The Uninvited (4 page)

Leaving the Johnson house, walking to her car, Ruthie paused in the drive, her hand on the door of her car. She thought she heard a clicking sound—a strange kind of noise. Then she heard another noise, a scurrying sound. Sort of like rats or mice would make in the walls. But not quite. This noise was dry, a rustling.

She looked around her. Nothing. She laughed, got in her car, and backed out of the drive.

Out in the shed, a white, slender hand that had gripped the thick tread of a tractor tire, gripped it in unbearable agony, slipped to the pea-gravel floor. A diamond ring sparkled on the third finger of the hand. The fingers were still bloody. Bare bone from the wrist upward gleamed dully in the murky light of the shed.

A chewing, munching sound drifted into the summer morning.

Ruthie drove to the house of a friend—whose husband was on a fishing trip—and parked her car in the curving drive, behind the ranch-style house. A few minutes later, sitting in the kitchen, over coffee, she talked with her friend. They were discussing whether their mutual friend, Beth, might be running around on her husband. They shared a conspiratorial laugh or two, while outside the house, a clicking sound grew in volume.

Ruthie cocked her head. “That's the same sound I heard down at Beth's.”

“I was out in the garden this morning,” her friend said. “Oh, got some beautiful squash coming in. And I heard that same noise. Strange, isn't it?”

“Where are the boys, Jane?”

“Gone with their dad. They won't be back 'til late Sunday. What is that noise?”

Ruthie shrugged. “I don't know. Getting louder, though. Seems like it's getting closer.”

Coming from behind the shed, seems like,” Jane said. She stood up and walked into the den, taking down an automatic .308 rifle from the gun rack. She filled a clip and jacked a round into the chamber. “Well, by God, I'm going to find out what's going on. Come on!”

Together, they walked out the back door.

 

 

A mile away Chief Deputy Burns paused in the middle of the bean field and listened to the sounds of three fast rifle shots.

“High-powered rifle,” he muttered.

One more shot boomed.

Walt listened for a half minute more, but heard no more shots. He returned to his search. He had found an area where someone had wallowed down about a ten-square-foot area of beans. Then the person, or whatever the hell it was, had run off, zigzagging across the field.

“Sure raised hell with the beans,” Walt muttered. “Hampton's gonna be pissed about this.”

Walt followed the zigzagging, almost drunken trail. It was definitely footprints. Cowboy boots, it looked to him. Two pairs of them. The bootprints ran across a turnrow, and into a swampy area. Looked like they ran right smack into the swamp.

Walt grimaced at just the thought of entering that dark, forbidding place. This was the Lost Swamp. The Cajun folks told all sorts of wild tales about this swamp, and Walt believed most of them. Except the tales about werewolves. He didn't believe those. Much.

Walt had hunted and fished all over the Lost Swamp, and he knew from experience it was a treacherous place, filled with 'gators, rattlesnakes, cottonmouths, and quicksand that could suck a man under in a minute, leaving no trace. Running down the entire length of Baronne and Lapeer Parishes, the swamp was only 500 yards wide at its narrowest point. At other points, it was more than five miles across. Just across the swamp, over the levee, lay the Voleur River. The federal government, building up the levee system, declared the swamp a wildlife sanctuary for birds, and that put an end to the hunting.

“Well, I'm not going in there on foot,” Walt said aloud. He walked back to his car to call in his findings and to notify the Wildlife and Fisheries boys. Let them go in there and poke around.

Walt started to cut across the field, then decided against it, choosing instead to walk the turnrow, in the shade of the old trees that bordered the swamp. Took a lot longer, but it was cooler, and there was something about this particular bean field that gave Walt the heebie-jeebies. He felt like something was looking at him.

He kicked at a rusting beer can and laughed at himself for thinking such silly things.

But he didn't walk across the field.

Sheriff!” the farmer shouted at Mike Grant. “My whole goddamn herd of cows is gone. Two bulls worth thousands gone, too.”

Gone!” Sheriff Grant jumped from his chair. “The whole herd? Rustled?”

“Rustled?” the man screamed. “Hell, no! Something
ate
‘em! I'm tellin' you there ain't nothin' in that pasture 'cept bare, white bones!”

“Jesus, Roy!” Mike tried to calm the man.
Slow down, sit down—calm down. I can't hear you through your yelling.” He practically pushed the man into a chair. “Sit, Roy. I'll get you some coffee.”

The distraught man leaped from the chair the instant his butt touched it. He gripped Mike's arm so hard the sheriff winced from the pain. Mike thought, One more grab like that, and I'm gonna pop you one.

“Mike,” the man said, calming down a bit, “you know that place ain't the easiest place in the Parish to get to. Sometimes when it rains, you can't get in there at all, except in a four-wheel drive. I hadn't been out there in almost four days, so I thought I'd drive out this morning and look around. I damn near crapped on myself. Mike, you gotta come with me. Look around for yourself. I know you think I'm lyin'. But I'm not. You got to see with your own eyes.”

Sheriff Grant pried the man's fingers from his arm and rubbed the sore spot. “Okay, Roy. I'll get my hat.” He spoke to the dispatcher on the way out. “Get Walt on the horn and tell him to meet me at Roy Barnes's cow pasture. Out near the old trestle.”

A half hour later, Sheriff Grant stood with Roy and Walt, who had joined them just as they turned off the Parish blacktop onto gravel. The men stood on the edge of a pasture filled with the bleaching bones of cattle.

Walt had walked out into the pasture, looking around. He had returned shaking his head, not believing his eyes.

“Crop duster called me this morning,” Roy said. “Early—'bout seven. Asked me what the hell had happened to my cattle. I thought he was kidding me. I wish to hell he had been.”

Mike shook his head. “If I wasn't seeing this with my own eyes, I'd never believe it.” He kicked at a skeleton. “What in the name of God happened out here?”

Picked 'em clean,” Walt said. “Nothing left but the hooves, the teeth, and the bones.”

“Get the camera,” Mike told him. “Take some pictures of this.”

“You tell me what happened out here, Sheriff?” Roy prodded Mike.

“Hell, Roy, I don't know!” Mike blurted. He softened his tone and apologized to the farmer. “I don't know what caused this. I do know it wasn't professional rustlers, who butcher in the field and then take off. There is nothing left here, not even the guts. Those cattle were picked clean. I've never seen anything like this in my life. You said you hadn't been out here in several days?”

Yeah. This would have been the fifth day. I was bringing out salt blocks today.”

“Have you spoken to anyone else about this?”

Not a soul. I came straight to your office after I seen this. Well, the duster knows—he saw it. Told me he was gonna dust over to the south today, near Lapeer. Pick up his chemicals from the truck by that little strip on March Plantation.”

“Dick Weller's the one called you?”

“That's him.”

“Well, I'll get on the horn,” Walt said. “Call Tommy Sabatier. We'll see what the Parish Agent has to say about this.”

Over on the southernmost edge of March Plantation, what was left of Dick Weller sat in the cockpit of his duster. One bony hand still gripping the stick. His helper lay on the ground, as white and bleached as the pilot. The flagger, or what was left of him, lay among the soybean plants in a field several miles away. And fading away in the distance, a clicking sound could just be heard. Faintly.

 

 

Sheriff Grant, Deputy Burns, and Roy Barnes watched in silence as the Parish Agent walked the bone-littered pasture, bending down every now and then to inspect a stripped skeleton. He walked slowly back to the waiting trio.

“Well?” Roy demanded, his tone not friendly. “What the hell happened to my cattle?”

“They've been eaten,” the Parish Agent said.

“No kidding?” Roy said sarcastically. “Hell's fire, man! We knew that!”

Sabatier shrugged eloquently, as only a Cajun can.

“All right,” Roy said, some of the edge gone from his tone. “Tell me this, if you can. What ate them?”

Just for an instant, Sabatier's eyes flicked to Sheriff Grant. “I don't know.”

Sheriff Grant knew the man was lying. But why? he wondered. And for whose benefit?

“Wonderful!” Barnes spat the word. “Just fuckin' wonderful! Fifty head of cattle, two prize bulls, and nothing left but the bones. They even ate the hair and hide!” he screamed. “What kind of animal eats the hair?”

Sabatier cut his eyes to Mike. He said nothing.

“Roy,” Sheriff Grant said, “we're sorry as we can be. What else can we say?”

“I know, boys,” Roy shook his head. “I know you are, and I know you mean it. But sorry don't git it. Sorry don't make the notes I gotta pay. Sorry don't fill my freezer with beef. And sorry ain't gonna put meat back on those bones so's I can truck them to market. Sorry just don't git it.”

None of the men could add anything to that.

“I'm gonna find out what happened here,” Roy said through clenched teeth. “And if it was humans who did this, they'll answer to me and a .30-30. You can all bet your asses on that.” He whirled around and charged across the pasture to his pickup. He paused by a skeleton and savagely kicked at the bones. He sat down in the dust and grabbed at his foot. “I think I broke my goddamn toe!” he howled. “On top of everything else!” He hopped to his truck and roared away in a cloud of dust.

“Any other time,” Walt said, “that would have been funny.”

Sheriff Grant looked at the Parish Agent. “Now, Tommy, you tell me what happened here. Not that bullshit you just put on Roy.”

“Well,” Sabatier grinned, “my grandmother would have probably told you it was the loup-garou.”

“The what?” Walt said. Walt came from Rolling Fork, Mississippi. Cajun French was as foreign to him as Mandarin.

Werewolves,” Sabatier smiled. “I know some older Cajun folk who still believe in them.”

“Crazy damn coonass!” Walt grinned.

“Ah,” Sabatier pointed a finger at him. “You can't say that anymore. Our legislature has so decreed this last session. Or something to that effect.”

Walt said some uncomplimentary things about the legislature.

Sabatier grew serious. “Are you gentlemen ready for this? Good. Bugs ate the cattle.”

“Bugs!” Walt said.
Now I know you're a crazy damn coonass!”