(1995) The Oath (32 page)

Bernie cringed. “Okay, yeah, right.”

“How long you worked here?”

“Five, six years.”

“You always leave that much grease on the grill?”

“Uh—” Bernie looked toward the kitchen as if an answer would come floating out the door at him.

“Times are changing, Bernie. People are paranoid about fat and cholesterol, right?”

“Right.”

“No more grease. And we’re going to go over the menu. We need good meals cooked correctly, something to fit the times. You got it?”

“Yeah, yeah, Harold. I got it.”

Bly opened one of the accounting books and scanned the columns. “You move a lot of beer in this place.”

Bernie smiled sheepishly. “Well, yeah. It’s a tavern. It’s a restaurant, but it’s a tavern too. The guys like to come over and—you know—”

“We need a happy hour right after quitting time at the mine. But only an hour, you got it? Let’s give the men some incentive to drink more. And put out some pretzels. Keep the guys thirsty.”

“Okay.”

“Bernie, I think you’d better write this stuff down; I’ve got more.”

“Oh.” Just my luck, Bernie thought. He ran to get a pencil and paper. By the time he got back, Carl, Phil, Andy, Paul, and Doug had gathered around Bly’s table to have a word with him. Bly was listening intently.

“It’s about Charlie,” Phil murmured.

“Well, is he sick or isn’t he?” Bly asked.

“He’s been acting weird,” Andy said.

“I saw Tracy and that professor guy over at Charlie’s house,” said Carl, with an aside to Doug. “Sorry, Doug.”

Doug only listened grimly.

“But if Charlie’s talking to that outsider, we could all be in real trouble,” Phil said, his head tilted a little. His ear was still bothering him.

“Somebody needs to shut him up,” Carl said.

The others agreed.

Harold raised a hand to quiet them down. “You guys worry too much.”

They started to protest, “Well, what about Vic and Maggie?”

“We’ve got things to worry about, don’t you think?”

“Hey, I want to be around next week, you know?”

He had to quiet them down again. “Get yourselves under control. That’s Charlie’s problem right now. He isn’t in control. He’s feeling guilty about this Ebo Denning thing, so he’s hiding out, afraid he’s going to be next.” He glared at them. “Somebody gets killed in a car accident, you don’t stop driving; am I right? Or somebody dies of lung cancer, you don’t stop smoking, right? Or somebody gets in an accident because they were drunk, you don’t stop drinking, do you? Life goes on, guys, and you live it as you please and let the chips fall where they may. If something happened to Vic and Maggie, that doesn’t mean anything’s going to happen to you. Charlie just needs time to figure that out.” There were more protests, and Harold had to shout over them. “Hey, he’s no different than you are, and you’re no different than him! I’ll tell you what’s going to happen: He’ll hide out at home for a week or so, and then he’ll get over it—and hopefully, so will all of you.” Then he added, meeting every eye, “And Charlie doesn’t need any help getting himself together, you follow me? No rough stuff. Let him be.”

“But what about the professor?” Phil demanded. “Ain’t he the cause of all the trouble?”

Bly glared at Phil. “I think we were talking about his sister-in-law, weren’t we?”

Chastised, Phil looked down at the floor and said nothing.

“Besides—” Harold paused for effect. “I think I’ve made it clear enough that there isn’t any trouble. Maggie’s with her mother, and Vic is off somewhere on a drunk. Forget about both of them.”

Nobody said anything, but it was easy to see nobody believed that for a second.

“And that’s the way it is!” Harold emphasized.

“Oh, yeah, that’s the way it is,” said Paul sarcastically, scratching his chest. All heads turned in his direction, and he just looked back at them derisively. “I think I’ve finally figured this whole mess out. The problem is, there isn’t any you-know-what, but you think there is one, so you act and talk like there isn’t one because for some reason, if anybody thought there was one, there really would be one. Why don’t you guys just believe there isn’t one? You do that and bingo, the whole problem’s gone.”

There were angry mutterings. Andy took a step forward, ready to punch Paul. Doug was right behind him, ready to assist.

But Bly shot his arms out to restore order. “Hey!” They listened. He relaxed in his chair again, his eyes ablaze, and reminded them all, “Paul’s right. Think about it.”

They all looked at Bly, then at one another questioningly.

Harold spoke soothingly and firmly. “We all agree, right, that there isn’t any—we won’t mention it by name? If that’s the case, then Maggie’s all right, and there’s nothing to worry about. Vic is okay, so we don’t need to worry about him. As for Charlie, he’s got nothing to say to anybody because there’s nothing to talk about. As for this professor, he’ll never find anything, and as for his brother, you heard what the cops said: it was a grizzly.” He looked at Doug. “As for Tracy’s little fling with the professor—Doug, it’s a tough break, but you’ll live. It’s your problem, and it has nothing to do with the rest of this town.” He scanned the group, looking each of them in the eye. “If there really is anything to worry about, we’ll know when the time comes, and we’ll know what to do. Other than that, I don’t see why we need to be having this meeting and getting each other all stirred up.”

“What about Cobb?” asked Doug.

Bly repeated, “We’ll know what to do when the time comes.” He looked again at the balance sheets before him. “Now get out of here. I’m busy.”

They moved away, unsatisfied, murmuring a bit, troubled, and Bly noticed.

But he was troubled too. Charlie? Why Charlie? He never had had a bad thought about Charlie. Or had he? Maybe he dreamed it without knowing it.

Then he brightened. What if Charlie? Hmm. It wouldn’t hurt Bly’s situation, now would it?

He acted casual and unruffled, but scribbled a little reminder in his notepad, “Contact Metzger regarding full acquisition.” Metzger was his lawyer, and Bly wanted to be sure he could take full ownership of the tavern and mercantile in the event of Charlie’s—well, in the event Charlie decided to leave town for an indefinite period.

He also made a note to call Sheriff Collins. One of Collins’s deputies was stepping out of line.

In the corner, enjoying some quiet time with his wife and children after a Sunday church service, Reverend Ron Woods couldn’t help overhearing most of the heated conversation. Things were getting stirred up, all right, and would soon be out of control. It was time to get involved.

CLAYTON GENTRY
was a man in his early thirties with a young wife and two small children. He and his brother ran a small logging company, and he lived in a homestead he’d built on some river frontage not far from Backup. His place wasn’t hard to find, just a turn off the Hyde River Road and a short trip up his driveway. When Tracy called him, he seemed a little hesitant, but finally he agreed to meet with her and Steve if they could keep it low-profile.

Now Tracy and Steve sat on the Gentry front porch with Clayton and his wife Jessie while the two little girls played in and around a plastic swimming pool in the front yard.

“Some people are really crazy around here,” he said. “Here you are talking to me, you oughta be talking to them.”

“But they don’t talk,” Tracy said.

He laughed. “And they don’t like people who do. I found that out the hard way.”

“What happened?”

“I saw something and I talked about it, and they didn’t like it.”

“Tell us about what you saw,” Steve said.

Clayton looked north, up the valley toward Hyde River and Saddlehorse Mountain. “My brother and I were doing some logging on private land up past Saddlehorse—”

Jessie interrupted. “Clay, don’t talk too loud. I don’t want the girls to hear this.”

Clayton shot a glance at his two little girls, still totally involved in playing around the little pool, and lowered his voice. Steve and Tracy had to lean close to hear him. “Anyway, one afternoon I was up there by myself, just cleaning up some slash and drawing in the cable. We were finished, you know.” He was silent a moment, then said, “Listen, I’ve done a lot of hunting; I go out every year, so I’m not new to the woods. I know how to spot game; I know what it looks like. Anyway I was standing by the rig, pulling in cable, when I heard a noise and I froze. You know, when you’re used to hunting you do that ’cause it might be game.” His expression grew troubled, and he looked upward, as if trying to find the exact words he needed. “I looked up the mountain some hundred yards or so,” he continued, “and I saw something up there, something moving, but it wasn’t a deer or an elk—you know, I expected I’d see a brown or black or tan color—and it wasn’t a bear or a moose. But it was big, whatever it was. I mean—” He sighed heavily. “It’s hard to describe it.” He turned to his wife. “Jessie, you got your little mirror around, the one you use in the bathroom?”

Tracy and Steve looked at each other, puzzled.

While Jessie went inside, Clayton rubbed his chin, thinking. Finally he said, “It was kind of like looking at a mirage or something. It didn’t seem real, you know?”

Steve nodded. He knew.

“You see it, but then you wonder if you’re really seeing it.”

“You say it was big,” Steve said. “How big?”

He thought it over. “Well, what I saw was at least thirty feet long, maybe longer. I mean, I was trying to see where the ends of it were, and it never seemed to quit.”

Jessie brought the mirror, just a small rectangle.

“Okay, look at this.”

Clayton put the edge of the mirror against the side of the house and tilted it back and forth. “You see here, how if you put the mirror at the right angle, it kind of looks like the siding on the house just goes right on through, like the mirror isn’t there? Then you move the mirror just a little and then you know it’s a reflection ’cause the siding on the house bends, it breaks in the middle.”

Steve recognized the effect and tried not to show the chill it gave him. He’d seen it himself, across the river from Old Town, and maybe on the other side of Lake Pauline. Gentry’s description was quite accurate.

Gentry continued, “Pretend the thing was like a mirror. You couldn’t really see it—it was more like you were seeing where it was, like you were seeing the reflection of other stuff on it.”

Only a few days earlier, Steve and Tracy would have scoffed. Now they were spellbound—especially Steve.

“How long did this go on?” Steve asked.

“Not long. Maybe ten seconds or so. I was thinking of getting my gun out of the truck, but the thing was gone before I could move.”

Steve nodded. Gentry’s experience nearly matched his own.

“It didn’t scare me too much,” Clayton continued. “I guess it was so weird I didn’t know what to think.” He smiled grimly. “If I’d known what it was, maybe I would’ve been a little more nervous about it.” He laughed. “The scarier part was when I stopped in Hyde River for a beer and told somebody about it. Now that’s when things got scary!”

“You said the wrong thing,” Tracy volunteered.

He nodded emphatically. “That was quite an experience, being surrounded by all those tough miners and being told, number one, I didn’t really see anything, and number two, I’d better not talk about it, and number three, they didn’t want me around there anymore. Like I said, some people can really be crazy around here.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Two summers ago.”

Steve prompted, “But there was one other time you saw it?”

“Yeah. I was doing some dozer work just a little south of Hyde River, and believe it or not I saw it flying. It was still kind of like that mirror thing I showed you, but—” He wiggled his hands, trying to come up with a description. “—it’s kind of like the light was hitting it wrong ’cause I could see the outline pretty good.”

“What time of day was that?”

“Right about sunset. I was getting ready to quit for the day.”

So it’s not strictly nocturnal, Steve thought. Then he asked, “What were the sky conditions?”

He thought for a moment, then said, “High clouds. They were turning pink from the sunset and, yeah, when I saw it, it was passing in front of a pink cloud, but it was still blue like the sky. That’s how I saw it.”

“What did it look like?” Steve was finding it hard to contain his excitement. Finally they were getting somewhere!

“At first I thought it was the biggest goose I’d ever seen,” Clayton said. “Well here, you want me to try and draw it for you? I’m no artist, but it’s easier than trying to describe the thing.” Steve handed Clayton his pen and writing pad. Clayton drew it as he described it. “It had a long, slender neck, slender body, big wings, kind of like a heron—wide wingspan.” He looked up from his drawing. “I thought at first maybe it was one of those home-built airplanes that look kind of funny, like they’re built backward? But it was flying like a bird, you know, the wings were moving like an eagle does, but in slow motion.” He moved his arms slowly up and down to recreate the effect, the pen in one hand, the writing pad in the other. Then he went back to the drawing. “Oh, and it had a long tail too, as long as the neck.” He finished the drawing and handed it to Steve. “You know how those flying dinosaurs looked? It looked kind of like that.”

Clayton had drawn what looked like a long-necked lizard with wings.

“Like a reptile, then?”

“Right,” Clayton said. He turned and pointed north, toward Saddlehorse Mountain. It came out from behind Saddlehorse and then moved south across the valley and then went down behind those hills over there to the east. I watched it the whole time.”

Steve and Tracy peered toward the mountains as if the thing might appear again. Right now, the sky looked slightly cloudy and quite uneventful.

“When was this?” Steve asked.

“Just a couple months ago.” Then he gave Steve a direct look. “And you’re the first person I’ve told other than Jessie.”

Tracy asked Jessie, “Have you ever seen it?”

Jessie only gave a little shiver. “No, and I don’t want to. It scares me just hearing about it.”