Witch's Canyon (12 page)

“Well, I wasn’t born yet, if there really was a last time,” Eileen said. “But I think it’s a lot of crazy talk.”

“You just said it yourself, you wasn’t born,” Cal said dismissively. “I was. I was fourteen. And let me tell you, it was a scary time. My pa locked us kids up in an inside bedroom and sat out on the porch with three rifles, day and night. When he had to sleep, my uncle spelled him, on account of he didn’t have a family of his own. Time betimes, they thought it was safe, and Uncle Jute went back to his place. Pa let us all out of the house. That night, Uncle Jute took an arrow through the throat. They said it killed him instantly and he didn’t suffer, but I have my doubts about that part.”

“An arrow?” Sam asked.

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“That’s right. The killings happen in all sorts of ways. Guns, knives, arrows, everything.”

“What about animal attacks?”

“That, too,” Cal said.

“Cal, honestly, I don’t think—” Eileen began.

“Don’t tell me, Eileen. I was there. Forty years ago, it was, and now it’s happening again. It don’t do no good to pretend it’s not.”

“But nobody knows why?” Dean asked. “Or who’s behind it?”

“I heard the sheriffs had a suspect today,” Cal said. “Or—what did Trace call him when he was in here, Eileen?”

“A person of interest,” Eileen said.

“That’s right, a person of interest. Witnesses saw some old codger with a long gun near one of the scenes.”

“An old man?” Sam asked. “Was he dressed in a military uniform?”

“No. I heard about that, too, over at the shopping center. Jim Beckett don’t think the two are the same man. For one thing, the attacks happened too close together, timewise, but far apart in distance. Unless the old guy had a truck or something, which nobody saw, he couldn’t have got to Brittany Gardner’s place that fast.”

Sam wasn’t so sure about that. The old soldier hadn’t seemed particularly spry, but he hadn’t been particularly substantial, either. The way he phased in and out of visibility made him a spirit, most likely, and spirits weren’t bound by the same laws of physics 104 SUPERNATURAL

as human beings. The only part that didn’t add up was losing the uniform and gaining a rifl e.

“Boys, your food’s getting cold while you listen to Cal here,” Eileen said. “And I can tell you from personal experience that Cal can talk all night if you let him.”

Sam looked down at his plate. The gravy had started to congeal on his untouched meal.
And I was
so hungry.

But Cal was the first person who seemed willing to discuss the murder cycle openly, instead of pretending it wasn’t happening.

Cal regarded the Winchesters for a long moment, gave one somber nod, then drained his cup, put some bills on the table, and picked up his newspaper. “I’ll be going, then,” he said. “You boys be careful. And if you heed my advice, you’ll get yourselves gone, quicker instead of slower.”

“Thanks, Cal,” Dean said. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

Cal sauntered out of the café, Eileen watching him leave before scooping up the cash. “He means well,” she said. “He’s just a little on the excitable side.”
He didn’t look that excitable to me
, Sam thought, finally digging into his dinner.
Excitable like a judge,
maybe.

Or an undertaker
.

Cal Pohlens lived three blocks from the Wagon Wheel, with his wife Lorene and a half-blind house cat who was too mean to die, or too dumb—he hadn’t Witch’s

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decided which. The feline was mostly Lorene’s, but since she had taken sick and spent most of her days in a wheelchair and most of her nights hooked up to a ventilator, he wasn’t sure who really took care of who. She didn’t eat much these days, so he’d taken to getting more and more of his meals at the Wheel. It helped him to get away from the house, to take some fresh air, and to see other people now and again.

He was halfway home when something caught his eye.

A dark shape had passed just beyond the half-circle glow thrown by a motion light above the Richardsons’ door. The motion had been furtive, like someone, or something, ducking into the shadows before he or it could be seen. Cal slipped a hand into the pocket of his Carhartt barn coat and gripped the

.38 revolver he carried there. He took a few steps forward, until he could see into the shadows at the side of the Richardson house.

The figure was still on the move. This time it passed through a stray slice of moonlight cutting through the trees of the property next door, and he saw an old man in a heavy coat and a hunting cap, the kind with flaps that tied up on top or could be let down over your ears. He carried a rifl e at port arms.

When he saw Cal looking at him, he darted from the light, vanishing into the black shadows behind the Richardsons’ place.

“You there!” Cal shouted. “Come back here!” The old man didn’t answer. Any other time, any other year, Cal might have thought he had imagined 106 SUPERNATURAL

it, or he might rightly have believed that he’d had one too many at the Plugged Bucket. But he hadn’t had a drink since the first of December. He wanted his hands steady and his mind sharp. Leaving Lorene alone except for that damn cat wasn’t the best idea, maybe, but he needed some time to himself, and he needed to eat. Most hours of the day and night he was right there with her, and anything that wanted to kill her would have to face him fi rst.

In his other coat pocket, Cal had a cell phone. He drew out both hands at once, .38 in his right, phone in his left, and started down the Richardsons’ driveway. With his left hand he flipped the phone open and punched 911, and in a moment Susannah Brigh-ton, the night dispatcher, answered.

“It’s Cal Pohlens, Susannah,” he said. “I’m outside Lew and Billie Richardsons’ place on School, and I just saw some old bastard with a rifl e sneaking around the back.”

“An old man?” Susannah asked.

“Twice my age if he’s a day,” Cal replied. “I’m surprised he don’t need a walker, but he can move pretty good.”

“I’ll dispatch some officers right away, Cal,” she said. “You just stay back and point them in the right direction when they get there. And be careful.”

“Yes’m,” he said, and ended his call. He dropped the phone back into his pocket but kept the pistol out. “Screw that,” he mumbled to himself. Lew Richardson wasn’t exactly his friend—man had bor-rowed a chain saw ten years ago, and gave it back Witch’s

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two years later with the chain about rusted through and the engine fouled. But Lew was a neighbor, and he’d be damned if he would just stand around with his thumb up his ass while the old man killed Lew and Billie.

Alert for anything, finger resting lightly on the trigger, Cal headed down the driveway. He kept his tread soft, checking the ground every couple of steps to make sure he didn’t step on anything that might make noise. If he did, the snow quieted it.

When he reached the back corner of the house, he squeezed in close to the wall and came around slowly. The old man was still back there, about ten feet from the kitchen door, hunkered down behind a bush just out of the light that spilled from the windows. He studied the house something fi erce, and that old gun—was it an old Henry rifl e?—was pointed right at it.

Cal didn’t want the guy to get off a shot at Billie or Lew. He showed himself, leveling his .38 at the man’s torso. “Drop that antique and come out of there,” he demanded. “Right now, before I lose patience and just shoot—”

His command was interrupted by the kitchen door swinging open with a bang and a shape launching out of it. Cal tore his gaze from the old man and caught the briefest glimpse of someone who looked like a rancher—not a modern rancher, but one from a century past, wearing cotton dungarees and a plaid shirt and plain, heavy boots, carrying a big bowie-type knife—just before the man slammed into him 108 SUPERNATURAL

and bulled him to the ground. Cal heard two shots ring out, one his own, which went wild, and one that must have been from the old guy with the Henry rifle. That one struck the rancher—Cal saw the impact as the bullet hit him in the temple and saw his head swing from the force, saw tissue and bone fl y from an exit wound on the other side.

What it didn’t do was stop him or seem to slow him down at all. The rancher landed astride Cal, and he took the thick-bladed, heavy bowie, grabbed Cal’s hair with his left hand, and commenced sawing at Cal’s scalp. Cal screamed and screamed, thought maybe he heard one more shot, thought maybe he saw a puff of dust from a bullet that might have passed through the rancher’s plaid shirt, but he couldn’t be sure about any of that because his own screams drowned everything out and his own blood was splashing into his eyes.

A third shot sounded, and this time Cal was pretty sure he heard it. Blinking away the stinging blood, he saw the old man, not six feet from the guy who was scalping him alive. The rancher’s face showed pain this time, his mouth dropping open, his head tilt-ing toward Cal. For the first time, Cal saw that the rancher had lost his own scalp; the top of his head was shorn down to the bone in spots, although no blood showed there.

The rancher slumped forward, sliding off Cal and falling to the ground beside him. Cal tried to move, to gain his feet, to run away or shoot or do anything, but he was too weak. Cold and weak. Lying Witch’s

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in the snow, the scalped rancher just inches away, he watched the man blink in and out like a fl ashlight with a drained battery. He was there and then he wasn’t and then he was, and then he was gone. Cal didn’t think he was coming back, but by then everything had grown dark, so he wasn’t at all sure.

THIRTEEN

A siren pierced the quiet of Main Street.

“Let’s go,” Sam said.

Dean threw money on the table. Eileen caught his gaze as he shrugged into his coat. “Thanks, guys,” she called.

“Food was great,” Sam assured her. He had eaten about half his dinner, Dean guessed. Dean had wolfed down a little more, but he’d been eating as Cal was talking, while Sam had been listening.

They rushed outside, ran for the car. Dean got his door open while Sam was still running around to the passenger side, and he had the engine roaring by the time Sam sat down. Checking the rearview, he lurched out into the road. Sam was thrown back into the seat, still wrestling with the seat belt.

By the time they were under way, the siren had stopped.

“That’s not far away,” Dean said.

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“Not at all.” Sam pointed to the left. “I think it went down there, maybe to the street that parallels this one.”

Dean turned left at the corner. When they reached the next street—School Street, the sign said, and another sign warned of a 15 mph speed limit when school is in session—he could see the sheriff’s SUV, roof lights flashing, less than a block away. He pulled up across the street from the SUV, and they were just climbing out of the Impala when another siren sounded. They stayed where they were, out of the way, while another sheriff’s offi ce vehicle raced in and Sheriff Jim Beckett jumped out. He had a grim look on his face, and the two younger deputies who came around the house to meet him looked like they were seasick, hung over, or both.

“Come on,” Dean said. He started across the street. The deputies and Beckett had gathered in the driveway of a two-story house with a deep yard. Every light in the house seemed to be blazing. The same was true of the house on the other side of the drive, where the residents and people who must have been neighbors had gathered on a porch.

A deputy blocking off the driveway with crime scene tape stopped Dean and Sam when they approached. “This is a crime scene,” he said. “No spec-tators.”

“We’re press,” Dean told him.

“No press, either.”

“Could you ask Sheriff Beckett?” Sam pressed. “He knows us.”

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“Sheriff knows everyone,” the deputy replied.

“Sorry.”

Dean saw more people coming up the street and climbing up onto the neighbors’ porch. “Let’s try up there,” he said quietly.

Sam followed his gaze. “Worth a shot.” They moved next door and up the stairs, almost in the wake of the last couple of people. “Anybody clear on what happened over there?” Dean asked no one in particular. He hoped that on the darkened porch, people wouldn’t realize that they didn’t know him.

“I’ve only heard bits and pieces,” a woman said.

“But what I heard sounds pretty awful.”

“What’s that?”

“A couple of the sheriffs used the word ‘scalped.’

And I saw one of them lose his dinner in the backyard, over there near where Cal is.”

“Cal’s the victim?” Sam asked, a note of horror in his voice.

“
One
of the victims,” a man said, picking up the story. “Sounds like it’s Lew and Billie Richardson inside, and Cal outside.”

“And they were all scalped?” Dean asked.

“I heard gunshots, too, but we’re still not clear on who got shot.”