LATE OCTOBER AND A BIG STORM WAS BLOWING. FIELDING had a fire going in the stove and was drinking rye out of a glass that once held jelly. A detail that Sara would have admonished him for. He held up the jar. The pebbled image of the fire through the glass rippled. He thought about getting up to pour the rye into a better glass but then resigned himself to stay put.
The wind shuttered against the house. The heeler was curled near the stove and he rose his head at the sound. Then he stood and circled around three or four times and then lay back down and fell asleep. The fire behind the stove glass tumbled oddly as the wind fought the draft in the flue.
Fielding went to the window and looked at the big fir trees swaying up there in the sky. Cupped his hand at his face and watched for a while. He couldn’t believe they kept standing. The rain was falling sideways. It came at the windows as if from a hose.
All this bad weather made him think about the horses and he worried about them, so he finished his rye and put another chunk of cedar in the stove and went to the mudroom and snapped on the light and found his rubber boots and pulled them on and wrapped himself in his slicker and squared off his hat and looked back into the warm room. Looked at the heeler, said, Tito, don’t let that fire go out.
Outside his boots sank in the wet ground. He had to look down and hold his hat and turn sideways to the wind. The wind high in the trees sounded like a marauding beast, bellowing with an incredible kind of anger.
At the barn he went in through the man door and snapped on the light. The horses raised up. Despite what was happening outside, the barn was quiet. The rain on the roof was almost peaceful.
Boys, Fielding said. Helluva storm.
He took off his hat and slung it down by his leg and shucked off the water. Then he put it back on. He scooped a couple handfuls of oats into a tin pale and went to Snake’s stall. The Appaloosa moved forward with Fielding’s approach. Buckshot was looking on, blinking with big jealous eyes.
Don’t worry, Buck, Fielding said, plenty for yeh too.
He put the oats in the palm of his hand and offered it to the horse. His lips moved like someone slipping on ice.
Jest wanted to come check on yeh is all, he said.
He felt something at his ankle through the boot. He looked down and the barn cat had found him and was looking for attention.
Hello, cat, Fielding said.
The cat made a gentle little sound and arched its back and put its tail in the air. Fielding reached down to pet it but when he did, the thing darted off into the shadows and Fielding didn’t see it again.
Fielding gave another handful of oats to Snake and then he gave a handful to Buckshot. He stayed with them a little while longer. Petting them sometimes between the eyes.
Okay, fellers, he said. That’s all. Sleep tight.
Fielding clicked off the light and in the relative quiet he could hear the horses breathing in the darkness.
He made his way back to the house and took off his boots in the mudroom and hung his slicker on one of the hooks and hung his hat over it. The room was warm and dry and the cedarwood was popping in the stove. The dog was snoring.
He poured himself another finger’s worth of rye and went to the television and turned it on. He turned the knob until he found the news. Then he sat down in his chair and pulled the reclining lever.
The weatherman was talking about the storm. Talking about low pressure and isobars and rainfall amounts. Said, If you can avoid travel tonight I would recommend it. This one’s a doozy, folks.
Fielding said, No kiddin.
The news anchor came on with the night’s main story.
Halloween horror story, he said. The body of a young woman, identified as Amy Barnhardt, was found in the hills early this morning by a hunter and his son. The scene eerily similar to the one years ago when the remains of a young woman were discovered by local Fish and Wildlife officer, Dee Batey. Marnie has more with this bizarre story.
The screen cut to a reporter standing in the rain. Dark hair, dark eyes. She was holding an umbrella. A man beside her. Trees behind them, covered in moss.
Yes, hi, Peter, she said. She looked at the camera. I’m with Jim Delaney, the man who, with his son, came across the horrifying scene this morning while hunting up around Canyon Creek. Mr Delaney, what exactly did you see?
The man went into the morbid details. Stammering and stumbling and trying in vain to remember what was real and what was not. He had a hard time looking at the camera or at her. Visibly shaken. Almost in shock.
She signed off and Fielding watched a little longer. They showed a shot of the scene: the crude altar the woman had been laid upon, the stone cairns, the burned-down candles, the gruesome ornaments of feathers and bones hung in the trees. Fielding went to the television and turned it off. He gazed out the window into the howling darkness.
In the corner of the room was the box of old police records. He turned and eyed it with suspicion. He had sealed it with packing tape so he’d never have to open it again. But he knew. He knew every detail of every word of testimony. A lifetime’s worth. Some of the records had photographs to accompany the testimony. Just a snapshot of the body at a horrible angle. But Fielding had been there and seen it all and talked to the victims’ mothers and fathers and husbands and wives. He never spoke to the children, figured it wasn’t his place. But they still looked at him, and that was just one of the many things he was trying hard to leave behind.
He looked back at the dead screen of the television. The wind slashed at the windows. He put another log on the fire because it suddenly felt very cold, and he stood next to the stove and tried to feel the fire’s heat.