Chapter Twenty-Four Frankie #2
“Still warm,” he said. There were bloodstains on the yellow-white wool.
As I approached, I was sure I could smell the acrid and sweet scent the sickness gave off, as if it were trapped in the makeshift bed.
Behind it was another smell, also faint but distinct: fresh blood, bowels—the smell of slaughter that had filled the open barn.
It was a strange place for a person to sleep, especially when the cabin was right across the yard. But there were clear indentations and warmth from bodies that had recently lain there.
It was more like a nest than a human bed.
A place for animals to sleep.
“My God,” Benjamin croaked as he pulled back a pile of hay in the corner of the stall, saw what was hidden under it.
I didn’t fully comprehend what I was seeing at first, but understood it was where part of the odor was coming from.
As Benjamin took the lantern from Luther and brought it closer, I tried to make sense of it: the blood and fur, torn flesh and shiny bone.
Then I saw the horns and understood that it was the carcass of a goat.
The creature had been ravaged, its flesh torn from its body, entrails pulled out and left in a heap like a slick messily coiled rope.
“What animal did this?” Benjamin asked, reeling backward.
“Coyote?” I suggested. “A pack of them perhaps.”
Luther leaned down, peered at the pulpy mass, and retrieved a long curved knife with a handle stained with blood. “Wasn’t an animal,” he said. “He did this. Recently, too. The poor creature is still warm, the blood flowing.”
Something stirred behind us, made a high-pitched keening sound.
Luther shouldered his rifle, spun around, finger on the trigger.
We all turned in unison with him.
The sound, a frantic squeal now, was coming from behind the closed door of the stall opposite us.
Then it stopped.
The stable was silent, all of us holding our breath, staring at the stall door.
Luther crept over, gun raised, and kicked open the door to the stall. Benjamin was behind him, holding the lantern to help illuminate whatever they might find.
I braced myself, imagining the knackerman, Emile, and Mrs. Stoddard there, crouched like animals, faces wet with blood, hands slippery with entrails as they fed on another goat.
Luther shook his head, barked out a nervous laugh. “Only a dog.”
Letting out the breath I’d been holding, I went over and saw a young dog with shaggy black fur cowering in the corner. It wore a wide leather collar—clearly the knackerman’s handiwork. I held out my hand, and the dog came closer, ears back, tail tucked between her legs.
I pulled out the biscuit my aunt had made me take when we left the house and tore off a bit, which the dog ate greedily. “You seem hungry, girl.” I fed her the rest. When it was gone, she licked my fingers clean. I tried to pet her, but she flinched and retreated, keeping her eyes on me.
“Where’s your master?” I asked her.
I wondered what she’d seen to spook her so.
“Where the hell is he? Where is Clarice?” Benjamin demanded now. He was pale, breathing heavily, his face damp with perspiration. Was it the flickering light from the kerosene lantern he held or was his skin taking on a yellow coloring?
We left the stable, and followed the footprints to the cabin next.
Luther pulled open the heavy door and stepped inside, aiming his gun at the shadows.
Benjamin stumbled in behind him. “Not here.” He was struggling to form full sentences now.
Uncle Thomas and I proceeded to join them in the cabin.
With the door open and the two large windows, the cabin was better lit than the stable had been.
It was a single room with a table and one chair, a bed with a wooden frame and a sheepskin laid upon it.
A bearskin rug was spread out on the floor.
Hooks by the door held a soiled shirt, a wide-brimmed hat.
There was a small woodstove in the corner with a pot and a coffee kettle on it; beside it a shelf holding a few simple housewares.
A broom hung from a nail on the wall. The wide plank floors were clean, and the cabin smelled pleasantly of woodsmoke and pipe tobacco.
Again we heard whimpering. I turned to see that the little shaggy dog had followed us. She was right behind me now, watching from the open doorway, head cocked, hesitant to come inside.
“Clarice!” Benjamin called, stumbling back out into the yard, his voice high, desperate.
We tried to make sense of the footprints all around the yard, crisscrossing, going this way and that. Luther studied them, said, “I think this is more than two people, but I can’t be sure.”
“Maybe Emile is with them?” Uncle Thomas added. He stood, holding his medical bag, frowning at the tracks in the snow. The sun had come up behind the hill but was weak, filtered through heavy clouds and thick fog.
Luther frowned down at the tracks. “Maybe he’s leading them.”
Benjamin blinked at him. “Leading them? I can’t imagine my Clarice following that man anywhere.”
“Maybe she’s not your Clarice anymore,” Luther said. “Maybe she’s his.”