What Readers Are Saying
Very interesting take on a persistent legend from a culture thousands of years old that we know nothing about. In a time when writing is populated by vampires and zombies it is refreshing to find a book with a real historical mystery.
-- Stephen Lewis, reader Barnes & Noble
Great tale from the wilds of British Columbia using the idea of a legend that seems very real. Great characters and good descriptions. I liked this book.
-- TJ Flynn, reader Smashwords
A Guest for Halloween
A Lex & Ricky Mystery
REDUX EDITION
by William Henderson
Copyright 2011 William Henderson
All Rights Reserved
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Chapter 1: The Coming Home
“It’s my turn, now,” Ricky was telling Lex for the third time, as he turned up the music even louder on his iPod, just to annoy him.
“Shut up, you wiener!” Lex dismissed him like he was brushing off a mosquito. The older brother was busy competing on-line with some guy named RangerBob to kill the most Nazi zombies.
“C’mon, Lex. It’s my turn!” implored Ricky, as he reached for the game controller.
“Buzz off, puke!” Lex turned his shoulder away from his little brother. “Awww, look what you made me do, you jerk!” cried Lex as he punched Ricky in the leg. “Here, you killed me anyway. You might as well have it now!” Lex tossed the controller at Ricky who had retracted into a ball with his knees drawn up to his chest at the far end of the couch.
Ricky didn’t just want to play the game, he wanted to play with Lex, like they used to. “Let’s play Little Big Planet so we can both play,” pleaded Ricky.
“You always want your own way. I hate you,” declared Lex as he got up and walked toward the game console.
“Turn it off, Alex,” the boys’ mother, Karen appeared in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen.
“Oh, hey Mom we didn’t know you where home from work already,” declared Lex looking surprised.
“Obviously, or you wouldn’t be playing the game until the kitchen was cleaned up like I asked you. And if I ever see you hit your brother again you won’t be playing that bloody game at all!” Karen chided Lex. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Look at the size of you!”
At twelve years old Lex was already taller than his mother and he had the raven black hair and tanned skin that she inherited from her father, a Gitselasu from Kitselas Canyon.
“Now there’s at least an hour until supper. Go out and see if you can meet some of the other kids in the neighborhood. Just be back in an hour!” Karen commanded as she unloaded the groceries onto the kitchen table.
The boys felt lost since moving to the small town of Terrace in northern British Columbia. The pace of life and number of distractions were nothing like those in Vancouver. They didn’t know what to do with themselves. They missed their friends and they missed their dad. To make matters worse they didn’t even live in town. Their place was out in the boonies several miles southeast of town off a main road, called Old Lakelse Lake Drive. They were told that the house was left to their mom and her brother Jeff, by their grandfather when he passed away two years ago. It was the house she grew up in.
There were a few streets to the west on the other side of the main road but the bush seemed more worthy of investigation. Especially considering the mood Lex found himself in. Ricky found some branch and was thrashing the brush as he tagged along behind. Lex felt guilty for resenting his constant companion. Their new place was one of two lots at the dead end of a gravel street. A large field of tall grass was straight out the kitchen door. Lex wandered aimlessly across the field until he came upon a trail in the bush that gradually climbed the hill before them. They followed the trail through the close bush for a while until it gave way to a stand of old growth Western red cedars, Sitka spruce and Hemlock trees. What little light made it through the canopy nourished the saplings and ferns that seemed to completely cover the forest floor. The boys stood for a moment and marveled at the sheer size of these ancient trees. Their uncle told them that many were over 150 feet tall and hundreds of years old.
“Do you think it will be easy to make new friends, Lex?” asked Ricky as he swatted every flower, berry and bush he could find.
“For you, sure. That is if you ever shut up long enough for anyone else to do the talking,” spitted Lex catching himself being nice to his bothersome little brother.
“How come you are so angry all the time, Lex? You’re always mad at…”
“Shhhh, be quiet!” Lex hushed Ricky as he instinctively crouched to lower his profile on the trail. “Did you hear that?” he whispered pulling Ricky down beside him.
Crack, crack, crack, came the sound of what? Gunfire? They didn’t know. Neither one of them had ever heard a real gun shot. It sounded as if it came from over the next rise in the trail. Lex motioned Ricky to follow and they did their best commando stealth moves up the trail to lay on a ridge and crawl up to peer over.
Some forty feet in front of them was a kid around Lex’s age loading a short clip with shells. Beyond the shooter was a clearing about the size of a baseball diamond infield with a rock face a little taller than the kid firing the rifle. A short log lay on the ground parallel to the rock face with an assortment of cans resting on top. The shooter took aim and fired. Crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, reported the rifle. The clip was spent and the rifleman hit only one of the cans.
“Gawwd. He sucks,” remarked Ricky, realizing too late that he was a little too loud.
“I hear ya!” yelled the shooter in their direction as he removed the clip and leaned the rifle against the stump that tabled his box of shells. “Show yourselves!” commanded the shooter as he began to load the clip.
The brothers stood up and revealed themselves to the kid with the rifle.
“You know, it’s not polite to spy on people in the bush around here. Besides, you could get shot! Why don’t ya come down and introduce yourselves?” he yelled tucking the ammunition clip into the front pocket of his of his jean overalls; standing squarely facing them with his hands on his hips.
The boys moved forward slowly, cautiously. They had never met a kid with a real gun before. “Hey,” Lex offered a pensive greeting, waving his hand in a short arc in front of him.
“Hey yourselves,” the shooter returned the greeting. “Where did you guys come from?”
“Ah, we’re new around here. We just moved into our grandfather’s old place down on Crystal Road,” offered Lex. “I’m Lex and this is my little brother, Ricky.”
“I’m Tommy,” responded the shooter sticking his right fist out for knuckle bumps from Lex and Ricky.
“So what grade are you both in?” asked Tommy.
“I’m going into grade five and Lex is going into grade eight,” offered Ricky.
“Hey, so you’ll be going to Thornhill Junior with me,” Tommy replied to Lex, ignoring Ricky.
“Yeah, I guess so,” said Lex. “Where do you live?”
“About a mile down that trail there that leads south to Marion Road. It’s the next road going south toward Lakelse Lake from where you live.” Tommy said looking at the trail that Ricky and Lex would have crossed had they not taken a detour over the berm to watch Tommy.
“Is that your gun?” Ricky asked Tommy.
“I’m shootin’ it ain’t I? Besides, it’s not a gun, it’s a .22 caliber rifle,” said Tommy proudly.
“Where did you get it?” Ricky clearly admired the rifle.
“My dad gave it to me for my twelve birthday,”
“Get out! Your father actually gave you a rifle?” Ricky asked incredulously.
“Most guys around here get a rifle at twelve,” Tommy stated as though it was no big deal, removing the clip from his overall pocket and loading it into the rifle. “Where are you guys from?” Tommy asked, now with his back to them taking aim at the cans down range. Crack! Reported the rifle, once.
“You hit it!” exclaimed Ricky.
“Vancouver, well actually, a suburb of Vancouver called Delta,” Lex finally got the opportunity to get a word in edge wise now that Ricky was distracted.
“Oh, yeah. Never been to Vancouver,” Tommy replied as he cracked off another shot.
“Ohhh, missed,” reported Ricky.
“Oh, really? Thanks, squirt.” Tommy leered at Ricky. “Want a shot, Lex?”
“I do!” Ricky hopped forward.
“You’re too young, kid,” replied Tommy dismissively.
“Ah sure,” Lex stepped forward.
“Now, always keep the rifle pointed down range or up in the air. Never pass it to someone unless the safety is on. See, here is the safety,” Tommy demonstrated by tucking the butt of the .22 into his stomach and rolling it flat so Lex could see the safety button at the heel of the trigger guard.
“OK, I get it,” Lex stepped forward and took the rifle from Tommy, careful to keep the barrel pointed down range.
“Now take aim lining up the two notch sights on the barrel, push the safety off and squeeze the trigger,” instructed Tommy.
Crack! Reported the rifle.
“Missed,” reported Ricky.
“That’s OK. You have two more shells,” Tommy guided Lex.
Crack! Crack! Lex fired off two shots.
“Hey, you got one!” Ricky yelled excitedly and started to run down range.
“Stop!” yelled Tommy snapping Ricky back by the shirt collar and throwing him to the ground. “Never run down range until all weapons are secured, you jerk!” shouted Tommy.
“I..I...didn’t know!” cried Ricky looking to his brother for support.
“Get out of here! No little kids allowed on the range!” screamed Tommy.
Ricky slowly got to his feet looking at Lex who felt the same way as Tommy. No little kids allowed
“OK,” managed Ricky. This was the first time ever that Lex didn’t stick up for him and it hurt more that any stranger throwing him to the ground. Ricky slowly backed away from Tommy who was pointing the way back down the trail, while Lex turned his back on them and leaned the rifle against the stump.
A few minutes down the trail toward home, Ricky could hear the report of the rifle as Lex and Tommy resumed their shooting practice. He had never felt so alone as he did at that moment and thought about calling his dad when he got home. He was in no hurry to get there and was taking his frustration out on the plants along the path with a stick again. Suddenly, something in the periphery of his awareness snagged his attention and he stopped. Looking up he just caught the blur of a dark shape fuse with the murkiness of the deep bush. Ricky knew next to nothing of the wildlife in this country. He had been told by his uncle to make lots of noise when in the bush and to never run if chased by a bear. “To a bear, only food and something to play with runs through the bush,” his Uncle Jeff told him. He could smell something that reminded him of a skunky, wet dog. So to a young man with his naïve experience, that’s what he thought was hiding from him.
Ricky stood on the edge of the trail and yelled, “Here boy! Here boy!” waving the stick in the air. The bush was still. Neither bird nor insect stirred and he might have thought he was dreaming had he not heard the distant crack of the rifle. “Here boy!” called Ricky as he left the trail and headed along a faint path through the ferns covering the forest floor into the bush; calling out for the dog about every ten feet. ‘It is darker in here’, Ricky was thinking but he could smell that dog ever stronger now. As Ricky moved around the biggest red cedar tree he had ever seen he heard something that sounded like someone pushing air through his nose. It reminded him of the sound that the bison had made on one of those nature programs he used to watch with his dad. “Whoosh! Whoosh! Thump! Thump!” Ricky heard the hard nasal air expelling clearly this time along with what sounded like hooves stomping the ground or maybe something hitting the trunk of a tree.
Those sounds made the hair stand up on the back of Ricky’s neck and something, call it instinct or intuition, warned him not to go any further. Stepping back toward the cedar his heel bumped a large pile of rocks between two colossal roots reaching out from the tree. No not rocks, stones, all about the same size and color. Ricky picked one off the top of the neatly assembled pile and noticed that it was perfectly smooth, flat and somewhat elongated, about the size of his fist. “Whoosh! Whoosh! Thump! Thump!” came the sound again from the darkness ahead of him. Ricky was beginning to realize that there was no dog in the bush with him. But that smell, what else could it be?
“Here boy! Here boy!” Ricky decided to try one last time since whatever it was certainly knew he was here. Had he thought about it at the time, he would have realized that he wasn’t waiving the stick to entice any longer, but was holding it in front of himself for defense. “Here boy!” and he whistled loud, “Sooowheeet!” as he slowly looked around still half expecting to see a dog come bounding out of the bush. Just inside the dark edge of the forest ahead something mimicked Ricky. “Sooowheeet! Whoosh! Whoosh! Thump! Thump!” came a reply. And then he could hear the sound of footfalls and someone running away from him really fast. Ricky looked down at the smooth stone in his hand and felt more curiosity than fear. The scent dissipated quickly and all that remained now was the earthy odor of decaying vegetation with a hint of cedar and spruce. He rubbed the smooth surface of the stone with his thumb and he pondered what had transpired. Ricky had watched a lot of nature shows with his dad and Lex but never once had he heard of something that could run like a man and whistle back to you.
Ricky and his mom were at the kitchen table eating supper when Lex walked in the kitchen door, “And where have you been!” glared Karen.
“Well you wanted me to make friends, so I made a friend,” Lex retorted as he put on some oven mitts and retrieved his supper from the oven.
“And why did your brother come home by himself?
“It’s up to him, if he wanted to come home then he could come home. How is that my problem?” Lex replied indignantly.
“You haven’t been very nice to Ricky since we moved here,” Karen wasn’t sure how to deal with the conflict between the boys but supposed it was a natural evolution in their relationship. People do inevitably go their own way, no matter how close they once were. Still, it broke her heart to watch as they both used to be so inseparable. It didn’t seem to bother Ricky right now though. He shoveled down his supper like he hadn’t eaten in days while rubbing that strange stone in his hand with his thumb. Karen decided to let the matter drop. “So you met a friend. Where did you meet them and what is their name?”
“Tommy ah, I don’t know his last name. We followed the trail on the other side of the field and met up with him in the bush on the ridge,” responded Lex.
“You were in the bush? I told you not to go too far into the bush. There are a lot of bears in this country, and other things. If you want to go in the bush, go with your Uncle Jeff, he will show you the ways of the forest,” Karen tried not to let her fear of their going into the bush alone be too obvious. She knew that the more she asked them not to do something, the more tempting the forbidden action would become.
“OK, sure Mom,” Lex lied.
“What other things?” piped in Ricky.
“What?” Karen didn’t realize Ricky was even paying attention.
“You said bears and other things were in the bush. What other things?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” now Karen lied. “The point is there are real dangers in the bush that you boys haven’t been made aware of and are not prepared for. Your uncle can tell you all about the bush around here when he takes you to work with him in the morning.”
Ricky considered telling his mom about his encounter in the bush but wisely decided it would only upset her. She would only become more anxious regarding any future forays into the surrounding forest.
Karen couldn’t help but notice Ricky’s fixation with the stone that he kept rubbing, “What is that you keep rubbing with your thumb, Ricky?”
“I dunno, I found a pile of these smooth red rocks just off the trail,” he replied.
“Off the trail. How far off the trail?” Karen was agitated.
“Not too far,” Ricky muttered getting the drift of where this line of questioning was heading.
“I want you boys to stay out of the bush when you are by yourselves. Do you hear, me?” Karen waited for some sort of acknowledgement and they both bobbed their heads. “Now Lex, it’s your turn to do the clean up. And Ricky, you need a shower before bed. I have lessons to prepare since school starts soon and I am so far behind with this move and all. Let’s move boys, 06:00 comes early and I don’t want your uncle waiting on you.”
Chapter 2: This Land is Your Land
It was still dark when they heard the truck door slam in the driveway next to the kitchen. The aluminum storm door opened and in ducked the boys’ uncle Jeff, Karen’s half-brother. He was one of the biggest men the boys had ever seen and there was no mistaking that he was native with his raven black hair and tanned skin. People often said that Lex looked as though his Uncle Jeff had spit him out; they looked so much alike. This always made Ricky feel like an outsider because he looked more like the people of their father's European heritage.
“Hey what’s for breakfast, Sis?” Jeff winked at the boys as he slung his Natural Resources Canada logoed jacket over the back of a chair and sat down at the kitchen table.
“Bubble and squeak with salmon steaks just as you requested, your highness,” Karen sometimes adored her older brother. He was all the family she had left other than her two sons.
“Awesome!” Jeff grinned at them. Now the boys understood why all the furniture seemed so big in their grandfather’s house. Mom told them that the house had been built by their grandfather and uncle over thirty years ago. When Jeff was just a teenager and they moved south after his mom died of tuberculosis.
“Awww, can’t we just have cereal,” complained Lex. “What the heck is bubble and squeak anyway?”
“Ancient Indian recipe little half-breed,” boomed Uncle Jeff in his best stereotypical Indian mimicry, “potato, leeks, eggs and mussels all fried up together. Doesn’t it smell great?”
“Mom says half-breed is a derogatory term and that we are called Métis now,” chimed in Ricky.
“Is that so?” Jeff cocked an eye toward his sister; unsure of whether he was annoyed or amused with the courage of the little fella to speak up. “Well actually…”
Jeff never got a chance to finish as his sister stepped between them and started ladling the bubble and squeak onto her brother’s plate. “Yes it is and I won’t have you telling them any different,“ Karen advised him sternly. “That war ended a long time ago and I won’t have you stoking that fire in my kids. You know more than half the people around here have native blood in them. That means we all belong to the land.”
Jeff put a big smile on his face and gently put his hand on his sister’s arm, “I didn’t mean nothin’ by it Sis. I was just goofing around. Aren’t you hungry boys? This smells great!” Jeff winked at Ricky and started shoveling the food in. As much as he promised himself he wouldn’t, he managed to touch that nerve in his sister again, after all this time. He could never really get over the fact that his father had married a white woman within two years of his mother's death. Karen's mom was young and had a hard time coping with a bitter native son and baby. By the time Karen was two years old her mom had run off.
Jeff knew he played a significant role in the decision of Karen’s mother to leave. Being back in the family home with his sister again brought back a flood of memories of stupid heated arguments on things no one could do anything about. He was so bitter back then. Although his father never came out and said it, Jeff came to blame himself for his sister leaving and going south when she was just seventeen. So when Karen phoned him up last month telling him that she was splitting up with her husband and didn’t know what to do, he saw it as an opportunity to atone for past wrongs he had done to his only remaining blood relative.
“Disgusting!” Ricky declared. “I will have some of the salmon though,” and he speared one of the grilled steaks from the plate in the middle of the table.
“How about you Lex? You like it?” questioned Uncle Jeff digging the tines of his fork into a mussel.
“It’s OK,” answered Lex as he picked out the potato that he knew he would like, anxious to please his uncle.
“Well you kids have fun and don’t forget to clean up,” Karen was hurriedly pulling her things together to get out the door. “I should be home by 3:00 or so, I have to spend a lot of time on my lesson plan for this new class. Have fun and mind your uncle in the bush,” she reminded the boys as she kissed her sons and stumbled out the kitchen door.
“At last men only!” Uncle Jeff remarked as he rolled his large frame slightly to the left and squeezed one out that sounded a lot like a blast on Lex’s trumpet, “I thought she’d never leave!” He roared and sounded another toot.
“Yeah!” Lex laughed as he belched as loud as he could.
“Copy that!” Ricky sounded off a large burp of his own.
Odd, Jeff mused to himself as he gathered up the dirty dishes, how the most rudimentary animal functions bond all males. “Well, boys let’s get crackin’. Lex put the leftovers in the fridge. Ricky put the dirty dishes in the sink. You boys make sure to clean the dishes when you get home after our trip today, right?
“Right,” Lex marched in step.
“Sure, Uncle Jeff,” Ricky said as he quickly turned and picked up his smooth stone he had forgotten on the table.
“Hey that’s one nice piece of lava you got there, Ricky.” Jeff noticed as Ricky jammed the stone deep into his jeans.
“Lava? Is that what it is?” Ricky pulled it back out to look at.
“Oh yeah, that dark red brick color can only mean lava around here,” Uncle Jeff was looking closely at the smooth stone in Ricky’s hand. “Most are a light purple. Dark red one’s like that are really rare. You had better be careful down by the river collecting those rocks, the water in the Skeena River is fast. I once knew a guy who stood in the current the wrong way, got his foot wedged under a rock and the force of the water pushed him onto his back under the water. It was a simple mistake but if someone hadn’t been there close to him, he would have drowned.”
“Oh, I didn’t get it at the river,” confessed Ricky.
“Well, that’s the only place a smooth lava stone like that can come from. It takes hundreds or maybe thousands of years for the rivers to wear a chunk of lava smooth like that,” Uncle Jeff informed the boys.
“Well, I found enough of these smooth red stones in the bush up on the ridge to fill that garbage can,” Ricky nodded toward the ten gallon plastic pail Lex was unloading the breakfast scraps into.
Really?” Uncle Jeff looked deep in thought as he took the stone from Ricky and examined it more closely, “Show me.”
“Right now? It’s kind of far, I thought you were in a hurry?” Ricky wondered.
“Yeah, right now. This is interesting,” is all Jeff would let on.
As the three of them left the house dawn was beginning to break east over the ridge, casting a rhubarb hue into the brightening blue sky. Ricky wasn’t sure he would be able to find the same spot where he left the main trail but knew Uncle Jeff had a good eye for sign in the bush. After walking along the trail for about twenty minutes Ricky slowed his pace knowing he must be getting close. Moments later Jeff stopped and pointed left off of the main trail.
“Is this where you went in, Ricky?” The long grass was pushed down making it obvious that something had left the trail here.
“Ah, yeah, could be,” Ricky wasn’t really sure until he noticed the red berries all over the path. He picked up a couple, “Yeah, I remember knocking all of the berries off these plants.”
“That’s what I figured,” said Jeff looking off into the bush while wagging his index finger at him. “Don’t ever eat any of those red or white baneberries. Just a couple for a fella your size could stop your heart.” He looked at Ricky, “show me where you found the stone.”
Ricky dropped the berries as if they were red hot and wiped his hands on his jeans before leading the way toward the gigantic Western red cedar. Within minutes Ricky was standing at the base of the tree pointing to a pile of stones between roots so thick they were up to his knees.
“I don’t understand what brought you in here in the first place,” Jeff was down on his left knee picking up one of the scores of smooth bright red lava stones that were stacked neatly into a conical shape maybe two feet high and three feet across at the base. “And where were you Lex?”
Lex just looked at the ground, not knowing what to say. He knew he was wrong for letting his little brother go off on his own, but he was tired of being the babysitter.
Ricky had no problem telling his story. He would have told Lex last night if he had been nicer to him. Jeff and Lex listened with rapt attention to every detail of Ricky’s story. The skunky, wet dog smell, the breathing sounds and the whistling; they were fascinated.
The boys noticed that Uncle Jeff seemed very concerned, “You guys should stay out of the bush around here. And if you do go in the bush make sure you make lots of noise. Don’t try to be quiet. There are lots of bears and the odd mountain lion that you do not want to surprise in the bush.”
“Yeah, we know. You told us all this before,” Lex was impatient with being treated as a kid all of the time.
“Is that what you think it was, a bear or mountain lion?” asked Ricky.
“No. Your instincts were right there, Ricky. Animals don’t whistle,” replied Jeff contemplatively as he set the red stone he was examining back into it’s position in the pile and stood up. “It sounds like one of the Old Ones,” Jeff said more to himself than the boys.
“The Old Ones? Who are the Old Ones?” asked Lex.
Jeff noticed just how thick the forest’s embrace became a mere twenty feet from them and got an uneasy feeling that they might be watched at this very moment.
“Let’s move out guys, we have work to do today,” Jeff started back out to the trail with Lex close behind him. Ricky was quick to gauge his uncle’s uneasiness but couldn’t resist grabbing a couple more of those smooth red stones for his pockets.
They made it back to the house a lot faster than it took them to get to the place of Ricky’s encounter. Jeff seemed to be in a hurry but kept looking back to make sure the boys were close behind. When the boys had a chance to talk about it later that night, Lex said Uncle Jeff was in a hurry because he was late starting his day, but to Ricky it felt more like his uncle was spooked by something. When they pressed their uncle as to who the Old Ones were all he would say is that they would talk about it later.
Uncle Jeff had a job as a geologist for the federal government that provided him with a dual cab, four-wheel drive Ford pick up complete with a cap on the back. They all piled in and headed north for about an hour along the Nisg’a’ Highway until the wet, lush forests of the Coast Mountains gave way to a barren rocky wasteland covered in moss and lichen.
“Wow! What happened here!” exclaimed Lex who was riding shotgun.
“This is why we are here men. We call this the Nass Valley lava flow, the most recent large scale eruption of lava in these mountains.”
“I don’t see any volcano. Where’s the volcano? If there is lava shouldn’t there be a big volcano?” Ricky was in the back seat moving from window to window looking for a volcano rising out of the rocky desert, like those he had seen spewing lava on television.
“Good point, but no there is no volcano that blew its top here guys.” Jeff began to explain. “This whole area is on the edge of the Kitsumkalum-Kitimat valley, formed millions of years ago by the movement along fault lines allowing the rock of the valley floor to sink, while the adjacent rocks were pushed up to form the mountains you see all around us.”