Apparently the word of Percy's fate hadn't leaked out after all. The news was greeted with an audibly nervous murmur, as though the assemblage took a collective breath.
"He was mutilated, just like those two kids we found yesterday morning on that little strip that runs out off of Tacker Point. Now, I ain't sayin' they're one in the same, mind you, but we got four cases of this kind of thing now. Less 'an a week ago this all started when Barry Harrison's boy found those two ewes of his all butchered up and half-eaten. The next day Ruby Carson found that old work mare of hers the same way.
Now, animals is one thing, but now it's people — and I think we better be doin' somethin' about it."
Jake's oratory stirred some of the villagers into a few sporadic "yeahs."
"Earlier today I called over to the RCMP post at Waverly and asked them to send someone over. The officer sittin' up here at the table with us is Sergeant Kendall. He's here to act as liaison and offer us assistance. He's agreed to help us organize a sweep of the area to see if we can ferret out whoever or whatever is doin' this." With that, Madden stepped back and motioned for the sergeant to unveil his plan.
Constable Kendall was decidedly taller than he had appeared while sitting down. He was an easy six foot two or three and ramrod straight in his yellow striped pants and knee-high brown leather boots. Without comment he began to unfurl what proved to be a detailed map of the Chambers Bay area. With Harlan holding one end and Caleb the other, Kendall duly detailed the location of each of the four incidents. His voice was a tinge British and appropriately clipped. "This point is the Freeman Field auxiliary landing strip that Mr. Harrison leases from the provincial government for open range sheep grazing. I've put an X where Constable Madden reported the slaughter of the two sheep."
I glanced over at B.C., who was frantically scratching out her own version of the map complete with notes.
Kendall's hand traced along till it came to another X, this one with a small numeral two located next to it. "This is, as you all know, Tacker Point. This is where the bodies of the two young people were discovered yesterday morning." Again he began tracing along an invisible route until he came to another X. "This is where Mr. Kramer's body was discovered yesterday afternoon." Almost as an afterthought, he gestured to the fourth X. "And this is the location of the Carson loss." He stepped aside and made a sweeping gesture with his hand as though it would help the locals understand the magnitude of the problem of adequately covering the area.
"Hey, Madden," a voice bellowed from near the rear of the room, "how come we gotta cover it? Why don't the Mounties bring a squad in here and take care of it?"
"Yeah, Madden, why us? We don't know nothin' about trackin' some kinda madman."
Jake lumbered back to the front of the riser and stared toward the back of the room. "Because the RCMP post at Waverly is operatin' short-handed. Constable Kendall here called his superior officer at detachment headquarters and explained the situation. They promised to send in two more officers sometime tomorrow — Thursday at the latest."
The announcement brought another murmur from the crowd, this time a little louder than before.
Kendall held up his hand. "Listen to me, please. I don't think the situation as it stands now can be termed critical. I think we can control it."
It was apparent the crowd didn't agree with Kendall. To their way of thinking, the situation was already out of hand and it was time to get the Mounties out in force. The natives were getting restless. The man behind us began whispering to his wife, and around the room there was growing evidence of discontent.
"All right," Jake thundered, "keep it down. We've got a plan. Harlan here will take ten or so men and start at the western boundary over by the caves and sweep east until he comes to the Carson road. Caleb Hall will head up the second group. They'll be starting up on the highway and sweep south till they intercept Harlan's squad. Then the two groups will cover the shoreline. Constable Kendall here will do the same thing from the east side of the village, and I'll head up the group that starts at Freeman Field. According to my calculations we got us about two and a half square miles of some pretty rough terrain to cover."
Brenda nudged me with her elbow. "What about us?" she whispered. "Think they need our help?"
Jake was still talking. "Now, it'll work out just about right if every man in this room joins in the sweep."
"That lets me off the hook," Brenda said, grinning.
"I need two or three of the women to organize places for the families to sleep tonight, and I need two other women to handle our communications network," Jake continued.
"Communications is my thing," she whispered again. "I dusted a radio once."
"Each group will have a forty channel unit. Your squad leader will appoint someone to operate it at your sweep site. Those of you that got 'em should bring whatever kind of firearm you can rustle up. We don't know what we'll run into out there in those damn woods, so we better be prepared for the worst. One last thing — we start at four o'clock sharp. Be there!"
The cavernous room was filled with the sounds of scraping chairs and partially muted mutters of discontent. I stood up and began searching through the crowd for the Austin widow, anxious to see how she reacted to the news of the search. I grabbed B.C. by the arm. "Tell Madden I'll be with his group and that I'll catch up with him as soon as I check something out."
"Like what?"
"Like old lady Austin," I shot back. "She heard Madden's plan and hightailed it out of here."
"You think she's going to warn someone, don't you?"
"I don't know what I think, but I'm going to find out."
B.C.'s face creased into a petulent scowl of frustration. I knew what she was thinking. "Okay," she sighed, "I'll tell him, but the next time I go where you go, got it?"
I threaded my way through the milling villagers toward the back of the room. There were two doors. I gambled on the one to the left since it was closest to where the old girl had been sitting. By the time I pushed my way past a handful of grumbling villagers and out into the gray afternoon fog, she was nowhere in sight.
It was hunch time again. The damp grayness had swallowed her up. The fog was densest to the west, and since she had already disappeared, I was really playing a long shot. At this point, I hadn't even convinced myself the old girl had a role in all of this. I was basing a lot of it on the discovery of an ugly little statue and an old legend only half-remembered.
Still, the Austin widow, like Kelto, remained a riddle. Like the old woman's sarcophagus, Kelto's parting admonition played over and over like a grooved record. "Tell them to stay out of it. If others become involved, the situation will only worsen."
Don't ask me why I didn't run around to the front of the building and get in the Z with the survival kit still tucked securely behind the driver's seat. For some reason, instincts were taking over. I knew, but I didn't know. I was getting a strong signal from wherever it is those signals come from that Glenna Austin was somewhere up there in the fog just ahead of me. Chalk it up to gut feeling.
Unless the Austin woman was clairvoyant, which was a distinct possibility, there was no way for her to know I was trying to follow her. Half of my problem was that I couldn't be certain she was up the fog-shrouded streets ahead of me. The other half of the problem was I was so preoccupied trying to weave the old woman into the story that I damn near collided with someone.
It was Kelto.
He was standing there in that damned olive drab fatigue jacket like a sentinel, almost part of the fog. He glowered out at me from under that pronounced ridge like some sort of malevolent gargoyle. He had waited until I was within five feet of him before he spoke. There was no greeting, merely his raspy and ominous pronouncement. "I warned you," he said in his measured fashion.