The Totem 1979 (38 page)

*

THE MAP WAS SPREAD OUT ON THE DESK, AND SLAUGHTER STARED AT IT. HE GLANCED UP AT THE five men grouped around him: Rettig, Dunlap, Lucas, Owens, and the medical examiner. “I wanted you to be here because each of you has been involved in this and I need your opinions.”

They were silent. Outside, traffic was unusually dense for a Sunday.

“Good,” Slaughter said. “I’m glad you want to help.”

“There isn’t any choice.”

And Slaughter looked at Owens who was scowling out the window. Slaughter waited, then continued.

“As I see it, we’ve got two main problems, although they’re really both the same. The first thing is to keep the people in town safe.”

“By this afternoon, there won’t be anybody to protect.”

Slaughter looked again at Owens, then at where the man was scowling, at the cars and trucks that filed past toward the main road from the valley. “Okay, so word spread fast and lots of people are leaving. That can help us.”

“To do what? Protect a ghost town?” Owens asked.

“That’s exactly what I didn’t want to hear. You’ve worked hard on this. I thought I could depend on you.”

“But what’s the use?” Owens demanded. “You know we can’t beat this.”

“We can try.”

“Well, you don’t have a family. My wife and kids are packing right now.”

“So are mine,” Rettig said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going with them.”

Owens stared at him and then at everyone. His gaze was disbelieving. “You still don’t get it, do you? Everything we’ve found out, the way they don’t like light and how they come out in the darkness, how the moon affects them, how these incidents have been increasing.” He pointed toward a calendar on the wall.

Slaughter shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s the moon. The moon is getting fuller. We’ve got just today and Monday and then Tuesday. When the moon is at its fullest, this whole valley’s going to be a madhouse.”

They looked startled.

“What he says is in a way correct,” the medical examiner added. “There’s a kind of logarithmic pattern to this.”

“Will you please make sense?”

“The numbers, Slaughter. They’re increasing at a faster rate. What you told me, all the calls that you’ve been getting, all the incidents your men are investigating. We start with one thing. Next it’s two, the next night four, and eight, and sixteen. As the moon gets fuller, all the incidents are doubled in proportion. After sixteen, thirty-two. You see the kind of ultimate it’s leading toward.”

“Then that can help us.”

“If it can, I don’t see how.”

“The moon will start to wane then, and the incidents will be reduced. The stimulus won’t be as strong. If we can get through Tuesday, then we’ve got a chance to gain control.”

“Except that it’s not just a full moon,” Owens said. “Look at the calendar. Tuesday. What’s the date?”

‘June twentieth.”

“That’s right, and what’s it say about the next day?”

Slaughter leaned close to the calendar. “It says the twenty-first, the first day of summer.”

“And you still don’t get it?”

Slaughter frowned, confused.

“The summer solstice,” Owens told him. “Christ, you’re a cop. When you were back east in Detroit, surely you noticed how the crazies started acting up when the moon was full or when the seasons started changing. You don’t even need to be a cop to notice it. Just talk to doctors or to me about the way my animals begin behaving. Talk to people at complaint departments out at Sears or Ward’s or K-Mart. The moon does crazy things. And now the full moon and the summer solstice will be coming together. All those ancient stories about pagans losing control and worshiping chaos on Midsummer’s Eve. Chaos. Think about it. We’ve got a virus that affects the limbic brain and makes us act the way we did when we were animals. Tuesday night, you’re going to see hell.”

They gaped at him, their faces drained of color.

‘Jesus,” Dunlap said.

“Yes, you’ve scared me,” Slaughter said and looked down at the map, then at the window, then at him. He took a breath. “Yes, I admit it, and I guess after what I’ve seen, you’re likely right that anything can happen now. But I don’t know what I can do about it.”

“Leave before you don’t have a choice,” Owens said.

“I can’t allow that.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a job.”

“That’s just as crazy as the things you’ve seen,” Owens said. “You won’t do any good, and even if you do, who’s going to thank you? Parsons? He looks out for himself. You think the people in the valley will be grateful if you die for them? Don’t believe it. They’ll just say you didn’t have control, that you were foolish. Take the chance and get out while you can.”

“But I’m not doing this for the town. I’m doing it for me,” Slaughter said. “If I run now, I couldn’t tolerate myself. And I don’t think you could run out either.”

“No? Just watch me.”

And they did. They waited, staring, and Owens returned their stares, and for a moment, it seemed certain that he would walk away, but then he didn’t.

“Something wrong? You’re bothered?” Slaughter asked.

Owens kept looking at him.

“Maybe you had something more to say?”

But Owens only swallowed.

“I tell you what. It’s daylight. Things won’t get too bad until tonight. Just stick around a little. Tell your family to leave, that you’ll catch up. And in the meanwhile, keep helping us the way you did just now. You’ve given us more information than we had. I don’t know how to use it, but you’re really quite important.”

Owens kept staring. “Until tonight at sunset.”

“That’s no more than I could ask for.”

And then Slaughter did an unexpected thing. He reached close to shake hands with him, and Owens seemed a little better, and the other men relaxed then.

“We’re a team again. Let’s do it.”

Chapter Two.

Parsons pulled the roadblock across the two-lane highway. It was like a sawhorse, only bigger, longer. He had found it by the roadside where a highway crew had been repairing asphalt, and he pulled the second one across so that both lanes were barricaded, and he faced the backed-up traffic. His intentions were uncommon to him. All his life he’d learned to occupy a still point, to let power channel through him rather than be active and pursue it. He had earned his station simply by agreeing to what everyone already was committed to. That government is best which governs least, he always said. A public servant’s job is not to lead, instead to follow. And for twenty-five years of being mayor, he’d found that notion was successful. Now it failed him. From his house on the outskirts of town, he’d seen the people leaving. He had begged his friends to stay and trust him, but that moment when, if he had only acted, now was past him, and he saw the town dissolving, saw the power he had passively received dissolving with it. For the first time in his life, he was a failure. More important, he would never occupy his same position. If the town were ever saved, if the people ever came back, they would surely not be loyal to him. They would change things, choose a new mayor, want to do things differently, and he would be like presidents who once were influential, leaders who were set aside and even an embarrassment. He knew that these analogies were grandiose, but this had been his country, this town in this valley. He had ruled it absolutely, and he couldn’t bear the thought that he’d soon be deposed and useless.

It was Slaughter’s fault, he told himself, Slaughter who had screwed things up and let the situation get so out of hand, Slaughter who now with that reporter was determined to abuse him, to publish stories that would damage him, hell, ruin him. Slaughter maybe had ambitions. Parsons hadn’t thought of that, but maybe Slaughter planned to claim that Parsons had been weak and ineffective. Slaughter then would show how he himself had taken charge and he would soon become the mayor. Like hell. Parsons would be damned if he let anybody take his power away. Who did Slaughter think that he was dealing with, and what made Slaughter think he could suddenly take charge? This valley wasn’t ruled like that, and Parsons was determined to instruct him.

He had both his roadblocks set up, and with his shotgun in his hand, he stalked ahead toward where the first car waited. He was bulky, towering above the car. That was the first thing he had learned: to use his size, his presence. “Turn around. We have to work together on this.”

“Get those roadblocks out of there before I ram right through them.”

“And what then? If everybody leaves, there won’t be anybody left to stop this.”

“Look, the guy next door was mangled by his German shepherd. Two doors down, the husband went berserk. I know of twenty people who’ve been missing since last night. Something’s going on, but it’s been covered up, and I don’t plan to wait around to find out what it is.”

“I’ll shoot your tires out.”

“And what about the other cars behind me? You don’t have enough ammunition. Just clear those roadblocks. Let me on my way.”

“I can’t permit that. We don’t know what this thing is, but if I let you from the valley, you’ll be spreading it. This valley, starting now, is quarantined.”

Parsons knew that he was being contradictory, that what he’d said to Slaughter went against what he was doing now, but he was in a fight with Slaughter, and if using Slaughter’s tactics meant success, then he would use them. What was more, the situation was so uncontrolled now that this tactic really was the best way, and besides, as he was saying to the driver, “If you leave now, if this valley goes to hell, you won’t be coming back. There won’t be anything you want here or can trust here. Take a stand, for God sake. Go back into town and fight this.”

All the cars were lined up, honking, drivers getting out and swarming toward him. He was ready with his shotgun. “If you’ll trust me, I can show you how to beat this.”

They were yanking at his roadblocks.

“It’s those hippies. Don’t you see it?”

Yes, he knew about that too. He had informants everywhere, and he’d been talking to them since he’d been with Slaughter. There were still a few things that he didn’t understand, but he knew just enough that he’d found a scapegoat. Plus, the hippies really were the enemy, and if he’d worked this angle back in 1970, he could work it once again.

“Those hippies?” The drivers paused with the roadblocks in their hands. “But they’re long gone.”

“I’m telling you that they’re still in the mountains. Oh, they moved to some place else, but they’re still up there, and they’re crazy. God knows what all they’ve been doing, using drugs and living like a bunch of animals. They’ve picked up some disease now, and they’re coming to the valley. Oh, sure, I know dogs and cats have got it too, but we can handle them. Those hippies are the ones I’m afraid of.”

It was a prehistoric argument that took advantage of their tribal instincts, conjuring the image of some hairy foreign thing that no one understood and hence that everyone feared. Parsons was almost ashamed to use it, but he nonetheless believed it, all those hate-filled recollections of those hippies, latent, ready to be triggered, and his anger was intense enough now that he wanted to get even. Damage Slaughter. Kill those hippies. Get his town back as it was for him. Oh, yes, by God, the way Slaughter had spoken to him, he meant to see that someone paid.

He waited as they stared at him. “You don’t remember nineteen-seventy? Hal there lost his boy in Vietnam while those damned hippies crudded up our town. And now those hippies are on their way back. They’re going to come down from the mountains and kill us unless we make plans to stop them.”

The crowd kept staring.

“I don’t even need you. I’ll go see the ranchers. They know what’s important. They know how to keep what they’ve worked hard for. I’ll go find some men who aren’t afraid!”

Now Parsons felt emotion stirring in them. In a moment, he would ask if anybody knew the people who’d been murdered. He would tell them that the state police were heading into the mountains, that they needed help-yes, he had heard about that too-and he would tell them about Slaughter, how their chief was so inept that he himself, their mayor, was forced to come down here and take charge of his people.

Chapter Three.

Slaughter scowled down with the others at the map. They’d made arrangements for their message to be broadcast on the TV and the radio, for everyone to stay inside, to keep away from animals, from strangers, to report a bite or any odd behavior, then to call the police station for assistance, and to watch for the cruisers that were out in force along the streets. He himself had called the state police, but there was only one man on duty at the local barracks and no word had come from Altick. He had called for help from Rawlins, Lander, Sheridan, and Casper. If he had to, he would call in the state militia. But right now, his main objective was to find the commune. “You men know these mountains more than I do. Tell me where the commune is.”

“It’s too much area to figure,” Rettig told him.

“Yes, but…” Slaughter paused and rubbed his forehead.

He’d been having pains there for several hours, from lack of food and sleep, the tension building in him, and his argument with Parsons. He was hoping he could handle this, but he was overwhelmed by what he faced, gradually more doubtful. “Yes, but there must be a couple places you can think of, caves or canyons where a group of people could live undetected.”

“If you want to think about it that way, there are hundreds,” Rettig said. “I remember when I was a kid there weren’t even terrain maps for those mountains. Hunters, fishermen, oh yeah, they go up through there, but I used to know an Indian who lived there as a hermit for three years and never came across another person.”

“What you’re telling me is that we won’t find any answer.”

“What I’m saying is, we don’t have the time for trial and error.”

“Look, there has to be some logic to this,” Dunlap said.

They turned to him, the city man who planned to tell them about mountains.

“Logic? Where the hell is logic?” Slaughter demanded.

“You’d know the way to do this if you were still in Detroit. Think of everything that’s happened as a group of crimes you’re plotting on a grid of city streets. Diagram it for the pattern.”