Ghost Canyon (The John Decker Supernatural Thriller Series Book 7) Anthony Strong (popular romance novels .TXT) 📖

Coast and his grueling cross-country journey. He endured one hardship after another, including a food shortage, an outbreak of cholera among the larger group he was traveling with, and a Comanche attack which left one man dead and three more with arrow wounds. But it was an entry toward the middle that caught Decker’s attention. A passage that recounted Travis Biggs arrival in the bustling frontier town of Haley, Nevada, malnourished and suffering from dehydration. He scanned the page, and then the next one. By the time he’d reached the last pages, his hunch turned into a certainty. This was what they were looking for, and it explained so much more than why Harlan Biggs was sniffing around the mine. It also told Decker what the creature was, and why it was there. He read the relevant passages again, digesting every word, and then he closed the Journal and stood. The pieces were falling into place. The long dead prospector, Travis Biggs, had provided him with most of the answers, but he needed more information in order to defeat the creature, which he now knew certain Native American tribes referred to as the Baykok. And he needed the information quickly, because once darkness fell the creature would want to kill again, and he wasn’t completely sure the symbol he’d drawn in the earth at the second mine entrance would actually hold the creature at bay.

“Hey.” Barnes appeared in the office doorway. “Fowler just texted. Wagner Mitchell’s place is clean. He’s going to borrow a pool car and head back to Haley.”

“I figured it would be, considering.”

“You find something?”

“I found everything,” Decker said, holding up the Journal in a gloved hand. “You fancy making an unscheduled stop?”

“Sure,” Barnes said, shrugging. “Where are we going?”

“Downtown,” Decker replied. “Out past Fremont Street.”

“That’s in the opposite direction to Haley.” Barnes looked confused. “Why would you want to drive out there?”

“Because that’s where the Paiute Tribe live.” Decker stepped past Barnes toward the penthouse door. When he reached it, he turned to look back over his shoulder. “Don’t stand around. Hurry. We don’t have much time.”

Chapter Fifty-Five

The Las Vegas Paiute tribe’s downtown reservation sat on North Main, two-and-a-half miles away from Fremont Street, the area that most tourists associated with downtown. The small reservation, deeded to the tribe at the start of the twentieth century by a sympathetic landowner, was only a fraction of the lands now controlled by the Paiute. Further away, at the north end of Red Rocks Canyon, was another four thousand acres returned by the Federal Government, which the Paiute operated as a golf resort. But it was the administration building on the downtown reservation that interested Decker.

“I still don’t see why we need to go here,” Barnes said as they drove toward their destination.

“Because the answer to our problem may lie there,” Decker said. He patted the Journal, which he’d brought from Harlan’s office. “This tells us how the creature was created, and its purpose. Harlan’s ancestor was a greedy man, and when he found a rich vein of gold in the Ghost Canyon Mine, he didn’t want to share it. Most of the other mines in the area were already tapped out by then, and the prospectors who called Haley home were already departing for better opportunities. He knew if word spread of a fresh discovery, he’d never contain the flood of new prospectors.”

“Okay. I still don’t see what that has to do with the murderous creature prowling about.”

“There was a man of Native American ancestry living in town. Travis Biggs, the author of the journal, refers to him as a half-breed. He was part Ojibwe, and part Western descent. Consequently, he was an outcast. But he knew things. When he arrived in Nevada from the Great Lakes region, he brought the knowledge of his ancestors with him. This included an entity known as the Baykok, a terrifying creature with glowing red eyes, a hypnotic gaze, and the ability to fly.” Decker waited a moment for this to sink in before continuing. “Does that sound familiar?”

“Chillingly so,” Barnes replied. “You think Travis Biggs summoned this entity?”

“I do, with the help of the part Ojibwe outcast. A man referred to in the journal only as Karuk.”

“But how?”

“The Baykok is created from the scattered bones of a disgraced warrior. In this case, they used the remains of a man interred outside the traditional burial grounds. A Paiute named Shilah. Travis doesn’t say what caused Shilah’s fall from grace and subsequent burial so far from the rest of the tribe. I suspect he didn’t know, since the grave was already ancient when they visited it. Suffice to say, they desecrated the remains and stole some of the bones, which they scattered in the mine.”

“There must’ve been more to it than that.” Barnes didn’t look convinced. “Just taking a few bones from a grave and putting them somewhere else doesn’t create a monster.”

“I assume there was an incantation or some other magic at work. Regardless of how Karuk accomplished it, we’ve already met the result, and it almost killed us.”

“True. Although it’s a lot to get my head around,” Barnes said. “And it still doesn’t explain why we need to visit the reservation.”

“Because Travis Biggs failed, which is why the creature is still with us. After Karuk placed the bones in the mine and summoned the tortured soul of the disgraced warrior, he got a bullet in the back for his troubles. It was a brazen admission of murder written by the very man who committed the act. But this was the Old West, and Haley had no law enforcement.”

“That solves another mystery,” Barnes said. “The skeleton Robyn has in her museum. She found it up near the mine and it dates back to that era.”

“Precisely. The skeleton displays damage consistent with being shot, which matches the confession in this journal.”

“We can safely assume the skeleton is Karuk, then.”

“It’s a reasonable hypothesis.”

“That still doesn’t explain why the creature is still around. Travis