Kelto nodded.
It was pacing time. I got up and started. I had more questions. "Okay — why the woods routine? Do you think that's how they'll make contact with you?"
Kelto nodded again. "The autumnal equinox draws near. I have tried to make myself accessible, but so far I have not been contacted."
"Maybe they're wise to you. Maybe they realize you're not one of them."
"I don't believe so," Kelto said guardedly. "I have been able to venture into the woods without incident. I have to believe that if they were onto me, I would have been attacked like the others."
"So what's your next move?"
Kelto dabbed at the crust of dried blood near the corner of his mouth. "To continue as I have been doing. The equinox draws near. It is my only opportunity."
Surprisingly enough, I was beginning to believe him.
Kendall's seven o'clock session was a repeat of the previous two. The patrol routes were designated and the teams appointed. For some reason, Madden was missing and the youngest of the trio of Mounties, Constable Gregory, was designated to take Madden's place. I begged off by telling Kendall I had uncovered some additional information that I wanted to check out. He didn't like it, but he bought it.
The Z was worse off than I thought. In addition to a ruptured fuel line, it had a broken tie rod and the right front wheel was bent. Nevertheless, I managed to maneuver it across the street and down the block to a decrepit, grease-caked garage that looked far better suited to housing an anvil and forge than a lube rack. The proprietor was probably at Kendall's meeting so I pushed it up next to the old structure, locked it and left it.
The Austin widow was still on my mind, and the prospect of hoofing it out to her place in the fog lacked a certain amount of appeal. I went back to the schoolhouse, scouted around and finally spotted Percy Kramer's pickup truck. It was still parked in front of the darkened drugstore with the keys in the ignition. Wherever Percy was now, I didn't think it mattered much to him who used it.
It took all of 20 minutes to thread my way back out to the Carson road and start to work my way back up to the old woman's house. The fog seemed to be settling in again, and the encroaching darkness only compounded the situation. Lights didn't help. The road seemed to end abruptly no more than 30 or 40 feet in front of the truck.
The whole effort evolved into a guessing game. I hadn't been clever enough to record the mileage in previous visits and now, no more than 30 yards off the main road, I had already lost my orientation. In desperation, I jerked the pickup to a halt, crawled out, grabbed my survival kit and continued on foot.
Another 100 yards down the road, I realized Elliott Grant Wages had made a big mistake. The gravel path narrowed, and the fog began to close in; strange sounds began taunting me from both sides of the tree-shrouded path. A twig snapped. A branch swayed ominously overhead. There was a subtle movement in the underbrush. Then, suddenly came the worst thing of all — an eerie, unreal, perhaps deadly silence. I stopped, forced to listen to the sound of my own triphammer heart. It was augmented by strained and shallow breathing.
I made an anemic, half-hearted attempt at a whistle. It fluttered out over bone dry lips and sounded a lot like a sputtering steam engine. At the time, it seemed like a futile gesture, but there was some comfort in getting my fingers coiled around the Mauser. When I had it in my right hand with my index finger coiled around the trigger, I felt even better.
Thinking back about it, I don't know why I found any security in that cherished chunk of carefully crafted metal. So far, bullets hadn't proved to be all that much of a deterrent. The twisting, rocky path up the hill to the isolated old house of the Widow Austin was just on the other side of the creek. So, when I felt the ground slope away to the creek bank, I knew about how far I had to go.
The incline was gradual at the base and steeper near the top. My world had been gradually reduced to a gray on gray landscape completely devoid of features. The flashlight was practically useless.
There was no indication of light.
And no indication of life.
I stepped up on the porch, crossed it and knocked.
There was no answer.
Somewhere off in the distance I was aware of a dull roar, the kind water makes, like a waterfall or a rushing river. The shore was several hundred yards away, and yet it sounded near. I tried to conjure up a mental picture of the location of the house in relation to the shoreline. It was, if I remembered correctly, at least a quarter of a mile away. All that notwithstanding, the bay was dead calm. The surface was like a sheet of cloudy glass, tranquil, no wind, only the thick, stifling fog hovering over it.
Despite the darkness, I stepped down off the porch and circled around to the back of the house. The weed-choked yard was cluttered with the debris of time — fallen limbs, undergrowth and a tangle of twisted vines, broken boards and dead trees.
Then I saw it.
The old house was situated no more than 15 yards from a cliff that plummeted away into a yawning pit of blackness. Below, in that absence of light, I could hear the thundering sound of churning water. I shoved the beam of the flashlight out over the edge, but it was swallowed up by the nothingness. The swirling fog created a dance of twisted ghostly shadows.
Somehow the water had to be working its way through some kind of channel or underground entrance into a walled canyon, and if there was a canyon, if there was water, then there were caves. Bingo, Elliott old boy, another piece of your puzzle has just tumbled into place.
Apparently no one knew about this canyon. The sweeps had been made from the shoreline in, across the natural bridge that sheltered the hidden inlet. The teams had confused the sounds of the rushing waters with the natural sounds of the bay, and the fog had done the rest.
It was information that had to be shared.
I went back around to the front of the house and knocked for a second time. When there was no answer I did a repeat of the old shoulder to the door trick. It swung open without a protest.
My eyes were still trying to adjust to the minimal light of the flickering candle when I heard the ominous click-click of the old woman's double action 12 gauge.
"You know what happens up in James Bay when we catch somebody tryin' to break in one of our homes?" the raspy voice crackled.
I shook my head.
"We don't take time to ask questions, Mr. Wages. We start shootin' and leave the talkin' till later."
PART 8
She had situated herself in a creaking old rocking chair on the far side of the cluttered room. The shotgun was propped on the arm of the chair with the index finger of her gnarled right hand curled determinedly around the trigger. Beyond that, detail was lost in the shadows. The single candle on the table that held the sarcophagus wasn't equal to the challenge.
What now seems like 100 years ago, the infamous Gibby Marshall taught me a ploy that under the circumstances sounds perfectly ludicrous. The premise is a simple one; no matter how bad the situation, disregard the other fellow's advantage and act just like you have control. Considering the situation and the size of the barrels of the gun glaring up at me, it was worth a try. If the Widow Austin squeezed that trigger, it was all over — and at the moment it looked like the old girl could go either way.
"Why the hell didn't you answer the door?" I blurted out.
Glenna Austin didn't answer. On the other hand, she didn't shoot, either. She rocked back and forth, her wretched old face mercifully hidden by the room's shadows. The latter, of course, meant there was no eye contact, and if you take Elliott Grant Wages's eye contact away from him, you've partially disarmed him.