Devil Creek

by Stephen Mertz

  Lovechio reached into a jacket pocket.

  Domino tensed, ready to unleather his own piece if the guy was going for a gun. With all this crazy shit happening inside his skull—inside his whole body!—he didn't know what to expect.

  Lovechio withdrew his cell phone. "I've decided to go to plan B."

  "I didn't know there was a Plan B."

  "There isn't. I'm improvising." Lovechio's sneer became a scowl. "Is that a problem?"

  "What do you have in mind?"

  Lovechio glanced at Landware's prone form. "This is too goddamn good an opportunity to pass by."

  Domino said, "Hold on. The only reason I threw in on this was to get your snoop out of the way," he indicated Muskie's corpse, "and to give the cops a nicely wrapped fall guy with this newspaper guy."

  Lovechio punched AutoDial on his cell phone. "I guess maybe the part you missed must have been when Muskie said that he told Landware about everything he saw at the site, and that Landware has been conducting his own investigation."

  "That was about something else, not this: Olson, and those accidents at the site."

  "Plan B is to protect your ass as well as mine," said Lovechio. "If the cops get their hands on Landware, he'll give them who-knows-what that he dug up on his own about us. Him and that Police Chief, Saunders, you should have seen them this morning. A regular goddamn team. If they start chipping away together at us, who knows who the fuck will go down?"

  Then Lovechio said into his cell phone, "Yeah, Tupper. How does it look? That bad, huh? What do the firefighters say? Jesus, that's fast. Okay, look. Everyone's been evacuated, right? Just you and Firth? Good, that's the way I want it. Don't let anyone onto or near the site. Papa's coming home with a surprise."

  Domino wasn't listening. He heard Lovechio's words on the periphery of his senses, but his eyes rested on the dead body sprawled beside Mike Landware. The blood under Muskie's head—Domino had sliced the throat with a quick crosscut—had congealed. Muskie's bulging dead eyes were extended from having drunk in his final look at life. Domino heard again the ponies, the war cries, and the tom-toms. He felt the madness rising within him, something like what he imagined sexual arousal to be like. He found himself studying the dead man's neck, the way the head was attached to the shoulders.

  Lovechio disconnected and pocketed his cell phone.

  "Okay," he said to Domino, "here's what we do. We're leaving the troll's stiff right where it is. We're taking Landware with us, up to the resort. But we're leaving his wallet here."

  Domino felt like he was teetering on a fence. He'd never felt this way before. This was the first time he'd ever been scared, and he shut that down as soon as he recognized its tremor.

  Lovechio's arrogant manner and words drew him to this side of the fence, to this side of reality, while the war whoops and the charge of braves on their ponies and the pounding of the war drums that made his head feel like it would burst, these pulled at him equally. He could grab one of these heads in his hands and rip and scream blasphemy at gods who would allow him to die so long ago. . . .

  Lovechio was appraising him like a buyer unsure of the merchandise.

  "Hey, uh, Domino. You've, uh, got that look again. Are . . ." The arrogance faltered in his voice. ". . . You're not fixing to drop dead on me from a heart attack or some goddamn thing, are you?"

  Domino braced his outer mask to the turbulence raging within.

  He said, "Do you think they'll buy that?" Strangely, he found it difficult to form the sentence, and his voice sounded thick, bass-heavy, to his ears, as if heard through some weird filtering device. "The newspaper guy kills a loser, drops his wallet and burns to death in a fire?"

  Lovechio reacted with the briefest flicker of apprehension, maybe fear. "Who cares if they buy it or not? They won't be able to disprove it and they sure won't be able to pin anything on us after we're done. We offed Muskie but first we made him squeal, right? You heard what he told us."

  "We didn't do that," Domino said, in the same basso profundo voice, wondering if he really sounded that way. "I did it. I made him squeal and tell you everything you wanted to know."

  Lovechio gulped. "Yeah, that's right. Whatever. So now you and me are going to get Landware's stiff out to the Bronco." The quaver in his voice meant he wasn't as sure of himself as he had been. "Look, with Landware dead, you and me are covered, right? He's the final loose end that we're tying up. Someone's going to pay for what that bitch I was married to did to me. I could've been governor of the state of Illinois instead of doing things like this," and he sneered at the men sprawled at their feet.

  Domino said, "I like doing this."

  "Well then, you've got one more job. This prick Landware is going to die in the fire. That's the worst way possible to go, I always figured. I won't harm my son or the woman who's his mother. But this guy, this Mike Landware, he's been my son's daddy. He's been sleeping with the boy's mother. He's going to die hard for that. I want him alive and awake when he knows that those flames are melting his eyes and licking his body apart. By that time, you and me will be getting out of town. That's Plan B. Payback, big time."

  The unconscious man stirred on the floor. He propped himself up with his elbows. His head hung limply from his neck.

  Domino noted his, and his thick fingers curled into claws. The drums were beating louder.

  Lovechio snickered and drew back his foot. He delivered a short, vicious kick that connected with the side of Landware's head. The semi-conscious man's head hit the floor with another clunk!

  Lovechio spat upon him.

  "Stay down, you son of a bitch." He said to Domino, "Tie his hands behind his back. We're taking Mike Landware to his execution."

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  By the time Paul reached home, dusk was approaching.

  The sky at this hour was generally rosy to the west, which often rouged the mountain slopes, while the sky overhead was usually a turquoise blue, with the encroaching purple blanket of night drawing across the world from the east.

  Instead, the sky and the atmosphere at ground level were smudged with a dirty gray curtain of smoke. There was no wind, not even the hint of a breeze. Smoke from the fire was gathering, clinging to the forested mountains, while at ground level, visibility was no more than a mile.

  He paused on the front step of his home, his backpack with unread textbooks and unfinished homework slung over his shoulder, and he stared off in the direction from which he'd come, along the county road to the highway in the near distance, toward the direction of town. The fire could not be seen from this side of town but even out here, this far away, the air was thick and dirty.

  Sirens could be heard from the direction of the fire. He had paused where the highway met his road, before undertaking the final leg of his two-mile walk at a point that afforded a final view of the fire before his road led past foothills that obscured the view.

  A pillar of smoke, looking like a white mushroom cloud, was spreading outward to cause a premature dusk. A tanker plane rumbled by overhead, flying in from the direction of Las Cruces, heading in the direction of the fire.

  Thunderclouds were encroaching from the south, but the air was dry and warm without the hint of moisture or the promise of rain. Thunder rumbled and the sooty cumulous clouds unleashed jagged lightning bolts that stabbed at the earth like spears of burnished silver.

  Thanks to the good shape he was in from playing soccer and gymnastics in general, Paul wasn’t even winded from the two-mile walk home.

  But though the wildfire was burning miles from where he stood, uncomfortable warmth began spreading across his face and his chest, through his shirt, as if he were standing too close to a raging fire in the wintertime.

  He let himself into the house with his key, and took a glass from the cupboard and drew himself water from the tap. He looked out through the window over the kitchen sink as he drank long sips.

  The vista of distant slopes and peaks, which he was used to, was barely visi
ble beyond the gray haze in the air that was growing darker as dusk drew near, casting a gloomy pall across landscape blurred to him, as if seen by a nearsighted person without eyeglasses.

  He found himself blinking. His eyes itched from smoke that was not discernible inside the house, but must have been seeping in just the same to irritate his eyes.

  And then he smelled the scent of juniper smoke: strong, clearly discernible, its tartness nipping at his nostrils exactly like in the rec room with Dani at the Ordway house.

  He removed his sunglasses and massaged his eyes, but it felt like he was grinding sand in them, so he stopped that and drew another glass of water from the tap.

  War drums. The smell of juniper smoke.

  He must ban these things from his mind. He must think about something else.

  He removed his cell phone from the backpack to find a text message and two voice mails from Dani, wanting him to call her as soon as he got home, to let her know he’d made it home okay. That’s what he would do. He would call Dani. And there were voice messages from Mike too, and one from his mother. She said she’d be home soon, but she didn’t say where she was or what she was doing. Where was she? Mike would be covering the fire for his newspaper. Maybe Mom went with him. He wondered how things were going between them. Had they resolved the issues between them that were causing friction in the family?

  Yes. That’s right. Think about other things. The water tasted cool and refreshing going down his throat. He drew another glass from the tap and for some reason, avoided looking out through the window this time.

  After the glass was filled, he consciously turned his back to the window, returning to his backpack and cell phone on the kitchen table. His eyes were irritated, but he only vaguely smelled juniper smoke now and he hardly heard the beating of the tom-toms. Thinking about other things did help.

  He sipped from this glass of water.

  Maybe he should tell Dani about his biological father visiting him at school today. Maybe talking about that with her would help. He had mixed feelings about Dani. When she was away from her nosy, gossipy friends, he felt a mixture of being relaxed around her, but sort of agitated at the same time. The truth was, he preferred hanging out with his buddies, playing paintball or soccer and renting video games. The girls his age seemed to be—he didn’t know how to put it—more mature or something. Playing paintball was an extension of little boy games, while girls like Dani were exhibiting the first signs of blossoming womanhood in their behavior and appearance. It was as if they represented the allure of being an adult. He decided that he would tell her—

  His body convulsed.

  The drinking glass slipped from his hand and shattered noisily, splashing its contents across the tile floor, as a seizure like a massive body blow kicked him in the stomach and sucked the air from his lungs. He gripped the table with both hands to keep from falling and almost over-ended the table before some superhuman force whirled him around like a top, to hurl him back against the table hard enough to send his backpack and a bowl of apples and pears spilling to the floor.

  He had no choice but to stare out the window.

  No choice but to see the disembodied face staring back at him from a background of slate-gray haze that concealed everything. He couldn't see the driveway or their property line.

  The face was ancient, Native American, like a mummy, the flesh wrinkled, dry as parchment, a wizened face framed by long, flowing white hair that contrasted starkly against a black headband. Ancient, yet radiating a savage power. A warrior's visage, though ancient: harsh, highlighted by dark, impassive eyes.

  Paul was unable to avert his eyes.

  "Wh-who are you?"

  "Behold," spoke the bassy voice that seemed to come from within Paul's head. "I am Gray Wolf." There was infinite sadness in the ghostly sound. "And you, my son, are the chosen."

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Robin followed the Altima through town at a distance of four car-lengths.

  There was traffic at this time of the day, Devil Creek's version of a "rush hour." Folks driving home late from their jobs. People returning from a shopping trip to Cruces. Or simply running errands or meeting for dinner engagements—filled. Pickup trucks mostly, with some cars. She hoped the traffic was providing enough "camouflage" to keep the driver of the Altima from knowing that the Subaru was on her tail.

  The sky was a washed-out pale blue behind the gray haze of smoke, made darker by ominous, encroaching thunderheads. With the approach of dusk, the air was cool enough to drive with the windows up, but Robin would have done so anyway. The smoky haze irritated her eyes and sinuses and throat.

  Ahead of her, the Altima reached the main intersection and streaked through on a yellow light.

  Robin tried never to curse. She didn't appreciate coarse, vulgar behavior in others or in herself. But alone in the Subaru, stalled at that red light, she sputtered a staccato burst of expletives that only heated up when she realized that there was no cross-street traffic at this intersection at this particular moment.

  Watching the Altima glide off down the road, she was sorely tempted to throw caution to the wind and stomp the Subaru's accelerator and give chase. But in a town the size of conservative little Devil Creek, such irrational behavior wouldn't sit well if reported to Mr. Tutwiler, and a job she loved could be affected.

  She tapped the fingertips of both hands madly against the steering wheel. She withdrew her cell phone from her purse and autodialed Paul's number.

  She got his fresh, boyish voice message. "Hey, it's me and I'm having too much fun right now to talk to you. Sorry. Leave a message."

  When the beep! came, she disconnected. He would see that she had tried to reach him. Paul was at the Ordway house, studying with Dani, or back home by now, and it was probably just as well that she wasn't getting through. She didn't call Mike because she didn't want to distract him from his work reporting on the fire, but she shouldn't talk to either of them right now. And didn't that say a lot about the state her family was in? No one was communicating when they needed to the most. But even recognizing that, the only one she wanted to talk to right now was the blonde driving away in the Altima.

  When the light changed to green, her trusty little Subaru charged ahead as if shot from a cannon, sort of. She did press the accelerator to the floor. The Subaru would have burned rubber if it could have.

  As it was, she was breaking the speed limit within half a block. She rounded the lazy bend in the state highway, beyond the main business district of town, fearing that she had lost the Altima and any hope of confronting this mysterious "ghost." Her heart fluttered when she saw the Altima parked at the gas station/convenience store at the edge of town.

  She braked so hard the Subaru swerved, but the blonde woman at the pump, fueling the Altima, had her back to the road, so Robin had a handful of seconds to consider her options as she drew nearer to the gravel parking lot of the store.

  The store was busy at this time of day with people fueling their cars on their way home—all four pumps were busy—and everything from pre-teen kids on bicycles hanging around the front entrance, laughing and chattering among themselves about the big fire outside town, to people stopping in for a pack of cigarettes or a lottery ticket or whatever item they'd forgotten at the supermarket.

  The woman was dressed down from yesterday, when Robin had first seen her in the school parking lot, conversing with Paul.

  God! So much had happened, her world reeling out of her control, making it difficult to believe how fast these escalating events and emotions were unfolding.

  The blonde managed to look chic in even in faded denim, hiking boots and a summery pale blue blouse.

  Robin tromped the brake pedal, sluicing the Subaru diagonally in front of the Altima. The tires skidded on gravel, drawing everyone's attention, but Robin could care less. Her universe telescoped tightly onto the blonde woman who had reinserted the gas cap and was glancing up at her.

  Everyone else went on ab
out their business, except for the woman whose shoulder-length blonde hair framed the lovely, high-cheekbone features that were etched into Robin's mind from the portrait of Carol that she knew so well.

  Carol. . . .

  No way, she told herself. But the resemblance was uncanny. Impossible . . . and yet here she was, returning Robin's gaze from a distance of no more than fifteen feet.

  She had taken the woman by complete surprise, that much appeared obvious. The woman had not a clue that she'd been followed. Her eyes darted about like those of a frightened doe.

  Robin thought, Frightened?

  The woman said, "Hello," and there was the trace of resignation in her voice, as if she had expected that this confrontation would eventually occur, but she had hoped to avoid it until now.

  The hubbub of the convenience store and the parking lot continued around them.

  Robin said, "We need to talk."

  "Do we?"

  The response was cautious, watching guardedly, as if expecting anything from a frank "let's-sit-down-and-talk" woman-to-woman approach to a pistol-packing, irate wife with a bad attitude.

  Robin said, "You know who I am."

  "Yes."

  "You've been sent by Jeff." The words spewed from Robin as with a mind of their own, or a direct contact to her innermost fears. "This is a terrible, sick joke and you can tell that sick son of a bitch that I said so!"

  The woman's steady, honest gaze did not flinch. "It's no joke, believe me. And I have no idea who Jeff is."

  "He's a skunk of an ex-husband who just decided to show up all the way from Chicago, and he's vindictive enough to pull something like this on me, or worse."

  "You're right," the woman said. She walked around to the driver's side of the Altima. "We should sit down and talk." She indicated the collection of stone tables and benches adjacent to the store. She glanced around the moderately busy gasoline pumps. There was no one in line behind her at the moment, but there soon would be. "Let me park over there."