'Have we got anything to lock him up for?'
'Damned if I know. Defacing the local scenery, maybe.'
'I'll talk to him,' Gavin said. 'You can go get some lunch if you want to.'
'Thanks, but the smell of our friend here ruined my appetite. I wouldn't mind some fresh coffee, though.' He nodded at the styrofoam cup gripped by Craddock. 'That was the last of the office pot.'
'Go ahead,' Gavin told him. 'I'll give a yell if I need you.'
'I'll be at the Inn,' Nevins said with obvious relief. He shrugged into a jacket and hurried out the door before the sheriff could change his mind.
'Is it all right if I stay?' Milo asked.
'Sure. I need a second officer here for interrogation anyway.'
Abe Craddock swivelled his head toward Gavin. Fear glittered in his small, red-rimmed eyes. 'Interrogation?' he croaked.
'That means I want to ask you some questions, Abe.'
'I t-told the fat guy everything.'
'Sometimes Roy doesn't get all the details straight,' Gavin said in a soothing tone. 'You don't mind telling me again, do you?'
'I–I guess not.' Craddock carried the cup to his mouth and sipped noisily. A brown trickle ran down his unshaven chin. He wiped it away negligently with the back of a scabbed hand.
Gavin walked over and perched with one buttock on his desk. The sour smell of Abe Craddock was sharp in his nostrils.
'Okay, Abe, any time you're ready.'
'It was a bear,' Craddock said. His eyes darted nervously about the room. 'We shot a bear.'
'You said 'we'?'
'Yeah.'
'Is that you and Curly Vane?'
A spasm shook Abe Craddock, spilling most of the coffee left in the cup. 'Yeah. Me and Curly. We was out together. Hunting. It was a bear.'
'You are telling me that you and Curly Vane saw a bear?'
'Shot it. Shot at it.'
'Right up here in our own Tehachapi Mountains?'
'Yeah. Bear.' The big man in the chair seemed to try to pull his head down into his shoulders.
Ramsay took a kitchen match from his shirt pocket and stuck the end of it between his teeth. He did that sometimes when he wanted to look rustic and relaxed. He also did it to keep himself from losing his temper and yelling at a citizen.
'Abe,' he said very quietly, 'there has not been a bear reported in La Reina County or anywhere within a hundred miles of here since the 1930s.' Ramsay had no idea if his figures were correct, but they were close enough to make the point of what he thought of Abe Craddock's bear sighting.
'It was a bear,' Craddock insisted. 'A big one.'
'Where's Curly, Abe?'
The sudden question seemed to jolt the big man, as it was supposed to.
'It… it got him.'
'The bear got Curly?' Ramsay fought down his rising impatience.
'Not the bear. Worse.'
Craddock began to shake. He raised the styrofoam cup and swallowed the dregs of the coffee, gagging as he did so. Ramsay moved over and took the cup from his hand. He shook the few remaining drops of coffee into the metal trash can.
To Milo Fernandez he said, 'Get me Roy's office bottle.'
The young officer looked doubtful. 'Gee, Sheriff, I don't-'
'It's in the centre drawer of his desk. Behind the Mexican travel brochures.'
Milo sat down and pulled open the desk drawer with obvious reluctance.
'Don't worry,' Ramsay told him. 'I know it's there and Roy knows I know. I don't give a damn if he has an occasional shooter. Right now I'm appropriating the bottle for official use.'
Milo pulled out a bottle of Seagram's Seven Crown and handed it to Ramsay. The sheriff poured a generous slug into the coffee cup and gave it back to Abe Craddock.
'Here, Abe, this will do you more good than coffee. Steady you down.'
Craddock seized the cup and drank greedily, swallowing the entire contents in two gulps. He held out the cup for more.
'That's enough for now, Abe. We don't want you to get too steady. Now do you want to tell me once more about you and Curly and this… bear?'
Craddock slumped in the chair. The shaking in his hands lessened as the whiskey took hold. He spoke in a hoarse monotone. 'It looked like a bear. We thought it was a bear. No shit.'
'And you shot at it.'
'Curly did.'
'He was the only one who fired?'
'Well, I guess I did too.'
'Did you hit it? The… bear?'
Craddock's head dropped. He frowned down at his hands as though they had betrayed him. In a voice barely audible he said,'We hit it.'
'It wasn't a bear, was it, Abe.'
'No.' The words were wrenched out of him. 'It was a man.' He looked up beseechingly at Ramsay. 'It looked like a bear, though. Anybody would of thought so. All hairy the way he was, and he jumped up so fast. How was we to know?'
Ramsay drew a deep sigh and walked back over to sit on the edge of his desk again. It was Milo Fernandez who finally broke the silence.
'Is it the guy over in the hospital freezer?'
Ramsay nodded. 'I picked up the pathologist's report this morning. Three 30.06 slugs in the chest; face blown away by a shotgun blast. Nibbled on by small animals.' From the corner of his eye he saw Abe Craddock flinch. 'Name's Jones. Kind of a local character. Been living up in the woods since before I got here. Came to town once in a while to do odd jobs. Harmless. Kind of likeable, matter of fact.'
'We didn't know it was no man.' Craddock's voice took on an unpleasant whine.
Ramsay turned back and gave him a hard look. 'Tell me about Curly Vane.'
Craddock began to tremble again. 'Something got him.'
'Not another bear?'
'No.' Craddock shook his head emphatically. 'It was real. Like a wolf, kind of.'
'Come off it, Abe,' Ramsay said. 'I didn't buy your bear, and I sure as hell don't buy your wolf. What happened to Curly? Did you shoot him too?'
'No, Gavin, I swear to God!' Craddock braced his hands on the arms of the chair and strained forward. 'It was like a wolf, but it wasn't a wolf. Bigger. Bigger than a man, even. And it kind of… stood up.' His voice faded, as though he knew his words lacked conviction.
'What did you do then? Did you try to help him?'
'There wasn't nobody could help Curly when this thing hit him.'
In spite of himself, Ramsay felt a chill between his shoulder blades. 'Do you have any idea what it was, Abe?'
Craddock nodded, his eyes shifting toward the door. 'It was one of them things from up at Drago. Some of them got away, you know.'
'Give it a name, Abe.'
'All right, dammit, call me crazy if you want to. It was… a werewolf.'
For half a dozen ticks there was dead silence. Then Ramsay said, 'Keep an eye on the office, Milo. Abe and I are going for a ride.'
