The Jaguar Hunter

by The Jaguar Hunter (v5. 5) (epub)

  Sally backed into the first room, wanting to scream but only able to manage a feeble squawk. The wind flowed after her, lifting the newspapers and flapping them at her like crinkly white bats, matting them against her face and chest. Then she screamed. She dove for the hole in the wall and flung herself into a frenzied heart-busting run, stumbling, falling, scrambling to her feet, and waving her arms and yelling. Behind her, the wind gushed from the house, roaring, and she imagined it shaping itself into a towering figure, a black demon who was laughing at her, letting her think she might make it before swooping down and tearing her apart. She rolled down the face of the last dune, and, her breath sobbing, clawed at the door handle of the jeep; she jiggled the key in the ignition, prayed until the engine turned over, and then, gears grinding, swerved off along the Nantucket road.

  She was halfway to ’Sconset before she grew calm enough to think what to do, and the first thing she decided was to drive straight to Nantucket and tell Hugh Weldon. Though God only knew what he’d do. Or what he’d say. That scrawny flint of a man! Like as not he’d laugh in her face and be off to share the latest ’Sconset Sally story with his cronies. No, she told herself. There weren’t going to be any more stories about ol’ Sally drunk as the moon and seeing ghosts and raving about the wind. They wouldn’t believe her, so let ’em think kids had done it. A little sun of gleeful viciousness rose in her thoughts, burning away the shadows of her fear and heating her blood even quicker than would a jolt of cherry brandy. Let it happen, whatever was going to happen, and then she’d tell her story, then she’d say I would have told you sooner, but you would have called me crazy. Oh, no! She wouldn’t be the butt of their jokes this time. Let ’em find out for themselves that some new devil had come from the sea.

  IV

  Mills Lindstrom’s boat was a Boston whaler, about twenty feet of blue squarish hull with a couple of bucket seats, a control pylon, and a fifty-five-horsepower outboard racketing behind. Sara had to sit on Peter’s lap, and while he wouldn’t have minded that in any case, in this case he appreciated the extra warmth. Though it was calm, the sea rolling in long swells, heavy clouds and a cold front had settled over the island; farther out the sun was breaking through, but all around them crumbling banks of whitish mist hung close to the water. The gloom couldn’t dampen Peter’s mood, however; he was anticipating a pleasant weekend with Sara and gave hardly a thought to their destination, carrying on a steady stream of chatter. Mills, on the other hand, was brooding and taciturn, and when they came in sight of the offshore pollution aggregate, a dirty brown stain spreading for hundreds of yards across the water, he pulled his pipe from beneath his rain gear and set to chomping the stem, as if to restrain impassioned speech.

  Peter borrowed Mills’s binoculars and peered ahead. The surface of the aggregate was pocked by thousands of white objects; at this distance they looked like bones sticking up from thin soil. Streamers of mist were woven across it, and the edge was shifting sluggishly, an obscene cap sliding over the dome of a swell. It was a no-man’s-land, an ugly blot, and as they drew near, its ugliness increased. The most common of the white objects were Clorox bottles such as fishermen used to mark the spread of their nets; there were also a great many fluorescent tubes, other plastic debris, torn pieces of netting, and driftwood, all mired in a pale brown jelly of decayed oil products. It was a Golgotha of the inorganic world, a plain of ultimate spiritual malaise, of entropy triumphant, and perhaps, thought Peter, the entire earth would one day come to resemble it. The briny, bitter stench made his skin crawl.

  “God,” said Sara as they began cruising along the edge; she opened her mouth to say more but couldn’t find the words.

  “I see why you felt like drinking last night,” said Peter to Mills, who just shook his head and grunted.

  “Can we go into it?” asked Sara.

  “All them torn nets’ll foul the propeller.” Mills stared at her askance. “Ain’t it bad enough from out here?”

  “We can tip up the motor and row in,” Peter suggested. “Come on, Mills. It’ll be like landing on the moon.”

  And, indeed, as they rowed into the aggregate, cutting through the pale brown stuff, Peter felt that they had crossed some intangible border into uncharted territory. The air seemed heavier, full of suppressed energy, and the silence seemed deeper; the only sound was the slosh of the oars. Mills had told Peter that the thing would have roughly a spiral shape, due to the actions of opposing currents, and that intensified his feeling of having entered the unknown; he pictured them as characters in a fantasy novel, creeping across a great device inlaid on the floor of an abandoned temple. Debris bobbed against the hull. The brown glop had the consistency of Jell-O that hadn’t set properly, and when Peter dipped his hand into it, beads accumulated on his fingers. Some of the textures on the surface had a horrid, almost organic, beauty: bleached, wormlike tendrils of netting mired in the slick, reminding Peter of some animal’s diseased spoor; larval chips of wood matted on a bed of glistening cellophane; a blue plastic lid bearing a girl’s sunbonneted face embedded in a spaghetti of Styrofoam strips. They would point out such oddities to each other, but nobody was eager to talk. The desolation of the aggregate was oppressive, and not even a ray of sunlight fingering the boat, as if a searchlight were keeping track of them from the real world, not even that could dispel the gloom. Then, about two hundred yards in, Peter saw something shiny inside an opaque plastic container, reached down and picked it up.

  The instant he brought it on board he realized that this was the object about which he had experienced the premonition, and he had the urge to throw it back; but he felt such a powerful attraction to it that instead he removed the lid and lifted out a pair of silver combs, the sort Spanish women wear in their hair. Touching them, he had a vivid mental image of a young woman’s face: a pale, drawn face that might have been beautiful but was starved-thin and worn by sorrows. Gabriela. The name seeped into his consciousness the way a paw track frozen in the ground melts up from beneath the snow during a thaw. Gabriela Pa…Pasco…Pascual. His finger traced the design etched on the combs, and every curlicue conveyed a sense of her personality. Sadness, loneliness, and—most of all—terror. She’d been afraid for a very long time. Sara asked to see the combs, took them, and his ghostly impression of Gabriela Pascual’s life flew apart like a creature of foam, leaving him disoriented.

  “They’re beautiful,” said Sara. “And they must be really old.”

  “Looks like Mexican work,” said Mills. “Hmph. What we got here?” He stretched out his oar, trying to snag something; he hauled the oar back in and Sara lifted the thing from the blade: a rag showing yellow streaks through its coating of slick.

  “It’s a blouse.” Sara turned it in her hands, her nose wrinkling at having to touch the slick; she stopped turning it and stared at Peter. “Oh, God! It’s Ellen Borchard’s.”

  Peter took it from her. Beneath the manufacturer’s label was Ellen Borchard’s name tag. He closed his eyes, hoping to read some impression as he had with the silver combs. Nothing. His gift had deserted him. But he had a bad feeling that he knew exactly what had happened to the girl.

  “Better take that to Hugh Weldon,” said Mills. “Might…” He broke off and stared out over the aggregate.

  At first Peter didn’t see what had caught Mills’s eyes; then he noticed that a wind had sprung up. A most peculiar wind. It was moving slowly around the boat about fifty feet away, its path evident by the agitation of the debris over which it passed; it whispered and sighed, and with a sucking noise a couple of Clorox bottles popped out of the slick and spun into the air. Each time the wind made a complete circuit of the boat, it seemed to have grown a little stronger.

  “What the hell!” Mills’s face was drained of color, the web of broken blood vessels on his cheeks showing like a bright red tattoo.

  Sara’s nails bit into Peter’s arm, and he was overwhelmed by the knowledge that this wind was what he had been warned against. Panicked, he sho
ok Sara off, scrambled to the back of the boat, and tipped down the outboard motor.

  “The nets…” Mills began.

  “Fuck the nets! Let’s get out of here!”

  The wind was keening, and the entire surface of the aggregate was starting to heave. Crouched in the stern, Peter was again struck by its resemblance to a graveyard with bones sticking out of the earth, only now all the bones were wiggling, working themselves loose. Some of the Clorox bottles were rolling sluggishly along, bouncing high when they hit an obstruction. The sight froze him for a moment, but as Mills fired the engine, he crawled back to his seat and pulled Sara down with him. Mills turned the boat toward Madaket. The slick glubbed and smacked against the hull, and brown flecks splashed onto the windshield and oozed sideways. With each passing second the wind grew stronger and louder, building to a howl that drowned out the motor. A fluorescent tube went twirling up beside them like a cheerleader’s baton; bottles and cellophane and splatters of oil slick flew at them from every direction. Sara ducked her face into Peter’s shoulder, and he held her tight, praying that the propeller wouldn’t foul. Mills swerved the boat to avoid a piece of driftwood that sailed past the bow, and then they were into clear water, out of the wind—though they could still hear it raging—and running down the long slope of a swell.

  Relieved, Peter stroked Sara’s hair and let out a shuddering breath; but when he glanced behind them all his relief went glimmering. Thousands upon thousands of Clorox bottles and fluorescent tubes and other debris were spinning in midair above the aggregate—an insane mobile posed against the gray sky—and just beyond the edge narrow tracks of water were being lashed up, as if a windy knife were slicing back and forth across it, undecided whether or not to follow them home.

  Hugh Weldon had been out in Madaket investigating the vandalism of the condominiums, and after receiving the radio call it had only taken him a few minutes to get to Peter’s cottage. He sat beside Mills at the picnic table, listening to their story, and from the perspective of the sofa bunk, where Peter was sitting, his arms around Sara, the chief presented an angular mantislike silhouette against the gray light from the window; the squabbling of the police radio outside seemed part of his persona, a radiation emanating from him. When they had finished he stood, walked to the wood stove, lifted the lid, and spat inside it; the stove crackled and spat back a spark.

  “If it was just you two,” he said to Peter and Sara, “I’d run you in and find out what you been smokin’. But Mills here don’t have the imagination for this kind of foolishness, so I guess I got to believe you.” He set down the lid with a clank and squinted at Peter. “You said you wrote somethin’ ’bout Ellen Borchard in your book. What?”

  Peter leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “She was down at Smith Point just after dark. She was angry at her parents, and she wanted to scare them. So she took off her blouse—she had extra clothes with her, because she was planning to run away—and was about to rip it up, to make them think she’d been murdered, when the wind killed her.”

  “Now how’d it do that?” asked Weldon.

  “In the book the wind was a sort of elemental. Cruel, capricious. It played with her. Knocked her down, rolled her along the shingle. Then it would let her up and knock her down again. She was bleeding all over from the shell-cuts, and screaming. Finally it whirled her up and out to sea.” Peter stared down at his hands; the inside of his head felt heavy, solid, as if his brains were made of mercury.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Weldon. “What you got to say ’bout that, Mills?”

  “It wasn’t no normal wind,” said Mills. “That’s all I know.”

  “Jesus Christ!” repeated Weldon; he rubbed the back of his neck and peered at Peter. “I been twenty years at this job, and I’ve heard some tall tales. But this…what did you say it was? An elemental?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t really know for sure. Maybe if I could handle those combs again, I could learn more about it.”

  “Peter.” Sara put her hand on his arm; her brow was furrowed. “Why don’t we let Hugh deal with it?”

  Weldon was amused. “Naw, Sara. You let Mr. Ramey see what he can do.” He chuckled. “Maybe he can tell me how the Red Sox are gonna do this year. Me and Mills can have another look at that mess off the Point.”

  Mills’s neck seemed to retract into his shoulders. “I ain’t goin’ back out there, Hugh. And if you want my opinion, you better keep clear of it yourself.”

  “Damn it, Mills.” Weldon smacked his hand against his hip. “I ain’t gonna beg, but you sure as hell could save me some trouble. It’ll take me an hour to get the Coast Guard boys off their duffs. Wait a minute!” He turned to Peter. “Maybe you people were seein’ things. There musta been all kinds of bad chemicals fumin’ up from that mess. Could be you breathed somethin’ in.” Brakes squealed, a car door slammed, and seconds later the bedraggled figure of Sally McColl strode past the window and knocked on the door.

  “What in God’s name does she want?” said Weldon.

  Peter opened the door, and Sally gave him a gap-toothed grin. “Mornin’, Peter,” she said. She was wearing a stained raincoat over her usual assortment of dresses and sweaters, and a gaily colored man’s necktie for a scarf. “Is that skinny ol’ fart Hugh Weldon inside?”

  “I ain’t got time for your crap today, Sally,” called Weldon.

  Sally pushed past Peter. “Mornin’, Sara. Mills.”

  “Hear one of your dogs just had a litter,” said Mills.

  “Yep. Six snarly little bastards.” Sally wiped her nose with the back of her hand and checked it to see what had rubbed off. “You in the market?”

  “I might drop ’round and take a look,” said Mills. “Dobermans or Shepherds?”

  “Dobermans. Gonna be fierce.”

  “What’s on your mind, Sally?” said Weldon, stepping between them.

  “Got a confession to make.”

  Weldon chuckled. “What’d you do now? You sure as hell didn’t burglarize no dress shop.”

  A frown etched the wrinkles deeper on Sally’s face. “You stupid son of a bitch,” she said flatly. “I swear, God musta been runnin’ short of everything but horseshit when He made you.”

  “Listen, you ol’…”

  “Musta ground up your balls and used ’em for brains,” Sally went on. “Musta…”

  “Sally!” Peter pushed them apart and took the old woman by the shoulders. A glaze faded from her eyes as she looked at him. At last she shrugged free of his grasp and patted down her hair: a peculiarly feminine gesture for someone so shapeless and careworn.

  “I shoulda told you sooner,” she said to Weldon. “But I was sick of you laughin’ at me. Then I decided it might be important and I’d have to risk listenin’ to your jackass bray. So I’m tellin’ you.” She looked out the window. “I know what done them condominiums. It was the wind.” She snapped a hateful glance at Weldon. “And I ain’t crazy, neither!”

  Peter felt weak in the knees. They were surrounded by trouble; it was in the air as it had been off Smith Point, yet stronger, as if he were becoming sensitized to the feeling.

  “The wind,” said Weldon, acting dazed.

  “That’s right,” said Sally defiantly. “It punched holes in them damn buildin’s and was whistlin’ through ’em like it was playin’ music.” She glared at him. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “He believes you,” said Peter. “We think the wind killed Ellen Borchard.”

  “Now don’t be spreadin’ that around! We ain’t sure!” Weldon said it desperately, clinging to disbelief.

  Sally crossed the room to Peter. “It’s true ’bout the Borchard girl, ain’t it?”

  “I think so,” he said.

  “And that thing what killed her, it’s here in Madaket. You feel it, don’tcha?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  Sally headed for the door.

  “Where you goin’?” asked Weldon. She mumbled and went outside; Peter saw her p
acing back and forth in the yard. “Crazy ol’ bat,” said Weldon.

  “Mebbe she is,” said Mills. “But you ought not to be treatin’ her so harsh after all she’s done.”

  “What’s she done?” asked Peter.

  “Sally used to live up in Madaket,” said Mills. “And whenever a ship would run up on Dry Shoals or one of the others, she’d make for the wreck in that ol’ lobster boat of hers. Most times she’d beat the Coast Guard to ’em. Musta saved fifty or sixty souls over the years, sailin’ out in the worst kind of weather.”

  “Mills!” said Weldon emphatically. “Run me out to that garbage dump of yours.”

  Mills stood and hitched up his pants. “Ain’t you been listenin’, Hugh? Peter and Sally say that thing’s ’round here somewhere.”

  Weldon was a frustrated man. He sucked at his teeth, and his face worked. He picked up the container holding the combs, glanced at Peter, then set the container down.

  “You want me to see what I can learn from those?” asked Peter.

  Weldon shrugged. “Can’t hurt nothin’, I guess.” He stared out the window as if unconcerned with the issue.

  Peter took the container and sat down next to Sara. “Wait,” she said. “I don’t understand. If this thing is nearby, shouldn’t we get away from here?” Nobody answered.

  The plastic container was cold, and when Peter pried off the lid, the cold welled out at him. Intense, aching cold, as if he had opened the door to a meat locker.

  Sally burst into the room and pointed at the container. “What’s that?”

  “Some old combs,” said Peter. “They didn’t feel like this when I found them. Not as strong.”

  “Feel like what?” asked Weldon; every new mystery seemed to be unnerving him further, and Peter suspected that if the mysteries weren’t cleared up soon, the chief would start disbelieving them on purely practical grounds.