don’t blame it on the kids. Look to the adults.
When children grow up with violence, they learn that violence is how they solve problems. Dad worships the almighty gun, goes out and blasts a deer to smithereens for sport. Junior gets the message: Killing is fun.”
“That’s too pat an explanation.”
“Our society glorifies violence! And then we put guns in the hands of children.
Ask any sociologist.”
“I don’t think the sociologists can explain this.”
“Okay. What’s your explanation, Chief Kelly?”
“Rainfall.”
There was a long silence. “Excuse me?”
“In 1946, and again this year, we’ve had identical weather patterns. It started off in April, with heavy rains. The local bridge was washed out, livestock were drowned-”
Vince rolled his eyes heavenward. “A flood of Biblical proportions?”
“Look, I’m not a religious man-”
“I’m not a believer, either, Chief Kelly. I’m a scientist.”
“Then you’re always looking for patterns in nature, right? Correlations. Well, here’s the pattern I’m seeing, both this year and in 1946. In April and May, our town has record rainfall. The Locust River floods, and there’s major damage to homes along the riverbank. Then the rains stop, and in July and August, there’s no rain at all. In fact, it’s unusually hot, with temperatures high enough to make it into the record books, both those years.” He took a breath, slowly released it. “Finally, in November,” he said, “it starts to happen.”
“What does?”
“The killing.”
Vince said nothing, his expression shuttered.
“I know it sounds crazy,” said Lincoln.
“You have no idea how crazy it sounds.”
“But the correlation’s there. Dr. Elliot thinks it could be a natural phenomenon. A new bacteria or algae in the lake, causing personality changes. I read about a similar thing happening, in rivers down south. A microorganism’s killing fish by the millions. It makes a toxin that affects humans as well. It damages their concentration, sometimes causes rage attacks.”
“You must mean the dinoflagellate, Pfiesteria.”
“Yes. It could parallel what’s happening here. That’s why I want to know about the Gows. Specifically, whether there were heavy rains the year they died.
Government flood data doesn’t go back that fat I need historical news accounts.”
Vince finally understood. “You want to see my newspaper clippings.”
“It might have the information I’m looking for.”
“A flood.” Vince sat back, frowning, as though a memory had just floated to the surface. “This is weird. I do seem to recall something about a flood He swiveled around to the filing cabinet, yanked open the drawer, and shuffled through folders. “Where did I see that? Where, where…“ He pulled out a file labeled:
“November, 1887, Two Hills Herald.” It contained a stack of photocopied news articles.
“The rain would have happened in the springtime,” said Lincoln. “You wouldn’t see it in the November clippings-”
“No, this had something to do with the Gow case. I remember jotting it down.” He flipped through the photocopies, then paused, staring at a wrinkled page. “Okay, here’s the article, dated November twenty-third. Headline: SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD
SLAUGHTERS OWN FAMILY. FIVE DEAD. Goes on to mention the victims, Mr. and Mrs.
Theodore Gow, their children, Jennie and Joseph, and Mrs. Gow’s mother, Althea Frick.” He set the page aside. “I remember now. It was in the obituaries.”
“What was?”
Vince flipped to another photocopied page. “The one for Mrs. Gow’s mother.
‘Althea Frick, age sixty-two, slain early last week, was buried November thirtieth at a combined graveside service for the Theodore Gow family. Born in Two Hills, she was a daughter of Petras and Maria Gosse, and was a devoted wife and mother of two. She was married for forty-one years to Donat Frick, who drowned this past spring…“ Vince’s voice suddenly faded, and he looked up with startled eyes at Lincoln. “… in the Locust River flood.”
They stared at each other, both of them stunned by this confirmation. At Vince’s feet, a space heater hummed on, its element glowing bright orange. But nothing could penetrate the chill Lincoln felt at that moment. He wondered if he would ever feel warm again.
“A few weeks ago,” said Lincoln, “you mentioned the Penobscot Indians. You said they refused to settle anywhere near Locust Lake.”
“Yes. It was taboo, as was the lower half of Beech Hill, where the Meegawki Stream runs. They considered it an unhealthy place.”
“Do you know why it was considered unhealthy?”
“No.”
Lincoln thought it over for a moment. “The name Meegawki-I assume that’s from a Penobscot word?”
“Yes. It’s a bastardization of Sankade’lak Migah’ke, their name for the area.
Sankade’lak, loosely translated, is their word for stream.”
“And what does the other word mean?”
“Let me look it up again.” Vince swiveled around and took down from the shelf a battered copy of The Penobscot Language. Quickly he flipped to the appropriate page. “Okay. I’m right about Sankade’lak. It’s the Penobscot word for ‘river’ or ‘stream.”
“And the other?”
“Migah’ke means ‘to fight’ or… “Vince paused. He looked up at Lincoln. “To slaughter.”
They stared at each other.
“That would explain the taboo,” said Lincoln softly.
Vince swallowed. “Yes. It’s the Stream of Slaughter.”
17
'Fat ass,” whispered J.D. Reid from the trombone section. “Barry's got a fat ass!”
Noah glanced up from his music and sneaked a peek at his stand partner, Barry Knowlton. The poor shrimp was tightly gripping his saxophone, trying hard to concentrate on staying with the beat, but his face had turned red, and he was sweating again, which was what Barry did whenever he got stressed. Barry Knowlton sweated in gym. He sweated while conjugating verbs in French class. He sweated whenever a girl just spoke to him. First he’d blush, then little droplets would bead up on his forehead and temples, and before you knew it, Barry would be dripping like an ice cream cone in a heat wave.
“Man, that ass is so fat, you could launch it into space and we’d have ourselves another moon.”
A drop of sweat slid down Barry’s face and plopped onto his sax. He was gripping the instrument so hard his fingers looked like bare bone.
Noah turned and said, “Lay off him, J.D.”
“Ooh. Now skinny ass is jealous of all the attention. I got some view back here.
Fat ass and skinny ass, side by side.”
“I said, lay off!”
The rest of the band had suddenly stopped playing, and Noah’s lay off seemed to shout out across the abrupt silence.
“Noah, what is going on back there?”
Noah turned to see Mr. Sanborn frowning at him. Mr. Sanborn was a cool guy, one of Noah’s favorite teachers, in fact, but the man was blind when it came to seeing what was happening in his own classroom.
