unearthly beasts. He ordered the men to fire. Every last one of the creatures fell. Not a one of them got away. My father’s face went ghastly pale when he told me of the slaughter, and what happened afterwards—how some of the men had their way with the female carcasses…”
“Frank,” Abe said.
The old man flinched as if startled from his dark reverie.
“I don’t think we want to hear all this.”
“I do,” Nora protested. “It’s fascinating.”
“I don’t mind,” Tyler said. She was trembling. She hated the story, but she had to hear the rest of it, and even resented Abe’s interruption. She took a long drink of beer. Abe gave her a quizzical look, and refilled her glass from the pitcher.
“Go on,” Nora said.
Captain Frank looked to Abe for permission.
“Doesn’t bother
“Then I’ll…the slaughter…When it was done, my father found a survivor, an infant creature beneath one of the females—its mother, no doubt. Her body had shielded it from the storm of bullets. Father took this infant into his care.
“The others, the bodies, were…” He glanced uneasily at Abe. “They provided sufficient nourishment to see the crew safely to Perth.”
“They ate them?” Nora asked.
“My father claimed they tasted rather like mutton.”
“Charming.”
“He named his creature Bobo, and though he was never fond of it he considered the filthy thing a great curiosity and kept it with him in a cage on the journey home. My mother, rest her soul, thought Bobo appalling. She begged him to get rid of it, but little Loreen found the creature delightful and spent hours behind our home, talking to it through the bars of its cage as if it were a playmate. At last, Mother prevailed upon him to dispose of it. He agreed to transport it to San Francisco, where he hoped to sell it for a good price to a circus or zoo. Alas, Loreen must have overheard the talk, for she opened the cage, the very next morning, and Bobo fell upon her. My folks heard her awful screams, but she was past helping when they reached her. The beast, small as it was, had torn her asunder, and was having…” Captain Frank glanced at Abe, and shook his head.
“My father beat it senseless with a spade. He thought he’d killed it. He put the remains in the flour bag, and dragged it up into the hills behind the Thorn house. The place was under construction, then. Lilly Thorn was just having it built. He buried the creature up there.”
“But it wasn’t dead?” Nora asked.
“Not much more than a year went by, and there were three dead in the Thorn house: Lilly’s two sons and her sister. Lilly escaped, but she was never right afterward and they carted her off to a sanitarium. The blame fell on a luckless chap name of Goucher, a handyman who’d stopped by, the day before, to chop wood. But my father’d seen the bodies. He had his suspicions, and spoke up for Goucher claiming a wild animal must’ve got into the house, but he kept shut about Bobo, not wanting to bring blame on himself. Well, the crowd wouldn’t listen. They lynched poor Goucher, strung him up from a porch beam.
“I wasn’t born till six years later, that’s 1909. I ‘spect I’m what you’d call an accident, for I believe my folks were loath to have another child after what happened to Loreen. Oh, they treated me like royalty, but there was always a gloom in their eyes. The Thorn house, all the time I was growing up, stood deserted at the end of town. Nobody’d go near the place. It was said to be haunted. Every now and then, though, we’d have someone disappear. Then, in ‘31, the Kutch family moved in.
“They came from Seattle, and scoffed at warnings about the house, but they weren’t settled in more than a couple of weeks before the husband and kids were slaughtered. Maggie was scratched up bad, but…she’ll tell you all about it if you take the tour. What she won’t tell you—what maybe she doesn’t know—is that my father, the night after the funeral, took his Winchester and went off to kill the beast.
“He was sixty-two at the time. He’d been living with the guilt for better than thirty years, and he told me that morning he couldn’t abide it any longer. It was then I heard the whole story for the first time, and how he knew it must be Bobo, still alive, behind the murders. I begged him to let me come along, but he just wouldn’t hear of it. He wanted me to stay behind, and look after Mother. It was as if he knew he would never come back, and he didn’t. He was a good shot. I ‘spect Bobo must’ve snuck up on him, caught him from the back.” Captain Frank raked the air, fingers hooked like claws, and knocked over his mug. Tyler flinched as it pounded onto the table. Beer flew out, splashing Abe, sliding in a sudsy spill across the wood. “Oh, I’m…” The old man shook his head, mumbling, and swept at the puddle with his open hand. “Oh. I’m…I shouldn’t of…oh damn.”
The barmaid rushed up with a towel. “We have a little accident here?” she asked, mopping the table.
“Nothing serious,” Abe said.
“If Frank’s being a nuisance…”
“No. It’s fine.”
“I should’ve warned you,” she said, casting a peeved glance at Captain Frank. “Going at his Bobo story, I bet. He’ll talk your ears off once he’s soaked up a few. We’ve had folks get up and walk out. Haven’t we, Captain?”
He stared down at his shirt. “The tale must be told,” he muttered.
“Gives the place a bad name.”
“Pretty interesting stuff,” Nora said.
“Just don’t believe a word of it,” the barmaid said. “Come on, Frank. Why don’t you go on back to the bar and leave these nice folks in peace.” She took his arm and helped him stand up.
“Hang on a second,” Abe said. He lifted a pitcher and filled the old man’s mug to the brim.
“Thank you, matey. Let me tell you.” He met the eyes of everyone at the table. “The hours of the beast are numbered. One night, Captain Frank shall stalk it to its lair and lay it low. The souls of the dead cry out for its blood. I am the avenger. Mark my words.”
“We’ll be pulling for you,” Jack called after him.
“Jesus,” Nora said, and rolled her eyes.
Grinning, Jack shook his head. “The old fart waits much longer, he’ll be stalking it from a wheelchair.”
“He’ll never do it,” Abe said. “A guy talks it out that way, he doesn’t act on it.”
“Did you believe it?” Tyler asked. “About the beast?”
“He didn’t
“Hey,” Nora said. “We’ve gotta tell Gorman Hardy about this guy. Maybe he’ll put us in the Acknowledgment. ‘My gratitude to Nora Branson, Tyler Moran, Jack Wyatt, and Abe Clanton, whose valuable assistance led me to the true story of Bobo the beast.’ I ask you, would that not be terrif?”
“That,” Tyler said, “would be almost
CHAPTER ELEVEN
A sharp pounding on the door startled Gorman Hardy awake. He bolted upright and scanned the dark room, wondering where he was. Then he remembered.
It must, he thought, be Brian at the door. But why the frantic knocking?
Perhaps he had lost his key.
“I’m coming,” Gorman called.
The knocking continued.
He swung his legs to the floor and squinted against the brightness as he switched on a bedside lamp.
“I’m coming,” he called again.
The knocking didn’t stop.
Something, he thought, must have gone wrong. More than a lost room key. Something bad enough to panic Brian.
He felt on the verge of panic, himself, as he stood up.
For the love of God, what had happened?
He was naked. He put on a satin robe, tied it shut, and opened the door.
Brian was not there.
