Suddenly Bly’s tone changed, as if he were hearing from an old friend. “Ohhh, Dr. Benson! How are you?”
“Fine, sir, and how are you?”
“Oh, getting by, I guess. What can I do for you?”
“Well . . .” He had to think a moment. How should he phrase this? “If you’re agreeable, I’d like to meet with you and talk about a few matters.” Boy, that was vague enough.
Bly sounded agreeable as he said, “I think that could be arranged.”
“Would you be free this morning?”
“Sure. How about meeting me at the tavern for a beer, say, ten o’clock or so?”
“That’ll be fine. I’ll see you there, ten o’clock at the tavern.”
Steve hung up feeling relieved. Maybe this wouldn’t be as difficult as he first thought.
WELL, thought Harold Bly. How handy could things get?
He started punching numbers on his phone. He had to gather his people and get things set up. By tonight the trouble would be all over.
TIME TO get moving, Steve thought. He slung his pack over his shoulder, picked up his laundry bag of clean clothes, made sure the coffeemaker was off as he passed by the kitchen, then went out to his camper.
As he headed down the gulch toward the Hyde River Road, his imagination was working overtime. Perhaps the weird superstitions of Hyde River would be displaced by more practical considerations, like money. Hyde River could become a real center for scientific investigation as well as tourism. Visitors would need rooms, meals, guides, rides. The mercantile could stock cheap binoculars and little stuffed dragons, and the tavern could serve dragon burgers. Yeah, flame-broiled! He started to laugh. He was getting carried away.
Nevertheless, Harold Bly just might go for ideas like that. Why not?
As for the binder containing the diary of Holly Ann Mayfield, Steve wanted to stop first at Levi’s to give it back to him, hopefully before anyone found out he’d been consulting with the big mechanic. It was going to be tough enough getting back into Harold Bly’s good graces without the bad blood between Bly and Cobb coming into it.
Even so, the whole story of the massacre and the legends that sprang from it were another thing that could benefit the town if handled in the right way. That kind of stuff always sold well. The legend of Hyde River. The Hyde River dragon. He could see it now. Too bad old Levi took everything so seriously.
TRACY ARRIVED at the station in West Fork a few minutes before eight, parking her Ranger in its usual slot alongside the old stone building. Sheriff Collins’s patrol car was already in its slot. Since it was for his exclusive use, he drove it to and from work each day. He was the boss, so he was always early, if only to chew out anybody who came in late.
The side door, her usual entry, was unlocked. Inside, she found the station quiet, with no one in sight, not even a deputy on duty behind the counter. She checked the clock on the wall. Still a minute or two before eight. Either the deputy had stepped away from the counter, was working in the Motor Vehicles section, or was going to catch a good share of flak for being late.
She went directly to the station logbook at the end of the counter near the key rack and quickly signed herself in, noting that she and Sheriff Collins were the only ones there so far.
Deputy Matson was supposed to be manning the office today, but Tracy noted that Collins had signed him off for a leave of absence. All the more work for me, she complained to herself. Anyway, she was here, and on time. Just for good measure, she went to the sheriff’s door and tapped on it. “Morning, Sheriff.”
“Good morning,” came his voice from inside.
She poked her head in. “How’s the prisoner?”
He looked up from his desk only momentarily. “He’s your prisoner. I’ll leave that to you.”
He was still miffed at her. “Yes sir.”
She returned his door to its former, slightly ajar position and went to the cell-block door, still locked from the previous night. The key, however, was back on the key rack where she’d left it, apparently unused since last night’s confrontation. She unlocked the big steel door and swung it open.
An all-too-familiar stench met her like a wall, and she recoiled. The smell of rotting flesh. The air was thick and heavy with it, worse than ever. She turned her head away in horror, in disgust. She drew a breath and steadied herself.
Trouble had found its way in here, Tracy thought. She could sense it in the place, like a loathsome creature concealing itself in some dark corner. She couldn’t see Phil’s cell from where she stood. “Phil?” she called, not too loudly.
There was no answer.
Half from procedure, half from instinct, she closed the cell-block door behind her and locked it, then pocketed the key. Now the problem would be contained, whatever it was, though she found no comfort in the fact that she was locked in with it.
“Phil?” she called again, moving forward toward the corner of the passage.
No answer. She reached for her nightstick, then chose her revolver instead, resting her hand on it, ready. She peeked around the corner, down the narrow, dismal cell block with the three cells. The door to Phil’s cell was still closed. Nothing looked out of place.
She pulled the revolver anyway, aiming it at the ceiling, mindful of the concrete floor and walls.
“Phil!” she called firmly. “Hey, answer me!”
No answer.
She inched down the cell block until Phil’s cell came into view.
Shock and nausea hit her like a punch in the stomach.
Phil’s scarred face, gray with death, the mouth limp and drooling, stared vacantly down at her through half-open, unblinking eyes. His body was suspended from the grille in the ceiling by a slime-blackened shirt knotted around his neck. His feet dangled limply above the floor.
Tracy fell back against the wall, her left hand covering her mouth, her knees weak, her gun sinking slowly downward until the handgrip came to rest against the concrete. She was trembling, and it was only by a shred of conscious thought that she kept the gun in her hand.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Like a slow, steady leak, black, viscid ooze trickled from an open sore over Phil’s heart, slid down his bare chest, crawled in a snaking rivulet down his pant leg, and then hung from the sole of his shoe like dog’s drool until it stretched to breaking and plopped to a puddle on the floor.
She would vomit if she didn’t get out of there. She turned away and forced one foot in front of the other, her feet like lead.
Maggie. Vic. It was coming together in her mind as her throat constricted with the sourness of the air. Charlie, and now Phil. Her insides wrenched in such pain that she nearly doubled over. The dragon. The dragon!
She broke into a run, her breakfast pushing its way up her throat. She got to the cell door and only then remembered it was locked. Somehow she found the key and got it open, bursting through the door like a drowning woman finally breaking the surface.
“Sheriff!” she cried. “Sheriff!”
No answer.
She drew some deep breaths of fresh air and her breakfast settled. “Sheriff Collins!”
She dashed to his office door, still ajar, and knocked even as she pushed it open. “Sheriff!”
He wasn’t there. The chair behind the desk was empty. He wasn’t at the window. He wasn’t—
She saw the blow coming from the corner of her eye and ducked. The black baton struck her left shoulder, sending her reeling. She fell against the desk then tumbled sideways to the floor, losing her revolver in the process. Her shoulder and arm were numb with pain.
Sheriff Collins, nightstick in hand, stood by the door he’d hidden behind, his face contorted with malice—or was it horror.
“Lester, what—”
He changed instantly. “Tracy! My god!” He put the nightstick on his desk. “I didn’t know it was you.” He started toward her.
Instinctively, she scrambled away from him. She spotted her revolver on the floor by the corner of
the desk, but she couldn’t reach it.
He grabbed her right hand and pulled her up—forcefully. “Here, let me help. Are you hurt?”
She didn’t have time to answer before he flung her face first against the wall, her arm behind her back. She could hear him going for his handcuffs.
The world had exploded into meaningless pieces. Nothing made sense. She struggled, but he pressed her against the wall, her face flat against the plaster.
The first cuff went on her right wrist. “No!” she shouted.
Collins groped for her left hand. She wriggled around and jammed the fingers of her left hand into his eye. She could feel his eyeball like a large grape rolling under her fingers. He jerked away, dropping her right hand, yelling in pain, and she planted her foot in his stomach. With her back against the wall, she kicked with all her strength, flinging him backward into his desk. Then she dove for her gun.
“Hold it, Tracy!” Collins hollered as she heard his gun slip from its holster.
She curled around, revolver in hand, to see Collins aiming right for her face.
A gunshot, like two huge, invisible hands, clapped her ears.
Time froze. Her arm was extended, the revolver aimed, the handcuff dangling. There was blue smoke in the air.
Collins was standing there, still aiming his gun at her. He didn’t seem to know yet what had happened; neither of them did.
Then, looking back at her in horror and disbelief, Collins fell backward against the open door of the office. It swung aside and bumped against the doorstop. Collins came to rest against the doorjamb and then crumpled to the floor, his gun still in his hand. Tracy made no other move than to keep her gun trained on him, following him every inch of his slide downward.
He tried to speak, but no words would form. His face went blank. His head sank to his chest.
Then he died.
Only then did she notice she was still aiming her gun at him, and let her arm come down.
He was gone. She had killed him. She couldn’t comprehend it.
LEVI COBB blocked the door and extended his hand. “Mr. Benson, wait, don’t go.”
Steve stopped. “Hey. Levi. Come on, I appreciate your input. The diary was very interesting, it was good information to keep in mind, and really, I’ll do that. I’ll remember what you showed me.”
“But did you read it?”
“Of course I read it, every page.”
“What about the other stuff? The letters and clippings and—”
“Levi, I went through them, I got the general idea.”
They were standing in Levi’s garage, near the ladder truck Levi had been working on. The binder containing the diary and other materials lay on the workbench among the tools where Steve had set it down with a quick and courteous thank you.
“We still have to talk about it. You don’t have the whole picture.”
Steve tried to be patient. “Levi, it’s a fascinating story, a shocking story. I can see why the people around here are so sensitive about the past. But listen, I’m not—” Oh, where were the words? “—of your religious persuasion, okay? I don’t believe the way you do.”
Levi shook his head. He was insistent. “That don’t change a thing. The dragon don’t care what you believe.”
Steve gave a deep sigh of frustration. “Levi, what you believe about the dragon doesn’t change anything either. I agree, the dragon is what it is. It’s there, it’s real, it has to be understood. That’s why I’m here—to study it, not in religious or superstitious terms, but in real, scientific terms. You and the other people in this town have to see that.”
Levi stood his ground. “Okay, you’re a scientist, right?”
“Of course. I’m a wildlife biologist.”
“So you’ve got an open mind, right?”
“I try to be objective and unbiased.”
“Then hear me out. Don’t tag me a fanatic and then run off and get yourself killed.”
“I’ve survived thus far.”
Levi took a moment to digest that comment. Then, with a slight nod, he answered, “We’ve all done that, Benson.” His eyes were probing, and Steve could sense it. “Last night you weren’t thinking about ‘studying’ the dragon in scientific terms. You were glad you were still alive, and you wanted to know the truth. Now you just want to get out of here.” He cocked his head to one side, studying Steve so intently it made him nervous. “What have you been up to lately?” He poked Steve’s chest, a simple gesture. “You seem a little different.”
Steve flinched. Levi had touched that sore spot.
And Levi noticed. “You better have a seat.”
TRACY ROSE from the floor, her revolver still in her hand, and drew close enough to put her trembling fingers against the side of Collins’s neck. There was no pulse. A stain had soaked through his shirt, and there was a streak of blood on the doorjamb behind him.
She unbuttoned his shirt. She’d obviously shot him in the chest, but she couldn’t, didn’t, want to believe it. She was in a stupor. She’d always shot at targets and cans; she’d never shot at a human being. Now she’d killed one, and a law officer at that.
She touched the entry wound, a puncture just to the left of the heart. The bullet must have passed through the left ventricle.
Then she realized that the blood on Collins’s chest was streaked with black from another wound. She drew her hand away. Her fingers were soiled with black oily slime. Directly over his heart, his chest had erupted with the stuff.
Horrified, she pushed herself away, backing up across the floor, unknowingly whimpering, looking around for something, anything, to wipe her hand on. The sheriff’s jacket hung from a coat rack in the corner. She reached up and frantically wiped her hand clean.
The dragon. Collins. Charlie, Vic, Maggie, then Phil. They were all connected somehow. Something terrible was happening.
She sat there on the floor, trembling uncontrollably, unable to stir, alone in this room with death. Unconsciously, she wrapped her arms around herself. She felt very cold.
IT WASN’T that Steve felt any obligation to listen to Levi. It just seemed the easiest route to take. Levi could have his say, that would hopefully end the matter, and Steve could get out of that greasy old garage. He followed Levi back to the workbench where Levi grabbed the binder and started flipping through the pages.
“Go ahead, have a seat,” said Levi, still paging through the binder. “You probably won’t care about anything I have to say—”
“Probably not,” Steve responded, sitting down on a wooden tool chest.
Levi came over to Steve, looked him in the eye, and said, “But if you want to live, you’ll care.” Steve looked away. Levi bent down and forced Steve to look him in the eye. “You have to care, Benson!” Now Steve was paying attention, so Levi eased a little. “The minute you stop caring . . . it’s over.”
“Okay,” Steve said, to satisfy him.
Levi stood up straight, found the page he wanted, and put it under Steve’s nose. “Remember the Hyde River Charter? Did you read it?”
“Yes, I did.”
Levi pointed at the signatures near the bottom of the document. “Look here, the last sentence of the charter and what Benjamin Hyde wrote above his name: ‘If This Be Sin, Let Sin Be Served.’”
I should have known, Steve thought. “I saw that.”
Levi set the binder aside then pulled over a small stool and sat on it. “Now, Mr. Benson, you can play the part of high-minded scientist, but you and I both know you’ve got a conscience in there somewhere. I want you to dig it out for me, okay? That’s the man I want to talk to.”
Levi cocked his thumb toward the binder. “What you have here is a whole town that made up its mind to kill its conscience. Somebody came along with some rules; somebody came along and said ‘There’s a God to be reckoned with,’ and they strung him up. They thought that’d make ’em free. They thought they could do anything they wanted after that. But look what happened: They turned God
out and got another master instead: ‘If This Be Sin, Let Sin Be Served.’ Harold Bly’s still got that for a plaque on his office wall!”
“Okay,” said Steve, “so you’re saying the dragon is God’s judgment on a sinful town?”
Levi’s answer surprised him a little. “No. God gives you a way to escape. God can show grace and mercy. The dragon never heard of the words.”
“And so? Your explanation?”
Levi pointed to the mountains. “Benson, I’ll tell you what you saw up there. What you saw up there—” He pointed to Steve’s heart, and Steve actually raised a hand to deflect another touch. “—is what you have in here. The dragon isn’t God’s judgment for sin—the dragon is sin. Way back there this town, this valley, sold itself out to sin, and with the charter they made it law. After that, the people thought they were free, but they weren’t. Benjamin Hyde may have thought he was boss, but he wasn’t. Sin was in charge. Sin was running things. Sin owned the whole valley and every heart in it.”
Levi looked through the window toward the mountains, troubled. “Benson, sooner or later, sin’s gonna show. Maybe the folks a hundred years ago could hide it. Maybe our parents could hide it and hush it up. Maybe we thought we could go on acting like it wasn’t there.” He frowned with disgust. “You got people in this town who won’t talk about it ’cause they think that’ll make it go away. ‘If we don’t talk about it, if we just ignore it, then it won’t really be there.’ ”
“But not anymore. You read the articles, the letters, right? The Hydes, the Blys, they worshiped and tampered and played with sin so much it became a thing with wings and scales and legs and teeth. People do that, you know, hang onto sin like it was a little pet. Problem with this pet is, it grows. It gets big and ugly and obvious, and before long it starts calling the shots. And it kills people, Benson. Used to be it was small enough and you could beat it off with a stick. Then it got big enough to scarf you down in small pieces. Now it’s big enough to take you down in two, three bites. It hooks you like a fish, hooks you right through the heart, and then it reels you in. Oh, and it can wait. It can choose the time. It might wait for years, but it takes you sooner or later. Always does.” Levi snickered derisively. “And the Hydes thought they were controlling it! Benson, sin never works for anybody, we work for it.” He looked toward Steve, impassioned by his beliefs. “And it finally killed Benjamin Hyde. It killed Sam Bly. It’ll kill Harold Bly, too, if he doesn’t turn around. And that’s what I’ve tried to tell people, only they don’t want to hear it. Things can’t go on the same. Used to be sin was a dirty little secret you could keep inside. Well, not anymore. It’s too big now, too mean, too hungry. It’s pay day. Like God told Cain, ‘Sin is crouching at the door, wanting to devour you.’”