Wild Blood (4 page)

Though he'd never been a horror movie buff, Johnny knew that the shaggy, crooked-legged creatures were werewolves. But that was impossible. Maybe he was hallucinating the whole thing.

The thing that killed the dog stood upright on its crooked hind legs, revealing a face that was a disturbing mélange of vulpine and hominid features. “Ripper! Cover!” it growled.

Johnny tried to run, only to be tackled by one of the pack. The werewolf was slighter than the others, with short, pig-like bristles that scraped against his skin like a brush. It perched itself on his back and grabbed his head between its furred claws, pulling on his ears until he cried out in pain.

A second werewolf, this one with longish fur that hung about its bunched shoulders like a lion's mane, stood up on its hind legs. “Keep him quiet, Ripper,” it snarled. “We're not in the woods.”

The smaller werewolf jerked Johnny to his feet, squeezing his pinned wrists in a vise-like grip. As Johnny opened his mouth to cry out, one of the larger beasts, this one sporting a spiked crest along its hackle, filled it with a rubber ball.

The cream-colored werewolf fingered Johnny's keffiey as it grinned at him, licking its lips with a long red tongue. “Nice scarf,” it growled.

The small, bristly werewolf giggled.

Johnny was certain the thing meant to rip his throat out then and there. He shut his eyes as he didn't want the sight of his own blood to be the last thing he saw. Suddenly the scarf was whisked away in a single yank.

“Make sure it's good and tight.”

The smaller werewolf quickly and expertly fastened Johnny's wrists together behind his back. Johnny knew enough about knots to realize that it would take time to work himself free if he was to escape. He re-opened his eyes and saw the spiky-haired werewolf, along with one that boasted a white blaze, devouring what little remained of the German shepherd. They grinned up at Johnny, exposing sharp, their yellow fangs flecked with blood and gristle.

“Hurry it up!” growled the cream-colored werewolf, kicking the beast with the spiked hackle, causing it to yelp like a frightened dog.

The werewolf called Ripper twisted his arm again, causing Johnny to swoon from the pain. Sharp talons pierced his clothes, digging into his flesh, as he was dragged down the alley to a pair of parked vehicles. One was an old Volkswagen microbus, the other a Toyota minivan. The rear lift gate of the minivan was hanging open. It was too dark to make out the name of the band painted on the side of the microbus, but Johnny knew who they were. He'd known ever since he glimpsed the hint of a wolf's head tattoo under the fur of the cream-colored werewolf's left hand.

The werewolf called Ripper tossed Johnny into the back of the mini-van like a bundle of old newspapers.

“Sorry, sis,” leered the cream-colored werewolf. “The male we caught got away. Hope this will tide you over.”

The thing in the van moved forward, sniffing at the air like a bloodhound. A twisted talon covered in white fur reached out and caressed Johnny's face. The palm was dry and hot and felt like a catcher's mitt he'd once had as a boy. Johnny screamed into the dead dog's chew toy.

The werewolf bitch removed her mirrored sunglasses as she idly fondled her middle tits. “It'll do.”

Chapter Four

Skinner fidgeted in his seat and tried not to brush up against the obese woman in the purple polyester knit pantsuit beside him. This was easier said than done as she clutched a large straw handbag that jutted into Skinner's space a good three or four inches.

His mother's funeral was a week ago, and now he was once again on a bus—but not headed back to school. He had decided his formal education could take a backseat to self-knowledge. His mother had left him a couple thousand dollars in her will. Not much, but enough to buy a bus ticket to Arizona. Luke had tried to talk him out of it, but they both knew he was wasting his breath.

Although part of him felt betrayed that his mother—or, rather, the woman he'd grown up calling mother—had not told him the truth about himself when he was younger, he was also excited by the revelation. Last week he had been an orphan—now that might no longer be true.

Somewhere out there, he had a mother and father he'd never known, and heritage that was a mystery. There was so much to learn about himself—things that had nothing to do with the claustrophobic world of Choctaw County. He'd always been an outsider in Seven Devils, and now he had a chance to discover where he truly belonged. For the first time since heading off to college, Skinner felt genuine excitement for what the future might hold for him.

He unfolded the Xerox of his adoption papers and studied the only clue he had. The Cades had arranged his adoption through the Beatrice Small Foundling Home in Butter Junction, Arizona, the only town of any real size in tiny, isolated Los Lobos County. Skinner looked the place up on the atlas before leaving his stepfather's house and discovered that Los Lobos was nearly surrounded by the much larger Pima County. As for Butter Junction, it was situated sixty miles southwest of Tucson and two hundred miles northeast of Nogales, flanked by the Papago and San Xavier reservations, and boxed in by the nearby Coyote Mountains. The area hardly looked inviting. In fact, what he thought was a national historic monument had proved to be a U.S. Army gunnery range.

For the better part of eve days he'd been heading westward on the bus. He slept fitfully, his personal hygiene restricted by what he could accomplish with a few squirts of liquid soap and a fistful of paper towels in various bus-station bathrooms. Over the course of the trip he watched the green of the South give way to the earth tones of the Southwest. The further they went the drier and dustier the landscape became. Skinner had read of “the wide open spaces,” but this was the first time he'd ventured beyond the borders of Arkansas, with its lush grasslands and forests. There was something about the plains country that made him feel vulnerable and exposed, yet intrigued him at the same time.

The bus pulled into Tucson at four in the morning. Skinner blinked the sleep from his eyes and pulled his one piece of luggage from the rack over his seat. He lurched off the bus into the air-conditioned depot. Most of the ticket desks were closed until six that morning, but there was a weary clerk working the information station.

“Excuse me, but when is the next bus to Butter Junction?”

The information clerk blinked and yawned. “Butter what?”

“Junction. It's in Los Lobos County.”

The clerk grunted and ran his finger down a Xeroxed timetable that was smudged to the point of being illegible. “Greyhound doesn't go out there.”

“Who does, then?”

“Jackrabbit Transportation, Inc. They're a local company. The only people who use it are Indians, mostly. They only make three trips a week. You're in luck through. There's a bus scheduled to leave at dawn. Gate Seven.”

Skinner thanked the clerk and headed in the direction of Gate Seven. There were already a dozen people filling the plastic seats in the waiting area, satchels and shopping bags gathered around and between their feet like roosting chickens. A quick scan told Skinner that half of his fellow passengers were Native Americans, the other half were women of various races. A middle-age man in a rumpled uniform stood in the doorway leading to the buses.

“Uh, excuse me?”

“What is it, kid?” grunted the bus driver.

“Is this the bus to Butter Junction?”

“Yep. Butter Junction, Robles Junction, Quijotoa, Devil's Rectum and any number of wide spots in the road.”

“I'd like to buy a ticket.”

The bus driver gave Skinner a quick, probing look. “You injun?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You got a brother in the jug?”

“Beg pardon?”

“That's the only reason anyone heads to Los Lobos. Either they're going back to the reservation or they're visiting someone at the prison. There sure as hell ain't anything else out that way.”

“I still want a ticket to Butter Junction.”

The bus driver shrugged, pulling a receipt book out of his breast pocket. “It's your money, kid. That'll be thirty-five bucks.”

The bus trip to Los Lobos made the ride from Little Rock to Tucson look like first class on the Concord. Jackrabbit Transportation, Inc. consisted of a decommissioned school bus painted blood red with a crudely cartooned rabbit wearing a cowboy hat on the side. There was no air conditioning, nor was there an onboard toilet.

As the bus jolted its way along Highway 86, punishing his kidneys with each jounce, Skinner's anticipation battled with his exhaustion and physical discomfort. He hoped that whatever information he turned up after all these years would be worth the trip. If not, he was going to be one unhappy camper.

The bus held twenty or so passengers. He noticed that the wives, girl- friends and mothers of the prisoners all seemed to be wearing their best clothes and makeup. A couple of them had small children who whined and complained of being bored and uncomfortable on the hot, dusty bus. Skinner could sympathize.

A hour out of Tucson the bus stopped at a wide spot in the road marked by a large metal sign pockmarked by motoring sharpshooters, that read:
LOS LOBOS COUNTY CORRECTIONAL FACILITY
:
BEWARE OF HITCHHIKERS
.

A white minibus was parked in the shadow cast by the sign. There was a man dressed in a prison guard's uniform and mirrored sunglasses seated behind the wheel. About a mile away—although it was hard to judge distance in the desert—Skinner saw white-washed concrete walls and metal fences. It didn't look like a place he'd care to visit.

The prison wives disembarked, taking their children with them. The bus started up again and lurched into gear. This time the talk taking place around him was in Spanish or an unrecognizable language he assumed to be Navajo. No one offered to bring him into a conversation, which was fine by him. Twenty minutes later the bus pulled into Butter Junction. Skinner was the only person to get off the bus.

“Remember, if you plan on gettin' back to Tucson today, you better be waitin' here at six o'clock sharp, kid,” the bus driver told him as he levered the doors open. “I don't make another run out this way until Tuesday—and this here's Saturday.”

Left standing in the dust kicked up by the bus's passing, Skinner scanned the surrounding buildings of downtown Butter Junction. In many ways it was remarkably similar to Seven Devils. Half the storefronts were boarded over, while the other half were grimed with so much dust it all but obscured the array of dry goods and hardware on display. Main Street was a huge doublewide boulevard designed for horizontal parking. The handful of battered pickup trucks and jeeps occupying the spaces made the street look even twice as big and empty. No doubt, back before the railroad disappeared, the local farmers and Indian tribes had come to town in their buckboards to buy and sell their wares on the weekends. Skinner headed in the direction of a cafe across the street called Lulu's.

There are diners tucked away in isolated pockets of America that delight weary travelers with some of the finest downhome delicacies: platonic potato salad, apple pie to kill for, fried chicken of the gods. Lulu's was not one of these, however.

“Whatcha having?” grunted the burly Hispanic behind the counter. Skinner didn't see anyone who might possibly be “Lulu” washing dishes or working the grill. “Today's special's chili.”

“I'll have that, then.”

The cook shrugged and dipped a ladle into a twenty-gallon steel pot simmering on the stove's front burner, slopping a portion into a cracked plastic bowl. A couple of individually wrapped packages of saltines—already crumbled—accompanied the order.

“I'd like some iced tea, please.”

The cook grunted again and produced a smudged glass filled with tea so weak Skinner could read a newspaper through it, accompanied by a couple of rapidly dissolving slivers of ice.

“You ain't from around here,” the cook said flatly, dropping the lid back on the simmering chili.

Skinner smiled nervously. “I was wondering if you might be able to help me with some information …?”

The cook turned to stare at him, beefy arms folded atop his wide stomach, looking like a Buddha with a chip on his shoulder. “Such as?”

“Uh, I was wondering if you knew where the Beatrice Small Foundling Home might be …”

The cook's posture relaxed somewhat. “It don't exist no more. Old Lady Small died years ago.”

That news, combined with the chili, was enough to knot Skinner's guts into a sheepshank.

“You could talk to her daughter, though,” the cook continued. “She's still alive. She helped her mother with the business.”

“Does she still live here?”

“Over on Cottonwood Street. Hey, mister, ain't you gonna finish your chili?”

“Why don't you take care of it for me?”

The cook watched Skinner hurry out of the diner, shrugged and dumped the unused portion back into the pot.

“Who is it?”

The woman peering out from the dark interior of the Victorian house looked to be in her late sixties. With her wispy cloud of white hair and cat-eye harlequin glasses, she reminded Skinner of his old first grade teacher, Mrs. Hale.

“Mrs. Small?”

“No. That was my mother. I'm Miss Small. Wh-what do you want, young man?” Whether her thin voice wavered out of irritation or anxiety was difficult to tell.

“My name is Skinner Cade, Miss Small. I want to talk you about the home.”

“You're one of ours, aren't you?” she asked, the suspicion in her eyes melting away. “You're one of our babies.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Come in! Come in, my dear!” She beamed, opening the door wide enough for him to enter. Skinner slipped inside, glad to be out of the heat. “Make yourself comfortable in the front parlor. I'll fetch you some lemonade.”