Coffin Man

by James D. Doss

  Hopeful thoughts can be a remarkable soporific.

  But there are always regrets. I guess I should’ve given my silly daughter a ride to the bus stop. (Big yawn.) I could still get up and start the car and …

  But Betty knew how to take care of herself.

  She don’t need my help. And Mrs. Naranjo was terribly weary.

  Unlike so many other bone-tired souls, Betty’s mother did not tarry long in that gray borderland between Wide Awake and Dead to the World. Within three breaths and eight heartbeats, the woman who had worked all night was fathoms deep in a dreamless sleep. But not for long. Images of a forlorn Betty began to stumble across the sleeper’s subconscious landscape where white-hot fire flashed from cloud to ground and torrents of icy rain pelted down. The distraught mother dreamed herself getting off the couch, pulling on her coat, slamming the door behind her, and running for the trusty Toyota. If I don’t get there in time, the poor thing’s liable to drown in a flood or get struck down by lightning!

  CHAPTER SIX

  BETTY’S UNPRECEDENTED EXPERIENCE

  Only a few weeks ago, on her last walk from her home to the bus stop, Betty Naranjo had arrived at the paved road in six minutes flat. But on this morning, the very pregnant sixteen-year-old was slogging along the slight incline like an old woman ascending Pike’s Peak with a bowling ball in her apron pocket. Every heavy step, each gasping breath, was pure punishment. But she tried to look on the bright side: At least it’s not raining hard. Not yet. Betty was barely a hundred yards from the highway when bigger drops began to plop down here and there. Well, that’s not so bad. But as sprinkles often are, this one was suddenly transformed into downpour.

  The exhausted girl stopped to fasten the buttons on her black raincoat. Attending to that task with fumbling fingers, she made the best of it. At least I’ve got some time to catch my breath. After she had gotten some of her wind back, Betty began putting one foot in front of the other. She was making fair progress when the storm that had formed in the mountaintops came roaring over the foothills behind her. A gust of wind slapped the young woman’s back with such force that she slipped on the muddy lane and tumbled flat onto her face. With an enormous effort of flabby muscles and raw willpower—her slip-sliding efforts punctuated by heartfelt oaths—the angry youth eventually managed to get back onto her feet. When she did, Betty was shocked to discover that the morning’s misty daylight had been swallowed up by inky midnight. She could barely make out the sparse forest of juniper and piñon that lined and defined the lane. The befuddled pilgrim took a few tentative steps before pausing to pose a pertinent question: Which way am I going? Was she still trudging toward the paved road—or was she walking back home? This sudden disorientation was almost as alarming as the fall that had injured her pride. Her heart pounded hard.

  Then came the dawning.

  No, not as in the sense of realizing which direction she was headed.

  Like an anemic moonrise glowing in a foggy-black sky, this dawning was a matter of actual light. Real, honest-to-goodness illumination—streams of countless photons registered fuzzy images on her retinas.

  Betty Naranjo blinked at the increasing glow. Whatever it is, it’s getting bigger. Or was it getting closer?

  In the girl’s bewildered state, this growing-approaching blurry-lights phenomenon was unnerving. The puzzled girl was trying to figure out what it was, when—what it was hit her.

  A violent metaphor, and appropriately so.

  LATER

  MOMMA NARANJO AWAKENS FROM HER NAP …

  But ever so slowly. Demonic disfigured inhabitants of a horrible nightmare tugged at their victim with clawed hands, determined to hold on to the sleeper and drag her even deeper into the bowels of their hellish domain. Happily, it was a wasted effort. Wanda Naranjo’s escape was as inevitable as the loss of memory that preserves a dreamer’s sanity.

  When the lady finally opened her eyes, she was surprised to discover that it was dark outside. Moreover, the wind was humming a funereal hymn in the eaves as a hard rain pelted on dirty windowpanes. The groggy woman stared at the ceiling. Where am I? Not in her bed, she decided. I’m on a couch. But not the feathery-soft sofa in the nurses’ lounge at Snyder Memorial Hospital, where the nighttime aides occasionally caught a quick catnap. It’s my couch … in my house. She wondered what time it was, and why she felt so completely alone in her home. Little by little, the morning’s events began to come back to her. I chased Mike off. She smiled at the hazy recollection. I don’t remember what the argument was all about. Nevertheless, she had no doubt that it served the no-good right. Her second yawn was interrupted with: But where’s my daughter? That memory presented itself immediately. Oh, right, Betty caught the bus into town to see that shrink. Wanda forced herself to a sitting position, put her bare feet on the cold parlor floor, and immediately remembered the water leak in the kitchen. Sure, that’s what the fuss was all about. Mike should’ve fixed it but the lazy bum wouldn’t lift a finger if my life depended on it. Another yawn. But I called somebody to come fix the leak and … Uh-oh. I wonder what time it is. She switched on a floor lamp and squinted at her wristwatch. “Oh no!” The plumber probably showed up while I was napping—but I didn’t hear him knock, so he left. She groaned. The money-grubbing bastard will probably charge me for the call anyway.

  She checked her watch again. Betty should be home by now. The worried mother found the Granite Creek telephone book, looked up the number listed under Dr. Stuart Whyte, and punched the buttons. After seven droning rings, a lady’s recorded voice crisply informed the caller that “… office hours are nine A.M. till noon and one P.M. to four P.M., Monday through Friday, except that Dr. Whyte’s office is closed on the second Friday of every month. Please call during our normal hours.” After a few other unhelpful comments, the caller was invited to leave a message after the beep, which piercing sound startled her. “Uh … This is Wanda Naranjo. My daughter thought she had an eleven A.M. appointment with the doctor, but … I guess she must’ve been mixed up about what day it was for.” She closed her eyes and tried to imagine her daughter walking through the front door. “Betty’s awfully late getting home and I’m worried about her … but I guess I shouldn’t be bothering you with my troubles.” This was beginning to get embarrassing. “Sorry.” She hung up.

  Wanda was rattled, but she had gotten the recorded message loud and clear. Today’s the second Friday, so the shrink’s office is closed. Wide awake now, she began to analyze the situation. Betty was either confused about her appointment—or she lied. Given her daughter’s talent in producing creative fiction, the latter possibility seemed far more likely. So where did she go this morning? The woman who leaned heavily on intuition thought she knew: She’s probably gone to visit the baby’s father—whoever the hell he is. Which brought the worried mother full circle to her original concern: Why’s my daughter so late coming home? She shuddered. I feel like something bad has happened to Betty. This worry naturally summoned up another to haunt the hopeful grandmother: Oh, God—I hope her baby is all right.

  As if dropping a malicious, sinister hint of calamity, the tempestuous wind tossed something against the window. Something small … that cracked and popped … like tiny twigs snapping.

  Betty’s fearful mother hugged herself. It was just a dead cottonwood branch.

  Not so, her lurid imagination insisted. That was a cluster of brittle little bones breaking.

  Wanda Naranjo glanced at the window, but only for an instant. Fearing that she might see something looking back at her, the woman averted her eyes from that dark portal into the unknown.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  AN URGENT CONSULTATION

  SOUTHERN UTE RESERVATION

  Like Wanda Naranjo earlier in the day, Daisy Perika was taking a restful nap on her parlor couch. She was dreaming of a sunlit meadow of wildflowers and multicolored butterflies when … brraaang, the telephone rang. She awakened with a muttered expletive that shall be designated: “Dang!” Charl
ie Moon’s aged auntie reached for the offending instrument and accidentally knocked it off her knotty pine coffee table. The grumpy woman fumbled around until she got hold of the corded receiver. She pressed it against her ear and said in a sugary-sweet tone, “If this is somebody who wants to sell me something, just leave your address—and I’ll drop by some night with a gallon of kerosene and set your house afire.”

  From somewhere far away came a rattle of unintelligible words.

  Sounds like some idiot foreigner who’s dialed a wrong number. “Talk American, and louder so I can hear you!”

  The distant voice increased in volume.

  The caller was speaking English, and Daisy was able to pick up about every third word, but she caught the name. “Slow down, Wanda—I can’t make out what you’re trying to tell me.” Sounds like she’s got her head in a tin bucket.

  Wanda Naranjo slowed.

  “Oh, now I know what’s wrong.” Ignorant Pueblo woman. “You’re not talking into my ear, Wanda—you’re trying to talk into my mouth!” After Daisy swallowed another mouthful of the annoying woman’s babbling, she shouted, “Try turning your telephone around!”

  Wanda Naranjo shouted back.

  Daisy Perika tasted every bitter word. The annoyed old woman was about to hang up when she realized that the cord was dangling over her ear. Oh, my—I’m the one who’s talking into the wrong end of the phone. Chuckling, she reversed the instrument. “Sorry—but it’s not my fault. You woke me up from a nice nap, and I got all bumfuzzled.”

  “I’m sorry, Daisy. But I’m worried sick. Betty left this morning and she’s pregnant and hasn’t come home and I don’t know where she is and—”

  “Hush.”

  Wanda hushed.

  “That’s better. First off, tell me who this Betty is.” Daisy listened. “Your daughter?” Oh, I remember little Betty now. A film clip of a cute five-year-old with a Raggedy Ann doll flickered across the tribal elder’s memory. “And you say she’s missing?” She listened again, and puffed up with pride. “And you want my help?”

  “No, I want your nephew’s cell phone number.”

  “Oh.” Daisy unpuffed. “Charlie Moon’s a rancher now, Wanda.” The deflated tribal elder explained what that meant: “He don’t do that kind of work anymore—”

  “But he’s still a cop, and I want him to find my daughter.”

  “He’s a big-shot tribal investigator who does some work for the Southern Ute chairman from time to time, but you’re not a Ute so—”

  “He also works with the police here in Granite Creek, Daisy.”

  “I know that!” A pause as Charlie’s cantankerous relative tried to figure out how to get rid of this pest. “Why don’t you call the Granite Creek cops?”

  “Because…” The line went dead for a few heartbeats. “Because I don’t want the whole damn town to know that Betty’s run away from home.”

  “Listen, here’s what you do. You call the police and tell them you won’t talk to nobody but the boss.”

  Wanda made no attempt to conceal her doubts about this advice. “You want me to call the chief of police?”

  “Sure. He’s no big shot, and Scott Parris is Charlie’s friend and mine, too. If that white cop gives you any static, you tell him Daisy said to come out to your place and to bring Charlie Moon with him.”

  The Ute elder’s confidence was contagious. “D’you really think that’d work?”

  “I flat-out guarantee it,” Daisy snapped. “Make the call right now.”

  “Okay, I will. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, goodbye.” And good riddance and don’t call back for at least ten years after I’m dead and buried. Pleased to hear the sharp click in her ear, the weary Ute elder settled back onto the couch and nestled her head on a blue velvet pillow embroidered with tiny sunflower blossoms. In hopes of picking up her pleasant dream where it had been so rudely disturbed, Daisy Perika helped herself to a satisfying yawn. As she drifted off toward sleep, her final waking thought was … I ought to get me an unlisted telephone number and not tell anybody what it is. Except for Charlie Moon … and Sarah … and …

  When the hopeful dreamer returned to the meadow, the sky was overcast and gray, the acres of wildflowers had wilted, and the clouds of colorful butterflies had flitted away to a brighter place. Moreover, tombstones of every description had sprouted like weeds in the unsightly field, and the dreary space was filled with doleful souls of the dead. It seemed that all the wandering spirits were muttering about one thing and another.

  Daisy Perika could hear every word they said. But, like her recent experience in the depths of Cañón del Espíritu—all of these dream haunts were invisible.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHARLIE MOON’S RAINY AFTERNOON

  FRIDAY, 5:15 P.M.

  It would be an exaggeration to say that mile-thick thunderclouds covered Granite Creek and the town was dark and wet as the bottom of a Mississippi swamp—but not by much. This was the wettest, gloomiest day the locals had seen for months. It was time for wage earners to be heading home from work, but even among the hardy mountain folk inclement weather tends to attenuate rush-hour traffic. A mere trickle of shiny sedans, rusty pickups, and one big SUV beetled along the town’s main artery. Who might this latter motorist be?

  Charlie Moon. He was rolling along Copper Street in his blue Expedition, watching the flailing windshield wipers do their best to keep up with the heavy downpour. As a few ill-tempered drivers muttered impotent curses against the weather, the cattle rancher voiced no complaints. This Westerner who depended upon grass for his livelihood was sufficiently pleased with the rainfall to smile at the plopping drops. Moon had already placed a call to Columbine foreman Pete Bushman, who had provided the happy news that the massive storm had already watered the thirsty ranch’s vast acreage with enough moisture to last a month—and if anything, the gully washer was picking up steam. The Indian who owned the Columbine was delighted to hear the good news. This keeps up another forty days, I’ll trade this old barge in on an ark that’s 300 cubits long and 50 wide. Which raised an idle thought: How much would that be in good old American feet? Moon, who tended to store peculiar odds and ends in his memory, recalled the conversion factor (1.5 feet per cubit) and performed the simple mental arithmetic. That’d be 450 feet long by 75 wide. A sizable vessel to float on a flooded valley. I bet I could get all my cattle and horses and ranch hands aboard. With plenty of elbow room for grumpy Aunt Daisy and a three-room suite for sweet little Sarah Frank. The part-time tribal investigator was wondering how many mating pairs of elephants, hippopotami, hippogriffs, moose, mice, elks, storks, reindeers, eagles, buffaloes, kangaroos, hummingbirds, cougars, penguins, and the like he could cram onto the huge vessel (no scorpions, fleas, lice, or fire ants need apply!) when something in the rearview mirror caught his eye.

  Red and blue lights were winking at him. But not seductively.

  Like any motorist you might bump fenders with, Charlie Moon instinctively glanced at his speedometer. The needle was hovering at a tad above thirty-five miles per hour, and the posted speed limit on the downtown section of Copper Street was twenty-five. If Sarah or Aunt Daisy had been in the car with him, the driver would’ve said, “Dang!” No ladies being present, he mouthed a mild expletive that would not have shocked any of the three most important women in his life. (The third, a potential wife, was pretty Patsy Poynter. The sweetheart he was working up the courage to pop the question to was a reference librarian and the girl singer in the Ute banjo plucker’s Columbine Grass bluegrass band.)

  Charlie Moon wondered which of the GCPD cops was behind him. If it was Officer Alicia Martin, the lenient lady would merely warn the lawbreaking deputy and send him on his way. But with my luck, it’ll be Eddie Knox and his sidekick E. C. Slocum. Moon put the odds at five to one that the Keystone Kops were about to put the big ticket on him. Good thing that he was wagering with himself. The compulsive gambler, who collected on about four bets out of five, w
ould’ve had to pay up on this one.

  So who was driving the black-and-white with flashing lights?

  THE COP ON WHOSE DESK THE BUCK STOPPED, THAT’S WHO

  The John Law cruising along behind Charlie Moon on Copper Street was the senior member of the local constabulary; the very same fellow who had shared yesterday’s breakfast with Charlie, Sarah, and Daisy.

  Chief of Police Scott Parris tapped the siren switch and chuckled as the Expedition stopped. Protected from the late-afternoon waterfall by a hooded slicker, the happy cop emerged from his black-and-white and sidled up to Moon’s Ford Motor Company motor machine to rap a knuckle on the driver’s window.

  The cattleman lowered the glass to eye his best friend’s beefy red face. “That’s just about the yellowest raincoat I ever laid eyes on.” Moon blinked. “It hurts my eyes.”

  “Thank you. But don’t think you can sweet-talk your way out of this one—I’ve got you red-handed.”

  “So what’s the charge, Ossifer Canary—did I run over a catfish in the crosswalk?”

  The man who was warm and dry under the rubber coat glared at the merry Ute. “You were doing thirty-seven miles an hour in a zone that’s posted twenty-five.”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “Tell it to the judge,” the stern-faced cop said.

  “You really gonna put a ticket on me?”

  “It’s my duty. The fact that you’re my best buddy don’t make a smidgen of difference—you flat-out broke a local ordinance.” Parris grinned with a mouthful of teeth. “But there might be a way out for you.”

  “I’d offer you a two-dollar bribe, but times are tough in the beef business.”

  “Sorry to hear it.” The county’s top cop looked this way and that as if to make sure no local was near enough to overhear this incriminating conversation. “I might be able to look the other way, if you was to volunteer a coupla hours to some worthy community service.”