P Deutermann - Nightwalkers

Where was he now? Holed up in some cave, waiting for us to come do something about the climbing rope? Over in my house next door, planting the next nightmare? Or was he up at the big house behind me, having a drink with the Lees and telling them about his adventures? I looked over my shoulder and saw the dim glow of candlelight on the second floor. I'd promised the guys no Lone Ranger stuff, but going over to my own house couldn't be that dangerous. What could go wrong?

Thirty minutes later the mutts and I were pushing through the pine plantation on the western side of the house, headed for the back barns. I'd left a message on Tony's cell phone that I was going to hole up at Glory's End tonight. I'd brought a short-barreled, semiauto twelve-gauge along with my SIG. The night was clear and cool with sufficient moonlight to see where I was going in the trees. I had no specific plan other than to go over to Glory's End, set up in a place where I could watch the house, and hope that my stalker decided to do something similar. I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance that he might do the same thing over at the stone cottage. Maybe we'd meet on the road in the morning and do a rerun of the OK Corral. The Earps had used shotguns, hadn't they?

I came up from the river side, going slow, approaching the house through the barn aisles, checking each building with the dogs and taking my time, conscious of that abandoned well. The shepherds jumped a rat in the hay barn, but I quickly brought them to heel. They were both interested in the spot where the woman had been shot down, which told me their noses were working. We ended up in the barn to the left of that one, where the ancient tractors were busy oxidizing. This shed had three windows in the back wall, so I climbed up onto one of the tractors and sat down on the bare steel seat frame. From there I could see the smokehouse, the springhouse, and the back courtyard and garden areas. The shepherds lay down on either side of the tractor. I'd brought along a small thermos of leftover breakfast coffee, and I sipped some of that while watching out the windows. It was horrible, as all leftover coffee is. I propped the shotgun up on the steering wheel and waited.

After almost an hour of listening to mice scurrying around in the moldering haystack, I was getting pretty sleepy. I set my cell phone to vibrate a wake-up alarm in an hour and stuck it back in my pocket. I was just settling into the backrest of the tractor when both dogs got up suddenly and stared back out into the barnyard area behind us. I turned around slowly, shotgun in hand, and tried to make out what they were looking at. The buildings behind us were all gray in the moonlight, and I realized that some mist had crept up the hill from the river bottoms.

There.

Next to one of the smaller sheds, about a hundred feet away, I could just barely make out what looked like a large human figure, decked out in some kind of flowing black robes. It had a pale gray oval where its face should have been. It looked like one of those movie theater lobby cutouts, until it moved.

The hair rose on the back of my neck. Kitty growled deep in her throat, and Frick put her head down as if about to charge it. I kept blinking my eyes, trying for more detail, when suddenly the figure levitated off the ground and flew right at me, the pale gray oval becoming a horror mask, and then I woke up, the cell phone humming against my right thigh.

There were no death monsters, the shotgun was still wedged into the steering wheel, and both very special guard dogs were out like lights under the tractor. My neck was stiff, my mouth tasted of coffee grounds, and I felt like an idiot.

This was pointless.

I had started to slide down off the tractor when something really did catch my eye through one of the back windows. Something had moved out there. Then the moon slipped behind a cloud and it got really dark. I couldn't see anything through the windows anymore, but I was sure I'd seen movement over by the smokehouse. It looked like it had been coming toward the barn area.

I continued to slide down off the tractor. Both shepherds got up and gathered around. I tiptoed to the open doors of the shed and went down on one knee. Then I motioned for both dogs to close in on either side, which they did.

I put an arm around each one and cupped a hand over their muzzles. Frick knew what this meant, and Kitty was about to learn. I stayed motionless on the ground, watching and listening. The moon was still obscured, and my eyes hadn't yet adapted to full darkness. The only sound was that of the dogs' breathing through my fingertips. I would look at a spot and then look off to one side, trying to see the peripheral image. Then I felt Frick tense up, and I knew she'd seen it.

I waited, and then Kitty saw it, too. I increased the tension on both dogs' muzzles. I didn't want any growling or barking. I tried again to see the thing that was out there, but the image just wouldn't come. The dogs' muzzles were slowly traversing to the right, and when I was pretty sure it had come past my building and was about to go between the next two sheds, I launched Frick, who went out like a bullet, then Kitty, hot on her tail. I reached back for the shotgun about the time they made the hit.

There was a thump, a yell, and then a lot of shepherd intimidation barking. Then, mercifully, the moon came out. I walked out of the shed, checked to make sure he didn't have help, and then walked over to the large figure that was prostrate on the ground. The two shepherds were standing over him and giving him absolute hell as he covered his head with his arms. Then I saw the uniform.

"Get 'em off me, please," Sheriff Walker said.

I gave a command, and Frick jumped away and sat down. Kitty wasn't sure she shouldn't just go ahead and eat him, but then she reluctantly backed away and looked at me for further instructions.

I helped the sheriff up off the ground and pointedly did not look to see if he had embarrassed himself, although my nose told me he may have. He brushed the yard dirt off his uniform and then bent down to retrieve his service weapon, which he'd apparently been carrying in his hand when the two shepherds hit him from behind.

"Goddamn, Lieutenant," he said, rubbing some sand out of his mouth. "Those sumbitches hit pretty hard. I heard 'em comin' at the last moment, but then I was down and having me a dirt sandwich."

"Sorry about that, Sheriff. You said to vary my routine, so I decided to come over here and just see who or what showed up."

"I should have told you I might come around," he said. He ran one hand over his head and then spit some more dirt out of his mouth.

"I'd just about decided that I was being stupid," I said, "sitting out here in the damn dark, and then I saw you coming out of the smokehouse."

He shook his head. "I came by the smokehouse, not out of it. Parked right out front, walked around the house like I owned it."

That's funny, I thought. I hadn't heard a car coming up the drive. Of course, I might have been engaging the flying banshee right about then, too. I apologized again for knocking him down, and the shepherds closed in to make friends. He had the grace to pet both of them and tell them they were good dogs. They recognized their doughnut touch and wagged enthusiastically.

I took him into the shed to show him where I'd been set up. We strolled around the working area of the barns, and I pointed out where my favorite abandoned well was lurking. Then we walked over to the springhouse, where I showed him the back wall that doubled as an escape door from the main house. He took it all on board without comment, and I wondered if I was telling him things he already knew. He was holding one elbow, which I'm sure was hurting after he'd been taken down by the dogs. The sheriff was a solidly built man, but he'd be hurting all over tomorrow morning.