Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds (21 page)

“You do now?” Retsler asked.

“Let’s just say I’m used to it,” Stanley said
around the pie in his mouth.

Bronly glanced at the town parents, still
talking near the kitchen door. Her glance seemed almost furtive, as
if she didn’t want them to overhear—which they couldn’t, given how
far away the door was.

“So this has been going on for a long time,”
Retsler said.

“This, that, and the other thing. The
killings, though, those were new.” Stanley cut another piece of
pie, shoving the side of his fork so hard into the surface that the
plate moved.

“And Hamilton Denne helped you with those,”
Retsler said, wanting to make sure.

“Theoretically. He said, though, things’re
changing. He was seeing more weird things, and he blamed all kinds
of nutty stuff—global warming, some kind of creature rebellion,
pollution, you know. All that liberal conspiracy crap.”

Bronly leaned back just enough to catch
Retsler’s eye behind Stanley’s back. She shook her head just a
little, warning him off this part of the topic.

Retsler already knew to move away. He’d met
this Oregon type before. They were prevalent in the mountains, guys
who had their own beliefs about the world and who believed that
anyone who disagreed with them was crazy or nutty or worse. Retsler
had always thought of them as the precursors to the survivalists
who had moved up here in the 1980s. When he was in Montana, which
had a slightly different version of the same type, he realized that
many of these folks
were
the survivalists who had moved to
the “wilderness” in the 1980s. They had integrated back into
society, kinda, but hadn’t lost their strong opinions about the way
the world worked or about the people who disagreed with them.

“You don’t think this thing that’s visiting
your kitchen is a killer, do you?” Retsler asked.

“Naw. It’s been coming here since we
reopened. It gets mad, but it don’t hurt anyone.”

“But it causes damage,” Retsler said.

“Some,” Stanley said. “Don’t think we need to
waste your time catching it.”

“I wasn’t thinking about catching it.”
Retsler tried not to shudder. He’d actually touched some of the
supernatural creatures he’d seen on the coast, and he didn’t want
to touch any of them again. “However, if it is a ghost, we might be
able to put it to rest. I’ve helped with that before.”

“I don’t think it’s a ghost,” Stanley said.
He looked pointedly at Ron. “I know some of the others think it’s
one of them poltergeists, but I don’t. I can’t find nothing about
anyone what died in that kitchen.”

“What about on the land before the kitchen
was built?” Bronly asked, with enough force in her tone to make
Retsler realize she had asked this before.

“Naw, nothing,” Stanley said. “Not even a
worker died while putting this thing up, and considering all the
problems the WPA guys had sometimes, and the fact that nobody
thought anybody what worked up here was worth much, that’s kinda
surprising. They had to snowshoe out, you know.”

“What?” Retsler asked.

“Freak September blizzard. We’re high enough
to get that kinda thing once in a blue moon.” Stanley cut more
pie.

The waitress came by with both burgers. She
set them down with a flourish. Retsler’s looked fat and juicy and
damn near perfect, like burgers he’d had as a kid.

“They ran out of supplies,” Stanley said as
the waitress walked away, “and no one could get to ’em. So they had
to snowshoe out. All of them come back, though. Brought supplies up
with a sled. Finished the job. “

“Back in the days when men were men and sheep
were nervous,” Bronly muttered so softly that only Retsler could
hear her. He was glad he hadn’t taken a bite of burger. He would
have choked on it as he stifled his laugh.

“So,” he said to Stanley, “no one died here
that you know of.”

“That’s right,” Stanley said.

Retsler picked up the burger. Juice dripped
along his fingers. He took a bite. The burger was better than he
expected, marinated in something before it was placed on that
grill.

“What about in the Caves?” Retsler asked.
“Anyone die in there that fits the description of this guy—or
whatever?”

“Cook’s kid or a cook?” Stanley asked.

“Or someone who wanted to be chef, or maybe a
tourist?”

“Hell,” Stanley said, “lots of people have
died in those Caves, more than the Park Service wants us to
admit.”

“All before the Park Service took over,”
Bronly said primly. She clearly didn’t want Retsler to think
something bad could happen in the Caves. Or maybe she was still
protecting the area’s reputation.

“Most of ’em did die before anyone kept
records,” Stanley said. “And the ones we know about got written up
in the papers. But I figure lots of folks got killed and left
wherever. You know, they died deep inside, got stuck or something,
couldn’t get out, never was heard from again.”

“The Caves still haven’t all been mapped,
even now,” Bronly said. “Although I’ve never heard of anyone
finding a skeleton inside one.”

“But if there are other creatures living in
the Cave…?” Retsler let his voice trail off.

Both Stanley and Bronly looked at him. He
immediately regretted the choice of the word “creatures.”

“I mean,” he said, “you know, cougars,
raccoons, rats, anything going in and out that might feast on a
carcass. Something like that might mess with the bones as well. You
wouldn’t find any then.”

“Well.” Stanley ostentatiously ate the last
piece of pie, chewing and talking at the same time. “Things get ate
all the time up there. And we do find bones, just not human bones,
so far as I know.”

Retsler ate some of his burger, thinking.

“So,” he said after a moment, “what you’re
telling me is that we have no idea if someone died in those Caves
who had a connection to this hotel or this land, and we have no way
of finding out.”

“I don’t think it’s a ghost,” Stanley
repeated.

“Why not?” Retsler asked.

“Don’t act like a ghost,” Stanley said.

“A stereotypical ghost,” Bronly
corrected.

“No,” Stanley said. “A ghost. We got ’em all
over the hotel. You know, folks die in their rooms or whatever. We
got ghosts, we got stories, and this one, it don’t repeat actions
like ghosts do, and it don’t seem stuck in the past like ghosts
are. It interacts. That’s why I don’t think it’s harmful. I just
think it’s young.”

Retsler looked at Stanley. “Young? What do
you mean young?”

“It acts like a kid. It tosses stuff around
that it doesn’t like. It gets angry when you tell it no. But it
watches, like it’s learning.”

Retsler set down the last part of his burger.
“When you were looking at the Caves this afternoon, when you were
talking to me, what did you see?”

“I told you. I didn’t see nothing.”

“The area looked normal, then,” Retsler
said.

“I didn’t say that neither.”

Bronly leaned around Retsler. “If you saw
something, Stanley, tell us about it.”

“I didn’t see nothing,” Stanley said with the
same emphasis as before.

Retsler frowned. The key to talking with
people, he had always thought, was listening. And he hadn’t been
listening.

“What kind of nothing?” he asked.

“You know,” Stanley said. “Like fog. Like a
cloud rolled in over the mountain, but just for a minute. Then
everything was clear again. It wasn’t nothing.”

That’s right
, Retsler thought.
It
wasn’t nothing. It was something.
But he didn’t speak out loud.
He didn’t want to derail Stanley.

“Where was this fog?” Retsler asked.

“Right near the gate.” Stanley gave Bronly a
perplexed look. “You know what I mean. We get that kind a thing all
the time up here.”

“Not in the summer,” she said. “Fog’s for
fall.”

“Or spring,” Stanley said. “We got lots of
ground fog in the spring.”

Ground fog. Retsler mulled that over for a
moment. Oregon had all kinds of fog that he hadn’t encountered
since he’d left. Montana didn’t have nearly as much fog because it
didn’t have as much moisture in the atmosphere.

Fog, ground fog, light fog, freezing fog.

Freezing fog.

Something that should have been impossible up
here in these temperatures. Like ice cold footprints. Like a
childish figure that overturned tables and handed cooking
ingredients to a chef.

He went back to ground fog for just a moment.
He hadn’t seen any in years, but he remembered it clearly. It
always looked like it was seeping out of the ground, not forming in
the air around the ground. He’d always thought ground fog spooky
and Halloweenish, like something out of a Vincent Price movie or
out of a Scottish ghost story.

Covering the ground.
Brushing
the
ground.

Hiding footprints—his and the ice prints.
Covering. Brushing. Hiding.

“Dammit,” he said softly.

“What?” Bronly asked.

“Do you have a book of local legends?”
Retsler asked.

“Upstairs,” Stanley said as if he’d been
waiting for Retsler to ask. “Gift shop.”

“All right then. I’ll go check those books
out.” But Retsler didn’t leave immediately. He had to finish that
spectacular hamburger first.

***

The gift shop was in a room just off the
registration desk. The room had beautiful wood walls, so lovely
that no one dared hang anything on them except photographs and
single t-shirts on hangers. The rest of the merchandise stood on
freestanding displays. Snacks, sundries, and local jams covered one
display. A large art portfolio filled the area farthest from the
window, and the clothing hung on racks in the middle of the
room.

It took Retsler a moment to see the books.
They were on built-in shelves behind the cash register.

The woman behind the register gave him a
friendly smile. “Go ahead,” she said in a tone that told him other
customers had hesitated to go back there as well.

He did. The store carried some mass market
paperbacks, some used books, and a whole bunch of local color.
Books on the Oregon Caves, books on the Park Service, books on
Southern Oregon, and books on the great lodges of the Northwest
dominated. He saw a few books on the WPA plus a film of the
building of the hotel. Then he saw the books that Stanley had
mentioned, huddled together like forgotten children on the bottom
shelf.

Retsler crouched, then sighed.

Ghosts of the Northwest, Oregon Folklore,
Monsters of the Mountains
—he’d seen all of these before. He
hadn’t really looked at them with Marble Village or the Chalet in
mind, but he didn’t trust the authors of these tomes as far as he
could throw them.

But Stanley had recommended them, so maybe
there was a kernel of truth in them.

“You’re the new police chief?” the woman
asked.

Retsler grabbed the
Monsters
book. It
was covered with dust.

“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” he said,
knowing it was a lie. He’d already told Bronly he wouldn’t take the
job, but he didn’t feel he should confide in this woman.

“I’ll bet you Stanley sent you here, didn’t
he?” the woman said. “He thinks those books have truths in
them.”

“You don’t?” Retsler opened the
Monster
book. Just like he remembered: hand-drawn images and
tiny type. He had tried to read this thing once and hadn’t been
able to.

“Oh, they have little bits in them,” she
said, “but nothing like what really goes on up here.”

Retsler set the book down, wiped his hands on
his pants, and stood. He hadn’t expected her to say anything like
that. He had expected her to tell him that Stanley was a bit nuts,
that he imagined all kinds of things.

“What goes on up here?” Retsler asked,
looking at the woman carefully.

She was middle-aged, carrying just enough
weight to make her seem matronly. Her hair was going gray but
hadn’t gotten there yet. When it did, someone would describe the
color as gun-metal gray. Right now, it dulled her red-brown hair.
She’d spent too much time in the sun, judging by the faint wrinkles
on her skin, and her current tan. But she had spectacular green
eyes. She hadn’t been a beauty in her day, but she had turned
heads.

She said, “You’re asking about the child in
the kitchens, aren’t you?”

“You think it’s a child?” Retsler asked.

“I certainly hope so,” she said.

She sounded certain, as if an adult would be
a bad thing. Retsler frowned. “Why?”

“Because we live on the shadow side,” she
said.

He leaned against the counter. “That’s the
second time someone mentioned the shadow side to me, and frankly,
I’m confused. There is no shadow side to a mountain. The sun hits
all parts eventually. I know there’s a shadow side in different
seasons—”

“The sun does not hit all parts,” she said.
“Some sections never see sunlight. They have overhangs or side
croppings or there are trenches—”

“All mountains have that,” he said.

“Yes,” she said a little ominously. “Yes,
they do.”

He took a deep breath, trying to control the
sarcasm that wanted to flow out of him. That sarcasm had almost
gotten him in trouble with Bronly, and it was going to get him in
trouble here, if he wasn’t careful.

He extended his hand. “Dan Retsler.”

“MariCate Webber.”

They shook, and that gave him a moment to get
himself under control. He remembered Denne once saying to him,
Either you accept this stuff or you don’t, Dan. You’re an
evidence guy. How much evidence do you need to realize that strange
things exist?

“So,” Retsler said, “what’s wrong with the
shadow side here?”

“Our shadow side isn’t unique,” she said.
“But that child is.”

“You’re convinced it’s a child.”