The Totem

"But don't you see I have to know?" the medical examiner had begged him. Slaughter knew how he himself would feel and in the end had let him. After all, what difference did it make? The boy was dead. There wasn't time to bring in someone else to do the job. They had to know right now how this thing worked. He sipped his drink and wondered if the medical examiner would find out that the boy had died from other causes. That would be the best thing anyone could hope for. If the medical examiner did discover that, however, was it likely that the town council would believe him? Or yourself, he thought. Would you believe him? Do you trust him that much?

Yes, he thought, and when the phone rang and he reached for it, he guessed that this might be the medical examiner calling to report. But it wasn't, just a dead sound on the telephone.

"Who is it?" Slaughter repeated, but there wasn't any answer. He wondered if this might be the father. "Is there anybody-?"

But abruptly the dial tone was buzzing, and he stared down at the phone and set it onto its holder. Which he would have done regardless, because from the field down by the barn he heard the horses. They were whi

But now the night was silent, heavy, except for the skittish whi

So, careful to approach the open barn door from an angle, he quickly reached inside to switch on the floodlights. There were two sets, one in front and back, that blazed out toward the drywash and the field beside the barn and toward the house. His eyes hurt briefly as he stared at where the horses galloped toward the right and whi

The words were out before he knew he'd said them, and their sound, mixed with the horses' panic, startled him. He'd never seen them act like this. When there was something here that bothered them, they always made some slight disturbance and then shifted toward a better section of the field. But both were in a frenzy, snorting, twitching, galloping, and he was just about to climb the fence and go out there to calm then when he realized that they might be infected. Sure, a sudden change in ma

But what else could he do? Assume that something in the darkness frightened them. He hoped that was the case. He loved these horses, and he'd hate to lose them. Well, get moving then. He realized that his reluctance was an indication of how much he'd been bothered, and he took a breath, pulled out his gun, then forced himself to walk along the fence to reach the drywash.

The floodlights brightened everything for fifty yards behind the barn. He saw the red clay of the gully, saw the bushes on the slope across there and the trees along the far rim. He glanced behind him, fearful that there might be something crouched behind the barn, and then his back protected, he walked slowly toward the gully.

There was nothing at the bottom, just the red clay and the boulders and the branches he had thrown in to stop erosion. All the same, he felt that there was something. In the field, the horses continued skittering and snorting, and he didn't know exactly how to do this. Under usual circumstances, he would have no second thoughts before he went down into the gully and then up the other side to check the bushes. After all, what normally would be out there that could harm him? But this trouble made him reconsider everything. He had to distrust every living thing and even dead ones. But he couldn't bear the horses' panic, couldn't tolerate their agony. He had to stop what they were doing. So he started down the gully when he heard the branches snapping.

Over to his left, across the gully in the bushes, where the glare from the floodlights blended with the darkness. Stepping back toward the rim, he walked along it, frowning toward the darkness. His handgun cocked and ready, he couldn't be certain if the branches snapped from something that came close or backed off. Then he heard another group of branches snapping, farther to the left, and he relaxed a little as he judged that it was something moving off. The branches snapped close to the first place he had heard them now, however-farther to the left again as well-and there was more than one thing out here, that was certain. He was rigid, fighting the urge to flee in panic like the horses.

Keep control. It's just coyotes. Sure, then why the hell have you quit breathing? When he heard the snapping once again and couldn't pretend anymore that it wasn't coming closer, he reacted without thinking. His instinct now in charge, he fired in the air and saw the lean four-footed object, furry, scrambling backward through the bushes. Then he saw the other, and another, and he might have shouted as he saw yet another coming nearer. He would never know for sure. He heard a noise down in the gully to his right, another on the far side of the barn, and he was ru

"Hello," a sleepy voice said. "Who, uh-"

"Rettig, this is Slaughter. Get Hammel and get out here."

"Chief? Is that you? I uh-"

"Rettig, don't ask questions. Just get out here."

"To the station? What time is it?"

"My place. Fast. I need you."

Slaughter repeated his instructions and set down the phone, hearing how the horses whi