James Doss - The Shaman Laughs

"There has been another bull mutilation. On a ranch in Gunnison County, just south of Powderhorn. Precisely the same as the Sweetwater animal. Ears and testicles were removed."

Parris felt a sick sensation grip the pit of his abdomen. He silently cursed his decision to accept the stint with the Ute police.

Oswald nervously drummed his fingers on the marble top of an antique table as he waited for a reply. "There are some very intriguing aspects to this particular mutilation; I was certain you would want to… to see for yourself. You could meet me at the kill site." He waited. Did this dull policeman have not the least interest in identifying the mutilator? "I will be leaving within the hour."

Parris hesitated. "I don't know… it's only a couple of hours before sundown and-"

"Suit yourself," Oswald interrupted crisply, "but this mutilation could be a breakthrough. There is unusual evidence that may lead to the identity of the mutilator."

"Well… I'd like to see what you've found. But it's a long way from my jurisdiction and I'm pretty busy these days." Promises to keep. "Doesn't Charlie Moon want to have a look?"

"The redoubtable Sergeant Moon is not at his post. Your aboriginal colleague has left on vacation." Oakes's tone betrayed his annoyance.

"Okay," Parris sighed. "Tell me where to meet you."

It was back.

Louise Marie LaForte stood among a forlorn patch of frostbitten tomato plants; her tiny hands trembled. She closed one eye and squinted down the long, rusty barrel of the antique revolver. Her wrists ached. She would decide to fire, then the weight of the pistol would inexorably lower the barrel and spoil her aim. The small woman strained to raise the sight well above her target, then waited for gravity to do its work. When she pulled the trigger, the booming report was so loud and the recoil so unexpected that she shrieked and dropped the weapon. The pig also squealed; it took a few halting steps, then crumpled to the ground in her vegetable garden. She leaned forward, her hands braced on arthritic knees. Yes, this was the very same swine that she had reported to Charlie Moon. The turquoise stud glistened in the pig's ear. Her chin trembled as she glared at the swine. "Damn you, Arlo Nightbird."

Louise Marie straightened her back with a grunt, and scratched at her wrinkled neck. Oui , it was a difficult problem, this. A good citizen should report such a matter to the police. Then, they could take the pig's carcass and dispose of it properly. Dismember it. Burn it! But what if they merely buried the creature… Arlo's evil spirit might slip away from the swine's body… He might come back to haunt her again… in another, even more dreadful form? Her lurid imagination was well equipped to give dramatic dimension to her fears. Louise Marie pictured a long striped snake, big around as a lard bucket. The serpent would crawl under her house at night… slither through a hole in her bedroom floor. Slip under the covers while she slept… and then? Never! Louise Marie realized the need to act decisively and destroy the pig's corpse so that not a trace remained. There was a particularly tempting solution. And the turquoise ear stud would make a delightful addition to her box of pretties.

"But, no, I must not," she whispered with an entirely satisfying rush of self-pity, "even though I'm a poor old woman, with nothing but a little pension to live on." The vision of fresh strips of bacon, tender slices of rose-colored ham-she could taste the crimson grease… pork chops slow-broiled in the oven. It made her little mouth water. But it was almost like-she hesitated to admit it to herself-cannibalism! Her conscience argued against this solution.

Hunger won the argument.

Oswald Oakes felt an almost dizzy sense of exhilaration as the convertible hummed along the narrow blacktop highway, over the gentle slopes, the speedometer needle jittering around the seventy-mile-per-hour mark. He flicked a spent butt out the window and lit a fresh cigar. He leaned into a curve around a low ridge; the Miata's radials gripped tenaciously at the blacktop, as if the rubber treads were magnetized to the road. He felt wonderful… but there was something else. Something that tickled at the base of his brain, the animal part that knows without knowing how it knows. He glanced at the rearview mirror, but there was no one in sight. He tried to shake off the absurd notion that he was being followed. Hunted like an animal. There was nothing, no one, back there. Oakes realized that the suggestion had been implanted in his mind by the recurrent dream. The nightmare where he was being followed across the rolling Colorado plateau. Pursued by someone who would kill him after the sun slipped behind the jagged granite mountains. The gambler reminded himself that he was a rational man; he attempted to dismiss the fear from his mind. But it followed closely, on the road behind him. * * *

Scott Parris lifted his boot off the accelerator pedal, allowing the Volvo to slow to a crawl as he approached the gravel road that turned east off Route 149. He checked the rough sketch he had made from Oswald's instructions and tried to make sense of the hasty scrawls. It was possible that the old eccentric's directions had been confused. Oswald, unless he had already arrived, would be heading almost due north on 149 from Slumgullion Pass, but Parris was heading south, out of Gunnison. The policeman took the turn onto the sinuous trail that followed the crumbling bank of a dry arroyo. He glanced to his right. There was a low ridge that was a good match for Oswald's description, a hogback of fractured basalt supporting a sparse population of juniper and pifion. When he was, according to his odometer, one and three-tenths miles off the main highway, the policeman saw the weather-worn wooden sign nailed to a ponderosa:

BURNT CREEK RANCH-PUREBRED HEREFORDS

The mutilated bull, according to Oswald's directions, should be within a hundred yards of this spot. But where was Oswald? Then he saw a flash of blue; it was a small convertible, parked off the road behind a clump of scrub oak.

The Miata door was open, as if the driver had left in a hurry. But there was no sign of Oswald. Parris smiled as he imagined the old man's urgent desire to visit the carcass of a mutilated bull. It took all kinds. The policeman was in no hurry to get acquainted with a half ton of rotting beef. But it was a pleasure to stretch his stiff legs. The air was both sharp and sweet; the only sounds were a light breeze playing with the sage and a melodious bird song he didn't recognize. The late afternoon sun, about to sink behind a heavy cloud bank on the western horizon, was pleasantly warm on his face. He watched the silver gleam of a southbound jet gliding along at thirty thousand feet, painting a wavy discontinuous ribbon of contrail across the face of the intermittent winds. He leaned on the Miata; the hood was warm under his palm. The key was still in the ignition switch. Strange.

Door open, a key chain dangling from the ignition, and no sign of Oswald. The fellow had clearly been in a big hurry to leave his little automobile.

Then, unbidden and unwelcome, the darkness came to call. The Dread blew its cold breath on his neck… touched his groin with an icy finger. The lone bird interrupted its sweet song and flew away in a frantic flurry of thumping wings. Parris removed his revolver from the shoulder holster. He checked the cylinder to satisfy himself that his.38 Smith amp; Wesson was fully loaded, then jammed it back under his left armpit. The first thing to do, he reasoned, was to find Oswald. He had no idea what the second thing to do might be.

He left the Miata and headed off at a right angle to the gravel road. There might be some sort of trail, maybe a heel print in the sand. But now the sun was touching the dark cloud to cast a premature gray shadow over the high country. He buttoned his leather jacket against the gathering chill, grateful for the wool lining. The expensive garment was a birthday gift from Anne. He wondered where Anne was at this very moment. He hoped she was warm. And safe.