In answer to my question, he said, “Why, it smells like money, of course.”
Thomas cleared his throat impatiently. “Back to Mr. Upton. Do I take it he was lucky?”
Mr. Roosevelt shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. Lucky or not, he was rumored to have a hundred thousand in gold squirreled away somewhere nearby, and I’d call that plenty of motive for murder.”
“I’ll say.” I couldn’t help picturing the cartoon image of a robber baron frolicking in a mound of coins. “But if you never found a body, how do you know he’s dead?”
“I don’t, for a certainty. But given how many people have seen his ghost, I feel fairly confident in the diagnosis.”
“Hmm.” Thomas cut me a look. “Forgive me, Mr. Roosevelt, but are you sure that isn’t merely—”
“Campfire tales? I thought so too at first. Cowboys are a superstitious breed, and given to spinning yarns. But some of the witnesses had never met the man, yet they described him to a T. Tall, rugged, outlandishly bushy mustache. And the circumstances of the sightings were all the same. Always in the mirror of the hotel room where he’d been staying.”
That certainly sounded like a ghost. Unlike shades, they couldn’t manifest physically, so they tended to rely on images and sounds. Mirrors were a favorite medium for haunting, along with photographs, paintings, and of course, dreams.
“Even then,” Mr. Roosevelt went on, “I might not have taken much notice of the affair. Murder is hardly unusual out west, and with murder comes restless spirits. Except that our Mr. Upton was only the first to go missing. After he disappeared, Medora caught gold fever. Everyone and his pony wanted a piece of that hundred thousand he’d supposedly stashed somewhere nearby. Treasure hunters swooped in from every corner of the territory—and now half a dozen of them have vanished too. Anyone who gets close to his trail just”—he snapped his fingers—“gone.”
“Good heavens, what a tale!” Mr. Burrows laughed. “Murder. Ghosts. Treasure hunters disappearing on the trail, never to be heard from again. Why, it’s the stuff of yellowback novels!”
“Just wait. I haven’t even got to the part about the monster.”
“I’m sorry.” Thomas leaned forward again. “Did you say monster?”
“I did, and only half in jest. That’s the second of our trio of mysteries.” Mr. Roosevelt removed his pince-nez and began cleaning them with a handkerchief. “Another frequent occurrence in the Badlands is cattle rustling, so here again, it’s hard to be sure exactly when it all started. I became aware of it when about a dozen of my own went missing. I mentioned it to the Marquis de Morès, and he reported having suffered a similar loss some weeks before. This was back in, oh”—he squinted at the ceiling—“call it the second week of July last year. I convened a meeting of my stockman’s association, and lo and behold, virtually every man there was missing at least a few beeves.
“Well, naturally, we assumed it was the Indians. They’d been making mischief in the area for a while, setting fires, that sort of thing. There was a … discussion … on the prairie. A few of us, a few of them, more than a few Winchesters. They denied it all fiercely, and since we had no proof…” Shrugging, he replaced his pince-nez. “Then, not a week later, that same band comes thundering into Medora, furious, claiming half a dozen horses have been stolen from their camp. Well, the ranchers didn’t take to being called thieves any better than the Sioux had. It looked set to be a terrible showdown. I don’t like to think about what might have happened had they not come across that clearing.” He fell silent for a moment, gaze abstracted with memory.
“Clearing, sir?”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Gallagher. Yes, the clearing. Just when things were looking rather dire between the ranchers and the Sioux, a group of their hunters came across a clearing littered with carcasses. Their horses, our beeves, not to mention elk, deer, virtually every hoofed creature you can name—all of them ripped apart by something monstrously powerful. I saw them myself. Rib cages cracked open, skulls and femurs shattered … Genuinely horrific to look upon.”
“Could a mountain lion be responsible?” Thomas asked. “Or perhaps a bear?”
Mr. Roosevelt smiled. “You’re not a woodsman, are you, Wiltshire?”
“Very far from it, alas. I take it my question is naive?”
“In the general order of things, perhaps, but even seasoned hunters have mooted unlikelier theories, for lack of anything better. The reality is that none of us, Sioux or white, has ever heard of such a thing. I mounted a hunting party myself, but we found no trace of an animal capable of that sort of violence. To say nothing of its appetite. The sheer scale of the slaughter beggars belief. Hundreds of animals over the course of a single summer. That’s why I came to you last October. By that point, I was convinced this was no ordinary wild animal. Even so, I didn’t feel a great deal of urgency, since I presumed the killings would slow over the winter, if not stop altogether. And so they did, only now that the snows have melted, the beast is back—and this time, it’s killing men, too. I received word just this morning that one of the boys from Pronghorn Ranch was jumped on the trail a few days ago. Dragged right off his pony, and the both of them mauled to bits.”
“How awful!”
“It is indeed, Miss Gallagher. As bad as things were last summer, it’s immeasurably worse now. Whatever this thing is, it’s covering more ground than ever before, killing everything in its path. It’s got the whole Badlands in an uproar. Some of the most hard-bitten, God-fearing fellows I know are convinced it’s a demon.”
Mr. Burrows scoffed. “Surely you don’t believe such nonsense?”
“What I believe, Burrows, is that something in those woods can crack open the rib cage of a thousand-pound moose like a squirrel splits a sunflower seed.”
“Christ.” Mr. Burrows made a face. “What an image.”
“I’d hoped that if there was one silver lining to this awful winter we’ve just had, it would be that this beast, whatever it is, perished along with everything else. Instead, it’s just having more trouble finding prey.”
“So now it’s preying on people,” I said, shuddering.
“Precisely.”
A bleak silence drifted over the study.
Thomas cleared his throat again. “About this winter, then. I presume that is the third of the misfortunes you referred to?”
Mr. Roosevelt nodded. “The Winter of the Blue Snow, they’re calling it. The worst anyone can remember. Tens of thousands of animals perished, to say nothing of the human casualties. They say when the river finally started moving again, it unleashed a black tide of animal carcasses that flowed for days.”
Thomas shook his head in grim awe. “It will ruin a great many ranches, I suppose.”
“It already has, not to mention the businesses that depend on them. Medora is in danger of becoming a ghost town, Mr. Wiltshire. Which is why I need your help, both of you. People are saying the place is cursed—unless they dismiss that as superstition, in which case they blame the Indians, and vice versa. It’s already a powder keg out there. I fear this could be the match. Something must be done.”