Most of the regulars sat along the bar. However, two played pool, and judging by their looks of concentration—and the fact that they were playing on the table that didn’t move—the stakes were high. Ben knew all of his regulars by their first names and considered many his closest friends, because he spent most every night with them. He even knew the names of the former regulars. And the former regular who sat alone at a table against the wall was one that Ben had hoped would never return to this bar. Not because Ben didn’t like him, but because he did.
Corporal Enoch Nakai had put his life together in the last few years, but when he walked into the bar about twelve hours ago, Ben wondered if that fragile stability would hold. By the time Nakai asked for his third Jack Daniel’s, Ben knew that it wouldn’t. At three, tired of refilling Nakai’s glass, he had let him keep the bottle. It had been full then. Now, ten hours later, it was mostly gone.
What Ben didn’t know was what had pushed Nakai to this place. And it was a combination of factors. It was the feeling of helplessness that Nakai couldn’t shake. It was the orders to leave when something inside him told him he needed to stay. And it was that image of his friend Dietl, in his last moment of life, a blue blade of energy cutting him in half.
Ben didn’t know and didn’t ask. He didn’t believe in bartender-as-father-confessor. But he was relieved when the doors opened and a striking young woman entered. She wore a red shirt and jeans. Her long black hair was pulled back into two braids and she had on stained tennis shoes. She was one of his regulars. She was also the person he needed to see right then.
“Hi, Alda,” Ben said. “Just get off work?”
“About five minutes ago,” she said.
Alda worked days at Cindy’s Hotel and Restaurant, the only place to stay and get a good meal in Agate. She was the main waitress and cleaning person—basically, Cindy’s right hand. Everyone knew that she and Nakai were a couple, and most times no one bothered her, even though Nakai was away in the army.
She glanced over at Nakai and then gave Ben a questioning look. Ben felt a surge of guilt, as if it were his fault that Nakai had the bottle before him. But if Ben took charge of every alcoholic who came into the place, he wouldn’t have any business at all.
“He hasn’t caused any problems,” Ben said, deliberately misunderstanding her look. “But he ain’t up for driving.”
The disappointment in her dark eyes was eloquent. She had been waiting two months to see Nakai, only to have him show up and hit the bottle. She looked reluctant to walk over to him, so Ben asked her the question he’d been asking everyone else all day: “Say, you hear anything more about that explosion this morning?”
A few of the regulars along the bar turned their attention to Ben’s question. Agate, New Mexico, had been rocked early this morning, followed shortly by a rolling boom of thunder.
“We ain’t heard a word in here,” one of the regulars added, knowing Alda sometimes got news at Cindy’s that didn’t make it to the bar.
Alda moved up to the edge of the polished bar. “I heard nothing at all. A lot of people asked about it, though.”
“Must have been a big one, to shake the ground like that,” Ben said. A couple of the regulars agreed.
“Who knows what kind of tests they are doing down there at the base?” the same regular said.
Alda shot a sad glance at Nakai. “Sometimes I really don’t want to know.”
“Yeah,” Ben said, “I asked your boyfriend there if he knew anything and he just gave me the cold stare.”
Alda nodded. “He does that at times.”
Ben laughed. “He could have just said he didn’t know.”
“Not Enoch,” Alda said, smiling and glancing over at her drunken boyfriend. “That’s not like him at all.”
She wasn’t just referring to his silence. He had been so proud of his sobriety, and he had vowed never to fall off the wagon. He had nearly lost everything before. He hadn’t wanted to lose again.
“I suppose you’re right,” Ben said, although he knew a million drunks who had made the same vow, and somehow ended back up perched on their favorite stool. “You need help getting him home?”
“I don’t think so,” Alda said. “He’s a pretty tame drunk.”
“I remember,” Ben said. “Wonder what kicked him off the wagon?”
Alda shook her head. “Something did. And after what happened to Enoch’s father, it had to be something major, that’s for sure.”
Ben didn’t know the story of Nakai’s father, although Alda had alluded to it before. It was another thing he didn’t want to know.
“Well,” he said, polishing the bar in front of him, even though it really didn’t need it. “Holler if you need help.”
“Thanks,” Alda said.
He watched her walk over to Nakai and wondered what the attraction was. Sure, Nakai was a good-looking man. But he never said much, and he rarely smiled. Ben wished he could hear the conversation now, then decided he didn’t want to. He clicked on the radio beneath the bar, hoping for news.
Alda took her time getting to Nakai’s table. He didn’t notice her coming. When she reached his favorite spot, she leaned down beside him and said, “You about ready to head home?”
“With you?” he asked, his words slurring.
“With me.” She reached out her hand to help him stand. How many times had they played this game? She didn’t know. All she knew was that she had thought the game long over.
Nakai shook off her offer of help. He used the table for leverage, pushed too hard, and went right over backward, ending up in a tangled heap with the chair on the wood floor.
Alda just shook her head in disgust, then glanced over at Ben and the regulars watching along the bar. “Guess I’m going to need some help with the army boy here.”
Ben laughed.
Nakai slept, his legs tangled in the chair, his mind finally clear of the images of Dietl. And of the fear of what was to come.
10
My brother did not win the fight with the demon that killed our father. He did not even fight this night, but instead gave himself willingly to the enemy. I fear my brother may not be strong enough to win the fight against the monster who now walks among the people.
The morning dawned bright and clear over the reservation outside of Agate, New Mexico. The sky had a faint reddish tint to it that the old-timers said was blood filling the day.
This morning, they were right, but no one knew it yet. The children had just finished their chores and headed off in groups to play before the heat drove them inside. Those men with jobs were already at work. The farmers and ranchers were tending to their lands. So far, it seemed like another normal day.
Down the old highway to the west of the reservation, a dozen small farms clung to the desert like flies to the back of a dead horse. The houses were not much more than faded wood shacks, the yards a patchwork of weeds, old cars, and rusting farm equipment. A new Ford pickup turned in to one of the driveways and kicked up a small cloud of dust as it stopped. Dan Bonney climbed out, stuck a cigarette in the side of his mouth, and paused to light it. He took a long puff, felt the nicotine catch and hold, and then he went to the back of the truck. The cigarette was an important part of his work. Much as he loved the job, he hated the stink that surrounded live animals.
Dan Bonney was a shearer and wool buyer for three firms down in Albuquerque. Part of his territory was the reservations of northern Arizona and New Mexico. Most people assumed he was an athlete, probably a basketball player. He stood well over six feet tall, and had a graceful athletic build. His arms were corded with muscle. But he got paid for his abilities with sheep, not his abilities on a basketball court. He could shear a sheep in less than a minute, and was known in the area for being fair with his prices. Almost everyone liked him.
Dan grabbed a bunch of tools from the bed of the truck and headed around the side of the shack. As he did, the farmer came outside. Robert Nadire was a weathered man in his fiftie
s. Dan had known him for years. Robert’s family had lived and worked the surrounding land as sheep herders for three generations. He had almost a hundred sheep in the hills nearby and was making just enough off of their wool and meat to get by. Last night he had brought in twelve to be sheared.
“Morning, Dan,” Robert said, pulling back his long black hair to get it out of the faint breeze. Beside him a young boy of six, his youngest son, stayed near the door, as if afraid. Dan smiled at the kid, but the smile didn’t break the fear. Nothing did. That boy had been afraid of Dan from the first time they met, when the kid was still in diapers. Robert’s wife had watched the interaction, over five years ago now, and said, “It’s almost as if he sees death behind you.”
“Hey, Robert,” Dan said, dropping his equipment beside the sheep pen. “You forget how to count?”
“No.” Robert sounded a bit offended.
“I thought you said twelve,” Dan said.
Robert walked up to the sheep pen and peered inside. He frowned as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He quickly checked the gate, but it was latched. “There were twelve here last night.”
The boy swallowed hard and pressed himself against the door. He was staring at Dan as if Dan were at fault.
Dan suppressed a sigh. He’d seen this happen before. He took a good look at the dirt near the pen. He didn’t notice anything unusual, but then tracking wasn’t his specialty. “Maybe one of the big cats got them.”
The population of puma in the area had been increasing over the last few years, and the sheep ranchers were feeling the pressure the worst. But the state protected the big cats and there wasn’t a hell of a lot any of the farmers could do about them.
Dan shoved his hands in his pockets. The sheep were acting more skittish than usual this morning. They were huddled on the far side of the pen, as if they were trying to hide. That was unusual in and of itself. Sheep deserved their reputation as some of nature’s most stupid animals. They didn’t have enough of a memory to recognize Dan from his semi-annual visits.
“I don’t see how a cat could have gotten in,” Robert said, moving along the pen between the fence and the house. “I would have heard, and there would be signs that—”
He stopped abruptly, head down. Dan glanced at the boy, who was still watching them, eyes wide. The kid gave him the creeps.
Dan shook off the feeling and walked over to Robert. Robert was staring at the ground before him.
A large pool of blood, some of it still red and fresh, filled the area between the house and the pen. Red and fresh. That meant that whatever had taken the sheep was still here, or newly gone. Had the truck scared the creature off?
Most likely. But what kind of cat attacked a ranch in broad daylight?
Then Dan heard a splash. The pool of blood rippled. Simultaneously, he and Robert looked up. The blood was dripping from the roof of the shack. But how was that possible? Predators in this part of the country didn’t carry their prey upward. They dragged an injured or dead animal to a private spot in the desert and feasted.
This behavior was unusual enough to make him very nervous.
Dan moved back around the pen and indicated that Robert should step away from the building with him. Robert held out a hand to his son so that the boy wouldn’t move. Not that he was going to. The kid looked like he was glued to the shack’s front door.
When Dan and Robert had both gone a few feet, Dan turned around and saw a sight that chilled him down to his bones.
On the roof were the remains of the two sheep. From the looks of it, they had been gutted and their heads cut off. Most of the wool was stained red, and one of the sheep looked to be half-eaten.
“How in the hell did they get up there?” Robert asked.
Dan didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He watched as some unseen force ripped the remaining sheep in half. He couldn’t see what had done it, and that made the hair on the back of his neck rise.
“Son,” Dan said to the young boy standing on the porch, “go fetch your father’s rifle.”
The young boy nodded. His eyes grew wider, if that were possible. Dan was about to issue the order again when a blue flash appeared above the bodies of the sheep on the roof. Like a bolt of lightning it shot out and stuck Robert square in the chest, exploding blood and intestines all over the fence.
“What the—?”
But before Dan could say another word, another bolt struck him, severing his head as if it had never really been attached.
And the little boy watched, frozen in place, as the vision he had seen for as long as he could remember came true.
11
My brother sleeps the sleep of the dead. He has lost a battle with the demon that killed our father, but he has not yet lost the war. For the moment that fight must wait. The monster walks in blood and my brother is Nayenezgani, the monster slayer. He must prepare for the fight. He cannot hide as our father did. He must face his demons. He will not listen to me. He does not know me. But he knows our grandfather, remembers and loves him, and still misses him. Our grandfather will visit him in his dreams and warn him.
Nakai let the booze wipe his memory clean. He didn’t know that Alda and Ben had gotten him to his feet and dragged him to Alda’s car. He didn’t know that she had struggled with his weight after they reached her house, and that for a long moment she thought of leaving him sprawled in the backseat. Finally, though, she’d gotten him inside, and into bed.
And there his oblivion continued. Until a dream invaded his mind. If he were conscious, that would have been how he thought of it. But he wasn’t. His abilities to reason had been short-circuited by the booze. So he couldn’t block the dream.
He could only feel it.
And the dream feels odd because the sky is swirling green, the desert sand blue, the rocks black.
Nakai sits, his back against a rock, his feet outstretched, a bottle of bourbon in his hand. He is sixteen and has stolen the bottle. He is about to take another drink when his grandfather appears in front of him, shimmering into being like a mirage on a hot desert road.
Before Nakai can speak, his grandfather knocks the bottle from his hands, spilling the bourbon into the dirt and sand. The bourbon runs out, turning the dirt blood-red. The liquid grows into a puddle, then into a pool, growing larger and larger, as if it were trying to become a spring of blood.
Nakai’s grandfather is the medicine man for the tribe. He wears a battered cowboy hat, a blue vest, and three necklaces of stones around his neck. From one necklace hangs a hawk’s claw.
“There will be no drinking so long as you live under my roof.” Nakai’s grandfather’s voice sounds like thunder, filling the dream with dread.
Suddenly the ground shakes. All around Nakai there is red, blood is flowing in the dry streams, the sky is dripping blood. Nakai glances down at his army uniform, afraid it is being stained. But somehow the blood is running off it, swirling around his boots, covering the sand.
His grandfather now stands between two others, holding an umbrella over his head to protect all three from the rain of blood. On Grandfather’s left is Nakai’s mother, on the right is Nakai’s father. They are wearing their wedding clothes, looking just as they did in the picture his grandfather keeps over the fireplace.
Nakai’s father has a bottle of bourbon in his hand, but his grandfather doesn’t seem to notice.
“How did you get here?” Nakai asks.
“I live here,” his grandfather says.
“But—”
“You are the visitor here, Enoch,” his grandfather says.
“Why am I here?”
“Because I brought you here,” his grandfather says.
“Why?”
“To warn you,” his grandfather says.
“Need a drink, son?” Nakai’s father asks. He leers, the smile of a skeleton.
“I do not need to drink,” Nakai says.
“Good,” another voice says from Nakai’s left.
Nakai tur
ns, staring at a white figure without a face, without a body, only an outline against the blood-red rain.
“Who are you?” he asks, but somehow he senses the answer.
“I am your brother,” the white shape says.
“But you’re dead.”
“I am,” the brother said. “But I have never left you.”
“How can I see you?” Nakai asks.
“In dreams,” the white shape says, “anything is possible. Listen to our grandfather.”
Nakai takes a step toward the white shape, but slips in the blood and falls, covering himself in red clay and mud.
Nakai’s father laughs and takes a drink.
Nakai’s mother says nothing.
Nakai’s grandfather says, “You must stand against the blood. Allow your brother to stand with you.”
Nakai fights to get up, only to slip over and over as his father laughs. Nakai finally stops trying, and all of them fade. The rain continues, turning into a downpour. Sheets of blood fall from the sky.
“No!” Nakai shouts. “No!”
But the more he shouts, the more he twists and turns in the hot blood, the more mired he becomes. He is unable to stand, unable to think, and all he wants is a drink—
“Nakai,” a voice said, distant, yet familiar. “Wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”
The blood faded. The tangle around his legs was caused by bedclothes, not by mud. Light poured in from a nearby window.
Sunlight. He had never been so happy to see it in his life.
Alda sat beside him on the bed, her hand on his shoulder, soothing him.
Nakai stared at her for a moment, afraid to close his eyes for fear the dream would return. It had been a long time since he had dreamed like that. It had felt so real he was afraid the sheets were covered in the blood. But they were only damp with his sweat.
Alda held out her hand. “Here, take these.” She shoved two white pills into his hand, then took a glass of water off the nightstand and handed it to him.
Predator - Big Game Page 6