Terovolas

by Edward M. Erdelac

  The ride has thus far been pretty uneventful. Around high noon we came across the spot in the road Alkali said he’d been laid up all last night. We found his shells, and a lot of odd tracks all over. Odd, because they don’t look like much of anything. That is, they look like something, but not a lion or a dog either. Too big. It was a puzzle to Cole and Alkali and Greek to me. I can’t tell a hoof print from a Michelangelo.

  They are at this minute trying to figure out if the lion went off finally in the middle of the night, or if it bedded down somewhere around here. If it slept, they figure finding the spot it rested will tell them more about it. Cole seems bothered.

  We broke to rest the horses and expect to start up again in a few. Nothing to eat but jerky. Wish I’d got up in time for breakfast.

  * * *

  From the Journal of Professor Van Helsing

  26th Aug (Later)

  We will be in Misstep Canyon soon.

  The scene at Buckner’s cabin was a testament to the strength and peculiar savagery of the animal we hunt. Its power is almost unthinkable.

  Buckner’s door, though constructed of poor wood, should have been ample protection against even a maddened animal, but we found it smashed to splinters as if a Brahma bull had charged in. The walls of his hovel were painted in his blood, the earthen floor dotted with animal prints, and his meager possessions were flung all about.

  There is little to catalog. Some empty liquor bottles, a set of rusted old iron wolf traps, stacks of The Sorefoot Picayune whose dates rival even Alvin’s archives, and a bottle of arsenic, half full.

  I was amused by the peeling label on the poison; Apollo Brand Arsenic, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I once read somewhere, I think it was in Pausanias, that it had been the god Apollo who taught the shepherds of ancient Greece to leave poisoned meat to kill wolves. Something I assume must still be practiced by wolf hunters today. I wonder if the name on the label is intentional. It’s ironic to think that the owner of an apothecary in Cherry Hill, New Jersey would deliberately put such an obscure reference on his product, and that only I, a Dutch professor in a dead man’s hovel in the middle of the Texas Plains should fully appreciate it.

  Scattered among the shredded newspapers I did find a sheaf of scrawled, dated notes, which I think must be the dead man’s diary. The documents are quite out of order and Buckner’s penmanship is atrocious. It will take some time to decipher, but I gathered all that I could find together.

  There was little else to be learned in the fly-ridden dank of that small house. There was no legacy, no testament, no penultimate clue left behind by the dead vagabond. Only congealing blood and wreckage.

  It appeared the old beggar put up a gallant struggle by the torn condition of his hard packed floor, but there was no evidence that his killer tried to drag his body away. This does not entirely rule out my theory that it is some sort of communal creature however. It could have gorged itself in the shack and taken its food back to its brethren. That an animal should be so bold is unsettling, but not implausible. That a man did this is almost unthinkable. Almost.

  It is certain that the killer (be it man-killer or killer-man) fled in the direction of Misstep Canyon, which Coleman and Mr. Firebaugh say is nearby. They tell me that the tracks indicate the animal doubled back across the wet ground after having left Mr. Firebaugh’s wagon on the road sometime last night. Something about the animal’s footprints seem to bother Coleman, but he says nothing.

  So we rest the horses before beginning our trek to the canyon. I am endeavoring to sort Buckner’s papers, but there are many dates missing.

  * * *

  From the Pen of Alvin Crooker

  Aug 26th Later...

  Well, there is an Indian in our camp now. A Tonkawa called Plenty Skins, of all things. He claims he’s Picker’s uncle. I’ve never known Picker to talk about any family, but the democracy of our little band has won out, thanks mostly to the Professor’s campaigning. For my part I’m pretty confused and, I must admit, a little scared. I don’t expect to get any sleep for fear of having my throat cut. Wish I had a drink.

  Cole and Alkali tracked the lion into the canyon and we had a helluva time getting down. The varmint had chosen a particularly rocky and terrible descent; Van Helsing’s horse stumbled and he damn near broke his neck. We all had to dismount and lead the animals the rest of the way, tying at least another half an hour on.

  It was four ‘o clock when we finally reached the canyon floor. The trail had disappeared somewhere in the rocks, and I was given a hard look by Cole for wondering aloud why we hadn’t brought Useless along to sniff the wildcat out. The cur was better acquainted with the beast than any of us, after all. Then we spied the smoke from the campfire.

  It was a wonder to all of us just who would be camping out at the bottom of the Misstep. Despite Alkali’s misgivings, we opted to mount up and head out quick to meet the fire-builder. The reasoning in this was that it might be some lost saddle tramp who was ignorant of the presence of a dangerous animal, and that the cat might be attracted to a cooking fire.

  Discretion got the better of us when we got to within a couple yards of the camp. We dismounted again and got real still. There was the sound of Indian singing careening off the canyon walls.

  Well, needless to say that shocked the hell out of us one and all. There hadn’t been wild Indians in this part of the country for ten years or more. Cole and Alkali crept ahead and around the rocks while the rest of us remained to keep the horses from bolting.

  Ranny looked as nervous as a bride on her wedding night. He confided in me that all throughout his formative years he had heard a good deal of talk about Comanche depredations from his old buzzard of an uncle that had been a trader at Ft. Sill.

  “My Uncle Kay said he once seen a drummer skinned from his ass to his eyelids with his balls stuffed in his mouth like an apple in a pig,” he told me.

  “That was all a long time ago,” I said, trying to offer some comfort but finding none myself.

  “So what’s Indians doin’ out here?” Ranny asked in a frightful hush.

  For that I had no answer. I’d never even seen a wild Indian.

  Then the signal came we had been waiting for. The singing stopped, and Cole’s voice called for us to come out.

  We picked our way through the heaps of stone and came out into a kind of natural amphitheater, a bowl-shaped formation all in rock. At the edge was Alkali and Cole, their rifles pointed at a lone figure standing in the center alongside a medium-sized bonfire.

  He was an old Indian, the strangest looking Indian I’d ever seen. He was all done up in a robe of animal skin, coyote or wolf by the looks of the pointed ears and the grey dog-face over the hood. His lined face was tattooed with black swirling lines, and he looked every bit the cannibal. His long, iron-colored hair was shaved on the left side of his head and hung loose to his shoulder on the other. Strung about his neck was a necklace of animal teeth, and his wrists and ankles were draped with much the same kind of fare. He had a long belt of big green copper conches around his waist, and an ash handled knife shoved through his waistband. He wore greasy deerskin leggings and an overlong loincloth whose dull red fringe dusted the ground at his bare feet.

  As we filed into his small camp, there was a look of firm disapproval about him, but no trace of fear. He had some kind of rattle in his knobby fist.

  I heard Ranny suck in a breath beside me and gave him a reassuring wink, though I thumbed back the hammer of my rifle and propped its barrel across my bad arm.

  “A remarkable looking fellow,” Van Helsing said.

  “What in hell’s he doing way out here?” Ranny asked.

  “When we came up, he was dancin’ around the fire on all fours like a dog,” Cole said, lowering his rifle and eyeing the wary old Indian.

  “What sorta Indian is he?” Ranny wondered.

  “Don’t look like no Comanche,” Alkali said.

  “Well, somebody ask him if he’s seen that lion,” Ranny
said.

  “How?” Alkali asked.

  Coleman tried his Spanish, but the old Indian said nothing. He just looked beyond us, like we weren’t even there.

  While they deliberated over what to do with the Indian, I walked around his camp, toeing over hide sacks, an old U.S. Army canteen, a buffalo blanket.

  Then I spied a great circle scorched black on one of the large flat rocks, as if there’d been a big fire there. I ambled over, Ranny right behind. There was a lot of rubbish lying around, and some broken pottery. Half obscured by the rocks there was what looked to be a hand-built platform made of birch, like some Indian funeral scaffolds I’d seen, though a little smaller around, almost like a seat or chair that had been raised about six feet off the ground. I clambered up the side to have a look, but there was nothing up there, just a bare platform.

  “There is another possibility, my friends,” Van Helsing said. “Perhaps our ‘lion,’ he is standing right here before us.”

  Then Alkali whistled. Van Helsing had found something next to the Indian’s fire, something he’d taken at first to be kindling. It was a pile of scorched bones, obviously human.

  The Indian did not react to our curses. It was sure as a Chinaman in a laundry house that this Indian was some sort of crazy killer. But whose bones were these?

  “What’s this?” Cole asked, coming over.

  “I would submit to you,” Van Helsing began, putting on the airs of a twenty dollar law dog, “a theory I have been considering since the night the Sheriff and Mister Searls were murdered...”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Cole asked sharply.

  “Permit me,” Van Helsing answered, reaching into his pocket. “Harley Crenshaw was not the sole participant in the carnage enacted in your jail. There is significant evidence that he could not have made his escape without aide, let alone singlehandedly dispatched both men.”

  “In plain American?” Alkali said, furrowing his brows, and inclining his good ear toward the Dutchman.

  “He’s saying two men were in on the killin’ of Early and Turlough,” Cole said.

  “Why didn’t you say anything before?” I demanded.

  “I did partially confide in Dr. Ravell, but the details of the evidence were such that I could not readily decipher them. In truth, until this moment my theory had taken such a fantastic turn that should I have confided it to all of you, my friends, you would have reviled me as a lunatic, and thus I have kept it mostly to myself.”

  Then he clapped his hands and gave a weird laugh, shaking his head as if at some joke you had to be Dutch to appreciate.

  “Good thinking, Professor,” I muttered.

  Alkali looked at Cole for explanation, but Cole was no longer in a translating mood. The old man’s talk had captured him for once. He kept the Indian covered, but addressed Van Helsing.

  “So who do you think helped him?”

  “Gentlemen,” Van Helsing said, pulling something out of his pocket (that same pocket he had been fussing over for the past few days, I realized), “My evidence.”

  He held it out. Whatever it was, it was small enough to fit between his finger and thumb. He showed it to us one at a time, moving about our stunned circle with that same air of a lawyer in front of the jury box. When he finally got to me, I couldn’t stop myself from exclaiming;

  “Great God, man! Is that a tooth?”

  Van Helsing nodded.

  “It is indeed. I extracted it from a gash in Mr. Searls’ chest.”

  At that moment I believed that old Dutchman had taken the big jump. I could only guess at what sort of crackpot theory this old fool had chucked in favor of this one.

  “As I said,” said Van Helsing, moving towards the quiet old Indian. “My mind developed all manner of reasons as to why this tooth should be in Mr. Searls’ wound. It is not a human tooth, gentlemen. Note the dramatic curvature of its shape, the savage efficiency of its symmetry, its very length? This is a fang.”

  “A what?” Ranny exclaimed.

  Van Helsing strode right up to the Indian.

  “A wolf’s fang.”

  Now I saw where he was headed. That Indian was done up in wolf’s teeth like a lady with lace.

  “I was unable to produce a likely suspect because I could not think of a logical reason for a wolf tooth to be found in the victim’s body. Nor could I reason how a civilized man could so ravage another. But the answer is plain to me now,” he went on, staring at the Indian as though he were addressing him. “A civilized man could never do such a thing.”

  That was enough for Alkali and Ranny, and hell and be damned if it didn’t convince me. The three of us forgot all about the mountain lion. Maybe this crazy Indian was the mountain lion, at least where Buckner was concerned. It made sense that a renegade out on his own would do his murders while a lion was about to blame. That way he could write his crimes off on the animal and get away scot-free. Maybe he was even some crazy partner to the Crenshaws they’d brought back from Arizona. He sure looked like the sort of maniac those two might’ve found it amusing to keep company with. Well, we were set to lynch that Indian, and were hunting up for the means and the place to do it, when that Indian did an astounding thing.

  He reached out and snatched Van Helsing’s hat from his head just as quick and easy as you please.

  And he said, in English as plain as day:

  “Red hair.”

  That struck us all dumb for a minute. Even Van Helsing, who had the most to fear, didn’t move out of the Indian’s reach.

  “Not red like fire,” the Indian continued, “red like the rising east. You’re from the east.”

  He offered Van Helsing his hat back.

  Well, I hollered for the Professor to get back or get down, and I brung up my shotgun to draw a bead and cut that crazy killer Injun in two. But the Professor didn’t move, and Cole held up his hand for me to rein it in.

  “I ain’t civilized. I ain‘t no mountain lion,” said the Indian to all of us, “and I ain’t killed no sheriff.”

  “Just who the hell are you, then?” Cole said, finding his voice where we couldn’t.

  “Bill Plenty Skins,” said the Injun. “I come over from Bastrop. A week ago my nephew come to me. He said he thought he killed a white man, but he wasn’t sure.”

  “What do you mean he wasn’t sure?” I said.

  “He said what he shot was a wolf. But when he went to skin it, the wolf was a man.”

  We all looked at each other, except Cole. He stared at the Injun. Van Helsing took a step back. I saw he was shaking his head, and had his hand over his mouth.

  “You’re certain of this?” he mumbled. His voice was very high, and it seemed to me, frightened.

  “Picker brang me all the man had on him,” the Injun said, pointing to a pile of skins lying beside his canteen and bedding. “Look.”

  It looked like Van Helsing couldn’t get over to examine it fast enough. The Injun stopped him though, with his own hat.

  Van Helsing took the hat.

  “Thank you,” he said, and went to the pile of skins.

  The Injun lingered on the Dutchman for a minute, then turned back to the lot of us.

  “I come to find my nephew’s pardner, a man called Buckner.”

  “Well you met him alright, didn’t you?” I said, hoping my meaning was clear.

  The Injun looked at me, playing at bewilderment, I thought.

  I could hardly believe it, but Cole stepped up and let the hammer of his rifle down, putting it over his shoulder.

  “I’m Cole Morris,” he said. “Last week I found a man on my property. He’d been shot six times and he was naked as a jaybird.”

  “Mr. Morris,” said the Injun, “maybe you knew my nephew. He was called Picks For His Food.”

  “Picker,” Cole nodded. “What do you mean ‘knew?’”

  “That’s why I come,” said the Injun. “Picker’s dead.”

  “Killed?”

  The Injun nodded, and
gestured to the pile of bones beside his fire.

  “Right here. About two or three days ago.”

  Alkali rumbled now, and came over, staring down at the rick.

  “You trying to tell us that’s Picker? There’s no way a man ends up like that after only two or three days. Them bones is clean.”

  “Yassir,” Plenty Skins agreed. “How ‘bout Buckner?”

  “We just come from his cabin,” Cole said. “He’s dead. Mauled by a lion.”

  “It weren’t no lion,” said the Injun.

  “Damn straight it wasn’t,” I said, being unable to stomach the malarkey any longer. “Come on Cole, we know damn well it wasn’t the lion got to Buckner.”

  “Then what’d we track here? It wasn’t no man,” Alkali said. “Surely not this man.”

  “Not you too!” I swore. “Look at this fella, boys! It’s plain as the nose on my face he’s a damned murderin’ cannibal. Hell, didn’t I read somewhere the Tonks used to be cannibals? It’s like the Professor said. He sprung Harley and killed Early.”

  “Why would he do that?” Cole said.

  “He’s one of the Crenshaws’ gang, I bet,” I reasoned. “He probably killed Buckner too. Isn’t that right, Professor?”

  “No,” said Van Helsing, his voice almost a whisper. He was staring at the ground, his back to us. “No, I was mistaken. Whoever killed Mr. Tyree did not kill Mr. Searls and the Sheriff. And I don’t believe this man killed Searls.”

  Van Helsing stood, and he had something in his hands. It looked like a bracer, the kind those dime novel pistoleros always sport on the cover of The Police Gazette. It was sort of like a hold out contraption I’d seen once. A gadget that fitted to a sharp’s wrist and allowed him to pass aces into his hand from his sleeve. But it wasn’t that either. It had a fan-like protuberance on what would be the back of the forearm. This was shaped like a rake, and on the end of it were a series of small sharp stakes; like hooks, or...what?