Gary Robbe, Not Buried Deep Enough

excerpt

Not Buried Deep Enough

Author: Gary Robbe
Publisher: Denver Horror Collective
Date: October 2, 2023
ISBN: 979-8988763901
ASIN: B0CJTB9W4T

Tsawhawbitts Gold

The shadow of a hawk passed over Del as he stood at the edge of a swiftly running creek, the bird circling several times before disappearing into the pine cover. He thought it a bad omen. Del Rourke bent and scooped a palm full of water to his mouth and face. It was brilliant cold, runoff from the peaks they had just crossed, and he wondered if there was gold here, in this spot.

Alferd ambled out of the brush after doing his business. When he saw the way Del was looking into the creek, he shook his massive painted face and snorted. “Not here,” he said. “Up ahead. We follow this.” He motioned toward the creek with his rifle.

Del Rourke sucked in a breath. He picked up his Winchester by the side of the creek - which he had been carrying outright since they came into this wilderness - and watched Alferd move on ahead. He was already tired of this business and was tempted to put a bullet in the back of the big man and get it over with. But Alferd knew where he was going, and he did not, even if their destination was close. They walked their ponies beside the creek in quiet. Three pack mules followed, tethered to the ponies, all carrying supplies after two of the mules died crossing the Great Basin. It was cooler now after coming through the canyons, but Del still couldn’t get over seeing the big man in front of him dressed in clown makeup. Alferd put greasepaint on when they left Durango and kept it on the entire month they were traveling, reapplying it when sweat and dust streaked it out.

Alferd explained it this way. Indians kept their distance from a man that looked the way he did, were respectful and afraid at the same time. Bandits and desperados thought twice about waylaying a giant man dressed as a clown this far west. And, he said, it was such an essential part of him, being a clown, he couldn’t give it up.

How the clown stumbled upon him he would never know, but when Del Rourke woke in the the alleyway between the Buckshot Saloon and Mirabelle’s in the little town of Durango, the first thing he saw was a blurred image of a white face with a blood- red perpetual grin staring down at him. He thought he had died. The last thing he remembered was being tossed out of the saloon into the dusty street, someone kicking him good in the side before he crawled off to sleep the bad night off. Now, something that took up his entire range of vision towered over him.

“Looks like you need a change of luck,” the clown said. There was the trace of an accent, but Del couldn’t pin it down.

* * *

“How much further?” Del’s legs ached. His head ached. But the thought of gold spurred him on. “You could say something once in a while, make the journey a little more palatable.”

The clown stopped. He pointed to a pictograph on a large standing rock that stood out before the towering canyon walls. There was a gathering of beads, feathers, metal ornaments, tied pouches, medicine offerings. The picture on the rock was of a giant bear- like creature with a gaping jagged teeth- filled mouth, several small figures that Del assumed were braves at its feet, holding it off with spears.

It was one of many pictures on rocks and cliff walls they had passed coming through the canyons, as well as strange rock alignments and shrines where gifts such as these were piled. Alferd had pointed each one out, but this time he walked over to the picture and rubbed his hand across it. “This is recent,” he said.

“I thought you said Indians don’t come in these parts.” “Some warriors do, as a test, and for vision quests. Sometimes they leave an offering to the Tsawhawbitts.” He turned and pulled the rein of his pony, and with a subtle wave indicated for Del to follow. “We are almost there.”

Del was not a big man, but he was a capable one, and he knew once the huge clown showed him where the gold was, he could take care of things in a final and satisfactory way. They were as isolated as anyone could possibly be. If Del could remember his way out of the canyons, and if he could wait the winter out, he would be a rich man.

He made a mental note of the secret paths into and out of the canyons, the steep scrambles down through the occasional breaks in rimrock and mazes of lower cliffs. Tucked far in the nowhere abyss of northeast Nevada, all the gold in the world hidden right in plain sight. And it would all be his.

“Tell me about this man- eating beast.”

“There’s more than one. Lots of them. They blend in so you couldn’t see one if it was five feet away. The huge clown trudged along, silent for a few minutes, as if speaking was a difficult thing. “The Shoshone legends talk about a creature thirty feet tall, but they’re much smaller than that. Bigger than a man though, by a lot, and they’re covered with thick reddish- brown hair. The Shoshone are right about one thing though. They have teeth like a wolf, and I imagine they could make short work of a man.” “You’ve seen them?”

Alferd was quiet for a long time. The mules snorted and struggled with the heavy loads as the trail began to climb again. Then he spoke. “Saw one close up. Came around a bend in the creek, close to where we are now, and one of them was standing right in the middle of the trail. Startled the both of us. He had these sunken- in green eyes, and a flat nose, kinda like an ape. It was a male, I could tell that much, and by the look he gave me I knew it was intelligent, more like us than we’d ever want to think.

“We looked at each other for what seemed an eternity. I was so scared I couldn’t move. Then it opened its mouth like it was trying to take a bite out of the air and I saw all those sharp teeth, and I thought I was a goner. But instead of tearing into me like I expected, it dropped to all fours and disappeared into the woods without so much as disturbing a branch or a leaf.”

“Maybe you saw a wolf, or a griz,” Del said. “Being so scared the animal might’ve seemed bigger than it really was.”

Alferd turned abruptly around. His mile- wide red jam mouth still in frozen smile was more menacing than ever. “You saying I’m a liar?”

“No, no,” Del said, laughing to cut the tension that was suddenly in the air. His hand, though, instinctively dropped near his holster. Del’s eyes stayed on Alferd’s hand, which rested on the hilt of his huge skinning knife. Alferd lifted his hand and raised an exaggerated black eyebrow. “Why didn’t it eat you?” Del asked. “You’re big enough to feed a whole family of those things.”

“Thought about that. I was wearing my make up, and I guess that creature never saw anything quite like me before. Maybe braves in their war paint, but not a white- faced grinning clown.” He pulled his pony along, and they continued along the creek until the narrow path turned sharply to the left, through a strand of fir and whitebark pine. Within a few minutes they came upon a tiny cabin, not much bigger than an outhouse, in a small clearing of high grass and wildflowers. The ground rose sharply behind it, a snow- capped mountain blocking the western sun. Bighorn sheep grazed on the cliffs overlooking the cabin. “Damn, looks like meat comes right to your door.”

“They ain’t seen much of man, so they ain’t afraid.”

The cabin was barely big enough for two men, but it was shelter. There was a fireplace, a table and two chairs, and one crude bunk. Two narrow windows faced out to the front, remnants of greased paper flapping in one of them. After stowing their gear and eating hard tack, Alferd motioned for Del to follow him back to the creek.

They trudged through the shallow running water until they reached a bend, and Del saw a busted sluice box by the creek. “Looks like we’ll be panning to start,” Alferd said. “We can fix this up in a day or two.”

Del nodded. “Is this the spot?”

“There’s a fair amount here. A few other places.”

“And you have gold hidden hereabouts?” He thought he might as well come right out and say it.

The clown stared at him.

“We’re partners, right? I should know in case something happens to you.”

“Nothing will happen to me,” Alferd said. “But, tomorrow morning, before we start to work, I’ll show you one of the stashes. In good faith.”

Del couldn’t tell if the clown was smiling behind the obscene slash of one painted on his face.

* * *

They had fresh sheep for dinner, Del popping one off the cliff just as quick darkness was falling. Del cooked his piece of meat in the fireplace, while Alferd ate his right away.

“Green,” Alferd said, “the way real mountain men do it. Body warm.”

The big man was not one for talking, but that night he told Del about his days performing for a small circus all over Europe. Being a clown was in his blood, and even though he walked away from it all when the circus came to the United States, he missed the life.

“Why’d you leave then?” Del asked.

The clown reached into a sack and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. After taking a long sip he passed it to Del, who also took a long sip.

“Killed a man,” he said. He held up his huge hands. “Broke the son of a bitch’s neck.”

Del pictured the man doing that. Alferd was easily seven or eight inches taller than him, and likely close to double his weight. But even with his protruding belly, Del had seen him move with grace and ease, and the man had the stamina and strength of a plough horse.

“Why?” he asked. Alferd shook his head. “I don’t talk about it.” Del left it where it was. He had been around long enough to know you didn’t stir up a pile of dead leaves if you knew something bad was lurking beneath them. After all, everyone had things to hide this far west, or they were running from something.

Alferd never once asked anything about Del’s past. Del was handy with a gun - when he wasn’t drunk - and he knew he gave off an air of danger and mystery. Yet the clown-faced giant trusted him enough to make him a partner and travel hundreds of miles through isolated country without without knowing anything about him. Del didn’t think much about his troubled past, except in pivotal decision- making moments. Like now.

He had always been a follower. He followed Jason MaCrae and about twenty other sick, starving, and scared Union soldiers who deserted during the Battle of Stones River. He followed Ike Leadfeather and his gang in Missouri and then Kansas, robbing and killing settlers attempting to move west to avoid the bloodshed back east. When most of Ike’s gang were hanged or killed, Del somehow managed to find work as a cowboy, following the herds of cattle from Texas to Montana. He worked when he could but always wasted his earnings on drink, gambling, and whores.

Alferd found him at one of his lowest moments and made a proposition he couldn’t refuse. “I want a man who’s at the bottom of the barrel but wants to climb out. I want a man with nothing to lose, who is willing to travel to the devil’s lair and take from the devil himself the riches he’s entitled to. I want a partner who can hold onto secrets and follow me where few men have ever gone.”

So, he followed the giant clown. And he decided from the start that when the opportunity arose, arose, he would follow no more. He would take it all from the devil.

* * *

A loud knock against the door woke Del up. At first, he thought it was his imagination, but a second knock came against the door with enough force to almost break the latch. Before Del could register what was happening, things crashed against the meager cabin walls from all directions, as if twenty men were hitting them with sticks and rocks. Alferd was up and at the window, shouting through the greased paper in a language Del didn’t recognize.

Del grabbed the Winchester and rushed to the door, ready to open it, when Alferd yelled “No!” The shadow form of the giant clown held his hand up, an eerie silhouette against the dull moonlit paper. A rock sailed through the paper, narrowly missing Alferd, and shattered against the opposite wall. From outside Del heard growls and barks, something scratching the wooden door, rocks crashing on the roof and rolling off.

Alferd calmly walked to his bunk, bent down, and retrieved a twin barrel scattergun. “This will scare them off,” he said. He nudged Del aside and unlatched the door. Del held his rifle ready. Through the half- open door Del saw shadows moving between the trees about twenty feet away. The growls and barks seemed to be coming from that direction, although Del thought about the cliff rising above them and how vulnerable the roof might be.

Alferd fired one barrel in the air, the sound echoing as if ten shots were fired. Shrieks and tongue clicks followed, then several rocks slammed into the side of the cabin. For a moment, Del thought the forests and mountains themselves were screaming, and memories of the battle he ran away from streamed into his head, the gunfire, explosions, screams and shouts of the wounded, and the screams and shouts of mad fighting men, a roar of blood in his ears.

And when silence came, it was like an explosion to his unraveled brain. It took several long minutes before he realized Alferd was talking to him.

“They’re gone for now,” Alferd said. “They knew we were here. They’re an impatient lot.”

“Who are they? The Shoshone?” Del walked past Alferd into the clearing. The moon was settled into a strand of pines beyond the creek. The tall grass and wildflowers were silver and wobbled in the slight breeze.

“Tsawhawbitts. Quite a few of them. They smell fresh meat.”

They checked the ponies and mules who were hobbled in a nearby meadow. They werefrightened but unharmed. Walking back, Del noticed large rocks and tree limbs scattered about the perimeter of the cabin. He tried to lift one of the stones but could barely budge it. “Whatever they are, if they can heft something like this, we don’t have a chance.”

Alferd knew more than he was letting on. Del pointed his rifle at the man, the clown face shimmering in the moonlight. “What aren’t you telling me?”

The clown glared at Del. He held his scattergun down, and Del knew that if there was the slightest flinch suggesting the gun was coming up, he would fire and put the clown in Hell.

After a long silence Alferd shook his head slowly, and said, “I told you they were real. They are dangerous, but they usually leave me alone.” He turned away, unphased by the rifle pointed at him. “It’s good for us that the Tsawhawbitts are here. They keep everyone else away, and they could care less what we do with the gold we find. Now... if you shoot me, and I know that’s been on your mind, you not only will never find the gold I have hidden around here, but you’ll have those creatures to deal with, on your own. And if I didn’t need you, I would’ve blown your sorry ass to the creek and beyond with the other barrel here.” He laughed and went into the cabin.

* * *

“The irony,” Alferd said later that night, “is that even after quitting the business, I am still a clown. I suppose it’s the same with the freaks. They are who they are, and even when they are not with the circus, they’re still freaks, right?”

“How did you find this place?” Del asked. It was a long way from anywhere, and a clown, however big and proficient with a knife and gun, was no real mountain man.

“The Dog Man of Leon.” Alferd sipped from the bottle of whiskey. “He really wasn’t from France, but he liked the exotic name. Looked like a dog, the way he was covered head to foot in fur. Somehow, he wound up finding this place, along with a friend, back before he joined up with the circus in St. Louis. He told me about it one night when he was drunk, and made me a partner of sorts, thinking that I knew something about prospecting. I never let on that I didn’t, and we came out here a few years back after my difficulties with the law. We did find gold. Lots of it.”

“What happened to the Dog Man?” Del was getting nervous. He knew he needed to kill this man, sooner than later. The stories were not adding up.

The clown’s perpetual grin widened. “Oh, he had an accident.”

* * *

The morning was cloudy gray when they started for the creek. It was eerie quiet, the birds and other animals that normally disturbed the trees and bushes and grass were silent. Alferd moved ahead with Del close behind nervously holding his rifle, jerking it left and right each time the clown stepped on a twig or kicked a pebble. Del could feel they were being watched. He tried to picture what the creatures who assaulted the cabin last night looked like. He was sure a well - placed bullet could stop one in its tracks, regardless of its size.

Alferd hadn’t said a word since he had woken up. Del wasn’t able to sleep, but he didn’t feel tired. Adrenalin coursed through his body. The nighttime visit from the creatures. The anticipation of gold. The plans that rolled around in his head. It didn’t matter that the clown knew what his intentions were. Alferd was going to have his accident soon enough. If there was as much gold in the area as the clown let on, he didn’t need to know where all the stashes were. And he had plenty of guns and ammo to stave off any threat from oversized apes. They passed the sluice box. Followed the creek until it widened into a respectable stream, water water running fast and hard, and trees on either side thick and tall. Del saw trout swimming in the ripples and shadows. The wind kicked up causing the aspens to chatter. He thought he saw movement in the pines beyond the aspens, but likely it was how the sunlight bounced around the trees, or deer hiding in the brush. He heard no sound except for the leaves and rattle of his and Alferd’s pans against their packs.

Finally, Alferd said, “I’ll show you some of the gold.”

* * *

Alferd stopped where the stream gurgled and spat from the many protruding rocks. Del guessed the rapids were only three or four feet deep at the most. The pine forest was heavy and dark on the opposite side of where the two men stood, behind them a few straggling trees and a meadow with rippling grass and wildflowers of every color. The flowers were mesmerizing and it took Del a moment to remember the plan he had come up with that morning. Once he was shown the gold, he would shoot Alferd - right here, right now - leave the body for scavenging animals. Maybe the ape creatures would drag the heavy carcass away and have a feast. No evidence.

He needed to play along with the ridiculous clown. Be grateful he was trusted with this place. Shoot the clown in the back of the head.

If these creeks were as rich in gold as the clown maintained, he would have no trouble panning by himself. And if the hidden stash was large enough, he might just hike out of this desolate world a rich man.

“Look,” Alferd said, pointing to a spot midway in the stream.

“Here?” Del didn’t expect to be at the hiding place so soon. Alferd continued to point. Del stepped into the water and looked down. Though running fast, the water was crystal clear. And the creek bed sparkled as the sun reflected off hundreds of glittering specks of gold. Gold!

“Put your rifle down. Walk out to the center. It’s only knee deep. This is where I hid some of the gold.”

“You fool! In the open? Anybody could find it!”

“No one ever comes here. Remember, the Tsawhawbitts. Put your rifle down and look. And there’s much more gold than what you see here. As they say, this is only the tip of the iceberg. A golden iceberg.”

Del hesitated with the Winchester. Alferd laughed. “If I wanted you dead, I would’ve killed you a long time ago. And why would I go to such lengths to show you where the gold is? Hold onto your rifle then. Go look.”

Del nodded and smiled. The advantage was his. Looking down, stepping carefully on and around slippery rocks and sediment littered with gold specks. He moved slowly and methodically to the center of the stream where Alferd had pointed. “Where?” he said, scanning the water for any sign of something hidden away.

“Keep going. Another step or two,” Alferd said. A sharp crack, like a tree limb snapping, and immediately a searing, crushing pain in his right leg that coincided with a distant agonizing scream that he realized was his own. The rifle flew from his hands into the water and wedged between rocks downstream. The water, from where he wobbled, ran red. A bear trap, hidden in the muddy sediment, had sprung alive and bit through his leg with its massive steel teeth.

“Oh my god!” He screamed. The trap held firm. He struggled to remain standing, the water pushing hard against him. “Help me!” But the clown was dancing beyond the bank in the high grass, hands outstretched as if he held an invisible partner. He twirled round and round.

“Alferd! My leg is broken!” Del tried to pull the trap apart, but it was useless. Blood oozed from his leg. He sat in the rushing water on a rock, the water coming up to his stomach, the leg in the trap extended at an impossible angle. He fainted, but the cold water brought him back as soon as his face hit it, and he screamed at the clown in the meadow.

Something rushed from the woods and slapped him in the head, scratching the side of his face before disappearing into the woods again. It wasn’t very large, but he recognized the burnt brown fur and the way it moved on two legs. He looked for his rifle, but it was out of reach. If there were more of those things...

Alferd stood on the bank now. His clown face seemed sad, then his shoulders heaved up and down in a pantomime act of sobbing.

“I’ll kill you, you son of a bitch!” Del screamed.

The clown pantomimed shock, then exaggerated fear.

The woods on the other side of the stream came alive. One by one the creatures that Alferd had described came out of hiding cautiously. Del realized they had likely been there all along, hidden in plain sight, watching the two men following the creek. Del figured there were maybe ten ot eleven of them, of various sizes. Some huge, others small, like children. A family.

Del was thinking more clearly now, the damaged leg completely numb from both shock and the ice - cold water. He knew he had lost a lot of blood. He knew he was a dead man if Alferd didn’t do something. “I should have shot you when I had the chance.” “You were greedy, though. They all were.” Alferd picked something protruding from the mud by the side of the stream. He tossed it to Del. A piece of bone. It wasn’t animal, like a deer or mountain lion. It was part of a man’s splintered femur.

The creatures came closer but remained at a safe distance. Del turned to them, then back to Alferd, then back to the hairy monsters, all of them with mouths open, showing their teeth.

“Alferd, for the love of God.” He struggled to open the jaws of the trap.

“Yes. For the love of God. Or should I say, gods.”

The largest of the creatures stepped into the stream. Its conical head coming right out of a massive chest. Deep-set green eyes. A skunk stench. The younger ones splashed into the water and came within a few feet of Del before stopping, cocking their heads in wonder at this fresh- caught thing in the water.

The clown spoke. “I suppose you should know. The reason I am not harmed by the Tsawhawbitts? I bring them offerings. Plain and simple. They let me have my gold, all that I want, and I give them their favorite food, which is pretty scarce in these parts. Oh, and they’re afraid of clowns.” He turned and began walking back the way they had come. “I don’t like to watch what they do with my offerings.” He patted his massive belly as he slowly walked away. “Sensitive stomach.”

One of the little ones jumped toward Del and bit into his arm, tearing a piece of flesh with its sharp teeth, then splashed away before Del could even swing his other arm. Another one rushed in and took a chunk of his side. Del hit it as it moved on, but he didn’t have any strength left.

“Alferd!”

The clown turned and did a bow. “Oh. I should tell you. They like to eat their meat green also.”

It was the last thing Del heard before the creatures, all screeching in a jolly mood, moved in on him.