Chapter 8
Our hero finds that there are Unknown Unknowns in every life
‘Somebody’ threw a pair of Molotov cocktails at the garage Monday night. Elgin heard the two shattering thumps on the glass of the store and got outside to hear the fading rumble of a chopper. He got drenched as a thick mist filled the air, damping the streams of fire dribbling down the side of the building. The puddles streamed away from the building and into the storm drain, setting off a nasty smelling sewer fire until the gasoline burnt out.
He called the attack in to the sheriff’s office, a male deputy came out to take a look, he also took photos and audio notes with his cell phone as well as jotting notes on its cramped screen. “Some tough glass you got there mister,” he pointed at the soot stained but otherwise unmarred glass, “And the sprinkler system did a fine job as well.” Then he went back to chewing his gum and drifting aimlessly about.
The next morning Elgin walked into the Sheriff’s office. As befitted one of the senior elected officials of the county it was quite up to date with a public side and a miscreant side. Elgin had actually called the sheriff’s office and told Caitlin’s flustered secretary that he’d be there at nine to talk to the Sheriff in person and hung up. The sheriff was propped up in the entrance to a hallway behind the receptionist. She touched the younger woman’s shoulder, “This is Mr. Chalmers, my nine o’clock Beth,” then waved Elgin in.
She walked around her desk and sat down, “You have a complaint Mr. Chalmers?”
“Sheriff, ma’am, if the Claw and the Piggly Wigglys aren’t reigned in someone’s else is gonna get hurt. I don’t like that you sent that halfwit to respond to the attempted firebombing of my, of TwoShoes, garage, they may try again with better luck next time, or maybe they’ll start going after individuals.”
“Do you want police protection Mr. Chalmers?” The sheriff asked carefully.
“No, but maybe TwoShoes should have it. What are you going to do about this? The Claw’s not out to get us for his jollies, it’s the Wiggins who are putting him up to it. Are they such a power in town, in the county, that they can tell you to step back?”
Her jaw went tight at that insult, “I’m an officer of the county Elgin, the Wiggins know better than to try and bribe or threaten me. But there are bigger things in play than TwoShoes garage, and if something set off another really big stink right now those plans might go bust. So I will have someone keep an eye on you and Two Shoes and we’ll have a cruiser run past the garage every half hour or so till things quiet down again. How’s that?”
He studied her, “Which is what you’ve been doing anyway, right?”
The sheriff shrugged, “Perhaps I’m not as blind to the problems as you appear to think I am.”
He sighed and settled back, “I’m sorry I insulted you ma’am, I am worried about m...the folks that work there. They don’t make a lot of money, have no insurance, they’d get something for getting hurt on the job but not enough to help their families.”
“Understood Elgin, and I admire you for your concern and the guts it took to come and face me like this.” There was an odd flicker of emotion on her face, as if she were trying to remember something else, but she shook herself and smiled faintly, “We all hope this mess is going to be sorted out within a couple of weeks.?”
Elgin stood up, “Thanks for seeing me sheriff, let me know if there’s anything you need?”
The sheriff nodded, then pursed her lips, “Zephy told me you finally saw her at home, know who she is, you’ll keep that under your hat won’t you?”
He smiled across the desk as she stood up, “I will ma’am, sorry to hear she’s had such a rough go of it.”
“Uh, yeah, well this is a change for her, she spent a gig in the Stan a few years ago with her National Guard unit. That and the law degree made her a good fit here, though it pays squat.”
“Good to know she knows how to use the Glock, hopefully she won’t ever have to, except on a rabid raccoon or such.”
“Here’s hoping.” The Sheriff replied, but she didn’t sound too confident.
-o-
Elgin stood up in the stirrups to give himself a bit better view of the herd from his vantage point. He scanned the herd and a number popped up, four hundred thirty two, two short of the number of cattle that should be out there. Juan and Pedro had run the herd through the counting gate this morning so the two had gone missing recently. There was no sign of a predator attack, and there were no breaks in the fence line that kept this grazing range separate from the next one.
A tan streak moved through the long grass not far away and the old mare shied a little then snorted in disgust as Humph bounded out of the undergrowth and onto a nearby rock. The big cat had occasionally come out onto the range with him in the past but had been doing so more and more frequently recently. What was much more startling was that the cat was pretty good at herding cattle. If anything the cattle were too afraid of the lithe shape with its sharp nipping teeth and rolling wrowr. But generally Humph just got them stopped and moving in the right direction. Seeming to take his cues from what Elgin or the other cowboy was doing.
He tapped talk on his radio, “Winters, we’ve got a couple of strays, probably up in one of the gulches to the west.”
“I hear you.” The kid sounded a little dour, he was terminally bored with the work, which was a mixture of boring, back breaking, exhausting and putting up with rough living conditions. He’d probably have quit except that he had a contract with a significant end of season bonus that would keep him here for the duration but he’d not be coming back. There were ranches that used a lot of technology to do what cowboys did on the CircleSBarS but the technology was only affordable on relatively flat land with good grazing, certainly not here.
Elgin chivvied the mare into movement, trotting, walking, trotting, he covered the ground to the first of the valleys in half an hour. The stream running down the center was full of rocks, and the sides of the gulch were a mixture of scrub, rock and not particularly stable dirt, there was no visible trail up, except along the stream. But he knew that there were ways that cattle found up to a flat section just around the turn, out of sight, where there was very good grazing. Some old cow probably had been led there by her mother as a calf and had led her calf there to pass the knowledge along.
He gave the mare a feed bag and hobbled her so she couldn’t run too far but could defend herself if need be and set off up the stream, trying to see if he could see hoof prints or some sign of a path the cattle used. Humph played among the rocks and scrub higher up the sides of the mini valley.
His search finally picked out what looked like a game trail winding along on the right side of the valley, it hardly looked safe but animals didn’t view things the same as humans. He got to the natural damn that had formed the silt bed that had become such a succulent grazing ground. It was a pity it was so hard to get to because it would make a really nice homestead.
The cattle, a cow and a calf as he’d suspected, were grazing contentedly near the center of the grassy rectangle. He saw Humph stalking something off to his left, belly low to the ground, sinuously slipping towards some brush around the aspen trees and evergreens that had grown up in the rockier soil near the narrower part of the valley that opened into the glade from higher up.
He walked a few feet back from the drop off, towards where he thought the game trail had to exit. He was enjoying the smell of the plants as he walked.
There was a loud flat ‘thunk’ from his left. Turning towards the sound something hit him high in the chest, just under his shoulder, the blow was like the kick of a horse and it took him totally by surprise. He staggered, tripped and realized he was going over the edge of the artificial dam. There was a scream as free fall started, but it wasn’t coming from his throat.
He felt the unfolding, and he hit the ground with four clawed legs that were still more smoke than solid. His human image was undamaged, he must have been hi
t by a bean bag or so called rubber bullet. There were odd sounds, crashing and yelling, and snarling yowlps of an enraged super sized Siamese coming from the glade above, mixed in with the confused and panicked bellowing of the cow and her calf.
Then things turned serious again as the assassin opened fire with a pistol, screaming, “Take that you fucking freak of nature!”
The Iffrit lifted his upper body and hopped up the cliff to the top of the dam. The cows caught the motion, took one look at the fifty foot winged predator and bolted for the exit blatting their horror.
Festus Pauls stood with his back to the dam, pistol out swinging, waiting for Humph to show himself. The other hand was pressed against the side of his face, blood leaking between his fingers. “Don’t think you can get away from me this time, I killed you twice last time, this time I’ll finish off the other seven damned lives.”
Then Festus Pauls was grasped firmly by a huge clawed hand, and felt the world shred around him. When he was released, he staggered and fell to one knee in a world where the sun was dimmer and there was a reek in the air that seemed unnatural.
Twisting, bringing his pistol up, he tried to find a target, some distance away he saw movement, impossibly it was that bastard Eglin Chalmers, Stetson, jeans, cowboy boots, open necked shirt, young, virile, everything his sort was supposed to be. Except dead. Festus had seem him go over the edge of the cliff, just before that fucking monster cat had attacked him.
Festus didn’t even hesitate, he lined up the sights and pulled the trigger, twice, the gun bucked, the slide went back, he saw the brass spinning away. He couldn’t have missed but the cowboy just stood there, expressionless, thumbs hooked into his belt loops. Eyes piercingly direct under lowered brows, “Festus, why do you want to kill me?”
Festus pulled the trigger three more times, the last time the slide locked back on an empty magazine. He fumbled, ejecting the empty, pulling a full one out of his tactical belt.
“However many bullets you fire, they’ll never reach me, you and I are in two different universes. And you are not in one that’s safe to make a lot of noise in.”
Backing away from the madman, Festus looked around, they were no longer on the grassy glade, now they were in an open spot in some kind of forest, the trees loomed huge on every side, not far away a small stream flowed through a reed bed before vanishing into the blackness between the trees. The cowboy did appear to be standing somehow elsewhere, there was a ripple around him, behind him a view of rocks like the Wyoming badlands overlaid on the giant trees.
“Festus, put the gun down and talk to me. Why were you trying to kill me.”
That meant the gun was dangerous to Chalmers, Festus tightened his grip on it. “Do you think I wouldn’t catch on to the fact that not content with your freak screwing my prize Siamese, you were making out with my wife behind my back!”
He sneered at the other man’s startled expression, “Think you’re smart the pair of you. I have a tracker on my wife’s car, she spent a night with you in that filthy hovel of yours. And she visits you at the Library, she buys you coffee, I have a picture of her kissing you at that fucking coffee whore house she loves.”
Now Chalmers hands were up, almost supplicating, “Festus, Mr. Pauls, I have never touched your wife other than for shaking hands or a peck goodbye. She picked me up one night and took me home, we were both too wired to sleep, we just sat and talked out on the fence line. The kiss at the library, we’d been discussing something that had her pretty upset, she was just saying thank you.”
“So you say, you damned redneck,” He pulled the trigger again and again, walking in towards Chalmers as he fired. If he could get across the threshold he’d probably blow the idiots brains all over the landscape, not quite the engineered accident he’d intended, but he’d say that the redneck attacked him when confronted with the evidence about his sleeping with Kitty.
There was a crashing sound behind him, Festus turned, and out of the forest stalked a two legged horror, something out of CG spectacular, something as big as a dinosaur but feathered and beaked, though the beak had teeth. The creature took one look at him lowered its head and lumbered into a run, a hissing screech warning of its coming.
Festus took the stance and fired for effect, one, two, three, four, five, lock back. The Dino-Birds beak drove into the ground and the still pumping legs vaulted it into a flip that ended up with its ass five feet in front of Festus, the huge drumsticks still spastically pumping.
Another change of magazines and he spun back to face the cowboy. But there was no cowboy, instead there was another monster, this one four legged. The foreleg was almost as long as Festus was tall, the huge wolfish head had lynx ears and those had to be wings folded against the slender trunk behind massive shoulders, ahead of hugely muscled and clawed rear legs.
Pauls raised the gun in shaking hands, aiming for the eyes, those astonishingly brilliant blue eyes.
“I don’t believe you Mr. Pauls,” the great beast said flatly.
Festus whimpered, backing away, “Don’t believe me about what?”
“That you want to kill Elgin because you suspect him of having sex with your wife. She has her own car, you send her home from the opera alone, you leave her alone in the house for days on end. You sleep around, you like whores because they do things for you, that she will not. Humph begetting some bastards on Miss Pretty Paws might get you upset but somehow your wife isn’t that important to you. So why were you hiding in the brush waiting to kill Elgin in a way that would be deemed accidental. And who led you up here, set up the trap? You would not have known of this place or created this trap by yourself.”
“You come any closer and I’ll kill you!” Festus screamed, firing two shots at the disturbingly human eyes.
“You tell me what I want to know and I’ll let you live.” Countered the huge beast, it sat down and a long prehensile tail with a white tip came round to rest on the fore claws, which looked almost like hands.
He had nothing to lose, Festus walked forward pistol steady on the great blue eye closest to him. As he got closer the scale of the thing became ever more daunting, it made the Dino-bird look like a game hen. And as he got closer he had to hold his gun up higher, his only hope was that the range was so short the hollow point would hit somewhere in the eye socket and bounce around.
There was a sound and a curse, he start....then blackness.
He woke on his stomach, his back and one leg were on fire and numb at the same time, he could taste blood, smell blood, his own. Then he saw a hint of red, of firelight, and he saw a figure sitting feeding twigs into a campfire
“Hey, you, stranger, what happened?” The figure seemed to take forever to respond to his call, he tried to remember what had happened, first he had flashes of monsters, things out of pre history, or mythology, those must have been delirium. Where was he, the Stan, Iraq, some mission had gone south, oh, no he was out wasn’t he? Was it that hit in Nigeria? No, no that had gone off smooth as silk. It was only the damned real estate business that had blown up, and he couldn’t fix that with a bullet or two. But he’d shown them all in the end, gotten out with his money safe and his unedited co-conspirators all safely off the hook. Then he’d fixed it so the punk DA had an asymptomatic heart arrhythmia and croaked in public.
The stranger was there, except it wasn’t a stranger, it was Elgin Chalmers, “Well Mr. Pauls you are the stubborn one, I expected you to be dead before I killed the wing runner. I know it hurts right now but you’ll be feeling better soon.”
“You saved me?”
“Wasn’t going to let you get eaten in front of me, especially since you hadn’t answered my questions yet,” the cowboy replied dryly.
“Where are we?”
“Currently, in a shadow realm, a semi complete universe at an angle from our universe. A multidimensional branch that touches but does not intersect our universe; everything of any permanence is mirrored here, often with rather troubli
ng differences that must reflect some high probability alternate timeline.”
“You’re not Elgin Chalmers.” Festus whispered.
“I am and I’m not, thenElgin managed to get himself killed, nowElgin is a rather different proposition, what Elgin would have been if he’d had half a chance.”
Festus laughed, “You talk like that sphinx thing,” then he blanched in horror.
“Very good Mr. Pauls, you have guessed that Elgin and the sphinx thing, the Iffrit, are one and the same in some impossible way.”
Festus giggled, “Those stupid bastards have no idea how much trouble they’re in.”
“If you refer to the stupid bastards I think you do, then they don’t though if they had open minds they’d have started worrying some time ago. Now who hired you to kill me, and who led you up to that glade and helped set that little trap?”
“You know it’s funny, first hit I ever screw up and it was one I was almost too proud to take?”
“Irony does have a way of making its way into everyone’s life Mr. Pauls.”
“Don’t know who Wiggins knows but he contacted me, wanted me to kill you and make it look like an accident, but he wanted it done quick. Put me in contact with your ranch manager, he showed me the spot, said you’d be there almost exactly when you appeared.”
“Apparently I’m getting predictable in my old age,” The sphinx’s voice said thoughtfully.
“Never be predictable when someone’s out for you, change it up, sometimes you can make it such a pain they make a mistake, get caught, or miss, or have to turn in the card.” Festus was feeling very light headed.
“So you have told me what I wanted to know and I have saved your life. You’re going to go to sleep in a few moments Mr. Pauls, when you wake up, I imagine you’ll be in hospital. You’ll remember none of this conversation, or the events leading up to it, or who you are, who you were. You’ll have most of your basic education and motor skills, but other than that you’ll be a blank slate. Hopefully you’ll make use of this second chance to grow into someone a lot more pleasant than this last incarnation. Goodbye Festus.”
And the lights went out.