part0057

The Old Dinosaur in the Sky slid behind a dense wall of trees. Jake was overcome by loneliness, the kind that sticks to your clothes and buries itself in your hair and up your nostrils, so that no matter how hard you scrub, you just can’t shake the smell. His partner’s voice brought him back to Earth.

“How much longer?”

Jake pushed all thoughts of his wife into the back corridor of his brain, behind the door labeled Memories of Sheila . But all the pushing in the world wouldn’t get that door to stay shut. Too many damn memories.

“Should be just up the road a bit, if I remember correctly,” Jake said. “Called Tomahawk Campground.”

Kyle stretched. “This place bring you back to Memory Lane too?”

The headlights splashed across the weather-beaten brown sign, its letters formed from childish looking yellow logs. Jake killed the lights. “So, partner, what are you up for first, archery or canoeing?”

It took a moment for it to register. The kid was gone. Bud stared at the bed frame, his eyes followed the sweeping curves of the rusty metal, stopped at the gap in the joints. The kid was gone. His eyes moved up the wall, flecks of pitted drywall hanging listlessly, decades-old paint holding the whole goddamn mess together. Cold air rushed through the open transom, slapped him in the face.

His first thought was to get Chance and The Pig with Orange Hair. Bad idea. No telling how Chance would react. Hell, the guy was crazy enough to kill Bud, the pig, and the kid. And then sleep like a baby. Bud snatched up a coat, flashlight, and his hunting knife and slipped out into the night.

Tomahawk Campground was everything a good old-fashioned campground should be. The upper level was ideal for the wealthier, less adventurous camper. A neat row of tiny log cabins stood at attention, silently awaiting the return of summer, when the John Q. Campers with their miserable, suntanned wives and pale, chubby kids would awaken them from their slumber. Down the hill from the cabins was the place to be for the no-frills, outdoorsy types, the Jake Hawksworths of the world. Squared off plots equipped with fire pits, electrical outlets, and nothing else except room for a tent that, if strategically placed, might avoid the outcropping of tree roots and jutting rocks. All the comforts of home.

Jake and his partner moved slowly past the small cabins, watched by slick-black windowpanes that hid whatever horrors lurked on the other side. Jake moved to a cabin labeled 5 and pulled on the doorknob. Locked. He could try every one, but he was sure he’d find them all as sealed up as Cabin 5. If he were going to hole up here with a kidnapped kid, he wouldn’t lock him up in one of these cold, cramped cabins. But where? The boathouse? No. Somewhere more comfortable. Like the Tomahawk Lodge.

Jake signaled his partner. They sidestepped it down a steep hill, using the moon’s eyes to avoid the tangle of roots and boulders. No wonder the rich folk stayed on the upper level. The lake came into view, white and yellow flecks dotting its smooth surface. The A-line roof of the Tomahawk Lodge carved a pie-slice silhouette into the watery backdrop.

He stood at the face of the lodge, gazed up at the dramatically pitched roof. As a child, he had marveled at its height, like one of Egypt’s ancient pyramids. It looked smaller now, old and tattered, like most of his childhood memories. He moved to the massive wood door, flanked on either side by large, cartoonish tomahawks. He turned the ridiculously oversized knob. Like Cabin 5, locked. “Let’s see if there’s a back way in,” he whispered to Kyle, now looking totally alert and ready for action.

The moonlight didn’t follow them as they went around back. There was a thud, followed by his partner cursing. Jake clicked on a small flashlight. “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to use this,” he whispered, “but if I don’t, you may end up in the ER.”

“Cute, Jake,” Kyle said. “This is crazy. There’s nobody here. Are you satisfied?”

“Not yet.” Jake pointed at a narrow door. “We’re here. Might as well check it out.”

Kyle groaned. “Should I bother making plans for Christmas, or do you have a master plan to ruin that holiday too?”

“That’s what I love about you, partner. Never lose that sense of hu–”

Something hard pressed into the small of Jake’s back. Something that felt an awful lot like the tip of a rifle.

Bud waved the flashlight across the blanketed ground, scanned for footprints. The kid couldn’t have gotten too far without shoes. For all Bud cared, the little shit could freeze to death. He stopped, listened to the wind. Footsteps. His ears were playing tricks on him, the way they used to when he was a boy.

He’d lie in bed at night and, with one ear pressed into his pillow, listen to the crunching of footsteps outside his window. Many restful nights were lost to the phantom that roamed his backyard. Bud (Gerry back then) even gave his stalker a name. The Cruncher.

The Cruncher haunted his childhood years, and though Gerry waited every night for The Cruncher to crash through his window and drag him off into the night, it never happened. Many years later, an adult Gerard (now known as Bud, due to his affection for the drink of the same name) heard The Cruncher again. Only now he knew there was no man outside his window. The sound he heard was his own pulse, magnified in his pillow. All those sleepless nights. So goddamn many of them.

The flashlight sliced back and forth through the darkness. To the left. To the right. Wait! Back to the left. Bingo! In the snow, a small freshly stamped footprint.

“I said don’t move.” The voice was gravelly, peppered with traces of nicotine and booze. Hints of an accent that Jake couldn’t quite place.

The gun pressed deeper into Jake’s spine. One slip of the finger and Jake would be sipping his dinner from a straw for the rest of his days. “Take it easy,” he said, noting the tremor in his voice. “We’re–”

“Tryin’ to rob me blind, ain’t ya?” The gun burrowed further into Jake’s back with every word. “I ain’t done nuthin’ to nobody. I mind me own beeswax, don’t I?”

Jake relaxed (as relaxed as one can be with a shotgun sticking into his back) as he realized this was no kidnapper, no murderer. Probably a vagrant seeking shelter for the winter. “I’m sure you do mind your business, sir,” Jake began, “and I promise you we meant no disrespect. We’re police officers. So, if you would be so kind as to remove the gun from my back, I’d be much obliged.”

The gun held firm, then slowly disconnected itself from Jake. “If you’s really the police, then where’s you badges?” The man stammered on the last word.

Kyle flashed his light on the man. The man recoiled, threw an arm across his eyes. Jake drew his gun. “FREEZE!” The man dropped the rifle and raised his arms high.

“I was just blockin’ me eyes, Officer,” he said, fear etched into the haggard face. He was a sorry old thing, with a beard ZZ Top would be proud of. Layers of tattered clothes covered a body Jake suspected was not unlike the skeleton that hung in Chief Medical Examiner “Chilly” Lin’s House of Horrors.

Kyle moved in beside Jake, gun drawn. “Get down on your knees and lock your hands behind your back,” Jake ordered. The man stood there with his hands high over his head. “I said on your knees.” This time Jake’s tone must have meant business. The man lowered himself, his knees disappearing into the cold white stuff.

“I ain’t no criminal,” the man spit out. “I is the caretaker.”

“You’re the–this place has a caretaker?”

The man nodded and then shivered. “Every year get lots of damage from kids. You know, partyin’ and, you know, doin’ the sex thing.” The man giggled like a ten-year-old sneaking a peek at a girlie magazine.

Jake grabbed the man’s arm, thickly padded with layers of rags, and hauled him to his feet. He pointed to the Tomahawk Lodge. “You live in there?”

“Uh-huh. I make sure there ain’t no trouble, they give me place to live. Good deal, no?” He smiled. His heavily stained teeth went in every direction.

“Yeah, good deal. What’s your name?”

“Eddie. Eddie Gomes. But yous can call me Eddie. Sorry about the gun, Officer.”

“Hey, just doing your job, right?” Jake said.

“Yeah,” Kyle added, “we could have been kids doing the sex thing.” He chuckled and Jake hated him for a moment.

Jake picked up Eddie’s rifle. It was a plastic faux wood thing like the one he owned when he was eight. A cap gun. He almost laughed but, unlike his partner, he had respect for the less fortunate. He handed the gun to the old man and said, “Better keep this handy in case those kids come around.” Eddie flashed his not-so-pearly whites. “Mr. Gomes, I do have a question for you. Have you seen any unusual activity in the area lately?”

“Uh-uh. Just me. And Killer.”

“Killer?” Kyle said in his I-have-no-patience-for-lowlifes-like-you tone.

“My hamster. You like to see?”

“Not right now, Mr. Gomes,” Jake said politely. “So you haven’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary?”

Eddie Gomes shook his unkempt head. His ZZ Top beard sported tiny icicles. “No. All quiet until yous gentlemen come along.”

A shiver up his spine made Jake aware of how cold he was. He pulled out a card, placed it in Eddie Gomes’s rag-wrapped hand. “This is my name and number. You do have a phone, is that right?”

“Uh-huh. Ya wanna see?”

“No, I believe you,” Jake said.

For such a good kid, Kyle could be an insensitive bastard. “Anyway, if you see anything, anything at all, you be sure to call me right away,” Jake said.

Eddie smiled his Julia Roberts smile again. “The party kids with the radio and the sex, yeah?”

They hurried back to the car. “What’d you make fun of the guy for?” Jake said, not bothering to mask the disgust in his voice. “Can’t you see he has problems?”

Kyle pulled his collar around his perfect face. “I just hate people who live off the system is all,” he said matter-of-factly.

“You think Eddie Gomes is living off the system, pal?” He turned and looked back at the raggedy old man, holding his cap gun in one hand, waving furiously with the other. “The guy lives in a rundown camp with a hamster named Killer, probably the only friend he has. Lucky to know his own name, even luckier to know how to spell it. I wouldn’t say he’s living large.”

Kyle shrugged. “I’m just saying. He should get a real job. And some deodorant while he’s at it.” He chuckled and Jake saw a side of his partner that he always suspected might be there, rearing its ugly head from behind the impossibly handsome one he showed off to the world.

They reached the car. As his partner slid in beside him, Jake said, “You know, I think I’ll go solo on the next holiday jaunt, partner.”