Dominant Species Volume One -- Natural Selection (Dominant Species Series) (19 page)

That’s
what he called himself sometimes.

He’d
called himself that since he was seven or eight years old, every time someone
reminded him of what a dummy he was. His daddy had been fond of calling him not
just a dummy but a
damn dummy.
Tom would just smile at him when he called him that and wonder why his daddy
wasn’t nicer to him like he said he ought to be to other people. He’d gone to
bed one night after being called a
damn
dummy
a lot by his daddy and thought the word up then. He’d giggled himself
silly over it at the time because it sounded so funny to say.

He’d
laughed so much over the funny word that he cried.

The word
stuck in his mind like a tough weed growing up through concrete.

Galumpnuckler,
that’s what I am. I’m a damned galumpnuckler.

He felt
his face start to twist up into a real hard laugh. He had to hold it in because
he didn’t want Gilbert to know he was laughing. He had to bite his thumb, he
wanted to laugh out loud so bad.

The thoughts about Mary
and his daddy and Mercy left him finally and he got up and went out into the
tube. He wasn’t very tired or hungry, but he didn’t want to stay in the hole
with Gilbert any more. He strolled down in the direction of the grocery, and
just as he passed the short tube to the dump, the seam at the end opened. It
was his lucky day. He could take a look at all the new stuff first and take his
pick of the best of it.

He poked his head into the
opening and looked around before going in, just in case there was a big bastard
in it. It didn’t pay to get around one of them for any reason at any time. The
coast was clear and he walked in, looking at all the old stuff nobody wanted.
At first he didn’t think there was any new stuff at all. But then he saw some
blankets and a table lamp that wasn’t there before. He smiled at the table
lamp.

Big damn
dummies,
he thought.
What the hell can I do
with a table lamp?

He picked up one of the
better looking blankets. It was one of those ones that had all the sewing in
it. He couldn’t remember what they were called.
Apgans,
he thought.
That’s it, it’s a
apgan.

When he picked up the
quilt, the cell phone rolled out of it and banged against his foot.

Grinning broadly at his
good fortune, he picked up the phone and with his eyes darting left and right
for possible spies, stuffed it into the deep front pocket of his pants.

Got me a
damn cellulerc phone,
he thought.
This galumpnucklers got a cellulerc phone. Better’n a damn ‘ol
watch any day.

6

It had been George’s idea to go, so he’d offered to drive. Linda
offered no objections. They talked about many things on the way up to
Kernville; and despite her initial fears, Linda found George Greenbaum a
likable, amusing and intelligent man.

She’d
talked to Sheriff Bob Lynch, calling him at home late Wednesday night and asked
him for the samples of blood and tissue as George had suggested. Bob had
resisted at first, but Linda knew Bob’s weak spot and punched it lightly with a
smile, promising him a barbecued steak if he’d hand them over. The sheriff said
she could “borrow” the evidence, but Linda had to promise that any tests
Greenbaum would order on them would not completely consume or destroy them, and
she had to return what was left. Bob warned Linda that he hoped to God he
wouldn’t have to come looking for the samples later. Linda assured him it would
be okay. She mentally crossed her fingers and hoped Greenbaum wouldn’t lose the
samples, either. Bob Lynch had a bit of the proverbial country sheriff’s nasty
streak.

The last
condition was that Greenbaum would provide documentation to the Sheriff’s
department on the results of the tests. Linda and Greenbaum consulted about it
briefly, and Greenbaum agreed. In fact, Greenbaum wanted as clean and solid an
audit trail on the samples as possible. That made the deal balance just right.

Bob Lynch
didn’t say anything to Linda, but having the analytical resources of USC aimed
at that sandy goop and little skin flap suddenly seemed like a good idea to
him, especially in light of last night’s events. He’d never seen anything that
brutal in thirty-five years of law enforcement. He was sure that the
dismembered limbs they’d found out at the Gandonian’s were related to Phil’s
disappearance. One of the many things he didn’t know was whether or not he
wanted to go where all this was taking him.

Linda had
terminated their conversation with a renewed promise to the sheriff of a
barbecued steak, and Bob Lynch had promised to eat it.

“You
know,” Greenbaum was saying, “Our little bridge group hears a lot of stories
about abductions and UFO sightings and any number of other strange crap and
bullshit. Yours is the first in a long time that held water under scrutiny. If
you’d been a bullshitter, we’d have seen it in about a minute.”

Linda
took that as a compliment. “Thank you,” she said. “I just wanted to get it off
my chest.”

“It took
a lot of courage to tell it.”

Linda noticed George’s
glance at her legs. It was a fairly discreet glance. She’d been checked out
with less tact plenty of times. It flattered her just a tad. No more. “I
suppose, but it’s not like I had a choice,” she replied.

*
 
*
 
*

Bob Lynch
wasn’t there when they arrived. The samples had been transferred to lab dishes
with the lids taped down. A little white label stuck to the top of each noted
the time, location and the investigating office in charge. There was just a
blank line where the case number would go.

“There’s
no case,” the tech had said. “There’s been no crime yet.”

Linda
wasn’t so sure about that but held her tongue.
None
that’ll ever be prosecuted,
she thought.

George
took the samples from the technician, an intense and sallow toxic smoker named
John Ross, and had a good look at them. He asked Ross if he could put the skin
flap under a scope, and the tech guided him to a stereo microscope on a lab
bench. George peeled the tape off one side of the dish, lifted the lid off,
then put the sample down on the stage. He adjusted focus like he’d used the
scope all his life. He turned the sample around.

“What do
you make of it?” he asked Ross, not looking up from the oculars.

The tech
crossed his dry arms and leaned on the bench. He started to speak, then stopped
himself. George raised his head and looked at him hard, waiting for the aborted
answer. Ross cleared his throat and tried again.

“If it
wasn’t as thick as boot leather,” he said evenly in a southern accent, “I’d say
it was toad skin, or something very much
like
toad skin.”

“Did you
compare the interstitial or venous fluid to the stuff that pooled on the
ground?

“Just by
smell.”

“And?”

“It’s the
same shit. It came from the same animal.”

“How much
fluid was there—guess.”

“A
gallon. Maybe more.”

“Pretty
big toad, huh?”

“You
didn’t hear it from me,” Ross said and held his hands up like he’d just had a
gun pointed at him. “I freelance. I get paid by the job. They just lend me this
lab. You do the analysis; and if it turns out to
be
toad skin, I’ll testify that I collected the samples where I said, when I
said—and that I turned them over to you on this date—that’s all.”

“You got
it,” George said flatly.

“That’s
as far as I’ll go at this time,” Ross said almost angrily, “now I’m tellin’
ya.”

He knows!
Linda thought. She lowered her head and
shook it. It was amazing, she thought, how prudent, sane people—the best
witnesses—fled from the appearance of unorthodoxy— how they ran like demons
from the unseemly, the questionable, the bizarre. The motives were understandable.
If it ever got around that John Ross claimed to have found the goop from a five
hundred pound toad on a hilltop in Haight Canyon, he’d be lucky ever to get
another job as anything, let alone as a criminologist. But the fact that John
Ross suspected what she already knew made her feel less alone and she smiled
briefly at him.

“I understand,” George
said to him. “I’m on your side.”

*
 
*
 
*

She was
curled against the door and was sucking at her lower lip; she did that when she
needed to think but couldn’t. All she wanted was Phil back safe and sound. It
was all she could think about now.

They’d
planned to go up to High Ridge, too. George wanted to take his own pictures
and take a first-hand look. When they got on King Solomon’s road the feeling of
well-being she usually soaked up from just being in the canyon gave way like a
wisp to a growing wind of fear and dread that threatened to overwhelm her
before they got to the gate.

“Do you
have a gun?” she asked.

“Sorry. I
gave them up.”

Linda was
way on edge, and the remark angered her.

“Really?”
she asked a little snootily.

George
got out of the car to open the gate and when the door to the car shut, she had
an overwhelming impulse to lock the door and leave him to the space monsters.
It was an irrational response, she knew, but she was feeling a little
irrational.

She
pulled the zippered nylon case holding her Colt Python out of her purse,
unzipped it, took the slick pistol out and rested it on her lap. Its cool
weight on her thigh comforted her.
That’s
better,
she thought.

George
got back in and looked over at the revolver. “Do you think that’s necessary?”

Linda saw
the glimmer of unease in him. “You bet. ‘Zit make you nervous?” she asked.

“Do you
know how to use it?”

Phil had
taught her how to shoot early on in their relationship. Some couples have
golf. Some have bowling. Linda and Phil had shooting. They shot skeet and trap.
They shot pistol. They’d even tried their hand at black powder. Linda was
about to let the remark slide, when her pride got the best of her. “Why would I
have a gun if I didn’t know how to use it?”

She
didn’t want to get into it with him; he was obviously a gun-o-phobe. “There’s
nothing wrong with guns,” she added. It was a trite and shallow remark, and she
regretted saying it.

“I
suppose,” George said.

“They
prevent more crime than they cause. In fact they don’t cause crime at all.
People do that.” She just couldn’t stop herself.

“It’s
okay. I really don’t have a very big problem with guns,” he said as if reading
her thoughts.

“I’m an
expert pistol shooter and I have the medals to prove it, I’ll have you know.”

“That’s
great.”

“Okay,”
she said testily.

“Okay,”
he said calmly.

Linda
stuck the loaded revolver in the back pocket of her jeans as she walked up to
the cabin porch, just like Phil used to. She hoped George saw just how cavalier
she was with it. Only a pro would do such a reckless thing.

George
got all the pictures he wanted both in and around the cabin, and they hiked
down to the wash. He got some pictures of the depression the UFO made, too. It
was a long, hot hike back up and Linda was glad she had some instant lemonade
to make when they got back to the cabin. There was no power yet; Phil had
planned to install a solar-powered system but never got to it, but the
refrigerator was gas-operated so there was always cold and ice.

The air
in the canyon was so hot and still and empty to her. This was the time of day
when nothing in the canyon moved, and even birds refused to fly. Too hot to
work. She and Phil had spent many lazy hours in the shade of the porch during
afternoons like this when the warm wind cooled the sweat on their necks and
arms and covered them with the sweet scent of sage, earth and pine. It was the
time of day when the bright, silent air gently emptied their hearts and minds
of all pain and worry and breathed back to them the refreshing innocence of
nature itself in the warm exhale of the wind. She let the gentle wind and the
blinding air empty her now and felt it carry away her grief as surely as a
healing touch, and she filled her lungs anew with the earthen richness of the
canyon’s warm breeze.

Phil is
gone,
she thought.
I must
get on with my life.

George
was fine-toothing the hillsides with binoculars when he saw something and
called her over, disturbing her peace.