Aaron Elkins - The Dark Place

Julie was smiling gently at him with a quizzical expression. "I like you, too," she said. "I’ll see you next Friday, then."

On the way back to Dungeness he stopped at Port Angeles to buy a large tin of Earl Grey tea and a five-pound box of Scottish shortbread and preserves, and mailed them to Mr. Pringle. Then he had a razor clam dinner at a seafood restaurant on Fountain Street. By the time he got to Bayview Cottages it was almost dark. He poured himself some Scotch, grumbled at himself for forgetting to make ice cubes, filled the tumbler with water, and took it out to the edge of the low cliffs, where a few folding chairs were set out overlooking the straits.

He had meant to think about Julie, not the Indians, but he couldn’t get them out of his mind. The bloodthirsty little band that murdered any strangers who came within reach didn’t square with Pringle’s scrawny, frightened group sneaking back to his cabin with gifts of thanks for his great benevolence in not shooting them.

He was, although he tried to convince himself otherwise, not as keen as he’d been on finding them. The Hornick affair had left him still feeling sick, and he found little kindness in his heart for the people who had murdered that harmless, pretty girl. He wondered if they had stabbed her with one of their crude bone spears, or clubbed her.

He shook his head to clear away the images. Let John find them; it was his job. And probably a good thing, he thought moodily. The rainy season was about to arrive, and Gideon was, as Julie had pointed out, no woodsman. A jungly wilderness in the rain was no place for him.

He had finished his drink but was too gloomily comfortable to go inside and get another. A heron floated down to the shoreline below, sending the gulls squawking away, and wading a few elegant steps into the quiet, dark water, there to stand staring absently at the distant lights of Victoria on the Canadian shoreline.

He must have dozed, because when the telephone rang in his cottage, he jerked upright, startling the heron, which croaked roughly and rose on slow, lolloping wingbeats into a sky of burnt crimson.

"You’re back?" Abe said. "And you didn’t call to say even hello?"

"I got in late, Abe. I didn’t want to bother you."

"Eight o’clock is too late to bother me? What am I, an invalid? You ate dinner?"

"Yes, I stopped in Port Angeles."

"So come on over for a glass tea and a Danish, maybe. Bertha went to a movie in Port Angeles. I’m all alone."

Gideon looked out the window at the darkening straits, now a misty mauve. He was in a somber, solitary mood. He wanted to fix another drink, take it back outside, and watch the evening turn to night. Maybe the heron would return. "Actually, it’s been a long day, Abe," he said. "I’d like to get to bed early. How about tomorrow?"

"Tuesdays the warden doesn’t let us have any visitors. Only Mondays. Come on, a glass tea, a piece cake, tell me how come it’s been such a long day. And then…"

"The last time you gave me one of those ‘and then’s’ I wound up on center stage at the great American Bigfoot debate."

"No, no, nothing like that. I just got something interesting to show you. You’ll see."

"KBYO, Seattle. what is it, a TV channel?" Gideon asked, looking at the return address on the thick envelope Abe had wordlessly handed to him after listening absorbedly to his account of the past three days in the Quinault Valley.

"Radio," Abe said. "You sure you don’t want some honey cake? It goes good with the tea."

"No, thanks." He pulled the stapled sheaf from the envelope and looked at the title on the first page: The Joe Ambeau Show, February 28, 1982. "Is this a script?"

"A transcript. I just sent for it. I remembered a few months ago I was listening to this talk show-"

"You listen to talk shows?" Gideon was unable to keep the disapproval from his voice.

"Why not?" Abe looked honestly surprised. "I’m not interested in my own culture? I’m only supposed to listen to Ph. D. s and professors? Truck drivers and old ladies ain’t worth my time? Gideon, you got elitist leanings, you know that? For an anthropologist you got some funny ideas. Did I ever tell you?"

"Many times."

"It’s not a joke," Abe muttered. "Go ahead and read. Start on page seven, where the check is."

Gideon found Abe’s spidery red mark and settled back in his chair.

Mr. Ambeau: Joe Ambeau. You’re on the air.

Caller: Hello, Joe? Am I on?

Mr. Ambeau: You’re on the air, ma’am. Go ahead.

Caller: I just wanted to tell you that there are creatures that we don’t know about that hide in the rain forest. But they’re not like gorillas, they’re just funny little brown men.

Mr. Ambeau: Ma’am, we’ve been on this subject all morning, and I’m getting just a little tired of it. So here’s a notice to you and any other kooks out there. Unless you can prove what you’re talking about, don’t bother me or our listeners with any more fairy tales about monsters in the woods.

Caller: But I do have proof, Joe.

Mr. Ambeau: And what kind of proof would that be?

Caller: I wrote down what they said in my diary, which I just happened to have with me.

Mr. Ambeau: Happened to have with me. Uh-huh. This wouldn’t by any chance be my old friend who saw the giant flying saucer land at Copalis Beach last summer, would it?

Caller: Well, yes.

Mr. Ambeau: I thought so. It’s Looney Tunes time again, folks.

Caller: Now, Joe, don’t be funny. I was near that old trail they closed up, near where Seldes Creek runs into Finley Creek, panning for gold a few summers ago-

Mr. Ambeau: Panning for gold. Yes, uh-huh.

Caller: Yes, and I got a little lost, and I fell asleep, and I heard some voices-

Mr. Ambeau: Glory, hallelujah.

Caller: And so I opened my eyes, you know, just a little? So they wouldn’t know I was awake. And I saw them sort of sneaking among the trees, looking at me.

Mr. Ambeau: That’s really fascinating, ma’am. I could just sit and talk with you all day, but we only have another thirty seconds.

Caller: Well, I lay there very quiet, and I heard what they said. One of them, anyway, a little old man. He said, "kooknama reemee."

Mr. Ambeau: I see. You sure these were little brown men? You sure they weren’t little green men from that flying saucer of yours? Wearing space suits?

Caller: Oh, no, they were little brown men. And all they were wearing were little aprons, sort of.

Mr. Ambeau: Gotta go, dearie. Time for a commercial. Give us a call next time the moon’s full, hear, now?

When Gideon looked up, Abe said, "So what do you think?"

"I don’t know. It might be true, but-forgive my elitist leanings-my credulity is not enhanced by the flying-saucer bit."

"Good," Abe said. "A nice, healthy skepticism. Now, the first question is: Is there such a place as-what was it?-where Seldes Creek runs into Finley Creek?"

"The answer is yes."

Abe’s moist eyes widened. "You know this?"

"No, but I can see you have a topographic map unrolled on the dining-room table, and something tells me that you’re about to lead me over there and show me that, verily, there is such a place." But it wasn’t only that. Finley Creek had a familiar ring.

As soon as Abe jabbed his finger onto the map, Gideon remembered. And he knew they were onto something. "That’s where Pringle found the spear head; right where you’re pointing!"

Abe clucked softly. "So. What do you think of that? You wouldn’t happen to remember where those two hikers got lost five or six years ago? The ones who got killed?"

"I don’t think I ever knew. They were found in the cemetery. That’s only a few miles from there."

"I did a little looking in the old newspapers. It looks like they were both on a new trail that just opened up, the Matheny trail, that runs from the Queets River-what a name-all the way up Matheny Creek"-his finger slowly traced the line from left to right-"and then to this North Fork Campground along Big Creek. In between, for a few miles, it runs-guess where?-down Finley Creek."