(1995) The Oath (26 page)

They sat there silently in the dark, back to back, rifles in their hands.

Steve finally broke the silence, his voice calm, even conciliatory. “What about Harold Bly? Do you think Maggie’s fine, like he said?”

Her answer was still a little curt. “I think Maggie’s dead. I told you that.”

“So why didn’t you tell him?”

“Why didn’t you?”

Silence. They sat there and listened some more.

“He had the upper hand,” Tracy finally explained, her voice softening. “All I wanted to do was get you out of that mess, and that’s the truth.”

Steve thought it over, then sighed. “Yeah. I know.”

“And now here I am, right in the middle of another mess.”

“Not yet.”

“Well . . .”

There was no sound but the quiet sigh of the river, no sight but the black shadows of the old buildings and the undulating outline of the trees beyond them.

“Steve.”

“Yeah.”

“What are you thinking really? What are you after?”

He couldn’t answer.

“Don’t you know?”

“I saw something yesterday,” he said finally. “Something across the river. I don’t know what it was, but—” He exhaled a sigh of frustration. “—but I felt it was watching me.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know what it was?”

Steve shrugged. “It was hiding in the trees. All I could see was some movement.” He hesitated. “And there’s something else: I felt like I was the one being hunted.”

Tracy was quiet for a moment. The she said, “You’re starting to sound scary.”

“Well, sober, maybe. Cautious.” Then he added, “But that’s why I’m here. I have a brother dead, a woman most likely dead and her husband denying it, another victim possibly dead, a religious, superstitious Valley man telling me tales of a killer dragon—”

“Well, you can discount that.”

Steve pressed on. “Plus a rather cryptic saliva analysis from the university.”

“What saliva analysis?”

“Saliva taken from my brother’s corpse. I had it tested back at Colorado State. They tell me it came from a reptile.”

Tracy was quiet for a long moment. Then she reiterated, “Yeah, you’re starting to sound scary.”

“So here I am with guesses, gut feelings, hunches, and a memory, just a memory, of not quite seeing something that was watching me. Well, I want to see it again. I want it to come after me, to come right out here in the open—”

“Will you please stop it?”

“Plus your adultery-and-jealous-husband theory doesn’t hold true anymore.”

She turned to look at him. “Why not? It makes perfect sense to me.”

He looked her in the eyes. “You’re forgetting Vic Moore.”

“Maybe Vic Moore is still alive somewhere,” she said, although in her heart she didn’t believe it.

“If he was, it’d save your theory, wouldn’t it? Adultery between Cliff and Maggie can explain their deaths: They were messing around, and Harold Bly had them killed. But why Vic?”

“He could be alive,” she said stubbornly. “He’s gone off on drunken binges before.”

“You should have heard him scream last night.”

That stopped her. “You heard Vic Moore scream?”

“It sounded like he was in a terrible struggle with something— and I think he was. I think he’s dead.”

Tracy fingered her rifle and peered into the forest beyond the ruins. She couldn’t see a thing. She didn’t mean for her voice to come out in a whisper; it just did. “It may not have been an animal. Maybe Vic Moore crossed somebody just like Maggie and Cliff did.”

“Maybe.”

She really did not want to believe it was an animal, at least as long as she was sitting out there in the dark. “But if it’s an animal, why do you think they try to hide it? You know, sanitize the attack sites?”

Steve answered in a quiet voice himself, “You’d know the answer to that better than I would. But their superstitions and their little games don’t mean a thing to me. They can have them. I want the predator.”

Tracy ventured, “I figure Bly’s trying to fuel the superstitions. As long as people don’t find out what really happened, he can go on scaring them.”

“I knew I didn’t like that guy. And I especially didn’t like the questions he was asking about Evie.”

“Mm. I caught that too.”

“I called Evie. I didn’t know what to tell her except to be careful, but—”

“But she could be a witness; you’re right—and they know it.”

“So I want to see what Evie saw.”

Tracy recalled Evelyn Benson drenched in blood and crazed out of her mind, but said nothing. She just made sure her rifle was ready and her eyes wide open, and tried not to wish she were somewhere else.

IN OAK SPRINGS
, Evelyn Benson slept on the left side, her side, of the half-empty bed she used to share with her husband. The lights were out, the house was dark, the sounds of night were beginning to stir: the window on the south side of the room, no longer warmed by the sun, now cooled, ticking, creaking in sporadic intervals; overhead, a roof rafter contracted with a groan; in a corner of the ceiling, tiny claws cleared a nest in the insulation.

Evelyn slept, her breathing deep and even, while the blue light of the digital alarm clock dimly illuminated her face.

Running, darkness all around, a knife in her hand. Falling, rising, screaming her husband’s name over and over. The trees shaking overhead, their tops quivering, the branches breaking.

A shadow without shape, a cloud, a force, a weight, a presence.

Pushed back. Toppled. Back on her feet. Struck across the body as with a huge beam. Cliff!

The knife. Warm, sticky spattering on her arms, her neck, her face.

Cliff. She was reaching for Cliff. She could see his red shirt, half hidden in shadow. She reached for his face, tried to brush away the shadow that concealed it from her like an overhanging branch. Her hand passed through the shadow and the shadow remained. Where Cliff’s face should have been, she felt cool earth. Her face contorted with horror; her mouth formed his name, but there was no sound.

She was awake, flailing her arms, groping toward Cliff’s pillow, her heart pounding.

Her own room, her own house, the real world, made its way slowly back into her consciousness, and she fell silent except for the pounding of her heart. She was alone. There was no danger.

No danger? Her spirit told her otherwise.

Steve. Pray for Steve. Pray for Steve!

She tumbled from the bed and knelt beside it, not knowing what to say, reaching for God.

STEVE CHECKED
his watch, the green dashes of its hands and tiny green dots of its hours glowing weakly in the dark. Just a few minutes before midnight.

“How’re you doing?”

“My rear end’s getting cold,” Tracy replied.

“Why don’t you find a place to lie down? We can sit here in shifts.”

She got up slowly, stiff from sitting, and found some fallen boards, most likely a part of the roof, that seemed about the right size and angle to support her. She tested them with her hand first to see if they would move or collapse under her, then sat on them.

“Are you married, Steve?”

Well, he thought, we’ve talked about everything else. Why not this? “No, I’m not married.”

“Were you ever?”

“Yes. For about eight years.”

“Any kids?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess.”

“It did make for a cleaner, neater breakup, yes.”

“So how long have you been single?”

“Three years.”

She reclined on the boards and tried to get comfortable.

“How about you?” he asked.

“No. Not married.”

“Were you ever?”

She took a moment to answer. “Depends on how you look at it. It wasn’t much of a marriage to begin with. It never should have happened, but—I was young, he was a hunk, and he made me lots of promises, you know?”

She was young? “So how old are you now?”

“Thirty. And wiser.” Then she added, “Maybe.”

“You don’t seem too sure.”

“I’m still stuck in Hyde Valley, aren’t I? If I was smart I would have found a job somewhere else, anywhere else. Love can make you do stupid things.”

“Yes, it’s a strong emotion, all right. It can be downright devastating.”

He stopped. She waited.

Then she finally prompted, “Were you devastated when your marriage broke up?”

Now we’re really going to get into it. “I’ve survived.”

“Do you mind if I ask you what happened?”

He thought it over, then replied, “Her name was Jennifer, and she left me for a friend of mine.”

“I am sorry.”

“Thanks,” he said. “It’s taken me a long time to come to this conclusion, but I realize now that both of us were at fault. There were things that each of us could have done differently.”

“I know what you mean,” Tracy said, her tone both solemn and sincere.

Steve tried to lighten up the conversation. “So, anyway, I’ve tried to be more careful since then, just keeping my eyes open, putting survival first and, well, keeping the whole concept of love confined to its biological context.”

“What do you mean?”

“Love is like everything else. It’s a product of evolution, a higher level of neurological and chemical responses—”

“Do tell,” she said archly.

Steve laughed. “Look, don’t get me wrong. All I’m trying to say is, keeping love in its true context makes it easier to understand. Also, you keep it in control, in check.”

She sat up on the old boards. “Baloney.”

“What do you mean, ‘baloney’?”

“Is that why you’re out here in the dark, waiting for the bear or creature or goblin that killed your brother? Is that where your grief comes from, and your sense of loss? Just chemical reactions?”

He found it hard to say. “Well, ultimately, I suppose so.”

“Baloney.”

“Listen—”

“You’re just trying to deal with pain by sticking it in a test tube. That way, it isn’t really yours.”

He had no answer for that.

AFTER YEARS
of living in Hyde River, Levi could have several of the town dogs barking and scrapping right outside his window and he’d sleep right through it. But tonight he awoke, and not just from the howling of the dogs. Something else was stirring outside his window. It was something unseen, yet he could feel it with his spirit, settling thick and black over the streets and rusting metal roofs like factory smoke, creeping through the cracks, seeping through the old framed walls and brittle window panes and invading every heart, every mind, every soul, even as people slept. Years ago, when he’d felt it for the first time, it came for only a moment, and then it was gone. In these recent days, when it came, it lingered like an endless haunting.

Tonight, it was back, stronger and darker than ever. He knew there would be trouble.

ONE THIRTY-FIVE
in the morning. Steve looked toward Tracy and could tell she was awake. “So what about Bly’s story of an Indian massacre? Any truth to that?”

Tracy sounded sleepy as she answered, “I’ve never heard that story before. But if there ever was a fight with the Indians, it was probably the Indians who got killed. The founders of this town were a rough bunch. They didn’t let anybody get in their way.”

“You never heard about the Indians’ snake god, or this being sacred ground and all that?”

“If you want my opinion, I think Bly made it all up.”

“So what really happened in Hyde Hall to make people so afraid of it?”

“I don’t know.”

Steve was skeptical. “You grew up here and you don’t know?”

“Hey, that’s how it works around here,” she said defensively. “Some of this stuff goes without explanation.” A moment passed, and then she blurted, “But Bly’s full of phony stories, you know? Like that garbage about me leaving a trail of broken hearts.”

Steve was amused. “Are you still stewing about that?”

“Well, he was making insinuations about my private life, something he knows nothing about and has no right to say anything about.”

“Maybe he just meant there were a lot of guys who—”

“I know what he meant!”

Oooh, she’s getting feisty. “Okay, okay,” Steve said. “Brother. He sure upset you.”

“You’re darn right he did. Telling stuff like that to a total stranger. What nerve!”

“So how many hearts have you broken?” he asked teasingly.

She hesitated, and then conceded, “Not that many.”

“So now the truth comes out.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call them broken hearts. More like, false starts. But we were young. What did we know? I was—”

Steve’s hand was up. A signal.

She froze, half-reclining on the old boards. Steve sat on the rock, motionless, his eyes toward the river.

They listened. They could hear the sigh of the river, the sleepy whisper of the cottonwood leaves, the crickets. Nothing more.

Tracy rose slowly to a sitting position, a firm grip on her rifle, straining to see. Suddenly her heart was in her throat; the darkness around her felt heavy and threatening.

Steve raised his nose slightly and took a deep breath. He couldn’t detect anything, not yet.

“What is it?” Tracy asked in the quietest of whispers.

He took a moment before replying in a hushed voice, “I might have something.”

She listened. Nothing. An eternity passed.

Steve kept his eyes across the river, scanning slowly back and forth, up and down the distant mountain slope, looking for an image, any image. Sometimes he could sense something out there, and sometimes doubt would set in, but the instinctive chill in his bones, the inkling of danger, was steady enough. Sure, he was scared, but right now the hunter in him was in charge.

“Can I move?” Tracy asked.

He beckoned to her, and she stole over to the rock and sat there, her eyes following his.

Steve kept searching the black expanse of mountains. He’d heard a sound that stood apart from the quiet sigh of the river, the whisper of the breeze, the gentle applause of the leaves overhead. On many a hunting trip, he’d learned to recognize the sound an animal makes as it steals through the forest. Just now, he thought he’d heard that sound: a rustling, a breaking twig, the hiss of fur through grass. He wanted to hear it again.