THEO
PATIENCE WASN’T MY FORTE. I secured my .38 in my belt and headed out to look for signs of either Toreck or anything out of place. Signs of life where there shouldn’t be. This Genghis Hansel was, as Bud said, a real problem. I felt him creep along my spine as if he were a shadow close behind me, whispering, waiting.
***
White sand dollars, many in pieces, were scattered along the shore like the trail of a broken plate. Sea lions bellowed in the distance. The wind carried a seaweed-smelling mist that settled on my skin. From the narrow end of the beach I looked straight up Beulah Road to the north side of Neahkahnie Mountain, where the old Sealy homestead was now boarded up. The mountain was awash with an oppressive, thick fog. The tops of pines reached through the dense vapors. Eagles and owls perched on their lookouts. That side of the mountain was where wolves roamed, roads were unpaved, yards were unmowed, and hundred-year-old log cabins weren’t boarded up, but were still lived in. Spirals of grey smoke rose up through the tree tops from the fireplaces of the few deeply imbedded cabins. The smell of smoke hung heavy in the air.
Was Toreck in his father’s tumbledown shanty? I studied the mountain but couldn’t see the house through the trees and barely recalled where the overgrown gravel road was that snaked up that side of the mountain. Nobody had been in it since his old man died.
Mist turned to summer rain. A thin red line etched the bottom of the heavy sky. I headed home to get the car. When my feet hit the tar, I saw that same black truck slowly emerge from the fog two blocks away and approach me. As it got closer the driver rolled the window halfway and tossed out a lit cigarette. He was almost close enough to hit me. On his forearm was a tattoo of a snake coiled around a naked woman. His eyes bore into me. His face, clinched like a fist, was full of hatred. I nodded. No response. But I got a good look: white, broad shoulders, head shaved, tan skin, hollow eyes, deep scratch marks on his cheek. What would leave those marks?
The truck moved past me in slow motion. I nodded again. He glared. His eyes were red; the icy crimson of a man who never slept. A wave of heat flushed from my neck to my face, head, and ears. Then he sped up and disappeared around Fourth Street, only to quickly reappear on the corner of Third. I rushed to Pearl’s gate. She came out on her porch in her bathrobe. He turned left onto Laneda, red taillights glowing. He tapped his brakes in front of Imogene’s.
Pearl quickly descended her stairs. “Same man.” She nodded toward the truck now three blocks away, passing Mrs. B’s cabin. His lights flashed again. Was this a threat? “Black spider,” she said.
“Why’d Bud go early?” I asked, watching as the man put his arm out the window in one sharp motion—a one-fingered salute—then sped up. His red lights vanished at the edge of town.
“That spider not nice,” Pearl said.
On my porch was a handwritten note on stationary from the Ester Lee Motel in Lincoln City. The handwriting was small, tight, and constricted, as if it had been typed.
Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray: and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. Amen. Is that you, Padre? Prince of a heavenly Host? Saint Michael? Is that you? This is going to be fun.