by Byron Starr
Over the two-week span, there was one noticeable change in the dreams — they were getting longer. At first they had lasted a little less than an hour. Now James found that the dreams seemed to be going on for around four or five hours. Even when he woke in the middle of one of these visions he found that when he went back to sleep he would be back in the woods almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
The dreams were also taking a physical toll on James. As the dreams increased in length, it felt as though he was getting less and less sleep. All in all, this lack of sleep was what troubled James the most. Although the dreams seemed like the visions he used to have, they were all too strange to be real.
* * *
Greg O’Brien had just finished the 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. shift and was still in his sheriff deputy’s uniform when he walked through the open doors at Baldwin’s Garage. In the back of the shop Guy Baldwin, a stocky man with a bushy, grey mustache and hair to match, wearing dirty blue overalls, raised his head from under the hood of an old Ford pickup. “You come to arrest James?” Guy said in the gravelly voice of a heavy smoker, a filterless cigarette bobbing in his mouth as he spoke.
Greg grinned. “Yeah, where is that no-count punk?”
“Down here,” James said, rolling on a creeper from under a car he’d been working on. He was covered head to toe in grease.
“We still on for football tonight?” Greg asked.
“Sure, you bring the beer. I’ve got the food,” James said, then added, “Is Sandy coming?”
“Well, hell no. You know she can’t stand football. She’s going to call and see if Angie wants to bring Jimmy over to the house.”
“That’ll work. No one to gripe if we get loud.” James propped his hands behind his head. “You think Dallas can beat Minnesota tonight?”
“Of course.” To Greg, a hardcore Cowboys fan from way back, this question was borderline blasphemy.
“I don’t know. The Vikings lead the league against the run and Emmitt is listed as doubtful.”
“We don’t need the run tonight. Aikman’ll eat ’em alive, you watch. He’ll have a three or four-hundred yard night.”
“Not if the line don’t pick up their game. Last week they gave up five sacks.”
“They won though.”
“Yeah, by two points against the Patriots.”
“The Pats aren’t that bad.”
“They aren’t that good, though.”
Without raising his head from the engine he was currently working on, Guy commented from across the garage. “Let me know when you two girls grow up and start watching a real sport and we’ll talk some baseball.”
Greg and James exchanged a smile and Greg turned in Guy’s direction. “Let’s see, baseball. Is that where they hit some ball with a stick then run around in a circle, or am I thinkin’ about golf?”
Guy’s deep laughter echoed from under his hood before it turned to a series of choppy, unhealthy sounding coughs.
“Well, I guess I’d better get back to work,” James said. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Later,” Greg said with a smile, then he put his foot on the edge of the creeper and pushed James back under the car.
Greg was one of the few close friends James had made during his high school years. If it wasn’t for Greg, James probably would have dropped out of school during his sophomore year, and Greg certainly wouldn’t have passed algebra without James’ help. Greg was the only person other than Angie who James was truly comfortable around. James and Greg were just as much opposites as James and Angie were. In contrast to James’ fairly small stature and his quiet ways, Greg was a tall athletic kid with curly red hair who always seemed to be smiling or laughing. And Greg had one other attribute that helped him tremendously in the day-to-day dealings of small town life; unlike James, Greg was a native, born and raised in Newton, Texas. Everybody in town liked Deputy Greg O’Brien.
* * *
James and Greg sat on the couch in front of James’ television. Greg was decked out in a white and blue striped Troy Aikman jersey and blue Dallas Cowboys jogging pants with a grey stripe running down the leg. James’ attire was his usual blue jeans and tee shirt. The only change was his customary faded non-descript baseball cap had been put aside for a blue Dallas Cowboys cap. On the coffee table in front of the two fans sat a now empty football-shaped bowl that had contained cheese dip earlier in the night, a scattering of tortilla chip crumbs, and twelve empty beer bottles.
On the TV, Troy Aikman was sacked for the sixth time of the night, this time coughing up the ball, which was scooped up by Minnesota linebacker Dwayne Rudd and run thirty yards into the end zone for yet another Minnesota touchdown.
“Damn it!” Greg shouted, jumping to his feet.
Sandy poked her head through the door from the kitchen. “Greg! Watch your mouth. The kids’ll hear you.” The girls hadn’t gone over to Greg and Sandy’s as planned.
Greg grinned and replied, “Sorry, Hon’, but that play deserved a good cussin’.”
Sandy rolled her eyes and returned to the ladies’ gossip session.
“That’s game,” James said, shaking his head. “Twenty-three to nine with less than three minutes left in the fourth. I don’t think Staubach could even pull this one off.”
Still standing, Greg turned to James and replied, “Aw, sure he could.” He then picked up the football-shaped dip bowl and drew back like he was going to throw it. “Ol’ Roger-Dodger would just look for Drew Pearson in the corner of the end zone and drop one right in his arms.” Over half the empty beer bottles on the coffee table belonged to Greg — nine, to be exact.
James yawned and then said, “And what about the other touchdown they need?”
“Well, Roger would get out there with the special teams and recover the onside kick, then look for Drew in the end zone again,” Greg replied, going through all the actions with the football-shaped bowl as he described them, including a clumsy attempt to leap over the coffee table that almost landed him in James’ lap.
While Greg was going through his act, James stretched his mouth for a tremendous yawn.
Greg plopped down beside him, and, with a serious look that didn’t look altogether at home on his never-serious face, he asked, “Man, you been sleeping good lately?” Then the familiar grin returned and, nudging James in the side, he added, “You really look like shit.”
“I’m just a little tired, that’s all.” James said with a weary smile.
“If he’s tired, Greg, we should go home and let him rest,” Sandy called out from the kitchen.
Still grinning, Greg said to James. “I swear, that heifer’s got radars for ears.”
“What did you say?” Sandy immediately replied.
“I said I’ve got the sweetest wife in all Texas, didn’t I, James?” Greg called out to the kitchen, while nudging James in the side.
Fighting back another yawn, James added, “Heard it with my own two ears, Sandy.”
Sandy came into the living room with Carissa, their two-year-old daughter, asleep in her arms, and said, “Now I know we need to go. You’re beginning to rub off on James.”
Angie came into the living room behind Sandy, with Jimmy right behind her. Jimmy was wearing a Dallas football helmet that Greg and Sandy had given him for his birthday. The helmet was too big for him, making his head look comically larger than his body. It reminded James of Charles Shultz’s Peanuts characters.
Greg made a few more light-hearted jokes at Sandy’s expense, then picked up the dip-bowl and did a few more Roger Staubach imitations for the girls’ entertainment. When he finally put the bowl down, Jimmy picked it up and started his own football player show. With his balance thrown off by the enormous helmet, it was no time before he fell, almost breaking the chip bowl. Angie scolded Jimmy which in turn caused Greg to be scolded by Sandy for setting a bad example. Jimmy’s bottom lip popped out and he plopped down on the floor, but Greg was only slightly subdued when Sandy led him to the car.
Angie tucked Jimmy into bed then returned to the living room. She sat down beside James and shook him lightly. “Honey, don’t you think you should get in bed?” she said softly.
Angie had to shake him several times before he woke, and when he did, he was so groggy that she had to support him down the hall. Once in the bedroom, he practically collapsed on the bed and fell asleep without even undressing.
* * *
James’ head hardly hit the pillow before he started dreaming.
The beast was on the move again. It loped through the underbrush, frequently raising its head to sniff at the wind. Every now and then it would raise itself to its full height and take in the scents of the surrounding woods, but it wouldn’t do so for long before returning to four legs and ambling along. It continued on this way for some time, not like it was simply prowling for food, but like it was on the trail of a distant scent.
Soon the beast came to a barbwire fence that marked the border between the dense woods it had been traveling and the beginning of an open pasture. It stopped at the fence for some time and smelled the barbwire and posts. After finding that the strands of wire were too close together for it to squeeze between them, the beast stood erect in front of one of the posts, and began repeatedly pushing the post forward and pulling it back. It continued to work the post rapidly until there was a loud snap and the post broke free from the ground. When the cattle heard the post snap they began running away from the sound, toward the front of the pasture. The beast stepped over the sag in the fence created by the fallen post and into the pasture.
Once inside the fence, the beast stood on its hind legs and its senses once again left its body. They sped forward until they caught the fleeing herd, which was now gathered near the front gate. Its senses then entered one of their eyes, rifled through its memory like a high-powered computer sorting files, then exited the cow’s eye. The beast’s detached vision then continued the process with every cow, calf, and bull in the small herd.
The beast then reopened his eyes and slowly advanced on the herd. When it was near the middle of the pasture, just behind a low hill, the beast stopped and stood on its hind legs. It then began walking toward the herd.
“Wooo! Cow, c’mon! Wooo! Cow!”
The herd stopped lowing.
“Woooo! C’mon!”
The herd started lowing again, but this time not in panic. They began moving again, heading for the familiar sound that called them to their meals every morning. Soon the beast could see them returning back along a worn path that led over the hill. Some were actually running. The beast watched them come in a ragged single file line.
“Wooo Cow! C’mon, cow!”
One curious cow made her way right up to the beast. She was hit with a powerful blow that almost severed her head. The rest of the herd scattered immediately, and the beast lunged for the second cow in line. This cow managed to turn and flee, but the beast swung and sank the claws of its right hand deep into the cow’s rear flank. The cow let out a deep, panicked low. Froth surfaced at the edges of poor animal’s mouth and its tongue whipped out as she frantically pawed at the ground trying to escape. Using its claws like meat-hooks, the beast hung on to the frantic cow. The beast then raked its other clawed hand across the belly of the poor creature, causing her warm guts to spill onto the ground. The disemboweled cow continued struggling even as the beast brought her down and began to eat. The beast took several savage bites out of the struggling cow before it finally died. Then it returned to the first cow, removing a few bloody chunks of flesh.
Having eaten its fill, the beast left the partially-eaten cows and disappeared into the woods.
* * *
Just after dawn, Sheriff Bill Oates' cruiser sped down Farm Road 2626 at just over eighty miles per hour with its headlights on, but its emergency lights off.
Now in his late sixties, William Oates had been the sheriff of Newton County for almost fifteen years, and had been a deputy there for twenty years before that. Tall, thin, and rough-looking, Bill was the very image of the proverbial "long tall Texan." His face was weathered and stern; he sported a thick, grey, western style mustache, and, to top it all off, Sheriff Oates always wore a white Stetson cowboy hat. Sheriff Oates had a reputation throughout the county — and throughout the state in law enforcement circles — for being both honest and tough. Although Bill was getting up in years, his reputation as a rough customer had not diminished at all with his increasing age. The drunks and rogues of the county might mouth off when one of the local deputies arrived to keep the peace at a petty fight or civil disturbance, but if ol’ Bill himself showed up, they invariably became as docile as lambs. And everyone in the county knew that when Bill’s temper flared, when his cheeks grew red and he started ending his sentences with “by God,” the shit was going to hit the fan, and whoever was the target of his anger was going to catch hell.
Earlier that morning — just before sunrise — Bill had just walked in the Newton County Law Enforcement Center (commonly called the County Jail or the Newton County Hilton) when Clara McClellan, the little old lady who served as Newton County’s nighttime dispatcher, told him that Edgar Harvey was on the phone, demanding to speak to him. Edgar was an old friend of Bill’s, but the sheriff found that the old man was in no mood for small talk.
“Somethin’s been at my cows,” Edgar had said.
At first Bill suspected it was something minor, like a dog or some drunk teenagers had chased Edgar’s herd until one of his cows ran into the fence and got tangled in the barbwire. He told Edgar, “Greg’ll be on duty in about thirty minutes. As soon as he gets in I’ll get him to run out and have a look around.”
“Bill, I think you’d better take a look at this yourself.”
Bill had known Edgar Harvey all his life. In fact, over a half a century ago the old man had taught Bill how to fish. But there was something in Edgar’s voice Bill had never heard. Edgar sounded scared.
“I’ll be right there.”
On his way out the door Bill had rattled out orders to Clara. He instructed her to contact Carl Price — the deputy on duty — on the radio and tell him to drive directly over to Edgar Harvey’s pasture. Bill also told Clara to tell Greg to get all the camera equipment and come straight out to Edgar’s. He also told her to page Emilio Rodriguez, a local game warden, and get him on the way.
When Bill turned in at Edgar’s pasture, he could see Edgar’s pickup parked on top of a small rise in the middle of the field. Bill got out, opened the gate, and drove through. Seeing Carl pull in behind him, Bill motioned for Carl to close the gate behind him, then continued slowly into the pasture. The cruiser bounced and jostled its way across the pasture. Bill stopped the car behind Edgar’s pickup and got out.
Edgar Harvey was leaning on the side of his truck. He had a huge wad of tobacco in his mouth that swelled his right cheek tremendously. A twelve-gauge pump shotgun was resting in his arms.
“Did deer season slip up on me again?” Bill asked the old man.
“Don’t know ‘bout deer season, but some critter sure thinks it’s cow season.”
Bill walked up and shook hands with Edgar. Behind him another car door slammed and he heard Carl say, “Mornin’ sheriff. Mornin’ Mr. Harvey.”
Bill turned and replied. “Mornin’ Carl.”
Edgar nodded. Bill knew the nod was for his benefit, not Carl’s. Edgar Harvey was about as prejudiced as they come, and he didn’t like the idea of a black man being a Newton County Deputy.
Carl Price had been a deputy in Newton County for nine years, longer than any other current deputy. Four years ago Bill had named him chief deputy. This hadn’t been a political move to secure the black vote of the co
unty; Sheriff Bill Oates didn’t work like that. The decision hadn’t been based simply on the fact that Carl had more experience than any other deputy either. Carl was simply the best choice for the job. He was efficient and reliable. He was intelligent and had a level head on his shoulders. Most importantly, Carl knew his way around the Sheriff’s Department computer. This made him invaluable to Bill, who didn’t even know how to turn on the computer. Carl had his faults, however. He lacked initiative — he seemed unable to make a decision without conferring with Bill, and his race also served as a liability since a quite a few people in the county had a shallow outlook similar to Edgar Harvey; they weren’t to keen on the idea of getting a ticket from or, even worse, being arrested by a black man.
“Well, Edgar, why don’t you show me what’s got you all stirred up this morning,” Bill asked.
Edgar spit heavily and said, “This way.” He turned and led them down a well-worn cattle path. The morning’s fog was now just above head level, and the dew was fresh on the ground. The morning air was still humid and sticky. Edgar, Bill, and Carl walked down the thin path, carefully stepping over or around several cow patties. As soon as they topped a small hill, the bodies of two mutilated cows came into view.
“Good Lord,” Carl gasped.
Without a word, Edgar continued leading them down the path toward the grisly scene.
The closest cow was lying on her left side facing the approaching group with her eyes wide open and her tongue lolling out. She was torn open from her last ribs to her rear flank, much of the meat and guts there seemed to have been eaten. The second cow was about twenty feet further, facing the other direction, lying on her right side. Her head was just barely attached to her body by little more than a strip of hide and was awkwardly positioned, making her appear to look straight behind her, over her own back. There was a large hole further down on her neck and two more in her left front flank.