Small Town Monsters. Craig Nybo
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in the air then settled back to the scrub and crab-grass, which grew wildly along the sides of the highway. Kurt shifted into overdrive and gunned the engine.
Clay sat shotgun, still holding a white handkerchief over his nose to ward off the stink that wafted from the two bulging, black plastic bags in the back of the rig.
“I appreciate your ability to delegate back there,” Clay said.
Kurt looked over at Clay and let an easy smile curl across his lips. Clay would have made a lousy cop in Los Angeles, but he had a certain down-home charm that connected well with the locals of DePalma Beach.
“Don’t mention it, kid.” Clay hated being called kid and Kurt knew it.
“So what is el chupacabra anyways?” Clay asked.
“Some of the more superstitious Mexican migrants used to talk about them. The word means goat sucker. I guess they’re small creatures with feisty attitudes and sharp teeth. They suck blood from livestock.”
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“Are they real?” Clay asked.
“I don’t know; do you believe in Bigfoot?”
“Shut up,” Clay said. “Whatever happened back there is a little weird, don’t you think?”
“I’ve seen weirder,” Kurt said and the smile faded from his face.
“Did you see the tracks around those five maimed sheep?”
“They looked like wolf tracks to me.”
“They were bigger than any wolf tracks I have ever seen.”
“We’ll let the university look into it.” Kurt glanced over at Clay. His deputy looked as if he had heard a scary campfire story.
“Relax, will you?” Kurt said. “If there is one thing I have learned as a cop, it’s that everything has a perfectly rational explanation—no matter how strange it seems on the surface.”
Clay smiled, but he appeared unconvinced.
“I was wondering if I could ask you one more favor for the day,” Kurt said.
“Oh, no.”
“Could you please take these two animals down to Montana State? I don’t like the smell of them.”
“There’s that power of delegation again,” Clay said.
“Get used to it.”
“I am used to it.”
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Chapter 5
Twilight brought with it a snappish smell from the needles of the blue spruces and pines that were scattered over most of DePalma Beach’s outskirts like sentries stationed on twenty-four hour alert over the town and its residents. The wasp-buzzing neon signs advertising different brands of beer hummed to life in the bay windows of Pearlman’s Tavern as the first patrons of the night came down from the lumber yards and out of the mines for a pint on their way home to their families and televisions.
One after the other, the lights along residential streets—dressed on both sides with single-storied ramblers—flickered on for another night filled with family dinners around the table, perhaps a few verses from the Good Book, perhaps a few hours of slavery to the television.
Kurt pulled his muddy Blazer into the carport of his two-thousand square foot red-brick rambler. He got out of his Blazer and noticed Hugh Fostett sitting in his usual place on his porch across the street. Hugh was already in mid-wave and smile when Kurt caught his eye. Kurt returned the wave.
“Why don’t you come over for a beer?” Hugh shouted across the road.
“Give me a minute,” Kurt said with a smile and went into
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his house to change out of his uniform and lock his gun away in the steel safe he kept in his bedroom closet.
•••
Ten minutes later, Kurt walked across Hugh’s lawn toward the porch.
“Glad to see someone has his finger on the pulse of this seminal community of ours,” Hugh said as Kurt sat next to the old man on a white-painted, hard wood bench. “May I entice you to a bottle of the mountain’s finest?” Hugh said and offered a cool bottle of Coors.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Kurt took the bottle.
Kurt saw Hugh as a man who had lived life to maximum capacity. Hugh’s stories never ceased, and they never failed to engage Kurt as a rapt listener. Hugh had worked as a lumberjack by trade but spent many passionate hours reading and traveling. He had seen the world, drank from its orchards, and sampled the scents and colors of every continent. He had even fought the North Koreans and the PRC along the 38th parallel. It was hard to imagine that such an exorbitant amount of life experience could exist in Hugh’s failing frame. He was now in his late golden years with a touch of shaky palsy and even more rheumatism. But Hugh never complained.
“So what problems have the diabolical minds of DePalma Beach dreamed up for you today?” Hugh said. The old man’s voice boomed, reminding Kurt of a sea-captain barking out orders.
Kurt sipped his beer. “I paid a visit to Buren People’s ranch today.”
Hugh chuckled, deep and rustic. “Buren, Buren, Buren. You know, he wasn’t always a half-crazed conspiracy theorist. I taught him to fly-fish when he was in his early teens. He was quite good at it if I recall correctly. What did the old boy have to say?”
“He had twenty-two head of sheep on his spread mangled by a pack of wolves last night.”
“Oh?”
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“I’ve been called out on wolf attacks before. In the winter they come down from the mountains and occasionally hit the higher herds, but they never pack in groups of more than six or eight. This looked like the work of maybe twenty.”
“I’m afraid to ask, but what was Buren’s take on the whole affair?” Hugh said, clamping his right hand down on the bench’s arm-rail to stop the shaking in his hand.
“He kept flapping about el chupacabra.”
Hugh laughed a gale of blasting chucks. “El chupacabra, in these parts? Never.”
Kurt shook his head and took another sip of his beer.
“I suppose the pack was led by Sasquatch himself,” Hugh said.
“Funny thing is, there were five animals mangled in a much more brutal manner than the rest.”
“Curious.” Hugh stretched his back. It popped twice like twin knots exploding in a fire.
“They were torn to shreds. Whatever got those five seemed like it was bigger than the other predators.”
“I have to admit: sounds like el chupacapra,” Hugh said.
Kurt smiled and looked over at the old man but didn’t see any sign of sarcasm. Then Hugh’s face broke into a youthful grin and he chuckled afresh.
“This town isn’t without its monsters. Although I tend to believe in them figuratively. But there are some, like Buren that put a lot of stock in the legends: el chupacabra, aliens,” Hugh said. Hugh fixed Kurt with a grave expression. “Even werewolves.”
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