by Ann Charles
“I got a call this morning at the crack of dawn.”
“From whom?” Probably his ornery nephew. Cooper had woken me up to chew my ass many a morning before the sun popped up.
“I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was Coop’s home phone and I didn’t want to get too nosy.”
I guffawed. That was rich. Harvey had his ear tuned in to the Northern Black Hill’s main gossip line via his stool at the Golden Sluice bar up in Lead. “Since when?”
“Since Coop threatened to kick me out of his house and make me live with his momma.”
“His mom? You mean your sister?” Harvey nodded, grimacing. “What’s wrong with moving in with her?”
“For starters, she makes me eat my vegetables every darn night.” I laughed, earning a flick on the arm from him. “Anywho, the caller told me about a package waitin’ fer pickup.”
“A package for Cooper?”
“I didn’t ask, just listened.”
“Then what?”
“Then he hung up.”
“So, Cooper wants you to go get the package for him?”
He aimed a wrinkled brow in my direction. “In a manner of speakin’, sure.”
I searched his profile. Harvey made a point of focusing out the windshield. “Harvey, did you tell Cooper about the package?”
“I’m gettin’ ‘round to it.”
“Damn it.” I reached for the door handle. “Stop the truck and let me out.”
“Don’t be hollow-headed. I ain’t stoppin’.”
I glared at him. “First, Natalie is disarming his tracking device on my phone, and now you’re dragging me Lord knows where to pick up some suspicious package meant for him. Your nephew is going to tar me up one side and down the other. He won’t even bother with a feather coating, probably just stick Elvis to my hide.”
“We’re only gonna pick up a package for him, nothin’ more.”
“Then why did you make me ditch my phone?”
“Because we don’t need him hornin’ in on this.”
“I don’t understand why you are so bent on getting this package meant for Cooper.”
“I’ll fill ya in when we get there.”
We rode in silence for a few miles. While Harvey hummed along with Merle Haggard on the radio about his mama trying to keep him out of prison, I fidgeted. If Cooper caught wind that I was part of this package retrieval heist, he would probably sew me to my mattress. I could easily envision him pacing at the end of my bed with his Colt .45 drawn, using an apple balanced on my forehead for target practice.
When Harvey turned onto the gravel road that passed by his ranch, I glanced his way. “We’re going to your place?” If so, that would make sense why Harvey wanted to see what was in this mysterious package before Cooper squirreled it away.
Harvey had closed his house up for the winter before moving into Cooper’s place in Lead. I hadn’t been out to Harvey’s ranch in a couple of weeks. While it was one of my listed properties, I had put it on the back burner for now, waiting for that lucky day when someone came to me looking for a haunted old house, barn, and graveyard to buy. As a bonus, there was a derelict mine up on the hillside behind the ranch.
Last summer, the sheriff’s deputies had discovered a “nest” of sorts inside the mine filled with a creepy collection of human castoffs, including a pair of broken glasses, an old boot, dirty underwear, and human teeth. Oh, and most recently, Cooper had found a faceless dead man up there whose body had been stolen from the morgue at Mudder Brothers Funeral Parlor. I didn’t even want to think about the decapitated body that Harvey’s yellow lab, Ol’ Red, had dug up in the family cemetery out back. Finding a buyer for such a disaster-ridden residence was nearing the needle-in-a-haystack realm.
“Nope, not my place. Not today anyway.” His gravel driveway came and went. “I drove out a couple days ago to check on ‘er and everything is still locked up tighter than a duck’s ass.”
That gave me a mental image that distracted me from my troubles for a moment.
“Where to, then?” I pressed, putting dead bodies and duck butts behind me for now.
“Take a tater and wait.”
I’d learned from Harvey previously that “tater waiting” meant the same thing as the phrase Don’t get your bloomers in a bunch. But this trip inspired bunched-bloomers out of the gate, especially since he didn’t want Cooper involved. However, I waited as instructed, watching, sweating, fidgeting more and more with each passing milepost. The road went from smooth gravel to washboard dirt with gravel patches, then just packed dirt. Lots of bumpy twists and turns later, we bounced by a sign so rusted and peppered with bullet holes that it was almost illegible.
Almost.
“Did that say ‘Slagton’?” I asked, my gut clenching.
Harvey hit the automatic door lock. “Could be.”
Oh, sweet baby dills. “What kind of a pickle are you getting me into, old man?”
“No pickles. Only a package. We’ll be in and out before any whangdoodles can grab their shotguns and get a bead on us.”
“If you’re trying to comfort me, you missed the mark by a mile.”
Whangdoodles was Harvey’s term for the population back in Slagton, a mostly abandoned mining town where rumor had it they’d dug too deep into the earth years back and found something that made them wacky. The more rational folks in Deadwood explained that the mining company that had been operating at the edge of Slagton contaminated the water supply with mine tailings, which led the government to post skull and crossbones signs all over and forced the mining company to offer relocation deals. While most of the population left for cleaner water, many old-timers stayed behind, cursing the government for interfering with a good thing.
These days, there was only a sprinkling of people remaining, clinging to their homes, land, and mining claims. I’d not been to Slagton myself, too spooked by stories of bloodthirsty mutants reminiscent of the movie The Hills Have Eyes to drive into and explore this cobweb-filled corner of the Black Hills. However, it appeared that Harvey was about to give me the grand tour.
“Trust me,” he said. “Have I ever led you into troubled waters?”
“Yep,” I said without even a moment’s hesitation.
He snorted. “Maybe once or twice, if yer splittin’ hairs.”
“Plenty more than that without any hair-splitting involved.”
“Name one time.”
“How about when you dragged me into the Opera House and I ended up in jail.”
“You walked in on yer own two feet.”
“True, but technically you were leading the way and those waters were shark-filled.” Cooper had been in the building that day, talking to Dominick Masterson, digging for information on the death of my old boss, Jane. I’d had the bad luck of getting caught talking to one of his suspects after she’d dragged me into a cleaning closet to hide me from trouble way bigger than the law. In the end, it turned out hiding me that day didn’t save either of us from facing off with the grim reaper.
“Now is not the time to turn over all of the cow chips,” Harvey said, interrupting me before I could give him more examples. “I need ya to keep an eye out for alligators.”
“Alligators?”
He pointed at the first structure we’d come to since passing the Slagton town sign. “We’re hip deep in ‘em back here.”
A ramshackle house weathered gray lurked under the pine trees. Any paint had long peeled away. The side porch was in the process of collapsing under the weight of what looked like a foot of moss and tree detritus piled on the roof. Dead weeds crowded the yard in front of the house with rusted pieces of metal sticking up here and there. A fence made of razor wire surrounded the place, adding a homey curb appeal for a fellow chainsaw massacre enthusiast.
Faded green fabric hung crookedly behind four-pane windows—one of the panes secured with duct tape. As I watched, one corner of the fabric moved. Or at least I thou
ght it did. I sunk lower into the pickup seat, my hands growing clammy.
“When was the last time you were back here?” I asked Harvey, watching the eerie house disappear in my side mirror.
“A year or two ago, but the folks around here probably remember my pickup. They don’t get visitors much … nor cotton to ‘em.”
We passed another rundown shack, this one even further back from the road with torn white curtains behind the panes of glass. An old ripped-up sofa sat in the front yard, a large wooden wire spool made do as an end table. I frowned at the ax blade buried in the middle of the spool. Holy crap. Who were these people?
“I sure hope they remember you. I wouldn’t want them to think we were with the government.”
He grunted in agreement. “Rememberin’ me doesn’t mean they won’t shoot out my tires, drag us out of the truck, and toss us down a mine shaft for trespassin’ if they’re feelin’ ornery enough.”
I grimaced at him. “Are you serious?”
He wheezed with laughter. “Yer so easy.” When I threatened him with my fist, he quieted. “Okay, okay.”
“That wasn’t funny, you old goat.”
“Was too.” He sobered. “But I wasn’t all-in foolin’ with ya.”
Chills crawled up my arms. “What?”
He shrugged. “It’s true what they say about the water back here. It turns plain folks into kooky whangdoodles.” He pointed out the windshield. “Take that shack ahead on the left.”
I’d rather run from it. It looked like the sort of place a serial killer would call home sweet home. Rusted oil drums lined the front porch, the perfect size for sawed-off body parts. Shotguns laid across the barrels pointed toward the road. I counted six before looking up at the doorway.
A pale face stared back at me through the crooked screen.
With a squeak of surprise, I slinked down even lower in my seat, crossing my fingers and toes that yet another shotgun wouldn’t poke out through the huge tear in the screen door below the face.
“They know we’re here,” I whispered to Harvey, peeking out the window to see if we were clear of the oil drum house yet. In the side mirror, I couldn’t see the face in the doorway anymore, only a slanting chimney that looked one heavy snowfall away from keeling over.
“Sure as a dead man stinks.”
I frowned up at him. “Could you refrain from using the word ‘dead’ until we are back in Deadwood?”
His bushy brow rose. “What’s wrong, Executioner? Feelin’ puny without yer war hammer?”
“Poke fun, but Slagton feels like the first town this side of Hell.”
He did a double take. “Where’d ya hear that one?”
“I watched some old western the other night with Aunt Zoe.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t remember.” I pointed out the windshield at a two-story crumbling building up ahead on our right. “What’s that?”
“It used to be the company store back before things went south.” He slowed to a crawl as we drew up in front of it. Broken windows downstairs and up showed a lack of love, along with the words spray-painted on the bullet hole-peppered wall next to the front door: Trespassers will be gutted and hung!
“No mincing words there,” I said aloud, cringing.
“It’s all hot air.”
“You think so?”
“Nah, they mean it.”
“What? Really?”
He shrugged. “They strung up a stranger back in my younger days. A hunter, I believe, who thought he’d found new stompin’ grounds.”
“Did they gut him?”
“Nope. They just cut off his hands.”
I tucked my two sweaty mitts in my armpits.
“The coroner figured they’d taken his hands before stringin’ him up. I don’t think the law dogs ever did find those hands. My pa reckoned they fed ‘em to a pack of rabid dogs one of the whangdoodles kept penned out behind his barn.”
“Oh my God.”
“But don’t ya fret. Those dogs are long gone.”
Sure, the dogs were history, but crazy rarely got cured on its own, especially in a tiny town like Slagton where inbreeding probably ran hand-in-hand with lead poisoning.
We rounded another bend in the road, bumped through several potholes, and went from a dirt-packed road to two muddy tracks.
“It’s up ‘round this next corner, if memory serves me right.”
“What’s up there?” I sat up in the seat, staring out the windshield. I prayed it wasn’t another weathered shack with moving curtains.
“The old ‘41 Plymouth Fastback.” He looked out his window, hitting the brakes hard. “There it is, back behind that old woodshed.”
I leaned his way, peering out through his side window. Around the side of the shed, I could see an old, rusted two-door car.
Harvey shut off the pickup and pushed open his door. “Come on. Let’s have a look-see.”
A strangled, creaky sound came from my throat.
“Did ya swallow yer tongue?”
“Maybe.” My gaze darted from tree to tree, searching for signs of a waiting lynch mob or chainsaw-wielding freak of nature. “Why don’t I stay here and hold down the fort?”
Harvey grabbed my wrist in a rock-solid grip and tugged me out of his pickup through the driver’s-side door. “Move yer tail feathers, Chicken Little. The sky ain’t gonna fall today, ya have my promise.”
I was more concerned about him having my back.
We waded through the tall, dry grass, stepping carefully around pieces of lumber and firewood. There was a fetid smell underlying the pine-scented air, or maybe that was my imagination playing tricks on me. I peered warily through a big hole in the side of the shed as we walked past, cringing in anticipation of finding torsos hanging from meat hooks. Instead, a large, shiny saw blade stuck up through a metal bench. Someone was taking care of this place, keeping the saw oiled from the looks of things. Several chains hung from nails on the wall, along with three long, two-man handsaws. While there were no body pieces or blood to be seen, the setting was ripe for a group of stupid teenagers to show up and end up the victims in a gruesome horror film.
A poke in my ribs made me yip and jump back.
“We don’t have time for gawkin’ this trip. Dark comes lickety split this deep in the hills and ya don’t want to be here when the wolves start trollin’.”
“We don’t have wolves in the Black Hills.”
“I wasn’t talkin’ about the four-legged version.”
He led the way over to the old car, keeping a hold of my wrist as if he didn’t trust me not to run if spooked.
“What’s so special about this car?” I whispered.
“It’s not the car.” He let go of me, leaning inside the broken passenger-side window. Then he reached in his coat pocket and pulled out a screwdriver.
“Never know when yer gonna need to screw,” he muttered, jamming the screwdriver in the key-slot on the door of the glove box.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I whispered, my focus darting from tree to tree, searching the shadows. I’d heard that line from him more times than I had fingers. “Quit screwing around and grab whatever it is you dragged me back here to get.”
With a twist of his wrist, the glove box popped open. “Well, we know one thing.”
“What’s that?”
He held up a wrinkled manila envelope. “We weren’t led on a wild goose chase.”
“We came all of the way back here for that?”
“What’s with yer clown frown? Ya don’t know what’s inside this here envelope.”
I shivered at the mention of clowns. Thanks to Wilda Hessler’s demented ghost, I now had a phobia of the painted-face fools. “Let’s get the hell out of here. We can see what’s inside once we hit civilization again.”
Harvey didn’t buck. He shut the glove box door and followed on my heels back to his rig.
I breathed a sigh of relief when the engine turned over without hesitation. I had
little doubt that we were watched all of the way out of town. A second sigh came when we passed the hole-filled Slagton sign without a flat tire or shotgun blast.
“We’re clear,” Harvey said, watching through the rearview mirror. “Open that there envelope.”
“You sure we should? It’s supposed to be for Cooper.”
He stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. “What’s wrong with you, girl? Ya lost yer huntin’ nerve?”
“Maybe. Or maybe I don’t want to end up dangling from a noose down at the cop shop.”
“Just open the damned envelope.”
“Why are you so hell bent on seeing what’s in this?” What would make him want to drive out to that hair-raising place to play courier for Cooper?
“Because Slagton is next door to my ranch. If some crazed bessy bug in Slagton has a secret to share with the police, then I need to be in on the knowin’ part before another dead man shows up in my barn or my family boneyard.” He sniffed. “I’m gettin’ plum tired of findin’ body parts all over my ranch, and Coop has too much grit in his gizzard to spill the beans when I prod him.”
I was getting tired of Harvey finding body parts, too, especially since his discoveries kept adding papers to my police file. I took care breaking the envelope’s seal, and then pulled it apart and peered inside. “It looks like a picture.”
“It would look even more like one if you’d pull ‘er out.”
Wiping my sweaty palms on my pants, I reached inside and pulled out a picture, the instant camera kind, frowning at it.
“What the hell?”
“What is it?”
It was hard to tell for sure in the fading daylight. I grabbed his cell phone. “How do you turn on the flashlight on this sucker?”
He took the phone and punched on the light, handing it back to me. I stared down at the picture in the bright light, trying to make sense of the thing half hidden behind a pine tree in the picture. “What the …?”
“What is it?” he asked, speeding along the gravel road.
It reminded me of those blurry camera shots on the Internet of Bigfoot. The thing in the picture wasn’t brown and furry, but it was walking upright. Whatever it was, it appeared to have horns, like a bighorn sheep. Or maybe that was something in the background that made it look like … no, those had to be horns on an elongated pale-colored head. The lighting was shitty in the picture. The shot seemed to have been taken from high up, like the photographer had been perched in a tree. It was hard to tell the thing’s height from the angle.