Dark to Mortal Eyes

by Eric Wilson

  He rolled the piece in his palm, deep in thought. On the chessboard, a bishop could be hidden between pawns in a maneuver called a fianchetto. At the right time, it would slash across the board. This bishop, though … Where had it come from?

  “Mine? Yes,” he said. “I’m just surprised it’s not broken.”

  As Casey drove off, Marsh tucked himself behind the wheel of a Bonneville sedan, a rental upgrade on the vineyard’s account. Not much longer till dinner at his mom’s place. He sat for a full minute, head swimming with the events of the past few days. He was overdue to vent on a bucket of balls at the driving range.

  He merged into traffic, let the tide carry him along. In anticipation of the weekend’s homecoming game against Arizona, OSU black-and-orange flags fluttered from car windows and antennas. Was that the same mid-size Chevy in his mirror?

  Barkley’s Restaurant appeared straight ahead.

  What, he wondered, had compelled him back to this spot? What did he expect to see? Or whom? Josee was long gone. Petite in her jeans and knee-length knit sweater, she had turned away from him.

  He increased the pressure on the gas pedal, and the Bonneville surged ahead.

  Along the row at Trysting Tree Golf Course, golfers practiced their swings. Tempered curses followed white and yellow balls onto the driving range; intermittently, the sound of clean connection floated across the plain. With a borrowed pro-shop driver, Marsh hooked the first ball and bounced it past the two-hundred-yard marker. The second swing clanged into his bucket, sending white balls skidding through the turf.

  He would’ve cursed on a normal day. Today was not normal.

  He moved to retrieve the mess and saw that the balls had come to rest in the rough shape of a bishop. Wide at the base. Tapered. A notch at the top.

  Skittering overhead, clouds pushed shadows across the range, and Marsh lifted his club in defense as he ducked. A shot of adrenaline raced through his limbs.

  Okay, now you’re losing it! Bye-bye, reality.

  But if Kara was his queen, he mused, did that mean Josee was his bishop? His foe had told him to study the board and learn, told him chess was a parable of life. He couldn’t believe how easily his life could be reduced to a game, but he was afraid not to heed the warning.

  Refusing to entertain this folly further, Marsh snatched a lone ball and bent to tee it up. From his shirt slipped the exquisite bishop he’d pocketed at the parking lot. By some strange ability, it landed upright on the tee, daring him to take a swing. He felt angry. Helpless. He drew back the club.

  “Ah, forget it!”

  He flung the club aside, returned the chess piece to his pocket, and marched into the clubhouse for a drink.

  Depoe Bay was over an hour’s drive. Time to shove off.

  “Good talkin’ at you,” said a short, balding man on a barstool. He raised a hand in farewell as Marsh headed for the clubhouse door. “We got your back.”

  The bartender concurred. “You take care, Marsh. Time comes, we’ll be there. You’ll be safer than asparagus at a fast-food convention.”

  “Nice visual, Don. Thanks.”

  “You can count on us.” The bartender gave an exaggerated nod to underscore the esprit de corps Marsh had found over the years along Trysting Tree’s fairways.

  Tomorrow, he realized, it’d be time to cash in those chips.

  From the parking lot of the golf complex, he watched a police car scream by, sirens wailing. His throat tightened, and his heart jumped. For a split second, he saw Chief Braddock handcuffing him, shoving him into a cruiser, arresting him for the murder of his wife. A common criminal. Dragged by circumstances into the gutter, hamstrung by a conspiracy that left him flatfooted in the path of small-city justice.

  Not if he could help it. The game of kings was far from over.

  In twenty-four hours he would face off with Steele Knight at the historical monument north of town. Camp Adair, the site of young Chance Addison’s training for war. How appropriate. Marsh knew the spot, scoped it out in his mind, and trusted that his father’s journal would aid him in that encounter.

  He stalked to the Bonneville, determined to bring his foe to his knees.

  Headed toward the coast, he saw no signs of being tailed; nonetheless, he had the sense that his opponent was staying abreast of his every move.

  Marsh asked himself, How much longer till the phone call? Till Steele Knight responded to his trick question? Had the note been a ruse? No, Kara was missing, and his opponent’s knowledge was too intimate. How long had chess served as a subterfuge for this man’s schemes? What motive would drive a person this far?

  Every aspect of this attack felt personal.

  “Keep the change from your white mocha,” said Stahlherz. “Buy yourself The Oregonian, treat yourself to clam chowder—whatever suits you. We’ll meet back here, but if I don’t reappear by eight, check by every half-hour. We clear on that?”

  “We clear.” Darius took a gulp of briny sea air. “Aah, gotta love that.”

  “Don’t wander far.”

  “No worries, brah.” He slapped the van’s hood. “This beast gonna be thirsty for the bounce back. You packin’ a twenty? I can get her juiced up, ready to roll.”

  Stahlherz relinquished a bill, scratched at his brow. “I expect a receipt.”

  “You know it, Steele-man.” The driver headed for a local diner.

  Stahlherz walked up a path lined with dune grass. The Lincoln County sheriff approached. Had she come from the beach house? Stahlherz waved and tipped his head at her as the sheriff drove on. In the car’s wake, the sand sparked like electricity on his hands and face. He paused to watch the breakers roll ashore, line upon line. Similarly, he was ready to roll with his plans of monstrous misery. He thought of his circuit along the I-5 corridor. All those lonely people.

  Take a sip from the past … Tell me, how long will you last?

  Swept by sand, a gravel road led him along rows of beach homes, over a dune, and into a section of fenced cottages where boats and automobiles hunkered under tarps to escape the coastal elements. His bones felt brittle in the dampness. His lower back ached. A quarter mile down he turned at a white-lettered sign.

  Timberwolf Lane.

  Chance Addison had given the name in honor of his 104th Infantry Division, the Timberwolves. His beach house here had been handed down to his son. How fitting that Kara should be held captive in this place, one more victim of the family sins.

  21

  Under a Spell

  Scrambling up the railway embankment, Turney tried to ignore the sound of yesterday’s yells. Josee’s voice: Go! Leave us alone!… Please, Jesus … save us. What was he thinking, bringing her here? He wasn’t exactly thrilled to be here himself.

  “Hold it.” Josee glanced up and down the highway. “Maybe we should wait.”

  “If I can drag my lard belly up here, you can do it.”

  She called through cupped hands, “Scooter, it’s me, Josee. You there?” When no reply came, she said, “What’d I tell you? We’re wasting our time.”

  Oh no we’re not. Turney took a deep breath. I can feel it. I can hear the hissing from the cruiser’s trunk and smell the venom where it burned those holes in the ground. I’ve got pus oozin’ hot and sticky from my old scars.

  Were those fresh prints in the gravel?

  He took a step and lost his footing. His weight toppled him so that he landed on his side and speared down the embankment’s backside. With boots ahead and rocks shredding the bandages on his arm, he arrived at the base in a mound of twisted legs and billowing dirt. Pebbles, soda cans, and decomposing litter cascaded down upon his wreckage.

  “That was most bizarre.” A male voice.

  Bizarre? Rolling over, Turney moved the weight off his wounded arm. “Man, how’d you pull off a stunt like that?”

  The sergeant struggled to his feet to find a young man outfitted in a baseball cap, an unbuttoned plaid shirt over a black T-shirt, and khaki pants cinched with a
cord of hemp. “Scooter. Thought ya might be out here.”

  “Took awhile getting here.”

  “Without your bike, I’m sure it did. The bike’s in my trunk.”

  Scooter snickered. “Don’t get me wrong, but that was funny as hell.”

  Yeah, tell me about it, kiddo. Hell laughs at our pain.

  “Scooter!” Josee half ran, half stumbled down the incline. When he stayed put, she leaned into him. “Glad to see you, Scoot. You’re alive. Where’ve you been? Don’t tell me you walked all this way alone.”

  “Knew you’d track me down, babe. Can always count on you.”

  “Did you thumb it or what?” Josee smoothed his moonstone ring with her fingers. “You come out here on your own?”

  “Walked, jogged part of the way, cut down the hill from the hospital. Wasn’t that far really. Had to get outta that place. Bagged down for a while in an old barn.”

  Turney was sniffing the air. He moved closer to Scooter and detected an odor, something other than the counterculture scents of patchouli oil, sage, and humus that hovered about the young man. What was it? The smell of rot and decay? Could be anything, but he still felt troubled. A policeman’s experience? A boxer’s instinct? Or something else—something, for lack of a better word, from another realm?

  A chill sluiced over Turney’s scalp, and he found himself standing in an eye-of-the-storm calm. He’d been here before, long ago, clearheaded and seeing things from a different angle. Okay, God, I’ll try followin’ your lead here.

  He looked to Scooter. “So’d you walk out here on your own?”

  “What’s it matter?”

  “It was part of Josee’s question. Should answer the lady.”

  “Kinda obvious, don’t you think, big guy? I’m standing here with the two of you, aren’t I? See anyone else around?”

  “I’m just glad we found you.” Josee ran her eyes over his face, over the swollen fang marks on his cheek. “You okay? Heard they operated on you, gave you a shot.”

  “Stuck me like a Kewpie doll. Hospitals, ack! Creepy places.”

  “Takin’ off wasn’t the best of ideas,” said Turney. “Chief had a few questions for you. Plus the doctor hadn’t released you yet. Left a lotta people worryin’.”

  “I’m all in one piece. Feel fine, see?” In mimicry of a sobriety test, Scooter took ten steps along a railroad track, hopped back down, flourished a bow.

  “Could still be some delayed reactions.”

  “Delayed?” Scooter searched Turney’s face with a hint of concern.

  Josee stepped in. “Hon, your hair and your beard—I can’t believe you cut them.”

  “Couldn’t exactly stroll out the hospital doors unnoticed, so I went for a new look. Grabbed the clothes from the room next door—don’t fit me right, but that’s the way it goes—and the nurse gave me this.” He tipped the baseball cap. “Not the Mariners, but, hey, the Angels’ll do.”

  “Angels.” Josee studied the logo. “You know, I met her. I met that nurse.”

  “Talk about a knee-high. She was shorter than you.”

  “Hardy-har.”

  As Turney looked on, Josee nudged Scooter and caressed his jaw. Now wasn’t the time for petty envy, yet, for a flash, he wondered what her hand felt like.

  “That’s weird,” she said. “Smooth as baby’s skin.”

  Scooter said, “Just somethin’ I had to do, Josee.”

  “It’s different. You don’t look like yourself. Guess you can always grow it back.”

  “Maybe it’s better like this.”

  “Like how?”

  “Not so … unclean.”

  “Unclean? It’s not like you’ve had a shower anytime lately. What do you expect?”

  “Don’t want people to see.”

  “See what? People see what they wanna see. Isn’t that right, Sarge?”

  Turney nodded. In his head, sensors were going off, all lights and whistles. Unclean? That was a word you didn’t hear often, except in biblical passages referring to evil spirits. Don’t back off now, he told himself. He had to let this kid know that he was on his side but that he meant business.

  “Did you come alone?” Turney persisted.

  “Alone?”

  “You heard me.”

  Scooter touched a finger to his cheek wound, and the sergeant resisted the urge to look away. With the cap’s brim curled around his face, Scooter’s eyes were those of an animal trapped in a cave.

  Turney locked on to the kid’s eyes the way he would in a boxing ring stare down. He tuned out the buzz of insects. “With God as your witness, Scooter, I need you to tell me the truth, need to hear you say it with your own mouth. You come alone or not?”

  “No. There, okay, you satisfied? No one gave me a ride. I came here on foot. Is that what you’re after, big guy, that what you wanna hear?”

  “No one gave you a ride. But what about you? Did you give someone a ride?”

  “Give him a break, Sarge. He just told you he hoofed it here.”

  Without breaking the stare, Turney raised a hand for Josee’s patience. “Scooter, please answer me. You need help. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “Don’t have to answer to you.” The decaying smell grew stronger.

  “You’re not answerin’ to me, and you know it. You’re answering to God.”

  “Maybe I can’t help myself. You consider that possibility?”

  “That may be the case, but we can start with the truth. One step at a time.”

  Beneath the afternoon’s roiling clouds, Scooter’s eyes were weary, and the puncture marks in his cheek were puffy and red. The stare down remained unbroken. The kid dropped his arms to his sides, ground the toe of an industrial boot into the gravel, and spoke in a voice that trembled with confusion and fear. “I’m not alone.”

  “Okay …” Conveying more confidence than he felt, Turney knew that he had won.

  Scooter looked away and admitted: “They came with me.”

  “They?” Josee shuddered. She leaned away from her friend and took a step closer to Turney. “Sarge, I don’t like this. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Suzette’s nerves were jumbled. She locked the gallery door, flipped the Closed sign around. Customers would be confused; she had never shut down early. She moved toward the rear exit, where she would set the alarm on her way out. With the lights off, the Indian bird masks took on a malevolent aspect. She gave them a wide berth, shouldering her tasseled leather purse with its intricate beadwork.

  “Reprehensible,” she scolded herself. “Reprehensible, reprehensible.”

  Against her instincts, she had made a delivery and cavorted again with ICV. Why had she succumbed? Already the authorities were probing her activities. She’d let that man’s artwork cloud her perspective so. And the money. Striving to make ends meet had weakened her. She’d angered the spirits. She’d let the white man’s ways overpower her Nez Percé reliance on the blessings of the land.

  Tattered Feather needed to set things right. The police would forgive her lies.

  Suzette Bishop hadn’t even entered the first number on the alarm when a shape shifted from her left. Something struck her. Stars burst through her head in corncob yellows and berry reds and bone whites, and she dropped to the hardwood floor.

  “Where are you going?” a voice demanded. “You think you’re clever?”

  She curled into a fetal position.

  “Mr. Steele suspected you might take flight. Well, Tattered Feather, it’s time to clip your wings. Seems little birdie’s feeling a tad too noble for her own good.”

  In the cruiser’s backseat, Josee squirmed. Scooter’s arm around her waist irritated her. Why? They were together again after more than thirty-six hours apart, and she should be overjoyed to feel him beside her.

  What had changed? Scooter’s admission: They came with me.

  At her back, the trunk had remained quiet throughout the journey to the Van der Bruegges, but Josee sensed a looming menace. I
f it weren’t for the divider, she might have crawled into the front seat. At the sergeant’s side seemed to be the place to be.

  A cop, yeah so what? Sarge is fighting this too. The man’s genuine.

  “It’s time.” Turney killed the engine, then extricated himself from the front seat. “Time to deal with the junk in the back.”

  “Past four-twenty,” Scooter told Josee with a nod at the digital dash display. “Time to smoke a bowl, if you ask me.”

  “Scoot, that’s not even funny.”

  “Chill, babe. No harm, no foul.”

  At the front doors, John Van der Bruegge awaited them. A cardigan sweater hung from his tall, thin frame. Kris joined him, buttoning her tweed vest over a hunter green turtleneck. They looked so innocuous. Harmless teacher types.

  “I’m outta here,” said Scooter. “I’m not waitin’ around for this.”

  “They’re here to help us, hon.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “To help us both, you know, putting us up for the night. Food and shelter.”

  “And why should we trust this Sarge character? Since when’ve we cared about some bloated old pig’s opinion?”

  “Wait a sec. If it wasn’t for Sarge, you could be dead right now.”

  “You mean back in the woods at our campfire?”

  Josee lashed out. “Where else?” She hated to react like this, but Scooter’s attitude was unsettling, and he refused to look her in the eye.

  “Blowin’ it outta proportion, Josee. You say you found some canister thingamajig, but whatever it was, I don’t think that’s what got me. Look at me”—he lifted his arms as though submitting to a pat-down—”no missing limbs, toned abs, everything in place.”

  Turney rapped his knuckles against the side window. “You two comin’?”

  Josee raised a finger to let him know it’d be a moment. She turned back, disbelieving her own ears. “Okay, Scoot, what about the bite marks?”

  “These cuts? Is that what you’re stressed over? They aren’t bite marks.”

  “How can you say that? You watched that thing attack us, saw it happen with your own eyes. You just sat there, like you always do, and let it—”