The Totem 1979 (12 page)

“All right, a dog, then,” Slaughter said, abruptly exhausted. “Tell me why.”

“You’ve been living here-what?-five years?”

“Just about.”

“Well, I was born and raised here. Dogs are something to be frightened of. People take them into the mountains, camping. They lose them or abandon them. The weak and spoiled ones die. The others turn more wild than many animals who live up there. You see a dog up in those mountains, get away from it. You might as well have stumbled on a she-bear with a cub. I’ve heard about some vicious maulings. Hell, I’ve seen some victims with an arm chewed off.”

“But this is in the town.”

“No difference. Sure, they live up in the mountains, but they come down here for food. The winter was a bad one, don’t forget. You know yourself, the stockpens put on guards at night to make sure that the steers are safe from predators. The field is near the stockpens. Some dog from the mountains came down near the stockpens and found Clifford.”

“But nothing tried to eat him. He was just attacked.”

“Without a reason. That’s the point. We’re dealing here with totally perverted animal behavior. They just like to kill. They’ll sometimes come down here and chase a steer for several miles just to get some exercise. They’ll bring the steer down, kill it, and then leave it. In a human, we would call that kind of behavior ‘psychopathic.’”

Slaughter put his beer can, vaguely cold yet, up against his forehead. He was thinking of old Doc Markle. “In the morning, I want you to go over to the Animal Clinic. I want you to examine that steer we saw this morning.” “What?”

Slaughter’s eyes became stern. “I know it sounds a little crazy. All the same, just do it. Look for similarities. Something’s going on here.” He managed to stand.

“Slaughter, you don’t look too good.” “I need a few hours sleep is all.” Slaughter headed toward the door.

“Hey, what about the beer? There’s still a six-pack left.” “You keep it. Hell, you’ve earned it. What you did on Clifford. Just make sure you do that steer. Let me know when you’re finished.” Slaughter reached for the doorknob. “Something’s going on, you said?” “That’s right, and what, I wish to God I knew.”

Chapter Three.

The corridor was empty, and the sound the door made when Slaughter closed it echoed. Like a mausoleum, he was thinking, looking at the imitation marble floor. He paused beneath the harsh neon lights in the ceiling, trying to decide if he had finally accomplished everything he’d meant to do tonight, and still not certain, vaguely troubled, he walked down the hallway. One turn to the right, he nodded to the nurse on duty at Emergency, and then, the automatic doors hissing open, he stepped out to face the night.

The parking lot was rimmed by darkness. There were floodlights just above him, though, illuminating the lot itself, and he was walking toward the cruiser, noticing the countless insects that were swirling around those lights. The swarm of insects bothered him, making him scratch at a tingle that inched down his neck. The air at least was cool, pleasant after the heat of the day, and fresh as well in contrast with the cloying sick-sweet smell of the formaldehyde which, because he liked the man, he never mentioned to the medical examiner. He reached the cruiser and glanced in the back seat before sliding into the front, a habit that he retained from when he’d worked nightshirts in Detroit. Then he sat there, thinking once again, not prepared to go home, but still uncertain what it was a part of him intended he should do. He was tired, that was certain, but he couldn’t keep from feeling that his work was not yet complete. No, it wasn’t even duty. Something strong out there was drawing him.

He turned on the engine and backed the cruiser from between two cars. After glancing one last time at all those swirling insects, he drove along the side of the hospital and out the front to reach the street. The night was darker here. He swung left without thinking, merely following his inclination, and when he steered right at the next intersection, he was guessing that he meant to go back to the station. But he reached a stoplight, and when it changed to green, he didn’t go straight through but instead veered left, and now he found that he was driving toward the outskirts, toward the northeast section of the city, and he finally knew where he was going.

There was little traffic. The lights were out in most of the houses. A few streetlights were out as well, and he came around the corner, driving slowly, glancing around, stopping by the Railhead tavern. It was closed by now. This late it had better be, he thought. He got out, his flashlight in his hand, and walked up to check the doors. But they were locked as he’d expected, although it would have been a pleasant joke to come here for a different reason and then as an accidental extra find that they were serving liquor after hours. To be certain, he checked all the windows, too, and then the back. He even checked the garbage bin to see that all the bottles had been broken as the law required. Now you’re getting mean, he told himself, and switching off his light, he walked back to the cruiser.

It was three o’clock now, just about when Clifford had been killed. Of course, Clifford had entered that field at least a half hour earlier, and maybe if he’d fallen, sleeping, closer to an hour. But now was when the attack had occurred, and Slaughter stood by the cruiser, staring up the street toward the field. There were houses all along the far side of the street, rundown mostly since this section was the closest that the town had to a slum: listing porches, dirt instead of grass, cardboard here and there in place of windows. But the people, although poor, were peaceful, and he’d never had much trouble with them. From the bar, of course, but that was mostly workers from the stockpens, and Slaughter stared up past the field toward the vague silhouettes of buildings at the stockpens. Three of them. The cattle stayed outside except for special auctions, and there wasn’t any need for more than just an office and two arenas. In the stillness, Slaughter heard cattle lowing faintly from the far side of the field. He hesitated, then started up the sidewalk toward them.

In the open like this, he had no need for his flashlight. There were stars, a nearly full moon. They gave the night a glow that made it almost magical. So Clifford would have thought, he guessed. He himself was trying hard to think like Clifford. Last night had been bright like this, and Clifford had come from the bar and walked up this way toward the field. Clifford had been drunk, of course. With that much alcohol inside him-point-two-eight percent-the glow would have been just about the only thing he noticed. And he wouldn’t have been walking. He’d have staggered, lurching slowly up the street, and maybe that was why he’d tried the awkward shortcut through the field instead of going twice the distance around the block. Because Clifford knew that in his condition he would never otherwise have managed to get home. He had stumbled slowly toward the field, and anything that might have hidden low in the weeds there would have seen he was an easy target. No, the timing was all wrong, Slaughter thought. Keep remembering those thirty minutes between when he fell and when he was attacked. Anything that saw him come and knew he was an easy target would have tried him right away. There wasn’t any reason for the animal to put off lunging. Unless the thing had not been interested. Unless it tried the cattle next and didn’t like the men on guard there and then came back, killing Clifford. Why? It didn’t eat him. Out of anger? And the thought was strangely chilling now as Slaughter left the sidewalk, stepping into the rustling grass and weeds and crunchy gravel of the field.

Slaughter told himself that this was crazy. He was tired. He should be home and asleep by now. But if there were some kind of wild dog coming into town, it would return to where it was successful at its killing, and the next night was as good a time as any to expect it. Slaughter was ten steps through the field, moving up from the corner in a vague line toward the center and the hollow there and Clifford’s house up near the far end of the other block. This route would have been close to the direction Clifford followed, although Slaughter wouldn’t know for sure until the two men he’d assigned to this had come here in the morning and investigated. Oh, that’s fine, that’s really great, he told himself and understood now just how tired he must be, shuffling through here, marring any tracks that they might find. That’s great police work. Like a bad joke. Thinking that the criminal will come back to the crime scene, our investigator scuffs out any evidence that might be left. That’s really great. Just what the hell must you be thinking? Well, I’ve done the damage now, he told himself, and he was too committed to his purpose to go back without some satisfaction. He might just as well keep going.

Which he did reluctantly. Because in spite of his determination, he felt really, unaccountably, disturbed. Not the vague uneasiness that he had been experiencing since finding old Doc Markle. This was something different, more precise, some visceral reaction to this place and hour. Part of it was no doubt caused by Slaughter’s fatigue, by memories of Clifford’s shredded face, by thoughts of what the medical examiner had called “psychopathic” animal behavior. Mere Pavlovian suggestion that he understood and could make compensation for. And part of it was no doubt too the stillness of the night, Slaughter all alone here in the silence that by contrast emphasized each brush of his pantlegs through the weeds and grass, each crunch of his boots upon the gravel. He was knee-deep in the grass now, moving slowly, the flashlight in his left hand ready to be switched on if he needed it, his right hand near his revolver in its holster, and he told himself that he was being silly. He had gone through worse than this when he had worked on nightshift in Detroit, checking through an unlocked warehouse, chasing someone down a mazelike alley, walking into that grocery store, those two kids. That was quite awhile ago, he told himself, heart pounding. You’re just not used to this the last few years. It didn’t help as well that now a rustling wind had started blowing through the weeds and tall grass, making sounds as if there were movement in them. Once Slaughter turned, but he saw nothing, fighting the impulse to switch on his flashlight. No, save it until you’re absolutely certain, he was thinking. Don’t scare off some thing before it’s close enough for you to see it.

So Slaughter continued walking. He had thought that with the night light from the stars and moon he’d have no trouble seeing. But the silver glow distorted things. Indeed it made objects seem much nearer, and it obscured details so that everything seemed blurred. He glanced toward the stockpens with their shadows and their faintly moving shapes of cattle and the buildings behind them. He was thinking that he’d better not get too close to the pens, or some guard might mistake him for a thief and pull out his gun. Slaughter was halfway through the field now, and he couldn’t find the hollow. He’d been glancing so much all around that he had angled from his course, and now he didn’t know if left or right was where he ought to go. The hollow had been rimmed by long grass, he remembered, and he maybe wouldn’t find it even if he stood ten feet away. He told himself he should have kept his eyes toward Clifford’s house across there, keeping in a line with it, but now that he considered, there was no way drunken Clifford would have staggered in a straight line anyhow. He’d have veered off one way, then the other, so this was still a replication of what had happened, and Slaughter figured that he’d shifted too much toward the stockpens. Moving now the other way, he suddenly was conscious of the wind. Or rather the absence of it. But the rustling through the grass had still continued, coming nearer.

He turned, startled, ready with his flashlight, lurching back to gain some distance, and the tangled strand of broken wire must have been there all along for him to see when he first came here, staring down at Clifford. It was snagged against his heels now, and his arms flew out, his head jerked up to face the moon, and he was falling. He was braced to hit the ground, already calculating how he’d have to roll to break his fall, but he kept dropping, surging heavily past the level of the ground, and then his head struck something hard that set off shock-waves through his brain and left him sightless for a moment. He was rolling. That was all the motive he retained, just reflex and his training, pure adrenaline that scalded him into motion. He was reaching for his gun. He’d lost it. He was in the hollow. Panicked thoughts that he was powerless to order. Christ, the hollow. It had happened just like this to Clifford. Slaughter groped for his flashlight, but he couldn’t find it. He heard rustling coming toward him. Scrambling from the hollow toward the open ground where he at least would have the chance to run, he felt the claws flick down his face, and he was screaming, falling backward, landing breathless on another object which was so hard that it seemed to rupture his right kidney. He was fumbling for it, Jesus, and he saw up there the thing as it was crouching now to leap at him, its fur puffed up to make it even larger, hissing, its eyes wild, mouth wide, teeth bare, leaping toward him, and he had the gun from underneath him now. He raised it toward the hissing fury diving toward him, squeezing the trigger, blinded this time by the muzzle flash, knocked flat by the recoil as the fury blew apart above him, thudding on his stomach, and he didn’t think the blood would ever stop its shower upon him.

Chapter Four.

The hotel room was small and musty, space enough for a narrow bed, a desk and chair, a TV on the desk, and that was dial. The desk was scratched, its finish cracked by years of drinks spilled across it, plus the television had no channel dial. You had to grip a tiny metal post and turn until your fingers ached, and even then that didn’t do much good because the television only got one channel. The image kept flipping, black and white. The window had no screen. You had to leave it closed to shut the insects out, which partly was the reason for the mustiness in here, but mostly, Dunlap knew, the must was from the aging wooden walls. The place had been erected back in 1922. Dun-lap knew that from a plaque that he had seen embedded in the bar downstairs, as if a hotel so outdated were something the town was proud of. Threadbare carpet, creaky bed, a common toilet at the far end of each hall. He’d had to get up in the night to urinate, had made a wrong turn coming back, and almost hadn’t found his room, so involuted were the halls, one merging in a T with others and those others merging yet again with others, like a rabbit’s den, a gigantic maze that kept twisting inward. Dunlap was fearful about what he’d do in case of a fire, which considering the tinderlike walls was overdue for several years now, and he didn’t like the thought of jumping toward the alley from the second story.