Charly shook her head. “But the thing I saw was skinny. Really, really tall, but skinny.”
“It leaped into the air,” Sam said. “That’s why the dogs couldn’t find its scent. Or maybe because it wasn’t human.”
Charly pushed palsied fingers through her hair. “Look, I really need to call Eric’s mom to check on the girls.”
“Check on them,” Sam said. “Then come down the hill with me.”
She swallowed. “You think that thing took my Jake down there?”
“I think it’s likely.”
“Sam…”
“Call your mother-in-law,” he said, “and meet me back here in ten minutes.”
Red Elk’s living room reminded Jesse of some police procedural show, the scenes in which the detectives scoured the home of a suspected murderer and found signs of mental imbalance and disrepair. There were fast-food sacks crumpled on a scarred coffee table and a ratty green couch that looked like something you’d find by the side of the road. The reclining chair bled yellow foam in several places, and the coarse fabric wasn’t recognizable as any color in particular. Empty beer cans littered the floor, and on the arm of the recliner, Jesse spotted an open Penthouse magazine. He forced himself not to look.
He knew he should get permission before shooting in here, but this was too good to pass up. Jesse snapped a picture of the couch and another of the recliner before he heard footsteps coming.
Red Elk, now wearing a tight pair of blue jeans but still without a shirt or socks, was carrying the remains of a six-pack by the plastic string.
“Hope you like Red Rocket,” he said, putting his own can of Old Milwaukee down on the coffee table. Red Elk tore off a can for Emma and lobbed it to her, repeated the process for Colleen and finally tossed Jesse one. The beer can was sweaty, as though it had been sitting out. When Jesse cracked it open and sipped, this suspicion was validated. Nothing like cheap, lukewarm beer at eight in the morning, he thought.
Colleen opened her can, took a healthy swig. Emma held hers against the belly of her shirt. Jesse took another drink and allowed himself a long look at Emma. When she moved the beer can away from her body, using it to gesture at a painting on the wall—“Is that one of your forefathers?”—Jesse noticed the way her shirt clung to her stomach. He felt the skin at his temples go tight and something in his chest throb.
Red Elk took a moment before answering her. When Jesse looked up, he understood the reason for the delay.
Red Elk was watching him watch Emma. The big man wore a crooked grin.
Turning to Emma, Red Elk said, “I usually call kin my relatives, but yes, I guess you’d say they’re my forefathers.”
Jesse said, “You mind if I take a picture of the painting?”
“You’ve already taken some,” Red Elk said. “Why ask permission now?”
The man plopped down in the recliner, his shoulder-length black hair catching some of the blue light shining in from the next room. Jesse peered inside the kitchen and saw a rectangular device dangling in the middle of the room.
“Goddamn, I tied one on last night,” Red Elk said, leaning against the headrest and closing his eyes.
“Excuse me,” Jesse said, “but is that a…bug light?”
Red Elk nodded. “I took off the guard so the big ones could make it to the sizzlers.”
Jesse lowered his gaze and felt a moment’s queasiness at the dusty ring of dead bugs in the middle of the kitchen floor.
“The best are the moths,” Red Elk said. “You know, those big mothers with eyes on their wings? They flap toward it like kamikazes and take ten minutes to fry.”
“Is that sanitary?” Emma asked.
Red Elk opened his eyes, which were very bloodshot. “I don’t eat ‘em, miss.”
“Don’t clean ‘em up, either,” Colleen added.
Red Elk turned to Colleen, a little grin on his face. “You’re kind of a spitfire, aren’t you?”
“A plus-sized spitfire, apparently.”
“Now, don’t be sore, I was only teasing you.”
After Emma cleared some Burger King sacks off the couch, they sat down.
“Mr. Red Elk,” Emma began and clicked on the Dictaphone, “let’s start with your full name and date of birth.”
“Turn that damn thing off.”
Emma looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“I don’t like talkin’ to a little red light. Makes me feel like you’re about to shoot me or something.” He turned to Jesse. “You ever seen The Terminator?”
Jesse nodded. “The part where Schwarzenegger goes to the night club to kill Linda Hamilton—”
Red Elk sipped his beer, nodding and smiling. “And he puts the laser dot on her forehead…”
“Could we focus a little?” Emma interrupted.
Jesse and Red Elk glanced at her, then exchanged a look.
Red Elk said to her, “The tits are Shannon Whirry’s but your face reminds me more of Mia Zottoli back when she had longer hair.”
Emma sighed. “Is she another porn star?”
“Soft porn,” Jesse said.
“That’s right,” Red Elk agreed. “It’s a big difference, miss.”
“You must really like soft porn,” Colleen said.
“Hell, yes,” Red Elk agreed, leaning forward. “It’s got all the passion that’s missing in a hardcore flick, but you still get to see the goods.”
Emma cleared her throat. “So how did you find out about the plans to make this a state park, Mr. Red—”
“Not to mention,” he continued, “you don’t have all the gross stuff you got in real porn. Yeah, it’s nice when you do it yourself with a good woman, but who the hell wants to watch some big-dick guy with a shaved nutsack spurt his seed all over some skank’s face?”
“Mister Red Elk,” Emma said.
Jesse stared at the floor and tried to stifle his grin.
“Yeah, darlin’?”
“Could we talk about things my paper can actually print?”
Red Elk tilted his head appraisingly. “I take that back about Mia Zottoli. You’re a lot prettier than her.”
“For God’s sakes.”
“I heard they gave you a lot of money so you wouldn’t sue,” Colleen said.
Red Elk turned to her, not the slightest bit abashed. “Depends on what you call a lot of money.”
“Two hundred grand?”
“Somewhere in that range, sure.”
“What’ll you do with it?”
“I imagine I’ll keep doing what I’ve always done, ‘cept I’ll do Vegas two, three times a year.”
“Mr. Red Elk,” Emma said, “do you feel your people were mistreated?”
The big man chuckled. “Mistreated? Miss, that’s like sayin’ this guy here,” he said and nodded at Jesse, “thinks you’re mildly attractive.”
Jesse stared wide-eyed at him. Colleen snickered. He dared not look at Emma to see her reaction.
“You think she doesn’t know?” Red Elk said to him. “She ain’t stupid, buddy. Every time you think she’s not lookin’, don’t you think she feels those big doe eyes of yours crawlin’ up and down her body?”
Emma said, “Was anyone in your family slain, Mr. Red Elk?”
He stopped, the merry twinkle in his eyes vanishing. “Could be, miss. But not the way you think.”
“No murder raids, resettlements, anything like that?”
“Some,” he said.
“Disease?”
“Sure, but only if you count diabetes and colon cancer.”
Emma gave him a confused grin. “I’m not sure where—”
“Do you know how many arrowheads they found when they excavated for the park?”
Emma shook her head.
“A handful,” he said, “and those were ancient, probably from the Potawatomis or the migrating Iroquois.”
“So?” Colleen said.
“You go to any cornfield in Indiana, and a trained eye will find several arrowheads in
no time at all. They’re all over the place despite the fact that the last arrows were fired in this area over a hundred—” He broke off and bent over.
Emma sat forward. “What is it, Mr. Red Elk?”
He made a miserable face, clutched his swollen belly. “Ah, man…you’d think I’d learn by now. Whiskey always gives me the shits.”
“We can come back later,” Emma said, but he was up and out of his chair.
“Gotta drop the kids off at the pool,” he said, jogging toward a door. He slammed it shut, and almost instantly they heard a ripping sound followed by a prolonged splash.
Colleen made a disgusted face. Emma said, “Maybe we should wait outside.”
She rose and stepped over to the door. “Mr. Red Elk, we’ll come back later if—”
A groan and another messy, splashing sound.
“We’ll come back,” she said.
Chapter Nine
Jesse was sure Frank Red Elk was the weirdest thing he’d see all day, but when he and the girls came through the pine trees and beheld the large, circular playground, he knew this sight was in contention. They’d heard the music from nearly a mile away and smelled the beer the moment they climbed out of the car. But this…
Jesse regarded Emma, who was laughing softly.
A hundred or so young men and women covered the playground equipment and the areas between in a bulging mass of skin. Granted, it was hot—probably eighty degrees already with humidity that made you feel greasy all over—but the bikinis the girls wore would’ve been risqué for the French Riviera. A few boys wore costumes: togas made of old sheets, heads swaddled in unconvincing turbans. One guy had fashioned an oversized diaper out of a pink blanket. The rest appeared dressed for the beach.
Jesse realized Colleen was no longer with them. He looked around and spotted her next to a row of five beer kegs lined up under a pavilion in the playground’s center. An overweight young man, his tanned, hairless belly spilling over a tiny red Speedo, filled a plastic cup of beer and handed it to her. She drank, wiped off the foam mustache and beckoned them over.
The music originated from a red pickup truck stationed at the southern edge of the circular playground. Someone, thank God, had replaced the rap music with Van Halen’s “Runnin’ with the Devil”.
To their right a group of guys were spotting scantily clad girls as they breezed across the playground on a zipline. Immediately opposite the zipline, several people played on the swings and took turns looping down a curly slide. Jesse saw as they neared that a large group had gathered to watch people doing keg stands. At the moment a big-breasted girl, her light blue bikini barely preventing her boobs from suffocating her, was standing on her head sucking down beer. The onlookers chanted for her to drink. Just when Jesse was sure she’d bust out of her top, the girl brought her legs down, swayed a moment, then dashed for the pine grove that surrounded the playground.
“Lightweight!” one guy yelled.
As they pulled up next to Colleen, another drinker took the last one’s place. Jesse recognized the spiked blond hair, the washboard stomach from the night before.
Austin favored Emma with a broad grin, and with an athleticism Jesse couldn’t help but admire, Austin leaned down, his spikes embedding in the sand, and popped up in a headstand. Another guy, the one with the black goatee, fed the tube into Austin’s mouth. The crowd started chanting, “Go! Go! Go! Go!” the young man’s throat working furiously to ingest the flow of beer.
“Fifteen seconds,” the goateed guy shouted, and everyone cheered. Austin remained upside down several moments longer before spluttering out beer and scissoring his legs to the ground.
He gave Emma another grin and exchanged high fives and fist bumps with the adoring crowd.
Jesse watched him sullenly. Wasn’t it enough the guy was great-looking? Did he have to drink like a champion and move like a professional athlete too? He wondered idly if Austin was the kid’s first or last name, but he was too annoyed to ask.
“Here you go,” a voice from behind them said.
They all three turned and saw the muscle-bound guy holding out a pair of plastic cups. Emma and Jesse both took one.
“Come swing with me?” Musclehead asked Emma.
“Maybe in a little while,” Emma said.
He nodded and ambled toward a pair of guys tossing a football back and forth.
Emma asked Colleen, “How’s the beer?”
“Tastes like bear piss,” Colleen said.
“Suits me,” Emma said and drank.
Jesse hesitated. He normally enjoyed beer, had drunk plenty of it in college, but his stomach gurgled at the prospect of getting a buzz at—he checked his watch—ten thirty in the morning.
Colleen was watching him, the challenge plain on her face.
He drank.
She was right. It tasted like bear piss.
“I see you found the party,” a jovial voice called.
They turned and watched Gordon Clevenger, Marc Greeley and the one named Ruth approach.
Clevenger patted Jesse on the shoulder. “Has the lovely park ranger been by?”
“Not yet,” Colleen said. “She’s still hair spraying her bangs.”
Greeley was looking around uneasily. “You don’t think the older campers will complain about the noise?”
Clevenger shrugged. “There’s enough of a buffer zone between here and the RVs for the senior citizens to enjoy their canasta.”
A pretty girl wearing a tiara and a snug black bikini appeared and handed the professor a beer. “Ah,” he said, “thank you, Your Highness.”
Her smile flared brighter, and she turned it on Greeley a moment before rejoining another girl on a teeter-totter.
“Drink,” Emma said.
Jesse turned to her and felt a little queasy at the way she was watching him. Her brown eyes remained locked on his, but her expression was inscrutable.
He drank. She did too. As the beer entered his stomach, some of his nervousness began to dissipate. He drank again. Emma did too.
“Want me to sign your toga?” they heard Colleen ask.
A mountainous guy—he had to be a lineman on the football team—had appeared beside Colleen. His eyes were recessed, his brow protuberant. He looked like an overgrown and not particularly intelligent child. Jesse noticed the black Sharpie in his hand, the signatures all over the white sheet he wore. The sheet wasn’t nearly large enough for him, but when coupled with his prodigious size, the guy reminded Jesse of an evil gladiator in some sword-and-sandals epic. Or a villain from the Old Testament.
Goliath handed Colleen the Sharpie. She accepted it, grasped him by the waist and drew him closer. She grabbed the white fabric over his crotch, lifted it, and signed her name. Goliath grinned widely, exposing two missing front teeth.
“You wanna drink with us?” he asked Colleen.
“Why not,” she answered, and she was gone.
Jesse turned to Emma and felt his stomach lurch. Greeley had led her toward the merry-go-round.
You son of a bitch, Jesse thought. He knotted his fists, took a step toward Greeley.
“Maybe you should drink a little first,” a voice at his shoulder suggested. He turned and saw Clevenger smiling sympathetically.
“There are plenty of girls here,” Jesse said through clenched teeth. “Why does your assistant have to hit on Emma?”
“Because she’s the prettiest, I suspect. And she even has a brain.”
“He doesn’t deserve her.”
Clevenger nodded. “You’re probably right.”
Emma laughed at something Greeley said. The tall man had begun to spin her slowly on the merry-go-round.
Clevenger folded his hands behind his back. “If Greeley tries to take advantage of her, you have my permission to beat him to a pulp. Until then, how about that beer?”
“Make it two,” Jesse said and followed him to the keg.
He was drunk by noon.
It snuck up on him, the way it always
did now that he was no longer a college student. Somewhere between his third and fifth cup of beer, he’d begun to feel a pleasant tingle at the base of his neck. He’d joined Professor Clevenger, who turned out to be a horror movie buff, in a spirited debate about which was the best Evil Dead movie. But when he excused himself to refill his cup, he had to freeze, his arms held aloft, while the entire playground canted like a storm-tossed ship. For one terrible moment he was certain he would vomit all over the sand, and wouldn’t that be a great way to impress Emma? He closed his eyes to stop the world from tilting, and in the distance heard the rumble of thunder. Then, a soothing breeze began to waft over him, the storm front moving in. He opened his eyes to see that the sun had been obscured by an ominous wall of clouds, and though the sky at that moment was overcast, the farther east he gazed the darker the clouds grew.
Jesse felt a flutter of apprehension. He turned and beheld Ruth, Clevenger’s mousy TA, surveying him from the shadows of the spruce trees. A flicker of anger passed through him, but after a moment he realized it was because he associated this woman with Greeley, the jackass who’d stolen Emma. He forced himself to relax, to not hold Ruth’s association with Greeley against her. Jesse smiled. When she realized he’d noticed her, Ruth straightened, and a hint of color rushed into her pasty face.
“You must be Professor Clevenger’s assistant,” Jesse said, going over.
“Ruth Cavanaugh,” she said. With a half-hearted smile, she added, “Sorry about the staring thing. I’m feeling kind of out of it today.”
Jesse felt large standing next to the girl. He guessed she’d have a hard time breaking a hundred pounds. “Don’t you feel well?”
“It’s the oddest thing.”
She hugged herself, massaging the shoulders of her green shirt. Like her long black skirt, it was made from some thick material, which meant the girl should have been roasting in this heat. But Ruth shivered, hugged herself tighter.
“Hey,” Jesse said, putting a hand on the back of her shoulder. “You okay?”
At his touch she peered up at him with an odd, penetrating look that, had they not just met, Jesse would have taken for lust.
Then the reticence bled back into her face. She looked away, said, “I’ve felt strange since last night. I went hiking in the bluffs…” She shook her head, laughed mirthlessly. “Stupid thing to do, I know. Going off by myself like that. But the caves…there were such interesting sounds in there. Such…emotions.”
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