Also Written by
DALLAS TANNER
NOVELS
THE CRYPTIDS TRILOGY
Shadow of the Thunderbird
Track of the Bigfoot
Wake of the Lake Monster
The Shroud
CHUPACABRA
Dallas Tanner
TRILOGUS BOOKS
Chupacabra: A Novella
Copyright © 2009 by Dallas Tanner
Published by Trilogus Media Group, LLC at Smashwords
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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THE FIRST ATTACK
It stood no taller than a child, with large eyes peering out from the dark. It watched hungrily as the elderly rancher led his prize bull into the barn for the night. There was no sclera or iris, only highly reflective pupils accustomed to the nocturnal life for which it was bred. They tapered at a sharp angle on either end to a slant covering nearly a third of its oval head, which came to a point at the chin of its prominent jaw. The creature was four feet tall, average among its kind, which ranged from three to five feet in height. Like the faces of the alien grays which shared its unaltered skin color and elongated eyes, the ears, nostrils and mouth were little more than small holes and a slit, but in the latter case lined with fangs and sharp teeth.
It swayed restlessly on two powerful hind legs while it balanced itself precariously using its short forearms. Three-toed splayed feet tipped with razor sharp talons dug eagerly at the soft ground, while three-fingered claws dangled limply before it. With its robust lower and frail upper body, the way it held its arms out before it gave the creature the appearance of a praying mantis. A row of spikes edged with fins ran from the top of its head down the length of its back. Coarse feathery quills of dark brown interspersed with patches of fur covered its body.
It bristled in anticipation as it darted its long, proboscis-like tongue as if sampling the air like a snake. When the unsuspecting cattle owner closed and padlocked the bolt of the barn door for the evening, it hissed and shook membranous wings that ran up the underside of its thin arms. Meeting at the back of its shoulders, the loose skin that formed its opaque wings trailed down again to attach along the sides of its grotesque body to the birdlike hips. Many never reported seeing this aspect of the creature, due to the thin arms held close to the body at all times.
When the solitary lamp light on the barn gable replaced that of the front porch with a slam of the screen door, it sensed that it was finally alone. It swiveled its bulbous head in slow, jerky, mechanical motions atop an impossibly thin neck. The lidless eyes glowed red and orange as they reflected the sparse light available to them. By day, the moist gelatinous orbs were far less noticeable, almost black in their crimson depth. A protective membrane could be drawn and layered over them to filter the sunlight. It had watched and waited all day for its opportunity, blending with its surroundings by turning the gray mottled flesh on all but its hideous face varying shades of purple, brown and yellow. As night approached, it no longer shifted like a chameleon, but stayed hidden until the two men and a woman tending the caged animals had gone into the house. Above all else, it shunned the human keepers of its prey. If the noxious odor surrounding it was offensive and debilitating, its breath was nothing short of overwhelming to any that encountered it.
The hayloft remained open above the barn door, a block and tackle extending out from the rafter supporting the structure. The opening was too high to reach in a single leap from the ground, but not from the work shed nearby. It ran deceptively fast on the tips of its sharp toes with its heels held high, reaching almost to the back of its knees. It was another adaptation of the hunter for stealth and maneuverability. It hopped periodically like a kangaroo to cross the barnyard in eight-foot high bounds.
After each step, it would stop to see that it still went unnoticed. It listened with its highly sensitive ear holes until it was certain it had not been seen, then continued unabated. It quickly drew next to the supporting posts of the smaller building. The lower roof of the shed housing the tractor was over twelve feet off the ground, but no matter. The odd angles of its body compressed and, with a burst of energy, uncoiled like a spring to the asbestos and tarpaper overhang to the wooden gutter that framed it.
Ignoring the lesser beasts in abundance that night, fowl, rabbit and even a dog barking in its pen at the edge of an old sharecropper's road, it gauged the distance from the rooftop to the four foot square opening beneath the barn gable. Then, as it had so many times before, it thrust itself out over open space to glide thirty feet at a slight incline over the yard to the hayloft. It could not fly or even levitate as some believed, and many never even reported its wings. It was mistakenly assumed that its claws alone allowed it to climb the trees where it was so often sighted.
It was thought to be confined, since the first reports circulated in 1991, to a vast, impenetrable tract of dense jungle called El Yunque on the island of Puerto Rico, but that was only the beginning of its notoriety on the mainland. The first documented case of its attack on farm animals came in 1975. The rumors of its existence circulated the island since the early 1950s. When its numbers and competition increased over more closely guarded food, its kind took refuge as stowaways on unsuspecting ships to other Caribbean islands, where their reputation had not preceded them.
In the late 1990s and into the twenty-first century, the sightings of these creatures spread into Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile, Brazil and, more recently, the southern United States. A greater number of encounters were reported in states with a concentration of Hispanic populations, among them Florida, California, Arizona and Texas. Many believed that it was only a cultural phenomenon moving north with the influx of Spanish-speaking people into America. Disbelief only better served its purpose. No one ever locked their doors against superstition.
El Chupacabra, The Goatsucker, was about to feed again…
* * *
The telephone jangled at quarter past eight the next morning, a late ‘60s surplus model turned lengthwise on its cradle. It was a leftover from his recently retired predecessor, who never used it enough to find a need to replace it. Startled out of a pleasant dream of lounging on a tropical beach, half-Cajun born Roth Jacobs dropped his polished boots to the floor from where he crossed them on the desk. The rollaway chair creaked in protest as he reached for the offensive telephone, no less upset than if he'd been awakened at two in the morning. So little happened in the sleepy little town.
This had better be good.
"Jefferson Sheriff's Office, Deputy Jacobs here. Can I help you?" The baritone voice, with just a hint of the distinctive French dialect, crept in to betray the lanky, dark-haired man's upbringing in nearby Shreveport, Louisiana, fifty-five miles due east across the Texas state line. In spite of the proximity, there was a world of difference in the influences of their underlying cultures. Jacobs hadn't long been on the force, quitting the horseback patrol of the French Quarter in New Orleans for a quieter lifestyle not three months earlier.
Why Jefferson?
He asked himself that very question. The panicked cattle rancher on the other end of the line demanded a second time that Jacobs put the sheriff on the telephone, immediately. "Hold on just a moment, now. Slow it down and catch your breath. Who is this, anyway? You had a what?"
"…My prize Brahma bull, Percy, was attacked last night in his stall. I locked the barn and it doesn't look as if anyone could have gotten in or out. I didn't go back until I opened it this morning and there weren't even any footprints in the sawdust and meal on the floor. No offense, deputy, but this is an emergency. For the last time, this is Olin Sykes out near Caddo Lake and I need Sheriff Crawley right now!"
"I'm sorry. He's not here, Mr. Sykes. In fact, he's in Dallas this week for re-certification in legal search and seizure, for all the good that will in Jefferson. Suppose you tell me what happened from the beginning and let's see where we go from here. Okay?" The voice on the other end of the line fell silent, discouraged and resigned. Roth had heard the same dead space on the telephone several times before since arriving in town and filling the vacated deputy’s position, although he'd come highly recommended. It was the sound of an unspoken request to be handed over to anyone else there in a uniform.
Not this time.
"Better I show you. Do you remember how to get out here to the edge of bayou country?"
Jacobs bristled at Olin's remark. It was an invitation to leave if he'd somehow forgotten the way back to the boggy swamps of Louisiana. After all, what other reason was there for a Cajun to stick around in the dry flatlands so close to home? Ignoring the insult and maintaining a demeanor reserved for the drunken revelers of Mardi Gras, Deputy Roth Jacobs asked for directions. He had been out to the old Sykes place when Sheriff Gerald Crawley had taken him there on a routine call during his first week on the force. Unlike that empty-handed search for trespassers, the deputy hoped it wouldn't be just another false alarm.
Driving southeast along the two-lane asphalt of Highway 134, Jacobs followed signs to Caddo Lake, which straddled the state lines bordering Texas and Louisiana. The lake was northeast of Marshall to the 26,000-acre Big Cypress Bayou in Harrison and Marion counties. Just under a third of that area was Caddo, 7,681 acres of primarily bald cypress swamp and flooded bottomland hardwoods. He had been there often growing up, the first time shortly after the original dam impounding the lake in 1914 was replaced in 1971. Sure, it dated him, and he should probably be a sheriff in his own right by now. He'd turned down a detective's badge in downtown New Orleans for a peaceful life in the country, so why ruin a good thing?
The Sykes T-Bar Ranch was partially annexed by the Caddo Lake Wildlife Management Area (WMA), owned by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and managed as a part of the TPWD Public Hunting Program. Naturally, old man Sykes was paranoid that anyone without a gun was a surveyor trying to parcel up another chunk of his land. Hunters weren't allowed to stray over onto his property, either. A poacher had probably sent an errant round into Olin's barn and accidentally hit the stud bull by mistake. No big deal. Roth would file a report and resume his nap after lunch. Sheriff and deputy had found nothing on their last visit, and there was no reason, at this point, to think otherwise of this one.
Roth drove the brown and gold Plymouth squad car through the open gate and down the quarter mile of unpaved road overhung with Spanish moss to the ranch. The deputy parked and switched off the engine next to a rusted out, sea foam green pickup with aluminum rails and dead California tags. He'd look into that next, but first things first. Taking up his hat and club from the passenger seat, he donned them both as he got out and yelled for Sykes. On his first call, he got no answer. The 63-year-old rancher interrupted him on the second attempt and stepped out, waving his arm from the barn door for the deputy to follow. Olin disappeared back inside as Jacobs trotted across the barnyard.
The officer hesitated at the sliding door, looking at the lever that would be lowered across the threshold to prevent it from opening. A heavy padlock was looped through the oversized hinge. It could not have fallen off or been anything but raised from the inside or out by lifting the steel handle and disengaging the bar, much the same way as the latch on a trailer. No doubt about it, Sykes had gone to great lengths to protect his property from vandals. Leaning back, Roth checked for bullet holes on the door or barn wall to either side. Nothing. Jacobs then looked up. The gable block hung loose but the rope on the tackle was pulled into the open loft. No access there.
"Deputy? I need you in here, now!"
The air inside the barn was thick with the musty smell of feed and livestock. Sunlight filtered down through narrow slats to form columns of dust and early morning haze, but otherwise most of the interior was unlit. He could distinguish the shapes of farm equipment and hay bales in the near dark as he made his way along the row of split rail stalls to where Sykes knelt with Jorge Ramirez, a migrant worker from Juarez, Mexico. He came cheap, with no family in tow, asking only room and board until harvest season began. Standing at the gate was Olin's daughter Miranda, a recently divorced single mother with designs on the deputy. She smiled through a face stretched too taut without flattering contours.
Tipping the brim of his hat slightly towards her with the obligatory "Ma'am," Roth stepped past the dishwater blonde, through the stall gate and stood, hands draped on gun belt, at the foot of the dead Brahma bull. It lay on its side, the lids of its normally big dark eyes closed and sunken. The large, drooping ears were not torn off, but shredded. There was a series of triple lacerations on the darker brown of its knotted hump, just above the massive shoulders. On the rest of its roan hide were smaller abrasions, probably self-inflicted, as if the animal struggled briefly to escape its attacker. From the size of the hole just at the base of its skull, it appeared that the half-ton blue ribbon stud was shot at point blank range with a large caliber weapon. There was no exit wound and no blood splatter, on the wall or anywhere else, for that matter.
"Did you hear anything, Mr. Sykes? Did you see anything? Whether or not this animal was dropped where it stood or thrashed about before it died, there should have been some kind of a ruckus. Nobody would bother putting on a silencer to kill a bull. This is wanton destruction of property, not a mob hit." Jacobs pulled a report book from his back pocket as Olin protested that he was not aware of any noise during the night.
During the night?
In spite of his present circumstances, Jacobs knew rigor mortis when he saw it. In this climate, setting in should have taken much longer. The hoofed legs were already straight out and stiff, the lips and tongue distended, discolored and swollen. It always begins with the face, extending outward to the extremities. In this animal, all except the belly, which appeared much thinner than he would have expected in the death of a bovine. With Sykes' permission, he pressed down on the stomach and relieved what little bloat of methane had built up in the bull's four stomachs. He was not a cattleman familiar with large animals, so he had Olin check as well. Something was wrong. There were no cuts and yet it appeared as if one or more organs of this animal had been removed.
Along with its livelihood as a stud.
"Well, I'll be damned," Sykes replied, trading confused looks with the deputy, his daughter and finally his suddenly alarmed farm hand, who bolted upright with terror filled eyes. "Ramirez, what's gotten into you?" The migrant worker inexplicably turned and ran from the barn as Olin shouted after him to come back. The frightened man cried in warning over his shoulder but lapsed into his native language out of fear. Jacobs understood only enough Spanish to realize that ‘no trabajo’ meant Jorge was quitting without notice. Another unrecognizable phrase was uttered repeatedly during the apologetic raving as the transient Mexican jumped into his old Dodge pickup truck and left for good in a cloud of dust.
El Chupacabra.
THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS
"Now, what do you suppose got into him?" Miranda Sykes asked distractedly as she looked for the Mexican's truck through the cloud of dust it left in its wake. The last sound they heard was the kicking up off loose gravel when the rusted out pickup finally caught the pavement and squealed tires up the highway.
"I don't have a clue," her father commented as he turned his attention back to his dead bull.
Roth Jacobs could tell in a single sidewise glance that Olin had the same estimation of what happened in his barn the night before. A half-ton Brahma killed in its stall with no apparent motive and a weapon that spilled no blood. "Do you have any idea who might have wanted to do this? Was there anyone who might be angry with you for putting them off your land? I'm thinking maybe a hunter, somebody who'd have no more of a problem killing a cow than a bear. Anybody come to mind?"
"Bull, deputy. Bull!" Jacobs wasn't sure whether the rancher was correcting the gender of the animal or simply responding that it had nothing to do with disgruntled poachers. Olin Sykes removed his hat and wiped his balding pate with the back of his shirtsleeve. "Hunter? No, I can't think of anyone. You're assuming that I made somebody mad enough that they trespassed onto my property. My land's marked clearly enough and the damn fences are electrified. If they got jolted, it was their fault for not reading the English language. The only one with that problem just left here in a big hurry."
"Jealousy, now there's a reason for you." Sykes narrowed his eyes and nodded his head with suspicion. "Everybody around here knows that Percy was the best stud for hire in Harrison and Marion counties. I get top dollar for passing on his pedigree, his bloodlines to other ranchers. He was getting old, though, poor fellow. He'd been with just about every cow worth having in a forty-mile radius. No reason to do this. His days of siring were just about over."
The deputy glanced up at Miranda, who shrugged her shoulders before excusing herself to go look after her four year-old daughter. "How do you mean?" Roth asked, turning his attention back to the elder Sykes. He never pretended to know anything about cattle, and knew that to profess any more now would only hurt any investigation he hoped to attempt. This was not a murder, at least not a homicide, in spite of the old man's urgency.
"Not an expert in bovines either, Jacobs?" Olin stood, raising himself to his full five-foot seven inches as he stretched his back and his knees popped. "No self-respecting bull will return to the same cow. Ever. Even if his age wasn't an issue, there was hardly a reason to do this. All I can think of is that somebody wanted him out of the way. That leaves only other ranchers with stud bulls. Percy's ribbon days were over and he was ready for pasture. No, anyone who'd do such a thing would have to be another rancher with a bone to pick with me. This was personal, deputy, and I want you to find out who did it."
"Anyone in particular you might have offended?" Roth asked as he jotted down his report.
Olin laughed, wincing as he rotated a cramped arm at the arthritic shoulder. "Son, I've been at this business over fifty years, man and boy. In all that time, I never let anyone get the upper hand on me, whether they were better than me or not. I always convinced folks in these parts that my bulls were the ones to beat.
"Looks like somebody believed you," Jacobs commented as he closed the pad and nodded toward the dead Brahma. Bottle flies reflected blue and green in the early morning sun as they buzzed the open sores. The bloodless wounds. It didn't make any sense as to why the bull went down so easily, let alone how it was killed. There was no sound, nothing to alert the rancher. This wasn't over, because Sykes wasn't about to let it alone. In Roth's estimation, there could only be one suspect and one motive for killing a stud bull about to lose his value. As much as he hated to do it, the Jefferson deputy had one question left for the distraught rancher.
"Mr. Sykes, did you have this bull insured?"
Olin gaped open mouthed at the thinly veiled accusation. "What, you're asking me if I did this for the money? Sure, I had a policy on him, but prize bulls aren't moneymakers like winning racehorses. In his condition and age, I'd be lucky to get fifteen grand for him now, and that's only if they don't blame me like you just did. Don't you understand? I get nothing if I kill my own bull!"
Roth Jacobs stood and put the report book back in his pocket as Sykes calmed himself.
"Look, I was afraid you might think I did this, what with the locked barn door and me not hearing anything so violent in the dead of night on my own ranch. I swear to you, I didn't do this and Miranda's not covering for me. If you can figure out how this happened, whether you think I could manage it or anybody else, I'd be much obliged."
"I'll do my best, Olin. In the meantime, this is an investigation and that bull is evidence. Don't get any fool ideas of destroying it until I can get somebody out here to take a closer look at the carcass. I'd be curious to know what happened to all the blood and if that's all it's missing. Okay?"
Old man Sykes agreed, reminding the sheriff's deputy that there wasn't much time and inviting him to stay for lunch. Miranda was cooking blackened catfish, scratch biscuits and dirty rice with red bean gravy, and would love for him to stay. Passing on the offer of a meal, Jacobs asked the rancher why he was in such a hurry.
"Percy will be ripe in a day or two, and with Ramirez gone It'll take that long to find somebody else to help me get him out of here. I really don't want to look at him until then, let alone smell him. There's a meatpacking plant run by a friend midway between Jefferson and Marshall. Any problem if I call him to take Percy to the cooler while you figure out who did this to him?"
Jacobs got the name and the number of the man who ran the plant, but only gave the go ahead once he found out that it was still in his jurisdiction. The last thing he wanted was for Sykes to pull a fast one and start over with a fresh but ignorant sheriff's office. He declined a second invitation to stay and have something to eat, in spite of her father's assertion that Miranda would be broken-hearted that he turned her down.
Roth thanked the rancher for his time and asked Sykes to pass along his apologies to Miranda. Under the circumstances, he considered staying for a meal a conflict of interest, now that both Olin and his daughter were potential suspects in a possible fraud. He would leave it to the insurance company to decide whether its owners staged the death of the bull for the insurance money. If not them, then how or why was as big a mystery as by whom.
Jacobs removed his hat and club, dropping them both to the passenger seat of the squad car as he got in and started the engine. Olin stood at the door to his barn, while Miranda Sykes wiped her hands on a dishcloth, half-hidden by the screen door to the house. She turned away as the deputy circled the Plymouth around in the yard and headed back up the moss-shaded drive back to the highway. Nothing personal, but part of the reason he left New Orleans in the first place were the bad memories of a failed marriage.
He was so committed to his career, five years of working nights in the French Quarter, that one morning he went home and his childhood sweetheart just wasn't there. She'd taken their three year-old son and went back home to Baton Rogue and filed for divorce. The last thing he wanted or needed in his life at that moment was yet another reminder of his past. No, it was better this way, he decided.
The deputy was no more than six miles out from Caddo Lake at the edge of the Big Cypress Bayou on 134 headed west when he passed Jeremy Borjon going in the opposite direction. He had to be headed to the Sykes place. Borjon was the editor and publisher of Jefferson's only newspaper, a weekly called The Jefferson Observer.
The National Enquirer was more like it. In a small east Texas town, as in any around the country where little happened of real importance, gossip and sensationalism were the order of the day. The Observer's goal was the same as any grocery store tabloid; to sell papers. Unlike the aisle rags, there was little need to make anything up. News traveled fast along the party lines and back porches of the sleepy little community.
Still, it was only 10:30 in the morning and Roth was certain he had gotten the first call. Olin could have placed another with the newspaper to help his cause in getting reimbursed for his loss, but why? Jorge spoke only broken English and would not have been compensated for carrying any tales on his employer. Not to mention alerting the IMS to his illegal alien status. Who then?
Miranda…
She was probably upset with him for not paying her any more attention than he had over the course of his time in Jefferson. Refusing to break bread with the Sykes while he was out there probably didn't help. The timing just wasn't right for Borjon to know about the killing and be out there so soon. Somebody had to tip him off in the last hour. The editor-in-chief was never one to wait on a story to come to him. These thoughts swirled around the strange circumstances of the bull's death. The backlash from covering the story and putting it in the paper would certainly interfere with his investigation.
Tuesday. Jacobs checked his calendar watch to be sure. That gave him four days until the latest edition hit the stands, on Friday morning. Jeremy laughingly claimed that it gave the townsfolk something to do over the weekend. Maybe he was right. At any rate, Roth considered contacting the Observer publisher after he returned from interviewing Olin and his daughter. The county magistrate could issue a gag order, but the two, as he understood it, were old fishing buddies. No help there.
The deputy had only four days before this was news to the community. He could at least appeal to Borjon's sense of propriety in exchange for an exclusive on whatever the investigation uncovered. Maybe that would keep the reporter quiet. No doubt about it, Jeremy wore many hats in the little seven-man operation. Even if more happened in and around Jefferson, he doubted that the antiquated press of the newspaper could handle putting out anything more frequently. Their only competition to sales was gossip, plain and simple.
Maybe Jeremy Borjon would keep quiet if only to scoop the rumor mill.
Deputy Jacobs was on the outskirts of Jefferson when he passed a roadside bar and grill. He always saw the same three vehicles parked in front of it, during the day. Two belonged to the owner and his only employee, the bartender and Calvin Smootz. Smootz was on and off the wagon so many times that he often forgot whether he was early or late for his next AA meeting. Roth only knew him because of the number of times Calvin had slept off a binge in an unlocked cell back at the office. Just why he drank, nobody knew and, typical of a judgmental God-fearing town, the good people of Jefferson didn't care. He was a drunk and that was that.
This morning, Calvin wasn't drinking alone. The sea-foam green of a rusted out old Dodge pickup truck with aluminum railings caught the corner of his eye and Roth swung the patrol car about at the only stoplight leading into town. There were definitely four cars in the graveled parking lot. Specifically, two cars, a truck and a beaten up scooter with a wire basket on the back, the only transportation allowed Smootz after so many DUIs.
The truck belonged to Jorge Ramirez. No need to check the tags, Jacobs decided as he pulled alongside for the second time that morning and got out of the brown and gold Plymouth to read the plates. Dead Texas stickers. "It's him all right," the deputy sheriff decided and went inside. Between the creaking of the screen door, the bell over the top to check who was leaving without paying their tab and the unintentional slam that accompanied any entrance or exit, all but the Chris LeDoux music on the jukebox stopped when he entered the darkened bar. It smelled of alcohol and old smoke, but otherwise had a local charm that made it a favorite among older singles, as well as underage kids looking to sneak in for a place to dance.
Ramirez was seated at the end of the bar farthest from the door. He had forgone the shot glass in front of him and was downing the last of a bottle of tequila. As he chewed mechanically on the worm from the bottom of the fifth, he nervously glanced up at Jacobs in the barroom mirror. The deputy sheriff ordered a beer from the bartender and took the open stool beside the migrant worker.
"You okay?" Roth asked the Mexican, and was met with a stony silence. The more he drank, the less Jorge could contain the shaking with which he raised and downed his alcohol. Something had frightened the hell out of him, and Jacobs was determined to find out what it was. "You sure let out of the Sykes place in an awful hurry this morning, Mr. Ramirez. Is there something you'd like to tell me about what happened?"
Still no response.
"Look, I can take you in for suspicion of unlawful destruction of cattle, a felony in Texas. Once I get past the dead plates on your truck, there's always the little matter of your green card and work Visa from Mexico to be here. You do have them both, don't you?" Ramirez raised nothing but his eyes to the reflection in the barroom mirror of the deputy sheriff. There was nothing left to be gained in silence.
"I did not kill Percy. You must believe me, Officer Jacobs. Señor Sykes and his daughter have been very kind to me. I ask the patron saint of my village back in Juarez to bless their safety and prosperity. Theirs is mine, and I would do nothing to take the food, shelter or clothing from my wife and children. Please do not blame me for this, I beg of you."
Roth studied the young man's profusely sweating face and found recognition there as well as an inescapable fear. "If it wasn't you, and you don't believe that Olin or Miranda are responsible, why did you run off like that? You had to know once I found you again that I would ask you some very personal questions. Is that why you left? Were you afraid of being deported back to Mexico?"
"No, señor, not at all. I would welcome the safety of my family to what has happened here. There is much you don't know about my people and our way of life, but I believe you are a good man. I want to make you understand so that you can warn Sykes and the others. There is nothing you can do to protect them, but it does not matter. They are not in danger. It will not hurt people, but it will come for and kill their animals. It is always hungry and comes at night with fiery red eyes and a thirst for sangre."
"Sangre?"
"Blood, Mr. Jacobs. In its eyes and on its tongue. It is a sanguijuela, from the days of the ancient Mayans, a vampire from the stars."
THE DOG AND THE DRUNKS
"It is a creature we call El Chupacabra, which means in English, ‘The Goatsucker’. It has been known in the United States for only a short while, since 1996 I believe, but in that time the fear of this soulless beast has spread from Puerto Rico to Mexico. There are other countries of Central and South America with animals that have been killed in the same manner as this bull."
Ramirez eyed Jacob's beer and the deputy ordered one from the bartender, a former semi-pro wrestler by the name of Blayton Collier. He preferred to be called 'Blake' in and out of the ring. Still a considerable mountain of a man in spite of a ponderous middle age spread, no one dared call him by his given name. Without a word, the barkeep and owner of the Third Round pulled a draught from the cold tap and slid it down the bar to the two men as Roth nodded and asked to have it put on his tab.
"You called it a vampire. Does that have anything to do with the lack of blood around the body?"
"I have never seen where it attacked an animal so large, but yes. It bites the neck and makes a hole where the blood of the victim is drained. How it does it or why it never takes the meat, I do not know." Ramirez swigged at the beer and wiped the dribble at his chin. He was already clearly drunk, his normally darkened skin ruddy and his eyes unfocused as they tried to bore their meaning into those of the deputy sheriff.
"We had just such an attack in my village outside Juarez, three in fact, not two years ago while I was away in California with a group of men following the harvest in the San Juaquin Valley. These were chickens, rabbits and a child's pet, a young goat I think. In each case, the outcome was the same. There was no blood left in the body or spilled where it died. Whatever killed them did not want the flesh. It left the dead animal behind, where it stiffened as though it had laid there for days before it was found."
"Did you ever see one of these creatures?"
"Never," Jorge replied with a derisive laugh. His speech began to slur as he swayed on the stool.
"Then how do you know it exists, or even that we're talking about the same animal?"
Ramirez leaned over into Jacob's face, mere inches as he lowered his voice.
"As I said, you do not know my people. Unlike you Americans, we have very long memories about what affects our lives. El Chupacabra was not a fad that happened on Puerto Rico many years ago. It has spread to my country and others. It or others of its kind hunts there still. I have heard since from relatives living in Florida that animals have begun to die there in the same awful manner as well."
"You underestimate The Goatsucker. It does not follow our people. It follows our cattle and our livestock. It is not the legend that is spreading; it is the Chupacabra itself. It is here, whether you choose to believe it or not."
Ramirez nodded and jabbed his finger at the air around him.
"You, me, all of us. Those who depend on beasts for their livelihood will be decimated before this is through. As long as there is an animal alive and unguarded, it will remain. It will feed on the blood of the living and leave the flesh to rot. Mark my words, amigo, and heed my warning. Tell your people what is after their cattle before it is too late."
Roth saw that the drunken migrant worker was fading fast.
"How will I know the Chupacabra when I see one? What does it look like, Jorge?"
Ramirez laughed as tears of anguish welled up in his eyes. "El Diablo, señor. The Devil himself!"
Before the deputy could ask another question, the Mexican's head drooped down to his crossed arms on the counter. Within moments, he was snoring loudly. Jacobs shook his head. It would be hours before he could get another word out of the only person in town who understood what they were up against.
He took up his hat, motioned for the check and with the help of the barmaid was able to maneuver Ramirez to the back seat of the squad car. Roth then asked if it would be alright to leave Jorge's truck in the lot overnight.
"Sure," the strawberry bottle-blonde replied. "Outside of Smootz's Moped, it makes it look like we're crowded for a Tuesday morning anyway. She winked and went back inside, an exaggerated swing to her hips for the deputy's benefit. Jacobs managed to get the migrant worker into a half-sitting position with the seat belt drawn across his reclined chest.
He reversed the procedure when they arrived several blocks later into town at the sheriff's office. Bill James, the self-proclaimed 'man with two first names' and the only other deputy in Jefferson, helped get Ramirez inside. They laid him gently on the bunk of an open cell. The migrant worker shifted to find a comfortable position then resumed snoring languidly with his curled back to the deputies.
"Whew! What'd you do, douse him in kerosene?" James commented as he closed the cell door.
"That won't be necessary," Roth observed after explaining where he'd found Jorge, then thought better of leaving the door open. Even without his truck, Jacobs didn't want his only link to the slaughter of the bull to wander off. In spite of the Mexican's knowledge about similar crimes, he made a poor suspect in this case. He was truly traumatized by what happened, as much for the similarity to attacks back home in his own village as to think the same had begun here.
What would become of Ramirez in the off season from harvesting when the ranches that hired him opposite the farms had no cattle left to tend? Sure, the odds of the problem spreading to that extent were slim, but a man living hand to mouth to feed his family would look at any disruption as a threat to life if not limb.
Bill left to get sandwiches at the local Dairy Queen toward noon as Jacobs settled in to try and make some sense of the strange events leading up to the death of the bull. Try as he might, he couldn't bring himself to profile the culprit as an otherworldly bloodsucker capable of bringing down an animal twenty times its size and weight. As much as he'd detested the ringing telephone that morning while he was trying to catch up on his sleep, he was relieved that it rang again. The report could wait. There was routine police business piling up and needing his attention, if only in paperwork.
Please, let it be just another run of the mill complaint.
Roth immediately recognized the voice on the other end as that of the Third Round owner, Blayton Collier. He sounded angry and distraught, immediately going into a tirade about his Rottweiller, Champ. This time, there was blood out behind the bar, but no dog.
"Blake? No, it doesn't sound crazy. I just thought you were calling to gripe about me leaving that old Dodge pickup out in front of your place. I told Delores I wanted to park it for the time being, but I'll get it moved as soon as I can. Now, what's this about Champ?" Come to think of it, Jacobs was used to seeing the tan and black 125 pound canine lying by the front door, as effective as any bouncer. He was there as often as not, penned up in a cage off the back of the bar when he got rowdy or restless. It was Collier's way of making sure he didn't just run off after anything in heat.
At the suggestion from Roth that the dog was after some female, Blake did get upset. The cage Champ was kept in had been opened, the door thrown back against the fence, probably by the force of the Rottweiller rushing through it. The deputy sheriff put down the Sykes report, but this was certainly no reprieve. If anything, it would only get longer and more involved if the two incidents were related.
"I'll be right there," Jacobs sighed.
He met James at the door carrying lunch, paid him five dollars and took the meal with him.
"What about him?" Bill asked, indicating the dozing Ramirez.
"Book him for drunk and disorderly conduct. Set bail at $3000.00. That ought to hold him until I get back." In a small town like Jefferson, Texas, the sheriff or his duly appointed deputies had the authority to act in the absence of a travelling magistrate to impose minor sentences and set fines.
For the third time that day, Roth Jacobs pulled alongside the rusted out Dodge pickup and stepped out onto the cracked asphalt of the black top parking lot. The bottle red head was waiting at the door, chewing her bottom lip as she held it open for the deputy to step into the bar.
Passing through to where Smootz sat alone in a booth at the back of the Third Round, Jacobs opened another screen door off the kitchen and joined Blayton outside. Thirty feet removed from the back porch, the bartender stood at the gate of the enclosure, testing the grated door by swinging it on its hinges just inches above the worn ground beneath it.
"I just don't get it, deputy. I make sure this cage door is well-oiled, but there's no way it could've opened by itself, let alone Champ nudge it open. Somebody had to let him out, but I trained that dog myself to attack anybody who came back here without me."
"Are you sure that's a wise decision, Collier? I mean, that's a lot of liability to assume if somebody trespasses. You could be sued." Roth waited patiently for a response.
"I could be robbed or worse, more like it. You've stepped over that worthless dog on your way into the bar before. Hell, even Calvin can navigate around him, and he's drunk most of the time when he does it. If Champ knows you, all he's looking for is a scratch behind the ear or a pat on the head. If he don't take to you, well you're in for what you deserve, anyway."
Trespasser.
Again, that phrase leapt to the deputy's mind. Just as it had with the locked barn door back on the Sykes T-Bar ranch. The whole crime scene, if indeed there even was one in the case of the missing dog, was backwards to the report he investigated with the dead bull the preceding morning. Jacobs didn't want to associate yet another animal death with a superstition. Better to eliminate all the other possibilities first. What had they called it in the Sherlock Holmes books he read as a kid and dreamed of being a detective?
Ockham's Razor. The fastest way to the truth or the best explanation of something is to get unnecessary information out of the way first.
"Are you sure Champ didn't just hurt himself getting out of the cage and ran off after whatever got him so riled up?" Jacobs figured it was straightforward, logical and didn't involve a monstrous consequence. Blake would have none of it, and seemed ready to punch out the smaller deputy for taking the quickest solution. Still, it was a reasonable scenario, so he let it stand and looked around the garage area to the single path leading up into the secluded wooded hills beyond.
Coming to the same conclusion simultaneously, Collier called for Delores Watson, the waitress, to cover for him while the two men made their way up along the winding path. They hadn't gone twenty feet over the rise when they found a disturbed patch of tall grass. It looked as if a scuffle had occurred, with the long blades bent outward, flattened or broken by something wishing to see over them without being seen itself. It looked for all the world like a nest.
One stalk was covered in dried blood. Whatever had begun back at the cage didn't end here. They pressed on in nervous silence, watching the trail to either side for a departure that might indicate which way the Rottweiller went in pursuit of its prey. The ground was too hard to leave an impression, but on the cusp of a disturbed fire anthill twenty yards up the path was a faint set of tracks. One was large and padded, definitely Champ's paw print.
The other, partially obscured by that of the much larger dog, was the track of what looked to be a large bird, three-clawed with a half-turn. It was as if whatever the dog chased looked back before racing on before it. In the first similarity to the case of the prize bull, Jacobs wondered why the owner didn't hear anything. The blood was dried, and since Blayton didn't live at the Third Round, it could have happened the previous night or as late as early that morning.
Jacobs thought to ask the bar owner why he didn't notice or report the dog missing any sooner than he did, but the deputy had been called in more than once when Champ was wandering loose around Jefferson. Although he was gentle enough to those that knew him, Collier was right. The Rottweiller would just as soon sink his teeth to the bone in a stranger unless his master was around. No, something led the big dog up into the hills intentionally to get it away from prying eyes or listening ears.
The thought froze the deputy's blood. The Syke's ranch was over thirty miles away. What kind of animal could cover that much territory overnight and still muster the energy to outrun and overpower a 125-pound Rottweiller? How much would it have to feed to be driven to seek out two victims in one night so far apart? A glutted creature of any sort would be looking to rest after having its fill. There was another possibility that Roth Jacobs didn't want to entertain. If one of these Chupacabra existed, there might be two.
They suddenly came upon the body of Champ, wrapped around the base of a Pecan tree. It was as if he had been thrown there, to drape about the roots of the state tree.
Immediately, Jacobs worked with Collier to move the dog down the hill to the back of Ramirez's truck. As before, there was no blood other than where the Rottweiller had been scratched on the side and the bridge of its powerful muzzle. A gaping, perfectly round wound punched the side of the neck beneath the collar, where it was mercifully hidden from the owner. Smootz was gone, so there was no need for explanation. Not that the old drunk would have remembered anyway.
Delores chewed her gum nervously, but promised to say nothing to anyone else until given permission by the sheriff's department and Jacobs personally. She agreed with a wink, as if the request carried with it a certain obligation on his part. Roth shook it off and had Collier follow his squad car in the truck. The deputy sheriff called in the report to Bill James, who was unusually agreeable.
The second deputy contacted the county coroner's office, which happened to be located on the western outskirts of Jefferson. A human doctor would not have a patient and a veterinarian would ask too many questions. He needed something at that point that neither could provide.
Forensic pathology on what killed the unfortunate beast.
Ten minutes later, they pulled into the unassuming Harrison county morgue offices. It looked more like an outdated DMV building than a receiving area for those that died under mysterious circumstances.
A pair of older men who had shared the gruesome duties of autopsy and determination of death for the last twenty-five years met them in the freshly painted lot. They each took one corner of the tarp on which the dog was laid, the two coroners remarking on the rigid state and emaciated look of the animal. "How long has he been dead?"
Hoping to avoid any embarrassing questions in front of the bartender, Jacobs remarked, "I was hoping you could tell us!" For the next half-hour, Roth and Collier filled in the pair on what they knew of the manner of the dog's disappearance and how they found it. Beyond that, the deputy was afforded little opportunity to explain his concerns in private. They were concerned as he asked them to pay close attention to the state of the blood and organs of the Rottweiller, although with one notable exception the external wounds were hardly invasive, in their estimation. One of them was named Klein, the other Oscarson. In his hurry to usher Blake out of the morgue, which smelled of formaldehyde, Jacobs wasn't sure which coroner was which.
Jacobs requested that a full report be made ready by the morning, as he authorized the necessary work in the absence of Sheriff Crawley. They were not used to taking orders from the sheriff's office, but understood by the strained plea in his expression that time was of the essence. Whatever killed this animal, it probably wasn't expected to be the last. The town of Jefferson and the surrounding areas had an unknown predator on their hands.
Reluctantly, they agreed to his demand as Roth thanked them, pushing Blake Collier out before him. As a final favor, he had the Third Round owner follow him back to the station, where the Mexican's truck was impounded in the back lot. The deputy promised to do all he could to resolve what caused the Rottweiller's death as the patrol car pulled into the parking lot of the bar and let out the bartender.
It was by now mid-afternoon, and Jacobs was in a hurry to get back to Ramirez to find out more about the Chupacabra. Like so many others, he had heard something about the strange creature, or at least the impact on the people of Puerto Rico during the mid-1990s.
But that had all settled down, hadn't it?
Roth parked the squad car next to one of only two others in the fleet belonging to the Jefferson sheriff's department. He stepped around a bright red Moped as he made his way up to the tinted glass door with bronzed lettering. Pulling the handle with only a single backwards glance to the scooter with the wire basket on the back, he called inside to ask who it belonged to when a knot seized at the pit of his stomach.
Calvin Smootz!
Instead of the sobering migrant worker he left in the care and custody of Deputy Bill James, the rotund and unshaven town drunk was now trying fitfully to get to sleep, as Jacobs loudly demanded an explanation from his partner.
"Well, it's like this. You said to keep an eye on Ramirez, book him for disorderly conduct and fine him $3000.00 for public intoxication. Problem is, somebody came in and made bail for him. They haven't been gone twenty minutes now. I helped him on with his boots and this newspaperman from 'The Jefferson Observer' drove off with him."
"Let me guess. Jeremy Borjon."
"Yeah, that's the guy. Said something about protecting his source's first amendment rights." Jacobs was about to get infuriated, but both men quieted when an exasperated Calvin Smootz, his hair askew and disheveled, raised himself out of his stupor long enough to demand that the pair be quiet so that he could get some shuteye. He was out again before he hit the pillow.
No sense in appealing to the editor's sense of justice or threaten him with censure. Roth Jacobs had the uneasy feeling that a special edition of 'The Jefferson Observer' would hit the convenience stores and front porches of the east Texas town by morning, costing him whatever advantage or head start he had in finding out what was responsible for the bizarre mutilations.
He was right.
THE AUTOPSY
Wednesday morning fell on Jefferson, Texas like the last day on earth. From the half-deserted Waffle House and independent diners up and down Main Street, to the unexpected three-page edition of 'The Observer' that lay like an abandoned child on so many doorsteps, the world would never be the same. Above the fold on the first page, facing up on the counters and door mats, sleepy-eyed citizens of the tiny community read the same headline with growing alarm:
EXTRATERRESTRIAL CATTLE MUTILATION: POLICE BAFFLED
Although it was far less of a surprise than an annoyance to the Sheriff's department, Bill James knew without bringing it to Roth's attention just what would be in the story. Jacobs already seemed to be nursing as much of a headache as Calvin Smootz, who was freshening up to dive back into the Third Round as soon as it opened.
"You know about this?" James asked sheepishly.
"Yeah. I know," the half-Cajun deputy replied.
"So, what are we gonna do about it?"
"We? Nothing. You are going to use an old trick we applied back when I was on the French Quarter patrol in N'awlins. It's called 'plausible deniability'."
"Me? I don't know anything about this situation. What am I supposed to tell these people when they call or storm into the office demanding what we know? I'd have to plead ignorance!"
"Exactly. I need you to hold out for as long as you can. In fact, I wouldn't even read that trash Borjon threw together. It would only make them think he was right about whatever he got by nagging Sykes and helping out Jorge Ramirez." Roth Jacobs drew back his jet-black hair and fitted his tan Stetson hat to his head.
"Wait a minute. You can't just leave me here, deputy. Where are you going?"
"County Coroner's office. I've got to get some answers."
Bill rolled the paper and tucked it under his arm. "What am I supposed to do in the meantime?"
Roth sighed, stopped at the door to let Smootz out and turned back to his partner.
"Damage control, Bill. Just keep them at bay until I get back. Alright?"
Deputy James would have none of it. "Well, I think somebody's got a lot of explaining to do and it ain't me. I think I'd better give Sheriff Crawley a call. He ought to know what's been going on while he's been gone."
"Do what you've got to do. I'm not going to try and stop you. I do think, however, that he wouldn't be happy with you asking him to come back because of a mutilated bull, a dead dog and a midweek edition of the town paper. You know him much better than I do. Gerald doesn't seem like the type that appreciates panic over by the numbers police work. No one's going to panic until you do. Understand?"
The man with two first names nodded and turned toward the bathroom to read, with the rolled up newspaper tucked under his arm.
"Good," Jacobs murmured under his breath as he closed the front door behind him. With the story breaking the deadline he thought he had, the next impending disaster he had to ward off was the return of the sheriff without at least a mundane explanation to the mystery of the two seemingly unrelated animal deaths.
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