Barking at the Moon

by Nene Adams

  Around her, humans were dying, killed by wolves intent on their survival. Pale-haired, blood-smeared men and women rose from the killing field, their eyes flashing gold.

  Annalee fell into darkness, soothed by Lunella’s touch.

  Chapter Six

  When Annalee awoke, she was in strange surroundings. Immediately stiffening in alarm, she glanced around, taking in the flowery chintz curtains at the window, the heavy quilts piled atop her on the bed, the plain pine furniture. A musky, bittersweet scent permeated the room, familiar and comforting. She slowly let herself relax, only to flinch, startled, when the door opened without warning.

  Lunella came into the room carrying a plate. “Hope you’re hungry,” she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed without hesitation. “Got an egg and sausage sandwich for you. Aunt Rachael’s own sausage from our herd of pigs down in Thunderbird Valley, and the egg’s from our own chickens, laid this mornin’. Better’n that fast food junk.”

  Annalee tried to sit up, but her injured leg protested with a twinge.

  “For Heaven’s sake, mule brains, let me help,” Lunella said, frowning. She put the plate on the beside table, stood and assisted Annalee in sitting up, shoving pillows between her and the headboard. “It ain’t broke,” she went on. “Your leg, I mean. Might hurt some, but it’ll be okay. Aunt Rachael put some arnica ointment on it.”

  “What happened?” Annalee asked, making the unsettling discovery that while she had been unconscious, someone had stripped off her ruined uniform and underthings, washed her down, treated her minor wounds and left her dressed in an oversized T-shirt and nothing else. The situation made her feel uneasy until she realized Lunella was the likeliest candidate, which was a whole ’nother kind of weird, but also kind of nice.

  “Uncle Ezra took care of the bodies,” Lunella said, looking at her sidelong as if to gauge her reaction.

  Annalee grunted around a mouthful of sandwich. The Gunns had broken man’s laws, for sure. They were guilty of murder and worse, maybe even attempted genocide, though she would never be able to prove it. None of them had been given a proper trial…but so be it. What’s done is done and I protect my own. As Daddy used to say, “What happens in the Deep, stays in the Deep.” But I’m goin’ to make damned sure there are no repeats.

  “You sure about that?” she asked. “Wouldn’t want some tourist or weekend hunter stumbling over a mass grave next deer season.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Don’t tell me where or even if you know where.”

  “All right.”

  “What happened last night can’t happen again,” Annalee said firmly, or as firmly as she could muster while swallowing egg, sausage and flaky buttermilk biscuit. She took a drink of coffee and gave Lunella her most serious glare. “Hear me? Never, ever again. Pass the word to the rest of your kin. They have problems with poachers or whatnot, they come to me, okay? I don’t want to hear about no more hunters disappearin’ in the woods. I start getting reports like that, I’ll know who did it, and I won’t turn a blind eye. Just because I’m in on the secret don’t mean I ain’t gonna uphold the law.”

  Lunella turned, looking at her directly. She licked her lips, but said nothing.

  “Maybe you ought to explain it to me, how your family showed up like that,” Annalee said. “Not that I ain’t grateful for the rescue, honey, but I’m no vigilante, either, and I can’t put up with that behavior.” Obeying an impulse, she put down the remainder of the sandwich and touched Lunella’s hand, lacing their fingers together, willing her to understand.

  “Yeah, I know.” Lunella heaved a sigh but swung onto the bed so they sat shoulder-to-shoulder. “After we got Bear home, me and Noah went to the church in Brightbrook,” she said. “You weren’t there, but I smelled your blood down in the basement.” She leaned harder on Annalee, who pressed back against her. After a moment, she went on, “I knew you were hurt. I couldn’t tell how bad.” Her eyes glinted gold. “Could track you to where Jethro Gunn put you in a truck but after that…Anyhow, turns out the busboy who works at Twinkle’s was out back sneakin’ a smoke and he told Noah he seen Jethro, who he knows on account of he went to school with Malachi Gunn, and Jethro used to come to football practice. Soon as I heard it was a Gunn who took you away, I got Noah to bring me home.

  “Uncle Ezra was all for raising the pack, but Aunt Rachael…see, she ain’t never goin’ to be happy that you’re my mate.” Lunella’s inflection was almost a growl. She cleared her throat and squeezed Annalee’s fingers.

  “I don’t want you to be in trouble with your family,” Annalee said weakly, feeling resentment on Lunella’s behalf. As a patrol officer and later as sheriff, she had witnessed first hand families torn apart because a child refused to conform to a parent’s wishes. How much more difficult would such a conflict be for Lunella, who had loyalty bred in her bones? Asking Lunella to choose between her family and her mate would only lead to heartache, and she hoped Rachael had better sense than that.

  “Don’t care,” Lunella said stubbornly. “Aunt Rachael come around. She has to.”

  “Okay, honey, if you say so.”

  Lunella insisted, “She’s got no choice.”

  Annalee wasn’t getting into an argument at the moment. “I believe you. Go on.”

  “Anyhow, Aunt Rachael said you weren’t one of us, not really, but I said we owed you on account of you saved Bear’s life twice. I told her we was obliged, and Uncle Ezra agreed. She had to back down then and call the pack. I figured the Gunns would take you to that hunting shack of theirs over to Gumption Junction. You know the place?”

  “Vaguely.”

  “So we went out there and didn’t find no Gunns, but we found Ron Cutshall. His daddy left him behind.”

  Lunella sounded so grimly satisfied, Annalee covered her face with her free hand and groaned, “Jesus Christ. Tell me y’all didn’t kill him.”

  “We didn’t kill him. Pinkie swear! We just scared the snot out of that self-righteous sumbitch. Ron told us the Gunns had taken you out to the woods. He didn’t know nothin’ else, or at least, he said he didn’t know nothin’ else.”

  “And what happened to Deuteronomy Cutshall?”

  “Coolin’ his heels in county lock-up. Noah arrested him for assaulting a police officer, hindering prosecution and I don’t know what else.”

  “Thank God for small favors. I’ll have a talk with Ron, make him see the sense of keeping quiet about the Skinners, the Gunns and Dempsey. I’ll probably have to drop the charges, ’cause for sure I can’t let him testify in open court.”

  “Anyhow,” Lunella said, overriding her musings, “after Ron told us where you were, me ’n the family followed their trail. You were there for the rest of it.”

  “How come you and your kin didn’t take out the Gunns before now?” Annalee asked, knowing the question might be offensive but needing to ask it anyway. “I mean, you had to have plenty of opportunities when they were poaching on your land.”

  “They weren’t hunting us before,” Lunella replied, “not with guns, not to kill. When they took Bear, we couldn’t touch them ’cause we were afraid they’d kill him. And back then, they weren’t hunting you, either.”

  The protectiveness in Lunella’s tone made heat prickle behind Annalee’s eyes, but only briefly. She reminded herself that men were dead. “How many?”

  “Titus, Josiah, Dewey, Jethro…” Lunella named seven Gunn men in total. “There were a couple more at a campsite over to Devil-May-Care, but we left them be ’cause Uncle Ezra said he knew they were out there after whitetails, not you.”

  “Do I need to worry about a feud?”

  “I don’t think so.” Lunella’s grin could only be described as wolfish. “But hey, if they want to start something—”

  Annalee thwapped Lunella on the arm. “Seriously, you goof, is there a feud in the making? Last thing we need around here is a goddamned war.”

  “The trouble was mostly Titus and now he’s gone
. None of the other Gunns’ll be inclined to make a fuss without the old man stirrin’ the pot.”

  “Well, officially, I don’t know anything about disappearances unless or until somebody files a missing persons report.” Annalee decided she’d handle the matter that way.

  When the missing men came to her notice as sheriff, she’d have to initiate an investigation, but preventing any untoward discoveries shouldn’t be a problem. Of course, some of the wives might decide not to file. She could think of a couple of new widows who would gratefully keep her in casseroles for life if they knew what had happened to their heavy-fisted husbands. There’d be talk in town, of course, but rumor couldn’t be controlled. Eventually, the incident would pass into local legend.

  “We’ll deal with the situation when it comes,” she concluded aloud. “There’s no sense borrowing trouble, as my granny used to say.”

  She heard a brisk rapping sound and glanced over to find Noah standing in the doorway, his expression uncertain.

  “Speak of the devil,” Lunella said, smiling a welcome at him. “What’s up, cuz?”

  “Got news about Abner Cutshall and Alexander Dempsey,” Noah said, coming into the room. His uniform was clean and crisply ironed. Clearly, he had taken time to go home, shower and change his clothes. “Remember that private airfield south of Odom?”

  “The one where Cutshall parks his private jet? Shit,” Annalee muttered. “I’ll bet he’s out of the country by now.”

  Noah shook his head. “The pilot filed a flight plan, but the tower lost radar contact with the plane about a half hour ago.”

  “What?” Galvanized, Annalee scrambled over Lunella, ignoring the woman’s yelp of protest when her elbow accidentally jabbed a sensitive area. Her own leg was none too happy about it, either, but she ignored the pain. “Has the tower re-established contact?” she asked, yanking down the hem of the T-shirt to cover her upper thighs and hoping she hadn’t flashed her deputy. She could practically feel Lunella’s smirk branding her skin from behind.

  “Nope.” Noah’s gaze remained resolutely fixed above her neck.

  “Why the hell am I hearing about this now?” She glanced around and finally turned to Lunella, who looked at her with fond exasperation. “Honey, where are my clothes?” she asked, frustrated. “I can’t go out there with my ass hanging in the breeze.”

  “I swung by your house on the way here,” Noah said to her, offering a duffel bag, “and brought you a fresh uniform. I also fed your butterball cat.”

  “Thank you, thank you, bless you a thousand times. I’m sure Mongo appreciates it and so do I. Leave that cat without food and he’s likely to eat the sofa.” Annalee snatched the duffel bag out of Noah’s hands. “Give me some privacy, please.”

  Noah turned his back but stayed put in the doorway. “There was a call from out on Skybridge Mountain. Old Lady Murphy’s got a house up there. You know, Jeeter’s great-grandmother on his father’s side. He gave her a satellite phone last Christmas, in case she needed help. You remember: she broke her hip last winter.”

  “That house is more like a shotgun shack,” Annalee commented, yanking up her tan uniform pants and fastening the button at the waist. No underwear, but it wouldn’t be the first time she had gone commando. “Mrs. Murphy’s been up there a good fifty years.” Spotting a bandanna on the dresser, she quickly tied up her hair.

  “Yeah, her and her telescope. She saw the plane go down and reckons it crashed about five miles east of her place. The fire department’s been dispatched, and the state police helicopter is doing a fly-over to confirm. We ought to be hearing from them any minute.”

  Lunella curled her upper lip. “Ain’t nobody gonna mourn Cutshall much.”

  “Except maybe his spoiled grandchildren and whoever inherits his money. Then again, maybe not.” Annalee tucked her shirt into the waistband of her pants. She rummaged in the duffel for socks and shoes, stopping when Lunella got out of bed and leaned close to her.

  “I won’t come with,” Lunella said, “but when you’re done, I’ll see you at home.”

  “Yours or mine?” Annalee asked, her heart giving a sudden, strong thump.

  “Wherever you are is home to me,” Lunella replied, dropping a kiss on her cheek.

  The simple sweet kiss continued to warm Annalee through and through while the patrol car sped along the serpent-winding road going up Skybridge Mountain. Noah sat behind the wheel, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. Feeling slightly awkward, she didn’t ask him what he thought about her relationship with Lunella. He was her subordinate, after all, and a good deputy. If he disapproved, she didn’t want to hear about it.

  The radio squawked. “Dispatch to Charlie One-Oh-One” came Minnie Hawkins’ voice, made tinny by the cheap speakers.

  Annalee answered. “Charlie One-Oh-One. Go ahead, dispatch.”

  “State police have confirmed a crash site two miles east off mile marker eighteen. Fire and Rescue are underway. NTSB has been notified.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Noah pressed harder on the accelerator.

  Annalee didn’t admonish him, not even when he took a hairpin turn at a speed that could have ended in complete disaster. They had to reach the crash site first. If there were survivors, or if the feds got their hands on Dempsey’s research…

  As if he had read her mind, Noah sped up the car a little more.

  What she would do if there were survivors, she did not know, but she was determined to protect the Skinners. Would she do that to the point of committing murder? The notion of killing an unarmed, possibly injured man made her sweat. She hoped she wouldn’t have to make such a choice.

  Black smoke contaminated the otherwise clear blue sky, spiraling above the crowns of trees thickly clustered on the mountain’s side. Noah found a spot and pulled over, parking the car on the narrow shoulder near the guardrail.

  Annalee got out of the car, her relief at being the first on the scene quickly obliterated by a news van she made out in the distance, chugging along the road toward their position. Damned journalists and their police scanners.

  “We’ve got company,” Noah remarked.

  She left Noah behind to organize a perimeter and keep the press out while she went over the crash site. Of course, she was supposed to wait too and let the professionals have first crack, but she could always claim she thought she’d heard a survivor calling for help.

  A passing breeze blew acrid, stinging smoke into her eyes and down her throat, which already felt raw. Coughing, she pulled the bandanna out of her hair and tied it over her face to help filter out some of the smoke. Forging down the slope, she found debris—mostly twisted metal—scattered around an area roughly a hundred yards in diameter. Several trees were on fire, the flames heating the air until it scalded her lungs.

  It seemed the plane’s wings had been torn off on impact. The nose and tail had sheared off as well, leaving a cracked metal tube that had been the main body of the fuselage. A jagged tear split the side open, leaving the interior exposed.

  Annalee made her way over to the plane, trying to be careful not to disturb the scene any more than necessary. The NTSB investigators would skin her alive if they thought she’d trampled thoughtlessly over their site.

  She found Dr. Alexander Dempsey next to the fuselage, his body strapped into a seat that had torn loose. There was a length of rubber tied around his upper arm and a hypodermic needle stuck in the crook of his elbow. The front of his throat was mangled badly, with irregular strings of crimson flesh trailing from a wet, red hole that encompassed the space from carotid artery to jugular vein. The man’s windpipe was gone, ripped away with unimaginable force.

  Shrapnel? Or something else? A cold trickle of dread ran shivering through her veins.

  Annalee took the hypodermic, wrapping it in her bandanna and sticking it in her back pocket while being careful not to prick herself. Who knew what kind of crap might be on the needle? It could be the doctor’s serum or it might be some other drug,
but she wasn’t going to leave the hypodermic at the scene. Patting Dempsey’s body down, she didn’t find the flash drive that contained his research. She considered scouting around, but a fireman hallooed at her from the top of the slope, and she had to at least pretend do her duty.

  Rescue personnel found the pilot’s body in the cockpit. An organized party of state police troopers, local policemen and fire department volunteers searched the side of the mountain until dusk. They found no trace of Abner Cutshall’s body, though he was on the pre-flight manifest filed by the pilot. At least there was plenty of blood in the fuselage for DNA testing. A new search was planned for the morning, but no one she spoke to harbored any hope of finding the Great Man alive or dead. He had simply disappeared.

  The NTSB was clearly intrigued by the rubber tubing tied around Dempsey’s arm, but the investigators were remaining closed-mouthed about possible causes of the crash.

  What had happened inside that plane at ten thousand feet? Annalee wondered. Had Cutshall taken Dempsey’s serum? Had he attacked the doctor after changing into God-knew-what? Then freaked out the pilot, with disastrous consequences?

  She feared Cutshall wasn’t dead, but somewhere in the woods, a monster barking at the moon, ready to attack, to rend, to act out his madness with tooth and claw.

  She swallowed the bitter taste of fear.

  Cutshall might be alive, she reminded herself, but there was an equal chance he was dead, his body ejected from the crashing plane and swallowed by the forest. Maybe he had taken possession of the flash card, which would explain the disappearance of Dempsey’s research. She sighed. Whatever had happened, the wolves of Malingering Deep were safe for the moment and that fact counted the most.