Carrie Richardson - A Dying Breed

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A DYING BREED

by Carrie Richerson

1992

I can live with ghosts. This part of the Texas Hill Country has ghosts thicker than fleas on an

ol' yaller dog. Conquistadores slaughtered for god and gold here; the Comanche returned the

favor. Tonkawa practiced their ritual cannibalism along these creeks; Anglos answered with their

own atrocities. To the south, the martyrs of the Alamo mission still haunt old San Antonio de

Bexar. After the unpleasantness between the northern and southern states, freed blacks moved here

from Dixie and farmed the river bottoms in the only cash crop they knew -- cotton -- until they

and the land wore out. The attentive, midnight ear hears war whoops and Rebel yells mingle with

the strains of old spirituals.

The ghosts carry their histories upon their bowed backs and ask nothing of the living. I can

live with them in peace. But the dead have never rested easy in this sun-drenched, heat-struck

land -- and nowadays, they don't seem to be resting at all....

* * *

Angelina and I had been going over the week's arrest stats, in preparation for my appearance the

next day before the board of county commissioners. Fewer people reside in our entire county than

in some of San Antonio's suburbs, but that doesn't mean we don't have a problem with crime.

Vandalism and driving-while-intoxicated arrests were way up over last year, and drugs were

starting to be a serious concern. Domestic disturbance calls were on the rise, too.

Everyone seemed to be on a short fuse. Just the previous month, a local businessman had engaged

in an old-fashioned shootout on the main street of the county seat with his wife's lover. Both

were lousy shots and only managed to inflict painful but non-life-threatening wounds, despite

firing off a total of fifteen rounds between them. It was a miracle that someone wasn't killed.

A miracle that my department had nothing to do with, since none of us were anywhere around at the

time. It is simply not possible to give adequate law enforcement coverage to an entire county

with only four people and one working patrol car. I would take the arrest stats and an

impassioned plea for more money to the commissioners' court the next day, but it wouldn't do any

good. I already knew what I would hear: times are tough for everyone, tax rate too high already,

no extra money in the budget. The same excuses I'd heard for the last three years.

Angelina and I were crammed into the microscopic cubicle that functions as my office; the only

way we could both fit on the same side of the desk to review the booking log was for Angelina to

kneel on top. That blocked my view of the door, so I didn't see our visitor enter. The first I

knew of something wrong was Kyle's voice going up in that stuttering squeak he does when he gets

excited or angry.

That sound has set my teeth on edge since Kyle was a baby nursing at my breast. I suppose it

always will. But this time he was alternating it with some sort of gagging moan. It sounded

serious, but imagination failed me. It couldn't be an escape; we had only one prisoner, a DWI

still sleeping it off. Besides, the only thing the county commissioners had agreed to spend good

money on was a set of primo locks for our two cells. My fifty-year-old joints could scream at me

tomorrow. I threw myself over the desk and out of the cubicle.

I didn't draw my gun. Experience has taught me to be wary of such a facile solution to problems.

It's a good thing, too: the temptation to put a bullet into the thing standing just inside the

front door was overwhelming. The part of me that said, "Shoot!" shoved up hard against the part

that said, "Run!" -- and both were immobilized by the part that said, "Pray."

My mind refused to accept the sight of the decomposed body standing before me, but the smell was

another matter. It was God-awful -- that vicious, rotten tang that even a novice can't mistake.

Kyle's noises had changed to the sound of vomiting. I didn't blame him, but I needed something I

could deal with. "Kyle, stop that right now! Angelina, get out here and make Kyle clean up his

mess!" Angie had managed to extricate herself from the tangle in my office. She edged up to the

front desk, never taking her gun off our visitor, and bent over the retching Kyle. I heard a

sharp slap, and a string of quiet Spanish profanity that would blister paint. Kyle shut up.

Angie can keep him in line. Me, I'm only his mother.

This had to be a dream or some sort of horrid practical joke, and I must look just as silly as I

felt. I tried to think of a reasonable response to an unreasonable situation. I opened my mouth,

to say I don't know what, but the apparition beat me to it.

"Sheriff Webster." The sound was a dry whisper that went right to my knee joints and gnawed.

The fleshless jaws moved a little, but I swear I don't know how it made sound: it had no lips, no

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Carrie Richardson - A Dying Breed

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