Junior Damo opened the door of his trailer. He squinted out at Duncan and Renny. It was nearly noon, but he looked like he’d just woken up. “What do you two want?”
“We’d like to talk to you,” Duncan said, and made the deferential hand sign acknowledging Junior’s position.
“We can come back,” Renny said quickly. She was nervous, and tightly gripped Duncan’s other hand. If Duncan hadn’t been so nervous himself, he would’ve been astounded that anything could rattle her like this.
A little boy of around two, wearing a winter coat and a diaper with no pants or shoes, tried to push past Junior and go outside. He nudged the boy back with his leg and said with surprising gentleness, “You just stay inside, Trey.” Then, loud and harsh, he said, “Loretta! Put some goddamn clothes on this kid!”
“We’ll come back,” Duncan said.
“No, fuck it, y’all come on in,” Junior said, and stepped aside. They entered.
The trailer was too small for a family of three, with baby items like a high chair, playpen, and various toys jammed into every available space. It smelled of stale garbage and cigarettes. By the time the door closed, the baby Trey was gone, and Junior indicated two empty chairs at the tiny table.
Duncan held one chair for Renny, then sat. “We’d like your blessing on our marriage,” Duncan said.
Junior looked at him dubiously. “That a fact. You’re Adam Procure’s sister, ain’t you?”
“Yes, sir. Renata.”
“And you want to marry him?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“You knocked up?”
Renny turned red. “Yes, sir, I am.”
Junior laughed, a mean little chuckle that would have done his predecessor Rockhouse proud. “Well, ain’t that something? You didn’t waste no time, did you, son?”
“It ain’t like that,” Duncan mumbled, but couldn’t look at Junior.
“No, I’m sure it ain’t. But you both want it, right?”
“Yes, sir,” they said deferentially, a beat apart.
“Well, then, go for it. No skin off me either way.”
Duncan and Renny looked at each other, then stood. “Thank you,” Renny said, and shook Junior’s hand.
“Tell you what,” Junior said. “Renata Procure, you wait outside. I want a word in private with loverboy here.”
She left, and when the door was shut behind her, Junior slapped Duncan on the back and said, “Ain’t that a kick in the head?”
“I don’t know what you mean … sir,” Duncan said.
“Oh, come on. Her brother was shim-shallying around with your girl, then met with that little ‘accident.’ Now you done planted yourself in the belly of his sister. Boy, when you get back at somebody, you don’t fuck around.” He snorted. “Or I reckon you do fuck around.”
“That ain’t what happened. I didn’t do anything to Adam.”
“Course not. That pig ate him, I heard all about it. But somebody must’ve called ‘sooey,’ right?” He winked.
“Look, please, believe me. I didn’t do anything to Adam.”
“That ain’t what you said that night at the moonshine cave.”
“I was … My feelings were hurt.”
“Aw,” Junior said mockingly. “I bet I can get Trey to loan you his pacifier, if you want.”
Duncan clenched his fists. “And I was drunk.”
“Right. Well, you’re a grown-up, just like she is. Y’all got a song yet?”
“‘Could I Have This Dance.’”
Junior burst out laughing. “What, that fucking old Anne Murray song?”
“Yeah.” Duncan was growing tired of Junior’s snideness. “What’s wrong with it?”
Junior threw up his hands. “Hey, whatever floats your boat. Ain’t a jury in the world would convict you anyway. So go marry that girl, raise that baby, and”—his voice dropped—“pray to God she don’t put on fifty pounds and the worst attitude this side of a damn bull with his nuts caught in a barbed-wire fence.”
“I heard that, you bastard!” Loretta yelled from somewhere down the short hallway.
“You got clothes on that baby yet?” he yelled back.
“Fuck you!” she screamed.
Junior shook his head. “That, my friend, is fucking marriage.”
* * *
When he rejoined Renny in his car, she asked, “So what did he say?”
“Nothing.” He turned the key and put the car in reverse.
“No, seriously, what did he want to tell you?”
As he pulled onto the blacktop, he yelled “Nothing!” It was the first time he’d ever raised his voice at her.
She reached down and slammed the gear lever into park. The vehicle jerked to a halt in the middle of the road. Then she grabbed him by the face and snarled, “Yell at me like that again, Duncan Gowen, and you won’t be fathering any more children, you understand that?”
He slapped her hand away. “You ain’t the boss of me, Renny. I don’t have to tell you every damn thing that goes on in my life.”
Renny glared at him. Then her eyes grew wet and poured swollen, sudden tears down her face. She turned away and said with a shaking voice, “Don’t you think you made me cry, Duncan. This is just pregnancy hormones fucking with me.”
He sat still, the tension in his body so strong that he was afraid any move would snap him like a rubber band. He breathed in long and slow, while Renny sniffled and quietly sobbed. She looked out the passenger window, her breath steaming the glass.
“I’m sorry I grabbed you,” she said at last, in a small voice he’d never heard before. “I have a terrible temper. I need to learn to control it before…” She patted her stomach.
“Junior was making jokes,” Duncan said. His head had begun to pound, and he had no juice left for more fighting. “Stupid jokes about me and you and … how I was marrying Adam’s sister.”
“Jokes?”
“Jokes. He thought it was funny.”
“God, he’s the right man to follow Rockhouse, all right.”
“But he did still give us permission.”
She nodded, wiped her nose with the heel of her hand and said, “Hope I didn’t fuck up your transmission.”
“Me, too,” he said honestly. Gingerly he put the car into drive and pulled back onto the road. As he listened for any change in the engine’s noise, inwardly he sighed with relief. He hadn’t lied to her: he’d picked his way through the minefield of the truth without blowing off a limb. Maybe it was possible that this would all work out.
As they drove, Renny reached over and took his hand. He could feel the warm snot on her palm.
* * *
Dolph moved even more slowly as he searched for the origin of the unmistakable smell. He tried not to visualize what he might find. The hillside was studded with large boulders, remnants of the ancient sedimentary rock that formed the mountains. Erosion from rain and snowmelts had exposed them, and now they were covered with brown, winter-dead moss, except for the tops, which were bare.
He didn’t recall ever seeing these rocks before, but he recognized that odor. Rotted meat.
It couldn’t be an animal’s carcass dead on the ground: it would be frozen, and thus wouldn’t smell. He’d come across the remains of a deer and a coyote already, and there was no odor from either.
Ahead, two car-sized boulders protruded from the ground. They leaned against each other and formed a triangular cavity between them that led back into the hillside. The snow and ground outside it was well worn and trampled flat, and even at this distance, he could tell it was from the passage of wild pigs.
He’d found a den. Was it the den?
The opening was big enough for the monster to use, and if it was in there right now, this might be the perfect chance to kill it. His heart pounded and everything grew clear and sharp as adrenaline coursed through him. His knees quit hurting, his back loosened up, and he felt as young and agile as a thirty-year-old.
He did not approach the entrance, but instead very quietly climbed the slope and crawled out to sit atop the rock, where he had a clear view straight down. There was no response from the cave; either they hadn’t smelled him, or they weren’t in there.
The rotting-flesh smell now mixed with the odor of manure. This was the source, all right. Once he was in position, his rifle ready, he took a deep breath and let out a loud, ululating hog call: “Sooooo-eeee! Soo-ee soo-ee soo-ee!” He hadn’t done that in a long time, and he was surprised his gravelly old voice would still go that high. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, too.
His cry echoed off the sides of the hollow, then faded. For a long moment nothing happened. Crows cawed in the trees and launched their black forms into the sky, but otherwise, there was no sound, or no movement.
Then, like someone had turned on a spigot, pigs poured from the cave. Their hooves rumbled against the frozen ground, and a few squealed in confusion.
Before he’d even thought about it, Dolph had the rifle at his shoulder, the bead trained on the stream of porkers. He fired as quickly as he could, and his targets squealed as they went down and their compatriots trampled them. But there was no way he could keep up, and when the last pig had disappeared, there were only six dead ones left behind. At least twenty had escaped.
And there had been no sign of the monster. It either hadn’t been there in the first place, or it was still in there. Or, in a best-case scenario, it was the source of the rotting smell. And there was only one way to find out.
He dug out his cell phone and propped it atop the rock. If anything happened to him, this way the GPS would lead Jack and the search party right to him.
He climbed down, his rifle ready, and stood to one side of the entrance. Again he cried out, “Soooo-eeeee!” but nothing else emerged, and nothing moved inside.
He took out his small halogen flashlight and shone it into the cave.
The cavity went back farther than he expected, and dropped down about six feet from the entrance. He moved into the darkness, and the intense odors made him gag. As he descended the ramplike path, he started to kick things with his boots. When he shone the light on them, he saw they were bones.
He knelt and picked one up. It was a pig’s rib.
He realized then the source of the rotting smell. Crammed into this hole, with so little to eat available outside, they’d begun cannibalizing the weak and helpless members of their own herd, including newborn piglets.
At the bottom of the slope was a chamber with a five-foot ceiling, about fifteen feet across. The remains of other hogs were here as well, some fresher than he liked to imagine. But there was no sign of the monster, either in the bones or in the mess of tracks on the floor.
He went back outside, retrieved his phone, and took pictures of the remains. It was only when the flash went off for the sixth one that he spotted the skull.
The upper part sat upright, and he found the lower jaw nearby. A portion of the spine and two ribs were still attached. The bones were brown with time and exposure. He’d seen enough skeletal remains to tell from the overall bulk that this had been a man, and he knew of no other possible victim than Adam Procure.
He turned his phone over in his hand and checked for a signal. He got nothing. He immediately took more pictures of the human remains and left the cave, careful to watch for ambush as he emerged into the light. When he checked again atop the rocks, he got three bars and quickly dialed Jack.
“Hey,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady. “Anybody else turned up missing in Cloud County this winter?”
“Not that I know of,” Jack said. “Why?”
“In that case, I think the skunk’s off our hunt. I found what’s left of that Procure boy.”