"The h.e.l.l you are," I say sharply. "That tape belongs to me!"

He's still got that charged-up bucktoothed wolf grin on him. It's making me sick to look at it. He steps toward me. "I was afraid I'd have to kill you. And here we is...."

Billy reaches out his hand toward my neck. Electricity crackles blue and yellow between his fingers.

But the Corriganville security guard, Carlos, is coming along behind the buildings below us, flashlight in his hand. "Carlos!" I yell, backing away from Billy. "Need help up here! Intruder's trying to rob me!"

Carlos comes waddling up the slope, shouting, pulling his gun. He's a fat man and doesn't move too fast. But Billy doesn't like the look of that uniform and pistol. He hesitates now, eyeing Carlos-and I take that chance to run back to the Revox. I pull the tape reel off the machine and toss it into the back of the trailer. Then I lock the Airstream up and I toss the key far away into the darkness. Figure I'll get a locksmith later, or just bust down the door myself.

I turn around-and there is Billy, faintly glowing against the dimness. His eyes are sparking with anger and he's reaching for me-and there's a flash.

Then I am shaking on the ground. I'm not hurt too bad-mostly just stunned. Billy stands over me like he's going to finish me.

But Carlos fires a warning shot as he gets to the road and Billy is slipping around the other side of the trailer. I hear him whistling for Pedro and then I hear hoofbeats-and Billy the Kid is riding away.

I leave the area, soon as I get my truck battery charged. I head up to Northern California. Scared, but not ready to give up that tape. Might have done something with it, too, like write that screenplay-but I slide right into the bottle and mostly forget about the tape. I lose my house and my truck to drink.

I hit a bottom, deep down.

Then I find my way to AA-and I'm six years sober now. Working for a cable company, still living alone in my old Airstream. Thinking about that screenplay I'm not writing.

But this morning, I see a strange young woman standing out by my mailbox. She's wearing a camouflage-type military tee shirt and jeans. She's got almost no chin to her; she's tanned real dark and has her hair tied back in a dirty ponytail. I step out of the trailer, and she says to me, "Billy sent us to tell you, you're to give up the tape. His mind has found you, Jack, and you cannot hide now. He said to tell you and now you've been told. You get the tape ready, in a box, and we will come for it."

Then she gets in a dusty old Chevrolet, and it rumbles off.

That makes me remember a newspaper article from about two months ago. I saved it, pretty sure who they were talking about....

So I go into the Airstream and dig the clipping out of a junk drawer and read it again. And now I'm thinking that when I'm done with this recording, I'm going to go to the newspaper reporter who wrote this, and play this recording for him. I'll sell it all to him. Someone needs to know. Okay-I'll read that clipping out loud now: (Mojave Desert News) Reports that an unusual clan of religious devotees has taken root in the Southeastern Mojave have been confirmed by the Caliente Sheriff's Department. A number of complaints have been registered with the sheriff about the group, which is called "Children of the Thunderbolt." Residents in the area complain of late-night intrusions onto private land. There have been allegations the group has raided graves of the recently interred. Sheriff LeCoste has said the organization seems to be a "cult" that centers on the worship of a very old man, who is in a coma underground. The cult is directed by a man who is "the old man's Messiah," one Henry "Billy" Billson, claimed to be ageless and magically powerful. The sect is said to be comprised of about thirty-five young people, many of them armed and dangerous....

I figure I better go down to the bus station with the tape and get the h.e.l.l out of town so I can sell the story to the press. And I mean right now.

I'm signing off. This recording is now- Hey there, bub. It's been a long time. You'd best turn that off. I wouldn't want to burn up the machine when the lightning comes. And the lightning's come to you, bub. Time to climb up, and ride the thunderbolt....

From h.e.l.l's Heart.

By Nancy A. Collins.

I am hesitant to relate the tale I am about to tell, largely because it does nothing to bolster my claims of sanity. But if I am to convince others of my innocence in this matter, I have no choice but to recount the singular events that have lead me to this cold cell.

I am first-generation Canadian, my parents having migrated from their native Scotland to this wild and boundless land. I have long harbored a deep fascination with the rough-and-tumble lifestyle of the French-Canadian couriers de bois, those rugged pioneers who helped shape our fledgling nation. Because of this, I left my home in Toronto for the wilds of what, until recently, was known as Rupert's Land, with the intention of becoming a trapper. However, my enthusiasm proved far greater than my woodscraft, and I found it all I could do to survive the first heavy snowfall.

As luck would have it, while on a visit to a trading post, I made the acquaintance of a certain d.i.c.k Buchan and Ben Martin. They, too, were new to the trapping game and having a hard time of it. We agreed that it was a lonesome and difficult business, especially during the long winter months, and decided to pool our resources and become partners, running our traplines from a home shanty near the vast sh.o.r.es of G.o.d's Lake.

Of the three who comprised our rustic enterprise, I was the youngest. Buchan was, at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, the eldest of our group. He was a tall, well-developed specimen with copper-red hair and a beard to match, and claimed to have a wife and child in Winnipeg. Martin was a year or so his junior, and as stout and strong as an oak barrel, with dark brown hair and a feisty sense of humor.

Come the thaw, my partners and I transported our bundles of fur to the trading post at G.o.d's Lake. From there they were loaded onto boats and ferried the two hundred miles to the York Factory on the southwestern sh.o.r.e of Hudson Bay.

After dividing our profits three ways, we discovered we had done far better together than we ever could have alone. We had done so well, in fact, we were able to hire on a Cree Indian, who went by the name of Jack, to cook for us and keep an eye on the home shanty while we were off tending our traplines.

As far as I could tell, Jack was older than any of us, and claimed to be the son of an ogimaa, which is a cross between a chief and a shaman, to hear him tell it. I don't know about any of that, but I do know he could play a mean fiddle, which he often did to pa.s.s the time on those long winter nights.

I am not going to lie and say that we went without arguments or differences of opinion. But for the most part, despite being brought together by happenstance and necessity, the four of us found one another's company agreeable. This I attribute to the fact three of us shared similar backgrounds and had each, as a boy, worshipped the hardy voyageurs and colorful Mountain Men who loomed so large in our newborn nation's ident.i.ty, while Jack knew little English, although he did speak French pa.s.sing well.

Summer is short in this part of the world, full of mosquitoes and dragonflies, and Fall is shorter still. The first snows came early, turning the towering pines and hemlocks white by the third week of October. The next day Jack frowned at the sky and muttered something about not liking something on the wind, but I did not pay him much heed. Although we cursed the cold and having to trudge about on snow shoes, we knew this meant the beaver, fox, and rabbit would be changing into their prized winter coats all the sooner.

Our humble home shanty was the hub for traplines that extended for twenty miles each in various directions, like spokes on a wheel. Some followed the borders of the lake and the streams that fed into it, and caught mostly beaver, otter, muskrat, and mink. Others extended inland, and brought us racc.o.o.ns, foxes, lynx, coyote, and the occasional bear. Along these routes were a series of tilts-squat ten-by-six structures with sharply angled roofs, fashioned from notched spruce logs trimmed by hand to fit tightly together without a single iron nail-that served both as supply depots and shelter. During the trapping season, I and my companions would set out along one of these "spokes," checking and resetting our traps along the way, until we reached the end of our territory, then we would head back via an adjacent line.

The snow was already six inches deep, even more where the wind had driven it into drifts, when we set out to check the lines. Martin headed west, while Buchan and I headed northeast, leaving Jack to tend the fires at the home shanty. Each of us was outfitted with an Indian sledge, which we towed behind us, and enough provisions to withstand a fortnight in the bush. The sled dogs were to remain with Jack, to be held in reserve for swift traveling and transporting heavy loads to and from the trading post.

As I said, Buchan and I set out together. The plan was for me to follow him to the first tilt on the line, then he and I would go our separate ways. I would head north in the direction of Red Cross Lake, while he would head east, toward Edmund Lake.

We set out just after dawn and arrived at our destination just after noon. We spent the remaining hours of daylight left to us weatherproofing our shelter by gathering moss and alder twigs, which we used to line the walls and roof, while throwing out the rotted remains of the previous season's insulation.

As the sun set, we crawled through the two-foot square opening at the tilt's gable end, tacking off the entrance with a piece of elk hide. In the far corner of the shelter was a portable stove fashioned from a long, rectangular hard-tack tin affixed to a short pipe that vented through the roof. We lost no time in putting the makeshift fireplace to good use, and soon the interior was quite warm. It was a snug fit for two grown men, but comfortable enough. As I bedded down for the night, I could hear the wind whistling mournfully about the eaves of the shelter. Every now and again the gusts would rattle the hide that served as our door, as if something outside was desperately trying to find its way in. However, I was too tired to entertain such fancies for long, and soon fell asleep.

At some point later that night I was shaken from a sound slumber to find Buchan's urgent voice in my ear. I opened my eyes to darkness so black I could not see my companion's face, though I knew from the heat of his breath that it had to be inches from my own. Although I had no way of knowing what time it was, I instinctively knew it was midnight.

"What's the matter?" I mumbled.

"Do you hear that?" Buchan whispered.

I focused my senses, still blurred by sleep, but all I heard was the howling of the wind.

"There's nothing out there," I replied tersely. "Go back to sleep."

"Are you sure?" Buchan asked, his unseen fingers digging into my shoulder.

I listened again, and this time I became aware of a weird noise off in the distance: half-roar, half-wail. "It's probably something in one of the traps," I said. "A wolf, perhaps, or maybe a lynx. They can make a h.e.l.lacious racket when they're caught."

"You're probably right," he said, apparently mollified by my explanation. With that, Buchan rolled over and went back to sleep.

I lay there for a long moment, listening to the cry laced within the wind, trying to identify it, but the noise soon fell silent. I told myself that whatever was responsible for making it had died or moved on, and returned to my slumber. However, the dreams that filled the remainder of my night were fitful, providing little in the way of rest.

The next day I rose with the sun, only to find my companion already up and about. As I relieved myself against a nearby tree, I spotted Buchan kneeling in the snow roughly fifty yards from the tilt, checking one of his traps. Without warning he suddenly cut loose with a string of particularly virulent curses.

"What's the matter?" I called out.

"You were right about that noise last night," he shouted back. "There's something in the trap!"

"What did you catch?" I asked.

"You tell me," Buchan replied, an odd look on his face.

The creature in the trap was unlike anything I have ever seen, alive or dead. There seemed to be something of every animal in it, yet not enough of one to identify the whole. It had the teeth of a rodent, the claws of a lynx, a tail like an opossum's, the build of a fox, a snout like a bear's, and the wide, flat skull of a badger, with deep-set eyes that glowed bright red. Stranger than the creature being slat thin was it being completely devoid of fur. Its naked flesh was ashen and covered with suppurating sores, which stank like rotting meat. Judging from its smell and contorted position, it was clear to the naked eye that the animal was dead. Yet although its left foreleg was firmly clamped within the jaws of the cunningly concealed fox trap, I did not notice any signs of blood, either fresh or frozen, in the fresh layer of snow.

"Sweet mother of G.o.d-what is that thing?" I gasped.

"I'll be deviled if I know," Buchan replied, eyeing the wretched beast with open distaste. "Perhaps a freakish wolverine, or a racc.o.o.n eat-up with the mange. In any case, it's of no use to me or the Hudson Bay Company."

However, as Buchan moved to free the carca.s.s from the trap, the supposedly dead animal miraculously came back to life and, with a vicious snarl, sank its yellowed fangs between the trapper's thumb and forefinger.

"Son of a wh.o.r.e!" Buchan bellowed. Without a moment's hesitation he pulled the skinning knife from his belt and plunged it into the foul beast's right eye, killing it once and for all.

"Are you alright, d.i.c.k?" I asked, staring at the bright red blood that now stained the white snow.

"I'm fine," he replied stoically, wrapping his wound with a length of cloth from his coat pocket. "It's not the first time I got bit by something I caught." He picked up the empty trap and slung it over his shoulder. "I'm going to move a hundred yards up the line, just in case there are any more like that b.a.s.t.a.r.d nosing about."

As I trudged after my friend, I glanced back at the strange creature, only to see its gaunt and hairless body sinking into the snow, as if the very land was conspiring to obliterate all traces of its existence.

After a breakfast of pemmican and black coffee, I shouldered my pack and, after bidding Buchan farewell and good hunting, headed east, dragging my sledge behind me. I quickly put the strange, hairless creature out of my mind. Obviously it was some kind of diseased freak of nature. What else could it have been? In any case, the beast's days had been numbered, even before it wandered into Buchan's trap. How much longer could it have continued to survive the winter?

I spent a fortnight in the wilderness along the line, checking, emptying, and resetting my traps, living off the land as well as my provisions, thanks to my trusty rifle. The work was hard and the weather unaccommodating, but nearly every night I enjoyed a meal of frica.s.see rabbit or roasted spruce grouse, and slept in comparative warmth and comfort. There are many who toil in the factories of Toronto and Winnipeg who cannot make such a claim.

As I arrived back at the home shanty, my sledge groaning under the weight of the early winter bounty, I saw was my other partner, Ben Martin, chopping wood in the dooryard. He had returned the day before with an impressive number of beaver and mink to his credit. That night we sat in front of the camp stove and exchanged tales of our foray into the bush while enjoying Jack's venison cutlets.

I related the tale of the strange, hairless beast Buchan caught, and we had a good laugh at our partner's expense. Rather, I should say Martin and I found it humorous, as the story seemed to unsettle Jack. As I turned in that night, I fully expected to see Buchan trudge into camp within the next day or so, cursing a blue streak, as was his habit, and bellowing for hot coffee and a plate of beans.

However, two days pa.s.sed without Buchan's return. And then another. Come the evening of the fourth day, Martin and I decided to go looking for him. Buchan could have fallen victim to a bear or a mountain lion, perhaps even wolves. But he could have just as easily-and far more likely-run afoul of poachers, most of which would not think twice about killing an unwary trapper for his furs.

The next day we harnessed up the dogs and set out into the vast Manitoban wilderness, with Martin acting as musher and me riding in the sledge's basket, my rifle c.o.c.ked and ready in case of trouble.

Thanks to the dogs, we reached the first tilt on the eastern spoke within an hour. Upon arrival, we were surprised to see what looked to be Buchan's sledge parked beside the shelter, buried underneath a heavy shroud of snow. Martin and I exchanged worried looks. Whatever fate had befallen our friend, it had happened shortly after his arrival, over two weeks ago.

I knelt down and lifted the hide that served as the makeshift door of the tilt, only to recoil from the smell that came from inside. I was instantly reminded of the diseased creature that had bitten Buchan, and I wondered-somewhat belatedly-if the beast might have suffered from leprosy or some other communicable illness. After my eyes adjusted from the bright glare of the snow to the dim interior of the shelter, I could make out a figure huddled on the floor, wrapped in filthy blankets.

"Buchan-is that you?" I asked warily, poking the lump with my rifle.

Whatever was inside the ma.s.s stirred feebly and issued a groan so anguished it set the hairs on the back of my neck on end. I put aside my gun and motioned for Martin to help me pull Buchan free of the tilt. As our friend emerged from the rank darkness, I was shocked to see his strapping frame reduced to little more than skin and bones. If not for his moaning and a feeble stirring of his limbs, I would have thought him dead.

"Merciful G.o.d, Buchan. What happened to you?" Martin exclaimed.

The best our partner could do by way of a response was to lift his right hand, which was swollen to three times its normal size and black with infection. It was from this putrid wound that the smell of rotting meat came. Buchan's eyes were sunken deep into his skull and seemed as capable of sight as billiard b.a.l.l.s.

Martin and I wrapped him in the bear skin we had brought with us, but as we drew near the sled, the dogs began growling and barking, and a couple even lunged as if to attack. Martin had to take the whip to the wretched beasts, cursing them at the top of his lungs, in order to get them back in line.

I sat in the basket of the sled, holding Buchan tightly in my arms, while Martin drove the dogs. A mile or two out from our base camp, a snow storm started up. As it grew stronger I thought I heard something that sounded like wailing hidden within the wind. Buchan, who had lain as still as a dead man until this point, suddenly began to tremble and twitch, as if taken by a fit. I shouted to Martin to get us home as fast as possible.

By the time we reached the home shanty, the snowstorm had become a blizzard, blasting us with sleet that stung like millions of tiny icy knives. Jack hurried to greet us, only to halt upon catching sight of Buchan, whom we dragged between us as if escorting a drunken friend home from a bar. The look on the Cree's face was one of utter fear.

"Don't stand there gawking!" Martin snapped. "Get the dogs out of harness and feed them!"

Jack nodded his understanding and moved out of the way, giving us a wide berth. Martin and I entered the cabin, placing Buchan on his own bunk. As he lay there, I was struck by the peculiar sensation that what lay before me was not, in fact, the man I'd lived and worked alongside for the better part of a year, but an approximation. I instantly realized how absurd a fancy it was, yet I could not help but feel that someone-or some thing-had hollowed out Buchan and climbed inside, and was now looking out at me through stolen eyes.

Buchan's moaning became a groan and he began to writhe underneath his blankets, as if something was gnawing on him. His eyes opened and he licked his chapped and bleeding lips with a pinkish-gray tongue. It was clear from the look in his eyes that he wanted desperately to communicate something to us.

"What is it, d.i.c.k?" Martin asked, leaning close so as to hear.

Buchan's voice was as dry and brittle as kindling, but there was no mistaking what he said: "Hungry...."

"Rest easy, chum," Martin said rea.s.suringly. "You're safe now. I'll have Jack fix you some soup."

This seemed to placate Buchan, and he lapsed back into unconsciousness. Martin took me aside and spoke in a low voice so he would not be overheard. He had been a barber-surgeon before coming to Manitoba, and as such served as the camp physician when necessary.

"He's got a raging fever," he said grimly. "He's got to lose that hand if he wants to survive, no question about it. But I'm going to need laudanum from the trading post if I'm to amputate."

"I'll go fetch it."

"Are you sure you want to risk it? That's a pretty bad storm out there, and it'll be getting dark soon...."

"Buchan would do the same for either of us," I replied. "Besides, the dogs know the way there and back by instinct, storm or no. You and Jack try to keep him alive while I'm gone."

"Speaking of which-where'd that red devil get off to?" Martin frowned. "It doesn't take that long to feed dogs."

I threw my parka back on and went outside, shouting for Jack to get the harness and gang lines back out. As I went behind the cabin to where the dogs were penned, I looked around for some sign of the camp cook, but he was nowhere to be found. Then I realized two things at the exact same time: the smaller of the two dogsleds was gone, and half the dogs were missing.

Martin was kneeling beside Buchan's cot, wrapping the ailing man's hand in bandages soaked in hot water in order to draw the infection out. He looked up at the sound of my cursing, which preceded my arrival by a good thirty seconds.

"That son of a b.i.t.c.h Jack has run off, and he's taken most of the dogs!"

"When this d.a.m.ned storm has blown over and Buchan is on the mend, I'm going to make it a point of tracking that heathen b.a.s.t.a.r.d down and skinning him like a beaver!" Martin growled.

"He was always an odd duck, if you ask me," I replied. "When he saw us carrying Buchan, you would have thought he'd seen the devil himself. Something scared him. I'll be d.a.m.ned if I know what."

I lost no time hitching up the three remaining dogs to what was now our only sled and striking out for the trading post, which was twenty-five miles from the camp. Normally it would take two-and-half hours to get there, but that was in good weather. With the storm as bad as it was, I had to trust in the dogs' instincts and sense of direction, as the trail that lead through the forest was all but obliterated by the wind.

After an hour or so, the storm suddenly dissipated and the dogs were able to pick up the pace. Just as the sun was about to set, I was rewarded by the sight of the fort-like walls of the G.o.d's Lake trading post. My team glided through the front gates just as they were preparing to close them for the night.

Inside the trading post were several buildings, including a kennel for visiting trappers to house their sled teams. I paid the old Indian who hobbled out to greet me a few shillings to feed and water my dogs. Taking the bundle of furs I'd brought with me from the sled, I then headed into the store to do my trading.

The interior of the Hudson Bay Company store was not that different from the average mercantile in Winnipeg. Inside the large log building a counter ran along the right side of the room, with a gla.s.s case on the end, displaying such items as horn-handled buck knives and six-shooters. The shelves along the wall behind the counter were stocked with bolts of cloth and other merchandise. Several items of clothing, such as flannel shirts and heavy jackets, hung from the ceiling. Opposite the counter, standing in the very middle of the room, was a large metal stove, about which were gathered several wooden chairs.

The clerk behind the counter was a dark-haired Welshman, whom I had had dealings with before and was friendly with. He lifted an eyebrow as I dropped my bundle of furs before him.

"You're here late," he commented as he sorted through what I'd brought him. "Will you be putting up for the night, then?"

"Not tonight," I replied with a shake of my head. "I've got to get back to camp. Buchan's down sick. Martin sent me in to trade for laudanum and rubbing alcohol. I also need a couple of dogs to replace some stolen from me."

"Buchan, eh? That's odd. The gentleman over there was just asking about him earlier."

"What gentleman?"

"The one warming himself by the stove."

I turned to look in the direction the clerk pointed, and spotted a figure sitting hunched in one of the chairs drawn close to the stove, puffing on a pipe. He was dressed all in black and sitting so still I had not noticed him when I first entered the room. At least, that is the only reason for why I could have overlooked such a distinctive individual.