look on his face, and the two younger deputies who came around the house to meet him looked like they were seasick, hung over, or both.

  "Come on," Dean said. He started across the street. The deputies and Beckett had gathered in the driveway of a two-story house with a deep yard. Every light in the house seemed to be blazing. The same was true of the house on the other side of the drive, where the residents and people who must have been neighbors had gathered on a porch.

  A deputy blocking off the driveway with crime scene tape stopped Dean and Sam when they approached. "This is a crime scene," he said. "No spectators."

  "We're press," Dean told him.

  "No press, either."

  "Could you ask Sheriff Beckett?" Sam pressed. "He knows us."

  "Sheriff knows everyone," the deputy replied. "Sorry."

  Dean saw more people coming up the street and climbing up onto the neighbors' porch. "Let's try up there," he said quietly.

  Sam followed his gaze. "Worth a shot."

  They moved next door and up the stairs, almost in the wake of the last couple of people. "Anybody clear on what happened over there?" Dean asked no one in particular. He hoped that on the darkened porch, people wouldn't realize that they didn't know him.

  "I've only heard bits and pieces," a woman said. "But what I heard sounds pretty awful."

  "What's that?"

  "A couple of the sheriffs used the word 'scalped.' And I saw one of them lose his dinner in the backyard, over there near where Cal is."

  "Cal's the victim?" Sam asked, a note of horror in his voice.

  "One of the victims," a man said, picking up the story. "Sounds like it's Lew and Billie Richardson inside, and Cal outside."

  "And they were all scalped?" Dean asked.

  "I heard gunshots, too, but we're still not clear on who got shot."

  "And I heard Sheriff Beckett asking about some old man with a gun," the woman added. "But I'm not sure who he's talking about."

  That old man again.

  "Do we know if they're dead?" Sam wondered.

  "They were scalped," someone else said. "But you can be scalped without being killed. It's all a matter of how careful the scalper is."

  "From what I've heard," the first man said, "there wasn't a whole lot of finesse practiced here." Dean wished he could see the speakers, but everyone was backlit from inside the house. Besides, if he could see them, they'd be able to see him, and that might prove awkward.

  Seven victims, then. That we know of. So far.

  And two of them inside a house. Like the bear they had encountered earlier, the killer seemed able to get through doors.

  They had to find that old man. That much remained clear, even if not much else did. Soldiers and bears and Bigfoot and whatever else aside, he was the only common element to any two killings so far. Three, if he was indeed the soldier.

  "Anybody see where the old man went?" he asked.

  "I went to the window as soon as I heard the shots," the first man said. "But it was all over by then. I could see poor Cal on the ground, even though I didn't know it was him at the time. That's it, though. We could hear sirens on the way, so we stayed inside until the first sheriff's car came."

  "That's probably wise," someone else said.

  "That's what we thought."

  Sam nudged Dean's shoulder. "We're not going to get anything else here," he said. "Let's go."

  Dean nodded and followed him down the stairs and back to the car. "I wouldn't mind talking to the sheriff again," he said as they got in. "But there's a point of diminishing returns, and I think we're reaching it. Nobody knows as much about what's going on as we do... and we don't know jack."

  Sam laughed. "Sounds impressive when you put it that way. Good thing the professionals are on the case."

  "The difference is that when we do figure it out, we'll be able to do something," Dean pointed out. "If Sheriff Beckett figures it out, he'll assume that he's crazy and ignore the evidence even if it bites him on the ass."

  "Whatever's going on, I don't think it's possible anymore for them to pretend that it's not happening."

  "I don't know, that mayor seems pretty divorced from reality. The rest of the town is probably coming around fast, though."

  "You think that'll slow it down? If people stay inside and keep their doors locked?"

  "We don't know if these last people had their doors locked," Dean said. "It can't hurt, but there's no sign that it'll help."

  "Let's cruise around a little," Sam suggested. "If the old man's still in the neighborhood, maybe we'll spot him."

  Having no better ideas, Dean started the car.

  Jim Beckett looked at the bloody scene in the Richardson living room and felt a weight in his gut as if he had swallowed a bowling ball. He had known Lew and Billie half his life. Now they were empty shells with most of the tops of their heads torn off—not even taken away, just scraped off and tossed to the floor like used tissues. Outside, Cal Pohlens was in basically the same shape, except his scalp had only been peeled away but not completely removed. He had known Cal his whole life, pretty much. Since sixth grade, anyway.

  The resources of his forensics team were being stretched to the limit. His was a small department, and seven murders in less than twenty-four hours were more than his people could cope with. Maybe more than he could cope with. He took these deaths personally, and so many at once wore heavily on his heart.

  They also, quite frankly, scared him. If the forty-year murder cycle was real, there were a lot more deaths to come. And if it was real, what did it mean?

  Who could be behind killings that had started eighty years ago? Yes, Brittany Gardner and Cal had both reported an old man near the scenes of their murders, but he would have had to be at least in his teens in 1926, which would make him over ninety now. From what he had seen of the brutal killings, they had taken a good deal of strength.

  And then there were the two that seemed to have been committed by animals. That added a whole new, even more bizarre dimension to the whole thing. He had a bad feeling he was going to need to call in help. State troopers from Arizona's Department of Public Sa
fety, the FBI, even the National Guard. He wouldn't give in to that impulse quite yet, though. Mayor Milner was right about the mall. If he asked for help from any of those agencies, the press would get wind of it—out-of-town press that he couldn't control. Something like this could not only destroy Cedar Wells in the short term, but even threaten the tourist traffic to the Grand Canyon. Losing that trade would choke off the whole county. Sheriff Beckett didn't want to lose any more lives, but neither did he want to lose the whole region.

  Talk about your rocks and your hard places, he thought. No wonder my chest feels like it's being squeezed in a vise.

  FOURTEEN

  Juliet and Stu were still standing in the carport, debating whether Stu should walk the six miles to the nearest neighbor's house, when they heard something on the roof. Stu froze in place, an anxious look etched on his face.

  Not knowing what he had seen or heard, Juliet followed his lead, going still and silent. A moment later she heard it. A gentle thud, then something that sounded like claws scraping the roof.

  When Stu spoke, his tone was soft but urgent.

  "Get in the house and lock the door, and stay there no matter what happens," he said. The next part was shouted, an anxious command. "Do it now!"

  Juliet ran for the door. She hadn't put away the key ring, but she fumbled with it briefly, trying to find the right key for the knob, sorry she had turned the thumb latch before walking out. Stu came close behind her. Behind him—she knew because she heard his exhaled curse, not its landing—was something else. She didn't want to see what it was—knowing it was there and that it was frightening enough to make Stu run into her in his haste was bad enough. She finally opened the door and fell inside. Stu was still behind, but she was sprawled out on the floor, and he paused, ever so briefly, maybe deciding if he should walk right on her or try to leap over. He was still standing there when something snatched him out the door again, hurling him into the yard.

  "Lock the door!" he screamed.