The Chimera Secret

19

Ethan found the settlement of White Bird just off the US-95, nestled between the highway and soaring hills of sandy rock peppered with hardy cedars clinging to life on their barren slopes.

‘You sure we’re going to find our man here?’ Lopez asked, looking out of the window of their hired Taurus.

‘This is where Earl Carpenter told me he lives,’ Ethan replied. ‘Best tracker in the business, so he said.’

White Bird boasted a population of less than one hundred souls, and most of the homes were single-story clapperboard affairs with neatly kept yards. A colorful swing-sign welcomed visitors to the town, emblazoned with ‘Est. 1891’. The Sacred Heart Church was painted a pure white and the town boasted both a post office and a library. They passed a bar called the Silver Dollar, a bunch of well-polished trucks parked outside. The trees around the residential areas gave the little town a splash of greenery that contrasted with the rugged hills looming around it.

Ethan pulled in alongside the address he’d been given when he’d asked the sheriff for an experienced woodsman to act as a guide. The small, immaculate homestead looked like many of the others in the town except for one small detail. The truck outside was caked with mud and dirt, the mark of a four-by-four used for what it was actually designed for. Off-roading.

Ethan got out and let the Labrador that wandered over lick his hand and snuffle the cuff of his jacket as they walked toward the porch. The door opened before they even got there and a young girl of maybe eighteen or nineteen peeked out at them.

‘Can I help you?’

Ethan offered her an easy smile.

‘We’re looking for Duran Wilkes. We were hoping to hire the best tracker in Idaho.’

The silhouette of a man appeared in the hall behind the girl, who stepped back as the door opened fully and a bearded, wizened face peered suspiciously at them.

‘Who sent you?’ the old man demanded.

‘Sheriff Earl Carpenter,’ Lopez replied. ‘Said you were the go-to guy for tracking.’

‘Did he now?’ the old man asked, one hand reaching up to tug at his straggly beard. ‘Well, that all depends on what it is you’ll be wantin’ to track.’

There was a chance that the old guy might have gotten wind of the arrest of Jesse MacCarthy, and maybe even heard of the story that the missing Cletus had been taken by a monster. But Ethan doubted it. This man looked like he wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in the affairs taking place outside his own picket fence, much less in a town down the road. Ethan took a chance.

‘A man,’ he replied. ‘By the name of Cletus MacCarthy. He disappeared out in the forests of Nez Perce and we were hoping you could help us try to find him.’

The old man chuckled as though relieved.

‘A man? That’ll be easy. Cretins leave a trail like a herd of bison through a wheat field.’

Duran Wilkes stood back and held the porch door open for Ethan and Lopez to step through. He closed it behind them and followed them into the lounge. Ethan’s gaze was drawn immediately to what looked like half of a tree affixed to one wall. It was only when he saw the elk’s head in the middle that he realized what it was.

‘Jesus,’ Lopez said, flashing the old man a bright smile. ‘You bring that down with your bare hands back in the day?’

He cackled a laugh as his frosty demeanour melted.

‘Just last week, honey.’ Duran gestured to the teenage girl who watched them from the kitchen doorway. ‘This is Mary, my granddaughter. She travels with me and knows the land just like I do.’

Ethan nodded at Mary, who perched herself unobtrusively on the edge of an armchair. Duran gestured for Ethan and Lopez to sit down and looked at them both for a moment before speaking.

‘I like you, both of you,’ he said. ‘You don’t have the air of the city-boy jerk-offs I get coming down here offering a thousand bucks for day trips to shoot shit for the hell of it.’

‘For a thousand bucks I’d get some other asshole to shoot for me,’ Lopez replied.

Ethan leaned forward as he spoke.

‘We need you for a couple of days, is all. We have a good idea of where Cletus MacCarthy was when he vanished. The plan is to pick up his trail from there and see where it leads us.’

Duran nodded and waved airily as though he’d heard it all before.

‘What’s the last known location?’

‘Fox Creek, Nez Perce Forest.’

Duran Wilkes’s features froze in motion for an instant, as though he’d briefly forgotten where he was. He reached for his beard again as he spoke.

‘Okay,’ he said, his voice softer now. ‘What happened out there, anyone know?’

Ethan sensed an obstacle and let Lopez do the talking.

‘Cletus and his brother were out poaching elk when they were caught in the act by a park ranger named Gavin Coltz. As he was about to arrest them the ranger was attacked and killed.’

‘An accomplice,’ Duran said, ‘and a violent one. If it’s criminals we’re tracking my price doubles, you understand?’

Lopez, cornered already, glanced at Ethan before she replied. ‘We’re not tracking a criminal.’

Duran watched her for a long moment. ‘What happened to this Cletus fella?’

‘Cletus was also killed by the attacker,’ Ethan replied. ‘His body is missing. The only survivor was the younger brother, Jesse, who is now under suspicion of homicide.’

‘What’s his story?’ Duran asked.

Ethan again let Lopez lead, hoping it would soften the blow somewhat.

‘Jesse swears that his brother and the ranger were attacked and killed by some kind of animal.’

Duran Wilkes’s gaze remained fixed on Lopez as he nodded slowly.

‘I’m takin’ it that he was smart enough to know a bear when he saw one?’

‘He knew bears,’ Lopez agreed, ‘and he was adamant that it wasn’t a bear, despite the fact that had he said it was he wouldn’t be under so much suspicion.’

Duran Wilkes’s head dropped for a moment as he examined his own hands, folded before him as he sat on the couch. He sighed softly before speaking.

‘You found the ranger’s body at the scene, but not Cletus’s?’

‘That’s what was strange,’ Ethan said. ‘This animal, whatever it was, killed both of the victims but only took one body with it. More than that, Jesse said that the creature let him go. You ever hear of a bear doing that?’

Duran glanced at his granddaughter, Mary, and Ethan detected a look of apprehension pass between them.

‘You know something about this?’ Lopez asked them.

Duran Wilkes became even more subdued. It was Mary who spoke, her voice small yet confident, the blood of her hardy frontier-women ancestors still running strong within her.

‘My grandmother disappeared near Fox Creek eight summers ago. Grandpa spent the next three seasons looking for her out in the forests, searched everywhere for her and—’

‘That’s enough, Mary,’ Duran interrupted.

‘No, it’s not,’ she insisted. ‘She disappeared, and the National Guard went up there, found nothing and claimed a bear must have got her.’

‘You don’t think it was a bear,’ Lopez guessed.

‘Harriet, my grandmother,’ Mary replied, ‘carried a Marlin lever-action with .450 caliber rounds with her whenever she went out into the woods. Never even went to the out-house without it.’

Duran finally spoke.

‘We were all out camping near Fox Creek,’ he said. ‘Harriet went to the river to check on our fishing nets. Couple of minutes later we heard two shots from her carbine. You can tell the noise from a Marlin that big, foot-and-a-half barrels that kick like all hell. Drop a grizzly flat on its back so fast it’d be dead before it hit the ground.’

‘What happened?’ Lopez asked.

Duran rubbed his forehead with one hand, then ground the points of his fingers into his eyes as he spoke.

‘We found the nets and the Marlin, lying on the shoals. There was blood on the stones, real fresh. Of Harriet, we never saw anything again.’ Duran looked up at Lopez. ‘Whatever it was that took her, she hit it with both barrels at point-blank range and all it did was leak a bit.’

Ethan waited for a moment before speaking.

‘We’re heading out there,’ he said. ‘We’ve got one suspect facing charges for a murder that we feel certain he did not commit, and we’ve got strong evidence of something stalking the forests out here that attacks and kills humans regularly enough to be a hazard. We need to take this opportunity to stop it and we need your help, Duran. Anything you can tell us, anything that you can do, will help.’

Duran Wilkes sighed heavily and then stood from his couch.

‘I’m sorry, but we’re done here.’

‘You sure that’s the right decision?’ Lopez asked. ‘You might even be able to find out what happened to—’

‘We’re done here,’ Duran interrupted. He gestured to the front porch with one stiff movement of his hand.

Ethan felt his shoulders drop, but he could hardly blame the old man. Lopez stood and joined him as Duran followed them to the front door. She turned to look at the old man before they left.

‘Is there anything that you can tell us that might help?’ she asked. ‘You searched for your wife all that time, maybe you figured something out?’

Duran’s rheumy old eyes looked into hers for a long beat before he replied.

‘Don’t climb above the six-thousand-foot line in the mountains,’ he said. ‘There’s something up there, and I wouldn’t wish meeting it face to face upon my worst enemy.’