Robert Walker - Scalpers

The dogs were bringing the men, and he realized for the first time that he'd gotten turned around in the unfamiliar landscape. He silently cursed a man named Dean Grant.

He did not see the slow, deliberate movement at his back, and when, out of the corner of one eye, he did spot it, he took it for an aged, water-blackened log moving with the current. But he felt no current in the little cove. Another glance, closer this time, and he saw the two enormous eyes at the snout of the log, realizing it was alive. The gator moved at Van with ease, grace, and the certainty of a meal.

A chilling scream, like that of a banshee, froze Dean and the other men in place where they stood almost shoulder-deep in the river, holding their weapons overhead. The scream sounded to the dog man like that of a Georgia bobcat. The dogs, too, had been startled by the cry, like that of a woman in terrible distress, Dean thought, but his senses told him it was the dwarf. “It came from that way, opposite the dogs,” shouted the captain, leading the column of men.

They fought with the river to get to the other side where it narrowed, the dogs rushing by them, when Dean saw that one of the dogs up ahead had a little vest in his mouth which appeared to have been dredged from the water—it was soaking wet. All the dogs stood in a semicircle about an algae-infested alcove off the river. There before them was an enormous monster of an alligator, rolling about in the water, tearing one dog to pieces as the other animals yelped and barked and snarled, still keeping a safe distance.

Putrid water, algae, and the tussling animals could not hide the welter of blood discoloring the surface of the water.

"My dog! It's ... it's Queenie! Damn it, Captain, do something! Do something!"

"Look!” shouted Sid, seeing a piece of ripped clothing floating among the algae. Dean swiped at it with a stick, dredging it toward them. Even with the algae clinging to it, the clothing was easily that of a child ... or a dwarf.

"Think the alligator got the bastard?” asked Sid.

"A fitting Florida end to the man,” said Dean, satisfied even more by the blood he found on the little cloak. “But we've got to be sure, Sid."

Dean stepped to where the captain stared over the feeding gator. The dog man was still shouting in the other man's ear about his dog. “We've got to kill the alligator, Captain."

"What the hell for? The dog's done for."

"We've got to know for sure if the dwarf went before the dog."

"Hell, you heard the scream!"

"That's not enough, not with a killer like this!"

The captain relented when the dog man said, “Shoot the ugly bastard. He killed Queenie,"

The gun was raised, a powerful hunting rifle, and the large-caliber bullet went right between the animal's eyes. Its body kicked and shivered with the impact. There was a moment's thrashing, and it lay still at last. “Snatch him outa there,” ordered the captain, and two of his men took it by the tail. It took a third to get the giant beast onto shore.

"It's going to be hell getting him back to the lab,” said Sid.

"To hell with the lab, Sid,” said Dean, “this is fieldwork. You men, turn the animal onto its stomach."

"What the hell's he doing, Captain?” asked a confused officer.

"Cutting the thing open to see if the gator got more'n a dog."

Dean's scalpel slit the outer layers of the underbelly of the animal. A second, deeper slit caused the beast to pop open like a ripe watermelon, and the odors drove even Dean to take a step back. Covering their noses and mouths with handkerchiefs, the two pathologists began another cut into the stomach lining and esophagus and all that lay in between. With ungloved hands they probed and began to pull forth large, undigested remnants of Queenie.

The dog man was going berserk behind them, calling Dean a ghoul. He was restrained by the others.

After ten minutes, Dean, his hands bloody, stood up. Sid went to the river's edge to throw water on his face. “Nothing human inside this animal, Captain ... not a single bite."

"Gators travel in packs,” said the Captain. “Another one must've gotten our man and was gone before we got here. Hell, you got the torn clothes, the blood! Take it back to your lab and see if it ain't human blood or the dog's ... just see."

"Even if it is human, Captain ... it's not good enough."

"Well, it is for me. We're satisfied, just like the damned flies are satisfied,” said the captain, pointing to the gator carcass. It was already infested with insects. “Come on, Stewart, gather up your remainin’ dogs. The County'll pay for Queenie. Come on, all of you men ... we're going home."

Dean stared out into the blank, empty, uncaring swampland ahead of him. Somewhere out there right now the evil could he staring back at him ... or it could've been swallowed whole by this guy's mate, Dean thought again with a glance at the dead gator. Maybe, if, likely, possible ... all the qualifiers ... was that how it would now end, after all he and Sid, Peggy, and the others had lived through, after the long trail of dead bodies that had brought him to this time and place?

"Come on, Dean ... come away,” said Sid. “Get the blood off you. Let's cross back."

Dean looked into his friend's clear, watery eyes and saw a tired man still fighting down pain. “Yeah, let's get back to city streets and congestion. You can keep this wildlife refuge business for stronger men than me."

"Are you satifed the little creep is really dead?"

"No ... not really."

"Me either."

"We'll test the cloak for human blood."

"It'll only prove he cut himself with that damned knife of his."

"We may never know, Sid."

"Unless one day somewhere we read about a brutal scalping murder...."

They crossed the river, lagging behind the cops, Dean supporting Sid. “Right,” agreed Dean sadly. “Could go crazy waiting for that one."

"God, Dean, those two bastards were really sick."

Behind them Dean heard the sound of sparrows flittering about and a strange cackling bird, which sounded like a cross between a jay and a crow, his cry a staccato. He heard fish, probably mullet, jumping, and he heard small, furry animals leaping from tree to tree, some on the ground. Then came a sudden snap of a twig, a sound usually made by the human animal. It made him wheel and stare once more into the dense green forests of pines, oak, and palms fighting for space at the river's edge. But he could see nothing remotely human in the landscape.

Sid tugged at his friend. “It's over, Dean ... the dogs ran him up on a gator and that's that."

"Yeah, sure ... I can believe that."

"To sleep at night, we both have to."

"A sobering thought. Let's get the hell out of these woods."

And so they did, returning to the house where the killers had feasted on death.

EPILOGUE

Some weeks later, Dean was back at his own lab in Chicago working on more routine matters when a package arrived from Florida. It had the rubber stamp of Sid's lab in the upper left-hand corner, and Dean ripped the small package open hastily, curious. He and Jackie had just finished opening Christmas packages a few days before, on New Year's Day, holding the celebration they'd missed on December 25 until then. Dean wondered if Sid was now playing Santa Claus. “Some sand, no doubt,” Dean told Sybil as she looked on. Sybil had done an excellent job of maintaining the pathology lab in Dean's absence, and Dean had spent the day alternately telling her so and filling her in on all the details of the scalping case in Orlando. Unlike Jackie, she was fascinated with all the gory details.

Dean lifted from the unwrapped box a small book, aged and crumbling, no thicker than the end of Dean's thumb, the pages a brownish-yellow. It seemed ready to fall apart. A note fell from the box as Dean slipped the delicate book from it. “What the hell is this?” he wondered aloud.